I often hear people lament when confronted with their (so-so) dps after a raid that 'those meters are inaccurate'. So I made it my mission to have the best dmg meter out there to catch out the slackers ;-)

So what is the accepted 'gold-standard' dps meter? I use Recap atm, but is there something better/more accurate?

Any meter is only as accurate as the combat log range of the players involved in making it. If everyone is in range, it's accurate. The two ways to make sure this is true is to either expand your combat log range, or sync with multiple people running the same mod to make sure the entire group is covered within the existing range.

SW_Stats and DamageMeters sync.

Personally, I use the extended combat range and a self-modified version of SW_Stats that doesn't sync (my Timeline preferences are different from most people I run with).

Either run these inside the game:
Or modify your config.wtf for those options (I forget the exact syntax right now).

awesome great

My config.wtf file has this in it:

SET CombatLogRangeParty "200"
SET CombatLogRangePartyPet "200"
SET CombatLogRangeFriendlyPlayers "200"
SET CombatLogRangeFriendlyPlayersPets "200"
SET CombatLogRangeCreature "200"
SET CombatDeathLogRange "200"
SET CombatLogRangeHostilePlayers "200"
SET CombatLogRangeHostilePlayersPets "200"

I'm currently using Recap. I like the way I can get a basic summary of damage dealt/taken/healed, and if I want to I can get intricate details like how much of Rogue#2's damage was from his poisons, how often my chain lightning was resisted, etc.

I use MinnaStats:
http://ui.worldofwar.net/ui.php?id=3500

I'll give this one a try tonight. I've tried DMs, Recap and in the end stuck with SW_stats.

Sw-Stats was updated to 2.0.3 a couple of days ago.

http://forums.sw-stats.com/viewtopic.php?t=303

If you're looking to catch slackers, it doesn't really matter what damage meter you use. Either way, the players with the lowest damage/healing done are the slackers.

Provided you set combat log range to the max, the only valid excuses for "your DMs are inaccurate" have to do with the inclusion of pet damage and totem damage. All of them are accurate otherwise and it's just a matter of which you prefer for reporting methods, memory usage and which extra stats they track.

"Pet damage" bugs also includes warlocks enslaving somethign and then being awarded all the damage one by mobs of that name, enslaved or no (took me a moment to track that one down when one of our warlocks ZOOMED up in Kara on the weekend... worked out it was due to enslaving dreadbeasts in the cellar and being awarded all damage done by all dreadbeasts). Getting 60k from a trash fight where the next highest is getting about 20k, multiply that by 5 or 6 packs of demon hounds...

I'm personally using MinnaStats at the moment, which Alcaras linked above, but then I'm a dog person so a DM with a pciture of a dog appeals to me

I always enjoyed that DamageMeter used the new built-in raid/party channel for sync'ing. At the times the raid/party (and guild) channels were implemented I was using SW_Stats (since I liked it better), and I'm curious if SW_Stats has since gone over to the built in channels? I never ever want to run a mod that has to use actual chat-channels.

I do like DMs ability to track individual spells for my use. I don't think I ever found that feature in SW. Though I wish DM would seperate crits and hits, instead of just 1 "average".

SW_Stats has bug where if you do not reset it displays your DPS as cumulative of the whole. If you need to see the dps you and others do and no I am not talking about amount of damage, but actual DPS you need to reset the mod quite frequently. It also counted damage done to my char from few netherstorm mobs as my own damage. These were netherray (67) and mana wraiths.

This is only partially true. Some meters parse and record data incorrectly for other players.

For example, SW_stats still has issues with hunter pets (pets in general, really) and hunter autoshots, counting a hunters damage as Munter did x damage and Munter' s Autoshot did y damage, rather than adding the two. This is just one of many examples of parsing mistakes.

Generally such mods are better at counting your own damage without error so the only way to ensure 100% accurate stats would be to have everyone in the raid run a mod capable of syncing.

Alternatively (I don't have any links to this at present, sorry) you can take the combat logs themselves and parse them outside of wow. I did come across a parser which did this and broke various statistics down in a very similar manner to recap. The basic idea was that 5 or so people sent their combat logs to one person for parsing, the script did its job and that raid would be posted publically for people to poke at.

It all depends just how accurate you want to get. Generally (with the possible exceptions of hunters, who seem to break most addons) any meter will show slacking.

WoW Web Stats

I'm considering switching over to WWS, but I'm curious-- how well does the timelining function on it work? Can you log the whole night and pull out specific attempts after parsing? Or do you need to /combatlog, fight, /combatlog, rename/move the file, /combatlog again, fight again, etc?

From my experience with WWS, yes, that's basically what you need to do. Although, my last experience was version 1.3a, there have probably been leaps and bounds made since.

I believe that bug was fixed months ago. Perhaps someone in your raid/party is still using the old version, contaminating your data.

I'd kill for an addon that would let me do this ingame. I even tried writing one that would let me pick out specific events and pcs/npcs and display the combatlog for them - that did not end well.

I can remember the same happening with Mind Control during one ZG run in which I was, uh, checking out mob abilities. It ended with pretty much all MCable mobs getting their damage and healing attributed to my Priest.

It's very obvious to me that damagemeters all in all are slightly inaccurate. This is based on one single AV game with recap/ damagemeter and SW running all three gave different results and none where the same as the score board of the game.

Closest was SW stats.


But do remember that there is much more to this game than beeing to notch DPS. I firmly belive the pushing to much attention to the Damage meter will end up in ppl pulling aggro and forgetting their shackel/ sheep WE just to be no.1 healer/dpser


To really say who is slacking and who is not you need more to look at what abilities they use and how they react to the dynamics of the game. At least thats how we do it in PVP. Put a warlock in WSG midfield and he will easily win damage done. Try to compare him to a hunter who's guarding in the flag. and only will fight the occasional rogue/ druid who'll get by.

Summary: I value more the ability to act/react than Gear and 1337-DPS

Not necessarily, but in a general sense yes.

Personally I use Recap, having tried SW Stats and DamageMeters. I like Recap's UI by far, and I like how it breaks down damage information with all the little details (averages, crits, % breakdowns by spells, etc).

Well obviously. But at the same time, with smaller raids, people have to pull their weight. You can't drag along a 300 dps rogue anymore, or something like that. Pulling agro or forgetting crowd control are obvious no-goes, and infinitely more visible.

If you ar hunting 300 dps rogues they can not blame it on a damagemeter, well maybe if the poster is ranged and player is melee, but syncronization changed all that and the in accuracy is more down to the %.

But do keep in mind that healing is now not going to be usefull since both Prayer of Mending and Lifebloom counts as the targets heal and not the caster.