Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

WoW's Great Add-on Purge: What You Need to Know Before They're Gone

• Gabriel • Season 5 • Episode 16

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World of Warcraft is implementing major changes to add-ons in upcoming patches, restricting or making obsolete many popular tools that players rely on. These changes will affect how players experience raids, track damage, plan dungeon routes, and handle mechanics, forcing a shift back to core gameplay skills rather than add-on assistance.

• Deadly Boss Mods will be restricted, likely changing how players track boss abilities and mechanics
• Details damage meter restrictions suggest Blizzard may implement their own damage tracking system
• WeakAuras, one of the most powerful customization tools, will be heavily affected and players should start weaning off dependency
• Method Raid Tools changes will require players to develop genuine knowledge of dungeon routes and enemy forces
• Add-ons like Big Debuffs, Vuhdo, and Healbot that enhance the UI will likely be replaced by improved base UI features
• These restrictions suggest Blizzard plans significant UI improvements to incorporate essential functionality
• The changes aim to level the playing field and emphasize skill development over add-on reliance
• Many players who depend on these tools will need to adapt their playstyle significantly

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Speaker 1:

Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We're going to be going over one of the biggest changes that is going to happen in world of warcraft within the next few to several months, and that is going to be talking about the add-ons and which ones are going to be heavily affected, which ones are going to be restricted, etc. Etc. And maybe a couple of other bits and bobs, depending on how much information I need to get out about these add-ons that are being essentially taken away well, not taken away, made redundant. We're gonna use some corporal term or corporate terms and we're gonna be a bit, uh yeah, shitty with it. But look, these are the big ones, these are the big add-ons that are going to be affected by the upcoming sort of add-on uh, api restrictions, okay, and they, they are really big and a lot of people use these. So we're going to start off with the list that I've got here deadly boss mods okay, for those that you don't know, deadly boss mods is an add-on that simply states what a boss does and it gives you timers on stuff.

Speaker 1:

So a boss has five different abilities that it can do. Um, two minutes into the fight it will always cast a lightning bolt. We'll say, obviously these are going to be very genetic or general uh sort of spells, but it will cast a lightning bolt two minutes into this uh boss fight and if you're not standing in a certain position then it will wipe your raid. So what deadly boss mods does is it from the very start of the fight. It will have a timer that counts down this two minutes and when it gets to 10 seconds or however long you want it to, it will move the bar, if you want it to, and it will make it bigger and it will obviously show that it is still ticking down and it gives you time to prepare or move into a position where you will not wipe the raid. Now deadly boss mods can be used in dungeons as well. Obviously, dungeons are less detrimental if you fail a mechanic.

Speaker 1:

But this is what deadly boss mods is. It's just a way of tracking what the boss does at what times. Basically, okay, every 30 seconds, seconds he does a pulse and you know you can use a defensive cooldown for each of these pulses and you can see clearly when deadly boss mods tells you that the ability is going to happen. It's one of them things. Now this is going to be affected. I don don't know in what way, but I imagine that they do not want you tracking like the sort of timers, exactly. Okay, they're going to have potentially something a bit more suited on the UI that can do this, or you just have to do it based off of knowledge of the boss. So if your raid team is constantly getting it to 70 percent and then he's doing this first lightning bolt after two minutes, okay, so around 70 percent is when he's going to do it, just be prepared to be in your spot and you can use the boss's health as a sort of way of having an idea on when he's going to use this ability. Or you can do it with I don't know. It's going to be really weird. They're going to simplify boss fights, I'm pretty sure for the players, because the add-ons that we have means that the boss fights need to be super like crazy in order for it to be meaningful, but without deadly boss mods and other add-ons that are on this list. Uh, it's going to be a lot tougher to coordinate when to use certain abilities or defensives or offensives or anything like that. So it would mean that basically, uh, they can simplify the raid bosses, because they are going a bit crazy at the moment, and, if it is just okay, this boss needed 20 mechanics because all of these add-ons are too good at helping out the raiders. So now we can go to five mechanics, but because the raiders don't have the add-ons, these five mechanics are more than enough. Does that kind of make sense? And I think that it's a good way to do it because it allows for more simplicity for newer players who want to maybe get into raiding or mythic raiding, that kind of deal. But deadly boss mods is a big one.

Speaker 1:

Next big one that I think this will affect a lot of people is details, and details. You think, oh well, that's a harmless add-on. Details is just to show damage, breakdowns of abilities and who you've done damage to and healing done, and you know how much cc you've done, etc. Etc. All of this, it just stats it, but what this means, in my opinion, is that they are going to add something that is very similar in this regard, and this is something that is very good, because they need to add a details or damage meter into the game for the base UI, because this should have been a no brainer years and years ago. People want to have a look at their damage breakdown, what does the most damage, how they do damage efficiently and stuff, and this allows people to break their damage down and sort of reverse engineer it to be like, okay, this is clearly just better, you know, or this is clearly just worse, these kind of things. And yeah, I think that details going isn't the end of the world, because it means that they are probably looking at something that is going to be on the base ui for the game, which is really good.

Speaker 1:

Little wigs now, I have to admit I don't use little wigs. I don't know what it's for, um, but I believe it's more of a dungeon and sort of raid uh frame add-on. I I really don't know. I don't want to go crazy with it, but I know it's something to do with, obviously, uh, your base UI and healing is, uh, the people that are usually using it, but I could just be completely wrong. Again, little wigs I don't have a lot of info. I've never used it, never looked into it, yeah, so I can't help with that. Later nameplates, however, allows you to change your UI in terms of what you can see on the person's name or the enemy's nameplates, friendly nameplates, etc. And this just, hopefully, will mean that they're going to update their UI based on taking this away, because, again, the current nameplate if you wanted to use something like, or if you wanted to see a certain debuff, like I want to know if my vampiric touch, my shadow of pain and my devouring play got all on the target, that's fine, you can. But you have to squint your eyes and fully like, really look at their actual nameplate to see if it is on there. So hopefully they'll do an overhaul of the nameplates and actually allow you to customize what you want to see and what you don't want to see on it. It will be really really useful and hopefully that's what they are looking for for the plate and nameplates.

Speaker 1:

Big wigs again, it's something that I don't use. It's the same as little wigs, um, yeah, I really can't help with that one. Same with this one it's Hekili, priority Helper. So essentially, this shows who's in the most danger. Is it a DPS, is it a tank and it allows the game to basically tell you you should heal this person, you should heal this person, this person has a defensive, this person doesn't. They're at the same percentage of health. This is the person that you need to prioritize healing. Um, yeah, it kind of plays the game for you.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that these sort of add-ons should be in the game, in my honest opinion but again, it doesn't really affect me at the moment. I don't use use that add-on. I never have. So I get that it might be useful for people who are newer to the game, but I think that you should passively understand and learn who is in trouble. If the game tells you this guy's in trouble and you're like, okay, I'll heal this guy, but why are you healing that guy? Do you know? No, you don't. Whereas someone who's never used this add-on has done the same amount of mythic dungeons but can do the exact same thing and they know why they're healing this person. They are a lot further ahead in the game or skill wise than the person who doesn't. I would say, and that's opinion based, that's very opinion based, again, these things. You might know why you're healing this person, but this game just kind of or this add-on allows you to just turn your brain off and, you know, go through the motions. That's kind of it really go through the motions of the game, but that's not what it's all about in my honest opinion. Um, yeah, so that's kind of it really go through the motions of the game, but that's not what it's all about in my honest opinion. Um, yeah, so that's my sort of perspective on that one. This is the biggest one.

Speaker 1:

We callers Okay, for those of you that don't know, we callers are something that you can, um, do anything with. Okay, you can have a week or two. Just blast a horn noise If you with. Okay, you can have a weak aura to just blast a horn noise. If you're standing in, something you can use a weak aura to depict. If a cooldown, an enemy cooldown, has been used on you, you can use a weak aura to tell you that you need to move to this spot. Okay, weak auras are crazy good at playing the game for you ridiculously good at playing the game for you. But they are going to be affected in the later patches due to this add-on change and a lot of people have based their gaming style on wii corers. Okay, a load of people use it. A load of people are unable to play the game without wii corers, and that's crazy.

Speaker 1:

You shouldn't need to rely on an add-on to play the game without weak auras, and that's crazy. You shouldn't need to rely on an add-on to play the game. And I get that you might not like enjoying the or like the. You might not like playing the game without weak auras because it tells you oh shit, I need to move over here because he's about to cast something. If you're a healer in a very stressful situation and you are doing a boss fight, it's 10% and at 10% he does a raid-wide or group-wide AoE that will one-shot you and you've got to move somewhere. But you're not paying attention to the boss's health because everyone's low, everyone's 20% or something, and he starts doing this cast and you're too slow to get there. That's what a weak horror would do for you. It would be like um, as soon as he hits 10, it would flash up in the middle of your screen, do an air horn noise and then you know by that noise I've got to move over here. That's kind of it. It's an indicator, and I think that the way that they can help with this is to make things a bit more obvious in terms of the what's on the floor or maybe the sounds that the bosses use, and I think that they are starting to do that in the latest raid, where they've changed what the swirlies on the floor look like to be a bit more not, yeah, organised, almost the swirlies on the floor that you shouldn't stand in. They're a bit more organised and you can see them clearly, and I think they're going to be doing this with sound in the near future. Everything's going to be a bit more prominent when, like, oh shit, this is the sound of my imminent demise, I need to move over to this place, that I don't get one shot, kind of deal. Um, so we chorus is going all going to be affected very heavily, so I would recommend slowly, uh weaning your way off of uh, we chorus in the near future, because they are going, they will be going and I think that it's good and I genuinely do again.

Speaker 1:

Um, you have method raid tools now. Method raid tools allow you to make um parthings for mythic plus dungeons. They allow you to do many different things, but the main one that I've used it for is mythic plus dungeons, and I think that you need to be able to have the knowledge of dungeons to do pulls. Okay, so what mythic uh, or method raid tools does in this instance that I'm going to be talking about, is you can make a parthing throughout the entirety of the dungeon, every single pack boss, and you can see exactly how much percent you need to complete a mythic plus. Okay, cause you need to make sure that you fill up a bar to get 100 of the like trash packs killed. Okay, and each mob has different percentages and stuff. So this is where the skill will come in knowing what packs you can can't pull. What's the best sort of route to get 100? Um, these kind of things, and obviously method raid tools does a lot more than that, but these are going to make mythics a bit tougher because it needs the knowledge of the game. Okay, and I think that's what they're going for. You need to have the knowledge of the game in order to do something that is very effective or be very efficient and effective at it.

Speaker 1:

It's just one of them things. Um, get the fuck out is an add-on that is going, and I cannot believe that like people use this. Okay, what do you think get the fuck out is. Get the fuck out is basically an add-on that tells you if you're standing in stuff, and people have a add-on for this. Now, if I'm standing in a giant pool of lava and I need an add-on to tell me to move from it, I I don't know what to tell you that that's gonna be a skill issue. It has to be. I get that like guild issue. It has to be. I get that like I. The less I say about this one, the better. You. You just shouldn't be standing stuff in. Wow, okay, stand in fire and you die. That's on you.

Speaker 1:

It's one of them things, uh, threat plates. Now I don't really know why this one is used. The blizzard ui has very good threat plates, um, or good enough, and tanks usually don't have a problem with threat. The only reason I can see this being useful is if there is a tank swap needed, but the uh mob is immune to taunt. But again, I can't remember a boss that had that sort of mechanic, so I don't know with this one, but I think that the threat like uh on the base ui is very, very useful and very good and efficient. So I don't think it's needed.

Speaker 1:

Voodoo, this is a healer add-on that allows you to essentially alter your healing spells in terms of like, oh, if, um, I want to cast this spell at this rank, or you know this kind of deal um, it allows you to show incoming heals and stuff, all of these sort of things. Uh, again, it's more of a healer add-on and I don't use many add-ons on my healers. I think I used a couple week auras and that's about it. I really don't. I've started to use the base ui, um for most of my characters. So, yeah, to try and get used to all of this and I think that I'm fine. I don't use a lot of add-ons in the first place, I really don't. So I'm gonna adapt to this a bit easier than most, but I know that it's a lot tougher for other people with add-ons or who need the add-ons to help them see a lot of the things. Okay, uh, hillbot is well, continued. Again, this is just the same with um sort of voodoo. It kind of helps in that regard.

Speaker 1:

Healing regards um, and then big debuffs is the last one that is going to be really affected. Big debuffs, what it is is essentially it shows you debuffs that are just scaled in size, because everything that is on the ui at the moment is very small. If you fear someone, you don't know if they're feared until like a second or two after, because you can either see the animation of the player running away in fear and the fear symbol above their head, or you look at their buffs, which are very small on the base ui, and you see the fear symbol. What big debuffs does is it simply puts the giant cc symbol fear, cyclone, uh, stuns, anything like that over their portrait. So their portrait being, whether it's their class or their character's face, it will be just a fear symbol, giant fear symbol and it would be ticking down as to when that's about to run out.

Speaker 1:

Um, this is what big debuffs does.

Speaker 1:

Basically, it shows you if something important has happened to your healer, their, their healer, you, etc. Etc. And I hope that this means that they're going to be looking at changing the base UI and again, all of these add-ons that are going to be going does kind of represent that they will be doing big changes with the base UI and I really hope that they do. I really really hope that they do. I really really hope that they do um, because it does need another overhaul. Now I know that you say, oh, but they've just done like an overhaul. Yes, they did in Dragonflight, but that's a aesthetics overhaul in terms of the like current UI, how to edit your action bars, that kind of got rid of the UI add-ons, which is really good. This got rid of um, for me. It got rid of bartender. It got rid of oh.

Speaker 1:

There was another one, I've forgotten the name of it. I had it years ago, but a lot of people would use an add-on to change how their bars looked and mine looked the exact same as they did when I had this add-on, because I like my action bars to be, neatly, you know, four bars on top of each other. Very simple, you know, if you wanted to put all of your action bars in a square around the outside of your like monitor, go for it. You can. Around the outside of your like monitor, go for it, you can.

Speaker 1:

And I think that these add-ons that are being taken away not taken away but slowly weaned out of the game will indicate that they are looking to do big ui changes and overhaul it to a better system, and I think that's great. I think that it's needed, I think that it's something that is long overdue. In my opinion, the amount of add-ons that have been used in the game for a very long time have been a detriment to it. Because you need these add-ons to play is what a lot of people say. I personally don't think you need them all. I think they certainly do help, though, okay, if I didn't have weak auras, there would probably be times when I didn't see certain things that I should in the game, and that has helped me. That has helped me react to the game and how it's being played, and that shouldn't be the case. The game should allow you to see everything itself without the external use of these add-ons. Okay, and I think that that's the important thing, and I really do hope that they are going to change this, going forward the base ui and hopefully incorporate some of these add-ons into that ui.

Speaker 1:

Big debuffs, I think, is definitely one.

Speaker 1:

I don't think weak auras should be used in the base UI. I really don't. I think that I know that they don't want the incoming heals to be viewed in the base UI as well. I know that they don't want that, but I think the only thing that you kind of need is that big debuffs and I say that because I'm a PvPer. I need to know when CC is happening. And I say that because I'm a PvPer. I need to know when CC is happening, and I also say that when.

Speaker 1:

It should allow people to show what buffs and debuffs that they want on the enemy target and it should allow you to scale how big you want these buffs to see, because some people might not be able to see them as well. Some people just might not have a better vision than others. Therefore, they have to really zoom in to be able to see them as well. Some people just might not have a better vision than others. Therefore, they have to really zoom in to be able to see these add-ons, and by that time, something might have happened. So you should be allowed to customize every aspect of the UI, in my honest opinion, and it should be allowed to customize how big you want these debuffs, what debuffs and buffs you want to be able to uh, change and view and stuff like this.

Speaker 1:

But that is where I will end it for this episode. Um, thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there as well as check out the etsy shop. Constant things happening on there as well. But thank you all very much once again and go, avala friend, goodbye all. Thank you.