# Features

> Everything Polestar does: the guide engine, navigation, quests and the map, gear advice, Lookup, Dungeons, Rares and more.

Page: https://polestar.guide/docs/players/features (Polestar docs > Players)

## Guides and the engine

- **One person at a time.** In a quest hub the window shows only who to talk
  to now and their quests, then "Then: *next person*" and "Person 2 of 8";
  the arrow points at that person. Counters sit right after each goal ("Kill
  Zhevra Chargers 3/8") and a bar at the foot shows how far into the guide you
  are.
- **Goals check themselves off** as you play: accepted and turned-in quests,
  kills, loot, places reached, trainers visited, skills and reputation. Your
  place in a guide is recomputed from your quest log, so it survives lost
  saved variables.
- **It catches up.** With "Skip grey quests" on, a guide you open on a
  character who already did part of the route goes over what is done to
  where you are: grey quests are left out, and so are green ones behind your
  progress, unless a later quest needs them. A guide you are past, given to
  you when no guide is open or by Start guide, hands over to the next.
  Item, mount, reputation, profession and class guides do every step.
- **A guide for where you are.** The window opens with a guide suggested for
  your race, class, level and location, and each guide hands over to the
  next one in its chain when you finish it.
- **Tabs.** Up to six guides open at once (a leveling route and a profession,
  say); quests are auto-accepted for all of them.
- **Professions** send you to the nearest trainer, vendor or inn of your own
  faction from where you stand, never into a city of the other faction; a
  goal's cycle button picks another.
- **Class training reminder** every two levels (configurable): the nearest
  trainer of your class, unless your guide is about to take you there.
- **Elite quests are optional.** Leveling routes use only quests a player can
  do alone; a quest that needs an elite appears as an extra marked "optional".

## Navigation

- **A 3D waypoint arrow** points at the current goal, shifting from the
  accent to jade as you arrive, with distance and ETA. Distances read in
  yards, the game's unit, or in metres (Options, Arrow & routes).
- **The travel planner** uses known flight paths, boats, zeppelins and your
  Hearthstone when they are faster. Each leg has its own caption on the arrow
  ("Fly to Crossroads", "Take the boat to Menethil Harbor", "Hearth to Razor
  Hill").
- **Trail dots** on the world map and the minimap crawl along the route
  between its waypoints (Map options can turn them off).
- **Zone crossings.** Walks between zones go through the real tunnels,
  passes, bridges and gates (an Era map addon's zone connections), one waypoint at a
  time ("Go to Ashenvale"): from Sun Rock Retreat to Astranaar through the
  Talondeep Path, not over the ridge.
- **`/polestar way <x> <y> [label]`** points the arrow anywhere on the current
  map.
- **Go anywhere.** Shift-click the world map or the minimap and the arrow
  takes you there, routed like any goal; Alt-click works over map icons.
  Click the spot again to let it go.
- **Nearby services.** `/polestar near repair` (trainer, a profession,
  class, weapon, reagents, vendor, innkeeper, bank, auction, flight, stable)
  points the arrow at the quickest one to reach; the map's tracking menu and
  the guide window's Nearby services button list them, the button with a
  page of the weapons a weapon master can teach you. Once you get there,
  the arrow is back on the guide.
- **OpenMap.** On [OpenMap](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/openmap)'s
  seamless world map the trail dots carry on across zone borders and show on
  the whole-world view too. OpenMap's menu has a "Polestar trail dots" switch.
- **Other addons' waypoints** (Options, Integrations, TomTom). Without TomTom, "Let other addons set
  waypoints" (off by default) lets addons that set TomTom waypoints point
  Polestar's arrow and makes `/way` work; addons that expect TomTom's own
  settings may not work with it on. With TomTom, the arrow can follow
  TomTom's. Addon authors: `Polestar.Nav.API` (docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, "Nav
  API").

## Pathing by Shortest Path Forever

The arrow walks real paths: round cliffs, water and walls, through the town
gate and down into the mine, not over the edge. That is the work of
[Shortest Path Forever](https://github.com/cjber/shortest-path-forever) by
**Cillian Berragan** ([cillian.dev](https://cillian.dev)), who baked walking
maps of the continents from the game client and wrote a router that finds a
route over them a couple of milliseconds at a time, so the game never
stutters. It is beautiful work, and he generously said yes when we asked to
use it. Polestar's travel planner still picks the flights, boats and
Hearthstone; the router that started from his walks every leg between them.
It keeps to roads where they are not much longer, round steep slopes, and out
of the other faction's towns; when a walk must enter one (a quest inside
Southshore for a Horde character), the arrow says "Hostile town: Southshore"
once as the walk starts, and the walk's journey step reads the same when the
route has more steps. **Route style** (Options, Guide, Arrow & routes) picks
how it walks: Fastest takes the shortest way over hills and across fields,
Balanced (the default) keeps to roads that aren't much longer and goes round
hills, and Roads stays on roads even when they're longer. Every style keeps
out of the other faction's towns.

The router ships with Polestar as the `Polestar_Nav` folder. Polestar's
walking router started from Shortest Path Forever v1.16.0 by Cillian
Berragan, with thanks; Polestar maintains it since 2026-10-16. It runs on
Polestar's own walking maps of Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Zephras Isle,
made from the game's geometry in a format grown from his by a port of his map
baker (GPL-3.0-or-later; what came from where is in
[addon/Polestar_Nav/CREDITS.md](https://github.com/fitzforge/polestar/blob/next/addon/Polestar_Nav/CREDITS.md)).
**Walk real paths** (Options, Arrow & routes) turns it off. If you like it, try
his addon:
[Shortest Path Forever on CurseForge](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/shortest-path-forever)
plans whole journeys with flights, boats, zeppelins, portals and live
departure times.

**Shortest Path Forever: an option.** With it installed, Polestar still
guides by default. **Hand guiding to Shortest Path Forever** (Options,
Integrations) hands it the route instead: each goal goes to Shortest Path
Forever, whose arrow, route and journey take you there, and Polestar's own
arrow, route lines, journey steps, travel button, transport alerts, map
clicks and `/way` step aside, so the two never guide at once (Polestar's
walking maps are not even loaded). The guide window and the map pins stay. A
kill or collect area is handed over as an area, so it holds you there until
the goal is done; if you clear or replace the journey, Polestar leaves it be
until the guide moves on. With the option off, a journey you start in
Shortest Path Forever itself still wins: Polestar steps aside the same way
while it runs, and guides again when it ends. If Shortest Path Forever
finds no way to a goal, or turns its journeys off, Polestar's own arrow
guides you there instead.

## Quests and the map

- **Quest markers**: givers, objectives and turn-ins on the world map and the
  minimap, with tooltip lines on the mobs and items a quest needs and quest
  levels in the log. Nameplate icons mark the mobs you still need, beside the
  health bar of EllesmereUI and other replacement nameplates too.
- **Rare and treasure spawns, dungeon entrances, flight masters, docks and
  inns** can mark the map too. Every map icon is off by default and turns on
  under **Map** in the options; the arrow's target, its route and the
  regions the guide step's mobs and objects spawn in (shaded on the world map
  and the minimap) always show.
- **A world map without fog of war**, with coordinates and zone level ranges.

## Gear advice

- **Upgrade indicator** on item tooltips: by how much an item is an upgrade
  for your spec at your level, from stat weights per spec (detected from your
  talent points) and level band.
- **On the game's reward panel** every choice that is an upgrade gets a green
  arrow, the one to take is framed, and a coin marks the one that sells for
  most. Turn-in goals name the best reward.
- **In your bags** every item that is an upgrade gets the same green arrow,
  in the game's bags and in Baganator.

## Lookup, Dungeons and Rares

- **Lookup** searches guides, items, mounts, pets, NPCs, quests, zones,
  dungeons and rares, and answers "how do I get that?" with the sources
  ranked for your character. "Guide me" opens the curated guide or builds one
  on the spot. Target or mouse over a player to see their mount and how to get
  it; Alt-click an item link for a guide.
- **Dungeons**: a journal page per dungeon with every quest (where it starts
  and ends, its objective, chain and rewards), the bosses and the entrance.
  "Pick up the quests" builds a guide that collects every quest of the
  dungeon you can take, earlier quests first, on the shortest path from where
  you stand to the entrance; after the run, "Hand in the quests" guides you
  to where they are turned in and takes the follow-ups there.
- **Rares**: rares and treasures by zone with their spawns and signature
  drop, and an alert when one shows up on your minimap, nameplates or target.

Lookup, Dungeons and Rares read the Codex, a data pack built on your own
machine from addons you have installed ([Data and licensing](https://polestar.guide/docs/reference/credits));
it is not part of the release. Without it Lookup still searches the guides,
and each section says what is missing.

## Appearance and UI suites

- **Colour schemes**: Dusk (the default), Night and Graphite, and
  EllesmereUI's own panel colour and accent while it is installed. On top of
  any scheme: your own accent or your class colour, background colour,
  opacity and brightness. Text stays legible whatever you pick: a ground too
  light for its text is darkened until it reads.
- **Windows**: the border, its colour and thickness, the starlit header band
  and the shadow, each on or off; the guide window's style (standard, compact
  or transparent), scale, width and opacity; the menu scale; the arrow's style,
  scale, opacity and colours; reduced motion. Everything applies live,
  without a reload; right-click any setting to reset it.
- **Fonts**: the game's own by default, or Inter, or EllesmereUI's.
- **EllesmereUI** (Options, Integrations): Polestar follows its accent and font by default through
  its public skinning API, and where its Quality of Life or Friends module
  does the same job as a Polestar toggle, the toggle starts off.

## Quality of life

Quest item, target and Hearthstone buttons; XP per hour and time to level;
the level the guide wants you to reach, marked on the game's XP bar;
selling greys and repairing (optionally from the guild bank first); buying
what a step asks you to buy; learning new spells at class trainers; taking
the best quest reward and wearing rewards that are upgrades; instant quest
text, single-option gossip and faster auto-loot; hiding combat error spam;
flight map and death helpers, and releasing at once in battlegrounds;
setting your home at the inn the guide names when you talk to its innkeeper
(off by default). Requests from other players: accept summons, resurrections
and friends' or guildmates' party invitations; decline other party
invitations, guild invitations and duels (friends and guild excepted). Hold
**Shift** to skip auto-accept, auto-turn-in, auto-sell, training, binding or
the flight helper once, or to answer a request yourself.

## With a gamepad

Polestar plays with a gamepad on Forever (ported from the translated names database,
@moust4ki). Open its options from the minimap button (or `/polestar
gamepad` without the game's gamepad interface): their **Gamepad** page names
the buttons (Xbox letters or PlayStation shapes, read off the gamepad by
default), and its **Key bindings** tab binds every Polestar action: next and
previous step, browse the guide, show or hide the guide window, the guide
menu, the options, report a problem, and the quest item, target and
Hearthstone buttons. Nothing is bound until you bind it. Press A on a row,
then a button, or hold one button and press another for a combination:
Polestar watches its combinations itself, keeps the second button from the
game only while you hold the first, and never acts on one in a fight. With
the game's gamepad interface on, LB and RB are its targeting buttons and
every combination with them is the game's own: the row says so before it
binds one. Tap B to cancel, hold B to bind B itself; Y unbinds. The rows take
keys of the keyboard too.

The guide window never takes a button away from the game. To browse it with
the gamepad, bind **Browse the guide with the gamepad**: the D-pad picks a
line (up from the goals: Skip, the bug, the menu and the tabs), A points the
arrow there or uses the quest item on its line (not with the game's gamepad
interface, whose own buttons Polestar leaves alone), X shows the line's
details, LB / RB look at the previous and next step, Y minimizes the window,
and B gives the gamepad back to the game.

Every Polestar window you open (the guide menu with Lookup and Dungeons, the
options, the welcome, the route choice, the report and copy windows, the
drop-down menus) answers the gamepad while it is open: the D-pad moves the
focus (an accent ring), A selects, B closes or goes back, LB / RB change tabs
or pages, left / right adjust a slider or a drop-down, Y puts a setting back
to its default. A window that opens by itself (the welcome on a new
character, the choice of where to level next) takes no button until you press
the Browse the guide button, which its bar shows. A bar under the window lists
the buttons no button on screen shows; B sits on the window's close button.
The gamepad goes back to the game when the window closes or a fight starts,
and returns after it. Turn the bar off, or the windows' navigation
altogether, on the Gamepad page. Without a gamepad plugged in, none of it
shows: everything works with the mouse and keyboard as before.

## Recorder

`Polestar_Recorder` is an optional companion addon that records your
sessions to improve the routes. It is off until you turn it on (`/psrec on`,
or Options > Recorder > Start recording) and writes nothing while off.
Recordings replace the Classic Era estimates with Forever facts (quest XP,
NPC and object positions, trainers, flight paths and times), feed the Codex
what only play shows (rares and treasures, drops and how often they fall,
dungeon entrances and bosses), and
`record report` turns them into per-step timings: passes, median and p75
time, XP per hour, time in combat, deaths and travel, then the slowest
steps and detours, the steps to fix first.

## Slash commands

`/polestar` (or `/pole`) shows or hides the guide window; settings live in
`/polestar options`, grouped by what you came to do: Guide, Appearance, Map,
Questing, Discovery, Quality of Life, Integrations (settings for other addons
Polestar works with, such as the community quest database, shown while they are installed), Guide
packs, Gamepad, Recorder and About, with a search that finds any setting.

With the game's gamepad interface on (Options, Gamepad, Enable Gamepad UI)
there are no slash commands: the game blocks gamepad actions after any
addon command typed in chat, until the game freezes. Polestar's minimap
button (on by default then) and its key bindings open the guide and the
settings instead, and Polestar keeps out of the game's own windows.

### Every slash command

| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| `help` | List every command |
| `show`, `hide` | Show or hide the guide window |
| `guides` | Open the hub on Guides |
| `options [page]` | Open the settings, optionally on a page |
| `next`, `prev` | Look at the next or previous step (nothing is skipped) |
| `skip` | Skip the step shown, for good (the window offers Undo) |
| `status` | Current guide and step |
| `guide <id>` | Switch to a guide by id |
| `tabs`, `tab <n>`, `close` | List, switch and close guide tabs |
| `path` | Choose where to level next, where a guide offers a choice of route |
| `route` | Show the travel route to the current target |
| `way <x> <y> [label]` | Point the arrow at x y on your current map (no argument clears it) |
| `arrow show\|hide\|reset` | The waypoint arrow (drag it to move it) |
| `reset` | Clear ticks and skips for the current guide |
| `xp` | XP per hour, time to level and level splits |
| `gear [item link]` | Gear advice: the weights in use, or compare an item |
| `instances [clear]` | Instance limits, runs and lockouts |
| `dungeons [name]` | Open Dungeons, or a dungeon's page |
| `lookup [search]` | Open Lookup, optionally searching |
| `mount` | Look up the mount of your target (or mouseover) and how to get it |
| `rares [test]` | Open Rares, or show a sample rare alert |
| `questdb` | Quest database status |
| `packs` | Open Options > Community guides |
| `gamepad` | Open Options > Gamepad: button names and key bindings |
| `welcome` | Show the welcome again |
| `where` | Print your map and position as guide lines (`zone map <id>`, `goto x,y live`), in a box to copy |
| `report` | Report a problem with the step on screen (the guide window's bug button) |
| `discord` | The invite to the Polestar Discord, to copy |
| `debug` | Toggle debug output |

The Recorder has its own: `/psrec on | off | mark <text> | clear` and a
few more listed by `/psrec`.

---

Next page: [Talent plans](https://polestar.guide/docs/players/talent-plans.md) · Every docs page: https://polestar.guide/llms.txt · All docs in one file: https://polestar.guide/llms-full.txt