~15 min
The addons that still matter in WoW Midnight are the ones that survived Secret Values - the patch 12.0 change that blocked combat automation and broke WeakAuras, Hekili and GTFO. Blizzard then baked the basics into the default UI, so the useful addons now are clarity, coordination and planning tools rather than combat scrapers.
This is the full list of what still works for raids, Mythic+, PvP, healing, gold, UI and quality of life, what Blizzard now does natively, and what to install first.
What Changed: Secret Values and the Addon Reset
Patch 12.0 introduced Secret Values, the change the community nicknamed the Addon Disarmament. Addons can no longer read and react to combat data in real time, and Blizzard moved the core jobs into the default interface. The casualties:
- WeakAuras is effectively dead for combat. Non-combat auras like cooldown reminders may still load, but proc tracking, boss-mechanic triggers and reactive alerts are blocked, and the team chose not to ship a stripped-down version.
- Hekili and other rotation helpers are gone.
- GTFO no longer works, so audio danger cues now come from your boss mod and nameplates.
- MoveAnything is obsolete now that Edit Mode exists.
In their place, the default UI now has a boss-warning timeline, a damage meter, a cooldown manager and an assisted-highlight system. External combat-log tools like WarcraftLogs are completely unaffected. The takeaway: the best Midnight addons are the ones that add clarity and coordination without scraping combat, plus the planners and lookups that were never touched.
Midnight Top Addons (Quick Picks)
Pick the tool that matches what you do, then keep one alternative in your pocket in case a mid-season update breaks something.
Purpose | Best addon | Alternative |
|---|---|---|
Raiding | Deadly Boss Mods (DBM) | BigWigs + LittleWigs |
Mythic+ planning | Mythic Dungeon Tools | Keystone.guru (web) |
Mythic+ timer | WarpDeplete | Native M+ UI |
Party cooldowns | OmniCD | Native Cooldown Manager |
M+ score / pugging | Raider.IO | Premade Groups Filter |
Damage meter | Details! | Blizzard native meter |
Nameplates | Platynator | Plater |
Healer frames | VuhDo | Cell |
PvP (arenas) | Gladius | sArena Reloaded |
Gold (Auction House) | Auctionator | TradeSkillMaster |
Bags | Baganator | Default (Edit Mode) |
UI customization | ElvUI | Bartender4 / Dominos |
Best Addons for Raids
Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)
The most popular boss mod, patched fast after the API changes. Clear countdowns and audio cues for raid and dungeon mechanics, and it works out of the box. Blizzard's native timeline covers Normal and Heroic, but Mythic raiders still want a boss mod for the extra detail and control.
Get it: CurseForge
BigWigs
The lighter, cleaner alternative to DBM, favoured by most experienced raiders. It is modular, so you load only the content you run. Pair it with LittleWigs for dungeon, Delve and scenario bosses.
Get it: CurseForge
LittleWigs
The BigWigs content plugin for 5-player dungeons, Delves and scenarios. With combat WeakAuras dead and GTFO gone, dungeon boss warnings carry more of your danger alerts than before, and this is how BigWigs users get them.
Get it: CurseForge
Method Raid Tools (MRT)
Fully updated for Midnight and still essential for organised raiding. It is not a boss-mechanic addon but a coordination one: cooldown assignments, external tracking and shared planning notes. If you raid lead, it replaces panic with a plan.
Get it: CurseForge
Details! Damage Meter
The meter that survived. It now skins Blizzard's native combat data, so its numbers stay accurate and line up with WarcraftLogs, while giving far more breakdown than the built-in meter - damage, healing, death logs and more. The standard for checking what actually happened in a pull.
Get it: CurseForge
Best Addons for Mythic+
Mythic+ is where addons matter most, and where the reset hit hardest. These keep your screen honest when a key snowballs - useful whether you push your own keys or buy a Mythic+ boost to climb faster.
OmniCD
Core infrastructure in Midnight. It shows your party's interrupts, defensives and externals - available, on cooldown, or coming back - which is exactly the callout WeakAuras used to give and no longer can. The difference between a coordinated stop rotation and five people hoping someone else kicks.
Get it: CurseForge
Mythic Dungeon Tools (MDT)
The M+ route planner, and essentially non-negotiable if you set routes. It maps every mob, tracks your enemy-forces percentage as you plan, auto-syncs the week's affixes, and shares routes as import strings. Plan the skip-versus-pull decisions in advance instead of mid-key on Discord.
Get it: CurseForge
Raider.IO
The M+ score standard and the thing that makes pugging work. Tooltip ratings, dungeon-specific breakdowns and recent-run history on every applicant, right in the Group Finder. Leaders invite on it, so you want it whether you lead or apply. Pair it with the free Raider.IO desktop client for near-instant score updates.
Get it: CurseForge
WarpDeplete (M+ Timer)
A clean, minimalist dungeon-timer overlay: run timer, objective completion and key stats in one panel. It is the standalone successor to the old M+ Timer WeakAura, with lower memory use and modern styling. Sits alongside MDT - one plans the route, the other tracks it live.
Get it: CurseForge
Platynator
Built for Midnight's API rather than retrofitted, with a drag-and-drop designer that needs no Lua (from the developer behind Auctionator and Baganator). Nameplates now carry interruptible casts, CC status and priority targets, so a solid nameplate addon went from nice-to-have to required. Plater remains the deep-customisation alternative.
Get it: CurseForge
Premade Groups Filter (PGF)
Much better control over the Group Finder: filter listings by score, roles, key level and more with a simple UI or advanced expressions. It cuts the scrolling out of forming or finding M+ groups.
Get it: CurseForge
Details! Mythic+ Scoreboard
A Details! companion that pops an end-of-run scoreboard after each key - damage, healing, deaths and more per player - and keeps a history of your runs. Quick post-key review without opening WarcraftLogs.
Get it: CurseForge
Best Addons for PvP
PvP has no fixed mechanic rotation, so these are about reading the enemy team fast. If you want the rating without the grind, our best PvP comps guide pairs well with them.
Gladius
Classic arena frames: trinkets, diminishing returns, casts and clean enemy info. Still one of the fastest ways to read an arena. sArena Reloaded is the lighter alternative.
Get it: CurseForge
OmniBar
Tracks enemy interrupts and major cooldowns, so you can time your casts and plan CC chains around what the other team has available.
Get it: CurseForge
BigDebuffs
Surfaces key crowd control and major defensives on unit frames, so you never miss a critical state on yourself or a target.
Get it: CurseForge
Healing & Raid Frames
Healers were hit twice by the reset - the targeted-cast WeakAuras that flagged incoming damage are gone, and the default frames still do not surface everything a serious healer needs at high keys. These two put the control back.
VuhDo
The long-standing gold standard for healer raid frames, and Midnight did not touch it. Click-casting, buff and debuff tracking, main-tank management and deep customisation. If you heal, this is the control the default frames still lack.
Get it: CurseForge
Cell
A modern, lighter raid-frame addon that auto-switches layout by content, with built-in click-casting, raid-debuff highlighting and tools like ready check and death report. A cleaner-setup alternative to VuhDo, and it plays nicely with BigDebuffs and OmniCD.
Get it: CurseForge
Best Addons for Gold & Farming
These survived untouched, since none of them scrape combat. They speed up the Auction House and gathering loops that fund your WoW gold income.
Auctionator
The easy Auction House upgrade: faster search, cleaner posting and safer workflows, plus a value hint on item tooltips. Ideal for casual and mid-level gold making.
Get it: CurseForge
TradeSkillMaster (TSM)
The advanced toolset for serious Auction House play: crafting profit tracking, pricing, inventory control and bulk posting. Powerful, with a learning curve.
Get it: CurseForge
GatherMate2
Marks gathering nodes on your map and minimap, and becomes much stronger paired with route planning. HandyNotes plus plugins is the flexible alternative.
Get it: CurseForge
Combat Display & Cooldowns (WeakAuras Replacements)
With combat WeakAuras gone, most of your own tracking now comes from Blizzard's native Cooldown Manager - set it up in Edit Mode first. Then layer on what still works.
WeakAuras
Still worth installing, but manage expectations. After Secret Values its combat features (proc tracking, boss triggers, reactive alerts) are blocked. Non-combat auras - cooldown reminders, buff and resource tracking, static class displays - still work, and many class packs have been rebuilt around what is allowed. Do not import an old combat pack and expect it to fire.
Get it: CurseForge
OmniCC
Adds numeric countdown text to every button - spells, items, trinkets - so you read cooldowns at a glance instead of watching the swirl. Tiny, universal, and works with the default UI and most other addons.
Get it: CurseForge
UI & Quality of Life
ElvUI
The full UI replacement, and it came through Midnight intact. One clean, consistent interface for action bars, unit frames, minimap, chat and bags. Setup takes time, but you rarely touch it afterwards. Note it is not on CurseForge - download and update it from tukui.org.
Get it: Tukui - ElvUI
Bartender4 / Dominos
Prefer to keep the Blizzard UI but want better action bars? Bartender4 (or Dominos) gives layout freedom without a full overhaul.
Get it: Bartender4
Baganator
A fast, tidy bag and bank replacement with categories, search, item-level and Pawn upgrade markers, and cross-character inventory shown in tooltips (from the Platynator developer). Note it requires Syndicator, installed automatically by the CurseForge app.
Get it: CurseForge
BugSack + BugGrabber
Error infrastructure that is close to essential when addons update around a patch. BugGrabber captures Lua errors quietly and BugSack collects them in a readable list instead of spamming your screen, so a broken addon does not blast pop-ups mid-pull. Install both.
Get it: CurseForge
Pawn
Puts a simple upgrade value on every item, so you can tell at a glance whether a drop or vendor piece beats what you are wearing. Import stat weights per spec, and pair it with a bag addon like Baganator to get upgrade arrows back on item icons.
Get it: CurseForge
Altoholic
One dashboard for your whole roster: gold, bags, banks, professions, cooldowns and lockouts across every character, without logging each one in. Invaluable once you run alts and want to know which one is sitting on the mats or still owes a vault.
Get it: CurseForge
Plumber
A big quality-of-life pack that extends the default UI: currency tracking on the backpack bar, cleaner talking-head subtitles, drawer macros, instant auto-loot and more. Install once and never turn off.
Get it: CurseForge
A last habit worth forming this season: learn Blizzard's native Cooldown Manager, boss warnings and Edit Mode before piling on addons. A lot of what you used to import is now built in.
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FAQ
Why did my WeakAuras stop working in WoW Midnight?
Patch 12.0's Secret Values blocked addons from reading combat data in real time. Non-combat auras like cooldown reminders may still load, but proc tracking, boss-mechanic triggers and reactive combat alerts no longer work, and the WeakAuras team did not ship a combat replacement.
Is DBM still working in Midnight?
Yes. DBM was patched quickly after the API changes and still provides raid and dungeon timers and warnings. Blizzard's native boss warnings cover Normal and Heroic, but most Mythic raiders still run DBM or BigWigs for the extra detail.
Do I need addons in Midnight?
Not strictly - the default UI now handles boss warnings, a damage meter and cooldown tracking. But addons still add real clarity and coordination for Mythic+, raids and PvP, especially OmniCD, Mythic Dungeon Tools and Raider.IO.
What replaced WeakAuras for cooldowns?
For your own cooldowns, Blizzard's native Cooldown Manager in Edit Mode, with OmniCC for countdown text. For your party's interrupts, defensives and externals, OmniCD. For damage and healing numbers, Details!.
Is GTFO still usable in Midnight?
No - GTFO no longer works after the API changes. Your audio danger cues now come from your boss mod (DBM or BigWigs plus LittleWigs) and from a good nameplate addon like Platynator, so make sure their alerts are configured.
What are the must-have Mythic+ addons?
Mythic Dungeon Tools for routes, OmniCD for party cooldowns, Raider.IO for scores and pugging, WarpDeplete for the timer, Platynator for nameplates, and a boss mod with LittleWigs for dungeon warnings.
What are the best healer addons in Midnight?
VuhDo or Cell for raid frames with click-casting, plus OmniCD to track party cooldowns and BigDebuffs to spot crowd control and dispels quickly. The default frames improved, but these surface what you need at high keys.
Where do I download ElvUI?
From tukui.org, not CurseForge. ElvUI is distributed on its own site, so you download and update it manually (or through the Tukui client) rather than through the CurseForge app.
