So I had a disastrous season one; I was benched halfway through heroic because I wasn’t performing well enough on my Death Knight, and after 1 mythic raid, my guild (at the time) pretty much blacklisted me from mythic progress altogether. They didn’t make it past Broodtwister, as I’d predicted, and I was long since over it by then anyway.
But the problem is that season 2 is starting off pretty badly too.
Normal raid on this character I started off with parses under 20%, and as of last week I was able to bring that around though I’m told it’s pretty much meaningless because of boosting. So sub 20% parses going as high as 89% is apparently meaningless.
And things are even worse in heroic. Even if my guild just got Gallywix heroic, my parses are still trash, my DPS is barely higher than the tanks, and I’m almost always the first to die for some reason or other.
And no amount of reading and watching raid and class guides seem to help; I pour over my logs, compare them to others it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
At this point I’m giving urgent consideration to just giving up on it, really. I’m already starting to feel like the guild handicap, but the reality is that I don’t really factor anyway. With or without me, the guild can make progress, meanwhile I’m having about as much as I’d have in a prostate exam.
So, I guess I’m looking for advice though I’m not too sure what form that should take, but if you don’t have anything helpful to say, you needn’t bother saying anything.
Have you tried using wow analyser? I’m not sure how good it is for deva
I loaded one of your logs into it, if there is one thing you should take to heart its this:
Always be Casting
Continuously chaining casts throughout an encounter is the single most important thing for achieving good DPS as a caster.
I’ll also add:
If you aren’t keybinding you should be. Not negotiable if you want to improve (you probably are but…)
UI needs to work for you. I use audio clues to tell me stuff is happening rather than staring at my bars / timers. If you’re dying a lot its probably because you’re distracted by “stuff” and not looking where you should be looking - which is also why I asked the question in 1.
Link the logs to your character and I’m sure there will be some people here to have a glance at them and give you some pointers.
And hey, look at the bright side; you WANT to improve and you KNOW that you’re underperforming - half the battle is already won.
I take it you already got WeakAuras, DBM/BigWigs timers and those so I’m not gonna touch on that. Keeping track of buffs and certain raid abilites is of course crucial but that’s not the issue here.
“And no amount of reading and watching raid and class guides seem to help”
I am exactly like that myself. Doesn’t matter how much I read on something, I need to grind and learn by trial and error. However, something that really helped me step up My play was finding/looking at a streamer I enjoyed (Gingi in my case when I started playing in Legion and he played Hunter) and looking at him. And don’t be afraid to ask them questions in their chat.
You got double monitors? Have a stream/PoV videos with commentary on the other monitor while you play. It’s pretty incredible what the brain picks up in the backgrounds subconscious.
You got a lot of “dead time” in WoW? Waiting for finding groups etc? Go smash some dummys during that time! Train your muscle memory and your rotations. I personally still do this every day when I’m looking for M+ groups. Always at the dummys, keeping myself at my toes.
And lastly (and what I think is the biggest issue); it seems to me that you’re in an enviroment doesn’t do you any good. You don’t do yourself any favors by stressing yourself out with comparing yourself to the other players in your guild who apparently is above your level. If I were you I would definitely go find a guild that is more on pair with your level. I know where you are, I’ve been there too and it can be soul crushing when you doing the best you can and you still is the worst in the group.
I am a hard believer in boosting yourself and your confidence with “easy wins”. Rather find a normal/heroic raid guild and ‘build yourself up’ instead of aiming at Mythic and just get defeated/beaten down all the time.
Build up your confidence. A win in Normal is better than a loss in Mythic in my book. At least at the position you’re at. And then keep doing baby steps. But keep on grinding/spamming your rotations on for example dummys and look at your Details/Damage Meters. “Why did I do more dps on this 1 min fight on these dummys than the other 1 min fight I did before this one?” You’ll pick up bits and pieces here and there and you’ll get there.
Hope you find something useful in the post. Best of luck!
Oh, want to add as well since you actually really want to improve - record your own gameplay, there’s tons of free softwares to use (I use bandicam.com to record my runs so I can tailor my WeakAuras for example).
And I took the liberty of googling up a Death Knight streamer that seem to be popular - b1cepspump (https://www.twitch.tv/b1cepspump)
I did a 7% parse. I am actual trash at this game. On warcraftlogs add this report after the .com if have a mind to check it: (I’m not allowed to post links, apparently)
I’m single target build because it’s AoE with Snapfire and Firestorm is sufficiently good; considering adds don’t tend to last long anyway, I figured I’d focus on the boss.
I KNOW I didn’t play perfectly, but I didn’t die at least. I think 652 ilvl is a little low for Mythic.
I’m struggling on heroics too, but my heroic logs are with Scale Commander instead of Flameshaper which I’m playing now.
Heroic logs coming tomorrow.
Even single target on a dummy, I’m still around 400k DPS short of my sims. Details under reports my DPS by around 130k though, so I’m probably only around 270k short of my sims but that’s still a big issue since it’s patchwerk and I’m just freecasting on a dummy.
A lot of this game is simply habit. Repetition. Just keep raiding and you will in time get better.
Looking at logs and stuff is a good approach to improving, but punishing yourself like this will only get you frustrated and burned out.
Also. Parses are measured against people that had perfect raid buffs, perfect boss execution and PI and things like that. Dont take it at heart. Its just an indicative number. Its not a goal to reach 99% parses.
Dummy data is useful if you compare it with dummy data.
Sims data are useful to compare it with other sims data.
Do not take simulations and dummies and expect to do that in raid.
There’s a video series on YouTube called A Crap Guide To Final Fantasy XIV by JoCat which may help you.
Yes, it’s a series applicable to a rival MMORPG, so there are going to be some caveats:
Positionals aren’t really a thing in WoW, whereas in FFXIV there are a lot of abilities which do extra damage when you’re at the flank or rear of a target. It’s still good practice to stand behind or to the side because of boss AOE/cleave abilities and also because of how parry works for melee.
Any class-specific is moot. FF14 has a lot of complex combo interactions and overbloated action bars more akin to Boeing 737 cockpits. Even Subtlety Rogue action bars are nowhere near as bloated as your average DPS class in FF14…
AOE markers work a bit differently in FF14 because they will only deal damage to anybody still stood in them when the timer runs out. AOE rarely works like that in WoW, and the general advice should be to not stand in harmful stuff at all. So ignore any advice about “Greed” (staying in an aoe marker until the very last second to maximize DPS.)
That’s helpful Only I’m barely outdpsing the tanks most of the time, if I’m not dying outright so… I mean, being 10 ilvls or more lower than everyone and 1 million health lower doesn’t help.
Gearing is rough because they’d rather gas up the core raiders and supercharge them than to raise the floor instead of the ceiling, but I understand why. I disagree that it’s the best approach but that’s a philosophical debate because both approaches have merit.
Bottom line is that I’ve been playing the game since 2010; you’d think I’d be better at it by now, and I’m annoyed that I’m not.
1: Learn your opener and practice it rote on dummies. ESPECIALLY as Flameshaper Evoker. A huge amount of your DPS for the whole fight comes from the first 20-30 seconds, especially in heroic which is where you’ll be able to impress people and build confidence. The first 30~ seconds of every fight are very light on mechanics so they should play out pretty similarly across the board.
2: ABC. Always Be Casting. Every single global you should be using an ability. Keybind all your abilities if they aren’t already and get used to mashing the key for the next spell you want to use the second you register you’ve used the previous one. This ensures there are zero gaps between your abilities.
3: Try to condense your movement into hovers and work on using the few instants your rotation has to your advantage. Always be thinking about if you’re standing in the best place possible, and if not then how to get there losing as little time casting as possible.
4: Cooldowns on cooldown. There might be some spec or fight specific nuance but generally at your level it’s going to be better to just get as many uses of everything as possible once you’re done with your opener / first 30-40 seconds of combat. That’s dragon rage, deep breath, tip the scales, your empower abilities + engulf, any on use trinkets, your DPS potion, and shattering star.
You can macro house of cards into dragon rage. It’s a 90s cd but you’d rather line it up with your 2 minute cd.
Wowanalyzer is nice to see what you can improve. Im new to mistweaver, so im using it myself to see what i can work on aswell (cause my parses are yikes).
Maybe get some weak auraus to remind you when things are off cooldown? I find audio cues to be valuable for me for reminders of abilities im supposed to use alot on cooldown.
Take one thing. Work on it until its fixed as best as possible.
Lots of words will follow but the bold bit above is where you can stop.
Start with the biggest. Ellipsis gave some excellent tips. If your opener is really important, is yours weak or strong? If its weak fix it. Its repetition.
Are you interrupting too many casts because “you’re trying to stay alive”? (Yes). Is this a big factor in your bad dps? How do you fix it? Ellipsis gave good tips there. But you also need to have a bit of a think. Figuratively running around with your hair on fire for 40% of a fight isn’t productive. If you’ve pressed your defensives, aren’t standing in poo and bonus points for being in a healing rain or something then you’re golden. Now plant your feet and do damage. Keep half an eye on a forward plan so “when x happens I do y”.
Funneling loot is never a good idea, at least in my opinion, it may be beneficial to give powerful trinkets and complete tier sets on top performers first, but there comes a point where it just stops being viable since it would only be a track upgrade where they could even lack the needed crests to actually push it higher, while others could still be at 3/5 tier and lose out on massive boost, just because it was decided that this top performer needs a hero track tier instead of their champ track.
It gets even worse on the low stat budget slots that have low impact when it’s minor upgrade, but it could mean a rather nice boost to someone who still sports that 6/6 hero cloak just because they did not get lucky.
Your avg ilvl will only get you so far, there were guilds that did Vexie as soon as season started still in their 640ish chars, now I know that they are probably way ahead in terms of skill that most of us will ever be, but it still proves that ilvl is only part of the equation.
Also, being 10 ilvl below what the boss drops doesn’t seem that low, if anything it may be a little less than optimal, but certainly not low, at least not for me.
Now I’ve only done Vexie once on a tank so far, but if I remember correctly there is not so much happening there, like dodging the bikes and swirlies after the bike gets launched at boss, those two are easily predictable.
Then the oil pool that you have to go away with and then remain stationary, which gives you some time to cast, and the “follow” swirlies that you run with.
This is one of the more predictable boss encounters, learning what happens and how exactly it happens can help you with knowing when you have to move a bit, when you may have to depart but only if you get targeted, and when you really have to gtfo or die.
Also, if you cannot cast a full spell, you may as well try to see if you can squeeze an instant cast out of yourself, since every global you miss is a wasted chance of doing at least a tiny wee bit of damage.
To explore that “tiny wee bit” a bit further, you were inactive for about 188 seconds, that would amount to 125 global cooldowns (at 1.5s to make it easy), now if you could push that active time by at least 20% more, you would be able to get 60 casts out, even if they were instant casts.
Now let’s explore it just a tiny little bit further, if I stab you once with a knife, your chances of survival are not that bad, now if I did it 60 times, it would probably hurt your chances a great deal, now think of that as of your casts, one may not hurt but when you get 60 of them, it will sure as hell do some damage.
You focused on one thing so much (in this case not dying) that you were close to doing only that thing for almost half of the encounter.
There is a replay function on that site, you could look up your movements and casts.
I’m also not sure how it works, but it seems that at around 6:10 you used Hover and did nothing other than trying to figure out where does the Dracthyr race belong in this world or something, now considering that hover will let you cast while moving, this is a lot of lost uptime, which is what also hurts your performance.
You may not realize that you are doing it, but it certainly happened there.
Sorry for the quite a long post, but I hope it will help you in some way.
Only I’m barely outdpsing the tanks most of the time, if I’m not dying outright so… I mean, being 10 ilvls or more lower than everyone and 1 million health lower doesn’t help.