Another log review if you don't mind..

[Khalizon 4]

Hey guys We tried highmaul normal last saturday night as a guild.  I felt like i did an ok job tanking.  I'm sure you will tell me differently though.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vxMrd6T4ZYg3tAmn#fight=3

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dawnbringer/Khalizon/advanced

 

It is the 3 wipes on the butcher that i want you to look at.  There is also LFR data in that log because im a newb at logs

[Hawkin 5]

I'm not a pro at this, but I'm trying to improve my log reading abilities so here's what I saw.

 

You should call for your offtank to use vigilance and you should use yours (neither of you did). You should probably respec Dragon Roar (and someone recommended me Anger Management) since shockwave is pretty much useless for that fight.

 

You need to use more your CDs (Enrage Regen x1 / Demo Shout x1 in a 5min fight is not enough). Shield block uptime could go up as well (I need to work on that myself!).

 

You wasted a total of 445 rage, which is a lot. Might want to make sure you spend it all.

 

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff, but I hope this helps a bit!

Edited January 16, 2015 by Hawkin

[Khalizon 4]

yeah I need to work on demo shout and regen I knew that.  Didn't know I wasted that much rage.  How would I have done that?  getting capped and not using it?  I always forget about vigilance

[Hawkin 5]

You waste rage either because you are capped (and subsequent rage gain is 'wasted') or your rage generation went higher than your max; lets say you have 90 rage and shield slam you'll over cap by 10 (can't remember if it's 20 or 15 rage SS gives you) so you're wasting the extra since you're capped.

 

You should try to avoid being cap ever, since you're still generating rage through time and also through abilities.

 

Vigilance is very powerful on every fight. You can mitigate 30% dmg during a Bracken breath or during frenzy on butcher, etc. You should be able to use it at least twice per fight.

[Estarriol 167]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get to these.

 

I'm starting off by looking at your 3rd normal Butcher wipe.

 

Looking at your casts, I see one each of Last Stand, Shield Wall, and Demo Shout. You could have two more casts of Shield Wall, one more of Last Stand, and four more of Demo Shout. Butcher's a good fight to be using CDs fairly regularly since the damage is pretty even. You shouldn't be using them on cooldown, of course, but I'd still expect to see better use of your defensives. I see four uses of Bloodbath, but no Dragon Roars. I'd recommend DR over Shockwave for this fight and you'll want to sync your DR with your BB. I would expect to see one more Bloodbath, or about 2 more if you were specced into Anger Management.

 

Looking at your mitigation, I see only a 27% uptime on SBlk. You're taking damage the whole time, so I would expect to see closer to 50% uptime. I see 6 SBars with an average size of 11k, which seems really low. Make sure you have 60 rage when you use it so you're getting more from it.

 

Looking at your damage output, it looks like you're getting good use out of your Unyielding Strikes talent. Make sure you're not prioritizing Devastate over Revenge and Shield Slam, though.

 

Looking at your resources tab, I see 2760 rage generated with 445 wasted, or 16%. You had plenty of rage to get a much higher uptime on your SBlk. Make sure you're also not dumping too much rage into Unyielding Strikes as well.

 

For a fight a length of 5:25, I'd expect approximately 217 GCDs. I see you used 205, so you're making good use of your GCDs.

 

Looking at your other couple of normal wipes, I see pretty much the same pattern with your rage waste, CD usage, and mitigation uptime. So right now, I'd say getting your mitigation uptime higher and making sure you are using your CDs are your highest priorities. Having a higher uptime on your active mitigation will also help with the rage waste.

 

To answer your question from a couple of days ago, any time your rage hits 100, you're wasting rage. Keep in mind how much your abilities can generate. Revenge will always give you 20, Devastate either gives 10 or 0. Shield Slam can give you 20 rage with no crits and no procs, 25 with a Sword and Board proc but no crit, 30 from a crit without a S&B proc, and 35 with both a proc and a crit. Essentially, if you have 90 rage, you need to use some rage before you do anything. If you have 80, you need to use rage before you Revenge or Shield Slam. If you have 70, a crit Shield Slam will cap you and a S&B proc with a crit will waste rage. Basically, if you're at or above 65 rage, you should use something before Shield Slamming.

[Khalizon 4]

Thanks so much estarriol.  we did manage to kill butch Saturday night with the help of a well geared rogue from another guild.  I have logs of that night as well.  I feel like I did much better.  I will link them tomorrow if you guys want to look.  If not that's fine as well. 

[Estarriol 167]

Sure, I can take a look if you'd like.

[Khalizon 4]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/pGkVBbfWR1F7NLA4

 

here ya go.  I feel like I imporved a bunch.  May not have but seemed to be using my CD's more.  especially shield barrier.

[Estarriol 167]

I haven't forgotten. Hoping to get to this tonight.

[Hawkin 5]

I'm giving this a shot looking at your butcher kill.

 

1. Shield Block uptime is still low (25%). I've found that using Weakauras to track my rage (>60) to proc an icon to tell me I need to use Sblck works well. Might be a good idea to do so for you too. It did make me increase my uptime from 15 to 50% or so. I'm also using one for when Sblck is on cd and I have >60 rage, so I know to use SBar.

 

2. Enchant Shattered Hand - Replace that with Mark of Blackrock, cost about the same thing and is definitely the best enchant for tank.

 

3. Average SBar is 12k, looking at my own log (15k) I'm assuming you're not using the Sbar when you have 60+ rage but sometime when you have less. Just look out for that.

 

4. Rage waste (89/2320 - 3%). I'd say we got some good improvement there. Good job.

 

5. CDs - Shield Wall twice, same with vigilance and stoneform, EE was used thrice could've use it earlier and make a 4th time but still good. Overall CD management seems better.

 

6. Potions - Might want to consider using draenic armor potion pre-pot before pull and use a 2nd one during the frenzy phase to increase your mitigation and help your healers.

 

Now, I just took a look at your other fights. First of all, let me tell you that your dps are very low, might want to have them check up their class a bit. WW monk doing 10k on Kargath and using Fist of Fury once, meh. I'd work on that if I were him.

 

Anyway, Kargath was less satisfactory. Uptime Sblock 9.04%. Last Standx1 and EEx1. I know the fight is easy, I don't know if you went up but that could explain some of those things as well, but if you want to improve I'd suggest trying to do your optimal rotation on every boss even if it doesn't feel like you need it. It will help you memorize it and make it a lot easier when you hit harder fight such as Bracken or Tectus where there's a lot more movement involved and you need to keep that mitigation up.

 

By the way, considering your current lineup (dps and healer), I'd probably go for Tectus over Brackenspore. I feel like it's a more forgiving fight but that might be my personal opinion. As long as people don't stand in stuff and focus target, have some healing rotation established for the upheaval and you should be in business. Bracken is a long fight and can be pretty tough if you're low dps/hps. Moss will find its way to you.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Hawkin

[Estarriol 167]

I'm starting off by looking at your first wipe on Brackenspore. The second wipe, which you linked, is a bit to short to draw any real conclusions from. This attempt lasted for 4:03.

 

I can see from your Casts tab that you were using Shockwave. I would recommend Dragon Roar for that fight. I also see three Bloodbaths, which is alright, but you could have fit in one more. For your defensive CDs, you have two uses of Shield Wall, three of Demoralizing Shout, and none of Last Stand. The Shield Walls and Demo Shouts look good, but you probably could have fit in a Last Stand or two.

 

In your Buffs tab, I see that you had a 7.29% uptime on Shield Block. It was used three times in the fight. You actually had a higher uptime on Shield Barrier. I can also see that you had a 74.93% uptime on Unyielding Strikes. Unless you are not tanking, SBlk and SBar take a much higher priority than damage. Make sure you're not dumping rage into Heroic Strike unless you are not tanking. There are some situations where it is appropriate to use Heroic Strike for rage management or even just for the damage while tanking, but you have to ensure your own survival first. Further, keep in mind that everything you do as a tank has a trickle-down effect. If your healer have to sit there and spend the whole fight spamming you with heals, they won't have the time or the mana to keep the DPS alive. In a fight like Brackenspore, this also means that they won't be able to heal the mushrooms as effectively, which leads to less DPS because of the loss of uptime from the blue mushroom and possible deaths, especially during Infesting Spores, due to the loss of uptime of the green mushrooms.

 

I mentioned in another thread that I noticed recently that all the logs I looked at showed really, really low average SBar sizes. Mine included. I drove myself a bit crazy trying to fix it and finally realized that WCL isn't calculating Resolve into the average size, thought it still counts Resolve for the maximum size. What this basically means is that I need to look at your armory and use your AP to calculate what your maximum non-Resolve SBar likely is. Congrats on your recent move, btw. =p

 

If I count in Mark of the Wild, Battle Shout, and the armor buff from Defensive stance, you have roughly 5265 AP. I'm assuming you're not using a strength flask, but it's perfectly fine if you are! Anyway, with 5265 AP, I'd expect your zero Resolve, 60 rage SBar to be about 18k. From the logs for this fight, I see that you had 10 SBar uses with an average size of 11k. So you could probably bring your average SBar size up a bit.

 

Your Resources tab shows that you generated 1585 rage and wasted 183, or 11.54%. It can be a bit tricky to manage rage with Unyielding Strikes because it takes away your one rage dump when you're not tanking. When you are tanking (or when you have stacks of Rot), make sure you use Sbar to dump rage if both of your SBlk charges are on CD.

 

For a fight of this length, I would expect you to have around 164 GCDs to use. I'm basing this on a 1.5s GCD, but your GCD is likely a little bit shorter. I see from your logs that you used 142 GCDs. This means you spent roughly 33 seconds over the course of the fight not doing anything. Some of this may just be due to moving, but just try to keep an eye on your GCDs to make sure you're getting the most out of your time.

 

I'm going to look at your normal Butcher kill now. This fight lasted 4:31.

 

From your Casts tab, I see one Last Stand use, 5 Demo Shouts, and two Shield Walls. I also see two Vigilances. Always good to look out for your tanking buddy! Your defensive CD usage was pretty decent, though you likely could have fit in one more Last Stand. You're in the neighborhood you need to be in here, though. Keep it up! For your offensive CDs, I see 5 Bloodbaths, which is good. However, I don't see anything else. Make sure you're specing into and using Dragon Roar for Butcher.

 

From your Buffs tab, I see 26.56% uptime on Shield Block. While this is better than on Brackenspore, this is still much less than I would expect for this fight. Your uses of the ability are also very spread out. I would expect to see a bit more even use of Shield Block.

 

From the healing pane, I see 16 uses of SBar with an average size of 12k. That's a bit better than on Brackenspore. You used it almost twice as often and the size was a little higher. Keep pushing your average size up and make sure your survival is your priority. You're always taking damage on Butcher, so you can always benefit from more mitigation.

 

I also see a Shieldtronic Shield. I'm not sure if that scales with Resolve. I think I recall it not scaling, which is why I don't use them, personally. I could be wrong, though. If it does not scale, I recommend Healing Tonics instead because they do scale. You can even use them during Brackenspore's breath at no penalty.

 

On this fight, you gained 2320 total rage and wasted 89, or 3.8%. There's a bit of room for improvement, but your waste was egregious. Keep an eye on it and always aim to improve. When you get your active mitigation up, you'll also see less rage waste.

 

For this length of fight, I'd expect to see around 180 GCDs. I'm seeing 163 used here. Butcher doesn't have a ton of movement and you can Heroic Throw while he's running out or knocking you back, so I'd expect to see very close to optimal use of your GCDs.

 

 

Overall, your CD usage has improved but you have stagnated or regressed on your active mitigation. Hawkin had a good suggestion with his WeakAura, but any other method of tracking your rage and the CD on SBlk should work too. Make sure you're not over-prioritizing damage. You do nothing when you're dead and I touched on the implications of taking more damage a bit. Keep working, Khalizon. If you make the decision to improve constantly, you'll be great some day. It's not always easy and many days it's hard, but you can do it. Determination, willingness to take criticism, and intelligent decision-making are the three most essential traits to being a great tank. I know it can be hard to hear that your play isn't perfect and I've been in your shoes, but as long as you make goals and keep moving toward them, you can go wherever you want.

[Khalizon 4]

Im really trying to get better at active mitigation.  I need to move sbar, and sblk around on my bars.  I'm not fond of unyielding strikes, but everyone and everything says to use it.  I just moved to stormrage Saturday night and will be running tues and wed this week.  Now I'm all stressed thinking I'm not doing a good job.  I've just gotta work on it more and get better thanks for all your criticism.  I'll just continue to log it and try and get better.