Frequently Asked Questions
These are the most commonly asked questions and issues experienced by users
| Category | Question / Issue |
|---|---|
| Rotation / Performance | - I don't recognize this icon, what is it? - I feel like X Spec damage is low, anyone else? - My cooldowns or trinkets don't show up! - The rotation is wrong! - The addon doesn't tell me how to heal people! - The addon isn't working very well while levelling - How do I reset my spec / APL / Profile - Does X dps spec work good? - Fire mage bad?? |
| UI / Display | - My keybinds are wrong! - How do I change the icon for a spell - What's up with SpellFlash? What about changing the flash texture? |
| Configuration / Customization | - What are the recommended settings for X? How do I make it more efficient or faster? |
| Custom Rotation/Priority | - How do I import a profile from SIMC / Raidbots / Some YouTuber - How do I make it so X ability does Y? - How do I make a specific opener? |
| Development / Technical | - Vanilla classic / SoM / SoD? - Wrath classic? - PTR when? - I downgraded to fix an issue, what now? - Addon CPU Usage says Hekili is using 60% of my CPU! -Automation / Clickable weakaura? |
Tip
Click a question / issue to reveal the answer!
Don't see your question here? Ask in our Discord!
I don't recognize this icon, what is it?
- 95% of the time it is a trinket or the mage water elemental pet spell Freeze
- You can pause Hekili with
alt-shift-pand mouseover the recommendation to see the name of it. Don't forget to unpause (using the same keybind).
I feel like X Spec damage is low, anyone else?
Before posting in Discord or a Github issue, ask yourself these questions:
- Did you read this FAQ and the Configuration Guide?
- Are your cooldowns enabled?
- Are you running a custom priority?
- Do you actually have gear?
- Do you have logs, details meters, snapshots?
If you answered yes to all of these, ask in our discord!
My cooldowns or trinkets don't show up!
You probably have your cooldowns disabled, as this is the default setting.
- Try enabling them with one of the following methods
- The toggle hotkey (
alt-shift-rby default) - Right click the minimap icon for Hekili and select the cooldowns from there
- The toggle hotkey (
The rotation is wrong!
If you think there is an issue with the rotation, you should do the following
- Visit Report an issue
- Submit a ticket with references to Sims, class guides, logs, snapshots, etc, and explain what exactly the issue is
- Instead of trying to fix it for yourself via custom priority, submitting a ticket will get it fixed for everyone as well as ensure peer review. There are a lot of skilled and knowledgeable players in the discord of many specs/classes.
The addon doesn't tell me how to heal people!
This addon is to help you do max damage as a healer during downtime or world content. Not to help you heal.
The addon isn't working very well while levelling
The addon is not intended for lower levels. It may or may not work with a great deal of variance between specs/classes.
How do I reset my spec / APL / Profile
Does X dps spec work good?
YesExcept maybe Fire Mage. See the Spec tier list for more thoughts, but don't put too much weight into it. Play what you want to play.
Fire mage bad??
Fire Mage presents a unique problem for the addon to solve. Fire Mages can cast Fire Blast while casting other spells, and need to react quickly to critical strike streaks (for Heating Up and Hot Streak). Regarding casting while casting, this means that some of the shortcuts the addon takes for other classes are not available, because we have to potentially time a Fire Blast based on when a critical strike is anticipated to happen during your current cast.
This addon will predict guaranteed critical strikes, but most are not guaranteed, so all the addon (and you, yourself) can do is react once the critical strikes occur. This can cause recommendations to change suddenly when your Fireball or Pyroblast or other projectile spells impact your target and crit.
Because of this volatility, showing a large number (4+) of recommendations is counterproductive as your Hot Streak is likely to have changed within 2 or 3 GCDs under most circumstances. You may find the addon more efficient by downgrading your Primary display to show 1 or 2 suggestions.
Another trick that can help with managing Fire Blast is to put Fire Blast on one of the main toggles (/hek > Abilities > Fire Blast > Require Toggle: Cooldowns, Interrupts, or Defensives). Assuming you selected Interrupts, you can set the Interrupts to Show Separately (/hek > Toggles), then Fire Blast will pop-up in that display instead of refreshing inside the Primary display. This adds some stability to recommendations.
Demo Expansion copy/paste
Beep Boop
Remaining stuff to convert, open at your own risk
Keybind detection relies on action bars being configured similar to Blizzard defaults. That means if you have used action bar pages in a strange order, have abilities duplicated on hidden bars, or even use a bar addon that is not supported, the addon may not detect the correct keybinding.
You can go to /hek > Abilities and set Override Keybind Text to the correct keybind to be displayed.
- December 2023: There is currently a Blizzard issue with macro detection that often impacts keybinding detection.
Warning
The default priorities are imported from SimulationCraft profiles, meaning that they are tested in SimulationCraft to prove that they have optimal DPS benefit. Sometimes, this leads to behavior that appears different from what you may see in a class guide. These differences can occur for many reasons, some good and some bad. Before making changes to the addon priority, I strongly encourage you to make changes in your sim profile and test in multiple fight styles (Patchwerk, Hectic Add Cleave, DungeonSlice for some specs) so you're aware of the benefits and risks before proceeding.
With that said:
- Make a copy of the default priority. If you edit a default priority (which will have its name in Blizzard blue), your changes will be overwritten the next time the default priority is updated. Click the Copy Priority icon, which is two overlapping squares to the right of the Priority Name field. Click Accept when asked whether to create a copy of this priority pack.
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On the Summary tab of your new priority, check Active to make this your new active priority for the listed Specialization.
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Rename the new priority to something more meaningful. I'm renaming this to Feral with Regrowth. Press Enter or click Okay to save changes after providing a new name.
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The Profile tab shows what was imported from SimulationCraft to build this priority. There are often notes about changes that were made to adjust the priority to work in-game. If you are well-versed in SimulationCraft conditional expressions, you could edit this profile directly and click Accept then Import to load changes all at once. This explanation will demonstrate the Action Lists section instead.
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Click the Action Lists tab. You will be down the first entry in the default Action List. Both default and precombat are built in lists that the addon uses internally. Before combat, the addon will review precombat list for recommendations first, then move onto the default list and any additional lists that are run/called from there. In combat, the addon will mostly ignore the precombat list, unless there are essential abilities included -- things like maintenance buffs that you wouldn't want to drop during a raid fight and then leave off for the rest of the fight.
- Clicking the Entry dropdown gives a high level overview of the current Action List.
When reviewing the action list entries, consider a few important details:
- Action Lists are a priority list, not a chronological list. That means the addon will provide the first recommendation that has its criteria met. It would be wrong to interpret the above image to mean: use Skull Bash, then use Cat Form, then use Rake, then use Ferocious Bite. It's more accurate to say: If Skull Bash can be used and its conditions are met, use that. Otherwise, check the balance action list if its conditions are met. Otherwise, activate Cat Form if Cat Form is not activated. Otherwise, use Rake if you are in Prowl/Shadowmeld. Otherwise, go check the Cooldowns list.
- Conditions are similar to SimulationCraft, but sometimes adjusted to work in the language used by WoW addons (Lua). Use conditions from your existing priority for examples. Or refer to SimulationCraft wiki's conditional expressions.
- [Call Action List] will switch to the referenced action list, returning to the current list and continuing on, if no recommendation was identified.
- [Run Action List] will switch to that action list and never return, meaning any actions after [Run Action List] in the priority will be ignored if the conditions for [Run Action List] were met. (That means, if you we add anything after entry 10, a [Run Action List] entry without any conditions, we will never reach that entry.)
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In this example, we are wanting to add Regrowth to our priority, so that we make use of the healing potential in PvP. We will assume that this is for Shadowlands, where Regrowth no longer interacts with the Bloodtalons talent. We are also aware that the addon itself has some extra internal code that makes it so Regrowth will not be recommended in Cat Form unless it is instant cast (from Predatory Swiftness). Since the addon handles that bit, we don't have to worry about it. However, we don't want to be forcing ourselves to cast Regrowth when we're not missing health.
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Click the green plus sign next to the Entry dropdown.
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Click the Up triangle to move the entry to position 8, placed before our finishers priority. I selected this position because using a 5 combo point finisher will result in proccing another Predatory Swiftness, so I am assuming that I want to use my Predatory Swiftness before that so it doesn't go to waste.
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Check Enabled.
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In the Action dropdown, select Regrowth.
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In the Conditions box, type
health.pct < 80-- this expression means that your own health percentage is below 80%. You could use a different number or try other conditions. For instance,health.pct < 80 & fight_remains > 5means that your health percentage is below 80% and you're expected to remain in combat for more than 5 additional seconds. You might not want to self-heal if you can just get the kill and get out of combat quickly.
There are a few other fields here you can interact with. Caption, if your Displays are configured to Show Captions, will place the text you provided on the icon when this ability is recommended. This can be useful for live troubleshooting.
Show Modifiers allows you to access some additional options that are more advanced. Cycle Targets refers to swapping targets if this ability applies a debuff that you want to spread to multiple targets. It requires internal support (code) to work fo rany particular ability.
Check Movement allows you to specify whether you want the addon to be used only while stationary or moving.
Use Off Global Cooldown lets the entry be recommended during the GCD (if the ability is off GCD to begin with). Otherwise, the addon tends to line up abilities with the GCD, as this also results in less wasted buff/debuff uptime.
Use While Casting sets a particular ability to be recommended while casting another spell. For instance, a Fire Mage will Fire Blast during a Fireball cast. A Shadow Priest will use Searing Nightmare during Mind Sear.
- Test it!
In the screenshot above, I have paused the addon while Regrowth is recommended in the first recommendation slot. (The default Pause keybind is ALT-SHIFT-P.) While paused, I can mouseover and see why the recommendations I'm shown have been shown.