To begin with, you should probably mod it with both
Tiramisu and
Aroma environments, then use the
EnvSwap whenever you need to swap between these two. Both of them are built atop of same Mocha version and they have similar features, while Aroma will be the go-to environment in the future as it can use various useful plugins. You can read more about it
here. The reason I personally use Tiramisu as well is because
RetroArch (which is another homebrew app that you should set up, provided you're interested in older games' emulation, just go with the
latest stable version) isn't compatible with Aroma yet, but it's
work in progress.
Other than that, I personally use
HB App Store to download and install, update or delete homebrew apps on my console directly.
As for the homebrew apps, I personally use:
- RetroArch (for retro emulation, works only on Tiramisu)
- NUSSpli (for downloading Wii U games directly from the Nintendo Update Servers),
- Ticket Cleaner (for removing unused tickets on the Wii U),
- NTRView (for streaming games from my 3DS)
- SaveMii Mod - WUT Port (backup and restore game saves for Wii U and vWii games)
- WUP Installer GX2 (for installing games from SD card, mainly for those that are not available through NUSSpli, thought I believe that NUSSpli can do that as well nowadays)
- Bloopair (for connecting controllers other than official ones, like Sony DS3 and DS4)
- UFDiine (for removing and restoring Updates folder)
- MultiDRCSpaceDemo (for playing the demo of the only game that uses 2 Wii U Gamepads)
- re_nfpii (for amiibo emulation, Aroma only)
And that should be it, at least, for me.
Good luck and have fun playing games on your Wii U!