Arcane mages : how to read your logs on butcher style fights?

[tapif 10]

Hi guys,

 

so since a few weeks, you must have noticed i browse arcane mage reviews, and everytime, the same mistakes come by over and over. This is why, rather than always saying the same things, i would like to show you how i read your logs, and how your logs should be if you are playing your spec properly on this patchwerk like boss.

 

For this purpose, i will take two exemples of logs : A guy who is performing the fight almost perfectly, and someone having big issues with his DPS and play style .

 

 

Logs of the guy doing well , Valounette (37k for an ilvl of 674, no bonus sets) :

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/89yjZdzPFqKMvHBx#type=summary&source=8

 

Logs of szantaltik, struggling with the fight  (almost the same ilvl, but 22k DPS)

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/aV7kp19brALtncRv#fight=11&type=damage-done&source=2

 

 

 

I almost always look at the same things : mostly the buffs, the timing of some spells, and the mana management.

 

 

BUFFS

 

Let's see what we can learn from Valounette's buffs

 

 

I usually look just at a few things :

 

(no legend)If we can see twice the draenic potion buff (one prepot and one during the fight)

(1) If rune of power uptime is good . You can see here that it is almost perfect, the few moments where it is not up is most likely because the butcher bumped people.

(2) If the second draenic potion is in phase with arcane power and maybe others CD. Here, void shard (oggrons trinket) has been delayed and is aligned with the others CD because the fight is less than 4 minutes, but otherwise, casting it on CD is fine.

 

Now let's have a look to the other logs :
 

 

 

1) We can see a small period where rune of power is not up, most likely because it has been not refreshed even if it is far from being dramatic.

2) The second draenic potion is not in phase with arcane power. Since we know that this fight is going to be less than 5 min, arcane power should have been delayed to be used with heroism, since we won't be able to use it a third time in any case.

3) The first evocation is way too late, it should happen roughly 30 s after the beginning of the fight.

 

 

Mana Management.

 

Looking at the mana over time is a very good hint to see if you are doing things right.  As you must know, thanks to our mastery, the more mana we have, the more damage we do. But we also do a big chunk of damage when we have 4 arcarne charges, which is synonym of high mana consumption. Therefore, during the fight, we alternate between two cycles :

 

-"Burn cycle" where all we want to do is to spam arcane blast and arcane missile at 4 arcane charges, burn our mana until it reaches 50% and then cast evocation to replenish our mana.

 

-"conserve cycle" where we try to stay beyond 85-90% of our mana, while trying to maintain 4 arcane charges. This phase lasts until evocation is up again.

 

 

On Valounette's log, we can clearly see the alternation between the two cycles : Burn in red and conserve in green. This is how your mana always should look like, even if it is not that easy on more complicated fight. However, this is the key to be a good arcane mage.

 

 

So this is here that Zantaltik is struggling.

 

1) There is no burn phase at the beginning, and since this is when you have an intel potion buff, you should really begin with a burn phase.

 

2)There is an extended period of time where mana is roughly around 60 % , which means DPS loss

 

3) Once again, during one minute, we stayed below 70% mana. A Burn phase should be way shorter, around 20-30s.

 

4) After the evocation, the mana drops too low, most likely due to extensive use of arcane blast at 4 arcane charges.

 

Casts

 

Here i usually track the use of ice flow, and possibly other things that could go wrong, such as forgetting some CD and stuff like this.

 

We can see on Valounette's log the regular use of supernovaes, and the fact that he waits for the two charges to be up when his PC is up. Also, uses of ice flow when he gets bumped so that he can cast while being bumped.

 

 

Logs here are quite different because i assume Overpowered has been chosen over PC. I have no idea how much it has an influence on a butcher like fight. However, i can see that ice flow has not been used, and thus, is a pure DPS loss while being bumped.

 

 

 

Those are really the basics of what you can see with the logs. After that, you can track how you manage your conserve phase by alternating arcane missiles and arcane blast but it is a bit less obvious to see. I hope this can help some of you tracking by yourself some mistakes you can do

Feel free to correct the broken english!

Edited March 9, 2015 by tapif

[Oltier 471]

Thanks for the guide! I'm going to read through it in the evening and stick it if it's soo good! ;)

[tapif 10]

Ahah i hope you will like it then.
It is not by all means sophisticated, but it sure would help people have huge issues with their DPS.

Edited March 3, 2015 by tapif

[landsharks 0]

Thank you for posting this.  I am one of the mages that you had to help with the logs and I read the guides but I was struggling with how to connect the guides with the logs.  This really helped put the two together. 

[RoseyNZ 2]

As part of the discussion,(zantaltik) all I can say is THANK YOU!!

Seeing these screen shots is great!  Arcane is a fight where 100% concentration is needed, I find it hard to watch screen, push buttons & move, while remembering cool downs, etc.

 

In regards to Butcher, I use alter time to 'jump' back to the right spot after being bumped, but this only works every othe bump.

thanks again, it's really helped.

Edited March 3, 2015 by RoseyNZ

[tapif 10]

Thank you for your nice comments.

 

I will rework section 3, since i don't like the screenshots right now, and i will also add a section concerning the arcane charge debuff.

[TLTeo 29]

Great post!

[Berlinia 168]

Might also want to consider comparing activiity (and inactivity) periods with Ice Floes usage

[tapif 10]

Never thought about looking it that way, i will do!
Not right now because i am kinda buse but in the following weeks, why not.

[Oltier 471]

I've read through your guide. There are some typos and missing verbs from some sentences:

 

I almost always at the same things, mostly the buffs, the timing of some spells, and the mana management.

 

than 4 minutes but otherwise, but otherwise, casting it on CD is fine.

 

But we also do a big chunk of damage when we have 4 arcarne charges, which means high mana usage.

 

LOgs here are quite different because

 

Use I instead of i when you are referring to yourself :)

 

 

 

That's all I caught now. I'll give this a sticky, but please correct the small grammatical errors :)

[tapif 10]

THanks for the sticky :)
I corrected the sentences that you pointed out. If you find any other easy to correct typo, i give you the freedom to modify my text. If other sentences don't make any sense, tell me and i will have a look.

[Fierlas 0]

Thank you very much for this guide.  I think this will help my DPS a lot.  I'm relatively new to raiding and just really started focusing on my DPS.  I only do 16-20k in heroics and raids right now, but look forward to jumping that up.

 

I've seen comments that say you should use arcane blast with ice floes when you have to move, but what do you think about using ice floes with rune of power to put a rune where you intend to go?  I haven't tried it yet, but am thinking it's a good way to keep rune up even when you have to move.  Or is it better, as some have said, to use ice floes with blast while moving?  Any thoughts?

Edited April 18, 2015 by Fierlas