Purists rejoice!
by Marcie Knox 
Feb 7th 2008 at 4:00PM
To me, there are 3 types of WoW players out there: the Purists, the Moderates, and the Borg. The first group swears off any addons that aren't expliticly required by their guilds. You'll see them writhe in pain as they download the latest version of Omen. I'm probably in the Moderates group. If it's a useful addon, I'm happy to install it, but I'm mindful of what a drain on my system some of them can be. The Borg pretty much have every addon they've ever seen mentioned. Trivia game? Got it! Chat mod that moves all my channels into new windows (which you can actually do on your own, kk)? It's right here!
Well, with Patch 2.4, the Purists are getting an upgrade to the default Raid UI. Rislyn says "The Raid UI now can display the range of players relative to you. The option to enable this is in the Party & Raid section of the UI Options." Now, this functionality has been available via RaidRangeAid V2 for a long time now, but personally I never understood why it wasn't built in to begin with. I mean, my spells always know who's close enough, so why not my frames?
Besides the Purists, I think this will mostly benefit the raid's dps and tanks since most don't need a super powerful Raid UI to just check who's dead. I can see this helping the raid leads see at a glance who's at the start point after a wipe before rolling out the ready check. Mages could use the default UI to decurse since it already handles debuff indication. And I'm not talking about just PvE raids. I can see this helping in BG's, too.
From a healing standpoint, I don't see much change. If you're already using the default UI, then you'll have the added bonus of beig more effective. If you're using one of a number of Raid UI addons, you're not going to give up the functionality and style of those for the default. I think a lot more than range would be needed before you start to see healing converts.
What kind of addon player are you? Will this change make you go back to the default Raid UI or were you using it already?
[Thanks to Tam.Zed for the tip!]
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Add-Ons, Raiding, Battlegrounds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LostOne Feb 7th 2008 4:20PM
I used to think I was a borg level user, but a while back there was an article on here where the comments devolved into a "I have X addons" and I found out I'm closer to moderate than I thought. :)
I had also heard that at some point something like Omen will be implemented in the blizzard UI.
Voyager Feb 7th 2008 4:23PM
This sounds amazing. I am a PvE healer and I would consider myself a minimalist. I only have some of the useful addons. Omen, Atlas, and a damage meter are pretty much it. I have been wanting to go out and find an addon that does exactly this, show who is in range and what not, but honestly I am too lazy...
I can't wait for 2.4 now..
mike Feb 7th 2008 4:34PM
Purists are the same ones that refuse to use any type of map coord mods, but will spam chat channel asking where a NPC is or a quest objective is (because they think it's cheating), then say "sorry I dont have coords" when someone trys to help them out.
Same people refuse to alt-tab out and hit thottbot.
Zhalseran Feb 7th 2008 4:41PM
Definateley a borg. I've been meaning to work towards being more moderate since my load times take forever, but who knows if I ever will
David(Postal) Feb 7th 2008 4:47PM
We are Borg(ACE) you will be assimilated, resistance is futile. Glad to see blizzard adding more UI
darian Feb 7th 2008 5:03PM
Misleading title! I thought Blizzard had finally implemented their threat meter.
Alas.
Sean Riley Feb 7th 2008 5:24PM
I trend purist, but the exception is for roleplay addons. Those things are essential if you want to do decent roleplaying -- It's just impossible to find the roleplayers otherwise.
As for co-ordinates, I don't have a co-ordinate addon... but I do use a macro to find my current co-ordinates and I can judge from there.
Naix Feb 7th 2008 5:39PM
I am a purist. The only addon I have is WorldMapInfo. Anything else takes away from the challenge. I have main healed for every raid our guild has had with no problems.
Addons are no substitute for skill.
Jellodyne Feb 7th 2008 6:18PM
I'm sure you're a fine healer, but if you're looking at Blizzard's raid frames and I'm looking at X-Perl I've got a whole lot more info in my face for effective, split second decision making than you do. Yeah, if you're a good player you could probably do without. But odds are you'd do better. And if you're not a skilled player, having more information probably isn't going to turn that around.
PeeWee Feb 7th 2008 6:53PM
Take a good player and supply him with more information such as what you get from Pitbull, and he'll still be a good player.
Take a shitty player and give him all the addons in the world... Guess what? He's still a shitty player! Sort of like the utter nab healadin I accidently PUG:ed into Mech with... who ran into melee and got squashed by the AE and cast his healing after each fight, and none during. Why? "I get interrupted." No shit, Sherlock? I really wish I could stab people in the face over the 'net.
That bloke wouldn't be a good healer even if all it took was spamming any key on the keyboard.
Anyways, I've already said this in a comment to a post like this one... Let the Borg do it they way they prefer, and the purists the way they prefer... as long as either way doesn't effect the raid or guild performance.
daedhir Feb 7th 2008 7:02PM
BorgAce2 FTW.
If only my load times weren't horrible...
I think I'd completely freak out if my UI wasn't completely modded. (I also do this on all of my computers, except when I'm on Vista. That's a house of cards that'll fall easily if I even touch it.)
Of course, I generally hate patch days... C'est la vie.
Lunati Feb 7th 2008 7:43PM
I've slowly been replacing my entire UI, but... I tend more towards vanilla than adding addons :)
I had a totally vanilla interface for the longest time, but I've gradually added more and more, and now... I have a new look, but I left in what I liked.
Most of my addons are just to customize look and layout, but I don't go for cartographer or any of those things. And auctioneer for keeping track of things and posting those 50 stacks of netherweave in my bags.
Fel Feb 7th 2008 7:51PM
I'm a Borg. I don't spend a whole lot of time customizing all my addons, but I do use a lot of them.
I can definitely understand a Purist's point of view, but that's just not my style.
Dave Feb 7th 2008 7:53PM
Auctioneer isn't that bad, if you're using it intelligently.
Have a bank alt. Only do your auctioning on a bank alt.
Never load auctioneer on any character other than that bank alt. (nothing you can buy on the AH is BOP, so why do you neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed to buy it with your main or the character you're equipping something with anyway?).
Thus, you're never getting Auctioneer loaded by anything except the single character you're using for nothing BUT Auctioneer. This is more or less the way it was meant to be used I think, but some people have severe OCD and have to have everything all the time or something.
Plus, I think a lot of people overstate the negative memory aspect of mods. Unless you're running on a really old computer that has less than 1GB of memory, I don't think there's any real negative performance you can see from the vast majority of mods. It's definitely not an issue of running more mods translating into a definite performance loss, since I've got varying degrees of mod setups for my characters (very minimal when leveling, and increasing amounts depending on what the characters are doing at 70) and there's no noticeable difference for me when I have 40mb of mods loaded and 80mb. If you're seeing performance hits, it's almost always individual mods that are poorly made and there's usually an appropriate substitute around since a lot of people don't like that stuff and the mod community is pretty responsive to that.
There are plenty of reasons to shy away from mods i suppose, but memory usage isn't a very logical one.
Eternalpayn Feb 8th 2008 7:29AM
I'm kind of moderate. I use omen, cartographer, auctioneer and all of that stuff, fubar (with some very convenient stuff, some completely useless) and anything that I think could be useful.
However, purists are in for a lot of good things soon. With WOTLK, there will be a threatmeter, and something like DBM. Now, I don't like the concept of a DBM built in, because it takes away the element of suprise when people first play an encounter. Hopefully when they say that, they mean they will be adding in more boss yells, like one that is 30 seconds before something happens, one 10, then one of them 1 second before it happens. Or maybe a different log for boss yells, like a chat log, combat log, boss log.
heruval Feb 8th 2008 9:09AM
I would say I'm a moderate even though I use many mods. I will remove a mod when it stops being useful to me. I'm always looking to see what mods I can get rid of.
I play a Warlock and my guild has cleared all BC bosses with the exception of Illidan. That being said, I don't think I would play WoW without addons. Too many UI elements are left out of the default Blizzard UI.
Addons make the game more enjoyable. And for those that say using addons is cheating, well Blizzard wrote the mod API for a reason. Some tips:
-Use Ace2 mods when possible (better memory conservation and quality)
-Go to files.wowace.com and browse the descriptions of mods (you may find something useful)
-It helps if you like tinkering with software. Most mods require some configuration to be really useful to you.
-Update your mods regularly (Use WoWAceUpdater to keep your mods up to date)
Orin Feb 8th 2008 8:38AM
I am Borg. Resistance is futile.
Azunel Feb 8th 2008 12:45PM
I too am borg. Good thing Mazzle does all the work for me.