Mal's gear up has been going well and he's up to i395 now (actually I expect this to be a bit higher as he has i397 legs in his bags which he can now use instead of the i384 but he has forgotten to switch them in). So let's say he's i396 and as a direct comparison Incendia is i400. Spell power is about 1k down on Incendia, but otherwise the stats compare well in terms of haste & crit.
Mal's dps last night was awful. We'll need to watch for steady and rapid improvement here as we simply can't carry that big a dps loss in heroic fights without having some fallout. I know he's been away from heroic raiding for a year, but I think he's had enough time and experience of the heroic fights for us to start seeing better than we're seeing. (he has done the first 6 heroics heroics 3 times each now, 4 times for Yor'saj & Ultraxion)
I find this all quite difficult to write and extra difficult to know how to deal with as he was an officer and an RGT member. All I can say is that if he were a Trial then I'd be failing him based on what we've seen so far, however he's an ex-RGT member and ex-officer and so he gets additional time to rediscover his form. I have been expecting more from him though given how fast we've geared him and the experience he has now had of the fights. Falling back into Arcane when struggling though is not the way forward.
Looking at the logs it is almost entirely down to not keeping active enough. Living Bomb is not being kept up, fireballs not cast often enough etc etc etc. My guess from the logs is that he is still brimming and not able to cope with a rotation during the fight, but that seems to count the same for all fights and that's a concern. He went back to Arcane on Warmaster last night which is a definite dps loss, but a simpler rotation and still bombed on dps.
I am really concerned with his performance at the moment. Advice on how to deal with this would be welcome please..... :sad:
Mal knows the score and im sure will take any advice regarding his rotation onboard. If ya want we can have a chat with him about. I think we had the same problem with incendia for a while and then something just clicked
If we hit mal with what can be improved im sure it will be taken the right way. I know he always wants to push his dps its just a case of learning how. It may be worth us asking him to focus on the fights where we need the high dps rather than saying just learn everything
so usual suspecs
rotation
targeting
Dot timers
Ui
Boss tac for your class
alot has changed since lich king but im quite confedent he can be on par with some help
I dont mind bringing it up with him but he may need some time with you for the nitty gritty as im not much of a guru for the mage
Found him this morning and had a chat hes understands hes missing out on dps and is happy for any help in finding where the missng bits are
We had a play on some targets and managed to add about 5k to his rotation we both think more is in there. A fair point he made was hes still learning the fights on heroic hes only seen the fights a few times and still spending alot of time trying not to die deciding on the next target ect where we may have had 100+ pulls to optimise what we do.
Let's hope it increases rapidly then as we're now light on dps and need him to put in the numbers or we will struggle on dps fights.
Still seriously worried by Mal's lack of improvement and ongoing poor performance on too many fights.
Draft PM to Mal being constructed in here, please add comments as you see fit and I'll perhaps send it tonight.
Quote from: DRAFT PM TO FATBOBHi FB
Did my usual log thing again as I noticed you were struggling badly at times last night on dps and wanted to see what could be done to assist. This site is a decent way of tracking performance and improvement relative to what your class & spec can deliver on a particular fight, you might find it useful to keep under review to track long-term progress.
http://raidbots.com/epeenbot/eu/aszune/maldaror/
Use the below link to get an idea of how specs perform on different fights:
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/
Select the '10 Heroic' from the menu on the right side, then click an individual boss to see which specs to what on that fight. For mages it is less useful I guess as Fire does better in all cases (unless you switch to arcane for raid buff purposes only).
Gear:
I noticed you are still using 2xi384 rings. I'd recommend using your VP to buy the i397 ring, it's a big step up and will help dps. I still use the i397 ring on my priest for example.
Morchok:
Activity at 89.5% but it would be good to see that consistently in the mid-90s. The trick here is to not have periods where there are no DOTs or casts going on.
-keep Living Bomb up (it was only up 45.2% of the time)
-keep Flame Orb on CD (it was used twice when you can get three per fight in here)
-use Scorch to cast whilst you move (you did not cast it at all during the fight and it procs instant pyros as a bonus)
-position yourself to use the 'gap' between 2 crystals during the black phase to allow you to continue casting
Doing these things will increase your dps a lot on this fight and stop the dps falling off to almost zero at times.
Use this link to be able to see when you used certain abilities. Uncheck everything and then just select one spell at a time, try it for Living Bomb as an example and you'll see the gaps you can fill.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6kr66jlataf072cz/analyze/dd/spell/?source=6&s=703&e=888
Zon'ozz
The previous log review showed 87% activity which has improved to 94% this time which is good. Now the aim is to join the rest of the experienced dps on 99%!
-LB uptime was generally good but you lost focus for 30 secs in middle of the fight and forgot to refresh
-Flame Orb you forgot about for almost the whole fight, you could have had 6, you only used it once
-use Scorch to 'fill cast' when moving, it costs nothing in mana terms and could proc an instant pyro
Yor'sahj:
You seemed to lose focus on this one. The previous log review you had 99% activity but last night it was only 83.7% which is why your DPSe was so much lower.
-LB uptime was 55.9% which needs to be much higher
-Flame Orb was good on this fight, used every CD :)
-use scorch to fill cast when moving
Hagara:
I was outside so no logs uploaded yet.
Ultraxion:
Activity at 97.9% again, well done. This fight shows you that you have the raw dps to compete in the RGT raid group, you pulled 32.5k DPSe with i398 against Incendia's 37.2k DPSe and his i403. With an extra 5 ilevels and a bit more activity then you'll match that dps.
-LB uptime was 72.6% (Incendia 85.5%, so you can squeeze more dps out of LB here)
-Flame Orb was missed once mid-fight (more dps for you)
Warmaster Blackhorn:
You died twice in this fight.
First death - took Barrage which knocked you down to low health, but then stood in a Blade Rush 3.1 seconds later which killed you. You need to be real careful to avoid Blade Rush, particularly when at low HP.
Second death - was not your fault, you can blame Puja as he healed Incéndia with a big crit Greater Healing Wave whilst Incéndia was debuffed with Consuming Shroud, which in turn meant that everyone in the raid took the same amount as damage, which was more than your current HP so you died. Go kick Puja in the nuts for this one!
You switched to Arcane for this fight which puts you on the back foot to start with as this fight is really tricky as Arcane. Arcane is a simpler rotation, but as you can see from the website linked above, it is also far lower DPS for all fights in Dragon Soul. OTOH Fire allows multiple DOTs (up to 3 targets can have an LB at a time) and you can cast whilst moving (Scorch), so Fire is really the way forward in Dragon Soul and on this fight in particular.
You need to get used to doing this as Fire, don't go Arcane unless asked to for raid buff benefit please.
Summary:
Ultraxion shows you that you have the raw DPS, however wherever the fight involves target switching or movement then your rotation and CD monitoring is breaking down and you're losing DPS. The way forward I think is to work on your UI to ensure that you can track cooldowns & DOTs more noticeably and then to spend time on the Raid Dummies drilling the Fire rotation into your fingers & brain so that it becomes second nature. Check that you can target switch quickly too, I'm not sure how you are currently doing it, but use macros if needed or ensure you are pre-targeting during the previous cast.
Your DPS will continue to improve as you get more gear and break into the i400s, but the familiarity with the Fire rotation and CDs is something that you need to work on and master.
seems legit to me, I haven't gone to deep in to mals logs but I am like you a bit worried about his dps and that pm I think explains allot and hopefully he will step up a notch.
It looks fine to me and it should be taken consuctively.
Thanks for the feedback folks, sending it now.