Wow loggen: Warcraft Logs — Combat Analysis for Warcraft

Warcraft Logs — Combat Analysis for Warcraft

Welcome to Warcraft Logs! This page will help you get familiarized with the Web site and all of its features. You will
need an account to upload logs to the site, so if you plan on uploading logs, first create an account. You do need a
valid e-mail address, since we verify it via an activation e-mail.

Battle.net Integration

After you have signed up for Warcraft Logs, you can integrate your account with Battle.net. This gives WCL access to your characters and guilds. You
can go to your user settings to integrate with Battle.net.

What is a Combat Log?

A combat log is a file created by the game
that contains a series of events. These events contain information such as what abilities your team used, what damage they did and to whom, and what healing
was received.

The idea behind combat logging is pretty simple: record what happened so that it can be sent to Web site for analysis.

Enabling Combat Logging

Before doing any logging in World of Warcraft, you need to make sure that Advanced Combat Logging is enabled. This is required in order for logs
to be accepted on the site. Go to the Network pane of System preferences in-game.

Advanced Combat Logging must be turned on before you do any logging!

To enable combat logging in World of Warcraft, just go to your chat window and type /combatlog. That’s all you have to do! Now everything you
and the players and enemies around you do will be written to a file called WoWCombatLog.txt. This file can be found in the Logs subdirectory
of your WoW installation. When you’re all done, you can just exit the game or type /combatlog again to turn logging off.

I turned logging on and am hitting a target dummy, but nothing is being written to that file! What gives?

Outside of raids, the combat log file is only written to when a certain number of events have been generated. This means it can be very slow to update
if you are just doing solo content out in the world.

Are there add-ons to help me with combat logging?

Yes. You can use add-ons like Loggerhead, DBM or Ask Mr. Robot to have logging turn on automatically in raids and turn off when you leave. It is very
important when using Warcraft Logs that you log the entire raid though. DBM’s auto logging feature, for example, only logs bosses, and this will cause
it to not log pet summons. This can lead to problems where pets won’t be connected with owners.

If possible we always recommend that you log the entire raid night. Do not leave trash and events that occur outside of the combat out of the log.

Uploading Logs

In order to upload logs to the Web site, you use a client application. This application can be obtained here. If you have any issues getting
the application to launch or install, we encourage you to go to the forums for assistance, since it’s likely someone else has
encountered the same issue and can help.

Two Kinds of Logging

There are two ways you can choose to log. The first is to upload the entire log file after your raid is over. The second way is to do what we call live logging. In this
model, the client monitors the log file and whenever it sees new events tacked on to the end of the file, it sends those events up to the Web site. The live logging mode
is great for when you want to study wipes right after they happened to see what went wrong.

Where Do Logs Go?

You have two choices for where to upload your logs. Every user on Warcraft Logs gets a personal log space just for them, so you can always upload
your logs there without ever joining a guild.

The second option for log uploading is to upload your logs to your guild’s area. When you do this, everyone in the guild will be able to see the logs. Think of it as a shared
space for official raids by your guild.

Before you can upload logs to a guild, you must first join the guild. If the guild does not exist, you can also create a guild.

Guilds

[Note: This page is under construction. ]

How to Use Warcraft Logs — Guides

Warcraft Logs is a community website which uses in-game combat logs to created detailed analytics which measure both group and individual player performance, in the form of damage and healing dealt and taken, buff and debuff uptime, player and NPC positioning, and much more, through the use of detailed charts, graphs, and encounter replay. This guide will help you learn how to get started, navigate the website’s many features, and use them to improve your gameplay.

Why are Logs important?

Combat logs unequivocally tell you what happened during an encounter. Whether someone was in the right (or wrong) position, was hitting the correct target, using the right talents and gear, how much healing they did, whether they used a healthstone, if a cooldown was used or healing received before a big hit, who interrupted, and even simply as a means of competition — comparing which group killed the boss the quickest, or which player managed the highest DPS/HPS on that particular encounter. Logs tell us all of these things, and Warcraft Logs makes reading them possible.

Uploading Logs

Before you can analyze your logs, you first need to create and upload them. Only one person in each group or raid needs to do this, so if somebody else has already uploaded your logs, you can skip this step. You can find uploaded logs by searching either a guild or an individual character participating in a kill.

Combat Logging In-Game

Before you start logging combat, you’ll want to turn advanced logging on in order to get the most information you can from the logs you upload. To enable it, open Options > Network under the System header, and check the box marked Advanced Combat Logging.

Once you’re in-game and ready to record combat, you need to tell the game to start recording the combat log by entering the command /combatlog in the chat box. Logging can be toggled on and off with the same command.

Some addons will automatically turn combat logging on and off for you as part of their functionality, such as DeadlyBossMods or BigWigs. This can be helpful for ensuring you only record combat information while in a dungeon or raid without saving everything else, such as world quests. Otherwise, you will want to ensure you toggle recording manually.

The combat log is written to the World of Warcraft\_retail_\Logs folder on your computer as a WoWCombatLog.txt file. While each individual encounter doesn’t include a lot of information, over time the file can bloat in size. It’s suggested that you delete the combat log after you finish uploading them to avoid this issue, and the Warcraft Logs client will offer a prompt to do so after successfully creating any new report.

Uploading with the Warcraft Logs Client

Once you’ve finished logging combat, you’ll need to upload your logs before you can look at the report on Warcraft Logs itself.

Step 1: Create an Account
First, register an account on WarcraftLogs in the upper right hand corner. You can also link your Battle.net account to automatically sync all of your characters without any extra hassle.

Step 2: Download the Client
The client program, Warcraft Logs Uploader, is what reads your recorded combat log and turns it into a Warcraft Logs report. This is what you’ll use to upload any logs you create in order to view them on the website itself.

Click here for the client download page. Although this guide will just focus on the Warcraft Logs Uploader, there is also the Warcraft Logs Companion App, with all of the same functionality plus some neat extras, so if you’d like to try using that instead then it’s also available.

Step 3: Splitting Logs

An optional step — if you have more fights in your log than you want to upload, you can first split your log before uploading it. Simply click the Split a Log button, select the log, and it’ll be split into individual fights for you to choose how to upload.

Step 4: Upload your Logs

Now that you’ve got the client set up, you can actually upload the logs you’ve recorded. First, select the version of the game the logs were recorded on, (Retail, Classic, or PTR,) and then hit the Upload a Log button.

You can choose who is able to view the logs you upload:

  • Public are viewable by anyone and show up in rankings and searches.
  • Unlisted are only accessible by having a direct link to the logs, and won’t show up in any searches.
  • Private are completely hidden and will not show up even for people who have a direct link to it. The only people who are able to view them are you, or your guild if they’re uploaded to a guild page rather than as a personal log.

When uploading you can select the guild you wish to upload the logs to, including the option to upload to a personal section that is not affiliated with any guild. You can also choose to only upload specific raids from within your combat log.

Live Logs

Rather than having to wait until after a raid to look at logs, there’s also the option to upload your raid’s logs as each encounter finishes in real time. Select the Live Log option before you start your raid, set up the upload the same way as a normal one, and your raid’s encounters will automatically be uploaded once combat finishes.

Analyzing Logs

There are 5 major sections in Warcraft Logs that you can utilize. Each one is used for something specific and each one can be incredibly helpful for different situations:

  • Analyze: This is the general page of the report. Most of the time you’ll probably be using this section and you can think of this as the «regular» mode with the majority of the information. If you’re looking for specific things or want to see how your group is performing as a whole, this is your first stop.
  • Compare: This is for comparing two players to each other. You can either compare two players in the same raid or compare two players across two different logs. It’s usually more helpful when comparing two of the same class/spec in a single raid, but it’s also very good for seeing how other players of a similar class/spec are performing in other raid groups.
  • Mechanics: Each encounter has ways to screw things up, and this section provides an overview on encounter specific mechanics, and who’s taking extra damage or causing problems. For example, you can see who is (or isn’t) using a healthstone or potions, taking avoidable damage, or dodging Echoing Sonar on Shriekwing.
  • Rankings: Wondering how your performance compares to other players of your spec? This section shows how your damage or healing ranks compared to everybody else who’s killed that boss. Explained further below.
  • Replay: This lets you see a top-down representation of the encounter in real time, complete with movement, individual spell casts, and major events. It can be sped up or slowed down at will, and will even show the direction each player or NPC is facing. Explained further below.

Since the Analyze section has by far the most information to look at, it’ll be the focus of most of the sections below.

The Basics

There are 4 different ways of viewing data: Tables, Timelines, Events, and Queries. Each of these lets you look at the same data in different ways, but won’t change the underlying information when swapping between them. For now, we’ll just focus on Tables.

When looking at damage, healing, or any of the other subsections, remember that you can either look at the group’s overall damage or healing or at an individual. It’s very easy to swap between them via the dropdown menu on the top left.

Here’s a quick rundown on the different types of data you can look at:

  • Damage Done/Damage Taken: These are two pages that are largely the same. This is the damage breakdown page where you’ll find pretty much all of the information that you’ll be looking for as a DPS or tank. For individual players, the table will break it down by ability; for a group view, it will break it down by player.
  • Healing: Same as the damage breakdowns except for healing done instead of damage. To look at healing received rather than healing done, use the second dropdown menu to select a specific player.
  • Threat: This essentially shows you who or how many things are attacking certain players. This can be helpful to see things like how fast adds got picked up when they spawned, but it’s usually pretty obvious during the encounter what happened. This section will very rarely be used.
  • Buffs/Debuffs: Shows you buff and debuff uptime, including stacks, how many times it was applied over the encounter, and overall uptime. For buffs, it’s usually best to look at one player at a time so that the information is easier to find. If you want to look at the uptimes of enemy debuffs like DoTs, you’ll need to select enemy debuffs rather than friendly and then select a friendly player as a source.
  • Deaths: As you might expect, this page will show you all of the deaths that happened during an encounter. Not only will it show you who died and when, but it will reconstruct a short timeline of the events leading up to the death, including how much damage they took and from what, healing received, and the last time they used a personal defensive.
  • Interrupts and Dispels: Again two separate pages, but ultimately the same sort of thing. Both will sort by debuff and spell that gets interrupted or dispelled. Interrupts also includes casts that don’t get interrupted, along with who interrupted what spell. Will not show interrupt casts that didn’t actually interrupt an ability; those can be found on the casts page.
  • Resources: Health, Mana, Holy Power, Rage, Runes, etc. Anything that counts as a resource for a class can be found here and tracked. This is a great page to see if your class resources are being used well, including if you wasted any by going over your cap.
  • Casts: All ability casts from each player over the course of the encounter will be displayed here. It’s useful for seeing whether or not players missed some ability casts, but the information is usually easier to look at as a timeline rather than a table.

General Tips

There are so many ways to look the information you want, it can be daunting to sift through every page and filter. So, here’s a few tips that will help you get around and see the information you’re looking for.

  • Click everything — Almost everything you see on the page is clickable and will give you more information. Click on a player when you’re viewing damage and it will show you their damage done with a spell-by-spell breakdown. Follow that by clicking on a spell, and it will show you the target breakdown for that spell. Click on one of those targets and it’ll show every enemy with the same name and the spell’s damage to that one. Click it one more time and you’ll see just that target and just that spell. Click things and you’ll almost always find more detailed information.
  • Hover over things — Most of the bars on each page will let you have more information on it. Hover over a spell in an individual player’s breakdown to see the spell’s Critical Strike rate and how much the average hit or crit was. DoTs will show critical ticks as well.
  • Use aura filters — At the top of any table view on the left and right, you can find «Source Aura Filters» and «Target Aura Filters. » These will filter out all of your data to only show when the auras (buffs and debuffs) are active on you or the target. Great for seeing only how well you’re doing cooldowns up or with specific debuffs on your target.
  • Dropdowns and menus — Don’t be afraid to explore and experiment. For example, you can change the data from being organized by player to being organized by ability with a drop box on the right above the graph. In the same area, you can exclude player’s pets or include overkill damage from the log.
  • Find tooltips — When looking at abilities you can see the tooltips for them by hovering over the icon for it. This can be very helpful especially for abilities that enemies cast.

Events

Events show everything that happened during combat as a list, rather than condensed into bars like Tables does. Although the information provided is very detailed, for most basic situations the level of detail provided will be more of a hindrance to understanding the information presented than it will help — a list of every single time your DoTs ticked during a fight isn’t as useful as a chart showing how much damage each one did to a target. Where looking at individual events is really useful is situations where you want to look at exact timings of casts, gaining or losing buffs, or damage events down to the millisecond.

Timelines

As you could probably guess from the name, the timeline displays the events that happen during combat visually as a timeline rather than a list or a chart. Although you can use it to look at most types of events, the type it’s best used for is to look at player casts. It’s usually much easier to understand a rotation visually through a timeline than a list of casts.

Summary

The summary page shows an overview of damage, healing, damage taken, and deaths that happened during an encounter, as well as a short summary of the gear that each player in the raid was using. Although it doesn’t provide much detail, it’s useful to just get a quick look at the important things that happened in an encounter.

If you select an individual player’s summary, a more comprehensive view of that player’s setup is displayed, with all of their gear including each piece’s item level, any gems used, enchants including temporary ones, and even the exact amount of each stat they have baseline. Pretty much any aspect of the talents or gear that a player used can be looked at here.

Replay

This feature allows you to view an entire replay of a fight from a bird’s eye view. You can look at player movement, spells cast, and buffs and debuffs in real time, or jump to a specific section to watch back again. It’s very useful to look back at group or individual movement during an encounter to see what could be improved from previous attempts.

Pins & Queries

If you’re after a really specific set of information that isn’t easily viewable through other methods, and don’t mind the complexity that these searches require, you can use pins to help you find them. These are incredibly in-depth and luckily there’s already a huge guide for these over on WarcraftLogs itself. Despite its age, all of the information provided there is still very relevant and it’s a totally comprehensive look at how you can use pins to find the information you’re after. That said, here’s a brief overview on how they work.

You can create a pin either by clicking on the + icon that appears at the far right on any table, or by clicking the Queries page. First, choose the type of event you’re looking for, then choose actors or abilities to narrow down the type of event. An actor can be either the source or the target of an event rather than only one or the other.

There won’t be many situations that using pins will be necessary, but they can be useful to help collate information that you’d normally find in separate locations. For example, if you wanted to find the damage dealt only to either Sire Denathrius or Remornia in Phase 2 of the encounter, since they share a health pool, you could use a filter pin to find all damage events that targeted either one of them.

Player Rankings

Although the primary function of Warcraft Logs is to analyze your performance for improvement, it also provides metrics for players to compare themselves to each other to compete for ranks in damage, healing, or even speed kills. Comparisons are made to every other public log of your spec and class, and although private and unlisted logs won’t be listed on rankings, you can still see where you would have ranked if the log were public.

Parses & Rankings

Rankings are simply how your performance is ranked against other players of your specialization on an encounter. If you did 5k DPS on an encounter and there’s 99 other players who did more than 5k, your rank on that fight would be 100.

Parses compare how well your performance was to the entire playerbase of that spec, whether they performed better than you or not. If you did 5k DPS on an encounter, 99 other players did more than 5k, but another 900 did less than 5k, your parse would be in the 90th percentile.

Parses also have colors associated with them based on different performance bands:

  • 100: Gold is a rank one parse, meaning it is the highest anyone had performed at the time.
  • 99: Pink is an extremely high percentile parse, but not quite rank one.
  • 95-98: Orange is a very high percentile parse, which is generally composed of the best and typically most geared players.
  • 75-94: Purple is an above average parse, which performed well, but could still have some improvements to make.
  • 50-74: Blue is an average parse, which is just that — average.
  • 25-49: Green is a below average parse, which generally indicates the player is having some difficulty.
  • 0-24: Grey is a poor parse, which usually means the player was dead for a significant portion of the encounter, is severely undergeared, not managing their rotation, or in rare cases is handling a specific job in the encounter which prevents them from normal contribution.

The colors themselves don’t mean a whole lot, but they’re an easy way to quickly glance at the numbers and see how each person is doing. Although it can be fun to get high parses, try not to get too caught up on these rankings. There’s so much that goes into how well a player parses in a given encounter that it’s hard to use these as strict comparisons between players. There are all sorts of crazy things players can do to get extra rankings that aren’t necessarily the best for the encounter. For example, on fights with frequent add spawns, the best way to get a high damage parse might be to AoE as much as you can, but if everyone in a raid decides to do this none of them will end up with a high ranking, and it might make the boss significantly more difficult if you lose a lot of single target damage to do so.

You can see these rankings on a few different pages across the website. On a log of an encounter itself, the damage done breakdown and the rankings page both display each player’s parses. You can also search for yourself or any other player on the website for a page with all of their rankings for each fight and difficulty. You can find this page by clicking on a persons name from the rankings page in a log as well.

All Star Points

All Star points are another way to rank your performance compared to other players of your specialization. How they work is fairly simple — you can get a maximum of 120 points from each encounter on a specific difficulty in a raid, with the occasional exception of a few bosses that are excluded. For example, in Castle Nathria you can potentially get 1080 points, since Sun King’s Salvation is excluded as the optimal way to parse high on that fight is to do as much damage as you can to adds that don’t actually matter that much.

The number of points you get for each encounter is calculated by comparing how well your highest damage parse was to the rank one parse for your specialization. For example, if you play Outlaw Rogue and do 5k DPS on an encounter, and the best Outlaw parse on that encounter is 6k DPS, you’ll get 100 All Star points for that parse, regardless of whether it’s a 99th or 50th percentile parse. All Star Points are automatically updated as well — if someone suddenly managed to do 7.5k DPS, your All Star points would drop to 80 for that fight.

Searching Logs

If you’re looking for logs from players with a specific talent, or of raids with a unique group composition, the search function on the rankings page is a much easier way to find them than trawling through hundreds of logs manually. To use it, simply click on the magnifying glass icon at the top right of the page on the rankings for any encounter. Some of the things you can filter based on include:

  • Item level — Filter based on the item level of the individual rank.
  • Raid size — Choose a specific raid size to look for. Can be useful for normal/heroic logs, but not relevant for mythic.
  • Fight length — Filter based on the length of the encounter.
  • Fight date — Filter based on the date that the log was recorded.
  • Raid composition — Either choose a specific number of each role to be present in the raid, or you can choose specific numbers of each spec to be present in the raid. For example, checking Retribution Paladin as 0 and Arms Warrior as 2 would filter for encounters that used 0 Rets and exactly 2 Arms players.
  • Abilities & Items — Filters logs based on whether players used a specific ability, or had a specific item equipped. You can either only look for logs where the ability or item was used, or you can look for logs where nobody used them.

Need More Help?

If you need more help with your logs or just using Warcraft Logs in general, there are plenty of additional resources out there that you may find useful. First, there is the Warcraft Logs Discord. Here you can find all of the updates and announcements, along with a group of people happy to help with using the website. If you are looking for some help with your performance or want someone to help you analyze your logs, class discords are usually a very helpful place, and you can often find someone there who is willing to help you out. Many people who run them also often have a pretty good understanding of both the class and Warcraft Logs, which means they can give you a crash course in what to look at for your spec.

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