Which is better?
Raidbots is just a (friendly) web interface to utilize SimulationCraft, which has been around a long time and has been verified as accurate for DPS by many theory-crafters and average users. It’s probably the best sim out there for DPS, although AskMrRobot gives similar (but not exactly the same) recommendations. My raid leader and guild-mates tend to prefer SimCraft (and thus Raidbots), but I think they’re both viable.
However, if there’s a discrepancy between AskMrRobot and Raidbots for a DPS simulation, I typically follow Raidbots. AskMrRobot has plenty of log comparisons to verify that their unique sim is accurate and it’s much faster at producing results than Raidbots. Plus, if you want to sim damage mitigation for tanking or healing-done, then AskMrRobot is really your only option as Raidbots is strictly a DPS sim and will warn you if you load a tank or healer spec.
I always look at both sims for DPS and if there’s something AskMrRobot suggests that didn’t come up in Raidbots, I check it again in Raidbots for just those specific gear slots, talents, and/or conduits. Since Raidbots doesn’t support tanking/healing, I use AskMrRobot for those exclusively.
As an aside, Raidbots is free to use, but you are limited in how many options you can compare and often end up in a long queue to start your sim (which itself can take a few minutes depending on how many options you’re comparing). AskMrRobot doesn’t seem to have a queue (always instant for me), but is pay-only at $12 for the whole year ($1/mo), which is cheaper than the lowest paid tier of Raidbots to get priority in the queue. Raidbots premium pricing ranges from $5/mo, $13.50/3-mo, or $24/6-mo which amounts to $4.00, $4.50, or $5.00 per month depending on the tier of service you buy (cheaper rates are in blocks of 3 or 6 months). Higher tiers also increase the number of options you can compare in a single run for Raidbots. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of option limits like that in AskMrRobot.
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I think this explanation is accurate based on what I have learned over time, and very well written.
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Vortimer
Great read. Thanks for your insight. I don’t play enough. I like AMR because I find it simple. Quick. I question some recommendations. I don’t always do what it says. I hate it when it tells me I can get more DPS by using a lower level item when I have a higher level purple item in bag. You feel me?
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That’s not MrRobot’s fault–that’s Blizzard’s fault and I would bet that the cases where that happens to you it’s a trinket or a lower piece with some special proc or tier set ability.
If I have a 2-piece questing tier that gives 340 to my highest secondary stat, but one is 385 purple and the other is 359 blue, you’d think that replacing the blue with a 389 purple non-tier would be the right move “cuz higher item level.” But the higher-item level 389 breaks the set and you lose 340 of a 2nd stat, so AMR would correctly recommend keeping the 359 blue equipped.
As another example, the trinket Integrated Primal Fire off a non-elite boss in Azure Span is so over-powered, that I will likely keep it, even at 256 blue, over many 300+ purple trinkets. You can only get that trinket off your first kill of the Summoned Destroyer and the drop scales with your current item level. I wish I had know that because a raid team member killed that mob when he was much higher item-level that Vortimer was for his kill and he got a 372 purple version, that he likely will not replace until next season (unless he gets a really good dungeon trinket out of the vault from doing a +15 dungeon).