combat-log
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Blood Pact: Combat log kung fu for warlocks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is finishing out the World of Logs posts while she hunts for BC-era battle pets. Have you ever tried to read the combat log? Maybe you're on the PTR testing a spell change or you want to know how often a new trinket procs, so you open the combat log chat window and start reading. You get twenty-something lines down before you realize something horrifying -- that's only one second of combat. Your jaw slowly falls to the floor and you reach up to pull your hair out as you contemplate reading a combat log for an entire raid fight -- that can sometimes last more than six hundred seconds and includes far more actors than just you and the training dummy. Luckily for us, when events are printed in a specified format without too much variety, computers can read and process --or parse -- these lines magnitudes faster than we humans can. World of Logs has graphs and charts to help us understand our performance, but it also includes what is basically Google for your combat log. Just like there are tips to speed up and pinpoint your browser searches, there are tricks you can use to query events better in the World of Logs expression editor.
Blood Pact: World of Logging warlocks, part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill wonders how many logs would a warlock log if a warlock could log logs? Occasionally I get a request to look through someone's raid log on World of Logs for warlock improvement. Sometimes it's for a guild applicant and sometimes it's for another tweeter. A thing I've thought about doing for a long time is a World of Logs 101 on warlocks -- both for warlock players and for non-warlock raid leaders. I'm starting with the bare basics: how to tell warlocks apart on a World of Logs parse and exploring the DPS rankings. (It's actually not that difficult anymore!)
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR's tools of the raid
I've mentioned that I don't like the idea of judging other players by arbitrary numbers. It annoys me when a person is included or excluded from an event or guild simply based on something like gearscore or pure DPS numbers. However, the importance of these numbers shouldn't be undervalued in a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic. A couple of weeks back, I wrote an article about how the gear grind is "unfun." I don't like the grind, but I do like building good gear. I hate to admit it, but there is a little bit of min-maxer in me (just a little!). With SWTOR turning nine months old, many news and guide sites have settled into a routine. Surprisingly, the sites that I visited pre-launch are not the sites that I visit now. Now I am interested in the more granular sites that help me with very specific tasks of the game. Granted, I still visit Darth Hater and TORWars when I'm looking for news, but I have a completely different set of sites and tools for character building. These are the three sites I use almost daily.
Save your chat logs; they're being deleted in patch 5.0.4
If you're diligent in your record keeping where WoW is concerned, you probably have a bunch of saved chat or combat logs in your Logs folder. Well, back those suckers up, because when 5.0.4 hits, all of the data in that folder is being deleted. Nethaera provided this helpful notification on the official forums: Save Your Chat Logs With the upcoming release of patch 5.0.4, all items within the Logs Directory for World of Warcraft will be deleted. It is advised that if you have WoW Combat Logs or WoW Chat Logs that you would like to save, that you do so prior to the release of the patch. source It's not like saving them is a big deal, of course -- you can just move them to a new folder and you're fine. Good on Blizzard for letting us know, at least; now everyone can save their combat logs from Molten Core and their extended ERP sessions in Goldshire or whatever.
Hyperspace Beacon: One step forward...
You might notice that the Hyperspace Beacon changed its face a bit. That's because I'm reporting from the Guild Summit in Austin, Texas -- BioWare's headquarters. Over 250 guilds and fan sites were invited to not only see the team's plans for Star Wars: The Old Republic but also voice their ideas for what they want from the game. Of course, a game carrying the Star Wars name appeals to a large diverse group of people, and not just because of the Star Wars IP; BioWare has created a name for itself with incredible story-driven games like Mass Effect 3, which released this morning. Among the pre-summit discussion was the question of whether and how much BioWare leans on the Star Wars IP for the success of the game. The consensus among the guild leaders I spoke to was an interesting and surprising one: Although BioWare certainly leaned on Star Wars for the story elements of the game, the lack of huge success for the most recent LucasArts games suggests that the Star Wars IP actually leaned on BioWare's reputation. When I jumped into Q&A with the guild leaders, I half-expected a bunch of over-enthusiastic fanboys. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, although they were fans, those invited to this summit were very level-headed and oftentimes critical of the game's development. Thankfully, during the course of the summit, the developers were equally willing to address these concerns.
Patch 4.1: Combat log addons cause framerate issues
One glitch I noticed when testing on the PTR recently was that my DPS meters caused ridiculous, terrifying framerate issues. The issue's been long known on the forums, of course. Skada, the addon I use, had been completely unusable on the 4.1 PTR for pretty much its entire existence. It seems the issue is with addons that parse the combat log. There supposedly are fixes available, but at present, if you're running a damage meter or other combat log parse, you should most likely turn off your out-of-date addons until they've been updated. I can attest that at present, Skada does not seem to work at all with 4.1, and I'd definitely recommend turning it off. Updated: Check your favorite addon sites for updates to patch 4.1. While I can't promise your personal favorite addon will be up to date, Skada has released an update that makes it usable with the current patch as of 5:29 PM eastern. WoW Patch 4.1 is live, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from guides of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Encrypted Text: Steal these rogue tips
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email any questions you may have about our cloak-and-dagger class. Rogues are a results-driven class. While napkin math and fluff may suffice for the hybrids, rogues need for their hard work to end in a DPS increase. There's no reason to perform at anything else than our best, and so every adjustment or suggestion is viewed through our critical lens of analysis. Every optimization is made in order to bring up that bottom line. What's the best way to improve your DPS? What's the optimal strategy on a given boss fight? These answers are closely guarded secrets for many rogues. Luckily for us, we have other ways to extract information. World of Logs is a public repository of combat parses, and with a bit of know-how, we can mine this data for nuggets of wisdom. Many of the best rogues in the world don't even realize that all of their secrets are being laid bare. We can exploit this to increase our own skill and strategy.
AddOn Spotlight: Skada
AddOn Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience - the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond - your AddOns folder will never be the same! This week, we do some mad-deeps. Before I start my first Addon Spotlight, I wanted to quickly give a primer on my Addon/UI preferences and the way I hope to spotlight and review addons here at WoW.com. World of Warcraft is over five years old now, and in such a short period of time a ragtag bunch of Addon coders and modders fashioned thousands of addons, making the game playable. Over five years the addon environment has evolved so greatly that now, in addition to discussing form and function, we can judge addons from an aesthetic approach. Addons that allow for greater customization and tailored appearances are now the norm. I strive to help players find not only the most useful and functional addons but also the most aesthetically pleasing of the bunch. I hope everyone reading will appreciate the mix of form, function and aesthetics, creating a better UI for everyone. My first Addon Spotlight is a great example of what I love about a good addon. Skada is a DPS meter following in the footsteps of Recount, the current ubiquitous DPS meter and bragging device currently in WoW. Recount, however, always gave me memory problems and felt sluggish. And, as a personal pet peeve, I never liked the bugle. We'll get to the bugle later. Recount does the job, however, and most of us never look back. So why switch to Skada?
Yogg-Saron in blues
This story's from last week, but I love it anyway -- over at the Greedy Goblin, Gevlon's guild was getting a little tired of all of the achievement-checking and gear requirements for endgame raiding, and so they set out to do something that many experienced raiders might admit seems impossible: take down Yogg-Saron with nothing but blues on. That means no epics at all -- no epic gear, dropped or crafted, no epic enchants, no epic gems. They did use profession bonuses, but everyone should have access to those by now (all it takes is money, and all that takes is time). And of course, they did it: toppled Yoggy with the group you see on the page there. The combat log is also posted, and it's about what you'd expect: none of the damage numbers are crazy high, but the group works so well together and plays so evenly that they get it done. That's the message to be taken away here: gear is nice, but nothing will get you farther than a well-oiled group of solid players.
Scattered Shots: Fixing your Hunter's dps
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be talking about how to fix your Hunter's dps! There are a lot of factors that play a part in making up your damage output: your gear, your talents, your gems and enchants, your glyphs, your ammo, your consumables, your shot rotation, your pet, your pet's talents, and even your latency and frame rate. Today I'd like to spend some time talking about all the pieces that make up the Hunter dps puzzle and offer some ways to help you figure out where you might be going wrong. After all, we've all had those nights where our numbers just weren't what we were expecting, and it's important to know how to identify the problem so you can find a solution.
How to fix the Parrot Scrolling Combat Text Addon
If you're an Ace mod fanatic like I am, you may use Parrot for your scrolling combat text needs. If you've used Parrot since 2.4, you've noticed, like I have, that the dang thing just plain doesn't work. Even though the ever handy WoWAceUpdater continues to update it, there's some block of data it's missing. And that means that when I get into combat and look for my scrolling information... nothing happens. There's no pretty numbers to the side of my characters. Hey, that's fair enough. 2.4 was the patch of the great combat log change, and it's understandable that not every addon is quite caught up. That said, I like how I have Parrot set up, and I didn't really want to try to find and install a new mod, or heaven forbid, use Blizzard's base system. So, I went searching, hoping to find some way to bring back my beloved Parrot.
Addon Spotlight: ChatSettingsFix (Patch 2.4)
In this installment of Addon Spotlight, I wanted to give you all a chance to alleviate the irritation that came with Patch 2.4 and the changes to the chat log. Notorious addon developer Tekkub has put together a quick fix to force the chat frame to apply filters at login. This will also apply to ChatFrame2, your combat log. Blizzard tried unsuccessfully to fix the problems with the chat log in Patch 2.4.1, so until they work out the problems, this addon can be your solution. Here is Tekkub's write-up:'Patch 2.4 introduced a bug where ChatFrame1 does not apply channel filters on login. This addon forces them to be applied. It will check your game version and build and not run after patch 2.4.1 build 8125. If the bug is not fixed in the next patch, a new version will be released."A man of few words, but an active member of the WoW addon community nonetheless. He has his own site, as well as a collection on WoWInterface.com. I'm new to Tekkub's addons which are either aptly named or named with a unique, and borderline naughty, convention. However, this dev has been very proactive about his addons and responds quickly to changes in the game. Check out this addon if you've been struggling with the chat log and combat log changes since Patch 2.4. While you're at it, test drive some of Tekkub's other gadgets and let me know how they're treating you, as I'm in the process myself and would love to hear your opinion as well. Dismissed!
Slouken: no rollback of combat log but other UI changes are no joke
On April Fools' Day, amongst our extensive HKO coverage, Daniel Whitcomb reported that the combat log changes introduced in Patch 2.4 were being rolled back in Patch 2.5. Slouken has since indicated that he was "just kidding", as Daniel had guessed.So the combat log will not be rolled back and there may not be a Patch 2.5 before Wrath of the Lich King. He did say, however, that the UI changes that were to happen in the fictional 2.5 will in fact happen in WotLK. Specifically, the arguments "this" and "argN" will be phased out of the Blizzard UI in favor of "self" and other local arguments. Slouken recommends that authors start using "self" in the meantime, so that they will be prepared for when the expansion comes out.
Undocumented 2.4.1 change list
2.4.1's had a chance to settle in, and as usual, people have been finding a few extra changes that didn't get in the patch notes. There's nothing too earth shattering, though any Shamans out there who have been trying a dual-wield elemental hybrid build might be feeling a bit set back, since quite a few +spell damage one handers have been changed to main hand only, namely Sedai's Blade, Terokk's Gavel, Archmage's Guile, Seeker's Gavel, K'iru's Presage, and the Battle-mace of the High Priestess. Those of you jewelcrafters who have been feeling guilty about killing your poor Nightseye Panther will be happy to know that it now only fades away instead of dying when its buff ends. In addition, Normal and Heroic Magisters' Terrace mobs have had thier reputation gain adjusted, and you should now be getting about 2k Shattered Sun Offensive rep per a normal clear. For raiders, they'll find that Brutallus' Meteor Slash is now an unlimited range frontal cone attack, apparently to fix a problem with paladin taunting, accord to World of Raids. In case you missed our previous report on it, the Distraction at the Dead Scar bombing run is also a bit easier to finish. Finally, one documented non-change: The chat filtering problems that the notes claim were fixed are still present on live servers. Hortus confirmed that the fix had some bad side effects and was pulled at the last minute, but will hopefully reappear in a future patch. We'll keep watching for any other changes to pop up, so keep it tuned here to WoW Insider.
Slouken: 2.5 to feature complete rollback of the 2.4 combat log changes
While we're still HKO Insider, we do have some nostalgia left for our former game, and since we saw this thing that more or less looks like some legitimate WoW news, maybe, we figured we might as well post it for old time's sake. (Ed: No more of this! HKO news only!) While it's true that the 2.4 combat log has had a few glitches, it seemed like at least a good portion of them were fixed in today's patch, and we could expect the log to be used at it's full potential soon enough. However, apparently... No dice. Blizzard poster Slouken announced today that patch 2.5 would feature a complete rollback of the 2.4 combat log changes. Hope all you programming-type dudes kept old copies of your 2.3 addon code. Then again, you might want to look at the date and hold off for another 24 hours before you start panicking and rewriting stuff. But then again, Slouken's keeping a pretty straight face about this! Then again once more, that's a lot of work on the part of the dev team to just abandon and roll back, and the thread itself isn't even stickied. So who knows? Anyhow, stay tuned, we'll let you know if this pans out, or if Slouken just has a damn good poker face. If it is true, this also means that we're looking at a patch 2.5 before the expansion -- while it may not be a big content patch, there will be one more game update before Wrath.
Patch 2.4.1 available for download
Extended Maintenance has begun, and it looks like a small patch has come with it. Patch 2.4.1 is less than 5 megabytes, and looks to mostly fix a few bugs with the combat log (including that annoying one where no settings were saved), sound, and shading, as well as a bug with Tranquilizing Shot. There might be more undocumented changes, of course, but we'll have to wait until the servers come up to see that. Patch notes after the break!
Don't do it, it's a trap
Zanzer of Mal'Ganis posted on the World of Warcraft test realm forum that he is displeased with the user interface change that shows hunter traps in the combat log. Obviously this is a PvP related change, as PvE mobs probably don't care if a hunter sets traps or not. The ability to trap is one of the most important features of the Hunter class. Typically players know when Hunters are dropping traps for two reasons. First, there is an unmistakable squatting animation that shows the character setting the trap. Of course you have to have your camera on the Hunter to see the animation. Second, Hunters who are worth their salt lay traps whenever they are able to in the PvP environment. The difference is the combat log now states what type of trap has been dropped.
All hands on deck for combat log changes
If you're anything like me you're chomping at the bit to devour any new piece of information regarding the highly anticipated Sunwell patch. I was fascinated to read Slouken's description of upcoming changes to the in-game combat log. These changes, he reports, are driven to help assist in with game AddOns in the future. One of the major changes is the ability for players to filter their combat logs by a number of criteria. This will send only necessary data through the user interface, which can then be picked up by the AddOn. Other changes include formatting options that allow the language and presentation of the combat log output to mimic existing AddOns in syntax and color coding. Blizzard is implementing these changes so that players do not have to use "middle-man" AddOns.
WoW Web Stats reveals the ins and outs of your raid
WoW Web Stats(or WWS), if you're not aware, is a popular raid assessment tool written by Lossendil. It has recently received some sweet loving from the author in the form of an overall revamp, and now bears a shiny new orangey-brown coat to accompany that same great taste we know and love. Using an uploaded combat log(/combatlog in-game) pulled from your WoW folder, WWS parses it into a neat and clean report for your perusal. Right at your fingertips is your basic overall damage meter and healing meter, and if you dig a bit further, there's so much more. With the ability to see each boss encounter and attempt individually, each players' spell usage, the buffs and debuffs on a character in any given encounter as well as a variety of other things, this is a tool that shouldn't be overlooked if you're in the raid game.
