Start with what Midnight builds in — Cooldown Manager, Boss Warnings and the Damage Meter — then add display addons: Plater for nameplates, a raid-frame replacement (Cell, Grid2 or VuhDo) and a bag addon like Baganator or AdiBags. Those cover almost everything people mean by "quality of life". Map notes, auction tools and quest helpers are personal top-ups you add later, one at a time.
The core five, and what each one actually fixes
| Addon | What it solves |
| Cooldown Manager (built in) | Your cooldowns and buffs where your eyes already are; Midnight stops addons reading combat state for this |
| Plater | Readable nameplates: casts, interrupt windows, colour-coded priority targets |
| Cell / Grid2 / VuhDo | Compact raid frames with resizable buff and debuff icons |
| Boss Warnings (built in) | Blizzard's Boss Timeline plus Minor, Medium and Critical alerts; check boss-mod addons for a Midnight version |
| Baganator / AdiBags | One combined bag window, sorted into categories, with search |
Setting them up for a new expansion
- Use an addon manager (CurseForge app, WoWUp or similar) rather than manual zips — on patch day it re-checks everything at once.
- Update every addon before your first login. A new expansion bumps the interface version, so anything not rebuilt is flagged out of date.
- Tick "Load out of date AddOns" on the character-select AddOns screen. Most addons still work; a few will throw Lua errors until the author ships a fix.
- Back up your
WTFfolder once before launch. It holds your profiles, and restoring it takes seconds when something resets. - Add addons back gradually. If the game stutters or a frame vanishes, you know which one to blame.
How do I increase buff size on raid frames?
On Blizzard's default raid frames there is no dedicated buff-size slider. Edit Mode lets you scale the whole party/raid frame container, which enlarges the aura icons along with everything else — that is the built-in answer, and it is usually enough for tracking your own HoTs.
If you want the icons bigger without inflating the frames, that is what raid-frame addons exist for. Cell, Grid2 and VuhDo all expose separate size settings for buffs and debuffs, plus filters so only auras you care about get shown. There are also small addons dedicated purely to restyling Blizzard's raid frames, including aura scale — search the addon site for "raid frame settings" and check the version is current before installing.
What if I meant Enhancement Shaman, not "enhance" the UI?
Then the shortlist narrows fast. In Midnight addons can no longer read procs or cooldowns in combat, and rotation helpers are what that change removed. Blizzard's Assisted Highlight and One-Button Rotation now suggest the next button.
Check any aura package for a Midnight version before importing: packs built on combat data no longer work.
Are quality-of-life addons allowed, and do they hurt performance?
Addons use Blizzard's own API and are permitted; the line is automation. Anything that plays for you is out of bounds, which is exactly why the mainstream ones only display information.
Performance-wise, the cost is mostly memory and one-off load time. A bloated WeakAuras profile with hundreds of unused auras does more damage to your frame rate than five well-chosen addons ever will — prune it once a season.
Which one should I install if I only pick one?
In Midnight, start with none: set up the built-in Cooldown Manager, Boss Warnings and Damage Meter first, then add a nameplate or raid-frame addon for looks.
If you heal, a raid-frame addon is the first one worth adding.
If you would rather spend your evenings playing than rebuilding a UI, PewPewShop's coaching sessions cover setup and the habits that come with it — vetted human players, no bots or cheats, and a long clean record. We also handle Midnight-era side projects like Player Housing Setup from EUR 18.99 if decorating is not how you want to spend launch week.