WoW Combatlog | WWS | Totems-r-not-us

 

I type in /combatlog, I update the log to wowwebstats.com, but I don’t see the correct totems for the correct owners. 

For example, if I lay down a Searing Totem for the entire Solarian fight, I will see not only my totem but the other two Shamans I raid with as well.  Most damage meters don’t provide the right data either, lumping the totem damage output into overall raid output.

Our dps classes in our guild spam damage meters all the time (gets annoying even if I am on top of the meters), so I decided to look deeply into WWS parsing and see what (if any) I can do to remedy the inaccurate shaman totem syndrome.

 

Unfortunately, the WoW combat log does not keep the names of the pets with their owners.  In WWS, you assign an “Actor” to a mob type (i.e. player, pet, mob, totem) and if you have a pet for tha actor, WWS will provide a space to assign the pet to an owner.  However, for shamans the totem names are the same (e.g. three shamans pop Searing Totem and therefore you will see three Searing Totems doing damage, but we cannot identify any one totem to a shaman).

I started keeping track of totems by having my fellow shamans throw down a lower rank totem when they are using the same totem type.  I plant a Searing Totem VII and my other shaman buddy throws down a Searing Totem VI.  If I scan the combatlog, all my totems with VII are assigned to me, all totems with VI are assigned to the other shaman in the raid. 

The end result of all this is…. I’m missing out on 8.9% of my total damage output in the WWS reports.  Based on this fact alone, I might be changing to SWStats because it uses the WoW API to identify pet owners correctly.  More testing in store for me.

Can you believe it?  After patch 2.3.2, we hurled into SSC and 6 Nether Vortex drops in less than 2 hours.   

Zul’jin finished off

Our 2nd guild run on Zul’jin.

A few warm up attempts in on him, then he went down in a bloodbath of glory!

I actually like this fight a lot, despite the whacky movement involved.

My Party:

• Warrior
• Druid (feral)
• Hunter
• Rogue
• Shaman (me)

Phase 1: Time the Whirlwinds from Zul’jin. Go in, dps, count to 6 or 7 seconds, step back out of Whirlwind range, go back in <repeat>.

Buffs/Totems:

• Grace of Air Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem
• Searing Totem
• Mana Spring Totem

Phase 2: Keep together so any priest can perform Mass Dispell AoE on the entire raid, dps a bunch. Just before Phase 3, change Grace of Air to Nature Resistance totem. Once phase 3 starts, drop Earth Elemental totem (immune to nature damage in phase 3).

Phase 3: The hardest phase. Those Feather Vortex’s Cyclones are just plain nasty. They are nothing but pure Nature damage, but they can bounce you around and kill you fast. Going within melee range to the center of the storm is just suicide, but staying at range to cast spells is also faulty. I can’t cast (many) spells because any mana used in this phase gets a smack of 1500 damage back at you. Just try to stay alive in this phase. Move and move and move and move and move. First aid, health potions, equip shield, anything to stay alive. If you get comfortable with this phase (I have no idea how that is possible) then pop Bloodlust/Heroism to get through this phase as fast as possible (without deaths). Sometimes I think it’s just better to die here, and reincarnate after this phase is over.

Buffs/Totems:

• Nature Resistance Totem
• Searing Totem
• Mana Spring Totem
• Earth Elemental Totem (I call him “Rocky”)

You have been warned!

14:49'04.055 248 Asirae gains Lightning Speed  248 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 979 Nature damage
 248 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 1025 Nature damage
 248 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 992 Nature damage
 257 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 1027 Nature damage
 257 Asirae's Melee crits Zul'jin for 881
 647 Asirae's Flame Shock dots Zul'jin for 162 Fire damage
 647 Asirae gains 204 Mana from Water Shield
 990 Asirae's Improved Leader of the Pack heals Asirae for 335
 990 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 1036 Nature damage
 990 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 1029 Nature damage
 990 Feather Vortex's Cyclone hits Asirae for 992 Nature damage
 990 Searing Totem VII's Attack hits Zul'jin for 168 Fire damage
 412 Asirae dies  

Phase 4: Weapon swap needed here. Equip a shield in your off hand. Dps as much as you can but when you get targeted for the frenzy, make sure your shield is in hand and a health potion is ready to quaff. Survive this phase and the last phase is pretty easy.

Buffs/Totems:

• Grace of Air Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem
• Searing Totem
• Mana Spring Totem

Phase 5: The fire phase. Swap your off hand weapon back and shove that shield back into your bags. Just dps and move, dps and move. Swing once, twice then keep moving. Just movement to keep away from the fire pillars is all you need to worry about. Swing, shock and move 2 steps to the left. Swing, swing and then move 2 steps to the right. Repeat and plant a Fire Elemental totem to add any damage if you can.

Buffs/Totems:

• Grace of Air Totem
• Strength of Earth Totem
• Fire Elemental Totem (I call him “Sparky”)
• Fire Resistance Totem

Check this out:

Asirae’s Lightning Shield hits Zul’jin for 863 Nature damage

Shaman vs. Void Reaver, take II

 

Back to Void Reaver last night and melee were kicking it into high gear again, but I think we got pounded a bit more from VR this time than last time we downed the big robot.

In fact, our guild killed Void Reaver in the fastest time ever in 8 minutes flat: a guild record!

My party this time:

• Fury Warrior
• Rogue (swords)
• Rogue (swords)
• Rogue (sword + dagger)
• Shaman (me)

 

Got in at #4 damage output for Void Reaver behind two rogues and our Fury Warrior.  Last week I was at #6, so up two spots!

Buffs were Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Mana Spring and Searing Totem.  I did pop the hot headed Greater Fire Elemental totem too even though his miss rate is 33% vs. Void Reaver.  My gear has been upgraded a little bit.  I resisted Arcane damage from the Pounding from Void Reaver a whole 19.3% probably because I had equipped a +45 Arcane Resistance trinket.   Last week I resisted a whopping 4.4% of the Arcane Poundings from Void Reaver.

My miss rate: 15.7% (last time vs. Void Reaver my miss rate was 20.1% so did much better this go round).  My hit rating was 175 this time vs. last time at 115 hit rating.

 

Looks like our top rogue got 53 extra attacks with Windfury, but the others only got like 22 or 28 extra windfury attacks.  Anyone have an idea why this would happen?  This party of five was close to me and my Windfury totem the entire time, and I am pretty sure they did not have any poisons applied on their main hand weapons.  A real puzzle for me.  Any clues out there?  Update: I figured out why our Darkensoul and Ravaner rogues were getting so many Windfury extras, duh!, they simply had more hits.

I did heal myself a lot more than I would normally like, but I’d rather heal and get back to DPS duty than take a dirt nap underneath the giant robot.  Overall I spent more time on dps (98%) vs. last time where I spent 87% of my time on dps.  Much improved.

The previous night we downed Morogrim Tidewalker.  I was 7th on dps for the fight.  I think I was tombed 2 times during the fight.

 

Trying A’lar and Solarian soon.  Keep tuned for more updates.

Zul’Aman snippets & General Gear Selection

1st try in Zul’Aman with my guild.  I came late to the party, but they had 1-shotted the birdy boss, bear boss gave troubles but ended up with a dirt nap.  Lynx boss downed too.  Walked to the next event area with the raid only to find heaps of trouble and late night fatigue setting in.

Raiders:

• Prot Warrior
• Feral Druid  / then subbed in Prot Warrior
• Holy Priest
• Holy Paladin
• Holy Paladin
• Mage
• Rogue / then subbed in Shaman (me!)
• Hunter
• Hunter
• Warlock

My 5 player party: Hunter, Hunter, Warrior, Warlock & myself (blue players above are in my group).  So, my buffs were mostly for the hunters.  GoA, Strength totem and Mana Spring totem for the warlock in my party.  No rogues to kick, so I Earth Shocked the Troll mages when their castbars started to fill.

Earth Elemental - I did pop Earth Elemental totem at one point and it did a fine job of holding a loose Troll.  I never saw if the healers were healing my Earth Elemental, but that could have helped too.  I was surprised how well little Rocky did considering the Trolls of Zul’Aman.   

Lots of places to Ghost Wolf around and mount up for.  Sometimes, we’ll just all mount up and charge into a group so we can stun lock/slow the scouts and therefore stop them from calling for backup.  Troll adds are almost as bad as Murlocs.

 

Troll Scouts - The troll scouts run better than murlocs with an iritable bladder!  Don’t let them run to bang on the drums.  The drums summon more trolls to beat you down with.  Ouch wipe fest!  Frawst-Shawk works pretty well on the troll scouts, but beware of any adds the scout summons because any dps on the scout will bring the adds to you!  Better to have a warrior charge/hammy the scout as well as hunter concussion shot the scout too.  Mages trying to slow the scout will end up with heaps of unwanted aggro when adds come in.

Spell Steal - One nifty trick our mage Druex found out is that the troll fire-mages throw up a buff on themselves for instant casting.  Yes, you guessed it.  Druex the mage stole that buff and made it his own.  Instant casting mage spells are sooooo nifty.

 

Overall, ZA is about Crowd Control and swift execution.

Drops tonight were:

Pauldrons of Primal Fury

Spaulders of the Advocate

I’d love to post some stats and wws data, but I will get more next time.

To Brageth (fellow enhancement shaman) who wanted to know what to start out with gear wise pre-raiding: 

Gear Selection for Enhancement Shamans:

Try http://www.lootzor.com/index.php?c=7&l=70&b=0&s=-1&r=7&g=3&i=10&z=5&p=beu2hbfu1.8hecu2hedu1.4heeu1

Lootzor lets you compile lists of gear based on certain stat requirements the above link is from the Elitest Jerks thread and use stats from that assuming you will have Blessing of Kings (so 10 Str is better than 20 Attack Power).

Same as above but changes to ‘Low Raid’ gear, no idea what your gear is like but if the first link isn’t for you this one might be of more help:  http://www.lootzor.com/index.php?c=7&l=70&b=0&s=-1&r=7&g=3&i=10&z=3&p=beu2hbfu1.8hecu2hedu1.4heeu1  (Oh and ignore the weapons and armor, they’re only based on Stats and not dps)

You can of course refine the search for your own needs.  It’s linked under useful links at
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13297-enhance_shaman_collected_works_theorycraft_vol_i/

Credits: http://leaht.wordpress.com/, http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13297-enhance_shaman_collected_works_theorycraft_vol_i/, http://www.lootzor.com