How much of a parse is from things under your control?
For example, getting external buffs and the length of the fight are out of your controll but can have a large impact on getting a better parse
On the other hand, proper rotation and proper gear/stat distribution are more directly under your control.
I know that I don’t have bis gear with the ilvl I’m at (on my mage- 438 ilvl) but I’m getting 65ish parses, for both ilvl and overall.
At what parse percentage would you say you are doing your best, where getting a better parse would require changes for things outside of your control?
Also, I feel like I understand my rotation but with different variables (do I have flurry, fingers of frost, comet, how many icicles am I at) it changes what I should cast.
I went over the top with configuring conditions for tell me when to help show what spell to cast next.
I’ve seen other people suggest reading over the spells and familiarizing yourself with the rotation but how do you manage how so many conditions can change what spell to cast next. Without some type of rotation helper or visual notification how do you know what should be cast next with all the conditions that can change things?
If you take out things like overall group performance out of the equation then practically everything.
The only other big out of your control thing will be getting mechanics during key points during the fight for example when your cooldowns are up where you either don’t get to benefit from them or you delay using them and potentially lose a whole caste of it during the fight as a result.
External buffs really only matter for some classes and parses with multiple externals are ranked separately/show the amount of external used so you can get a proper idea outside of externals.
The only one you can’t properly filter out is with Aug and realistically the logs that include Augs are not entirely accurate as the overlay cannot accurately determine the extra damage that the 3% increased Crit caused. You get some instances of Aug “stealing” too much damage and other instances of it taking significantly less then it should, but this mainly happens on classes that are not the usual Aug targets as it’s been less rigidly tested.
Now looking at things fully under your control.
Proper rotation/priority play is the most important, knowing fight timers as to not lose big cooldown usage is also a very important.
Following this, properly gearing your character via simming is the best and safest way to do so, it’s also incredibly easy to do so once you do it once.
Selecting the best trinkets for a fight requires a bit more critical thinking and same as cooldown usage requires fight knowledge.
Everything on heroic before the 95-99 range is easily achievable with basic fight knowledge and properly geared character as long as you play well, after that point you kinda need to pad adds and the 99-100 on heroic is external cheese.
You can read up on the wowhead guide to learn how to properly execute your rotation, rotation helpers will make it so you don’t learn anything meaning your eyes will just be glued to that part of the screen instead of where your character is and how you should deal with mechanics.
I’m sure there are players on the mage discord that can dissect your parse and point out what you’re doing wrong, and ways to improve.
There’s also a site called wowanalyzer where you can input the link from a log and it will “analyze” it and give some feedback.
Just another tool to use when deep diving into logs. It’s kindve niche but it can give additional things to look at and consider.
65 isn’t a bad starting point though for this late in the season.
But how do you know when to cast flurry or glacial spike or ice lance with fingers of frost, without a visual indication showing what buffs you have, number of icicles and spells off cooldown?
Well weak aura will help with that, but those are different from rotation helpers.
You should set your UI to have easily readable key information while keeping your characters feet visible.
I personally also recommend having a cone shaped area starting from your character that doesn’t have any permanent information displayed so that you always clearly see what’s in between you and your target.
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