And their reaction time + awareness is down, so they use addons like weak auras to compensate. Just a theory of mine.
They’re popular because many things are not easy or impossible to see in the base game, and they’ve crept out of control with more advanced weakauras
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if modern weakauras existed and were allowed back in the day they would have definitely been used
would they? is it a thing in wow classic right now? you’d probably know more about that since you’re on a classic toon, and if i had to guess you watch classic streamers.
weakauras are popular because you have .6 seconds to react or you die. people were 30+ in bfa and weakauras werent what they are today
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Yeah.
We even had something that’d put circles on the ground in the middle of fights but that got broken.
that’s PvE tho.
uhh yea people currently use weakauras and other complex addons in classic pvp.
e.g. Chanimal’s ui setup looks like a 747 cockpit, he even tracks fingers of frost procs on enemy mages
keep in mind back in the day addons were not allowed in tournaments so a lot of serious teams played without them
Uh, I think power auras was kind of like proto weakauras but pvpers aren’t exactly known for their addon prowess.
Oh definitely
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Nah. 
I think it’s just a failure of how the default UI delivers information to the player. We have 5 senses and video games typically only use two of them and WoW is HEAVILY weighted on just one. DR trackers, kick trackers, even audible queues should be standard. While the default UI is way better then it was in the past, it’s still lacking. Even just tracking simple buffs can be tough. Then on top of that you have procs, enemy cds, positioning, your health, bla bla bla. I try to run a pretty plain UI, but I still need things like bigdebuffs, omnicc, gladius, etc.
If a player is failing at the game simply for lack of good information, then that’s on the design of the game, not the player. NOT that players can’t still do well without addons, but it does make it more fun. My gameplay wouldn’t change a ton on my hunter, but I’d probably quit wow if I didn’t have the tools todo well.
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you are coping.
pikaboo hardly uses any addons.
Still uses some. Like I said, you could get away without running any and do pretty well. Tracking DRs would be annoying, but doable. The biggest loss for me would be threat plates. I hate the look of the default bars, though they have gotten better.
Too much going on in the game now to really bother paying attention to.
Also we’re all old now.
your old not me.
I don’t believe you 
I don’t think so. Maybe there are fringe cases or something, but I’m not that old and I use them because everyone else does and there’s no reason or incentive not to, when they make up for shortcomings in the game’s UI. Depending on your definition of competitive (anyone invested in arena? Mglads? Pros/Tourney players?) they either would be perfectly fine without them or are probably using them for the same reason I am.
He’s also a wow prodigy and I would argue not really representative of the average wow player in their mid 20s
true, but some people have way to many and at that point its like what are you even doing? the addons are playing the game for you.
i know theres one addon that calls out the abilities being used by the other team. i dont know the name of it but i know its a thing.
they should just improve the base UI with features that resemble some of the big name addons and ban addons altogether.
they need to redo ui for pvp. addons are dumb.
nobody knew about the potential functionality of addons in the past
you know kollektiv?
he was one of the very best arena players in the entire game in the wrath > cata > mop era
when the game was the most competitive it ever was
he made this addon which was basically primitive weak auras
it would show the cast icon and who the cast was on based on who the caster was targeting
chaos bolt, sheep, fear any important cast
he was one of the very few players who used things like this because he made it himself and not many other players had the tools to do so nor were weak auras even a thing yet
(originally “powerauras” back in cata and were exclusively used for PvE trinket procs)
if weakauras existed in the past tons of good players would have used them
tournament players probably being the only exception
i’m not arguing in favor of them, they’re terrible for the game
if mes didn’t join some pve guild for a sponsorship and get someone to literally make weakauras for him because he felt there was a TON of 0.2 reaction abilities in the game (like spinning crane kick proc)
players today probably wouldn’t be using them
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so as the game got older and players got older they started looking for new ways to keep reflexes fast.
how old is mes? if he’s 30+ i think this data would support my hypothesis