The Midnight beta is live, and it has upended how many World of Warcraft players run their interfaces. Blizzard’s changes prevent addons from reading real-time combat data. However, addons that alter appearance, placement, and cosmetics are still allowed, and players are already rebuilding UIs using the game’s new tools and familiar skinning addons.
What Blizzard changed and why
In a blog post, Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas said the goal is to hide combat data from third-party tools. That means addons that parse live combat streams for DPS, threat, or similar metrics are restricted. Addons that reposition, restyle, or resize UI elements remain supported, and Blizzard is focusing on limiting logic rather than cosmetic work.
Customizable elements include:
- Action bars
- Minimap
- Icon borders
- Fonts
- Unit frames
- Cast bars
- Nameplates
Some cosmetic addons broke initially because they referenced combat data under the old APIs. Many of those will be updated and work again once maintainers remove restricted calls. For players chasing a neat, competitive layout, that means a short period of rebuilding and testing rather than a total loss.
Addons and approaches players are using now
Creators and streamers have started sharing clean, modern setups that rely on Blizzard’s built-in features plus cosmetic addons. Popular examples being used as starting points include:
- Dominos for flexible action bars
- Masque for skinning button art
- Platynator for nameplates
- Leatrix Plus for minimap tweaks and QoL
- BetterBlizzFrames for frame improvements
- Cooldown Manager Tweaks to augment Blizzard’s cooldown visuals
- SenseiClassResourceBar for class resource displays
These are examples, not requirements. Players can mix and match to rebuild a simple, clean UI without relying on addons that read combat telemetry.
Blizzard’s new in-game options, like Cooldown Manager, Boss Warnings, DPS indicators that do not expose raw combat streams, and Combat Audio Alerts, aim to give essential feedback without third-party parsing. The result is a smaller toolbox for addon developers, but enough hooks to create usable, visually tidy interfaces. For context on early testing and server availability during the beta period, see the coverage about alpha realm downtime that preceded the beta when alpha realms were taken offline ahead of the beta.
Creators like Quazii have posted walkthroughs showing how to recreate a competitive layout using the above addons and Blizzard’s options. For those who enjoy tinkering, the community rebuild looks like a welcome, if fiddly, challenge.
Comments are welcome and readers can follow the team on X, Bluesky, and YouTube for updates and discussion.
