World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Midnight, is taking the nuclear option when it comes to eliminating combat add-ons, after years of Blizzard discussing how they posed problems for the health of the game. It’s a bold approach, but, unfortunately, one that has been communicated incredibly poorly and seems to be taking unnecessary risks that could potentially make the game worse, not better, in the short term.
Until the recent arrival of Midnight’s alpha build, it wasn’t exactly clear how far-reaching Blizzard’s approach would be. While non-combat add-ons (WoW’s version of player-made mods) aren’t being touched, it was known some major changes would be coming to how combat add-ons work in Midnight. Those changes would come in conjunction with Blizzard introducing its own version of popular add-on functions, like boss timers and damage meters, alongside improvements to recently implemented features like the cooldown manager and combat assistant. Blizzard also said it’s designing combat encounters going forward so that (hopefully) combat add-ons wouldn’t be as necessary as before.
That all sounded great on paper. Many assumed some of these changes would come over time, allowing for a period where both add-ons and Blizzard’s own UI updates could work in conjunction or until certain parts of the base-game UI meant to replicate add-on functionality was ready. Blizzard has instead opted to rip off the proverbial band-aid.
In the Midnight alpha, nearly every piece of combat information is rendered invisible to add-ons and thus can’t be computed or read to give players more information. That includes things as simple as how much health a player or enemy has, what abilities enemies are using, reading chat messages during combat, or whether there’s a puddle of fire on the ground you should probably move out of. Combat add-ons may still work technically come Midnight, but they will require a ton of tweaks by creators and their functionality will likely be so much worse than the game’s base UI (much of which still needs improvement) that there won’t be much use for them.
The result has blindsided combat add-on developers and left them scrambling. The folks behind one of WoW’s longest-running and most-popular add-ons, WeakAuras, have stated that unless Blizzard makes major changes to its approach, they won’t be making a version for Midnight. In a statement, the WeakAuras team said Blizzard downplayed the scope and timing of its add-on approach in past statements, and that the current approach “does not leave us with much choice other than closing shop.” Meanwhile, the creators of Deadly Boss Mods, WoW’s most-popular add-on that has been downloaded more than 571 million times according to Curse Forge, have stated the add-on isn’t going anywhere but will be changing alongside WoW itself.
I’ll just say it upfront: I don’t like combat add-ons. I’ve played WoW for nearly two decades, and in that time I’ve always viewed them as a necessary evil. Whereas some players love spending hours making their own custom UIs and enabling WeakAuras to track their buffs and cooldowns, I’ve largely opted to instead stick with the default UI, finding the entire add-on process tedious.
A large part of this is because despite having played for the better part of 20 years, I have no real interest (or time) to participate in high-level Mythic+ dungeons or Mythic raiding, and thus have never viewed combat add-ons as essential as many top players do. I’ve also just never been a fan of the idea that I have to go to a third-party site and download something like Deadly Boss Mods, which up until this point has basically been viewed as mandatory for even casual WoW players, in order to play the game properly.
Combat add-ons have always offered a major advantage to those who opted to use them compared to those who don’t. This has always been a failure on Blizzard’s part for allowing the add-on arms race between mod creators and the development team to go on for as long as it has. The same is true for designing WoW in a way that such add-ons felt like they had become necessary due to players not having all the information they needed to be successful.
Blizzard eliminating the need for combat add-ons is undoubtedly a good thing for WoW’s long-term health, and something I’m not particularly upset about. I believe there are plenty of others who feel the same way. When combined with Blizzard’s built-in UI updates and proposed changes to make combat more streamlined, WoW will soon be more approachable than ever before. It could also pave the way for WoW to be ported to consoles, exposing even more players to Blizzard’s genre-defining MMORPG. All of that is good.
There’s only one issue: Blizzard’s entire approach. By gutting combat add-ons immediately upon the start of Midnight, Blizzard is backing itself into an unnecessary corner. All of Blizzard’s plans revolve around it actually being able to deliver all these features in time for the expansion’s launch. If it can’t replace all that add-on functionality on day-one, players are left with a worse version of the game.
While there are some features that are already ready from primetime, like the new nameplates, boss alerts, and the cooldown manager, there’s plenty still missing. Damage meters and updated raid frames are huge pieces of the puzzle that aren’t available for testing, and it’s unclear when they will be. Raid frames in particular are huge for healers, who often use raid frame add-ons like VuhDo in order to be able to track their outgoing heals, priority debuffs, and more. Raid frame add-ons will still exist come Midnight, but they won’t be able to track combat data as they currently do, a huge nerf to healers.
Blizzard does plan to offer some solutions here, but it’s unlikely Blizzard’s in-game versions will be as robust, customizable, or feature-rich as what many add-on users are accustomed to. That applies to just about every add-on Blizzard is looking to replace. Many of these add-ons have been updated and improved for over a decade. It’s unreasonable to assume that Blizzard’s versions will be at that same level right out the gate, assuming they are there at launch at all.
The success of Blizzard’s plan also depends on its own encounter design. Until we see more of what Midnight’s top-end raid boss encounters look like, it’s impossible to say whether Blizzard has designed an endgame with no combat add-ons needed. WoW’s Mythic difficulty encounters have been designed in a certain way for years, facilitating the need for combat add-ons in the first place. Having all that change in a single expansion requires a lot of trust in Blizzard to stick the landing, and I don’t think players can be blamed for not entirely believing in its ability to execute.
As for those unforeseen consequences I mentioned earlier, Blizzard’s all-or-nothing approach is unfairly cruel to one particular portion of the WoW community: disabled players. These players can make extensive use of combat add-ons in order to play WoW, whether casually or at a high-level, as is the case with Undaunted, a well-known competitive WoW raiding guild for deaf and hard-of-hearing players. In a post on Reddit, Undaunted guild leader Saormash wrote an extensive breakdown of just how damaging losing “20 years of accessibility” is to the game’s disabled community. Saormash said WoW has long been a leader when it comes to gaming accessibility thanks to the game’s community of add-on creators. If Blizzard doesn’t walk back some of its approach, that’s due to all be tossed out the window.
“We will be completely locked out of progression due to something that is completely beyond our control,” Saormash said. “In the past, we could turn to add-on and WeakAura creators for help. Without that benefit, we may see less tolerance from the raiding community for disabled players. Nobody will want to have their raid progress stalled by one person’s inability to successfully pass a mechanic check.”
Without the extensive ability to customize and tweak combat add-ons to meet their needs, these players will be left in the dust come Midnight without many new features being added to the game. Blizzard’s UI design team simply cannot compete with the thousands of add-on creators who have created tools and solutions for players of all sorts for decades. As Saormash explained, despite the game’s disabled community being the most negatively affected by the combat add-on apocalypse, it feels “unseen and unheard” by not being given the opportunity to provide direct feedback to Blizzard. It’s unclear how long it will take Blizzard to implement the kinds of changes and features currently filled by WeakAuras and other add-ons that make the game playable for WoW’s disabled community. Any answer longer than “immediately at launch” just isn’t acceptable and reason alone to pump the brakes on this entire combat add-on crusade.
There is, at least, some indication Blizzard is listening. It’s already walked back some combat add-on restrictions based on feedback. In a recent PC Gamer interview, WoW senior game director Ion Hazzikostas said it has now invited members of Undaunted into the Midnight testing program to receive their feedback, and that “accessibility remains a top focus for the team.” Midnight also won’t be launching until sometime in early 2026, giving Blizzard, at minimum, three or so months to listen, respond, and iterate on its plans. I have no doubt bigger changes to what is and isn’t allowed in terms of combat add-ons will be coming in the weeks and months ahead, as well as more details about what players can expect from the game’s updated raid frames and other UI improvements.
None of that, however, changes the fact that these are all problems entirely of Blizzard’s own making. Not only were Blizzard’s intentions and plans poorly communicated, but its choice to take the all-or-nothing approach to combat add-ons, without more closely involving the game’s community beforehand, has resulted in confusion and frustration from some players.
Blizzard’s overall goal here is admirable, and one that many players will likely agree with. Fast forward one, two, or five years and WoW might be the best it’s ever been, with no need for combat add-ons, approachable endgame encounters, and all the accessibility features it needs to serve its community. But Blizzard is putting the cart before the horse. That future, idyllic version of WoW is not now, and given how Blizzard has handled this entire situation thus far, it might not be here in time for Midnight’s launch either.
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