World of Warcraft’s upcoming Midnight expansion is poised to significantly impact combat mods, notably the hugely popular WeakAuras. This tool, cherished for over 15 years, allows players to deeply customize their UI with critical information and notifications. Following Blizzard’s new restrictions, the WeakAuras team has announced plans to discontinue support for the mod in Midnight. We spoke with project lead ‘Stanzilla’ to understand the rapid decision-making process and whether any hope remains for its future.
The World of Warcraft Midnight alpha launched on October 2, quickly eliciting reactions from top WoW addon creators. While Deadly Boss Mods author Adam ‘MysticalOS’ Williams stated his intention to adapt, the WeakAuras team chose a different path. “As it stands, we do not expect to release a WeakAuras version for Midnight,” they declared, confirming continued support only for Classic.
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“We processed all stages of grief very quickly,” Stanzilla shared. He elaborated that clarity emerged after reviewing a detailed PDF from Blizzard’s developer team, solidifying to “99% clear” after alpha server tests. Despite WoW game director Ion Hazzikostas’s assertion that Blizzard didn’t intend to kill WeakAuras, the team believes otherwise. “It seems the core value proposition of WeakAuras isn’t compatible with the direction Blizzard is taking the game.”
For those unfamiliar, WeakAuras is a versatile framework enabling players to craft and share custom on-screen widgets and UI elements. Its primary uses include highlighting ability cooldowns, alerting players to dangerous boss mechanics, or reminding them about missing buffs. Its high degree of customization makes it invaluable for personalizing displays and enhancing accessibility.
The central issue lies in Blizzard’s new ‘secret values,’ which essentially encapsulate all combat-related data in a hidden format. Hazzikostas explained that UI and addons can acknowledge this data’s existence and display generic information but cannot access its definitive contents or build logic upon it. Stanzilla, while acknowledging this as “technically a good workaround,” points out the lack of tools to truly replace or replicate existing WeakAuras functionalities.
“What fundamentally cripples WeakAuras is the complete loss of access to the player’s own combat state: cooldowns, buffs, debuffs, and resources,” he clarifies. “This is the core functionality people rely on WeakAuras for, and it’s now entirely removed. Encounter information restrictions pale in comparison; losing the ability to track and display personal character state during combat is what truly spells the end for WeakAuras.”
Stanzilla suggests the team might reconsider if the addon could combine secret values without direct access—for instance, checking if ‘the Icy Veins ability is on cooldown’ and ‘the Icy Veins buff is not active’ simultaneously. Alternatively, if only the user’s personal combat state were visible, “we would still be willing to maintain the addon,” though this would represent a “severe reduction” from its current capabilities.
However, Stanzilla remains pessimistic about a significant policy reversal. “We simply don’t foresee Blizzard retracting these fundamental restrictions.” He cites Midnight’s rumored late February launch, leaving just four months, including holiday periods, for a complete system overhaul. He adds that such decisions influence encounter design and other game aspects, making a rapid change highly improbable.
Regarding user suggestions for a simplified, cosmetic-only WeakAuras, Stanzilla dismisses the idea. “The core problem is the current World of Warcraft API’s severe limitations. We can no longer even replicate basic functions handled by the default UI, like custom health display formats (e.g., changing ‘15000’ to ’15k’). A non-combat focused ‘WeakAuras 3’ would be a pale imitation of WeakAuras 2 and offer less customization than Blizzard’s own built-in tools. Our advanced methods for calculating and presenting information are simply unviable under the new API restrictions.”
He further states, “Consequently, any hypothetical WA3 would be limited to basic features like reminders or farming auras, functionalities already covered by other addons. The team has no interest in dedicating months of free time to develop a highly restricted version that wouldn’t live up to the WeakAuras name, especially given Blizzard’s past inconsistencies with interview promises. Other addons are welcome to step into that niche if they choose.”
Despite his frustrations, Stanzilla acknowledges that the “de-escalation” of the long-standing “arms race” between WoW’s encounter designers and modders is “100% necessary.” His primary grievance is with the implementation: “They previously stated it would be a gradual, phased rollout, with addon access to information only restricted once their own tools were sufficient replacements. Now, they’ve taken a completely different approach.”
Blizzard has already begun to retract some of its more drastic changes, specifically planning to ease the full lockdown on chat parsing and inter-addon communication within instances. This lockdown had prevented numerous tools like loot councils and raid timers. Community manager Randy ‘Kaivax’ Jordan stated that these initial restrictions were “excessively broad” and adjustments would be made so that “tools that facilitate sharing information before or after combat won’t be impacted.”
While this is positive news for many mods, it doesn’t resolve the core issue for WeakAuras. “We can change a health bar’s color, but not based on low health. We can show an ability’s cooldown icon, but not make it glow when ready. We can display a target’s cast, but not highlight crucial casts that need interruption. The limitations continue.”
When asked about his personal engagement with Midnight, Stanzilla affirmed, “Yeah sure, I’ll play it.” However, he noted his activity would depend on developments. “I’ve been fairly casual recently, lacking the time and drive for top-tier raiding.” Despite being in a top-100 guild with long-time friends, he now primarily participates in heroic raids, a trend he expects to continue.
Regarding Blizzard’s efforts to provide in-game alternatives, Stanzilla believes these will always fall short of community-developed tools. Blizzard “won’t and cannot cater to every customization request – hundreds of open-source developers simply possess far greater collective effort and creative freedom, if permitted.” He concludes, “But I also think that is fine, they only have to build a good baseline and then let the community take over with endless customization. That should be their goal and we hoped it was, but it currently does not seem that way.”
Are you a dedicated WeakAuras user? Share your thoughts on Blizzard’s changes and their impact on your excitement for WoW Midnight. Alternatively, explore our selection of the best new MMOs of 2025.