WWS != meters

Originally posted on our forums: Posted: 02 Apr 2009 08:52 pm RECAP: Interpreting WoWWebStats

Here's a write up I found about Wowwebstats that may explain more about this tool to everyone and how to read it.

You can link either the anonymous version of the report (which will use fake names and not link Armory profiles) or the 'private' version to the forums. IMO, more information is better, so unless you are doing this without the consent of the guild leaders, there isn't a really good reason to hide specs and gear. Allowing people to see specs and gear will eliminate the uncertainty when judging actions, otherwise we can't criticize a player for using a skill they didn't put points into.

WWS records DPS during DPS time, which will result in a different number than recount or Swstats which will record DPS over the time of the boss fight. As a result, there are two other numbers which become important for WWS, presence and DPS time. Presence is how much of the fight the player spent alive. DPS time is how much of THAT time the player spent DPSing. This will vary from class to class and fight to fight, but it should not vary too much between players of the same class doing the same job.

Non-damaging debuffs are not necessarily recorded as attached to a specific player, so if a warlock doesn't show a curse active, it may be because he kept up a non-damaging curse. In order to check to see if non-damaging debuffs have been put up, click on the "Raid and Mobs" section, then lick on the boss, and scroll to debuffs.

Healing meters may not show the full story, if you want to check healing assignments, click on the "Who Heals Whom" page. You will end up on a spreadsheet with healers on the columns and healing targets (including those healers) on the rows. Their "focus" is listed as well. The focus is a measure of how "focused" (for lack of a better word) a healer is on a single target. If you assigned a MT healer and that healers focus isn't the MT, talk to him.

Reading WWS

Clicking on a single player's name in WWS will result in a breakdown of their damage done, heals, buffs and debuffs. Let's look at a specific character

We can see percentages of damage done, crits, and misses. When WWS records a 'miss' and generates a miss rate for a spell or a physical attack, it is just counting your misses (which will be shown on the combat log as full resists if you are a spellcaster) and dividing by the total attempts. The miss rate should approach your theoretical miss rate (so 1% if you are hit capped), but does not need to be close.

If you click on an ability, you will find a breakdown of partial resists, blocked attacks, parries, dodges, and so forth. This also works for incoming damaging attacks to see how many crushing blows a tank took during a fight or what their avoidance was on average. Scrolling down, we find that we can see how many time a player clicked an 'on use' trinket, assuming we know the name of the effect the trinket causes. We can also find out how many potions, healthstones, mana gems, or other abilities the player used. Remember, WWS uses the names that the combat log uses, which may or may not match the names we use for them in conversation.

You can read DoT uptime from counting the DoT ticks and multiplying by the period of the dot (how often it ticks). This is NOT an optimal solution, because if dots are refreshed early or dispelled by the boss, you may have different values for estimated and actual uptime. If anyone knows a better way to figure DoT uptime, let me know.

What you CAN'T read from WWS

You can't tell, directly, the group makeup from WWS. This is why it is important for you to post what the raid groups were in your request for help. You can guess at who was with whom by seeing who received certain groupwide buffs (FI, Battleshout, Heroism/Bloodlust, etc.) and auras, but this is wasting time that is better spent looking for other things.

WWS handles buff uptime poorly because the combat log handles it poorly. If you refresh Battleshout before it expires every time, then it is entirely possible that WWS will show "Battleshout: 1" under the buff category. Similar problems exist with recording debuffs on a boss that are procced by abilities but meant to be maintained the whole fight, like Scorch. The debuff for Scorch shows up as "Fire Vulnerability (Stacksize)" (Where the relevant number is inserted for stack size. For a fight like Netherspite, having Scorch up 3 times may mean that the fight went through three portal phases—in this case, looking at the combat log, that is true. For other fights, a large number of scorch debuffs recorded may mean that the raid isn't keeping it up, this is very fight dependent.

WWS cannot tell you max health, minimum health or max/min mana. You can not tell strictly from the charts if an arcane mage is potting/gemming correctly or only when he is OOM. You cannot tell if a tank was kept full or barely above 75% for the duration of the fight. Assuming that the players from the raid logged in their buffs and in their raid gear, you can extrapolate some of this information, but it isn't worth it for most of the cases.

WWS does not record latency, so you can only tell from DPS time and combat logging if players are using macroes/stopcasting/etc. If you look at percentages, you may be able to tell the player's specific rotations, or area for improvement in rotations. This is merely another tool to allow players to improve their overall performance.

Things to add.. DejaWoW, World of Logs, and WoWMeterOnline also break things down differently.

There's a raid analysis section. From reading WWS, I can see what buffs were had, what people died from, or if they killed themselves.. i.e. tapping when too low on health.

By looking closely, I see about what rotation you are. Some sites are incredible analytic for spec and rotation that should be kept up, even coming close to providing %. This will tell you alot about playstyle. For example, compare my healing with Spans. I guarantee he spams CH alot more (Chain heal for you non healing types) where as I use Riptide alot in pinches and I believe I keep ES (Earth shield) up.

We have vastly different playstyles. Everybody does. Rotations are something that can be consistent- more for dps, but also, healing can change up alot depending on the fight. You can look at specific fights and see decursing etc, who heals whom, etc.

These are not just METERs, they are far more than meters, they are tools. If someone is better, (and there's always someone better), you can learn, if not from them then at least from their meters.

It's not a competition. It's about working as a team- if the goal is to live, the massive amount of DPS you did in the 10 sec you were alive DOES NOT MATTER. DPS and HPS do not matter. What it boils down to, is this is a tool that you use to learn from your mistakes.

This site does a great job of explaining how to interpret raid analysis tools.
http://www.worldofraids.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22022
An easier way to navigate the WWS meters.. there are two links in the above link that explain this far better than I can.