It’s been a heated debate for years, which leveling guide is better. Guides come and go, some good and some bad, but two guides have been around for a long time: Dugi’s Ultimate WoW Leveling Guide and Zygor Guides. But which is better?
If you’ve read anything about the two before landing here, you probably found that the comparison is next to nothing. Most of the players are in favor of the guide they are using and make false accusations about their fellow competitor. Don’t worry, I’m going to settle this debate once and for all.
The Dugi vs Zygor guides are a very detailed comparison as we didn’t want to leave out any factor. The comparison had to remain unbiased and this was difficult at first as I am a Zygor Guides user. However, I really wanted to get to the bottom of this debate and decided to buy and use Dugi’s guide to give you a fair comparison. I figured if Dugi had a better guide then I would have no problem switching as I had already purchased both guides.
So who was the decisive winner? Here’s the breakdown:
1) Initial web research of these two guides left us with a tie of dead events. It seems as if they were all pulling on the guide they possessed. This didn’t help us further decide on a winner, but it did teach us that both guides deliver in terms of customer satisfaction and that you should be happy with either.
2) Our next area of analysis was ease of installation. Zygor’s guides clearly took the lead, as their installer is simple and intuitive in design. Just download and run the installer and click install. Dugi has you doing more steps including downloading 13 “source” files and the installer, putting them in a common folder, and running the installer. It’s not the end of the world, but having to do it every update can get pretty tedious. The Zygor installer has a simple Update button that does it all with one click.
3) We then test the speed of each leveling guide and user interface. We found that the speed was impossible to test properly, since you would need many test subjects with identical search habits. We found that they were both VERY fast in leveling up and therefore tied even here.
The user interface is a matter of opinion. Dugi uses a screen that looks more “WoWesk” while Zygor Guides uses a custom design with different skins. However, we found that Dugi uses free third-party plugins in its guide (directional arrow is TomTom). A big surprise as these authors might stop updating their plugin, leaving Dugi and his followers in the dust, minus one point for Dugi.
4) Each guide has a list of bonuses available after purchase. Since everyone seems to hype Dugi’s bonuses, we decided to put them to the test. The findings weren’t all that surprising as BOTH Dugi and Zygor Guides offered virtually worthless bonuses. What we did find out is that the Dugi’s Cataclysm bonus is a talent advisor that might be worth your time (although Zygor Guides offers it as a standard feature), but again, the talent advisor is just the free third-party plugin! “Talented”! Charging for free products is bad for Dugi’s business.
Since the bonuses appeared to be a sales gimmick for both parties, no points are awarded to either party.
5) Talent Advisors are becoming a huge sales attraction for players new to the game and experienced players leveling up Alts. The Zygor Guides Talent Advisor is fully automated. You can have it learn your points for you as you level up or you can have it recommend which talents to use. The builds are all perfect in leveling builds (healer, tank and dps builds also for those of that instance). Not to mention, Zygor’s talent advisor is built in-house.
Dugi’s “Talented” only offers visual talent trees where you have to manually put the points and learn them yourself. It’s not the end of the world as it still gets the job done. However, we give the Zygor guides a half point for their overall Talent Advisor finesse.
6) Are you still with me? I apologize for the length of this article. The smart injection system, our next area of interest, has very little to compare with. Zygor Guides has a fully automated system that scans your completed quests and current level to find the optimal place on the Zygor Guides quest path to start. Dugi’s guide offers a selection window where you have to choose the level range and zone you think you should search and then find the best spot on the search path.
Trust me, Zygor’s smart injection system is fantastic!
7) Finally, something Dugi can take the cake on. Price. At the moment, Dugi is $10 cheaper than Zygor Guides. It’s probably a good idea, since you’re charging for third-party plugins that are free and clearly have a less polished product. For those who are short on money, Dugi’s might be the way to go. Remember what we said earlier at the beginning of the article: both customers are very satisfied with any guide they own.