World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

It is hard to think of an addon that is any more pervasive in the game World of Warcraft than the addon that wins our Best Raiding Addon award.  This addon has been used for years by more players than probably any other addon out there, and is considered a requirement by pretty much every raiding guild out there.  I am of course speaking about Deadly Boss Mods, more commonly referred to as DBM.

Deadly Boss Mods

Deadly Boss Mods is an addon that helps to simplify raid encounters by announcing different encounter mechanics so that you are never caught out by something.  It shares this information in multiple different ways.  Just a few of the ways that DBM will help you and share information are:

• Flash messages on the screen showing information.
• Play sound clips or effects to announce key mechanics
• It will have your character emote a message affected by a key mechanic in the fight.
• Displays show proximity alerts if you get to close to another player in a fight that requires you to keep range between players.
• Displays countdown timers to pre-warn you about timed mechanics.
• Display health bars for all bosses at once when fighting multiple boss encounters.

Deadly Boss Mods is also heavily customizable and configurable.  You can change the layout, sizes, positions, and even textures of almost everything that DBM does. 

Probably the best thing about DBM, and what makes it so deserving of an award, is that despite all the information it provides and all the configuration options available, you never really think about it as an addon.  Nor do you “need” to use any of the configuration or customization features at all. That’s right, the authors have done such a good job with setting up DBM that most players will never have to look at the configuration options, never mind change them.  Almost everyone I know, runs this mod bare bones out of the box.  They install it, let it run, and never even think about it again. 

In fact while travelling recently with a new laptop, I had forgotten to install my addons before leaving and when I jumped into a raid without DBM installed it took my by surprise just how much was not part of WoW.  So many of the alerts, sounds, and information that I was used to seeing were not there.  I had gotten so used to DBM as a mod, and it all took place so seamlessly, that I had forgotten what was provided by DBM and what was provided by WoW.  If that is not a sign of a great addon I don’t know what is.