World of Warcraft is getting its new Dragonflight expansion in 2022. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus has already been able to play it and found that Dragonflight simply makes many “necessary” addons superfluous.
I can no longer play WoW without addons. With every patch I start the addon manager WoWUp and update everything I need first. And that’s a lot: I use at least 20 addons regularly.
Since I’m a progress raider, so I regularly visit raids with my guild, many addons are “mandatory”. I use others because they just make it easier for me to play. But when I tested Dragonflight, I noticed that I won’t need at least 3 addons anymore.
What are these addons? Specifically, I came up with 3 addons that I no longer need in Dragonflight:
Some of them are among the best addons for World of Warcraft, but probably not for much longer. With Dragonflight they are simply built into the interface, you no longer need the functions via external functions.
In the video we show you everything you need to know about Dragonflight in 3 minutes:
Everything you need to know about the new WoW expansion “Dragonflight” – in 3 minutes
After 18 years, WoW simply takes addons into the UI
That’s why I can finally do without addons: One of the big changes in Dragonflight is a completely new user interface that differs from classic WoW. The minimap is larger and there are dozens of customization options.
Two of my favorite new settings are the ability to move, resize, and resize the action bars. This makes Dominos, which I normally use, completely obsolete.
In addition, the cursor is easy to enlarge, as you may have noticed in some of our gameplay videos. I often have trouble finding the mouse pointer on my screen. The new option makes him stand out much better.
All of this can be set simply by editing the menu. Even combining all the bags into a single click on the option can be activated. As the inventory in Dragonflight grows even larger, this option is very welcome.
But what really excites me is the new possibility of “quick binds”. Keybinds, i.e. assigning activation buttons to action bars, are easy to do in Dragonflight via the UI. I start the “Quick Bind” in the options, hover over the ability and press the key that I want to bind. No more annoying counting of the action bars and fields.
Why is this such good news? Addons often cause unloved LUA errors, especially after major updates or if you use too many addons. It can happen that addons and the UI or different plugins get in each other’s way.
But since all the options are now contained in the UI itself, this should lead to significantly fewer problems and maybe even make complete packages like ElvUI completely redundant.
Certain extensions like WeakAuras, BattleGroundEnemies or Boss Mods will still be necessary at least for raids and PvP. But with Dragonflight I can at least reduce my list of installed addons a bit.
Dragonflight wants to be like it used to be and is still modern
What else is in Dragonflight? Despite the surprising but not unwelcome UI change, Dragonflight wants to take a “back to the roots” approach. In an interview with Product Director Pat Dawson, he said that Dragonflight puts more emphasis on old values.
For example, class fantasies should come into focus again, with talents returning that give all characters a better profile. A good example of this is the new Rufer class, which I tested for 7 hours.
You can find information about the Rufer in our special and recorded alpha gameplay here in the video:
3 minutes of gameplay for Rufer, the new class in WoW Dragonflight
The talents give at least 2 different playstyles to even the Caller’s DPS spec, similar to how it used to be. “The best” will likely emerge quickly, but those who prefer to play their own way can do so again in Dragonflight.
The feeling is also more… Classic, as stupid as it sounds. There is more humor and wit in the quests and the whole world than in the last addons. Small spoiler maybe, but: a strong warrior that you fight is called to dinner by his child in the middle of the fight. Wonderfully stupid and completely unexpected. This is a common occurrence in Dragonflight.
You can read more about how Dragonflight played in the Alpha in the game report by colleague Marylin Marx at GameStar. You can read more about the features of the expansion in our collective article:
WoW Dragonflight: Release, Beta, New Class – Everything We Know
When can I play? Theoretically from now on. The Dragonflight Alpha is now open and you can still register for it. However, access is currently still very limited and only selected people can participate.
A beta will follow later and a release is planned for 2022. An exact date is still pending, but the end of November is now circulating in the community as a possible release period, which I also think is very likely.
The discussion about the release is quite controversial. Some find it too early, others too late, and an agreement seems to be quite difficult:
WoW: Is Dragonflight really too soon? Statistics says: No, but…