A salute to addons

Every once in a while I see a thread about healing addons. Someone asking if others use them. Someone asking which one is better. Someone asking the developers to get rid of them.

Every single time someone responds they don't use healing addons and the default ui is just fine. Someone else responds they always use them. Someone else responds that addons are a crutch. And someone else says you can't perform as well without them. Every single time.

I love addons. I use them. I feel like they make me a better player in some cases. I admit I don't really believe players who only use the default ui perform as well as those who use it. For instance does the default ui keep track of HoTs and incoming heals from other players? However I'm sure they perform okay and for the majority of us that's good enough.

But my real reason for this post is I decided to accumulate a bunch of blossoms (fire festival currency) for one of the (current world event) Midsummer Fire Festival rewards. I didn't want to bother with figuring out all the places I should go. Several areas you visit give you blossoms either for "honoring" your faction's bonfire or "desecrating" the opposite faction's. I did it last year and kinda enjoyed it then, however I wasn't looking forward to doing it again this time. But I wanted that darn reward! For the past few days I tried to mount up and do a few and ended up logging off because I just couldn't get into it.

Enter "TourGuide - Alliance Midsummer Fire Festival Guide" addon! I consider it my Triple A triptik to visiting all the places I need to. Now what was going to be a chore will be a nice checklist to work off of.

I was irritated. I thought to myself if I'm irritated by this I know someone else out of 12 million (probably more by now) is too and has written a mod for it. Well maybe they weren't irritated but just wanted to be helpful. Either way I was right.

Thanks addon author Rahnlin! You made my day!

/salute to you and others