I don't know if anyone has said this yet but Mouseover IS baked in to the game in your settings you can check it to turn on the feature it is not on by default. The feature was added at the beginning of Dragonflight along with the UI update. I have noticed so many people sleeping on this feature I use it on all my characters. Also you can change the settings for the health bars so they don't overlap in the base UI.
@@reignbopanda3444 Since macros are in the game, can we say it was in the game since the release of vanilla? Hmmmm 🤔(btw, macro team here, too used to it)
I've played season 3 without any add-on as a healer, it was the funniest season I had, holy paladin, going 3.2K rio without a single add-on, I was more attentive to the environnement and I enjoyed the game way more. I think I'm gonna do it again
I guess we like very different things. Other then dragon riding, I find my self exactly opposite. I couldn't finish the video, just to toxic for me More power to you in the way you like to play. Just a comment to show people like very different things in wow.
IKR. "2nd monitor, nothing to do while backtracking" I despise endgame but I'm always leveling characters. Secret to enjoyment is getting fully immersed into the RPG and thinking about the journey rather than the destination.
The crests math you did was totally unecessary. It is not meant to be farmed like this. You get new crests tiers for higher difficult content. You just prefered to do it the insane way.
Good video, was fun watching you try to take another perspective on retail. I really don't understand why Blizzard thinks it's a good thing to have the current patch be the only content in the game worth doing. It makes everything else not just feel pointless, but be actually literally pointless unless you care about collecting cosmetics. As for solo stuff that offers a challenge, Mage Tower and Brawler's Guild used to be great for that, as was just solo questing before questing content got nerfed into the floor in Legion. Or maybe it's more appropriate to say players became so powerful that quest mobs became trivial and they just never adjusted mob health and damage to match.
That was my biggest drawback always when i resub to wow i remind myself about this: WHY THE HELL BLIZZARD LEAVE ALL THOSE ZONES IRRELEVANT? Why they dont make entire world live own life, npc travelling, caravanas attacked by bandits, some dragon take over village maybe seasons. Ye making that world alive, the idea was that players make this mmo world alive but they only sit in main cities waiting for group most of the time.
The giving you a useless item at the start isn't because of "old design", it's quite the opposite really. All the stat and level squishes has butchered the low level itemization to the point where most of the gear for 5-10 levels is relatively the same.
Yup! But I misunderstood the "None" option for mouseover, so I just tried playing like total idiot. Also i typically use clique to bind a healing and dps spell on one button, so the baked in mouseover options could still use that feature
to keep balance is the best way to play IMO, I have a lot of addons to do raids or m+ but when im bored with all that stuff i just create a new character, pick a zone that i don't know and turn off all the addons, you can set a UI option to switch between one interface and the other, so having a tryhard and a immersive ui setup is the best thing to do
The argument that you need to put "X" hours into a game before it starts becoming fun, it's suchan NPC take. A good game is a good game and you are going to fall in love with it in the first second.
I played wow a lot back in WotLK. But I dropped it after. When Season of discovery came back I was going to give it a try. But the launch was a disaster. Everyone was just killing the mob I needed for a quest and making fun about blocking people. It was shit. So I went to dragonflight. I started a shaman , and I played as a healer. I had a lot of fun. Tried installing add ons and decided it was too much for me. I did all the content in looking for group and looking for raid , including the last boss of the expansion in a span of 3 months. What I liked the most ? The centaur area. The quests were fun and the history kinda cool. I decided I just like questing. And that is fun. I like open world content. Even it the gear if gives me is shit. I got super hyped for Delves, and just bought another subscription. Just have been playing the pre release events to level alts and characters I found fun but never had the time to level. It has been a blast. I think someone said it here. Wow is a great game for causal playing and it sucks for competitive. Another thing I do is. Always spec in as many passives as possible and has little actives as possible. My shaman healer, with no macros and 2 clickable bars , has free spots on it. Skill bloat is to me the biggest issue with the game. Everything else I really enjoy. And professions, I gave up on those. Too complicated for me too.
In my 19 years of WoW, the only addon I ever actually installed was that officially endorsed Paggle addon that came out back in Wrath. That was pretty cool, I miss it....
Overall really good video, I think you hit a lot of important points. One minor nitpick on the healing section - this was only added in Dragonflight kinda quietly so I get missing it - mouse over healing was added to the base UI, very similar to Clique. You can use click casting or mouse overs, there is a toggle. It's found in the keybinds section at the top.
Yeah bro, let's give solo players in an MMOrpg where people constantly complain about lack of social interactions a way to get a heroic level end game gear. Let's just make this game even less social so that we can complain how nobody talks with other people.
26:02 saves absolutely nothing, yet it's efficient, only issue is, if you have a free gcd every time, than you're doing something wrong, the thing is - while gcd is happening, that's the time to hover mouse and click (since you'll be waiting for skill to be pressable)
Only real addons I use are a third person camera mod, a bag addon and an auctioneer one so I don't vendor anything rare on accident. Having no damage meters and a bunch of other shit filling half your screen is the way to play
14:10 arthas was literally written to be a tragic morally gray character lol. When he died we learn that he was fighting for control over his body that was dominated all this time. He literally had Janna's medallion on him this whole time
I noticed that during Burning Crusade when I started installing add-ons I actually started having less fun because I was more self conscious of how I was doing compared to others.
11:57 because, believe it or not, Blizzard still didn't have implemented the technology for that. Only by the time of Cataclysm (or was it Mists of Pandaria) that the conventional escort quests ceased to be and escrotee NPC's just followed you around like in the modern game. 25:35 "Mouseover should be baked into the base game already". It actually is. Check your options panel.
When you use no addons. You get many advantages. 1:You learn the mechanics, perfectly 2: No need to care if an update just accured. 3:Able to focus more on your performance, than on addons telling you what you should already know by this point. 4: just generally makes you a better player.
The problem is that harder fights are designed with addons in mind hence you`re putting yourself at a disadvantage. Which, at the end of the day doesn`t fucking matter but that`s how people like to argue. Imo: nuke all addons. Every last one of ehm
@@zirilan3398 I play in a mythic guild and top the charts in my dps spec. And on my tank I play perfectly. every mechanic has a visual, or audible Q.I use no addons at all. I just learned the Qs. Now allow of people in my guild do the same, and their performance has actually increased. because instead of wondering around mindless waiting for daddy to say "go here" they learn to simply know where to be based on the Qs. Allot of mythic raiders end up not really using addons. Cause we learn everything so well, that they actually just hinder your performance at that point. Allot of people are just ignorant, and have no idea what's going on because they RELY on addons to know for them. It's really not hard. Dark souls is far more difficult.
@@TheRandomDude-qy1ev That's nice but it doesn't make what was said untrue. The devs have openly talked about the fights being designed with weakauras and addons in mind. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it is the most advantageous. The top players in the world use addons, top raiding guilds, and top key pushers. If you're bragging about topping DPS charts that tells everyone how little you know about the game. Topping charts or even getting highest parses nowadays are so based on getting buffs from evokers and PI. Getting top parses is more about RNG then playerskill to a point. Also when you say you top the charts is that in your guild or the world? If it's the world why aren't you in echo or limit if you do so amazing without addons?
@@bradmiles1984 haha. I'm not in echo or anything special because I don't have the ambition to do so. I'm lazy, and often just don't play for a while. I do it merely because I get tired of needing to look at a ton of things, and listen to sounds. I want to enjoy the gameplay more than the mechanic. Of course I brag about topping the DPS chart, not sure how you'd think that makes me know very little. If you're doing all the mechanics perfectly, and you're doing top damage that only helps with progression, and the ability to push in both raids, and mythic+ keys at a high level. Very odd thing for you to say.
@@TheRandomDude-qy1ev The reason I say that is because topping dps is more about comp and kill times now then the individual player. Even top parsing players from top 50 guilds openly talk about this all the time. Max who leads limit/liquid has said on multiple streams when recruiting they don't look at parses they look at the player doing things in the encounter as a whole. Given that and you went out of your way to say you top the DPS charts is why I said you know little, the DPS chart for the most part is a meaningless thing. Also being top damage in your group just means your doing the most damage in your group it doesn't even mean you're doing good dps. It's very contextual to the group. If you are getting any external buffs that only one person can get like PI or evoker buff it greatly messes with the dps number. As I said before can high level play be done without addons but you're handicapping yourself quite a bit since the encounter design is done with addons in mind at the higher difficulties. Many of the devs have repeatedly said this.
20:36 open world content is actually fun lol, specially in DF, and SPECIALLY war mode with a friend or group, you got no idea what you're missing out on
All i use is bartender to rearrange bars. With the new uodate they were out of date so i ran a myrhic without it. Practically 0 difference. This add on talk is a bit out of control. I used to believe it but i think its mostly hype now
22:00 i feel this, i hate how so many people complain against solo gearing and push the idea of ONLY raids and dungeons and people stuff. I honestly dont knw if u were being sarcastic or not but I unironically want content i can do alone.
many WQs gives gear and upgrades, all of the events give gear. the mouse over is in the game now, the make ur own Ui is in the game. i dont think Dragonflight deserves all of this negative feed back. But yeah alot that was said here is true, but also alot is kinda taken abit too far.
Yes Blizzard is taking strides to bring in things from addons into the base game but not everything is there which is many still use elvui and other overhauls. Maybe a few xpacs don't the road they will have it all in base game.
Actually anything above LFR is almost impossible difficulty. You need to find a guild (well, normal and heroic can be pugged yeah, I know) that is ok for your schedule. And then you realise that you want to go out with friends/family/GF instead of raiding this night and you get benched.
You don’t need Addons to do well in this game I have multie CE Achives and gotten 0.1% title for m+ without needing addons screaming at me to dodge shit
Me and a friend are both 100 parsers, when we try to parse we turn weakauras and everything else off... the only addon i have is a horn sound for when i receive power infusion and Details!
Honestly i don't really mind using ui stuff i dont think i could drop those and go back but i can easily drop dbm, dps meters, weakaura's and basically anything that isnt ui. dbm imho is not needed at all it is helpful but you do not need it
i feel personally attacked by so many of these examples being made lol, especially the auto-run while flying, coming back and being dead to fatigue and have to take rez sickness.
Blizz should delete all acces to addons so you can just play the game for the fun of it and not chasing numbers, make friends in the game and have a adventure together making memories...
Yeah, would be a dream. Everything felt so much better before damage meter came and people were excluded just because they didn't follow the most optimized rotations or specs. In vanilla before damage meter we had our dagger rogue, combat rogue and hemorrhage rogue just to bring one of each and we all had our identity with different gears. Same with most of the classes. And we still had our server firsts and top europe kills. Quality of Life addons is one thing, but addons affecting the game, content, warnings and announcements etc for fights - it destroys everything and make you look more at the addons than the game. Before a raid leader was our most important leader followed by our class leaders in fights.
I'm really surprised by the button bloat discussion. I could see specifically if you mention Unholy DK, its kinda festered for too long with what its opener requires but even then the amount of keybinds in this game is significantly lower than some other mmo's on the market. Also DK's are getting reworked in war within with the unholy opener being targeted specifically as hopefully being fixed. Will have to see what happens with that so they are aware of outliers concerning bloat. In general dragonflight was designed in mind to have less requirements for addons overall. Now I will say theres a ton of QoL concerning some weakauras that did eventually come to the game through patches(specifically currency and things of that nature) but when it comes to raids I dont think you really need any addons if you really dont want to use them. I can count on one hand the outliers in the raid tiers that people only really used things because it was for mythic difficulty which the majority of the player base doesn't even do. Echo of Nelth was the biggest outlier, and if your raid team wasn't good enough to do it on the fly there were macros made to do cages and orbs on smolderon/fyrakk because of the private aura shenanigans. Again this is on mythic and if your team requires it. I play primarily with a base ui as a CE raider. The majority of addon complaints are honestly exaggerated in 2024. What I will agree with is some classes need better reading of their ability procs. Thats where outliers come in concerning specs. Some procs on the base ui do not have an internal popup(blizz's own spell alerts) and without them you have to drag the buff bar and memorize the icon when it pops up. Base ui doesn't let you set relevancy either so people instead just use weakauras to have the important info pop up instead. But blizzard is on record saying that the base ui improvements are there to do well for the majority of the game(which is does) and if you become more of an enthusiast you are allowed to experiment more with some qol auras/addons which makes sense. I don't really see an issue with this. Now it would be preferable if they did eventually put that in as a ui improvement(buff priority), ff14 while being against addons/plugins they have adopted some plugins and incorporated them into the base game... just as blizz has as well. I was gonna leave it there but you mentioned you aren't interested in dungeons/raids? I do think WoW honestly lacks solo gearing and options for fun things in comparison to other mmos. That being said delves are coming in the war within to help solve this lack of content and the final boss in delves will eventually lead to a mage tower specific encounter. Mage tower was one of the best solo additions to WoW in a long time and its a shame there hasn't been a similar addition since Legion. I haven't tested higher tier delves only the initial delves(im in the alpha) but I think its a good addition to the game and I'm excited for the final boss they've talked about.
Been playing WoW without addons since Legion. Sure I don't mythic raid. But I do mythic + and have been known to do heroic raids. It's not as needed as people make it out to be. Essentially when I was bored on WoD I subbed to FFXIV and cleared a ton of content and learned I liked wiping and figuring out the fights without the game always telling me what to do next. Felt like I accomplished something when I cleared it lol. (Although FFXIV has way better telegraphs so.)
@Spinninghead Yo man my wife and I started playing in BFA also and I could relate a lot to what you said in your experience in the game so far. Keep in mind Delves are coming out soon too in The War Within. That’s pretty much the solo content that it sounds like you’re looking for. Also the game has seriously had its ups and downs but it’s a community based game centralized around gearing systems so it’s always gonna have a bit of an uphill elitist feel to it in ways. However, playing with friends through mythic keys or gold making strategies is pretty fun too. Play other games too there’s tons of good RPGs out there. Bauldur’s gate 3, Elden ring, or try something totally new out like Hell divers 2 that shit was hype lol Good luck out there man, hope you have a good rest of your day.
I've seen a bit of Delves from streamers and so far, they just look like world quests in a scenario. Or Island Expeditions. Just running around clicking on objects while 1 shotting mobs. Hopefully the higher level Delves have more to offer. Also Baldur's Gate 3, definitely GOTY. Haven't touched Helldivers 2 or Elden Ring yet, but I have played all 3 Dark Souls games and they were fun. Now I just need a Time Machine to play all of the games.
Ive veen pmaying since 2004 and the only stuff i really use is auction addon, deadly boss mods, damage meter and titan panel. You dont really need much else
I actually came back to this game solo sucks im hoping to find a good guild sadly it been years since i have played and even longer since i had a great guild.
our power being reset every season is basically what keeps the game fresh mate, wtf? If I could keep my old gear and upgrade it to current ilvl then what's the point of gearing? every season has new bis gear to farm for, why would i want the old one?
I wish they'd ban all addons on all versions so pvp could be more about gamesense that about gladius+weak aura+ blah blah blah tellin me to fight or run.
1: You play World of Warcraft for the world, you play Guild Wars II because it's the "better game." 2: i was one of the best healers, people wanted me in their group. Then someone told me "use healbot USE HEALBOT" so i installed healbot... Didn't do anything except target me, i was supposed to just "mouse over" and press heal skill and it would heal that player? nothing worked. So i got rid of it. After doing a dungeon, someone remarked how they were glad i was using "healbot" and i told them i got rid of that none sense a long time ago. They never invited me to do another dungeon or raid, only because i refused to use "healbot" despite how well i was able to do my healing thing without it. 3: i firmly believe, if ARENANET did the "World" connectivity thing, combining all the different maps together without loading screen portals. They'd easily become number one. But they won't. Cause it would cost money.
Only add-ons I use are DBM and Details dps meter, you really don't need anything else. Nothing is wrong with the default UI BTW I've been using it all the time you just made it feel like a bad thing in this video. Just becuase you are used to these extra add-ons doesn't mean we all are.
Damn your comments about not enjoying stuff because you didn’t find the rewards interesting showed me we are indeed from a different age. I’ll have classic wow and it’s flawed quest systeem anytime over the new system 😅
this commentary is so bitter it makes the wow subreddit look blindly joyous by comparison. also, mouseover has been a base game thing since 2021. this challenge is hardly one.
I think nobody forgave Sylvanas. She aint a morally grey character. She is pretty much evil difference is she was good when she was alive. Shadowlands fcked up many sh*t especially with this whole "Frostmourne split souls in half" but at the end she kinda is fcked. I mean imagine somebody banishes you for A LONG LONG time to doing dailies in the maw. That sh*t is worse then death. That didnt even deserve Death Knight Arthas during his prime.
i got into wow 2005 and still playing. and ctch up gear sorta degrades the gear you get instantly classic did it best, you had gear, then you had t1, t2, t3, t4 it mattered and gave you an idea your level and status
IMO, catch-up gear is only a problem when the content of an MMO is scattered around in various raids, including old ones, such as in classic. Having catchup gear then invalidates a significant amount of the content. For retail i don't mind catchup gear, means I can play with other classes. It does become a problem for new players though, because once they level 70, they skip the learning part and are now applying to content they should not be in.
no, button bloat is not a thing i never want to go back to legion where 90% of the specs could be played on a xboxes dpad ... if you dont want so many buttons dont copy paste talents choose your own
I don't understand how the best players in wow want better gear than everyone else while still wanting more difficult content. They should get worse gear to make the game harder. There, I fixed the game.
this dude talking about "button bloat" as if 90% of heal specs theye days dont have a 3 button rotation that heals everyone, damages enemies, applies buffs, takes your kids to school AND pays your taxes for you
Thought provoking video. For me the last stop was Shadowlands. I never bought Dragonflight and won't buy War Within. The game is no longer tailored to me as I want an RPG first hand and an infinte dungeon grind second (I got the Diablo games for that).
Yeah, Shadowlands really burned a lot of people out of WoW. Dragonflight IS an improvement over it, grind-wise, but the game's content has honestly become too formulaic
I disagree with many points here. Nameplates: Overlapping is quite the same with addons (there are 2 nameplate motion modes and they are the same with or without addons). IMHO the base nameplates deliver mostly all of the basic features (castbars and debuffs), lacking only the ability to fine-tune the size. The most useful features of custom nameplates are custom coloring by target and different collors if your interrupt is not available. Targeting continues to suck even with the custom nameplates. Button bloat: blizzard has experimented simpler class design and button reduction, and then on Dragonflight it experimented the opposite way. The result is that Dragonflight became much more fun and players loved its class design. It has become clear that having ~22 buttons and complex class mechanics is CORE World of Warcraft and is not going away. What Blizz can do to make things better for new players is to streamline the process of setting the keybinds, giving a good initial preset with the keys around WASD (and shift/alt) instead of just throwing buttons at the player screen and tricking it to think that binding 1 to 10 is ok. Its fine if players are not properly using all of the buttons on easier content. Class buffs: one of the biggest problems of playing without addons is not properly seeing what buffs do you have, since the important buffs get lost in a sea of other buffs. This has gotten better with the buffs shown on the personal nameplate. I'd say its probably decently playable like this on most classes. 2 things that absolutely require addons: playing multiple specs and hard fights. Multiple specs: Its complicated to set up an UI for multiple specs because you want at the same time to order the buttons on a way that makes sense and to set up keybinds. You cannot do both with multiple specs since the keybinds are shared. So folks use the actions bar solely for keybinding (usually hiding them) and use addons for displaying the abilities cooldowns (instead of using the buttons for it). Hard fights: Some fights might have abilities which you must predict and take action before they happen. Some of these abilities don't have any visual clue, which brings up the need for BigWigs. I'm not even touching the design of final mythic bosses, which require people to coordinate a big number of spots in a few seconds.
I don't know if anyone has said this yet but Mouseover IS baked in to the game in your settings you can check it to turn on the feature it is not on by default. The feature was added at the beginning of Dragonflight along with the UI update. I have noticed so many people sleeping on this feature I use it on all my characters. Also you can change the settings for the health bars so they don't overlap in the base UI.
I had no idea mouseover was in the game, ive been using macros for eons
@@reignbopanda3444 It's a recent (but welcome) addition. You needed macros and addons for ages.
@@reignbopanda3444 Since macros are in the game, can we say it was in the game since the release of vanilla? Hmmmm 🤔(btw, macro team here, too used to it)
This is how I played for 19 years. I have no regrets
I've played season 3 without any add-on as a healer, it was the funniest season I had, holy paladin, going 3.2K rio without a single add-on, I was more attentive to the environnement and I enjoyed the game way more. I think I'm gonna do it again
I tried doing that . But default plater is just awful
weird flex but okay
@@Thrall966 +1
I hope Baldman will watch this video. Very nice points.
Here for baldman reaction 👩🦲
His opinion is not rly relevant anymore tho
I guess we like very different things. Other then dragon riding, I find my self exactly opposite. I couldn't finish the video, just to toxic for me
More power to you in the way you like to play. Just a comment to show people like very different things in wow.
@@lilithvanderzwaan552I agree, too many negative nancys recently
Baldman will appreciate the comedy for sure.
This video is just a really long way to say I have tiktok brain.
IKR. "2nd monitor, nothing to do while backtracking" I despise endgame but I'm always leveling characters. Secret to enjoyment is getting fully immersed into the RPG and thinking about the journey rather than the destination.
They’re adding delves in war within which are essentially solo dungeons and they’ll reward gear up to heroic dungeon level
isnt it heroic raid?
The crests math you did was totally unecessary. It is not meant to be farmed like this. You get new crests tiers for higher difficult content. You just prefered to do it the insane way.
the anduin roast tho
Good video, was fun watching you try to take another perspective on retail.
I really don't understand why Blizzard thinks it's a good thing to have the current patch be the only content in the game worth doing. It makes everything else not just feel pointless, but be actually literally pointless unless you care about collecting cosmetics.
As for solo stuff that offers a challenge, Mage Tower and Brawler's Guild used to be great for that, as was just solo questing before questing content got nerfed into the floor in Legion. Or maybe it's more appropriate to say players became so powerful that quest mobs became trivial and they just never adjusted mob health and damage to match.
That was my biggest drawback always when i resub to wow i remind myself about this: WHY THE HELL BLIZZARD LEAVE ALL THOSE ZONES IRRELEVANT?
Why they dont make entire world live own life, npc travelling, caravanas attacked by bandits, some dragon take over village maybe seasons. Ye making that world alive, the idea was that players make this mmo world alive but they only sit in main cities waiting for group most of the time.
The giving you a useless item at the start isn't because of "old design", it's quite the opposite really. All the stat and level squishes has butchered the low level itemization to the point where most of the gear for 5-10 levels is relatively the same.
Mouseover is baked in to the game, you dont need any addons for it, just check it from options
Yup! But I misunderstood the "None" option for mouseover, so I just tried playing like total idiot. Also i typically use clique to bind a healing and dps spell on one button, so the baked in mouseover options could still use that feature
thats okay, not understanding the settings is a fundamental part of "starting wow from scratch"
@@spinnincas7203 macro function solves this takes 3 mins to setup
@@spinnincas7203 There is also the "click Casting" mode wich is basically healbot, it still has its problems, but its usable
It doesn't even work for me. Had to make all macros in Remix just to heal.
How can you tell you are doing damage without a meter? Big yellow numbers on the boss.
17:06 why do i feel so called out 😂
it happens to all of us, gotta maximize that free time
Saaaame, the amount of times I would alt tab, forget about the game, and be dead in the middle of the ocean because of fatigue is unreal.
to keep balance is the best way to play IMO, I have a lot of addons to do raids or m+ but when im bored with all that stuff i just create a new character, pick a zone that i don't know and turn off all the addons, you can set a UI option to switch between one interface and the other, so having a tryhard and a immersive ui setup is the best thing to do
this video just kind of felt like a general thoughts on the game rather than a actual experience without addons
The argument that you need to put "X" hours into a game before it starts becoming fun, it's suchan NPC take. A good game is a good game and you are going to fall in love with it in the first second.
I've been playing without addons since legion. Best decision ever.
Great Video! Wish you the best of luck, can't wait for another update on your WoW adventures
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
I played wow a lot back in WotLK. But I dropped it after. When Season of discovery came back I was going to give it a try. But the launch was a disaster. Everyone was just killing the mob I needed for a quest and making fun about blocking people. It was shit.
So I went to dragonflight. I started a shaman , and I played as a healer. I had a lot of fun. Tried installing add ons and decided it was too much for me.
I did all the content in looking for group and looking for raid , including the last boss of the expansion in a span of 3 months. What I liked the most ? The centaur area. The quests were fun and the history kinda cool.
I decided I just like questing. And that is fun. I like open world content. Even it the gear if gives me is shit.
I got super hyped for Delves, and just bought another subscription. Just have been playing the pre release events to level alts and characters I found fun but never had the time to level.
It has been a blast.
I think someone said it here. Wow is a great game for causal playing and it sucks for competitive.
Another thing I do is. Always spec in as many passives as possible and has little actives as possible. My shaman healer, with no macros and 2 clickable bars , has free spots on it. Skill bloat is to me the biggest issue with the game. Everything else I really enjoy.
And professions, I gave up on those. Too complicated for me too.
In my 19 years of WoW, the only addon I ever actually installed was that officially endorsed Paggle addon that came out back in Wrath. That was pretty cool, I miss it....
Its the dude thinking the end of BFA was good for me 🤣
Overall really good video, I think you hit a lot of important points. One minor nitpick on the healing section - this was only added in Dragonflight kinda quietly so I get missing it - mouse over healing was added to the base UI, very similar to Clique. You can use click casting or mouse overs, there is a toggle. It's found in the keybinds section at the top.
I disagree with almost everything you say throughout the video, but found you perspective interesting nonetheless. Good vid!
Yeah bro, let's give solo players in an MMOrpg where people constantly complain about lack of social interactions a way to get a heroic level end game gear. Let's just make this game even less social so that we can complain how nobody talks with other people.
26:02 saves absolutely nothing, yet it's efficient, only issue is, if you have a free gcd every time, than you're doing something wrong, the thing is - while gcd is happening, that's the time to hover mouse and click (since you'll be waiting for skill to be pressable)
“…finished medical school.”
Oh nice dude, congrats doctor.
*proceeds to take me out back a few seconds later*
Only real addons I use are a third person camera mod, a bag addon and an auctioneer one so I don't vendor anything rare on accident. Having no damage meters and a bunch of other shit filling half your screen is the way to play
Mans playing cataclysm classic in retail.
14:10 arthas was literally written to be a tragic morally gray character lol. When he died we learn that he was fighting for control over his body that was dominated all this time. He literally had Janna's medallion on him this whole time
the only purely "evil" character we ever had in wow was Garrosh. Arthas? Not at all
I just use the mouse overs they added in dragon flight. I wish they added it to classic....
I noticed that during Burning Crusade when I started installing add-ons I actually started having less fun because I was more self conscious of how I was doing compared to others.
Delves! So excited.
11:57 because, believe it or not, Blizzard still didn't have implemented the technology for that. Only by the time of Cataclysm (or was it Mists of Pandaria) that the conventional escort quests ceased to be and escrotee NPC's just followed you around like in the modern game.
25:35 "Mouseover should be baked into the base game already". It actually is. Check your options panel.
When you use no addons. You get many advantages.
1:You learn the mechanics, perfectly
2: No need to care if an update just accured.
3:Able to focus more on your performance, than on addons telling you what you should already know by this point.
4: just generally makes you a better player.
The problem is that harder fights are designed with addons in mind hence you`re putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Which, at the end of the day doesn`t fucking matter but that`s how people like to argue. Imo: nuke all addons. Every last one of ehm
@@zirilan3398 I play in a mythic guild and top the charts in my dps spec. And on my tank I play perfectly.
every mechanic has a visual, or audible Q.I use no addons at all. I just learned the Qs. Now allow of people in my guild do the same, and their performance has actually increased. because instead of wondering around mindless waiting for daddy to say "go here" they learn to simply know where to be based on the Qs.
Allot of mythic raiders end up not really using addons. Cause we learn everything so well, that they actually just hinder your performance at that point.
Allot of people are just ignorant, and have no idea what's going on because they RELY on addons to know for them. It's really not hard.
Dark souls is far more difficult.
@@TheRandomDude-qy1ev That's nice but it doesn't make what was said untrue. The devs have openly talked about the fights being designed with weakauras and addons in mind. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it is the most advantageous. The top players in the world use addons, top raiding guilds, and top key pushers. If you're bragging about topping DPS charts that tells everyone how little you know about the game. Topping charts or even getting highest parses nowadays are so based on getting buffs from evokers and PI. Getting top parses is more about RNG then playerskill to a point. Also when you say you top the charts is that in your guild or the world? If it's the world why aren't you in echo or limit if you do so amazing without addons?
@@bradmiles1984 haha. I'm not in echo or anything special because I don't have the ambition to do so. I'm lazy, and often just don't play for a while.
I do it merely because I get tired of needing to look at a ton of things, and listen to sounds. I want to enjoy the gameplay more than the mechanic.
Of course I brag about topping the DPS chart, not sure how you'd think that makes me know very little. If you're doing all the mechanics perfectly, and you're doing top damage that only helps with progression, and the ability to push in both raids, and mythic+ keys at a high level. Very odd thing for you to say.
@@TheRandomDude-qy1ev The reason I say that is because topping dps is more about comp and kill times now then the individual player. Even top parsing players from top 50 guilds openly talk about this all the time. Max who leads limit/liquid has said on multiple streams when recruiting they don't look at parses they look at the player doing things in the encounter as a whole. Given that and you went out of your way to say you top the DPS charts is why I said you know little, the DPS chart for the most part is a meaningless thing.
Also being top damage in your group just means your doing the most damage in your group it doesn't even mean you're doing good dps. It's very contextual to the group. If you are getting any external buffs that only one person can get like PI or evoker buff it greatly messes with the dps number.
As I said before can high level play be done without addons but you're handicapping yourself quite a bit since the encounter design is done with addons in mind at the higher difficulties. Many of the devs have repeatedly said this.
good news future expansion they gona rework all zones to modern look new quest etc
mouse over is a part of the base game its in the settings you just have to put it on
20:36 open world content is actually fun lol, specially in DF, and SPECIALLY war mode with a friend or group, you got no idea what you're missing out on
Really well done video. Keep up the good work, man.
24:49 if you would check the option to NOT overlap nameplates, and instead stack them, that problem you have would magically disappear, insane right
7:00 classic zones summarized ("great lore of old wow")
All i use is bartender to rearrange bars. With the new uodate they were out of date so i ran a myrhic without it. Practically 0 difference. This add on talk is a bit out of control. I used to believe it but i think its mostly hype now
22:00 i feel this, i hate how so many people complain against solo gearing and push the idea of ONLY raids and dungeons and people stuff. I honestly dont knw if u were being sarcastic or not but I unironically want content i can do alone.
Having content to do alone is fine, but the best items in the game should be locked behind group content
~ signed, a solo & guildless casual player
many WQs gives gear and upgrades, all of the events give gear. the mouse over is in the game now, the make ur own Ui is in the game. i dont think Dragonflight deserves all of this negative feed back. But yeah alot that was said here is true, but also alot is kinda taken abit too far.
Yes Blizzard is taking strides to bring in things from addons into the base game but not everything is there which is many still use elvui and other overhauls. Maybe a few xpacs don't the road they will have it all in base game.
drawn in from the thumbanil, stayed for the voice
Noo no arthas didn't piss in the Sunwell.... he resurrected Kel'Thuzad to do it for him, as you do :D
Actually anything above LFR is almost impossible difficulty. You need to find a guild (well, normal and heroic can be pugged yeah, I know) that is ok for your schedule. And then you realise that you want to go out with friends/family/GF instead of raiding this night and you get benched.
You don’t need Addons to do well in this game I have multie CE Achives and gotten 0.1% title for m+ without needing addons screaming at me to dodge shit
Can you? Yes but is it advisable or practical? No. There is a reason the top raiding guilds and m+ teams use addons.
Me and a friend are both 100 parsers, when we try to parse we turn weakauras and everything else off... the only addon i have is a horn sound for when i receive power infusion and Details!
If you hit shift + M, it'll bring up a mini map you can size up and change the transparency.
Thanks, didn't know that
Bro, you are really good on writting and sense of humor. LOL. I need to catch-up on DOGG series btw. I'm late
Finally, maybe I'll know what these addons are for. If it were for me I'd have Less information on my screen
Honestly i don't really mind using ui stuff i dont think i could drop those and go back but i can easily drop dbm, dps meters, weakaura's and basically anything that isnt ui. dbm imho is not needed at all it is helpful but you do not need it
i feel personally attacked by so many of these examples being made lol, especially the auto-run while flying, coming back and being dead to fatigue and have to take rez sickness.
Blizz should delete all acces to addons so you can just play the game for the fun of it and not chasing numbers, make friends in the game and have a adventure together making memories...
Yeah, would be a dream. Everything felt so much better before damage meter came and people were excluded just because they didn't follow the most optimized rotations or specs. In vanilla before damage meter we had our dagger rogue, combat rogue and hemorrhage rogue just to bring one of each and we all had our identity with different gears. Same with most of the classes. And we still had our server firsts and top europe kills. Quality of Life addons is one thing, but addons affecting the game, content, warnings and announcements etc for fights - it destroys everything and make you look more at the addons than the game. Before a raid leader was our most important leader followed by our class leaders in fights.
@@BubbaSvensson damage meters were around in vanilla
The best way to enjoy WoW is having no idea what you're doing
Casual players are blessed
I actually agree on spell bloat.
Addons ruin raiding. They're crutches that tell people exactly what to do so they don't have to watch out for it themselves. It's WoW on easy mode.
Its fine to play even up to high heroic wirh only a damage meter. Mythic gets problematic because of some team weakauras
It’s so fun watching fresh retail mana users never ooming
In LFR, you either take no damage or someone is suddenly dead on the floor. Nothing much for a healer to do 😂
Having fond memories of BFA is WILD
I'm really surprised by the button bloat discussion. I could see specifically if you mention Unholy DK, its kinda festered for too long with what its opener requires but even then the amount of keybinds in this game is significantly lower than some other mmo's on the market. Also DK's are getting reworked in war within with the unholy opener being targeted specifically as hopefully being fixed. Will have to see what happens with that so they are aware of outliers concerning bloat.
In general dragonflight was designed in mind to have less requirements for addons overall. Now I will say theres a ton of QoL concerning some weakauras that did eventually come to the game through patches(specifically currency and things of that nature) but when it comes to raids I dont think you really need any addons if you really dont want to use them. I can count on one hand the outliers in the raid tiers that people only really used things because it was for mythic difficulty which the majority of the player base doesn't even do. Echo of Nelth was the biggest outlier, and if your raid team wasn't good enough to do it on the fly there were macros made to do cages and orbs on smolderon/fyrakk because of the private aura shenanigans. Again this is on mythic and if your team requires it. I play primarily with a base ui as a CE raider. The majority of addon complaints are honestly exaggerated in 2024. What I will agree with is some classes need better reading of their ability procs. Thats where outliers come in concerning specs. Some procs on the base ui do not have an internal popup(blizz's own spell alerts) and without them you have to drag the buff bar and memorize the icon when it pops up. Base ui doesn't let you set relevancy either so people instead just use weakauras to have the important info pop up instead. But blizzard is on record saying that the base ui improvements are there to do well for the majority of the game(which is does) and if you become more of an enthusiast you are allowed to experiment more with some qol auras/addons which makes sense. I don't really see an issue with this. Now it would be preferable if they did eventually put that in as a ui improvement(buff priority), ff14 while being against addons/plugins they have adopted some plugins and incorporated them into the base game... just as blizz has as well.
I was gonna leave it there but you mentioned you aren't interested in dungeons/raids? I do think WoW honestly lacks solo gearing and options for fun things in comparison to other mmos. That being said delves are coming in the war within to help solve this lack of content and the final boss in delves will eventually lead to a mage tower specific encounter. Mage tower was one of the best solo additions to WoW in a long time and its a shame there hasn't been a similar addition since Legion. I haven't tested higher tier delves only the initial delves(im in the alpha) but I think its a good addition to the game and I'm excited for the final boss they've talked about.
Welcome to the 1000th episode of "I am so pissed of by Shadowlands i'm gonna act as if it's the worst thing ever but i'm just a child"
I only use dps meter and coords from like always.
Been playing WoW without addons since Legion. Sure I don't mythic raid. But I do mythic + and have been known to do heroic raids. It's not as needed as people make it out to be. Essentially when I was bored on WoD I subbed to FFXIV and cleared a ton of content and learned I liked wiping and figuring out the fights without the game always telling me what to do next.
Felt like I accomplished something when I cleared it lol. (Although FFXIV has way better telegraphs so.)
lets be honest, MMORPGS lost his souls
@Spinninghead
Yo man my wife and I started playing in BFA also and I could relate a lot to what you said in your experience in the game so far. Keep in mind Delves are coming out soon too in The War Within. That’s pretty much the solo content that it sounds like you’re looking for.
Also the game has seriously had its ups and downs but it’s a community based game centralized around gearing systems so it’s always gonna have a bit of an uphill elitist feel to it in ways.
However, playing with friends through mythic keys or gold making strategies is pretty fun too. Play other games too there’s tons of good RPGs out there. Bauldur’s gate 3, Elden ring, or try something totally new out like Hell divers 2 that shit was hype lol
Good luck out there man, hope you have a good rest of your day.
I've seen a bit of Delves from streamers and so far, they just look like world quests in a scenario. Or Island Expeditions. Just running around clicking on objects while 1 shotting mobs. Hopefully the higher level Delves have more to offer.
Also Baldur's Gate 3, definitely GOTY. Haven't touched Helldivers 2 or Elden Ring yet, but I have played all 3 Dark Souls games and they were fun. Now I just need a Time Machine to play all of the games.
I was still in pain of Invincible not dropping.
Yeah.. you lost me at the "other lady" no one talks like that about Anduin.
Well, after seeing him in the War Within Trailer, we can never disrespect him ever again
24:58 alt tab? who tf alt tabs to change targets, you alt tab to change windows on your pc mate
Ive veen pmaying since 2004 and the only stuff i really use is auction addon, deadly boss mods, damage meter and titan panel. You dont really need much else
I actually came back to this game solo sucks im hoping to find a good guild sadly it been years since i have played and even longer since i had a great guild.
our power being reset every season is basically what keeps the game fresh mate, wtf? If I could keep my old gear and upgrade it to current ilvl then what's the point of gearing? every season has new bis gear to farm for, why would i want the old one?
I wish they'd ban all addons on all versions so pvp could be more about gamesense that about gladius+weak aura+ blah blah blah tellin me to fight or run.
Holy fuck, the intro is so relatable
1: You play World of Warcraft for the world, you play Guild Wars II because it's the "better game."
2: i was one of the best healers, people wanted me in their group. Then someone told me "use healbot USE HEALBOT" so i installed healbot... Didn't do anything except target me, i was supposed to just "mouse over" and press heal skill and it would heal that player? nothing worked. So i got rid of it. After doing a dungeon, someone remarked how they were glad i was using "healbot" and i told them i got rid of that none sense a long time ago. They never invited me to do another dungeon or raid, only because i refused to use "healbot" despite how well i was able to do my healing thing without it.
3: i firmly believe, if ARENANET did the "World" connectivity thing, combining all the different maps together without loading screen portals. They'd easily become number one. But they won't. Cause it would cost money.
another guy who is showing us he played WOW, good boy :))
Only add-ons I use are DBM and Details dps meter, you really don't need anything else. Nothing is wrong with the default UI BTW I've been using it all the time you just made it feel like a bad thing in this video. Just becuase you are used to these extra add-ons doesn't mean we all are.
And even then, only need DBM for the pull timer.
Been playing without mods for 16+ year's... I get a lot of hate from the discord Mafia .. but those sweaty nerd's can touch Grass... I do what I want
Damn your comments about not enjoying stuff because you didn’t find the rewards interesting showed me we are indeed from a different age.
I’ll have classic wow and it’s flawed quest systeem anytime over the new system 😅
this commentary is so bitter it makes the wow subreddit look blindly joyous by comparison.
also, mouseover has been a base game thing since 2021. this challenge is hardly one.
its almost like retail WoW has every addon you could possibly need built in. it isn't Classic.
I think nobody forgave Sylvanas. She aint a morally grey character. She is pretty much evil difference is she was good when she was alive. Shadowlands fcked up many sh*t especially with this whole "Frostmourne split souls in half" but at the end she kinda is fcked. I mean imagine somebody banishes you for A LONG LONG time to doing dailies in the maw.
That sh*t is worse then death. That didnt even deserve Death Knight Arthas during his prime.
i got into wow 2005 and still playing. and ctch up gear sorta degrades the gear you get instantly classic did it best, you had gear, then you had t1, t2, t3, t4 it mattered and gave you an idea your level and status
IMO, catch-up gear is only a problem when the content of an MMO is scattered around in various raids, including old ones, such as in classic. Having catchup gear then invalidates a significant amount of the content. For retail i don't mind catchup gear, means I can play with other classes. It does become a problem for new players though, because once they level 70, they skip the learning part and are now applying to content they should not be in.
Great video, keep up the good work
danm this is chill! love it
I played the better part of 20 years of it without add ons including arenas last season.
I’ve played thousands of hours without addons.
no, button bloat is not a thing i never want to go back to legion where 90% of the specs could be played on a xboxes dpad ... if you dont want so many buttons dont copy paste talents choose your own
imagine hating on WoW for the singular thing that makes it unique and successful lol.
I don't understand how the best players in wow want better gear than everyone else while still wanting more difficult content. They should get worse gear to make the game harder. There, I fixed the game.
I played the first 4 years without Addons
Poor guy played 100 hours WOW. Rest in peace 🙏
I have Player 8000 Hours over 14 years 😅😅😅
this dude talking about "button bloat" as if 90% of heal specs theye days dont have a 3 button rotation that heals everyone, damages enemies, applies buffs, takes your kids to school AND pays your taxes for you
Great video! Would love more wow content
Visions of Nzoth was in 8.3 not 7.3 , but no worries mate =)
I don’t ever use add-ons. So I really don’t miss the good old days…. 😂. 😘
Thought provoking video. For me the last stop was Shadowlands. I never bought Dragonflight and won't buy War Within. The game is no longer tailored to me as I want an RPG first hand and an infinte dungeon grind second (I got the Diablo games for that).
Yeah, Shadowlands really burned a lot of people out of WoW. Dragonflight IS an improvement over it, grind-wise, but the game's content has honestly become too formulaic
I think Pandaria was the last expansion that was REALLY WoW. After that the game changed too much and sadly I would say for worse. :/
good video hope zack sees it and share your channel
I disagree with many points here.
Nameplates: Overlapping is quite the same with addons (there are 2 nameplate motion modes and they are the same with or without addons). IMHO the base nameplates deliver mostly all of the basic features (castbars and debuffs), lacking only the ability to fine-tune the size. The most useful features of custom nameplates are custom coloring by target and different collors if your interrupt is not available. Targeting continues to suck even with the custom nameplates.
Button bloat: blizzard has experimented simpler class design and button reduction, and then on Dragonflight it experimented the opposite way. The result is that Dragonflight became much more fun and players loved its class design. It has become clear that having ~22 buttons and complex class mechanics is CORE World of Warcraft and is not going away. What Blizz can do to make things better for new players is to streamline the process of setting the keybinds, giving a good initial preset with the keys around WASD (and shift/alt) instead of just throwing buttons at the player screen and tricking it to think that binding 1 to 10 is ok. Its fine if players are not properly using all of the buttons on easier content.
Class buffs: one of the biggest problems of playing without addons is not properly seeing what buffs do you have, since the important buffs get lost in a sea of other buffs. This has gotten better with the buffs shown on the personal nameplate. I'd say its probably decently playable like this on most classes.
2 things that absolutely require addons: playing multiple specs and hard fights.
Multiple specs: Its complicated to set up an UI for multiple specs because you want at the same time to order the buttons on a way that makes sense and to set up keybinds. You cannot do both with multiple specs since the keybinds are shared. So folks use the actions bar solely for keybinding (usually hiding them) and use addons for displaying the abilities cooldowns (instead of using the buttons for it).
Hard fights: Some fights might have abilities which you must predict and take action before they happen. Some of these abilities don't have any visual clue, which brings up the need for BigWigs. I'm not even touching the design of final mythic bosses, which require people to coordinate a big number of spots in a few seconds.
Playing retail without addons isn't hard to do. Just have to pay attention more and know on what you are doing.