One button raids

[Aynen]

I remember raiding back in Vanilla on my priest and my paladin. In both cases I was only required to press a single button the entire raid. Priest even had auto target switching thanks to Decursive. I also remember mages just having to spam Frostbolt. Did other classes also only have to press a single button? Was this any different outside MC and BWL?

[Trend]

So all you did was dispel via decursive? That's odd. On my priest I even had multiple ranks of each healing spell because that was the way to balance healing with mana consumption. But then again, I wasn't getting carried so I guess my experience was different than yours.

[Deleted]

Maybe he had the heal addon that determined which spell and rank to use based on the missing health of the target.

Not sure about rank, but there was an add-on that sorted players by their health, so healers could just click top in that list and cast heal.

But that still didn't make encounters easier. Mana was limited, very very limited.

[Azadina]

I remember back in first tier of Cataclysm, all the guild mages had following rotation: Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Evocation, Mana Crystal, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, repeat to infinity.

What? The constant free arcane missile procs? Dps loss if you clicked them. Point is, faceroll specs have appeared since Vanilla plenty of times. Ones that press 1-3 buttons at most.

[Mullet Man]

Not sure about rank, but there was an add-on that sorted players by their health, so healers could just click top in that list and cast heal.

But that still didn't make encounters easier. Mana was limited, very very limited.

Healbot did this. I think by 1.12 it had been disabled though.
And it didn't help much. You didn't have to move your mouse up and down to pick the person you wanted to heal.
You still had to do all the mechanics of the fights.

[Trend]

Maybe he had the heal addon that determined which spell and rank to use based on the missing health of the target.

So one button for decursive + one button for each healing spell (and there was more than one of those for both the classes he listed) + buttons for other spells like shields = definitely more than the "one button" he's claiming.

I do now recall an addon to adjust spell rank that I never wanted to use because it didn't allow you to anticipate big hits, so I had many more buttons than I do now.

[Mullet Man]

So one button for decursive + one button for each healing spell (and there was more than one of those for both the classes he listed) + buttons for other spells like shields = definitely more than the "one button" he's claiming.

I do now recall an addon to adjust spell rank that I never wanted to use because it didn't allow you to anticipate big hits, so I had many more buttons than I do now.

Correct. I had key modifier for each spell when using Healbot:
Shift + Left Click = Flash Heal
Ctrl + Left Click = Greater Heal
Left Click = Heal
Etc...

[Kiljaedon]

Wow had drawn heavily from the systems of Everquest and DAOC for quite a bit of its foundation and for the most part the classes in EQ were just a button or two at most for damage dealing. Wow's mechanic for difficulty was preperation time for each raid, coordination for larger numbers logistically and aggro management. Just because the rotation was more simple does not mean wow vanilla did not have its difficult moments especially from untested raids being unbeatable from C'thun to Kaelthas being the most extreme case. That system also has its difficulty curves and should not be shunned at for just its simple rotation and this is coming from a wotlk feral druid which is arguably the most difficult rotation of any era in all of wow minus maybe sub rogue.