WoW addons removed before Midnight: What’s going and what’s staying
Blizzard is phasing out key WoW combat addons to reduce reliance on third-party tools. Changes are also coming for future raid and dungeon encounters.
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Game Director Ion Hazzikostas announced plans to disable certain WoW combat addons that give players real-time assistance during encounters. His comments raised a lot of questions and concerns from the WoW player base.
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In a follow-up interview with PCGamer, Hazzikostas shared more details about what’s coming. This is a major turning point for World of Warcraft’s gameplay and endgame content. So let’s take a look at which addons are being removed, which are here to stay, Blizzard’s plans for new UI, and changes to PvE encounters in the future.
WoW combat addons getting removed
Addons that provide overly strong competitive advantages will be the first to be affected. Their functionality will be limited or fully disabled:
- PvP addons will still show the classes of enemy players, but won’t display which abilities they’ve used.
- Tracking of some player and enemy abilities for both damage and healing will be disabled.
- Players will also lose the ability to track certain positive and negative effects.
- Most nameplate settings will still be available. Players can change things like color and size. But changes that happen automatically based on what enemies or allies do, or when certain effects are active, will probably not be allowed anymore.
WoW addons that are staying
While combat automation tools are on the chopping block, Blizzard reassured players that most addons will remain untouched. The following addons categories are considered safe:
- Quest helpers
- Gathering helpers
- Role-playing mods
- Auction house tools
- PvP utilities, excluding cooldown tracking
- Visual customization tools and user interface enhancements. However, some limitations may be placed on condition-based modifications.
When will Blizzard remove combat addons in WoW?
According to Ion Hazzikostas, changes to WoW addons won’t happen until after patches 11.1.7 and 11.2. For now, The War Within update cycle won’t be affected. But things could start changing soon after. The Midnight expansion and its pre-patch might be the start of combat addons’ removal.
The decision to limit certain addon features comes from a large number of player complaints. Many say they feel forced to use multiple addons just to do well in dungeons and raids. So Blizzard wants to close the gap between players who use addons and those who don’t.
Another reason is that as raids get harder, players get better, and addons become more advanced. This leads developers to make bosses even harder to maintain the intended difficulty level. And so on. WoW has turned into an endless arms race between devs and players. And Blizzard wants to break that cycle.
A key goal for future design is to keep raid and dungeon difficulty the same, but shift the focus back to player skill and teamwork. Instead of fast reaction times and precise addon use, Blizzard wants encounters to allow for more creative play and natural coordination.
That said, Blizzard isn’t planning to shut down a bunch of addons all at once. These changes will roll out slowly and carefully. The goal isn’t to punish players, but to bring back real challenge and personal execution in high-end content like raids and Mythic+ dungeons.
More UI improvements are coming
Blizzard isn’t just taking features away. They’re also investing in more powerful, user-friendly, in-game tools. Following criticism of the initial Cooldown Manager released in Patch 11.1.5, the development team is planning significant improvements. These include:
- More Edit Mode functionality
- Clearer audio and visual cues
- Smarter and more readable nameplates
- Greater customization across the UI
Blizzard knows they can’t fully replace every advanced WoW addon with a built-in option. However, the goal is to provide an in-game solution covering 90–96% of most players’ needs. It should feel reliable and useful without being too basic or too rigid.
Players shouldn’t have to depend on third-party tools just to see deadly spell casts, debuff stacks, or crowd control diminishing returns.
Blizzard is also working on native UI features for tank swap alerts, healing effectiveness, and interrupt timing. A built-in damage and healing meter, similar to Skada, is in the works.
The team is also exploring a way to let players import rotation profiles using code strings, just like talents and transmogs. That way, players can keep their setup optimized and community-supported without external tools.
PvE encounters will be upgraded
Heroic and Mythic content will still be tough, with bosses requiring multiple attempts to beat. But Blizzard plans to make subtle, meaningful changes to how raid and dungeon fights work. Here’s what players can expect:
- Bosses will offer more telegraphed mechanics.
- Dangerous effects and core mechanics will be more visually obvious. Blizzard improved swirly visibility in Patch 11.1, but they’re still working on making them even more player-friendly.
- Fewer random ground effects to make life easier for casters.
- Group-based mechanics may include longer response windows, reducing reliance on scripted WeakAura cues.
- There may be fewer interruptible abilities, and cast times might be longer. This could eas the pressure on interrupt-heavy comps.
Note
These changes are coming to PvP, too, with plans to make crowd control diminishing returns easier to see and understand.
Blizzard may collaborate with addon creators
Far from closing the door on the community, Blizzard views this evolution as an opportunity to collaborate with mod developers more meaningfully. The company hinted at the possibility of deeper partnerships or even allowing addon authors to influence future features by sharing their ideas and coding.
“Everything is possible. I don’t want to close doors. We’re always going to be listening. Our hope is that the things we add are going to be things that can be reskinned and tweaked by addon developers.”
— Ion Hazzikostas
What about WoW Classic addons?
For WoW Classic players, nothing is changing. Blizzard sees Classic as a preservation project and doesn’t plan to change how addons work there. Features like damage meters might be added, but key data access, like auras and combat logs, will stay fully available.
What do you think about Blizzard’s plan to remove combat addons? Do you like using addons in World of Warcraft, or do you prefer built-in game tools? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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