Advanced Combat Log Documentation Requested

Community General Discussion
1

I am respectfully requesting that Blizzard provide documentation for Advanced Combat Logs.
I am trying to find out what I’m looking at when I open my combatlog files, but I can not understand how the data interacts.

I have found the holy grail of documents already:
warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/COMBAT_LOG_EVENT

But this site is no longer maintained, is outdated, and (partially) inaccurate.
The cited information is from a blue post in 2008, someone’s addon LUA code, and a broken forum link. While it is nice to have the references, how did those 3 items provide the entire page’s information? Unless that broken link was very extensive.

The wiki states there are 17 advanced parameters, but I’m looking at SPELL_HEAL data and see 19 parameters (italics).

1/6/2025 20:44:44.837-8 SPELL_HEAL,Player-3721-0A939E2E,“Fazzlock-Nagrand-US”,0x514,0x0,Player-3721-0A939E2E,“Fazzlock-Nagrand-US”,0x514,0x0,389372,“Fel Synergy”,0x20,Player-3721-0A939E2E,0000000000000000,5243197,5433519,6615,54670,24474,1360,0,20982,0,2500000,2500000,0,-3547.94,-136.89,2293,3.7902,597,2451,2451,0,0,nil

The 3 bold numbers are the 3 parameters I can’t seem to identify. I don’t know what they are, what they represent, or how they affect a character’s performance.

Finally, I might have pieced together what all the other parameters represent, but it is from 3rd party sources, which could be inaccurate or out-of-date.
An official location that is updated as needed would be good for the community and help with questions and debugging in the future. Many hotfixes and patches reference logging changes, and it would probably help if players understood their logs better.

I’m not the world’s best researcher, but I have tried the WoW forums, Warcraftlogs, many parsing projects on Github, and several Discords, but have come up empty so far.
If anyone has more sources I can research, please let me know. Specific sources would be extremely helpful.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Just so its stated, here is what I think each csv represents.
DateTime, Event_type, CharacterID, CharacterName, Character Flag, Character’s Raid Flag, TargetID, TargetName, Target Flag, Target’s Raid Flag, SpellID, SpellName, Spell_School, GUID, GUID_Controller, Current_Health, Max_Health, Attack_Power, Spell_Power, Armor, Absorb, UNKNOWN, UNKNOWN, Resource_type, Current_Resource, Max_Resource, UNKNOWN, X, Y, MapID, Facing, Level/iLevel, Amount, Base_Amount, Overheal, Absorbed, Critical

2

Sorry, I can’t help you specifically.

I think your best bet would be contacting the authors of apps and websites using this code and asking them pretty please to offer guidance, and offer to buy them a coffee even.

3

Thanks for the reply!

That is a good idea. I could maybe understand how they found the information they did or get specific locations to look. Coffee is the great equalizer. :smile:

1 Like
4

Love me a cup of java. I get local roasted beans 5 pounds at a time, because life is too short for bad coffee.

Always ask for help - reminds me of this video of Steve Jobs:

Ask and ye shall receive :slight_smile:

Do you work in tech by the way? Or you’re just a curious cat? Why do you need more info on these logs?

5

I’m starting my life in tech and thought this might be a good first (or second) project.
Plus, I played this game for years and want to add back, not just consume.

Good video, so true! You just need to ask with humility and honesty. People will respond.
But I need to do some research on that guy, 12 years old, in high school and somehow got around child labor laws. That’s a crazy life!

Thanks again :coffee:

1 Like