How can people play WoW without addons?

Community General Discussion
143

There’s people like that. When I first discovered addons like quest helper I was never without an addon again. It was truly a miserable experience trying to level back in the day. Don’t listen to what the “it’s the journey” people tell you. The journey was a miserable experience. The addons actually made the game tolerable and fixed a lot of what was missing for the average player. And I was a below average player until Eternal Palace (where I was just average (maybe, probably still below average)) when I got my first AOTC.

If someone wants to play without an addon more power to them. I don’t like to. The QOL that come from them is worth it. I could do probably do without big wigs and just listen to my Raid Lead for when it’s time to move. But addons like mogit/rare scanner/world quest tracker/talent load out/weak aura are ones that I cannot do without

144

What do you use the bank for?

My reagents bank is full, my bank just has junk I’m not allowed to delete in it.

145

I play without addons. Always have, always will.

Why do I want a blown up oversize convoluted UI system to tell me the things I need to know that i can already clearly see infront of me without them.

I dont want to kniw what everyone elses score is, or their rank or standing or if they have the “right spec and talents chosen” i could not give two hoots about anything any single addon could pull from my current screen and blow up for me.

I like to play the game for me and also to help others on my PvP team.

The only thing I have seen that WoW addons give a player is the ability to easily and at a glance, pick out and criticize other players.

Terrible.

Its something that allows players to put themselves on a scale compared to their cooperative peers who are supposed to be working on the same team, instead its used to trash players.

Just terrible

146

you can do plenty without addons. the only thing i haven’t found reasonable without extras is healing. The addons are just a bunch of mouseover macros so u don’t have to make a dozen of them. The cooldown trackers can be helpful, though.

147

People used to give me crap for playing with No Addons & Sounds while we were doing AOTC N’Zoth in BFA while I was tanking.

I made some guys in our guild mad that I got it without any addons and some people got mad that I’d play and stream my game muted lmao

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148

God i hate addons so much.

Mind you, bartender was great before the new UI.

And hide chat button is always a great one for muting spammers and nay sayers

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149

wow is easy peasy. addons arent needed ~shrugs

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150

I know plenty of people that do M+ and Heroic raiding just fine. They simply aren’t needed for 99% of the player base.

I however love them!

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151

I’m of the opinion that, if someone can manage to raid and stuff just fine without addons or any other basic functions and not be detrimental to their team, then there’s not really an issue to be had there. That’s actually impressive to me.

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152

The only addon everyone should have is plater. The rest is optional as you can easily play the game without any other addons

153

I use DBM because it’s occasionally a good reminder, Details so I know what I do for DPS, and I have a limited number of weak auras. That’s all I run and I hit AOTC pretty much every time.

My favorite over the years are the people that lose their minds for a few days after a major patch because the dozens of addons they use aren’t updated yet. Especially the UI people. Sorry, I’ve just dealt with the default since the start of the game and never felt the need for more.

As many have said though it’s all preference. Play how you like. Some enjoy a bunch of pop ups and UI stuff and some don’t.

154

Add-ons are for chumps.

Except DPS meters, those are alright.

155

There is a search bar on the top of the bank frame. Also who uses their bank nowadays? Like what do you put in/take out? For me, bank is like store random sh*t in there and never think about it for months.

Reagent bank is literally useless (at least for me). Anything i gather i immediately use for crafts OR sell it right away. Not sitting on stuff. Also having bank characters is a better way to deal with liquid gold. Pepperherb, Pepperore, Peppermeat, Bocklox, Bindstoaccou and so on. The ingame bank became so inconvenient over the years.

Even in classic, i use my bank to store all the things that got removed from the game or kept for later use, in case they put transmog in. (My beloved warrior’s bank)

Using bank is just a what-are-you-even-doing-with-your-life thing for me.

About other addons: I would die without addons like Weakauras, collection management addons, TSM when im farming and need to check the price of something, eventho i have the longboi /flex and

TSM is universally a really useful tool for everybody. Mailing, auctioning, storing, accounting etc.

In classic one of the most useful addons i had was GuildBankAudit which let me export every single item into a csv file and put it into a spreadsheet. Bellissimo! I think that’s the only addon i’ve ever had that let me use its data in a spreadsheet. I need more, please hit me up.

Honorable mentions:

  • BtWQuests: :kissing_closed_eyes: :ok_hand:
  • Details: To see how bad you are with your alt
  • FasterLoot: speaks for itself
  • Simulationcraft: /simc . if you know it, you know it
  • xCT+: To make my numbers bigger.

I used to be an elvui fanboy but with DF prepatch i fell in love with the new customizable userinterface. Obviously it still needs more polish and other new features but its a really good product. The only thing i hate about it is that if you sort your bag, it puts everything on top of your bags instead of filling up your bag frame from bottom to top. This thing is killing me. I dont know if there was a remedy for that but holy moly it triggers my OCD every single time.

To answer your initial question in the title:

I have no idea. There was a point in the game’s history where if you didnt have any addons, you werent a raider at all. You couldnt do it. It was mandatory to raid with addons if you wanted to succeed in a proper guild and push for server rankings and so on. At least in my region, that is. Arena players can probably tell the same. So i have no clue. Filthy casuals i guess.

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156

I only use two addons. One that shows me the damage meters, and another one that announces when I get a killing blow in PvP that sounds like the dota announcer :grin:

157

Yeah, I read that and chuckled.
“B” opens all my bags and closes them, why would you need an add on for that?

I use a DPS meter and that’s it in retail.
I also have that neat one that has the quest givers be voiced in classic and I have the xbox controller one (which I don’t use but once in a blue moon)

Back when I raided I ran DBM, a damage meter, voice chat, etc.

If you are a LFR and lower casual add ons are totally unneeded but if I went back to more serious instanced content I would get the proper add ons.

158

Would you care to explain?

159

You can get good at a lot of things.

I’ve always used some kind of add on. But I used to be a clicker. A pretty good one too.

And even though I was good I got better when I stopped. I didn’t have to. I was succeeding. But I was always curious about a multi button mouse. When I finally got used to it I went from being good to really really good.

I suppose the same thing could be said for non vs add ons. You can be really good without add ons… You’ll just be better with them

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160

There is an adapter you can buy to hook up an xbox controller to your pc (it’s been a thing for a good many years now), and there are add ons that help you map it out to WoW.

161

The only addon that was required for me was things like healbot/clique.
But now that those are baseline I could easily play without any, everything I use is just QoL stuff.

162

This is why I switched to adibags!

Automatically sorts everything into labeled categories. Auto-sell junk with one click. Equipment sets stay together. I highly suggest people give it a try…game changer.