This is awesome! I wish I'd seen this earlier! I usually stick to one spec for leveling, but if I decide to change specs at max level, I find it REALLY hard to switch and be efficient, without having the leveling process to smooth the rotation out! Thank you for doing this!
Great point! I am something of an alt-o-holic and will go months between playing some of my alts at times. Coming back to them after that long feels so painful to re-learn the rotation every time. I appreciate having something like Hekili to remind me which spells I should be prioritizing since I don't play them all the time lol.
True, I know many players like that aspect and say that DPS rotation addons are good "training wheels" to help you get into the flow of a class and then can be turned off if you want.
@@adamarzo559 No. I Can pay it NOW. Relax urself. And even if I couldn't that'd be ok cause u know mastering games aren't really important right?.... Bro....
Nice breakdown of the scoring sysyem, it gives valuable insight on the different aspects of what makes a good addon. I've been playing on and off over the last 15 years but now a days getting into a new class is alot more diffucult than it was between the tbc and the pandaria era. Keep up the good work and I look forward to future videos.
Returning player and am using Hekili, but was curious if there was something better. But it looks like the best option. I do like how it shows the spells to come in the rotation, very helpful. Great review methodology, and really love the wife test. Always good to have a sample from a less experienced user, and those improvements with Hekili were impressive.
a couple of these addons aren't being updated anymore. MaxDPS is spradically updated but not for all classes. Hekili is one I'm using atm. I'd say, stick with it.
Superb video. I really appreciate how you break down the testing, then break down the tests. F.A.C.T.S. isn’t cheesy at all. It makes perfect sense. Kudos to your wife for helping test these out. That was truly an eye opening jump in DPS for just the type of player these are for.
I'm coming back to WoW after a 10-year hiatus. I want to understand more, this time, about the hunter class than I did 10 years ago. I love the idea of a rotation guide to help coach me on which spells needs to be cast and the best times for casting. Thanks so much for making this video.
Thanks for the video. Tried Hekili and love it. Playing alts it's hard for me to memorize all the rotations. Also, great breakdown and scoring system used when comparing addons. Subbed to your channel.
Really solid information here. Like the way you analysed each of them. I started using Hekili in BFA to help with tracking my Feral bleeds & snapshot timings, and it's been great. I do sometimes think it's wrong, and defy it's recommendations (it doesn't like spending Apex Predator procs), but it's a phenomenal tool for keeping a track of when to hit the buttons for good pandemic refreshes.
Just so you know, I based my choice of conro based on how minimally it affected my overall ui while still giving me fast setting and adjustment on the run because I hate having to pull menus down in combat. I can also say that I like being able to toggle it off in a click on characters I feel confident playing and leaving it on for those alts that end up hanging out for weeks at a time as a simple reminder. Thank you for this review. I like my conro fit. Aside from button suggestions and a tiny toggle button I have it set to quiet mode which I like as a new tank.
Thanks for this helpful video. Late to the show, but a suggestion: You should weigh the numbers accordingly to the addon you rate. A DPS Rotation Addon should not get the same score weight on setup and results. A 10 setup 5 Result, should not be qual to a 5 Setup and 10 Result Score. DPS is what people want from this addon, so this should be represented in the score.
Awesome video man subscribed. I have used two of these and introduced Hekili to guild members to improve DPS and it’s helping in our runs. We are a mature guild with lots of mouse clicking spells and also only going for the spell once’s it off CD and not mashing it pre of CD due to PC latency, internet latency and server latency. Thank you for your time and effort doing this.
I just subbed, first time seeing you on here. This was very well done and carefully thought out and the charts. This must've taken considerable time. Next level! 😏
You know, I've never used a dps rotation addon ever. I've been disappointed with my warrior's output and gave Hekili a shot. No customization or anything and got a 20% increase in damage. No real increase on my druid (maybe 2 or 3%) so I guess I play that character reasonably well. I'd better go checkout your Hekili guide to see if I can tweak it to be even better. Cheers! 👍
That is super interesting! Especially that you saw that big of a difference between druid and warrior. I know rotation addons won't make someone into a world-first raider, but I really like them for my alts. At the end of my Hekili guide, I go over how to add the custom rotation based on simulating your gear. I would be interested to see if that improves things even further. Best, Andoris
oh I am so glad I found this on my main board. After a few years as elemental sham and shaddow priest I went back to my Boomkin and I am unable to push the limit with my DPS. I know the standard rotations and so on, but I will give Hekili a try to see how much or if I can boost my DPS up :) With full acc of alts, its hard to master more than one / two classes for me and it takes so much time.
I use Hekili because I don't like surprises. In any addon that puts ability Icons up, if you only have one or two the next one that pops up is usually a surprise. Hekili calculates on the fly and shows up to five possible Icons. This is handy because there are no surprises if things don't change and you can already see what the next and next should be, so you are thinking ahead. That doesn't limit you. If you need to cast a different spell / ability due to a, say, different player's screw up, that's ok go ahead and cast it Hekili will pick it up and calculate a new best rotation to get you back on track. It's about doubled my DPS from when I didn't know which spells / ability to use to reduce cool downs and enhance damage. Use it enough and soon the best rotations will become second nature to you, but there is always "that guy" that's going to mess up and Hekili helps you compensate and keep your cool. I freakin' love it. The only draw back is when Hekili suggests a spell / ability that is on a cool down that already been used it still will highlight it, that's OK because with up five icons you can see and use the next one and get back on track. I'd turn off the Slotted Icon (use) from equipment since I only use them when I need to in an emergency. Hekili will see them and calculate their use in a rotation, that gets annoying because I don't like to take up an action bar slot when there are actually too many spell / abilities and utilities that are better.
Hekili is superior for sure and one of the best things is you can hide the rotation icons and just show the keybinding numbers/letters instead so you can focus on other things instead of worrying if you are hitting the right key.
Yeah, my wife loved having the hotkeys on the icons when she was trying it out. Helps out a lot and lets you focus more on your character like you said.
I personally use HR and enjoy it, although Hekili seems interesting and I may give it a shot at some point. Very good video, and great job with thorough testing and helpful graphics.
Friend told me to install Hekili and I saw a huge increase in DPS. Did my first raid and mythic dungeons ever last week with demonology warlock and I was NOT hitting my buttons fast enough AT ALL. Especially with all the free procs. This add on helped me a ton! I’m starting to learn how to rotation should work and probably won’t need the add on in another week or two.
WTF this channel only has around 1k subs but does it's name: "arcane intellect" every honor, this is actually one of if not the most helpful video I have ever seen of wow, I mean who doesn't want a dps boost, just insanely good, keep it up my dude :)
I destroyed the like button ^^ I am constantly switching characters since I don't have a main (Allthough I know rogues in and out) so this helps a lot! Thanks. Stay crunchy
For me as an occasional player, with almost every class at times, because it's just fun, hekili is super helpful... I'm only a bit confused with the shadow priest from time to time, what the addon suggests... Great video, big thanks!
Wonder if you would do an updated video on these as MaxDPS core is updated frequently, however, the class additions are not. Case in point, Druid hasn't been updated in over a year.
I've used Conro for years and love the simplicity of it. I have a lot of alts and it lets me swap easily and jump in and out of tunes. Sadly it's out of date since the war within pre-patch so I'm looking for an alternative. Thanks for the video, greatly appreciated.
Really enjoyed this. Very informative and actually tickled me in a way to try out the other addons I had no idea about (Basically everything but HeroRotation).
I subscribed because your videos are very detailed. I appreciate you taking the time. I hope you can cover both Classic and retail. I was looking for a DPS rotation for Classic and came across this video. Good job! Keep up the good work.
Thank you! I hoping to get some Classic addon guides and comparison videos out soon. It is hard because many of these types of addons haven't been updated for TBC yet. ConRo and MaxDps have Classic (Vanilla) versions but haven't been updated for TBC. As a side note, the author of Hekili sent out a tweet recently saying that he looked into making a TBC version and decided against migrating the addon.
VERY professional video 10/10 You really worked hard on this. I don't even use these addons but man. It was very interesting to watch and i'm going recomend hekili on my friend (shes new to the game too lol) You are great at this. Subbed.
Been using Hekili for years now. I'm probably an above average player (consistent AOTC, nowhere close to world first) by the standards here and I generally know my rotations/priority but the brain processing power is important too. I can focus more on raid mechanics with this as I don't have to always parse my next best cast. Some of my friends consider it a "crutch" but my argument is that crutches help people walk. I really doubt I'd do MORE damage without it, though I do make some decisions now and then and disregard its suggestions (Sludgefist comes to mind). I would be interested to see the effects it would have on the dps of a highly skilled (competitive for world first) player. My assumption would be that it's a reduction at that level of play.
Thanks for the comment! I love your argument about crutches helping people walk. As you said, the addons can help free up some brain space and can be powerful if you know when you should ignore a recommendation. I think they can be great for casual players as well. I know there are many casual players who want to contribute to a guild or other raid groups and don't have the time to invest in understanding the rotation and theory crafting behind their class.
The biggest problem I see with rotational Addons is the macro gameplay, because of limitations with which the APLs have to be written. Especially when it comes to priority, APLs are severely lacking. They have target count breakpoints for spells, but those are only for max overall dps. APLs also cannot properly plan out CD timings for some classes, because Raidbots simulations fight duration varies by 20%. There is also the problem of who writes those APLs, I'm not very familiar with current drama, but in the last year we had a famously wrong Warlock APL and Mage(?) theory crafters, who apparently refused to accept a better APL, created by community members. We also have 4 different Shadow APLs one for each Covenant, though I don't know how important that is for other specs. Also, banking of resources/CDs for movement or priority target swaps is not a thing. Ignoring the above, for me personally relying on such an addon would be a damage reduction, simply, because I don't know exactly what I will see. When I look at my WeakAuras I'm looking at it with the intention of getting a true/false answer and if a spell is not ready I get a remaining cooldown to plan my next few spells, for which I will not look at my spells, and finally maybe some situationally important things (like proccs, statbreakpoints) with a glow, though how you display the latter is based on personal preference. This will probably lead to mistakes, especially when only glancing at the addon every few globals, because there is a fight going on. I have seen quite a few logs and one of the biggest damage losses is not necessarily a wrong rotation, but not pressing any buttons at all, especially on casters. A rotation helper might help with the question of which spell to cast next, but might also give inexperienced players anxiety to not press the wrong button. WoW can be quite fast, especially on haste classes during bloodlust and the thought process of recognizing an icon, remembering where it is and then pressing the correct button can easily lead to up to 0.5s downtime for inexperienced players, which on most classes will be worse than pressing semi random buttons, but not having any downtime. And then they eat a mechanic, which isn't punishing enough to kill them, so the healer loses damage too, because again, there is still a fight going on. ABC: Always be casting. Crutches is a great explanation for it, because if you can walk fine, you'd be better off without them, having your hands free.
@@Opharg You bring up some great points. APLs and sims are helpful but never perfect. I know many of the addons (Hekili especially) override the APLs to improve on them, but it will never be perfect. I think the addons are great for players who want to use it across many alts or are doing PvE casually. True mastery of your class and spec definitely requires a lot more than a simple addon. Thanks for your comment!
Hekili is amazing. Boosted my DPS quite a bit. Specially because I play so many characters you tend to get rusty on your main after having to learn multiple characters.
I totally get that, I try to keep at least one of each class at max level each expansion. When you are bouncing between 12+ characters it is hard to master one and Hekili helps.
When ever i sesame or start a new class, i turn on Hekili. It's great to learn some basic rotation,just to get you started. But obviously overtime. You become good and just dont look at it anymore/remove it.
@@Dontknowme81Thanks for the comment! That makes sense. The addons are helpful when you are trying to get into the feel of a rotation. Once you have that down, you can turn all or part of it off if you want to try to take it even further. I really like using them on alts I haven't played in a while. I typically main one character (without the addons) until flying comes out and then level an alt of each class and use Hekili!
Dude, absolutely brilliant. Best breakdown of DPS addons that I have seen. A note on MaxDPS, I believe it only starts suggesting AOE rotation once you have got into combat with more than one mob. Would love to see a comparison using Chesders Tell Me When profiles.
Thanks! I tested the AoE with the grouped training dummies, but I am wondering if I need to get out with some real mobs to get it to work. That is a good point. I plan on doing some more addon comparison videos so I will have to look into Chesder's stuff!
@@ArcaneIntellect I think it's fine to test with the training dummies, but I think you have to initiate an aoe spell in order for MaxDPS to "pickup" the aoe guidance. I may be totally wrong. The discord would be the best place to check.
10:39. This fightduration is far to short to compare dps results. On your druid only a good convoke can boost your dps alot without playing different. Hope to see some testings on atleast 30 minute or multiple 5-8 mimute fights
yesterday i've tested ConRo Shaman and MaxDps Shaman, so as a result ConRo is not so fast react as MaxDps, but for full profit from MaxDps we need to instal script for WeakAuras to see an icon on the screen. But after 30minutes of non-stop casting for each addo dps is not really different. So I decide to use from conRo defence and kill-cast feature and use MaxDps as a spell icon.
These are handy addons, because I play a lot of classes and I'm not exactly the best player, so it helps me know what I'm doing and learn a long the way what I'm supposed to be doing.
Thanks for this I've been using max dps and wondered if there was anything better to try out! Gonna give Hekili a go and see how much it helps for me :D
I've tried Conro, I thought it was more of a hindrance than of help, because on boss fights where you don't necessarily need to use your DPS cooldowns, but the addon asked you to use it. Perhaps, some setting is required, but I'll try Heliki instead now
I get that. In ConRo you can turn that off by switching the toggle from "Full" to "Burst" and then it will let you decide when to use cooldowns (I have a ConRo guide on my channel that walks through the toggles). If you use Hekili, you would need to turn the cooldown recommendations off by clicking on the minimap icon. Hopefully that helps!
dude, I'm facing a lot of interference with add-on MaxDps it keeps sending me to reload all the time I press one of my action buttons, and it's my priest and my rogue why I have no Idea it all with this last expansion that my MaxDps add on is not working properly I disable and enable it still not working what can I do
I feel like I am doing something wrong when I play WoW. I press the right buttons in the right times, but my dps is still lower than it should be.. When I look at logs, there is a small delay in my abilities/spellcasts that I dont know how to fix. I tried spamming the shit out of my buttons, I tried pressing them once when the gcd falls off, but nothing seems to help :/
man i always struggled with some classes cause i was too stupid to play them correctly and I didn't know chad add ons like these exist , thank you very much for the video.
I understand these test where done in 9.05 on a Night Fae (NF) boomy. I would be interested in knowing how many times did you do the minute or so combat test for each addon. Did you attempt each one 5 time 10 times or maybe just once. My biggest concern is NF Druid can be rng especially in aoe get more or less star falls full moons Crits on those moon ect. I would love to see this test on a more controlled spec less proc and rng. Maybe like the havoc DH you showed. Also do any of these addons work with trinkets especially double on use for casters ?
Great questions/points! I ended up running the tests 3-5 times for each addon. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to play my alts much so boomy was what I had to work with. I am hoping to do some more testing now that flying is out and it is going to be much easier to bring all my alts up to speed. All the addons can make recommendations for trinket use, but I honestly didn't get to test out how reliable it is. Another idea for some more testing. Thanks for your comment!
I've never used one of these addons, however I feel like the major downside of relying on something like this is that it's significantly harder to play your character on muscle memory while concentrating on dodging and interrupting etc. Interesting video tho.
@@Marteen1793 I see where you coming from but thats something you should just do on a dummy. every person i know that performs somewhat on the higher end spends enough time at a dummy just doing their rotation over and over again for about 5-6 Mins with Burstwindows and everything. So you just dont spent so much time thinking about what buttons to press
Thanks! I think that is a great question. Without testing it, I bet you would see the gains flatten off and maybe even drop for high-end players. The suggestions come from the same source as when you Sim your character so they are pretty good, but they can't take every variable into account. For example, the addon doesn't know to hold cooldowns until Sludgefist hits a pillar. If you blindly blew everything on ahead of time your DPS would be pretty disappointing. 😬
i think this works better on long casting speccs/casters and not spammy ones like Frost Mage where actually following the mod lowers the dps by you being slow to track what to press.
Im low vision and with alot of things going on i get overwhelmed. mostly i need a prompt in case i dont see or because of tunnel vision dont notice something i should be doing. thank you for the video
On enhancement shaman at least I made the observation that maxdps is inaccurate. It's forcing to spend maelstrom way too fast basically whenever you reach 5 stacks it's locked in on lb which is not good at all. You should always try to get as close as possible to 10. HR is exactly the same as Hekili on enhance and they are probably the best you can get at the moment.
@@BartVlogs I am sorry but pvp is just pve these days the rotation is the same you just use defensive more often and some other utility things more often but pvp rotation itself is just the pve one. Also PvP is boring to play in wow it is just not any good.
The one that worked for me is called SpellFlashCore by BigRedBrent. If you need help enabling it through the addon I walk through that in my Hekili guide (th-cam.com/video/crlvW-b531M/w-d-xo.html).
Thank you for this breakdown on the Addons. For Dragonflight, (should be called Dragonglide) I have found that Conro is not being updated. And Maxdps is slowly being updated but is slow in responding during combat. I used Conro and loved it's ease of use. But have switched to Hekili and use the Spelllash for the actionbar overlay. There are still some bugs in Hekili for WoW 10.0.0 but since the author seems to be updating the addon I anticipate the bugs to be fixed.
😮Are you a teacher? This is an amazing piece of work. Your explanations were clear and concise. You gave me clear expectations on what info you were going to provide. Then you delivered what you promised! Thank you for your work ! I am impressed and will now revisit these addons based on your insight and recommendations ! Tytyty I wish all the best to you and yours ❤️❤️!!
@@ArcaneIntellect This particular skill set you posses, (which, from first impressions leads me to believe you have a pretty packed toolkit) is priceless to a company that is savvy enough to value it. I hope you are valued for it 👏👏👏
As an addon author, although I do not write any of the DPS addons, I want to clarify a couple of things. 1. It's a programming trick to load often used Blizzard global variables or functions, the ones that exist in the base UI that the addon also uses, into memory/RAM as a local reference. It's significantly faster to access something from memory than it is to constantly be looking it up in the global table of things. That's why a couple of the DPS addons shown have low CPU but high memory usage. They are trading RAM to gain clock cycles. Also, assuming you don't game on a potato, your computer should have way more physical RAM than you will ever use. 2. The extra addons that are required are usually class-specific, and more importantly, are Load On Demand (LoD); that means any class modules that aren't used are never loaded. If you play a boomkin, you aren't loading the DK or Mage modules. They have zero impact on the addon or the game, because they aren't loaded.
FYI, Conro no longer is being maintained due to RL issues with the author. Hasn't been updated meaningfully in months. It is not giving good recommendations for many specs.
Also in Terrague. The boss enrages tranq'd in milli seconds. Or any of them , on any fight with even normal interrupts. (Counter shot). Makes this add on a no brainer. Uses the least power. A child could understand it easily. Is the only add on with a on screen switch your style button. An then tosses you interrupt alerts . Built in nothing to do. Curse Forge Use,an watch dps soar. Done... Nothing to worry about as long as updates are frequent an not abandoned...
FPS drops from addons typically come from CPU usage. I would recommend trying ConRo to see if you still have FPS issues. ConRo is extremely lightweight so if that is still causing problems it could be a different addon. You can check how much CPU your addons are using with Addon Usage (www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/addon-usage). That is the addon I used to do the testing in this video. Hope that helps!
This is awesome! I wish I'd seen this earlier! I usually stick to one spec for leveling, but if I decide to change specs at max level, I find it REALLY hard to switch and be efficient, without having the leveling process to smooth the rotation out! Thank you for doing this!
Great point! I am something of an alt-o-holic and will go months between playing some of my alts at times. Coming back to them after that long feels so painful to re-learn the rotation every time. I appreciate having something like Hekili to remind me which spells I should be prioritizing since I don't play them all the time lol.
1 plus to using this is you do actually learn the rotation with hekili, ive managed to get my feral rotation down to muscle memory
True, I know many players like that aspect and say that DPS rotation addons are good "training wheels" to help you get into the flow of a class and then can be turned off if you want.
I used Hekili on my ww monk and now cant play without the addon :(
i have been playing for about ten years. this is the best video on this i have ever seen. great breakdown. !!!
Thanks!
Agree.
Dude, shhhhhhhhhh - topping guild charts with Hekili for years - dont give me more competition Lmao!
Haha sorry man! It is the end of an era 😛
So in the years you been raiding you haven't been able to learn how to play your character without an addon? Kinda awkward bro....
@@adamarzo559 No. I Can pay it NOW. Relax urself. And even if I couldn't that'd be ok cause u know mastering games aren't really important right?.... Bro....
@@adamarzo559 Almost as awkward as having an addon tell you how dungeon and raid mechanics work lol
@@paulcononie849 run away little girl 😏
I never even heard of most of these ones until now, Thanks for taking the time to do this Video Comparison and Analysis, Great Jobs.
You're welcome, thanks for watching!
Nice breakdown of the scoring sysyem, it gives valuable insight on the different aspects of what makes a good addon. I've been playing on and off over the last 15 years but now a days getting into a new class is alot more diffucult than it was between the tbc and the pandaria era. Keep up the good work and I look forward to future videos.
Thanks, excited to do similar scoring for other groups of addons!
Returning player and am using Hekili, but was curious if there was something better. But it looks like the best option. I do like how it shows the spells to come in the rotation, very helpful.
Great review methodology, and really love the wife test. Always good to have a sample from a less experienced user, and those improvements with Hekili were impressive.
a couple of these addons aren't being updated anymore. MaxDPS is spradically updated but not for all classes. Hekili is one I'm using atm. I'd say, stick with it.
Superb video. I really appreciate how you break down the testing, then break down the tests. F.A.C.T.S. isn’t cheesy at all. It makes perfect sense.
Kudos to your wife for helping test these out. That was truly an eye opening jump in DPS for just the type of player these are for.
I'm coming back to WoW after a 10-year hiatus. I want to understand more, this time, about the hunter class than I did 10 years ago. I love the idea of a rotation guide to help coach me on which spells needs to be cast and the best times for casting. Thanks so much for making this video.
Thanks for the video. Tried Hekili and love it. Playing alts it's hard for me to memorize all the rotations. Also, great breakdown and scoring system used when comparing addons. Subbed to your channel.
Thanks for the sub! Glad the video helped!
Really solid information here. Like the way you analysed each of them. I started using Hekili in BFA to help with tracking my Feral bleeds & snapshot timings, and it's been great. I do sometimes think it's wrong, and defy it's recommendations (it doesn't like spending Apex Predator procs), but it's a phenomenal tool for keeping a track of when to hit the buttons for good pandemic refreshes.
Dude this is so thorough, concise, and well structured. Thank you so much.
Love the ending :)
Nothing beats a druid's dance XD
Gotta love it!
I'm very impressed at how thorough this was. Bravo!
Thank you!
Just so you know, I based my choice of conro based on how minimally it affected my overall ui while still giving me fast setting and adjustment on the run because I hate having to pull menus down in combat. I can also say that I like being able to toggle it off in a click on characters I feel confident playing and leaving it on for those alts that end up hanging out for weeks at a time as a simple reminder. Thank you for this review. I like my conro fit. Aside from button suggestions and a tiny toggle button I have it set to quiet mode which I like as a new tank.
Thanks for sharing, ConRo is great!
Thanks for this helpful video. Late to the show, but a suggestion: You should weigh the numbers accordingly to the addon you rate. A DPS Rotation Addon should not get the same score weight on setup and results. A 10 setup 5 Result, should not be qual to a 5 Setup and 10 Result Score. DPS is what people want from this addon, so this should be represented in the score.
Awesome video man subscribed. I have used two of these and introduced Hekili to guild members to improve DPS and it’s helping in our runs. We are a mature guild with lots of mouse clicking spells and also only going for the spell once’s it off CD and not mashing it pre of CD due to PC latency, internet latency and server latency. Thank you for your time and effort doing this.
Thanks for the sub! Happy to hear that Hekili is helping out on your guild runs!
Nice Video, didn't expect such a low sub-count for this quality. keep up the good work! I think your getting big really soon.
Thanks, I appreciate that!
I just subbed, first time seeing you on here. This was very well done and carefully thought out and the charts. This must've taken considerable time. Next level! 😏
You know, I've never used a dps rotation addon ever. I've been disappointed with my warrior's output and gave Hekili a shot.
No customization or anything and got a 20% increase in damage.
No real increase on my druid (maybe 2 or 3%) so I guess I play that character reasonably well.
I'd better go checkout your Hekili guide to see if I can tweak it to be even better.
Cheers! 👍
That is super interesting! Especially that you saw that big of a difference between druid and warrior. I know rotation addons won't make someone into a world-first raider, but I really like them for my alts. At the end of my Hekili guide, I go over how to add the custom rotation based on simulating your gear. I would be interested to see if that improves things even further.
Best,
Andoris
oh I am so glad I found this on my main board. After a few years as elemental sham and shaddow priest I went back to my Boomkin and I am unable to push the limit with my DPS. I know the standard rotations and so on, but I will give Hekili a try to see how much or if I can boost my DPS up :) With full acc of alts, its hard to master more than one / two classes for me and it takes so much time.
I totally feel that! I try to keep one of each class as max level and it can be hard when I take a break from those alts for a while.
I use Hekili because I don't like surprises. In any addon that puts ability Icons up, if you only have one or two the next one that pops up is usually a surprise. Hekili calculates on the fly and shows up to five possible Icons. This is handy because there are no surprises if things don't change and you can already see what the next and next should be, so you are thinking ahead. That doesn't limit you. If you need to cast a different spell / ability due to a, say, different player's screw up, that's ok go ahead and cast it Hekili will pick it up and calculate a new best rotation to get you back on track. It's about doubled my DPS from when I didn't know which spells / ability to use to reduce cool downs and enhance damage. Use it enough and soon the best rotations will become second nature to you, but there is always "that guy" that's going to mess up and Hekili helps you compensate and keep your cool. I freakin' love it. The only draw back is when Hekili suggests a spell / ability that is on a cool down that already been used it still will highlight it, that's OK because with up five icons you can see and use the next one and get back on track. I'd turn off the Slotted Icon (use) from equipment since I only use them when I need to in an emergency. Hekili will see them and calculate their use in a rotation, that gets annoying because I don't like to take up an action bar slot when there are actually too many spell / abilities and utilities that are better.
Hekili is superior for sure and one of the best things is you can hide the rotation icons and just show the keybinding numbers/letters instead so you can focus on other things instead of worrying if you are hitting the right key.
Yeah, my wife loved having the hotkeys on the icons when she was trying it out. Helps out a lot and lets you focus more on your character like you said.
This helped me decide which one to go with. Thank you for that info!
I personally use HR and enjoy it, although Hekili seems interesting and I may give it a shot at some point. Very good video, and great job with thorough testing and helpful graphics.
Friend told me to install Hekili and I saw a huge increase in DPS. Did my first raid and mythic dungeons ever last week with demonology warlock and I was NOT hitting my buttons fast enough AT ALL. Especially with all the free procs. This add on helped me a ton! I’m starting to learn how to rotation should work and probably won’t need the add on in another week or two.
Awesome glad it it helping you out!
WTF this channel only has around 1k subs but does it's name: "arcane intellect" every honor, this is actually one of if not the most helpful video I have ever seen of wow, I mean who doesn't want a dps boost, just insanely good, keep it up my dude :)
Thanks man, I really appreciate that!
finally i have the confidence to learn the shadow priest rotation :) thanks for the video
I destroyed the like button ^^
I am constantly switching characters since I don't have a main (Allthough I know rogues in and out) so this helps a lot! Thanks.
Stay crunchy
The Dracthyr stand beside you! Nice vid. I'm a new player :3
Awesome, welcome to Azeroth!
For me as an occasional player, with almost every class at times, because it's just fun, hekili is super helpful... I'm only a bit confused with the shadow priest from time to time, what the addon suggests... Great video, big thanks!
Wonder if you would do an updated video on these as MaxDPS core is updated frequently, however, the class additions are not. Case in point, Druid hasn't been updated in over a year.
I've used Conro for years and love the simplicity of it. I have a lot of alts and it lets me swap easily and jump in and out of tunes. Sadly it's out of date since the war within pre-patch so I'm looking for an alternative. Thanks for the video, greatly appreciated.
I've been using MaxDPS for a few years now, but after seeing this video I'm gonna try Hekili. Thanks for the vid.
For sure, excited to hear how it works for you!
Really enjoyed this. Very informative and actually tickled me in a way to try out the other addons I had no idea about (Basically everything but HeroRotation).
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
great video! would love to see more addon comparisons
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I am working on more comparisons and guides now, so there is more to come :)
Love that you did this! Just coming back to the game
Great video! I’m gonna give Hekili a shot. Subscribed!
Thanks, excited to hear how it works for you :)
Thanks so much for amazing videos, im getting into addons and been grinding ur content 😅
I subscribed because your videos are very detailed. I appreciate you taking the time. I hope you can cover both Classic and retail. I was looking for a DPS rotation for Classic and came across this video. Good job! Keep up the good work.
Thank you! I hoping to get some Classic addon guides and comparison videos out soon. It is hard because many of these types of addons haven't been updated for TBC yet. ConRo and MaxDps have Classic (Vanilla) versions but haven't been updated for TBC.
As a side note, the author of Hekili sent out a tweet recently saying that he looked into making a TBC version and decided against migrating the addon.
VERY professional video 10/10
You really worked hard on this. I don't even use these addons but man.
It was very interesting to watch and i'm going recomend hekili on my friend (shes new to the game too lol)
You are great at this. Subbed.
Thanks for the sub, excited to make more stuff like this in the future!
Neat works and impressive! Thanks for your resourceful information.
Thanks!
Quality content right here, clear and concise
Thanks!
Been using Hekili for years now. I'm probably an above average player (consistent AOTC, nowhere close to world first) by the standards here and I generally know my rotations/priority but the brain processing power is important too. I can focus more on raid mechanics with this as I don't have to always parse my next best cast. Some of my friends consider it a "crutch" but my argument is that crutches help people walk. I really doubt I'd do MORE damage without it, though I do make some decisions now and then and disregard its suggestions (Sludgefist comes to mind). I would be interested to see the effects it would have on the dps of a highly skilled (competitive for world first) player. My assumption would be that it's a reduction at that level of play.
Thanks for the comment! I love your argument about crutches helping people walk. As you said, the addons can help free up some brain space and can be powerful if you know when you should ignore a recommendation. I think they can be great for casual players as well. I know there are many casual players who want to contribute to a guild or other raid groups and don't have the time to invest in understanding the rotation and theory crafting behind their class.
The biggest problem I see with rotational Addons is the macro gameplay, because of limitations with which the APLs have to be written. Especially when it comes to priority, APLs are severely lacking. They have target count breakpoints for spells, but those are only for max overall dps. APLs also cannot properly plan out CD timings for some classes, because Raidbots simulations fight duration varies by 20%. There is also the problem of who writes those APLs, I'm not very familiar with current drama, but in the last year we had a famously wrong Warlock APL and Mage(?) theory crafters, who apparently refused to accept a better APL, created by community members. We also have 4 different Shadow APLs one for each Covenant, though I don't know how important that is for other specs. Also, banking of resources/CDs for movement or priority target swaps is not a thing.
Ignoring the above, for me personally relying on such an addon would be a damage reduction, simply, because I don't know exactly what I will see. When I look at my WeakAuras I'm looking at it with the intention of getting a true/false answer and if a spell is not ready I get a remaining cooldown to plan my next few spells, for which I will not look at my spells, and finally maybe some situationally important things (like proccs, statbreakpoints) with a glow, though how you display the latter is based on personal preference. This will probably lead to mistakes, especially when only glancing at the addon every few globals, because there is a fight going on.
I have seen quite a few logs and one of the biggest damage losses is not necessarily a wrong rotation, but not pressing any buttons at all, especially on casters. A rotation helper might help with the question of which spell to cast next, but might also give inexperienced players anxiety to not press the wrong button. WoW can be quite fast, especially on haste classes during bloodlust and the thought process of recognizing an icon, remembering where it is and then pressing the correct button can easily lead to up to 0.5s downtime for inexperienced players, which on most classes will be worse than pressing semi random buttons, but not having any downtime. And then they eat a mechanic, which isn't punishing enough to kill them, so the healer loses damage too, because again, there is still a fight going on.
ABC: Always be casting.
Crutches is a great explanation for it, because if you can walk fine, you'd be better off without them, having your hands free.
@@Opharg You bring up some great points. APLs and sims are helpful but never perfect. I know many of the addons (Hekili especially) override the APLs to improve on them, but it will never be perfect. I think the addons are great for players who want to use it across many alts or are doing PvE casually. True mastery of your class and spec definitely requires a lot more than a simple addon. Thanks for your comment!
Found this today and even in 2024 extremely useful and interesting Video thank you.
Hekili is amazing. Boosted my DPS quite a bit. Specially because I play so many characters you tend to get rusty on your main after having to learn multiple characters.
I totally get that, I try to keep at least one of each class at max level each expansion. When you are bouncing between 12+ characters it is hard to master one and Hekili helps.
When ever i sesame or start a new class, i turn on Hekili. It's great to learn some basic rotation,just to get you started. But obviously overtime. You become good and just dont look at it anymore/remove it.
Great point, I know a lot of people like Hekili because it's like "training wheels" that help you start learning a new rotation.
@@ArcaneIntellect Iv used it for a long time. I typically turn it off, or minimize what's in the rotation. Its really good melee too.
@@Dontknowme81Thanks for the comment! That makes sense. The addons are helpful when you are trying to get into the feel of a rotation. Once you have that down, you can turn all or part of it off if you want to try to take it even further.
I really like using them on alts I haven't played in a while. I typically main one character (without the addons) until flying comes out and then level an alt of each class and use Hekili!
Dude, absolutely brilliant. Best breakdown of DPS addons that I have seen. A note on MaxDPS, I believe it only starts suggesting AOE rotation once you have got into combat with more than one mob. Would love to see a comparison using Chesders Tell Me When profiles.
Thanks! I tested the AoE with the grouped training dummies, but I am wondering if I need to get out with some real mobs to get it to work. That is a good point. I plan on doing some more addon comparison videos so I will have to look into Chesder's stuff!
@@ArcaneIntellect I think it's fine to test with the training dummies, but I think you have to initiate an aoe spell in order for MaxDPS to "pickup" the aoe guidance. I may be totally wrong. The discord would be the best place to check.
@@AgentDragonslaw Great point, I will have to check the Discord.
10:39. This fightduration is far to short to compare dps results. On your druid only a good convoke can boost your dps alot without playing different. Hope to see some testings on atleast 30 minute or multiple 5-8 mimute fights
I would love to do some longer testing and some testing in boss combat. Thanks!
I'm only 2 minutes in and I already liked and subscribed because of how well organized this video is
Thanks for the sub!
This was incredibly helpful. Thank you.
Amazing work here. Thank you!
You're welcome and thank you!
yesterday i've tested ConRo Shaman and MaxDps Shaman, so as a result ConRo is not so fast react as MaxDps, but for full profit from MaxDps we need to instal script for WeakAuras to see an icon on the screen. But after 30minutes of non-stop casting for each addo dps is not really different. So I decide to use from conRo defence and kill-cast feature and use MaxDps as a spell icon.
Very nice, thanks for sharing those test results. Great idea to combine bits and pieces from the different addons!
Informational with nice presentation and also, there is more than Ovale????
These are handy addons, because I play a lot of classes and I'm not exactly the best player, so it helps me know what I'm doing and learn a long the way what I'm supposed to be doing.
You videos are FLAWLESS!!!!
Thanks for this I've been using max dps and wondered if there was anything better to try out! Gonna give Hekili a go and see how much it helps for me :D
Awesome, excited to hear how it goes!
Awesome video man, thanks for making it!
Thanks for watching!
Where does hekili get it's rotation from? It shows different from some thing that I see on wow head and icyveins
First time playing arms warrior last month, got myself hekili and pushed to 2.2k io and pumping as top DPS during mythic progression nights
Nice, happy to hear it helped you out so much!
Impressive analysis. Loved the weighting. Thanks for your efforts. 😎🇦🇺
I have shared this with my Guild.
You're welcome, thanks for watching and sharing!
Very nice video. Thank you!
I've tried Conro, I thought it was more of a hindrance than of help, because on boss fights where you don't necessarily need to use your DPS cooldowns, but the addon asked you to use it.
Perhaps, some setting is required, but I'll try Heliki instead now
I get that. In ConRo you can turn that off by switching the toggle from "Full" to "Burst" and then it will let you decide when to use cooldowns (I have a ConRo guide on my channel that walks through the toggles). If you use Hekili, you would need to turn the cooldown recommendations off by clicking on the minimap icon. Hopefully that helps!
dude, I'm facing a lot of interference with add-on MaxDps it keeps sending me to reload all the time I press one of my action buttons, and it's my priest and my rogue why I have no Idea it all with this last expansion that my MaxDps add on is not working properly I disable and enable it still not working what can I do
I feel like I am doing something wrong when I play WoW. I press the right buttons in the right times, but my dps is still lower than it should be.. When I look at logs, there is a small delay in my abilities/spellcasts that I dont know how to fix. I tried spamming the shit out of my buttons, I tried pressing them once when the gcd falls off, but nothing seems to help :/
I got a message from the Conro guy and he says he will be updating the addon soon. I am so excited.
man i always struggled with some classes cause i was too stupid to play them correctly and I didn't know chad add ons like these exist , thank you very much for the video.
I understand these test where done in 9.05 on a Night Fae (NF) boomy. I would be interested in knowing how many times did you do the minute or so combat test for each addon. Did you attempt each one 5 time 10 times or maybe just once. My biggest concern is NF Druid can be rng especially in aoe get more or less star falls full moons Crits on those moon ect. I would love to see this test on a more controlled spec less proc and rng. Maybe like the havoc DH you showed. Also do any of these addons work with trinkets especially double on use for casters ?
Great questions/points! I ended up running the tests 3-5 times for each addon. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to play my alts much so boomy was what I had to work with. I am hoping to do some more testing now that flying is out and it is going to be much easier to bring all my alts up to speed. All the addons can make recommendations for trinket use, but I honestly didn't get to test out how reliable it is. Another idea for some more testing. Thanks for your comment!
I've never used one of these addons, however I feel like the major downside of relying on something like this is that it's significantly harder to play your character on muscle memory while concentrating on dodging and interrupting etc.
Interesting video tho.
I see this addon as training wheels, you use them to get the gist of the rotation and once you feel ready, you can play without it.
@@Marteen1793 It's one of those things that *can* make you perform better, but *will* make you a worse player.
@@Marteen1793 I see where you coming from but thats something you should just do on a dummy. every person i know that performs somewhat on the higher end spends enough time at a dummy just doing their rotation over and over again for about 5-6 Mins with Burstwindows and everything. So you just dont spent so much time thinking about what buttons to press
Good vid, very interesting. I'd be interested to see how the dps of someone who has their rotation down compares with the dps of Hekili's suggestions.
Thanks! I think that is a great question. Without testing it, I bet you would see the gains flatten off and maybe even drop for high-end players.
The suggestions come from the same source as when you Sim your character so they are pretty good, but they can't take every variable into account. For example, the addon doesn't know to hold cooldowns until Sludgefist hits a pillar. If you blindly blew everything on ahead of time your DPS would be pretty disappointing. 😬
Thanks for doing the research for me haha
i think this works better on long casting speccs/casters and not spammy ones like Frost Mage where actually following the mod lowers the dps by you being slow to track what to press.
Thanks, great video love how you tested it on multiple classes.
testing out Hekili I'll post results been around 5k for my overall.
@@koreyolson1946 Nice, interested to hear how it goes!
I love the methodology. Might be worth doing an update for DF since Author support shifts over time.
Im low vision and with alot of things going on i get overwhelmed. mostly i need a prompt in case i dont see or because of tunnel vision dont notice something i should be doing. thank you for the video
Great vid! And I don't even play anymore. Great research, breakdown, and presentation.
Thanks, happy you enjoyed it!
On enhancement shaman at least I made the observation that maxdps is inaccurate. It's forcing to spend maelstrom way too fast basically whenever you reach 5 stacks it's locked in on lb which is not good at all. You should always try to get as close as possible to 10. HR is exactly the same as Hekili on enhance and they are probably the best you can get at the moment.
Man this is a great video! Thanks so much!!
Thank you!
Great guide, thank you!
You're welcome!
This is such an in-depth and unbiased approach. Love the scoring/scientific/data approach too.
Awesome work. You've earned yourself a new subscriber!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the sub!
I’ve been using Tell Me When, will have to give Hekili a try!
TellMeWhen is great as well but it is always fun to play around with something new. Thanks for watching!
bm hunter: kill command, barbed shot, barbed shot, barbed shot, bestial wrath, barbed shot, kill command, barbed shot... lmao
Yep, PVE is boring.
Now join on pvp an try this.... xD
forgot Cobra Shot to reduce the cool down on Kill Command and what not but yeah it isn't that far off
@@BartVlogs I am sorry but pvp is just pve these days the rotation is the same you just use defensive more often and some other utility things more often but pvp rotation itself is just the pve one.
Also PvP is boring to play in wow it is just not any good.
Your opener was already wrong! 🤦♂️
Great video!
which spell flash is needed for hekili? there's quite a few.
The one that worked for me is called SpellFlashCore by BigRedBrent. If you need help enabling it through the addon I walk through that in my Hekili guide (th-cam.com/video/crlvW-b531M/w-d-xo.html).
Thank you for this breakdown on the Addons. For Dragonflight, (should be called Dragonglide) I have found that Conro is not being updated. And Maxdps is slowly being updated but is slow in responding during combat. I used Conro and loved it's ease of use. But have switched to Hekili and use the Spelllash for the actionbar overlay. There are still some bugs in Hekili for WoW 10.0.0 but since the author seems to be updating the addon I anticipate the bugs to be fixed.
Did spell flash give you any trouble not working and if so how did you fix it. Did spell flash work with conro cheers
Hekili has been my rotation helper of choice for years. When you alt hop all the time it does the best job of helping without getting in your way.
For sure, I tend to hop alts a lot as well and Hekili is really helpful when I haven't played a class in a while!
Love your content bro 👌
😮Are you a teacher? This is an amazing piece of work. Your explanations were clear and concise. You gave me clear expectations on what info you were going to provide. Then you delivered what you promised! Thank you for your work ! I am impressed and will now revisit these addons based on your insight and recommendations ! Tytyty I wish all the best to you and yours ❤️❤️!!
Thanks, I appreciate that! Not a teacher, but give a lot of presentations in my 9 to 5 :)
@@ArcaneIntellect This particular skill set you posses, (which, from first impressions leads me to believe you have a pretty packed toolkit) is priceless to a company that is savvy enough to value it. I hope you are valued for it 👏👏👏
This was great! I tried adding hekili but it’s not popping up for me on my UI. Gotta figure that out, then will try conroe!
I've heard a lot of that recently. Are you playing WotLK or Dragonflight? I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the issue...
As an addon author, although I do not write any of the DPS addons, I want to clarify a couple of things.
1. It's a programming trick to load often used Blizzard global variables or functions, the ones that exist in the base UI that the addon also uses, into memory/RAM as a local reference. It's significantly faster to access something from memory than it is to constantly be looking it up in the global table of things. That's why a couple of the DPS addons shown have low CPU but high memory usage. They are trading RAM to gain clock cycles. Also, assuming you don't game on a potato, your computer should have way more physical RAM than you will ever use.
2. The extra addons that are required are usually class-specific, and more importantly, are Load On Demand (LoD); that means any class modules that aren't used are never loaded. If you play a boomkin, you aren't loading the DK or Mage modules. They have zero impact on the addon or the game, because they aren't loaded.
Thank you for your insights!
Well done, awesome video
Thanks!
FYI, Conro no longer is being maintained due to RL issues with the author. Hasn't been updated meaningfully in months. It is not giving good recommendations for many specs.
This is so useful for a guy like me that shuts his brain very often while playing xD
Can you do an updated version guide please ? !
Great info thx bro
holy shi*! I have been playing since BC and I only now find about this things.... are there any healing rotation addons, also?
Haha, healing is a different beast so they don't have any rotation addons. The best thing for healing is good WeakAuras to track major cooldowns.
Heal Bot is what all my friends use
Beautiful video
Wow, this blew my mind. I'm a very new player. This is a complete game changer ilvl201 fury warrior 🙌
Happy to hear that! Hope you are enjoying the game!
Also in Terrague.
The boss enrages tranq'd in milli seconds.
Or any of them , on any fight with even normal interrupts.
(Counter shot).
Makes this add on a no brainer.
Uses the least power.
A child could understand it easily.
Is the only add on with a on screen switch your style button.
An then tosses you interrupt alerts .
Built in nothing to do.
Curse Forge
Use,an watch dps soar.
Done...
Nothing to worry about as long as updates are frequent an not abandoned...
Great info! TYVM
You're welcome!
I always get FPS drops using Hekili esp playing fire mage and screen goes a little jerky at times when casting scorch on the move etc
FPS drops from addons typically come from CPU usage. I would recommend trying ConRo to see if you still have FPS issues. ConRo is extremely lightweight so if that is still causing problems it could be a different addon. You can check how much CPU your addons are using with Addon Usage (www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/addon-usage). That is the addon I used to do the testing in this video. Hope that helps!
What do you think are the best specs to play with each addon?