Teach me how to analyze my logs

[Notter]

well, the title pretty much says it

i see a lot of people asking for help with their logs, but i'm hoping someone can be so kind, as to teach me what i should look at, when i'm checking my logs.
and also, how do i check it, cause it's a bit complicated (i tried toying with it though, so not total clueless)


So, to reiterate, i'm not asking how to play monk, but what and how to check in my log, so i can try and improve that, and what to look for in the future.

so thanks for helpers.
an example log:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...WT8kG#fight=24

[Clausi]

I'm also not so good in reading logs, but perhaps I can help you a bit, some things I always look at:
Is my buff uptime good? (TP-Buff, lined up TeB with trinket procs etc)
Usage of RSK/FoF on CD? (Divide fightlength by CD and compare with casts of those spells)

Hope this helps, and I am also curios what else can be looked at

[brookllyn]

I'm also not so good in reading logs, but perhaps I can help you a bit, some things I always look at:
Is my buff uptime good? (TP-Buff, lined up TeB with trinket procs etc)
Usage of RSK/FoF on CD? (Divide fightlength by CD and compare with casts of those spells)

Hope this helps, and I am also curios what else can be looked at

Looking at fight times for optimal CD usage is also important. For example, a five minute fight would only ever allow two xuens so you can save the second one for as long as you need to and not lose out on potential damage. You would save the second xuen for trinket procs and also use your second pot at that time to get maximum damage.

That and you can look at resources to make sure you aren't ever wasting chi or capping energy or even tigereye brew through the buff tab. If you log kills, make sure you look at the rankings to see what kind of damage other windwalkers are doing comparatively. Make sure you look at your damage taken as well.

If you want to get super thorough, you can make two pins for chi and chi explosion casts and then check the replay to see where the bosses were each time you casted CE to make sure you used 4 chi when the bosses were in cleave range.

Active % in the damage summary tab is also something to look at. I'm not sure how this is calculated with downtime and AAs and what not but you can basically see if you might be running around too much and should spend more time on the boss. For this fight, you could go Diffuse magic and use that then ToK to just run through some of the fire in order to stay on the boss for one or two rounds of quake.

If you are forgetful of prepots, you can look at your agi pot buff uptime to see that you did forget quite a few of those.

Warcraft logs also has a great fight analysis tool under the summary which you can use to see if you are one of the ones failing at mechanics. This is more for raid leaders but if you are unsure on any mechanics, this can help to point them out.

[Arathirius]

There are so many different things to do with logs that its hard to even begin. For personal improvement the major things are:

Compare what the top parses of your spec are doing to yours. Check what % their abilities are in total damage breakdown compared to you to see if there are any major rotational differences. Compare damage % of each ability. Did they do 3% more total damage with FoF simply because they got more crits/MS? Or did they get another cast in?

Check your buff/debuff uptimes to make sure all of your maintenance buffs/debuffs have their proper uptimes. Also check to see how you reacted to procs and the like to boost your damage.

Check your cd usage to make sure its done properly. On pure patchwek style fights make sure you arent sitting on cds at all and use them as soon as they come up. On fights where you need more damage at certain times make sure you can identify that and find where you need to be using your cds to get the most effective damage out of them. For monks specifically this is mainly TeB usage. Warcraft logs replay feature is good for this since you will be able to see what all actions you took during TeB and how it boosted your damage in turn.

Look at your damage taken on fights. Notice where the damage is getting higher or lower, and check to see which if any defensives you used in response. This works the same way as damage output. Are you taking damage you shouldnt because you didnt avoid an ability? Compare to top parses and see where the top players are taking more or less damage than you. Did they use Karma or Diffuse at a different time? Are you using Diffuse when you should be using Dampen? Are they using raid cds instead of personals here? When do you need to health pot?

[Deleted]

Active % in the damage summary tab is also something to look at. I'm not sure how this is calculated with downtime and AAs and what not but you can basically see if you might be running around too much and should spend more time on the boss. For this fight, you could go Diffuse magic and use that then ToK to just run through some of the fire in order to stay on the boss for one or two rounds of quake.

No reason to use Diffuse on Twins when there is so many mandatory to get hit by big blows in the fight. Pulverize, Interrupting, Enfeebling etc.

[TeeNaku]

No reason to use Diffuse on Twins when there is so many mandatory to get hit by big blows in the fight. Pulverize, Interrupting, Enfeebling etc.

Except everybody is getting hit by the other big hits so you have raid cooldowns and stuff planned for it, having diffuse magic in case you take an extra stack is the difference between living and dying on that fight when things get out of hand.

as for the OP's post, The best thing to do is first look at a like 10 logs for the fight and find what the general idea of the fight looks like for your class (for the people that are doing well), what talents are people taking, are they focusing adds or the boss and general stuff like that. then after you have a general idea of what works find one of the logs that is close to the kill time of your guild for the boss you are looking at and compare things like uptime on buffs, how many times everything is being used so you can see where you are falling behind.

also be sure to look for the signs of people cheesing hard (look for stuff like unusually high amount of damage on adds and what not) and try to avoid using those logs as a baseline.

[Deleted]

Except everybody is getting hit by the other big hits so you have raid cooldowns and stuff planned for it, having diffuse magic in case you take an extra stack is the difference between living and dying on that fight when things get out of hand.

as for the OP's post, The best thing to do is first look at a like 10 logs for the fight and find what the general idea of the fight looks like for your class (for the people that are doing well), what talents are people taking, are they focusing adds or the boss and general stuff like that. then after you have a general idea of what works find one of the logs that is close to the kill time of your guild for the boss you are looking at and compare things like uptime on buffs, how many times everything is being used so you can see where you are falling behind.

also be sure to look for the signs of people cheesing hard (look for stuff like unusually high amount of damage on adds and what not) and try to avoid using those logs as a baseline.

What big raid cooldowns are you going to line up with Interrupting shout, Enfeebling Roar or Pulverize?

All are physical, Pulverize does not allow stacking. So yeah, sure go ahead and use PW:B or Smoke Bomb for those IS or ER.

Does not still mean that I should start taking cooldowns in case I decide to be an idiot instead of focusing on doing the mechanics correctly and picking talents in such way.

There is a reason monks are the lowest damage takers as DPS for this kind of fights.

[TeeNaku]

What big raid cooldowns are you going to line up with Interrupting shout, Enfeebling Roar or Pulverize?

All are physical, Pulverize does not allow stacking. So yeah, sure go ahead and use PW:B or Smoke Bomb for those IS or ER.

Does not still mean that I should start taking cooldowns in case I decide to be an idiot instead of focusing on doing the mechanics correctly and picking talents in such way.

There is a reason monks are the lowest damage takers as DPS for this kind of fights.

tranq's, revivals, amp magics, etc. none of the mechanics you listed are going to 1 shot you and if you are ever dying from those mechanics chances are lots of people are dead and it's a healing issue, being able to just step through a fire instead of running around it and using diffuse magic have higher up time on the boss is much more efficient in any competent raiding environment than just bringing a defensive because you don't trust your healers to heal you through raid wide damage.

[Deleted]

It is not a question of not trusting your healers.

It is a question of your group being capable of bringing less healers because you don't raid with idiots who stand in fire.

Hence the boss dies faster.

Not to mention that Diffuse Magic is 6 seconds long, where as the flame stacks go for 12.

There is very little to absolutely no reason to stand in the fire, especially with such high mobility class as monk who can return to the boss instantly if you for some reason decide to run outside of the boss' range.

[tonloc56]

First - Thank you for creating this thread!
Second - Thank you for the pointers on how to see where I'm good/bad compared to the leet pees!

[mallorea36]

One thing you can do is compare your fight to other fights.
You go to DPS rankings and you pull up the logs of other monks on the same fight and see how their fight differs from yours. You can also filter by item level to get a better idea of what you should be doing.
You select each monk on their respective log, and put up the graph then compare. You also have a table that shows the amount of damage done by each ability and the amount of casts of each ability. Just remember to shorten the fight length of longer fights to be comparable with your fight length.

For example: I see other monks have storm spirit rather than earth spirit on the logs (I don't know what the difference is, I don't monk). I also see other monks having fists of fury damage higher than chi explosion with significantly more casts of fists of fury and slightly less of chi explosion than you did.

[Deleted]

One thing you can do is compare your fight to other fights.
You go to DPS rankings and you pull up the logs of other monks on the same fight and see how their fight differs from yours. You can also filter by item level to get a better idea of what you should be doing.
You select each monk on their respective log, and put up the graph then compare. You also have a table that shows the amount of damage done by each ability and the amount of casts of each ability. Just remember to shorten the fight length of longer fights to be comparable with your fight length.

For example: I see other monks have storm spirit rather than earth spirit on the logs (I don't know what the difference is, I don't monk). I also see other monks having fists of fury damage higher than chi explosion with significantly more casts of fists of fury and slightly less of chi explosion than you did.

One tip for this is that you can bookmark reports in the WCL website, it is a button in top right corner under the 'Compare reports' tab. Click the bookmark for your desired log you want to compare against, then go to your own log and pick the bookmarked log from the compare reports tab.

You can then pick the monk from the other log and you, then compare buffs etc side by side.

[TeeNaku]

It is not a question of not trusting your healers.

It is a question of your group being capable of bringing less healers because you don't raid with idiots who stand in fire.

I'm sorry but if you think one person taking 40% less damage for 3 hits is enough to drop a healer than I am done with this conversation seeing as you will obviously grasp at any straw you can to try to validate your own opinion to yourself. not to mention the fact that it isn't even on the topic of the thread.