Without naming names or going into specifics, I have recently had discussions with a reliable raider who’s performance is not up to scratch. I thought that I would cover off my processes for identifying and improving my own performances and maybe you can take something from it.

As a raider it is imperative that you are not nieve to your own weaknesses. Lets be honest, their isnt a raider who couldn’t find a way to improve their toon and its performance on some level.

You should not rely on your class leader or officers to identify where you should be improving, identify what was working well and more importantly where can you get more out of yourself, in fact as a raid leader I enjoy raiders talking to me about their performance in an honest and upfront manor.

So here’s a couple of ideas for how you can gauge your performance.

Combat Logs

We have our raids uploaded to http://www.worldoflogs.com this is a great tool for identifying specific and also comparing yourself to others of similar roles in a raid. If your guild doesnt do this, take the initative to do so yourself.

A word of warning though be careful to make sure your comparisons are realistically, as a dps dont compare yourself to someone in a completely different role in the fight (i.e. if you were on add or cc duty, dont compare yourself to the mage who was kept on the boss the entire fight). This not only ensures you are not being too hard on yourself but also that their are points of similarity between you and the person you’re comparing yourself too.

Their is a list of things to look at in the logs;

• DPS/Heals – Well obviously this is a high level idea of how you went
• DPS/Heals(e) – Effective DPS is the most important, this is your damage done divided by the fight length
• Active Time – How long were you alive for?
• DoT/HoT Uptime – Big differences in this could mean you’re rotation is not right or you’re not focussed enough

Note When You Stuffed Up

If you stuffed up, stood in something, pulled threat, etc etc then you should make a note of the scenario in which you failed. It’s also important to clearly identify what killed you, was it an ability you didnt understand? Did you stand in something you shouldnt have? Did you stack on someone you should have?  Realistically most people learn by getting into an encounter so their is nothing wrong with stuffing up. Just make sure you dont make the same mistake again! haha

Visibility

If you are having issues with seeing things that you need to you may need to review your ui. Do you need extra addons to present information to you? Do you need to reduce the addons to make sure you can see things in game of note (green shit on the ground)?

Preparation

Be realistic about whether you were really prepared for the encounter you had issues with. If you feel you weren’t then read other strats, watch movies and study the abilities for the fight because this could be the difference between winning and losing next time round

Forums and Discussions

Their are plenty of other people raiding with your spec/class/role so ask the questions that you have of them, post on forums to throw ideas around.