Article: World of Warcraft Is Getting a One-Button Option That Will Automatically Cast the Ideal Next Spell — but at a Cost
Blizzard is preparing to add a new feature to World of Warcraft that might sound strange at first: an option to have the game tell you what spell you should optimally cast next in combat, with an additional option to simply let the game cast the ideal next spell for you.
Today, in a lengthy video interview between game director Ion Hazzikostas, Team Liquid raid leader Maximum, and content creator Dratnos, it was announced that the upcoming World of Warcraft patch 11.1.7 a new feature will be added called Rotation Assist. Rotation Assist, when turned on, will highlight in combat the recommended next ability for your character to use based on class, specialization, and the combat situation.
Additionally, the feature will come with an optional "one button" option that will allow a player to simply press one button to automatically cast whichever spell the game is recommending cast next. However, there's a penalty for using the one-button option - it will add an additional small amount of time to the global cooldown, meaning players using the single button option will overall cast spells slower and deal less damage than someone playing manually.
In the video, Hazzikostas explains that the new feature is based on the popular add-on Hekili, which similarly recommends optional next spells to cast but does not provide a one-button rotation. As Hazzikostas explains:
"Add-ons are amazing. The things that the community has done over the last 20 years to allow people to experience different aesthetics, different functionality, have information available at their fingertips like that is a huge part of WoW's success. And we don't question or want to undermine that for a moment. At the same time, ideally…if you ask people you know, 'hey, how can I get better? I'm really struggling at this.' The first answer shouldn't be, 'Well download this add-on, this add-on, this add-on. Otherwise you're doing it wrong.' Because that's starting to get into that mandatory place, whether we like it or not."
Hazzikostas goes on to explain that long-term, Blizzard is thinking more deeply about the role of add-ons in World of Warcraft and how for players wanting to participate in competitive content, many of them have essentially become mandatory. The team, he says, wants to move away from that philosophy, and is thinking down the line about improvements that can be made to World of Warcraft's class design, boss encounter design, and UI that will ensure the functions players feel are necessary from add-ons are built-in natively.
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