Blizzard Plans to Replace World of Warcraft Combat Addons with In-Game Tools

Blizzard has introduced a new feature called Rotation Assist and says it plans to slowly remove WoW addons that help players in combat.

Experienced World of Warcraft players know that addons are important for tackling parts of the game. These third-party tools help in many ways especially in tough battles and are widely used. For years Blizzard has allowed players to use addons. but now they plan to change that. Blizzard wants to stop the use of combat-focused addons and replace them with their own built-in tools and features.

Because some activities in World of Warcraft are so difficult players often use addons like Deadly Boss Mods Hekili and GTFO for help. These addons give players important information like upcoming boss attacks or tell them which spell to use during a fight. While these addons are popular in the community Blizzard feels they might be taking away from what made WoW fun and unique in the first place.

Also Read: Evil Dead The Game to Be Delisted from Steam and Epic DBD Rival Faces Removal

In a new video World of Warcraft senior game director Ion Hazzikostas talks about combat addons and a new feature. He says Blizzard plans to slowly stop the use of third-party addons that help players in PvE and PvP combat.

Hazzikostas says that the way we design encounters has been heavily influenced by how players use addons. When designing a fight. we sometimes hear feedback that it feels like not enough is happening. In reality there are multiple mechanics at play. but addons make it easier for players by organizing them. So they don’t have to think about them often.

Using addons limits us in some ways, he explains. For example we don't do as many coordination mechanics as we did before. In the old days of WoW some raids were mainly about coordinating rotations. But now we know that can’t be the main challenge anymore because players will figure it out and it won’t be solved by the kind of communication cooperation, and system-solving we used to focus on in MMOs.

Blizzard wants to replace third-party addons with its own tools and systems because of limitations on content and difficulty. The first new tool called Rotation Assist will be available in patch 11.1.7. This feature is designed to help players who are learning a new spec or need guidance on which abilities to use without relying on third-party addons. It aims to replace the popular Hekili addon.

Blizzard's new feature will have a one button option letting you press a key to automatically cast the recommended spell. But, there’s a catch using it will make your spells cast slower as it increases the global cooldown time compared to manual play.

Rotation Assist is the only feature Blizzard has announced so far. As for when they will add more features to replace combat addons and start blocking them Hazzikostas is being careful and flexible. He said we need to ease into this. He understands that Blizzard needs to create the tools to replace mods first and that rushing into banning combat addons would be a bad idea. Big changes are coming to WoW addons. but they will happen slowly over time.