This game badly needs mods and macros.

I think you missed my point with the "Strike and Sundering Strike" example... I tried to keep it simple, but it seems to have flew right past you. Read the final sentence of the quote.

Oh and in response to the first point you made. It may require the same amount of key presses. But it doesn't require the same coordinated movements of your hand moving to different keys on your keyboard.

And finally, to respond to the last comment you left. If you can't consistently effectively coordinate your fingers and hand to press ctrl or shift plus a number key then I guess you just can't. Sh*t happens. You miss a key at times and you lose. That's the way it goes. Just similar to the fact that if you play soccer and the ball hits off of your foot the wrong way because you didn't execute as well as you could have even though you're capable. Too bad, so sad. Practice and get better...
Sure SWTOR is a game, and so is soccer. The players who can perform better consistently are considered the best in both cases.

This is hilarious to me. You're blaming macros for blizzards inability to balance classes since vanilla? And your argument is Hunters?!?!?!?!?!?!? Right, I played a hunter in vanilla, through lich king, there rotation at most was like 2 buttons, TOPS. Spamming steady shot on mag doing 1k dps in a top 100 guild while the closest behind me was melee classes at I think 600 tops? Just in case you didn't know, melee stood there the whole fight. And you're blaming macros? Wow, just wow.

Makes you wonder why people like you need macros, huh?

Good thing Bioware isn't allowing them.

Oh and also, I like how you take my example of macro abuse, and totally ignore anything above the said example. Which is the real MEAT of the said post.

some common misconceptions that I see thrown around here. I'd like to address them,

1. "They aren't needed, the difficulty level is easy enough to get by without them"

That may or may not be true. However, for myself and a large subset of the community difficult encounters are what makes the PvE endgame for us interesting. If bosses are going to stay on a relatively equal and simple level, then the game isn't what I am looking for and I will gladly leave it, no complaints. I assume (perhaps falsely) that as the game will increase in difficulty as time goes by at the endgame heroic/nightmare level.

2. "The game shouldn't be balanced around me needing macros or mods to succeed."

For starters, its hard to debate balance when you don't know their long term plans. If they plan to increase the difficulty level to the point add-ons and meters are necessary, then people who weren't using them would be screwed without them anyway. I'd argue that they are close to that level already, since most of the people clearing nightmare mode raids were per-existing guilds that already mastered coordination and working as a group, something that most pugs and guilds can't do on the level required. Until I see PUGs clearing nightmare content on a regular basis, then you can't really argue that the game isn't too hard.

3. "Addons are generally social bully material in a nutshell."

This is false. Addons are a tool that when used correctly provide tons of information that you might or would most likely be unable to know otherwise. When used incorrectly they have issues, just like any other tool. Someone murdered someone else by using a hammer. Do we tell everyone that hammers are banned?

4. "Improvements and customization to the UI is upcoming, there's no need for addons except to trivialize game content and create unbalance. "

What addons do you speak of? A combat log with a built in or addon type parser don't trivialize the game. In fact, in many cases they make content more able to be downed.

People always like to give the example "but the boss died, why do you need to know who did what" I don't need to know that stuff for when the boss dies. I need it to know why the boss DIDN'T.

There seems to be a large portion of the playerbase under the assumption that things will just roll over and die in every level of content. What happens when something doesn't and no one is able to pinpoint why? What happens when you are completely sure that nobody got hit with anything, yet the boss fipped out 10 min later and killed everyone? How do you improve? Do you just keep trying till the boss dies? What happens if he doesn't? How long will it take before you stop having fun and start becoming frustrated?

5. "I very much like a game where skill is king and not the number of addons you're running that do things for you tyvm."

That's the beauty of making addons optional. You can chose to play without them and be super awesome and super skilled...or not, because it would be impossible to tell in a PvE scenario exactly how well you are doing in comparison to everyone else, but ok.

Add-ons (at least the ones I am talking about) won't do anything the game doesn't already do. That proc you got that is super small and you can barely make out because the UI is so bad? Now its bigger. Seeing how much time you have left on a DoT that is so tiny, again because of the abysmal UI? Now its bigger.

I think a lot of people are afraid of a DBM like addon coming back. Personally, I have no problem with DBM because I've seen people still get hit with crap despite it going off (seriously, 350 HRag attempts and we still had a few idiots getting hit with stuff in P1, but I digress) but I would be more then fine if something similar didn't make it into the game.

6. "A game that has no addons means everyone is playing under the same exact conditions"

Well, I hate to break it to you but people aren't. Anyone using a Razor Mouse/Keyboard or a G15 are already at an advantage compared to people without. Anyone with a better connection is already ahead of someone on wireless. Anyone with a high end gaming machine getting very little lag, 60+ FPS on high (medium, lol) who can see people farther off has an advantage to someone playing on a laptop with an integrated card, getting 20 FPS on low with all the settings turned down so that they can't see someone till they are on top of them.

I'd post more, but most of the anti addon/damage meter squad aren't interested in hearing what people want to say. I trust Bioware knows what is right and I'm fairly certain they are coming anyway, so I guess this is moot. I just don't see why people care what I use in my UI.

Don't need macros to spam steady shot, bro.

Oh, I know (look at my sig ). However, given that a very large percentage of the people reading this thread don't recognize the correct usage, I was using it in their vernacular. Fight one battle at a time, ya know? Let's get them understanding that addons aren't cheating first, hey?

I don't need to go back and read your post. I shouldn't be required to twist my hand around in an awkward fashion that gives me carpel-tunnel after extended usage. I already use 19 keybindings for my standard gameplay with no issue. If I want to whittle that down to 12-15 keybindings instead, because it gives me room for other abilities that I don't necessarily use as often, who the hell are you to call my skill level into question?

I won't even go into the fact that we're talking about a freaking video game. It's not like this is a sport that requires physical conditioning or fine motor control. We're talking about how many buttons we need to push on a keyboard.

If the number of keybindings you need to memorize is really that much of an indicator of skill to you, I'd like to point you in the direction of NetHack. You'll have a blast trying to memorize the hundreds of key combinations in that game, and you can brag all you want.

If you can macro all your abilities into one button and spam it and be effective, you're already playing a broken game made for the mentally disabled. That's why in modern WoW dps classes have random procs that build up buffs that do things like make usually expensive, casted abilities become instacast and free, and boss fights that require you to move and react so you have to time ability use around movement.

If the game you're playing is so simplistic you can do that, you should either buy a macro mouse, or hell, just bind every ability to the number pad and slam it repeatedly with your palm. Be sure to drool while you're at it.

Macros can't break a game that isn't already broken.

So you are back peddling? Nice... Don't think im some clown who ha snever played MMO's before. Addon's ar enot needed. They are just by people to make them look good. A false sense of "skill". If you need macros and addon's to play then you are not skilled what so ever. You ar relying on a 3rd party program to do it for you.

Hence addons, mods, etc = easy mode. And anyone who says they need them = skilless noob. It is that freaking simple.

Now stop being a turncoat. You cant tell me WAR Buddy is one thing, and then do a complete backflip and tell someone else that its something different. What is it if you are the all knowing guru?

If something like WAR Buddy could be used, then there is nothing stopping people from creating addons/mods for SWTOR that do the same. Yes the Dev's will then stop it, but then something new will come out. Its a constant evolution.
So if you leave them out and do not allow skilless noobs to do such things whilst addressing the UI issues (which they have said is coming soon, but you all ignore that) then there will be no need for you single click skill spam macros easy mode nonsense.

Because you don't know how to play without them? You are not capable of functioning, partaking in PvP or PvE without a 3rd party program to play the game for you?