Yes but blizzard have even stated
The reason the games gotten so fast pace is because of the existance of DBM and other add-ons. They balance the game surrounding it. So they’ve basically ramped up the speed and difficulty to match
Tbh I’d argue they wouldn’t get that easy
However I feel raid bosses wouldn’t be quite as exciting without the addons
Argus the unmaker was a amazing fight prolly one of my favourites, however that fight would have been ridiculous without dbm and things.
I think these add-ons allow the company to go all out and rely on these add-ons to make it accessable haha
I find them essential because Blizzard does a piss poor job of notifying you about encounter mechanics. They are positive for the game because Blizzard’s standard design is incompetent.
Wow’s long since moved on from the days of ‘classic’ / ‘vanilla’ where end game bosses like Rag have roughly three mechanics: melee disperse that knocks players bout, fire blast that hurts someone a lot and disperses some players around said person and submerge with a few add spawns.
We have so many things going on in a raid at once, that’s not even including multiple debuffs and numerous other things (like using the cloak in N’Zoth at the right times.)
Even with the addon it’s still pretty it can be pretty easy to die at times - difficulty lvl depending.
Good god there are so many 2iq takes in this thread.
Addons aren’t required outside of top mythic raiding and even then addons can’t play the game for you, they give information on when certain things happen but its up to you what to do with that information for example dbm can tell you when anguish is going to happen on nzoth but it can’t tell you where to move or how to spread.
Its choreographed fine most mechanics have targeting circles and the ones that don’t occur on set intervals like when a boss reaches 100 energy.
I think it depends on how people use these addons. Ideally they are used to learn and understand the fights and to make it easier to connect ingame clues to mechanics (there is often a voice line or emote etc the boss does). But using addons to blindly follow them without even trying to learn the actual fight is bad for both the game and the players themselves.
A good example of this was the Elegon fight in Mogushan Vaults back in MoP; floor despawns and ppl who fell were like “wtf my DBM didn’t warn me”. Yeah, but if you had been paying attention to the actual game you are playing you would have know when to move out.
TL:DR Using DBM and similar addons as a helper is good, blindly following what is says and turning brain off is bad.
Both of them have a variety of effects on the playerbase, which can be said are both negative and positive.
The positive side of it is that it opens up higher difficulties to a broader audience. With it you do not need to have calculator level memory to remember the timers and your responses to it. This way more players can enter into higher tier raiding, and it also helps counter the fact that Blizzard isn’t really good in telegraphing their mechanics correctly (not to the level FF14 does.)
For those who do have better memory to remember these timers it is still benefitial, because it lowers the learning curve, and thus you and your group take less wipes to progress through bosses and learn specifically tricky phases.
The drawback of it is that fights are designed with these addons in mind, which means that they gradually become semi-mandatory if you want to do higher tier content.
In the end I feel that the positives counter-act the negatives in this case. Without them it would take longer for people to learn the fights, and it would close out people who wouldn’t be able to memorise every single mechanic. It would also make call outs way more problematic for the raid leader, who already has enough to deal with.
Timers are a thing in FFXIV though even if SE doesn’t officially support addons(same as damage meters)
Thanks for all the replies, some interesting points i didnt think about, like is it actually easier with the addons if the fights are made with the addons in mind. but shouldn’t the addons then be incorporated into the game and not be a addon.
anyhow thank you for the thoughts
Yeah but timers arnt third party… and again, design wise, theyr high tier raids dont really need to.
I agree, savage is totally fine without them. Just pointing out that people still use them.
Content would definitely be much more difficult. But maybe its intended to be more difficult than it currently is with DBM.
I’ve had it turned off over the last month or so and it certain things feel harder, but in a good way, like I actually have to pay attention and not just wait for a ‘warning’. Feels nice to have it off but some things, I imagine, would be incredibly difficult without it.
Incorrect.
Without WA and BW (or DBM), I’d probably quit WoW. It saves me so much mind space to try and remember everything when I can make visual and sound notifications for what I need.
what is a DBM and a WA?
are they addons ??
i thought only bad players need addons?
in which case where can i download them ? 
Did you progress M nzoth without using any of them and even your raid leader not using it because you know raid leaders talk about abilities incoming sometimes… ?
No, I’ve never even progressed mythic n’zoth.
I’m just saying it’s very possible to do so. Personally I rarely even look at timers once I’ve done a boss enough times, as you just learn the timings of everything anyway.
And I don’t really use weakauras a whole lot either.
Espewcially from a pro raider who doesnt raid or do mythic keystones 
Obviously a fight becomes muscle memory once you’ve done it enough times but addons make that memorisation process much faster.
You should, weakauras can do literally everything all the way from making ui elements to boss timers.
yes i am the best raider glad u can tell