Is playing without addons viable?

[WhiteEagle888]

What do you think?

[Hyve]

Physically playing; Yes.

Playing at the top end of the game, in the most hardcore and most strict environments that demand so much of you; No.

Anything between those two extremes; Depends.

[Mad_Murdock]

No, Without Postal and I hear you whisper, the game is pretty much unplayable with the default UI. I really don't know how I was able to go months without the Hide bag clean up button mod. Auto repair and auto junk sell mods are also pretty much mandatory, Player XP Bar also required.

I'm going with No.

[Spray]

Mostly, Yes - especially in Legion with all those QoL features (bags, fuck yeah).

[Sencha]

You cannot play efficiently if you cannot see your procs/CD near the center of the screen.

[RedGamer030]

Viable for questing? Yes.
Viable for World Quests? Yes.
Viable for Normal Dungeons? Yes.
Viable for Heroic Dungeons? You are pushing it, but it can be done.
Viable for Mythic Dungeons? No.
Viable for LFR? It can be done.
Viable for Normal Raiding? No.
Viable for random Battlegrounds? It can be done.
Viable for Arena Skirmishes? Yes.
Viable for Arenas? No.

[Dremall]

Others have said it. Just depends on the content that you're doing.

[Qlix]

I heard (and this is just a rumor) that literally every action or event in the game has a sound and visual queue. If you are super uber at memorizing these queues, you can do everything anyone else can. The only thing an addon does is change the way these queues are displayed to the player.

Just kidding. Its not actually a rumor.

[Mad_Murdock]

Viable for Heroic Dungeons? You are pushing it, but it can be done.
Viable for Mythic Dungeons? No.
Viable for Normal Raiding? No.

Imma have to disagree here a bit. One of the best Rogue players we had said he didn't use any add-ons, particularly DBM has he felt that was having the game play for him. He was a solid player, a solid DPS and someone you could depend on to do the call when you made the calls. One of his famed achievements was during the ICC days on Saurfang, he successfully vanished before getting the mark put on him, we have other who have refused to run many of the popular add-ons, like DBM for the same reason. I've looked at their screenshots during raid and wonder how they do it, because I'd be fairly worthless without add-ons playing for me.

Maybe for Mythic raiding especially cutting edge you need certain add-ons. for for normal raiding and Heroic dungeons, if you can't play without add-ons, then something else is wrong.

Now if you want to say viable means achieving 99% of your potential I guess we could agree, but what about people who play with every add-ons required and still fail to achieve that?

[Izalla]

I don't like playing without UI ones that make things like neater and prettier, but when it comes to things like DBM or whatever, I've never used it even when I was doing heroic Siege of Orgrimmar (before it became mythic). My team mates at one point in Dragon Soul found out I didn't use it (not that I was hiding it or was brought on to the team with the requirement that I use it) and were like "you can't raid without it..." as if I hadn't been raiding, better than a lot of them, for months by that point =P Clique is the only thing that I would feel like I can't function without, but I understand that you can make mouse over macros and shit to do what it does anyway. So I'm going with yes. If you are a good player with good situational awareness and the ability to pay attention, and are used to the non-addon-influenced controls, can totally play just fine without addons.

[Rezhial]

someone you could depend on to do the call when you made the calls.

While I understand what you are saying, this here is just the raid leader telling him what to do (who is using DBM) over DBM actually telling him.

Therefore, there is still a reliance of an addon, without actually having it installed.

Hope that makes sense. A buddy of mine used to do the same thing, run no addons, but when it came time to raid, things had to be called out because he had no timers.

[Kolvarg]

every action or event in the game has a sound and visual queue. If you are super uber at memorizing these queues, you can do everything anyone else can. The only thing an addon does is change the way these queues are displayed to the player.

It's true =P Now more than ever.


It all depends on what you really mean by "viable".

It is absolutely possible to do pretty much everything there is to do in the game without any addons at all, nowadays.
Is it optimal? No. But defenitely possible.

And for the majority of content addons really just give a little extra quality of life. Only for "serious" endgame content do addons can really make a noticeable/valuable difference.

[Izalla]

Imma have to disagree here a bit. One of the best Rogue players we had said he didn't use any add-ons, particularly DBM has he felt that was having the game play for him. He was a solid player, a solid DPS and someone you could depend on to do the call when you made the calls. One of his famed achievements was during the ICC days on Saurfang, he successfully vanished before getting the mark put on him, we have other who have refused to run many of the popular add-ons, like DBM for the same reason. I've looked at their screenshots during raid and wonder how they do it, because I'd be fairly worthless without add-ons playing for me.

Maybe for Mythic raiding especially cutting edge you need certain add-ons. for for normal raiding and Heroic dungeons, if you can't play without add-ons, then something else is wrong.

Now if you want to say viable means achieving 99% of your potential I guess we could agree, but what about people who play with every add-ons required and still fail to achieve that?

Same for me, I don't like the idea of an addon telling me when everything is gonna happen when I can get into the swing of things and by alert for shit on my own. The game alerts tells you a lot as it is.

- - - Updated - - -

While I understand what you are saying, this here is just the raid leader telling him what to do (who is using DBM) over DBM actually telling him.

Therefore, there is still a reliance of an addon, without actually having it installed.

Hope that makes sense. A buddy of mine used to do the same thing, run no addons, but when it came time to raid, things had to be called out because he had no timers.

That's not really fair, just because your buddy needed such things. Personally I learned the fights and knew something was coming up before anyone called anything out, and was prepared already, because I got a sense of how long there was between each important ability. And the screen alerts you when the boss is casting something big or whatever anyway. So to each his own.

[stariv]

I've never been a heavy addon user. I did heroic raiding back in firelands in CATA. I had dbm, but I don't think it was necessary. I was a healer Druid and wasn't into any of the healing addons or even mouse over macros.


No, you don't need addons to play any part of the game.

[Deleted]

I raided with a top 10 guild for nearly 3 years without mods, other than Dominos for my bars

I did however find one fight absolutely necessary. Anub HC in ToTGC 25. When the boss would go into his final phase and start siphoning the life from everybody, you had 5 players marked with a debuff, doing a set amount of damage more or less killing the player if not healed right away. So pretty much DBM would mark 5 players with symbols and you would use your global (2 if you were quick enough, not worth the risk though) to save your assigned targets life. I really found this to be pretty hard to play around as coordinating the groups without the symbols would have been more hassle than it was worth.

Pretty much most boss fights go a bit better with mods for the majority. You can however learn how to play without the, gaining natural timing for boss abilities etc. I find them more a distraction to be honest, I know it's not a very popular opinion though And ya I had world rankings on DPS throughout all of Cata, with no mods, it's possible.

[Qlix]

I dont even agree that cutting edge mythic raiding requires addons. Its QoL - and obviously guild/raid dependent - but the game could be completed without.

[Izalla]

I dont even agree that cutting edge mythic raiding requires addons. Its QoL - and obviously guild/raid dependent - but the game could be completed without.

A shit player is still shit with all the most helpful "play the game for you" addons, and a great player is still a great player without them.

[Qlix]

A shit player is still shit with all the most helpful "play the game for you" addons, and a great player is still a great player without them.

Yep.

10char

[Foisil]

I dont even agree that cutting edge mythic raiding requires addons. Its QoL - and obviously guild/raid dependent - but the game could be completed without.

Mythic Archimonde without the mark of the legion addon would be a total nightmare, you'd have to get 4 groups into the right position within a few seconds without knowing who will be chosen to be at each mark. It's probably doable but the % of players completing the content would be even lower.

Outside of serious PvE/PvP I would imagine that it's viable, it just requires more effort for the same results

[Turtlewithnoshell]

What do you think?

You can do anything in wow without addons.
There are some that make things a lot easier (proc managers and stuff like that)
I personally don't like addons that aren't just quality of life things. (onebag, atlasloot, skada) I don't use any DBM or buff trackers because I just don't need them.
You can be a top level raider or pvp player without addons.