The WoW: Forever Beta Addon Census — Questie Ships, DBM Is Porting, WeakAuras Is Dead
Original editorial illustration by RealmList, generated for this article. This is artwork, not game footage or official promotional material.
If you are coming to the World of Warcraft: Forever beta from Classic Era or a private server, your addon folder is about to disappoint you — and that is by design, not by neglect. Three days into the beta, the ecosystem has settled enough for a first census, and the picture splits cleanly into three groups: addons that already work, addons that are being rebuilt, and one very prominent casualty that is not coming back.
First, understand the rules
Forever is built on retail-era interface code with Midnight's restrictions: enemy health, damage numbers and threat are hidden from addons, so combat-decision automation cannot exist here the way it does on a 3.3.5a server. Blizzard's answer is replacement rather than prohibition — the game bundles a built-in damage meter, Cooldown Manager and swing timer, and encounters are designed to be fightable without warning addons. Only advantage-granting functionality was removed.
That framing came from the pre-launch Q&A: addons should not be required. The beta is the test of whether that claim holds.
The census
| Addon | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Questie | ✅ Works — Forever version released | The first must-have to arrive; quest guidance without combat data |
| Details | ✅ Works, within API limits | Damage meter scoped to what the API exposes — compare against the built-in meter |
| Deadly Boss Mods | 🚧 Port in progress | Encounter warnings are the design target of the API restrictions, so expect a reduced feature set |
| WeakAuras | ❌ Dead — author stopped porting | The biggest casualty of the beta so far; no replacement ecosystem exists yet |
| Classic Era addons, generally | ⚠️ Load but misbehave | Most need updates for the changed API; many load fine, then break on combat data or saved settings |
One beta bug affects all of them, including Blizzard's own settings: saved configuration is written to disk but never loaded on a fresh client launch, so layouts, keybinds and addon profiles reset every restart. There is no workaround beyond keeping the client running, and it is not yet on the official known-issues list — report it if it bites you, because official awareness currently lags community experience here.
ClassicUI Forever: the first restoration addon
The community response arrived faster than most expected. justawower's ClassicUI Forever (CurseForge) is the first restoration-style addon for the beta, and it is more careful about scope than its predecessors on other servers: a griffon action bar, old-style unit frames, a round minimap, and 1.x-flavored bag, loot, merchant and social windows — built as element-by-element modules integrated into Edit Mode rather than a full-interface replacement.
Beta-appropriate caveats apply: settings revert on relog (the universal reset bug), stealth and druid forms have issues, and occasional LUA errors surface. The notable datapoint is speed — a usable classic restoration exists on day three, which tells you the addon community is working at beta tempo, not expansion tempo.
Practical setup advice for testers
- Install from scratch, not from your Classic folder. Do not copy your 3.3.5a or Classic Era
Interface/AddOnsdirectory over. Forever runs the Midnight-era API; old addons will half-load and then break in combat in ways that look like game bugs. - Treat your settings as disposable. Until the save-loading bug is fixed, expect to reconfigure after every client restart. Export or screenshot a layout you like before logging off.
- Ignore old PTR folders — but check anyway. One report claimed the beta client pulls addons and keybinds from previous PTR installs, recommending you disable legacy PTR addons to avoid LUA errors; two commenters directly disputed it, and it remains unconfirmed. Costs nothing to check
Interface/AddOnsfor leftovers. - Try the bundled tools before installing equivalents. The built-in damage meter and Cooldown Manager are the reference implementations of what the API allows; third-party alternatives cannot exceed them. Note that the official known-issues list marks the Cooldown Manager as a work in progress with completeness varying by class — if yours looks half-finished, that is listed behavior, not your setup.
- Report missing functionality as feedback, not as a bug. Blizzard has explicitly staked the design on "addons not required." The beta feedback forum is where the boundary between QoL and advantage gets negotiated — participation there shapes what survives to launch.
What to watch before October 21
The beta runs through October 21 and the level cap rises to 30 mid-test, which will stress the addon picture in two ways: dungeon and leveling addons built for Classic assumptions will meet new content they have no data for, and the WeakAuras vacuum is the most obvious gap for someone to fill with a Forever-native alternative. The first weekend settled which classics live or die; the next three weeks decide what the launch-day ecosystem looks like.
Sources and further reading
External references used to verify or expand this article.