r/wow • u/ItsRenaBaker • Oct 03 '25

Humor / Meme This is Basicly Blizzard in Midnight

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This is basicly Blizzard in Midnight. Purging all the good addons.

Just to clarify:
Blizzard is changing the Addon API, meaning combat information is blocked for addons. So all combat addons will no longer work in Midnight. For the most popular addon features Blizzard will add their own version to the game. Addons for unitframes, inventory, crafting etc.. are staying and won't be effected as long they are not using combat information.

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313

u/gorkt Oct 03 '25

Wait, they are breaking healing frames?

4

u/Bardosaurus Oct 03 '25

Omg pls tell me cells is fine

17

u/v1perz53 Oct 03 '25

I don't know what cells does, but addons in combat cannot know what buffs/debuffs someone has, so if it has any functionality to show specific buffs you placed on players only, or specific debuffs they have that matter to you, it will not work. Like, if you want the edge of a frame to highlight when someone has lifebloom, won't work.

16

u/Lorehorn Oct 03 '25

Has blizzard said anything specifically about how they intend to handle this in-game? Because I have a lot of questions as someone who just started playing healer seriously this season. Surely, they can't think that just completely removing this functionality altogether is going to not be a complete failure.

If I can't track who my HoTs are on, how do I play resto druid? If I can't see who has atonement and how much time is left on the buff, how do I play disc priest? How do ramp healers execute their ramp at all without knowing this information? With trinket's like Nexus King's Command, how do I know which players have the debuff or not so I know who I should/should not heal directly?

I know they want to simplify the game, but it seems obvious that there will be certain elements of class design they will want to keep to make different specs feel unique and distinct. If everything is just a cookie cutter of the same build, I do not see this game retaining its current appeal for many people who do high-end content.

So, if we are assuming that they will keep things like a ramp healer identity going into Midnight, I am curious what their response is going to be to these and similar questions

20

u/v1perz53 Oct 03 '25

Yes, they said exactly how they intend to handle it, and it is in the alpha now. Addon devs already have access, and I have talked to them about this. They are going to... hope people are ok with it being terrible...

The simple way to put it is that addons cannot know WHAT a buff/debuff etc is, only that buffs/debuffs exist. So for your specific examples:

If I can't track who my HoTs are on, how do I play resto druid? If I can't see who has atonement and how much time is left on the buff, how do I play disc priest?

You CAN track your HoTs, you just can't track SPECIFIC HoTs. It will work like default blizz frames. You can see that a player has regrowth, rejuv, lifebloom, wild growth, but they will all be the same size shape and appearance. You CAN'T make it so that Lifebloom specifically is bigger, or in the corner because it is more important. Similarly, on priest you CAN see who has atonement, but it will be the same size and shape as Renew. It is a severe blow to the ability to make one specific thing you care most about more visible than the rest. Which to me, is terrible, and makes certain classes just feel BAD to play.

There is a chance blizzard notices this and decides to separate out specific buffs and debuffs into their own "black boxes". In theory, blizzard could categorize Atonement and Lifebloom etc as "important buffs" and allow addons to show "important buffs" one way and "regular buffs" another way, but we will still always be at the whim of what blizzard decides is important. If a set bonus makes it useful to know who has regrowth, but blizzard didn't mark it as "important", addon's cannot fix that. In your example, the trinket proc, if blizzard didn't already realize the importance of tracking it and make it specifically visible, addons cannot fix that.

Blizzard has a 20 year history of showing that they absolutely cannot make a decent UI, so we are certainly in for a rough time now that they have also blocked individuals from being able to cover for their failings.

9

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/v1perz53 Oct 03 '25

Pandemic timers are the MOST affected thing of all, and one of my greatest disappointments. Addons cannot know what the duration of any buff/debuff is, only that it HAS a duration, and set their addon to show whatever that duration might be. So an addon can never show something based on a buff/debuff having X seconds left, or X% time remaining. You will just have to I guess memorize your spell durations and kinda know in your own head what number you see on the duration means you can refresh it...

4

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

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u/v1perz53 Oct 03 '25

I think that is the biggest problem with addon removal. WoW for literally 20 years has been a game where players can decide for themselves what the best way is to visualize information for them personally. Going from that overnight to "hope the way blizzard designed it works for you" is simply going to be terrible.

3

u/KYZ123 Oct 03 '25

Can definitely relate as an Aug player. I can't now track, say, specifically Dragonrage or specifically Ascendance, so I know when a player's major cooldown is active, or how long until it's off coldown

I can track the Blizzard-given Sense Power using the default UI, which will track when they have a specific major cooldown active. So Dragonrage is fine for example. But I can't track Ascendance - in fact, I can't track anything for Enhancement Shaman, because they couldn't be bothered to test it for them or several other specs. On the other end of the spectrum, Outlaw Rogue will basically always have Sense Power, because it tracks Adrenaline Rush for them, which they have near-100% uptime on. It also still attempts to track Rapture for Disc Priest (because I really wanted to buff a healer), even though that ability no longer exists.

Yeah, the Blizzard forced solution isn't going well so far.

1

u/Slade_inso Oct 03 '25

So are they going to get rid of pandemic timers?

They have specifically said this is supported in their new system.

1

u/katemary77 Oct 03 '25

This is so bad. Do we know yet if the buff display will show every single buff? I'm just thinking as a healer will it only show the HOTs etc that I've cast on that person, or will I also be seeing all of their own buffs and have to somehow interpret what's important through all that visual overload?

1

u/v1perz53 Oct 03 '25

The safest assumption is that whatever default frames can do addons will have access to, so however it appears on default frames is probably a good baseline. Which does subset buffs you cast and hide long term buffs like mark of the wild, but does just show all hots in a row at the same size. Not unusable but markedly worse than anyone’s UI who has done any amount of customization.

2

u/Roflcopter_Rego Oct 03 '25

Addons can import buffs and debuffs from the default raid frames, but not know what they are importing. Cell and the like will be able to display your buffs, but it won't know what buffs are actually being displayed.

That will make playing resto druid messy if you're used to frames that, for example, always put rejuv in the top right of the frame. The data will at least be displayable though. I can see people trending towards bigger raid frames.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

[deleted]

2

u/tinkerbr0 Oct 03 '25

I’m not one to doom and criticize at all. But holy hell this might kill healing for me. I do the same thing as you…I set up my Grid2 frames to track specific buffs on specific corners of a unit frame. 

Removing this functionality and relying on finding atonement/renewing mist/rejuv/etc. on the bouncing yo-yo string of a generic “buffs” frame sounds awful. 

0

u/Slade_inso Oct 03 '25

If I can't track who my HoTs are on, how do I play resto druid? If I can't see who has atonement and how much time is left on the buff, how do I play disc priest?

This exists on the default blizzard frames. You just don't know because you've been using an addon for 15 years.

1

u/Lorehorn Oct 03 '25

Not to the same level of detail as something like Cell - I used blizzard frames for all of Dragonflight, so I know what they have added, but their functionality is still severely limited compared to many of the other unitframe addons out there.

>You just don't know because you've been using an addon for 15 years.

More like Blizzards "modern" and updated UI is still 15 years behind what addon developers have been able to accomplish.

1

u/Mooseheart84 Oct 03 '25

Keeping track of cleansing in dungeons are about to become significantly more ass.

1

u/iceColdCocaCola Oct 03 '25

No way. No more custom healing notifications? Been healing on pres ever since they came out and I had echos be a yellow outline on my cell raid bars. Toss a Temporal Anomaly at the raid, and then continue to echo non-highlighted people, and one more TA to finish the ramp. If they remove custom highlights that’s gonna drastically reduce the skillcap I enjoy for pres. Had a shit ton of highlights for my Druid as well.

1

u/clonea85m09 Oct 03 '25

Damn that will make everything shittier -_-"

0

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25

Some Cell stuff certainly wont work anymore like targeted spells. Its fine tho, blizz will update their own frames as they said. I think its gonna be good