If we’re kicking around the idea that Addons make the game worse, and we’re looking to get rid of them, then I’m going to propose the first one we ban is - in battlegrounds - anything that instantly IDs the healer.
Holinka has said Blizzard knows Solo PVP will have a Healer problem. I assume he’s talking about Arena mostly, and honestly, I don’t care in Arena - it’s pretty easy to see who the healer is there in the native UI.
In BGs you can tell who has it. 20 vs. 20 approach the Hanger in IoC, and it’s an all out melee. But as soon as I’m in range, there’s a Rogue building a summer home in my rectum. This isn’t skill. Either give it to everyone or give it to no one. And I’m erroring on “The player should have to figure out who the healer is.”
If that kind of addon is banned, healers need to be nerfed in PvP situations in tandem. They’re absurdly powerful now and in anything larger in scale than Warsong Gulch can be damn near impossible to pick out of the chaos without the assistance of an addon.
I don’t even use the kind that paints a big X on the healer nameplate, just BGEnemies which is basically enemy raid frames. I don’t know how I’d ever find the enemy healer otherwise.
I see your point and semi-agree. Makes it harder to heal thus raising barrier of entry to new healers. In a way it forces you to be better though, when you have 5 people tunnelling you and manage to survive it does feel good. So I’m either-or for the removal/keeping of that specific addon.
Personally I think this is because of over homogenisation of the dps classes. Everyone and their dog (lookin at you felhunters) has an interrupt these days. Damage rotations have extreme similarities over most damage specs (or so it feels to me), lowering barrier of entry for DPS players. Multiple schools of CC on most (if not all, not certain) specs.
All of those things could be seen as quality of life improvements, PvPing on a spec with no interrupts didn’t feel the best, so everyone gets an interrupt. Most (if not all) of these QoL homogenisations have had either a direct or indirect negative impact on healers. Suddenly everyone in the BG has an interrupt, time to master juking. Suddenly you can’t bait out any CC DRs on yourself while your team is comfortable because most players have other CC schools to then make up for the bait.
TLDR: I personally think healers get/got the shaft every time these QoL homogenisations went through, kinda pushes people away from playing healer.
They don’t make the game worse. If anything, it shows how import a good UI is.
I can instantly ID a healer by what buffs they have, or which spells they cast. Or by looking at the scoreboard and checking who is healing a lot. Don’t need an addon for that.
My DK has a Death Grip macro that is just “Kill %t” – no addons needed, though it’d make it better, sure. My team’s average MMR might as well be 4000 at that point.
This is also true. Personally, I open the scoreboard in the waiting room of every BG, hover over each enemy player to see their spec and remember healers from there. Class colours makes picking out healers easier too imo.
This doesn’t feel very good in DPS vs. DPS fights either. Everybody has an answer for everything you can do which makes every fight a game of who runs out of cooldowns or flubs a keybind first which gets dull.
As a healer, I feel like this is silly. I fully expect people to automatically jump on me and do their jobs in attempting to kill or CC me. It is up to my DPS and up to me as a player to figure out ways of navigating through the chaos and keeping my people alive. I’ve never felt the addon to identify healers and put a marker over my head is somehow egregious or should be removed.
I wish you could queue for epic battlegrounds with groups larger than 5 (even up to 10 would be perfect, not enough content for groups of 6-9), that way we could queue with 9 healers and never die! Mwahahaha!
I didnt even know this existed until just now. If anything i say this addons a noob trap because whoever needs this addon really needs to work on their situational awareness.
There is no need to kill addons. Plenty of addons like Bagon, HandyNotes, Prat, and things for roleplayers like TRP or DiceMaster are positive improvements to the game. I can understand your frustration when it comes to PvP, trust me I deal with issues Horde side all the time in my realm group. But killing addons isn’t going to be the answer here.
I try my best at situational awareness and if you can seriously pick out healers in a majority-team clash in an epic BG quickly enough to make a difference, you’re a lot more capable than I am. For me it’s like trying to find a firefly in the midst of a fireworks show.
Every class having an interrupt doesn’t bother me. Again, it’s my job to navigate the chaos. And just like there are addons which show healers, there are addons which track cooldowns (including kicks) among other things.
I track every kick, defensive, offensive, and most forms of CC that has a cooldown. I track HOJ, Asphyx, Cap Totem, you name it. If I have access to these tools, and I ensure that I can operate around the nonsense and perform properly, other people can too.
Not to mention, random battlegrounds are the bottom of the barrel involving PvP. They just are, and I say this as someone who does a fair amount of them. In rated battlegrounds, people can have the addon in question but it won’t mean much because both teams are fully using it, and both teams are communicating and should be more conscious of their healer, their positioning, and how to best assist them.
CC schools don’t bother me either. There’s plenty of problems with PvP but the issues you’re highlighting are issues which aren’t really problems, and have been around forever. There are massive problems involving the systems of Shadowlands though providing loopholes and various counters to age old rules of PvP which have existed forever.
I use gladius for arena to do the same things however this touches on my point: excessive barriers of entry for healers compared to dps. Not only is dps more fun for the majority of people, it’s just outright easier with less barriers of entry. My train of thought is “balance out those barriers of entry, raise healer pop”.
Edit: Yes, we know dps also have to track these things, yet as a healer, failing to track them results in more “bad juju” for your team than if a dps failed to track them. A.k.a inconsistent barriers of entry (in my view)
I don’t think getting an addon and learning how to utilize it is somehow a barrier to entry. Like, if a new dps plays with someone and they realize “I wonder if I can track X”, then they can do the research and find it, or ask a more higher rated player. I coach. I tell people all the time how to go through these things, figure out how to track them, so on.
If you use a screwdriver with one head, and you’re attempting to make something work, and you realize this screwdriver isn’t working, then you go get another one, or you get one with changeable heads so you have one screwdriver for more situations. Addons are like screwdrivers. Nothing other than tools.
People should have to learn how to use tools. Being a healer is inherently a harder job than dps. It’s something we sign up and knowingly accept. We should have to jump through more hoops than other people and have higher “barriers of entry”.
however this touches on my point: excessive barriers of entry for healers compared to dps. Not only is dps more fun for the majority of people, it’s just outright easier with less barriers of entry. My train of thought is “balance out those barriers of entry, raise healer pop”.