Basically this is for Sanz.
I didn't found how to send personal messages here so sorry for making it more visible that I intend to...
I found myself spamming direct heals (and RDruids are not really good at that) and decide to analyze the logs.
AFAIK main most used damage mitigation ability for paladins is SotR.
So I pick few >5 mins fights and compare you with top 5 palas with best survivability rating for BH heroic.
Here is a result (number of SotR casts per min):
Sanz1 - 0.10
Sanz2 - 0.09
Lazel (top 1 guy) - 0.25
t2- 0.17
t3 - 0.15
t4 - 0.17
t5 - 0.13
t6 - 0.18
So comparing to those guys your SotR usage is low.
Also I look at Seraphim usage - for you it is 30%-35% uptime, for those in top 10 - 40%-45% uptime. top 1 - 47% uptime.
Hope this will help us :).
P.S. btw this kind of problems (low ability usage) is usually UI issue.
No, unfortunately it's harder than that. I wish it was that easy. :)
I'm hopo-starved for a lot of that fight. Anvil and I have been talking about it too, though I'm not sure why I'm so resource-starved. SotR and seraphim both require a lot of hopo, which is great for trash fights like Operator. It should be worse for single-target tank swap fights, though most of the top-ranked pallies use seraphim for Blackhand.
I looked at a different fight (Jaeden) and compared overall tank time and hopo generation. I normalized a bit, but even then my active-tanking time is 74% compared with Jaeden's 74%. Ok, that seems equivalent, so I next looked at hopo. Jaeden generated 217 hopo, and I generated 152 hopo. Urgh. That's where the problem is -- my hopo is way lower so I'm going to cast sort and sera both a lot less.
Why is hopo generation so much worse for me? NFC. But that's as far as I've gotten -- low sera/sort because of low hopo, relative to some other pallies. Still working on 'why'
Hopo comes from three sources (normally): judgment, hammer of the righteous, and avenging shield. The third is fairly situational, so easier to focus on the first two. Jaeden's combined casting of J and HotR was 38.7%. My combined casting was 36.8%. A bit lower, but nothing close to 40% lower.
Oh hell, maybe it's a UI issue then. Dumb as it sounds, I'll push buttons faster. I know it's a bit more complicated than that though. Is there a mod which I can use to figure out whether I have additional latency on my clicks beyond GCD?
You said Hammer of the Righteous, but I know you meant Crusader Strike because that is the one you are actually casting (two sides of the same coin). Also, Avenger's shield only gives holy power when you have a Grand Crusader proc.
Obviously, none of us can push buttons as fast as Lazel. He is a monster and tops all the charts every tier. You also don't have the same level of gear as him. But it might be helpful to look at the ratios of his casts in a 6 minute kill of Blackhand in which he topped the tank rankings.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/gzLaHnZ3TMhyjqAk#fight=36&type=cast...
compared to our best attempt.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/2rnKCdAHXZMwgxpL#type=casts&source=...
Crusader Strike usage should be substantially higher than anything else, not 1/1 with Judgment. Perhaps review your prioritization and make sure you are casting Crusader Strike every time it comes up. It could be a UI issue or just a click faster issue.
You should also look at the Resource panel under holy power and evaluate your wastage. 29 holy power wasted (because you cast a generator while at full Holy Power) is 9 more SoRs. Shield of the Righteous does not require a CD to cast and stacks on a new 3 seconds forever to the existing duration, so you should always be able to cast it before anything else when you are at 5 holy power to avoid waste.
Finally, consider your use of Word of Glory. Lazel only cast it one time. You only cast it 3 times in the fight I linked (our best attempt) but on other fights you cast it as much as 10 or 11 times.
If you can cast another 10 Crusader Strikes, cut the holy power waste in half, and keep WoG casts to ONLY situations in which you are below 100k health (Lay on Hands is on CD) and you have 5 stacks of Bastion of Glory, that should go a long way to address the resource issue.
Dikka, take a look at those two links but against the Events tab not the one you linked. Look at the interval between Lazel's casts (~0.8sec) and mine (~1.3sec). Or change a fight to a heroic pally with 688-694. No matter how I look, I have a GCD problem.
You mentioned before you thought it was a UI issue. Do you have tips on how to validate that theory and/or how to address it?
This is interesting. (btw "hopo-starved" - I spend few seconds thinking what this may mean:))
I hope you don't mind me digging into you that deep:).
Keep in mind - I have no idea how prot pals work so this is pure numbers.
First thing - your holy power generation is fine. That Jaeden (top1 for your ilvl, right?) is just an outlier.
Here is how you look against few random tanks in top50-top100 range
(Holy Power gains per sec):
Sanz-(69+61+31)/345 - 0.467
t1 - (72+57+27+19)/360 - 0.486
t2 - (74+64+20)/383 - 0.41
t3 - (62+29+59+17)/375 -0.445
t4 - (65+57+27+1)/348 - 0.43
So it doesn't look like holy power generation is a problem.
May be it is _usage_?.
I decide to pick few more tanks from top-100+ range and check (SotR+WoG)/Holy Power ratio.
Sanz - (36+8)/(69+61+31) - 0.27
t1 - 58/(72+57+27+19)- 0.33
t2 - (62+5)/(74+64+20) - 0.42
t3 - (6+49)/(62+29+59+17) - 0.33
t4 - (65+1)/(65+57+27+1) - 0.44
t5 - (62+1)/(60+56+27) - 0.44
t6 - (36+14)/(70+63+26+14) - 0.29
t7 - (65+23)/(104+86+44) - 0.38
t8 - (63+2)/(75+58+24) - 0.41
So for hopo usage your performance is ~70% from average (yeah, sample is small, but whatever).
I guess this is something worth to look into.
Btw may be they use SotR or WoG with 2 HP or less.
But even in this case your are using ~82% or the holy power available.
Again, this may be not the best sample I took and everything:).
Interesting! I know I favor J over CS more than I should. That's a (#*$& muscle memory problem when they both go off, J gets hit before CS. I'm about at the point of swapping keybinds but that'll make other things worse. :)
I still am more concerned about the GCD issue.
Do you know how I can download the combat log from world of logs? I want to do my own parsing and see if the wasted hopo is because HA is up, I'm not in melee range, etc.
Link to the Jaeden fight I was referring to:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ANdb3wckvZhR8BPa#fight=26&type=dama...
Jaeden: 246 hp, 5 wasted
t1: 149 hp, 7 wasted
t2: 204 hp, 8 wasted
t3: 245 hp, 8 wasted
t4: 164 hp, 8 wasted
t5: 151 hp, 5 wasted
Oh, and I *love* you digging in this deep. It's good to get a fresh set of eyes on it, and you're approaching it in a way I haven't yet. I was more focused on rotation and timing seraphim for smashes, and you've brought up two whole new topics I wasn't considering as factors.
WoL doesn't seem to have a way to export but I'm happy to share the logs. Here's Thursday night's logs:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8793549/Misc/2015-06-05T07-13-33.zip
I think it was mistake to take Lazel as an example - he's a monster.
I don't think it is GCD problem - as I state your holy power generation is OK.
Your holy power usage may be the source of problem.
I'm using "may be" since it still may be data sample error yada yada, but most likly not .
UI issue - is "I have at least 3 holy power and SotR is ready" signal have good visibility for you?
For example - here is my hpal interface. I want to use Holy Shock by CD and Holy Prism as soon as it make sense and do not cap resources.
So Holy Powr tracker and Holy Shock and Holy Prism are all in the middle in the screen.
Even more - I have a sound indicator when I'm resource capped.
So basically - do you have huge pulsing icon in the center of the screen + sound when SotR is ready and you have 3 hopo or something like that?
UI issue - is "I have at least 3 holy power and SotR is ready" signal have good visibility for you?
I have a big yellow 5 in the left-center of the screen. :D I use weakauras and have it set up where:
- sera on CD and hopo = 3 -> SotR
- sera on CD but comes up w/in 6 seconds -> suppress SotR (save hopo for sera)
- sera on CD, coming up w/in 6 seconds, but hopo = 5 -> show SotR
- sera not on CD, either cast it or save for it
I also have a sound notification when hopo = 5 (boxing bell). However, whenever I hear a moo, I probably will WoG (health < 30%).
The UI looks like
It looks like the wasted holy power is almost certainly related to saving HoPo for seraphim. On the fights that you tried out Holy Shield you had very little waste by comparison. Strangely, however, your SoR up-time didn't improve even though you didn't waste holy power and weren't casting Seraphim. That one is hard to figure. Maybe you were just out of your comfort zone.
I know that Seraphim does way more DPS and many of the best Paladins use Seraphim (for the deeps!), but for the seven fights that you used Holy Shield instead you didn't die unless you made a mistake. (One time stepping on a mine, one time taking the Impales while tanking). By comparison, the death chart from this week shows a lot of early deaths to melee or to melee + impaled. Holy shield can block the DoTs from Impaled as well as all of the other random spell damage that happens in the fight.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/2rnKCdAHXZMwgxpL#type=deaths&boss=1...
That explains it.
Sanz with Seraphim your holy power usage becomes:
(36*3+8*3+7*5)/(69+61+31) = 104%
Still lower then average but hardly an issue.
But.
I agree with Aanvil - dps from Seraphim will not save us.
And few extra SotR+Holy Shield may do that.
As for your UI - looks good, if anything you should simplify it:).
It looks like the wasted holy power is almost certainly related to saving HoPo for seraphim.
Can you show me the view where you saw the times when hopo was wasted? It'll save me a lot of log parsing.
Sorry, I didn't do that. I just compared holy power wasted on the loges where you were using Seraphim to those when you were using Holy Shield. And in fact, it is only a sometimes problem. On some logs you waste a lot of holy power, on others you don't.
If you are willing to risk some cancer, you could go through this thread for more ideas. . .
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1659131-PROT-Fix-my-Tanking!/page11
Actually it doesn't look like you wasted a lot holy power.
For example:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/2rnKCdAHXZMwgxpL#type=resources&cut...
You don't stay capped for a long time. But 13 holo is wasted.
I compare this to other logs from top 10-100,on average looks ok.
I'll try to parse the logs Muta sent tomorrow, but there's almost no chance I'll get to it while at work. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wasting some with the initial HA, and the various GCDs are going off at the same time. Hm... I think I'll make a WA for when hopo=5 and I cast J or CS. That'll be easier than going through the log, and probably sooner too.
Anyone have thoughts about the GCD problem, or if it's even a problem? This is why I'm concerned:
00:00:00.408 Sanzaru casts Execution Sentence on Blackhand
+1.2sec
00:00:01.631 Sanzaru casts Judgment on Blackhand
+0.2sec, no GCD
00:00:01.835 Sanzaru casts Divine Protection
+1.2sec
00:00:02.820 Sanzaru casts Crusader Strike on Blackhand
+1.2sec
00:00:04.056 Sanzaru casts Sacred Shield on Sanzaru
+1.4sec
00:00:05.456 Sanzaru casts Consecration
+1.4sec
00:00:06.048 Sanzaru casts Shield of the Righteous on Blackhand
+0.6sec, no GCD
00:00:06.667 Sanzaru casts Crusader Strike on Blackhand
+1.2sec
00:00:07.892 Sanzaru casts Judgment on Blackhand
+1.2sec
00:00:08.223 Sanzaru casts Shield of the Righteous on Blackhand
+1.3sec
(etc)
That's an extra .2sec on each GCD. I'm not sure where it's coming from -- UI latency, WA latency, network latency, old-man latency... any ideas there?
As Muta also metions, your GCD starts at 1.5 and is reduced by your haste. While you have a lot of haste, you don't have enough to get your GCD all the way down to 1.0. 1.2 seems about right. The second half of this article addresses the math in detail. (look for the table)
http://www.sacredduty.net/2015/01/13/haters-gonna-haste/
Even with Seraphim up you don't get to the 50% haste needed to have a GCD of 1.0. You only cap out when Heroism is active. Your overall casts per minute is usually in the top 3 for our raid, so it's not like you are playing slow.
That said, I think you are on the right track to be looking at your time between casts. Again, as Muta suggests, waiting for one ability to resolve before casting the next ability is a good way to stack a cumulative delay into your rotation. You want to be casting your next spell by repeatedly tapping the appropriate key about half a second early to account for lag and reflex delay, and simple graphical events that don't reflect the actual game state. People who play caster classes often use Quartz or another smart castbar that shows them when to cast the next spell. On a melee class, you just have to always be tapping the keys.
Grabbing the the log from the last attempt:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/2rnKCdAHXZMwgxpL#type=casts&view=ev...
It looks like you sometimes, but not always, have a one second delay before and after casting SoR. This is a problem I definitely had when playing my Prot Paladin. It is easy to get into a rhythm and not even notice it.
I recommend focusing first on hitting Crusader Strike every time it is up, before judgment at a 3/2 ratio. If you have 5 holy power, then cast SoR first. Try to keep 2 holy power banked so you can cast SoR for every major event such as slam or impaling throws. Work on a double-tap rhythm for when you hit SoR so you hit it and your next ability at the same time. The logs should show a .6 second delay before and after SoR (half a GCD before and half after because the next ability has to wait for the GCD).
At the end of the day, your goal should be a 50% up-time on SoR with 100% up-time for major events. Everything else is just trying to figure out how to get there.
Your overall casts per minute is usually in the top 3 for our raid, so it's not like you are playing slow.
Yay for good news! :) I thought GCD was set at 1.0 not 1.5, hence why I was concerned about the 1.2.
It looks like you sometimes, but not always, have a one second delay before and after casting SoR. This is a problem I definitely had when playing my Prot Paladin.
That problem is because often the next rotation ends up on CD, either from GCD or from just "everything is on CD" (haha). SotR is GCD-free so that one second delay is really the remainder GCD ticking from the prior J|CS|whatever. I geeked out the optimal rotation for prot pallies on a long-haul flight once. The optimal rotation with seraphim happens every 60 seconds (57 seconds with a 3 sec lag at the end). It also had 7 "waiting on GCD" phases throughout that minute. I didn't model grand crusader as part of the rotation because that's a random proc, and that usually pads out the 7 GCD-delays as well as the 57 seconds. But without GC popping, there's occasional delays where everything is on CD.
I use weakauras. I think it is much better than quartz, but that's personal preference (as well as Theck's). Take a look at the UI. I prefer the toggle (available|not) with a priority opposed to cast bars. Even with my mage, nothing beats WA.
I'll try holy shield again tonight, see what it changes. It's definitely going to be a much less active fight for me. :)
I think it is worth trying Holy Shield specifically for this fight. It has a lot of spell damage, and the tank-swap rotation is roughly 30 seconds which means half the time you are tanking you don't have seraphim up. As Dikka said at the very beginning of this post, our healing team isn't set up well to deal with damage spikes when you get hit hard with no mitigation. This way you can save Divine Protection for the slams and should have it up for each one.
I have previously suggested Divine Purpose to go with Holy Shield, but reading more about it, I don't think that's necessary. If you like Holy Avenger, there is no reason you can't use that together with Holy Shield. Just make sure you use it for major damage events (like tanking blackhand after you soak the impales), not for dps.
Reading the Paladin forums yesterday I also saw a few suggestions that Holy Prism can be very strong for this fight because it gives you big heals. If you use it immediately after each slam it will be a very large heal because you are at max resolve.
I found one particularly detailed plan for tanking Blackhand that matches fairly well to our strategy. Here is an excerpt:
You'll want to do a few things on BH that you may have not had to do before. I start on BH and take the first Smash using Divine Protection and Ardent Defender, then Hand of Sacrifice my co-tank for the second Smash, and if we reach a third Smash I use Divine Protection with Guardian of Ancient Kings. As soon as you hit the floor after the Smash, use Holy Prism and you'll be near topped off from the extra Resolve healing. If you have issues dying on the third Smash, use Divine Shield Taunt right as the cast starts and you'll take no damage from any of it. Smash does drop threat so make sure to be quick on taunting when your co-tank gets Smashed. Keep BH in movement about 3 seconds before he drops the bombs and only stop moving him once your melee are clear of them (don't trust those guys on bombs, they always say "we won't pop one" and then do).
And here is the whole thing.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1659131-PROT-Fix-my-Tanking!/page13
Finally, it's probably only a 1% or 2% difference, but if you can find a bonus armor or stamina trinket instead of the strength trinket, that will help a little bit too. Knight's Badge, Pol's Eye or Battering Talisman? I know you don't have Pillar of the Earth.
I think if we can get to phase 3 without using our battle rez, we'll win.
That's similar to what we do. Here's what I usually do (not always, usually):
smash 1: DS+taunt (when I remember) and AD+GoAK (when I don't); seraphim should be ticking off.
smash 2: HoSac on you (because I get bored easily)
smash 3: usually not needed now; when it is I blow everything else (trinkets, stoneform, etc)
I used to DS when the floor falls but had that one awkward time of soaking impales with DS on CD, so I stopped that plan.
One thing //different// than most of the past attempts is, GoAK on the impales. I originally used it on the first tank swap. I'll be saving it for #2 now. That has helped a lot in p2.
WoW GCD is 1.5 seconds (for most classes & specs, some exceptions) with haste lowering GCD to a cap of 1.0 seconds, I'd say you're hitting abilities on pace.
Back in Wrath the original GT guild leader scripted up a log parser that analyzed GCD timing to ferret out some DPS issues with some former members. Some people appeared to be waiting for their interface to show the GCD ready before hitting something, adding a few hundred milliseconds to each ability.
I thought all melee were on a 1.0s GCD at this point. Casters still start at 1.5. Hunters are definitely 1.0. Maybe I'm thinking of just melee DPS? Or just Rogues? Hmm.
Btw, this thread is amazing. I saw it start then came back a day later and BOOM 15 POSTS. :D
For Science!
Btw, this thread is amazing. I saw it start then came back a day later and BOOM 15 POSTS. :D
Boom! We care. :P
Awesome work. You should be really proud of that kill.
98th percentile, top 100 ranking.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/7#metric=ehrps&boss=1704&difficult...
I blame Dikka for all my progress. Had he not gotten me out of my work funk and thinking about the fight, I'd still be forgetting to bubble on p1. :)
Dikka, it also appears that you aren't giving Sanzaru Ironbark for the Shattering Smash during phase 1. Please make sure your raid warnings include upcoming shattering smash so you can do ironbark your assigned tank about 10 seconds ahead of each shattering smash in all phases.