Best VST plugins for mixing

I had a trial on Waves Studio Classics last week. I was especially impressed by the API pack. However, with it being on sale now for a reasonable price I'll be pulling the trigger on the Studio Classics bundle before the end of the month.
 
Hmm.. I'm pretty sure some of them were donationware at some point. I don't use them anymore so can't really remember. Sorry for the wrong information.

The only thing they do offer is discounted version for Reaper users. Perhaps thats what you were thinking. But free, not that I recall.
 
For what it's worth, I use the Antress 1176 model all the time and I love it. The Distressor (Deathcore) and LA2A (Lost Angel) clones get occasional use as well.

I frequently use the LA2A as a buss compressor. It sounds good on drum groups, particularly. I also like the Distressor one, particularly on the bass and kick. The Console EQ one is alright, but there are better freeware one IMO. The rest I rarely use.
 
For free stuff check out;
Density MkII, Compressive Pro and Blockfish for compressors.
Pushtec, SonEQ and BootEQ MkII for EQ.

These are also useful;
Ferric TDS (saturation), Gclip (clipping), Gband (HPF/LPF), Nastly DLA (delay), Ambience (reverb).

A quick search on KVR should turn most of these up. Other than that I mostly use Reaper's stock plugins, they're great for very precise stuff. That should be plenty to keep you busy until you reach the point where you feel like you can justify paying £100 for a plugin.