World of Warcraft senior game director Ion Hazzikostas announced last week that Blizzard Entertainment will cut off access to the live combat log and auras for add-ons in the game, after incorporating new features to replace the most popular mods.
I interviewed Hazzikostas for an hour about the broadcast to identify in detail what would be affected by the changes.
Using that information and the broadcast itself, I took a look at the 15 most popular mods in Warcraft, as identified by total downloads for the retail game at Curseforge, and the 15 most popular WeakAuras for the current raid and dungeons (mini-mods running on the WeakAuras platform). I describe how each will be affected below. Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments!
Six of the 15 most popular mods will be DOA, with a seventh requiring major changes. Most of the top WeakAuras will be gone, with just two (and possibly a third) that remain standing.
Add-ons
Deadly BossMods – 550.2 million downloads: DEAD
Most of DBM’s functionality would be disabled without access to the combat log and combat auras. Hazzikostas indicated that some of the most popular features of the DBM mod, including audio cues and boss ability timelines, would be built into the WoW.
Raider.IO – 370.7 million downloads: likely unchanged
Raider.io pulls information about raid and dungeon achievements from the web and displays them in game. It is not combat-dependent.
Details – 272.4 million downloads: DEAD
When Hazzikostas said during the broadcast that the most popular add-on currently is a damage meter, this is likely the one he meant. He said that interrupts, avoidable damage and other features of Details would be built into an in-game damage meter.
WeakAuras – 221.4 million downloads: some changes
This is the add-on that allows mini-mods to run in game with relative ease. While WeakAuras itself will be mostly unaffected by the changes (except its templates, drop-down lists and some of its option screens), many of its mods will be hit. See that list below.
BigWigs Boss Mods – 154.9 million downloads: DEAD
A competitor of DBM, BigWigs will suffer the same fate.
Auctionator – 149.2 million downloads: unchanged
As an auction house buying and selling mod, Auctionator doesn’t use combat hooks.
Bagnon – 135.1 million downloads: unchanged
Bagnon merely changes how your bags and their contents are displayed. Hazzikostas says that cosmetic and UI add-ons won’t be affected by the shift.
Recount – 120.6 million downloads: DEAD
This rival of Details will also be on the firing line.
Pawn – 111.7 million downloads: likely unchanged
This mod uses relative stat importance for your character (as calculated by Simulationcraft) to predict what items would be upgrades. It does not rely on combat information.
LittleWigs – 94.6 million downloads: DEAD
BigWigs, but for dungeons. This’ll be gone after the changes.
RareScanner – 94.6 million downloads: possibly unchanged
This mod flags the player when a rare monster is spotted. Because it doesn’t rely on combat log effects or character auras, it may keep on functioning.
GTFO – 84.2 million downloads: DEAD
This mod blares an obnoxious noise when players stand in something damaging—a feature the game itself sorely needs. (Currently the game changes the edges of the screen when you’re standing in bad, but that effect fades in to avoid flash-banging players.) Hazzikostas mentioned this functionality as something that WoW would build in.
World Quest Tracker – 83.1 million downloads: likely unchanged
This mod provides a better display of world quests in the game. It will not be affected.
This popular tool allows you to plan routes through Mythic Plus difficulty dungeons and gives you additional information about the abilities, health, etc. for the mobs along the way. It shouldn’t be affected, since it doesn’t reflect live combat information. The information used to populate it could conceivably be affected, but it seems unlikely.
HealBot Continued – 75.3 million downloads: changes will be coming
The core functionality of HealBot, a popular healing add-on, doesn’t actually require combat information to run. It shows a modified version of the game’s player frames, and allows healers to click on the frames to cast healing spells. Some more-advanced functionality (showing incoming heals, or showing dispellable debuffs on the player) will cease to function and require changes.
WeakAuras
WeakAuras were literally built to interact with combat auras and logs, so many are affected or eliminated by this proposed change. It’s hard to track the exact number of downloads for WeakAuras, because they’re often just copied and pasted with an import string of text, or shared between players in-game. We made our best guesses based on a compilation of several lists of downloads from wago.io, the most popular site for their distribution.
Undermine (twwraid2): DEAD
This WeakAura package provides information to players killing bosses in the Liberation of Undermine raid. Virtually all of its functions require live combat logs or auras.
Northern Sky Liberation of Undermine: DEAD
A competing package with similar functionality.
Liquid – Liberation of Undermine: DEAD
A similar package from Team Liquid, the guild first in the world to clear the raid.
Liberation of Undermine: DEAD
Another package of the same type.
Mythic+ Automarker: DEAD
A WeakAura that automatically puts a symbol on the nameplate of caster-style mobs in dungeons as that group is engaged in combat. Requires live combat access to function. Blizzard has said that it plans to improve and customize enemy nameplates.
Dungeon Teleport Buttons: likely unchanged
This WA adds functionality to the display of the current Mythic+ dungeons in game, so that players who have defeated them on a high level and earned the right to teleport to them can do so right from the dungeon display list. It does not depend on combat auras or logs.
Spell CDs on Nameplate: DEAD
This package added the cooldowns of big spells to enemies’ nameplates, so that you could see when they were likely to cast those abilities next. Relies on combat logs to run.
TWW Dungeons: DEAD
This package and ones like it provided on-screen interpretation of big events coming, abilities being cast by important enemies, and the like. Much like the BigWigs or Deadly BossMods add-ons listed above, virtually all of its functionality requires these hooks.
Season 2 Dungeons: DEAD
A similar pack to the one above.
WA RM+: DEAD
This WA interprets the amount of trash mob groups that people have to fight to make the overall count for a Mythic Plus difficulty dungeon and checks to see where the player is, informing the group whether additional enemies need to be killed before leaving the area. Relies on combat information.
Dungeon Casts + Targeted Spells: DEAD
This extremely handy WA created cast bars for every enemy in a dungeon group, showing how soon their ability would finish casting and who it was targeting. Very useful for planning interrupts and other control abilities. It relies on the combat log and auras.
Targeted by Damage Spells: DEAD
This WA puts up a warning when an enemy from a pack is targeting the player’s character, along with how long the player has before that ability hits. It uses combat information.
M+ Mob Percentage Nameplates: possibly unchanged
This WA put the percent that a monster counts for in the total needed to complete a Mythic Plus difficulty dungeon on its nameplate. As long as nameplate customization is allowed and WeakAuras can read the player’s target, this WA should still work.
Auto Keylink Mythic+: unchanged
Allows party members to put the code !keys in chat to see links to other group members’ Mythic Plus dungeon keys. Does not require combat information
The War Within Dungeon Dispels – Frame Glows: DEAD
This WA makes party members’ frames glow when they are afflicted with a debuff that your character can dispel. Relies on combat information.
Hazzikostas said in the broadcast that these changes will be a long time in coming; in our interview, he confirmed that no changes to mod or WeakAura access will happen in patches 11.1.7 or 11.2.
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