Honest question.
Found the class/spec combo I like, made an awesome mog, and started slapping around Raidbots QuickSim. Hit the LFR a bit. Hopped onto WarcraftLogs and I got blue parses (I guess, I’m not a leaderboard jockey).
Now Raidbots says I do roughly 1.46 Million Damage on a Patchwerk configuration, but when I look at Details! I roughly do double that, but on Warcraft Logs I do even less?
You are doing amazing top class very lovable 
If the thing died you’re doing great, if the thing didn’t die it was probably someone else’s fault.
Sorry, I don’t have a real answer for you. You might have to join a guild and raid with them so you can get some data in a more controlled environment. LFR is a show. Ultimately, damage parsing is still only half the story, gotta make sure you’re getting mechanics done too.
I love this so much. lol
How do I computate how well I’m doing?
It’s actually a binary computation. You are either:
x0 Not having fun or
x1 Having fun
It’s that simple.
I think largely varies by your group and time to kill but always look into details.
It helps to also log and analyze what you could have done better.
Lets look at a log by me forum character 4 days ago:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/hYbkNcBvaWQAGt4y?fight=1&type=summary
Wipes: Bad - wiped Twice. I overpulled a group of mobs into the boss without making sure the group was ready. We also didn’t get enough light for the Darkness. One of these two were my fault
Damage: OK. Noted that our warrior probably could have done better for their damage I shouldn’t have the same damage as a tank at the same item level.
Defence: OK. Migitated a lot of damage meaning I was facing the mobs most of the time. I should have used more of my free Word of Glory procs on myself.
Interrupts: Decent between the group: 24 (myself), 19 (Shaman), 12 (Warrior), 4 (Holy Pal), 4 (Evoker). Somewhat expected.
Despite the pitfalls we did time the key, likely because it is a +9 DFC which is a fairly free dungeon.
Now that I’ve seen the logs for that key, next time maybe I can heal myself more with WoG assuming I am otherwise using my SoTR as my main spender. I can also take pulls better and organise them with the group better keeping the wipes in mind.
raidlogs or mlogs or parsing
This tends to be correlated with consistently reducing your opponent’s health bar to zero before they serve you likewise.
Sim’s DPS… means simulation. Nothing else just theoretical measurement of pew pew.
Actual DPS… you run, you dodge, you switch targets, etc. Actual is better than Sims.
Why do I find WarCraft Logs useless to me when I PuG? The ones who have awesome Logs are with Competent Groups which has designated players doing certain mechanics while some TUNNEL VISION on DPS’ing. Whereas on me, I do mechanics for my PuG group becoz surviving and doing the mechanics to kill the Boss is better for me than Tunnel Visioning on DPS. Tunnel Visioning means… you forget the mechanics, just focus on fattening your DPS. That’s not how it works on PuGs. And all my runs are with PuGs.
See, I would tend to agree here, but trying to figure out if you’re doing as much effective DPS as possible is near impossible on accessible modes like LFR because every group makes you want to cry.
The Mugzee pull I did had me solo the Earth Elemental add because the Tofu Pylons that were the DPS ran from me like I was contagious.
Or the Gallywix pull where I almost survived the entire fight if it wasn’t for troll rogues aiming knock backs closer towards the boss when he does his energy AoE.
People say that Mythics are hard should try leading the feral pack of idiots that is LFR. Give me a Dinar and the phone number of a reputable psychiatrist, please.
You can look at more than just the damage section. It’ll show ints, abilities used, basically everything.
patchwerk means pure single target, every fight except one has cleave and ur a fire mage so ignite spreads. Other variables effect log damage differing from in-game damage shown on details such as specs like Evoker scale commander or aug for example. Overalls will also just be off on details compared to logs because details doesnt account for lost uptime while logs will
Parses are the best way…and blue parses mean you are doing above average (between the top 50% and top 25%)
So you’re doing good.
I prefer parses to other data points because it compares how players are actually performing in a fight vs. Simulations or unrealistic dummies
You can put the url of your warcraft log into wowanalyzer(.com) and it will give you feedback.
This reminds me I should try to run logs when I’m doing M+ to be able to review
I’d play Frost, not Fire, honestly, if I was starting out and learning the ropes of how to deal damage.
I sometimes see silly mistakes I make then can be aware for next time.
Sims are what your character can realistically do, make sure you note the fight duration, by default it’s set to 5 minutes.
Your details, if it’s notably higher, is usually because your fight duration is a lot shorter at that time. Specs typically start very high when all their CDs are up (+ bloodlust) and then come down to a more reasonable average over time.
Warcraftlogs for the encounter is your DPS for the fight, with no discrepancy. That is how much damage you did, where you stood, and exactly what buttons you pressed along with everyone else.
LFR logs are kinda not very useful because most people in LFR aren’t trying, so you tend to show disproportionately higher than you would otherwise.
Your sim DPS, especially as a fire mage, is a relevant comparative metric. You should be able to get within 80% of that, possibly more, on a single target raid encounter.
Another thing you can do is find someone else who did better than you on a similar length encounter (at roughly similar ilvl) and compare directly how similar your casting was throughout the fight.
There’s no raid difficulty where it gets better. Most of the Heroic pugs I’ve done, I’m spamming Heroic Leap on cooldown around the arena to do the mechanics because nobody else is. Pugs are full of dummies.
Warcraft Logs are pretty great, right? I think some of my favorite times are after a raid and someone asks about, say, damage and four or five of us say, “Let’s take a look”. It is really fun to do.
I’d say that looking a parsing and trying to compare to the top guy in your class can be deceptive. The reason is that top guy did the fight in two minutes while our (more typical) raid team did the fight in five, for example. So, tracking stuff can get skewed easily, if that makes sense.