ACT Help

[-=Hoss=-]

So, I've finally loaded and started using ACT, and I have some questions for anyone willing to help.  I've only got 1 raid to look at (In Lyceum) and like 3 group instances (unrest, CoV, and OOB) because i didn't know I had to turn on logging manually.  First of all, is there a help file for ACT?  I cannot find it and it might be able to answer some or most of these questions.  2.  I've heard that my graph for any given fight is supposed to rise slowly and smoothly and keep going up till the end.  I can't do that.  I thought I was, but I'm not.  I have a lot of spikes.  Furthermore, no one I'm with seems to be doing that very well either.  Some do a decent job, but they all usually seem to level out at some point.  And for the assassins, we always have spikes, which I'm pretty sure is where we are using the concealment combo.  My best graphs had a real sharp leading edge, then leveled out with 1 or 2 noticeable spikes, and sometimes a spike right as the fight ended.  I didn't pull aggro much if at all, so maybe thats all thats important.  3.  When I look at that graph, what am I even looking at?  Is it damage vs time, or DPS vs time?  The axis on the chart isn't labeled. 4.  Is the zonewide combat graph useful at all?  Seems like all it would tell you is if you fell asleep at some point.  It looks to me like I was getting gigged when the raid was taking a bio break.  Maybe it could tell you something if you changed something up mid raid, depending on what those unlabeled axis mean.  5.  On my individual parses, whats the diff between all outgoing and outgoing ref?  They are the same.  But incoming damage, and incoming (ref) are not the same.  6.  I see where it tells me how often I swing and how often I do damage (avg delay) is there a way to have it give the actual percentage of the time you crit hit or have a poison proc? 7.  How come on my avg dly, for melee its 4.14, for non melee its 3.38, and for all outgoing its 1.86?  These don't add up?  Is this because of DOTs? 8.  On the death report.  Any idea what I'm looking at?  9.  Is there a way to make it show me where I drew aggro?  Or at least where I took damage on the same graph with my DPS? 10.  In my resists report.  What does my tohit% mean?  Higher number means I had a higher resist? 11.  I noticed they seem to use red and orange (or dark red and bright red) for some of the items.  What do those colors mean?  I assumed it had something to do with when I died, but it don't quite make sense.  12.  Is there a way to tell how a particular CA was performing?  For instance, in one instance I was in, I wasn't seeing the damage done by decap a lot of times, and I wanna know if it was beign dodged, or if it just wasn't showing up in the regular window because the decap killed the mob.  Also, I want to see if I'm waiting long enough to throw the finishing blow.  I see where i can select the CA itself, but I don't see where I can tell if it missed or hit critically.  What do the different colors mean in that chart? 13.  Where does damage done with my bow show up?  Is that the slashing damage I see (both my weapons are piercing and I so use the slashing arrows).  What kind of base damage does a bow do?  If you have slashing arrows, does it all show up as slash? 14.  When a CA kills a mob, does it show you the full amout it would have done, or do you just do as much damage as the mob has left?  I see a couple of times where my finishing blow sis 400 hps damage.  didn't think it was possible to do that little.  And finally, I noticed on the zones where I used hemotoxin, it accounted for a lot more % of my total damage than when I use caustic (3-4% for caustic and 7-9% for hemotoxin)  Has anyone else noticed this?  Why is there any debate over which is better?  I wasn't getting credit for someone elses hemotoxin was I?  Not sure if anyone else was using it.  thanks -t

[LuddhaBuddha]

<p>Wow slow down man since you asked so many question and most of them i dont have a good answer too since i dont even pay attention to that stuff ill just answer a few. </p><p> The most important thing u should look at is your ext DPS thats your real DPS for the entire encounter, yes zone wide is important thats your real DPS for the whole raid, If you have hemotoxin aa then you parse is right, and no there shouldnt be a debate over it now that they improved the aa I do 9-12% with hemotoxin and about 5% with caustic thats why I only use hemo now.</p>

[Xebed]

1 - No, don't think there is, can try the faqs/forums at ACT's homepage for more info tho. 2 - Hmm havn't heard that myself to be honest...for me, i would expect a very sharp leading edge (assuming everything was up and being unloaded), since everything is in synch, then it would start to spread with additional large peaks every 1min (higher every 2mins with killing blade) from concealment sequence. 3 - this type of graph? <img src="http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1608/graph1rr1.png" border="0"> Horizonatal Axis is time elapsed, Vertical is DPS...rclick it to adjust sample resolution. 4 - Kind of depends, with ACT it gives you a LOT of info...most of it isnt of much use at the time, but its there if you need it. For example, you were on a raid - half way through a dirge is swapped into your grp for the rest of the night..did it make a big difference? that graph would give you your answer at a glance. 5 - No idea. 6 - I dont see the crit% as a column off hand...you'd have to calculate it yourself from number of hits/crit hits. 7 - Hmm not sure on this either - inst something i've really looked at (at higher than encounter level anyway) 8 - Not really looked at it before, glancing at it it seems more useful to tanks to see easily what was going on when they died. 9 - Doesn't damage incoming show on that graph already? (red on mine) - Also, if you r-click on an encounter and hit 'View Encounter VCR' youll get a lovely schematic representation of the fight, that should show you where you drew agg. 10 - Again, never looked at it much before...at a glance, higher tohit% means you were hit more often. 11 - Not sure on red, green - the encounter was successfully dispatched, orange - it wasnt (wipe?) 12 - Yes there is, Zone > Encounter(or all) > You > Outgoing > CA you're interested in. That will give you a summery of how it performed. 13 - Due to the way bow damage is logged, its just treated as melee damage.  Unless youre using special arrow types (as you mention) its always classed as piercing and lumped i with your melee. Base biow damage depends on a lot of factors, /weaponstat in game will give you a rough idea. 14 - Im almost certain it records the full amount. To check, just decap a <10 mob or some such...see how much damage is done. 15 - Yes,for me, in most cases hemo is more damage %'ages and situations where it isnt best vary greatly.

[-=Hoss=-]

<cite>LuddhaBuddha wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Wow slow down man since you asked so many question and most of them i dont have a good answer too since i dont even pay attention to that stuff ill just answer a few. </p><p> The most important thing u should look at is your ext DPS thats your real DPS for the entire encounter, yes zone wide is important thats your real DPS for the whole raid, If you have hemotoxin aa then you parse is right, and no there shouldnt be a debate over it now that they improved the aa I do 9-12% with hemotoxin and about 5% with caustic thats why I only use hemo now.</p></blockquote>Slow down?  I wont ever be the best if i take things slow! Seriously though.  Why is ext dps true DPS?  Seems to me the only difference in the 2 is when the timer starts.  Seems more accurate to me to start the timer when each person actually starts combat.  So, I get penalized for giving the tank 10 seconds to get aggro before I start up?  Or if we have a MA thats targeting too slowly?  I sense the arguments have been made before on this board, but i dont see them.  Please explain it to me.  Oh, and I think I only have 1 pt in hemo.  Cant wait to get it maxed out.  -t

[-=Hoss=-]

Thanks for the info, and yeah I guess I did ask a lot of questions, didn't I? Xebed, yes thats the graph i meant.  I see yours is pretty ragged too and has those peaks.  OK, so verticle is DPS.  I assume that must be a running average throughout the whole fight, because the numbers aren't going up to 5 or 10k (which is the range our 2 biggest attacks would be in).  So, what exactly makes us draw aggro?  Is it just like 1 pt of damage = 1 pt of hate, or do we get some bonus pts when we throw 10k of them at once? Yeah, guess it does show inc damage.  I just didnt take any noticeable damage in the fight i was looking at.  And I found the VCR too, thats kinda cool.  Still bugging me about what those colors mean.  I think I'll look for some boards on ACTs website.  thanks again -t

[Xebed]

kk, ext dps....its used essentially becasuse it leads to much more meaningful comparisons.  Its perhaps easier to realize if you think about the extremes: Imagine a fight lasting 1minute from pull to kill...every second of the fight, you hit the mob for 1000 damage...so 60x1000 = 60000 damage done, dps and ext dps are both the same since you were fighting the whole fight = 1000dps. Now, a necro lifeburns the mob for say 6000 every second for 10seconds that's 6000x10 = 60000...since the necro was only engaged for 10 seconds...his dps would be 6000dps..but ext dps would be 1000. Similarly, a wizzie manaburns the same mob for 60000damage and does nothing else....dps = 60000, ext dps = 1000. In each 3 cases the exact same amount of damage was dealt, 60000...the difference is in how it was dealt...non-ext dps would show vast difference 1000/6000/60000, whereas ext dps would show 1000 in each case. As you said, im sure theres  plenty of posts on it if you dig, but that's the basic gist. Aye, the height of the peaks varies with sample size....if you did say 20000 damage in 1 second then nothing else....looking at it over 1sec = 20000dps, over 2 sec 10000dps, 5 sec, 4000dps etc..even at 1 sec resolution act still wont give peaks = max damage dealt,not sure why, guessing its something to do with log file resolution or some such. Aggro, yeah, in general 1pt damage = 1pt hate..but there can be a LOT of modifiers on top e.g.. Hate transfer (you do a stab for say 1000 w/25% hate transfer...you only gain 750hate, tank gains 250hate..so relatively you only gain 500hate on the tank), hate increase s etc...also debuffs generate an amount of hate in their own right (there is a good dev post on hate mechanics somewhere).  After a while of playing with the same tank, you just 'know' how far you can push it without getting agg...just play around <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> with a new tank/group..start low and build up till you find where to sit agg wise - if tank dies and mob comes straight at you - you're doing you're job <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />