Get your addons ready and kiss some old favorites goodbye before the Midnight pre-patch next week

The Midnight pre-patch is almost upon us, and with it will come the long discussed “addon apocalypse,” where changes to the back end have either made it impossible to maintain certain addons, or made the task of updating them too daunting for some developers to want to continue. Large parts of the WoW community has been extremely vocal about their views on the upcoming changes, and discussion hasn’t always been rational or productive. For the most part, Blizzard have been fairly open about their intentions behind the Midnight addon redesign, and have listened to feedback from players and developers. They haven’t always accommodated the requests, but the landscape has changed substantially since the earliest iterations on beta.

While most long term World of Warcraft players are well familiar with the major patch dance of checking to see if your favorite addons have been updated yet, and finding replacements if the authors of your favorites have stopped supporting them since the last major patch, this time will be different. Entire categories of addons will be blocked, and others will have the available features radically altered. I anticipate the top 20 addon list for 12.1.x will look radically different than the current list.

Addons that are totally hot right now!

25 most popular addons for 11.2.7 according to Curse Gaming:

1. Details! Damage Meter
2. Deadly Boss Mods
3. Auctionator
4. RareScanner
5. Raider.IO Mythic Plus, Raid Progress, and Recruitment
6. Bagnon
7. TomTom
8. Leatrix Plus
9. WeakAuras
10. Leatrix Maps
11. Plater Nameplates
12. HandyNotes
13. Syndicator
14. Bartender4
15. Baganator
16. OmniCC
17. Pawn
18. Mythic Dungeon Tools – MDT
19. ALL THE THINGS
20. BigWigs
21. GTFO
22. Method Raid Tools
23. Simulationcraft
24. World Quest Tracker
25. Healbot

With literally thousands of addons in the current repository, and not all addon authors having access to beta, don’t assume that your favorites won’t be transitioned across immediately, but don’t assume they will be. From that list, the following addons don’t currently have a 12.0.0 version or have explicitly stated they won’t be continuing:

1. RareScanner
2. Raider.IO Mythic Plus, Raid Progress, and Recruitment
3. WeakAuras – confirmed not continuing
4. Mythic Dungeon Tools
5. GTFO – confirmed not continuing
6. World Quest Tracker
7. Healbot

It is possible that some of these will continue in some form, but the authors haven’t posted a version that can be tested on beta. Blizzard have stated that unlike previous expansions where you could check “Load Out of Date Addons” and try running them anyway, this won’t work for addons that are not marked for 12.0.x or later.

In some cases, the addons are continuing but will be substantially different from how they function now. Details!, DBM, BigWigs, and Plater will all be using Blizzard-provided containers and applying a skin over the top of them. Inventory management addons seem largely unaffected. 

Any addon that uses any sort of computation or automation to assist in performing your class’s role in an instance will be blocked from performing those functions. Some authors, such as the team behind WeakAuras have said that to rewrite the WeakAura system to function without those capabilities is more work than they are interested in doing for the severely limited tool it would create. Instead they have already produced several smaller addons with more focused capabilities that may have been delivered through WeakAuras in the past.

What new addons should I try?

The Curse database currently shows 1,158 projects that are compatible with 12.0.0, and 547 of which are already 12.0.1 compatible. Many of the heavy hitters you are familiar with are already working in Midnight. A few of the new up-and-coming darlings to look out for that are already compatible are:

• Plumber — general QoL updates.
• Narcissus — an immersive character pane and in-game appearance manager.
• Dialogue UI — immersive in-game quest dialogs and books display with keypad or controller support.
• Housing Vendor — tracks decor that is either purchased from vendors or crafted, with materials tracking support.
• NephUI — a lightweight UI reskin of the Blizzard 12.0.x UI built from the ground up around the new design philosophy.
• TweaksUI — customise the appearance of the Cooldown Manager.
• Account Wide Interface Settings — sick of having to turn on AutoLoot every time you create a new character, this addon has your back.

New expansions see a natural turnover of former addon developers stepping away, and new ones joining the fray. Sometimes old addons get resurrected, sometimes an entirely new project emerges in the same space, or a new class of addon evolves to address new features. I anticipate an explosion of housing based addons and new transmog addons, along with a wider variety of UI skins.

Let us know in the comments, which addons are you hoping will be updated? Have you seen any addons you really like the look of that are new on PTR or beta? Do you plan to try running addon free?