How To Parse

[Valikk]

Yeah the ops dummy is only on the personal ships, and only those ones are allowed to have the debuffs applied to them, plus the ship one is the only one that can actually be destroyed.

If need be, it is possible to go onto someones ship that does have the dummy, and you can do the parse from there.
If you need help and I'm on or someone that has the dummy is on, don't be afraid to ask!

[Soulfinger]

Ok. Thanks. Will hit someone up this week. My DPs will probably be a bit short of the 3,000 after debuff, but I have yet to augment my gear so still some work to do.

[Soulfinger]

Saved enough to get a training dummy and after a first attempt where I didn't limit his health, I got a clean parse (I think). Right now my DPS is at 3,535 and killed it in 4;43. I did have an adrenal (one that Galaxiya gave me) but not all my equipment is augmented.

I'd upload the parse, but xml is not allowed in the "upload attachment"

Edit... ran the same with Soulfinger and surprisingly did less damage. 2,710 DPS killed in 6:09. I always figured my Sorcerer would out-DPS my Jedi Knight, but I guess the sorcerer is good at AOE while the JK is better single-target. About 1 in 7 attacks was an AOE attack which obviously doesn't count for much against a training dummy. Soulfinger is also more agumented but didn't have a combat stim. I guess the sorcerer also has healing while the JK is more threat & self-preservation defensive cooldown things.

[Windemere]

I believe running a purple stim vs. no stim will make as much as 200-300DPS difference. Lightning sorc is in a very good place for single target DPS even if it has a lot of AoE damage, so you definitely have some room to grow there. In fully augmented 186 gear, I would expect a sorc to be capable of the mid 3000 range. Those class guides on dulfy can be very helpful, and I recommend doing some parses, consult the guide again, rinse, and repeat. It takes some time, but the rotation will eventually become automatic so you don't have to think about it as much, and that's really important when it comes to DPS against actual ops bosses where you don't have so much time to concentrate on your rotation anymore.

Good job with your work on this, Soul! The practice will really pay off. If you need help finishing out your gearing, don't hesitate to give me a shout.

[Soulfinger]

I think I figured it out... Soulfinger is geared for healing, so has a 100% force accuracy (rather than 110). That and a bunch of points into alacrity rather than crit chance & power. Even so I'm up around 3000 with buffs I think.

[Zyera]

I think I figured it out... Soulfinger is geared for healing, so has a 100% force accuracy (rather than 110). That and a bunch of points into alacrity rather than crit chance & power. Even so I'm up around 3000 with buffs I think.

That would do it, I would just simple create another set of armor for DPS and one for Healing, so it makes it easier for stat gearing and set-bonuses when we get those as well.

[Soulfinger]

I think I figured it out... Soulfinger is geared for healing, so has a 100% force accuracy (rather than 110). That and a bunch of points into alacrity rather than crit chance & power. Even so I'm up around 3000 with buffs I think.

That would do it, I would just simple create another set of armor for DPS and one for Healing, so it makes it easier for stat gearing and set-bonuses when we get those as well.

I used most of my coms to get the stuff I have . Am working on the DPS set though, and have to use up some elite coms as I'm close to the cap.

Screenshot of Poobah's parse attached.

[Zyera]

You are going to need to reupload it or give us a link, from the photo it's unreadable.

[Windemere]

Since we have some folks that are entering the fun and exciting world of parsing for the first time, I figured I would make a follow-on post here with a few tidbits of personal experience on how to get the most of out of your parse results. I'm by no means an expert, so take the anecdotal suggestions for what they are.

First of all, I will be making reference to Parsley here, because Torparse has been so unreliable and is now in some ways behind Parsely that I find Parsely better. I encourage you to create an account and upload your combat logs there. Here is a sample overview from Parsely with some of the important output highlighted:



1. The Obvious Stuff

When first trying to perfect a rotation, click on the "Damage Done" tab. Scroll down until it shows you a list of where your damage came from. It will be listed in order of least damaging to greatest. Compare your list to the class guides from Dulfy where the author will provide sample parse output. Are you getting your greatest DPS from the same place as the class guide? Do a search on Parsely for the highest parsing scores on the dummy for your class and spec. What do they look like? Do you need to change the prioritization of your ability usage or did you miss something key in your rotation? Some caution can be exercised there though as some people do unnatural things in order to get the highest parses (e.g., old sniper roll hack) and won't always help you to prepare for real ops.

2. APM

APM stands for Actions Per Minute. It's a measure of how quickly you are making decisions and activating your abilities. Your target number will vary by class, so again, use the class guides and highest parsing leaders as an indication of what your class is capable of.

But that is not all. As you get better at your class, it's possible that you may find that some of your abilities don't fire when you expected them to. "I know I hit that button and it didn't fire!" You may be right, and it may not be lag. Remember, most abilities are affected by the global cooldown. That means once you use an ability, the game is going to prevent you from using another one for 1.5 seconds (set aside alacrity modifiers). You'll get to the point where that can seem like forever, and you may be firing your ability well before the game is ready to receive it. The good thing is, this is adjustable! As you get more comfortable with your rotation, you may want to increase your Ability Action Queue:



If you change this setting to 0.5, it means that the game will accept your next action up to 0.5 seconds before the global cooldown finishes. I have found that as my decision making gets quicker, upping this value to 0.5 to 0.75 depending on the class and spec can increase my APM. Remember, this is just as true for channeled abilities. You can queue up your next ability before your thundering blast, charged bolts, ambush, etc., completes. Play around and see what value is right for you.

3. APM Part 2

Now we can drill even a little deeper. Under the "Damage Done" tab, scroll down until you see "DPS Breakdown by Time Intervals". It looks something like this:



Huh, look at that. At my second to last 30 second window, my APM was below average (37.59). Why was that? Did I run out of force? Did I simply freeze with indecision at some point? Was that when my wife came in and asked me if I fed the dog yet? Maybe that was the transition stage of going below 30% and my mind needed some time to remember how that changes the rotation. Either way, it can help to point out trouble spots for you and be a clue as to where to start looking in your parse for places to improve.

4. Refining Your Rotation

Click on the ability usage tab in Parsely. This gives you a very handy piece of information. This will show you the average time before activating abilities. Here is an example:



So how is this particularly useful? Well, I know that my serenity shadow essentially follows this basic prioritization of abilities:
[*] Force in Balance on 15 second cooldown.
[*] Spinning Strike (variable cooldown)
[*] Vanquish 9 second rate limit proc
[*] Sever Force 18 second DoT.
[*] Force breach 18 second DoT.
... blah, blah

I've only listed the key ones I want to look at right now, because the remaining abilities are prioritized filler. First, let's take a look at my two DoTs (Sever Force and Force Breach). It's important to try and keep them up as long as possible but not firing them too early (clipping DoTs). This means I want to see the average time as close to 18 seconds as possible. In this parse, I did well with force breach, but sever force was probably too long. Even though FiB and spinning strike are more important, 19.6 seconds looks too far apart, so it's something I should work on. How did I do with my highest hitting ability Force in Balance? It has a 15 second cooldown and average ability usage of 15.7. Not bad, but not perfect. Anyway, you get the idea. This can be very helpful to see how close you are to managing your DoTs, procs, and biggest hitters. Make sure you know their rate limits and try to maximize your hardest hitters.

5. Crits

I'm not going to spend much time on this other than to point out that you need to take a look at it when you get a good or bad parse. Was it because you managed the rotation better or because the force was with you? Keep an eye on what your average crit seems to be and decide on whether or not your low parse or high parse was an outlier due to unlucky or lucky crits, respectively.

That's all I've got beyond practice, practice, practice and studying the results of others who are better.

[Soulfinger]

Thanks Windemere! With that I also realized the text files show the parse info, and I could run it from that.

I put the two parse files into a zip file. Would love to hear comments and suggestions.