A second look at the logs

So there's really no point in setting goals for performance if you don't go back and check yourself. Last week I checked my logs and was disappointed to see that not only was I lax in my CD use, my overall performance was lower than it could have been. So now, I'm going to look at a repeat of the same fight we did last night. It certainly doesn't work to examine antoher fight side by side, though you can see if your overall play has improveed.

So, here's a link to our Halfus, Double Dragon, and Conclave of wind kill from last night.

First thing I wanted to note was that Sodapopinski was ranked 8th on the Dragon kill for Ret Paladin DPS. Granted this only compares him to others who've uploaded their logs, but it's still cool to see.

Things I changed

As part of the 'scientific process' it's important to note what was changed between attempts. I added a Hyjal helm enchant and fixed my meta. How I missed those two is beyond me. Fail Paladin is fail.

On to the examination

First a quick look at the healing done. First, the kill was 5:48 instead of 6:28, so we cut 40 seconds off our kill time. My personal overall HPS was down some, but as a group our HPS was closer to being even - which means that one person doesn't have to work as hard to keep the raid up.

Mana returns - I managed to get quite a few more judgements off, which resulted in approx 20k more mana returned. I didn't recieve an innervate on the fight, but this may have been because our druid was cranking out a few more heals, and I was having to cast a few less 'emergency' heals.

Cooldowns - Aura Mastery x2, great for helping on the AoE shadow damage. Avenging Wrath x2, I alternated this with AM since we got 2 AoE shadow damage dispells per rotation. I popped Holy Radience each time, and that seemed to work well. I also popped HoSac 2x.

So on the surface, it looks like I made some good overall changes to my play style. I'll have to work to keep these changes permenant, but it is the foundation for good future play. I was excited to see that I used the same thought process on all the bosses we faced, and that my CD usage has gone up. I'll be keeping an eye on the logs, to see if there's any noticble changes that I need to correct.

Pouring over the logs - where I can improve

I like using World of Logs reporting to analyze a fight and do a post-game analysis. So we're all working off the same info, here's a link to our most current log - WoL.

Now, looking at just the pure e-peen screen, I could head off to the corner and stroke myself into giddyness. 7622 HPS - more than 1500 over the next healer. Over 50 million more healing than our Druid as well. Hang on, I'm going to make the O face now. I'll let it slide that I was 15% higher in Overhealing. Cause I'm AWESOME (obviously).

Of course, this screen doesn't mean diddly. It's the overall healing done on the night, and is about as useful a tool as a rock for a hammer. Sure, it tells me something, but nothing really useful. Even looking at the overall healing done for a boss kill doesn't tell me anything beyond pure output. Great for epeen, useless for improving play.

My first real stop

One of the first places I stop when I'm looking for information is the individual Buffs Gained screen. This is generally where I can find the most information that will help me become a better healer, and boy does this log show how bad I really am.

First, I thought my mana management was fine. I never had to call for an innervate, I thought I was using my mana CDs appropriately, etc. Well, the log doesn't lie. Let's look at what really happened on the kill fight.

Innervate - This happened not once, but twice - restoring a total of 42,146 mana.
Judging - 18 judgements - and a total of 74,483 mana returned. This means 63,234 from the judgements and 11,249 from melee swings. In a six minute fight, with an eight second cooldown - This is unacceptable. In the words of the Emporor to Lorgar - Son, I am dissapoint. Judging on CD I should be getting 7 off per minute. That would return 158,000 mana in 6 minutes. At the very least I should be getting off one every 15 seconds. This is an area to work on.
Detonate Mana - This is the buff that shows up in WoL when you use Tyrande's Favorite Doll. I hit it three times, which is perfect for a 6 min fght. Well done.
Arcane Torrent - I hit this twice, probably because I was staggering it with the Doll. I could have eeked out another one for an extra 6k mana.
Divine Plea - I only used this once, because the 50% healing debuff scares me. There are probably more opportunities to use this, especially with a /cancelaura macro.

So in total, my self return of mana can use some improvements. Judge a little more, and that will really help. If I could have gotten six extra judgements in, plus another torrent, that would be 26,876 mana extra - equivalent to an innervate.

Self Buffs and CDs

This is an area where I am a giant pile of fail. I have three healing boost CDs, Lay on Hands, and two damage reducing CDs. Guess how many I used? If you guessed zero, you'd be right. Avenging Wrath? Zero. Divine Favor? Nope. Hand of Sacrifice or Aura Mastery? Again - no. I didn't even use Lay on Hands, even if it was only for the mana return.

In short, this shows me where I have a mASSive area for self improvement, and things I can really work on for future raids. If this log was included in a Holy Paladin app, these are the first things I'd zero in on.

Other things to zero in on

First, Tower of Radiance. This three point talent resulted in me getting a whopping 4 Holy Power in the six minute fight. Four. Now, maybe I'm leaning on Holy Light too much for the work. Maybe I'm leaning on BoL to do too much of my healing. Out of 14 Divine Lights, and 12 Flash of Lights - only 4 of those were on my beaconed target (the only tank in this instance).

Now, maybe I'm leaning on Holy Light too much, that is certainly possible. I had 55 Holy Lights, and 47 Holy Shocks. My Holy Lights were spread fairly even around the raid, so were my Holy Shocks - but only 17 Word of Glory? A 6 minute fight should give me closer to 60 Holy Shocks - and that's assuming I don't get any Daybreak procs. 60 Holy Shocks is 20 Words of Glory, and again, that assumes no Eternal Glory procs. Since WoL tells me I got 18 Daybreak procs - 47 Holy Shocks just isn't enough. Since I'm only showing 6 Holy Power from Eternal Glory, I guess that wasn't too bad.

The last dig

Finally, I can look at some of the other buffs and procs to see just how effective they are.

Giant Wave - from my Darkmoon card, this had a 99% uptime. That's a bonus of 400 spirit for the entire fight.

Heartsong - My weapon enchant, this was up for 59% of the time, with 16 procs. This means I had a bonus of 200 Spirit for 4 minutes of a 6:23 encounter. That's certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially given the cost.

Conviction - 96% uptime. This means I have enough crit to keep the buff up, and don't need to worry about stacking more - I can focus on Spirt and Haste instead.

Infusion of Light - only 12 procs out of 47 Holy Shocks. Maybe I do need more crit after all.

Healing by spell % - So even though it looked like my numbers were way off above, my overall healing breakdown looked like this.
Holy Light - 55 casts, 14% overall, 12% OH
Divine Light - 14 casts, 10.5% overall, 11% OH
Holy Shock - 47 casts, 9.7% overall, 8.1% OH
Flash of Light - 12 casts, 6.8% overall, 0% OH
WoG - 17 casts, 5.1% overall, 8.5% OH

Holy Radiance - 6 casts, 9.5% overall, 36% OH (ouch)
Light of Dawn - Tough to call, WoL counts each person hit as a cast - so 28 people hit overall, for 3.5% of the healing and 17% OH

Conclusion

My spell selection is fine. I need to work on using my CDs a lot more, judge a little more, and use Holy Shock a touch more. This week CD usage will definitely be my focus, and this gives me some clear goals to work on. After all, it's tough to know if you're getting better, if the only guide you have to go by is "did we win?".

In short, I'm bad, and I should feel bad too.

This tells me I'm casting a wide mix of spells, not using FoL on the wrong person, and probably have a fairly solid healing rotation and grasp of what heal to use when.

The power of WoL - finding your own mistakes

So we saved Valithria on H 25m last night. We brought in a tenacity pet to make use of the HL glyph splash heals, and it probably would have worked really well.

Unfortunately, I made a massive - nay gigantic - mistake. One that I will probably have to deal with for an eternity. This mistake is inline with the time Rage was calling out the bomb targets on Baron Gheddon, and then blew up the raid because he was yelling at someone. Or when I pulled the Twin Valks in Holy gear (while tanking).

I could probably have hidden this mistake from everyone except the most experienced of WoL readers, or at least another Holy Paladin who's used to reading the logs. I could tuck this mistake aside, pretend it never happened, and then go along my merry way. I will instead however, use this as a teaching moment - to show that even though I don't hesitate to call someone out for not using a flask/food/etc, that I'm also not afraid to admit my own screwups.

What I did wrong

Right before we started I switched to my PvP Holy spec, because I wanted Imp Con aura for the healers and I had the Glyph of Seal of Light in that build. I swapped out Librams for the 232 +SP to HL, and proceeded to heal the dragon's face off.

We had a tenacity pet parked near the dragon, so my HL splash would benifit from the 40% +healing provided by Blood of the Rhino (unfortunately that all doesn't transfer via BoL). I was keeping my Judgements up, and BoL and Sacred Shield on Valithria. The only problem I was noticing was that things seemed, slow.

I swapped a flask for my Int/Haste elixir combo, ate haste food instead of fish feasts, and still things weren't feeling right. Then on the fourth attempt it finally registered. I didn't have my Power Aura showing up for Light's Grace. I was getting 5 or 6 fewer casts per cycle (maybe more) than if I'd been setup properly.

That's right - by switching builds I gimped myself out of Light's Grace and the Holy Light glyph - the whole reason for having the bloody tenacity pet in the first place. It was a complete bonehead move, and one that won't be repeated. Because I checked the logs and called myself on it.

Looking at the logs

Looking at the WoL this morning I noticed I didn't have any Glyph healing on Valithria. I'd already expected that, but it wasn't cemented in until I saw it. I could probably do the math and figure out how much healing I would have gotten in addition to what was done - but I know it's just going to be "a lot". Enough so that we probably wouldn't have wiped the attempt before at 93%.

Conslusion

Everyone screws up - Even Rage (though he'd never admit it - btw you ate 18 goos on Tuesday night buddy) - and sometimes it takes someone calling you out to bring it to your attention. Sometimes it's not that obvious though, and a deep look at what you're doing (an After Action Review) can often lead to simple things you can do for large gains.

Use the tools out there. If your guild isn't running a WoL, run one yourself. It's worth it.