Another "Help my DPS" Post

[DKHaku]

Heya,

So I'm a Frost Mage, 922-925 equipped depending on gear choices, but I feel like my DPS is pretty low for my ilvl; SimCraft, for high movement fights on various skill levels, puts me between 750k and 950k DPS, most recently on Avatar heroic I didn't even manage 700k.

My RL assures me that my current DPS is sufficient to the task, especially since I'm not messing up on mechanics, so I'm in no danger of losing my raid spot, but I'd like to be pushing more, especially for tough bosses and when we start doing Mythic, but I don't know what the issue is.

There's a few mistakes I have noted and am working on namely:
-Cast cancelling; I'm constantly prepared to move but sometimes I get "heavy finger" which means that I click the left mouse button, moving my character.
-Too much or inefficient movement; working on this though I've not seen proper guidelines and I'm also told it'll come with experience.
-Dry Ice Lances; I'm not sure this is a latency issue or not, but I play at around 200ms all the time, and I find that I miss globals when firing off Ice Lances after a Flurry on Brain Freeze. The net result is that the Ice Lance does not shatter, as the Winter's Chill debuff has fallen off by the time it hits. If it is a latency issue I'm not sure what I could do to rectify it; even with "better internet" my ping isn't going to get much better; being at opposite ends of the world from the server will have that effect. I recognize that it could also be a Haste issue as

Here's my most recent lost on Fallen Avatar heroic; 685k dps is enough to meet the DPS requirements for heroic, but for 922-925 ilvl it feels stupidly low; matter of fact I succeeded in being the lowest DPSer in the raid despite being one of the highest geared.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=17

Here's also my Armory page so you can see what gear I have and the subsequent stats; note, I do swap around often to try and optimize stats, and the legendaries I have are:
-Shard of the Exodar (double BL/TW)
-Soul of the Archmage (Frozen Touch talent)
-Prydaz (Shield)
-Ice Time (Frozen Orb explodes for damage)
-Sindragosa helmet (Comet Storm after 15 Frostbolts or Flurries)

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/ch...k/cuddlewaffle

Check it out and let me know please?

[kheath812]

i didnt look at the logs but avatar isnt a great fight for frost because ice lance doesnt cleave and theres quite a bit of movement.

the numbers you pulled vs your sim dps dont seem too far off for avatar tbh

[Holovik]

Maybe try Ice Floes for Avatar to help with the movement a little more.

Couple thoughts on your "mistakes":
1. Cast cancelling - What? Try a different mouse I guess, never had this as an issue but if it keeps happening and it negatively impacts your performance, try a new mouse.
2. Improper movement - Avatar is movement heavy. That being said, shimmer or ice floes would help a lot, assuming you put them to good use. Keeping yourself near Maiden when she is about to protocol also can help you switch faster. Also, if you are sitting on FOF charges but movement is coming soon, save them so you can use 2 or 3 charges of FOF while you have to move. Just don't sit on 3 charges and waste them.
3. Dry Ice Lances - You state that you have 200 ms and are "at the opposite end of the world" from your server. This can seriously impact your gameplay, especially if it isn't allowing you to shatter your Brain Freezes. If you have the option, try a server closer to where you live. You can test your connection to various servers either by pinging their DNS name or creating an alt and looking at your MS. Choosing to play outside of your region is intentionally handicapping yourself

Other thoughts:
700k DPS is about the lowest you can afford on Heroic Avatar, and that is with other classes carrying you. If you optimize your movement just a little bit better you could probably push that to 800-850k pretty easily. This obviously overlooks your ping issue, which I think is your main detriment here.

[Kluian05]

At your ilvl you should be pushing 950k+ on Avatar if correct play. My mage is ~921 equipped and hits that mark (using 880 Arcano though). For a fight like Goroth you should be pushing 1.1-1.2 mil DPS. If not that you probably have some misunderstanding of frost mechanics or poor gear itemization that need to be fixed.

You should be using BL Ring and Helm as your legendaries. Replace helm with Bracers once you get them so you can wear 2pc T19 + 4pc T20. On my frost mage I always play with Ice Floes. Ebonbolt + Flurry + IL or FB + Flurry + IL using an Ice Floes during Chaos you should not have any impact of your DPS time. If you are out of Ice Floe charges then at the minimal cast unbuffed IL so you are doing some form of DPS.

For Avatar specifically, make sure you cast your own personal BL right after the raid BL finishes at the start of P1. The fight is long enough so that you will get 3 Bloodlusts, the 3rd at the end in P2.

Your DPS is probably hindered immensely by your lag/clipping issues if they are true.

[Zenfoldor]

I agree your dps is rather low for Avatar. I would suspect the issue is mainly your latency. You can deal great damage with high latency, but there is definitely an art and a limit to it.

EDIT: CHECK WITH BLIZZARD FIRST AND MAKE SURE IT IS OKAY TO DO THIS: Do you think you could try a gaming VPN? I've seen a gaming VPN reduce latency from 100ms down to 40/40. It may not be much, but if you couldn't knock 60ms off your latency that would probably be the largest dps increase you could get.

[Hablelol]

You only fired two 'dry' ice lances so I'm not thinking that's your problem. You're about 5% below where your activity should be so honestly even that's not going to show the exact problem.
Hit less than 60 out of 72 ice lance procs (dependent on how many cleaved) so you missed some damage there.

Here's my best guess. And I rarely dig this deep into logs so I could EASILY be wrong. But I have a frost mage at 910 and based off of its cast times, GCD on instant casts and a fair amount of movement you were casting and/or on GCD for about 212 seconds during that fight. 212 seconds of that 428 second long fight. While the activity in your logs looks a LITTLE bit low your casts per minute is freakishly low. That could be due to your lag or just far too much time re-positioning or not doing anything. I'd try to look into this first.


EDIT : https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&source=160.
Yah that's definitely the issue, granted this person did twice as much DPS as you the fight length was the same. They manage to cast almost twice as many ILs/Flurries AND more Frostbolts and still had time for a few Blizzards. You just need to ABC (always be casting).

[DKHaku]

I delved into my own logs as well and determined that I lost around 76-80k DPS; I'll explain:

39 FoF procs + 35 Brain Freeze = 74 chances to have shattered Ice Lance.
60 Ice Lance crits = 14 Ice Lance crits I missed.
Average Ice Lance crit, for ease of calculation, 1.5M (it's actually 1,433,910)
1,500,000 * 14 = 21,000,000 damage I missed
21,000,000 / 428 seconds (7:08 fight length) = 49k DPS I missed.

Then too, I missed 3 Flurry casts on Brain Freeze which, if my numbers are accurate, lost me +/- 20k DPS

Finally, I failed to properly activate my sentinel trinket at the start of the fight which, assuming my numbers are correct, lost me around 16k DPS.

That's just what I could narrow down, and the net result is 86k DPS lost.
682k + 86k = 768k DPS I'd have managed if I hadn't missed any of this. It's still low for my ilvl but I'd have been satisfied with that at least.

I'm intrigued about the VPN thing; can you go into greater detail?

I'll be working on activity; I have some thoughts on how to improve DPS while on the move either by use of Ice Floes or, in the case of Unbound Chaos, holding off on Frozen Orb until I have to move while making use of instant cast Blizzard and whatever FoF procs I get; I don't know if the Blizzard option will help or hinder my DPS, but I figure it's probably better than the huge amount of nothing I'm doing while running from Unbound Chaos anyway.

[Deleted]

i just looked 5 sec into your log - 28% dmg from icelance. thats far too low, you must be munching proccs.
for me, ice lance is about 40-50% of dmg in ST situations.

[DKHaku]

i just looked 5 sec into your log - 28% dmg from icelance. thats far too low, you must be munching proccs.
for me, ice lance is about 40-50% of dmg in ST situations.

Gonna be working on this. I was told that Frost Mage naturally munches a few procs, but I think I'm taking that to extremes for reasons I know not xD

[Holovik]

Gonna be working on this. I was told that Frost Mage naturally munches a few procs, but I think I'm taking that to extremes for reasons I know not xD

It does but sometimes you just can't avoid it. Say you have your BF proc and you are casting your FB > Flurry > IL. If that FB procs FOF there is nothing you can do about it, you will use the FOF proc to shatter your Flurry. I run into a similar situation playing GS where I get my BF proc and then my final Icicle. I want to use the BF proc to shatter my GS but if that last FB procs FOF, its still more damage to munch the FOF proc to shatter your GS.

You can limit your FOF munching by not using Frozen Orb when you have a BF proc or are about to use your Ebonbolt.

[Kluian05]

Finally, I failed to properly activate my sentinel trinket at the start of the fight which, assuming my numbers are correct, lost me around 16k DPS.

Your sentinel trinket should be macroed to be used with Icy Veins. Icy Veins is ~2 min CD depending on FB crits. I think mine gets to around 1:50 but I have an extra relic buffing that talent.

[Zenfoldor]

To answer your VPN question, I had an issue since 7.2 where instead of my usual 54/54 I've been getting 150/54. Many have experienced this in SE us due to AT&T ISP(according to blizzard) but after I have argued with Blizzard many times, I gave up.

I've started using Private Internet Access and connecting to their Chicago servers. My new ping is 45/45, so its actually better than ever.

How that works, is instead of you connecting through the intermediate and long term pathways your ISP sends you down, instead you tunnel directly from your connected local router to the vpn server you are connected to. From there you then connect to Blizzard through the VPNs intermediate routing.

Look at your server and find out what datacenter you are in. There are dedicated gaming vpns which specialize in getting you the lowest ping and it's not just numbers, you definitely actually feel it in gameplay.

I can't say for sure how Blizzard looks on vpn usage, but I have no other choice. However, use at your own risk. I do know that you would be better off going with a paid service, as the free vpns are rife with unscrupulous users.

Don't just connect to one server in your VPNs array, try each server and notate the ping you get, to find the best one. PIA has dozens I believe, so I had to try a few before I settled on Chicago. Oddly, the NY servers gave mediocre ping, even though KT is in the NY datacenter.

[ifrah]

Good tips, but unfortunately the OP said he's playing "on the opposite end of the world" which sounds like being on another continent. This means going below 200ms is going to be pretty hard to impossible to achieve. VPN can help, but don't expect miracles in such case.

[Deleted]

When playing TV, Avatar is the only fight that I spec into Frozen Touch for.

2 reasons:

1) Cleave from Splitting Ice doesn't work
2) FT + Frozen Orb turns you into an icelance machine, and it roughly lines up with the bosses' Unbound Chaos cooldown - so you can effectively use Frozen Orb as a movement cooldown.

I've been playing WoW since vanilla, and since Legion I've also had occasional problems with "accidental movement". Not sure if it's a mouse problem, or just an age/concentration problem... it only happens maybe 2 or 3 times per month, but it's still annoying.

For dry ice lances, I sometimes still get a problem under situations of high haste in which I fire two off accidentally. Maybe need to check into my settings actually after the fooling around we did for double icelance in NH.

I'm playing GS pretty consistently now, most people seem to sim better as TV but for whatever reason GS is consistently simming ahead for me and I quite like the playstyle. Maybe give it a try and see if it yields better results for you.

[Holovik]

To answer your VPN question, I had an issue since 7.2 where instead of my usual 54/54 I've been getting 150/54. Many have experienced this in SE us due to AT&T ISP(according to blizzard) but after I have argued with Blizzard many times, I gave up.

I've started using Private Internet Access and connecting to their Chicago servers. My new ping is 45/45, so its actually better than ever.

How that works, is instead of you connecting through the intermediate and long term pathways your ISP sends you down, instead you tunnel directly from your connected local router to the vpn server you are connected to. From there you then connect to Blizzard through the VPNs intermediate routing.

Look at your server and find out what datacenter you are in. There are dedicated gaming vpns which specialize in getting you the lowest ping and it's not just numbers, you definitely actually feel it in gameplay.

I can't say for sure how Blizzard looks on vpn usage, but I have no other choice. However, use at your own risk. I do know that you would be better off going with a paid service, as the free vpns are rife with unscrupulous users.

Don't just connect to one server in your VPNs array, try each server and notate the ping you get, to find the best one. PIA has dozens I believe, so I had to try a few before I settled on Chicago. Oddly, the NY servers gave mediocre ping, even though KT is in the NY datacenter.

Make sure when you factor your ping you are also adding the ping from your computer to the VPN server. The wow server might be telling you 50ms (because it thinks you are in the Chicago area where your VPN server is) and then you are also getting the delay from the Chicago VPN server to your house. Depending on where you live this could be another 50ms so actually you are still playing with 100ms, not the 50ms that wow is showing you. Where this allows improvement is it provides point to point connectivity to Chicago which could reduce your ms some over using your ISP's routing, but you definitely aren't getting the 50ms wow is showing you in terms of connection delay.

[Zenfoldor]

Make sure when you factor your ping you are also adding the ping from your computer to the VPN server. The wow server might be telling you 50ms (because it thinks you are in the Chicago area where your VPN server is) and then you are also getting the delay from the Chicago VPN server to your house. Depending on where you live this could be another 50ms so actually you are still playing with 100ms, not the 50ms that wow is showing you. Where this allows improvement is it provides point to point connectivity to Chicago which could reduce your ms some over using your ISP's routing, but you definitely aren't getting the 50ms wow is showing you in terms of connection delay.

I'm not sure about that for a rew reasons, primarily since technically with that being the case I should be able to pick a server closer and get a really low latency, but no available servers are below my geographically determined latency level which is about 40ms by my estimation, and also because I believe I am a really great determiner of latency anecdotally.....but it's moot because the felt latency is definitely reduced vs the issue WoW is experiencing with AT&T, so I'm gonna keep using it. I'd take a 100ms consistent connection over a 50ms connection being intermittently throttled by intermediate routing.

[Bosanova321]

at 925 ilvl about how much dps should a mage be pulling consistently?

[Aktec]

at 925 ilvl about how much dps should a mage be pulling consistently?

Hard to answer without going into specifics about type of fights/length etc, but this is a good place to start.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...unt&bracket=22

click through the options to see diff ilevs or diff fights and so on.

[Soulwell]

Remember that glacial eruption doesn't hit avatar up top. Always ebonbolt combo maiden.

[Zenfoldor]

at 925 ilvl about how much dps should a mage be pulling consistently?

For frost, I sim at 1.2 at the ilvl using helm and ring, so I would say if you are good you'll have a wide variance around that number for single target. For fire, assuming absolutely optimal gear, you would be about 100k below that, I believe.

When simming look at the variations, even the best play ever sometimes performs much worse or much better than that figure, so you have to understand some is left up to rng.