The first big thing announced in an extra-long special episode of World of Warcraft’s irregular Wowcast videos is the addition of a new rotation assistance tool that players can toggle on or off. If you haven’t played a given spec before or just have been away for a while and don’t really want to look up third-party guides, the idea here is that you can turn on the assistant and it’ll tell you what you should probably be doing right now.
If you’re thinking that this is a lot like existing mods, there’s a reason for that: The same episode announces a sweeping set of changes that are ultimately aimed at removing any sort of mods that allow for automation of guidance in raid mechanics. Things like WeakAuras, Deadly Boss Mods, and so forth are all meant to go the way of the dodo sooner rather than later.
As explained by game director Ion Hazzikostas, these mods have long been a part of progression raiding, but as a result they’ve also become mandatory in that content and have required more stringent tuning of raids based on the expectation of their operation. It’s meant to be a process rather than just turning off all of these mods pronto in 11.1.7, and you can learn more in the video just below, but if you’ve long felt like these mods automate too much of the game’s progression content… clearly, Blizzard agrees. Check out the full episode below.
