World of Warcraft: Current Year

Lot's of people raid with the default UI these days. The default UI is much improved in the last 9 years.

I use weakauras to show me when something is off cooldown, bartender4 to organize and place my action bars, and tidyplates to show mob health. I use moused over macros to cast spells. I think I do just fine.

That's the beauty of the addon system, you can go minimal or super complex, it's up to you.

Meh, even in eq if you were a non melee class you were always casting something. Except as my wizard it was 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 (time pants ) - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 repeat until fight over or, add in one of two get mana back spells. Where as my mage has a priority system that keeps me on my toes.

Ukerric_sl said:

And react to what happens.

I've said that before, I'm saying it again. The need to be constantly mashing buttons in the X-X-O-+-? "correct order" is a symptom of consolitis: the idea that, if your fingers aren't mashing buttons, you're not having fun. That's what consoles brought us, and it's not surprising that modern players and designers think it's good design.

Instead, you turn on auto-attack, and then WATCH what's going on, and then press the APPROPRIATE button, WHEN NEEDED, appropriate to what's going on. There is exactly zero added value of having to refresh this DOT every 24 seconds, that debuff every 18 seconds, and use that DD every four combo points. Except for making your fingers move, and thus, in the brain of devs, giving you fun. Because making your fingers twitch by reflex is making you have fun, right?

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Lol, one of the dumbest things I've read here in awhile. So basically you want a Dragon's Lair MMO.

I use the vanilla UI and seem to do pretty darn okay. I really dislike overly cluttered UIs but at the same time the completely minimalistic UI mods do nothing for me. The existing raid interface plus mouseover macros is good enough for me to heal on my shaman and monk (especially with all the smart targeting) and the graphical cues for prompts plus Scrolling Combat Text were integrated into the default UI ages ago.

I used to use Healbot extensively when I was playing Resto Shaman back in the BC era, but much of that functionality was to maximize my mouse button combinations and the full numpad on the Naga compensates for that. I am totally screwed if they ever stop making the Naga however as I've become incredibly dependent on that for any gaming.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Anomandiris @ Undermine - Community - World of Warcraft<-- main hunter I think I need to change spec, not sure if MM is "good" any more, any thoughts?

I guess I need a purpose since I seem to be doing just fine in LFR.

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I main hunter here and have quite a bit of experience. At the moment you're probably going to sim out higher as SV or BM than MM(BM and SV are both very close with SV being favored but also tied to RNG procs). You can do easy testing yourself without investing much time at all onZeherah's Hunter DPS Analyzer. AskMrRobot was also updated to use Zeherah's formula some time ago and is now nearly 100% accurate for hunters in terms of the best enchants/reforges. I can't specifically give you advice atm since Battle.net is down but those are two places you can make some quick improvements on your own.

Mythas_sl said:

Meh, even in eq if you were a non melee class you were always casting something. Except as my wizard it was 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 (time pants ) - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 repeat until fight over or, add in one of two get mana back spells. Where as my mage has a priority system that keeps me on my toes.

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Once you got to the point of being able to dump your threat and mana was not an issue this was certainly the case, but not early in the game. Playing a wizard at launch it was definitely not a good idea to spam spells non-stop. If nothing else because you would end up the one tanking if you did.

I think the biggest actual change in WoW raiding is the general playerbase's perception of it. I was in a raiding guild in Cata and we were looking into a dps DK recruit. I ran a few test heroics with him and he did fantastic dps for his gear, paid attention to his environment well and adapted quickly to anything going wrong. The whole run the other officers in the group were constantly talking shit about him in /o chat; he didn't have vent set up yet, he wasn't using any mods, and he was color matching his gem sockets instead of just going straight strength. I pleaded on his behalf, even showed how fixing his 'noob gems' would result in at most a 2.3% increase in dps, and I got shot down because "If he's not going to care about maxing his potential then we don't want him."

I could see how that DK would go on to be pissed off about how you ABSOLUTELY NEED mods and perfect rotation execution and all that other min/maxing stuff when back in the old days, you didn't. But the reality there is WoW's raid design does NOT require that shit, players build up that false expectation on their own.

Obviously raiding now is a much different experience than it was back in Vanilla. But I think on the raid design end of it, they've generally made improvements that I enjoy. If it's a worse experience, it's because of the players you are with (or you), and you can certainly change that.

Ultimately: hate the playa, not the game

Ukerric_sl said:

And react to what happens.

I've said that before, I'm saying it again. The need to be constantly mashing buttons in the X-X-O-+-? "correct order" is a symptom of consolitis: the idea that, if your fingers aren't mashing buttons, you're not having fun. That's what consoles brought us, and it's not surprising that modern players and designers think it's good design.

Instead, you turn on auto-attack, and then WATCH what's going on, and then press the APPROPRIATE button, WHEN NEEDED, appropriate to what's going on. There is exactly zero added value of having to refresh this DOT every 24 seconds, that debuff every 18 seconds, and use that DD every four combo points. Except for making your fingers move, and thus, in the brain of devs, giving you fun. Because making your fingers twitch by reflex is making you have fun, right?

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You must love QTEs

this is the beauty of the game whatever level of involment you put in they made content for you. some of it is more expansive than others but its there for you. the problem with the game isn't the game its the people that play it. some are uber leet and want uber leet friends, some are wanna bes, and some don't give a fuck.

RAF is back today, too bad its not up to 90 though. MoP content is stale as hell and makes wanting to level an alt up nearly impossible

You're simplify it too much Ukerric. If everyone was just pressing their keys in order and getting the same results every time then I think you would have a point. It doesn't work that way in reality though. There is a big difference between knowing what buttons should be pressed, and how to execute a proper priority (WoW doesn't use set rotations anymore and it hasn't in a while) while also reacting to the encounter. Making auto attack the primary source of dps would have a HUGE impact, and many peoples performance would go up because automated combat is lazy.

Right now with WoW's current system you can have 2 players in identical gear putting up drastically different numbers. In a system with mainly autoattack that isn't the case anymore. The guy intently watching the fight would be doing basically the same thing as the guy in the other room making a sandwich, or throwing another load of laundry in. That type of system removes accountability from dps classes because the "robot" is doing the work. Right now you still have to work, and earn your place at the top of the meters. A quick read of icy veins isn't going to make you world first material, or even close to it.

I've never used an add-on in any extended capacity and I never will. Although I just DPS or Tank, so I can't comment on heals.

If every boss was Patchwerk then he'd be absolutely correct. But the difference between how much your optimal rotation is interrupted by encounter mechanics vary wildly from class to class.

I played a resto druid through most of TBC, all of wotlk, and early cata (when I quit). I never used a mod for healing or dispelling. I used default UI, DBM (or whatever it was we used back in TBC), and a couple QoL add-ons for things like harvesting, and the mailbox. Every time I tried to overhaul my setup I found that I performed better without it and thrashed all the flashy shit. I still managed to heal shit like yogg, LK, and nefarian (cata version) without it. It really just comes down to personal preferences. You can play WoW at a competitive level without a single mod if that is how you taught yourself to play. I find playing fully modded just as unplayable as I'm sure others would find my mod-lite setup.

Not having an addon to track important buff/debuff timers in an easily readable way seems a bit like playing with one arm tied behind your back though. Almost everything else I used was purely cosmetic but that one was huge. That and threatplates as a tank, when nameplates were so bad that threatplates changed your life.

Made so many WeakAuras effects to put the remaining duration on a debuff over the button that casts it makes me boggle that this isn't an option in default