How To Improve At World of Warcraft (or anything really)

[@im2craz]

Great video. Unfortunately, the people you're trying to reach are also the ones in the comments defending their own lackluster gameplay.

[@westin6455]

It was bound to happen, but that's okay

[@Jedithtv]

Incredible video dude. People really underestimate the benefits of just applying themselves rather than coming up with excuses of why it didn't happen TO them. Keep it up!

[@westin6455]

Hey thanks man, I enjoy your content as well

[@Forgyy]

Goated vid

[@westin6455]

Means a lot coming from the man himself. Thanks brother

[@ttrgodxyz]

Hello, great vid. Just one thing, from my own experience class discords and wowhead guides are not always reliable source of information about your class, if you really want to minmax, just learn how to read in warcraftlogs. As a tank I always look up top 5 parses on pure ST boss and analyze their openers, buff uptimes, stats, enchants etc. Then I use my own experience and pick what is best for me currently. By doing this I'm consistently parsing in the 99-100 range, even if I'm 10 item levels behind. And if you are not comfortable on your class as a tank, don't do this, don't int your raid group.

[@neverclevernorwitty7821]

Choosing to main a tank for the first time has been the best thing for me. I'm constantly uncomfortable, but I'm forcing myself to take responsibility and figure out what I am doing wrong and I've had the most successful M+ season ever, I'm halfway to my portals after starting just a few weeks ago and should get it done in the next week or so.

[@westin6455]

Wow man congrats!

[@joshcondy1844]

Honestly goated video. I have been noticing as I get more and more into this game my mental is getting shot down when I see my guildies who are a little higher ilevel than me are hit 95+ parses during our weekly heroics and it made me start to question what I’m doing wrong. We all come from another game where to get to worlds first level we had to sit infront of a dummy for hours a week to perfect our rotos, stock logs, and rewatch vods. It’s been so long since I’ve done that but after watching this I believe I have more of an incentive to do so due to the simple fact that I too have had the wrong mentality. I hope this video will get the recognition it deserves ❤

[@Nhouyengah]

Got my first top 150 kill on heroic Rashanan as frost mage, and after the mutiple reworks recently I wanna relearn the class ^^

[@lunaticgmd6427]

I actually have had to adopt a mindset in the opposite direction. I have a problem where I will instinctually eviscerate myself over the smallest mistakes to the point of being afraid to make them. Getting better at allowing myself to learn from mistakes instead of grilling myself for 10 minutes over slightly messing up a mechanic is making me a lot less nervous and helping me be more consistent as a player.

[@evidenz_]

You are easier on yourself than what reality demands and far harder on others than what they deserve. Wow that's so good.

[@cotytaylor8517]

Connecting bigger life lessons and philosophies with a game that I love is magical. Thank you for sharing this. ❤

[@davesscuffedpugroutes]

Valuable message applicable to all aspects of life, great pacing, nice humor, 5/5 star

[@Roshfps]

Based video. I had been feeling like there needed to be a video like this for a very long time.

[@Mepheezi]

Wonderful analysis. I just worry that fundamentally this mindset is wasted on video games as opposed to other aspects of life far more deserving of this approach.

[@westin6455]

I think that video games are a microchosm of life, which is why we find them compelling. As a result, the benefits of applying this mindset is a lesson that can be easily transferred to other areas of life, especially once a person experiences how effective it is for themselves. This is why there are a bunch of youtube videos about how Dark Souls taught people to persevere, and in some cases even prevented folks from comitting suicide. So - just because there are more important activities, doesn't mean we should treat games as if they don't matter at all!

[@hoorai_]

I can appreciate this video because I am/was a classic andy. Never played any retail xpacs seriously. Didn't think I could handle all the mechanics/rotation in retail- all of it was daunting since the learning curve is so steep. But learning as you've said in this video I've been able to get AOTC and 2.5k IO on arcane mage in TWW. If you're reading this- it is possible! Improve your mental and you can do it.

[@97piet]

This video is the most accurate description of DPS copium and my own mental i've ever stumbled upon. Chapeau!

[@fifagreen7]

yes 100% agree! i also think more people should change their minds like you or OPEN EYES even bcs this is the secret sauce to GET GOOD!

[@BathgateToushiru]

One of this videos that is so good inside niche (wow in this case) that should be outside niche

[@westin6455]

Thanks man I appreciate that

[@fronkacean]

Hey man, fantastic video - keep it up

[@estesthebestes]

Like the video bro! I am a healer player who's transitioning to playing more DPS as the game has gotten stale from a healing POV (top 1% m+ and glad pvp in that role). I've been spending a lot of time at the target dummy getting better. Good stuff!!

[@muphsiprivate]

Being able to play with the same people, do difficult activities without the stress and grind of finding people each time to do so, I think personally contributes a lot. My friend and I started playing this game in season 3 of Dragonflight. We are very high level Destiny 2 players, being top 35 RWF equivalent players there. But we are relatively alone. Finding guilds with the same mindset is quite simply impossible. That wasn't really a problem in the last 2 seasons of DF, as we were new and settling on classes and learning the game. But now that we basically understand everything, in Season 1 of TWW, we want to improve and do harder content. Not only is pug mythic+ essentially a coin flip on anything past a 9, but mythic raiding is basically a wall. Not skill wise, but proving to this community that you can perform. Having a guild or group, that allows you to put yourself in content and situations that allows you to grow, is a massive advantage. This kind of mindset is great. But when all you have to improve is pugging heroic and every single boss you do every week has extremely different variables. Your parses and personal improvement can only go so high. The max I parsed on Amirdrassil, which was my first raid ever, was a 95 in heroic. I've since 99'd in TWW, but it feels random. Every kill can be 5 minutes, or 2 minutes. I could spend 2 hours in queue, or 5 seconds. Hitting the dummies only goes so far. A solo player will never be able to reach heights like this without years of time. A good example is the +10 key threshold. If you have a group, no matter the skill, you probably got a few done within the first few weeks. However, pugging 10s is a genuine nightmare. It is a TRUE coinflip. 95% of the time, it's bricked off of someone else's mistakes. What do you learn from that? What self reflecting is there to do? Not only that, but it takes hours to get into a group. Or if you want to host your own, you do a +8-9. Then do the 10. Brick it and repeat. I empathize with the mindset of self improvement and the journey that comes with it. And I think it is mostly skill issue. But it is very demoralizing not being able to even TRY to improve. Bashing your head against the wall in pug mythic+, hitting the dummies and looking at an arbitrary number, coinflipping heroic raid kills that could vary your parse by +-5-10, or submitting logs to a discord that will tell you you pressed an unbuffed ice lance 1 time and that's why you're missing 200k dps, unfortunately will not help anyone improve past a certain point. People need to actually get in there and do difficult things. But for the majority of this games playerbase, I think that's a luxury.

[@westin6455]

Oh yeah man having a group is one of the big examples of a real excuse. Like I said in the video, there are all sorts of real and good excuses, but since we can't control those things, the best thing we can do is just focus on ourselves. No matter how good or how bad our situation is, we can always be better. In my case, I'm in a semi-casual 1 night guild that doesn't usually get CE, and doesn't do a lot of mythic plus. So for me, I basically pugged my way through like 97% of the keys ive done, including the 10's in week 1 and 2 early on this season. It's definitely harder than having a group, but not impossible. That being said I sympathize with people in your situation and I hope you find a guild soon. You seem self motivated which is the type of player that any guild would be lucky to have. If you want, you can add me on bnet if you ever want/need a dps for some keys. Westin#11821

[@shadowbanned3044]

Pugging 10s right now is actually quite easy, the difficulty is to get the right people because after nerfs you can't tell who is good or bad since everyone is close in score. Meanwhile some fotm specs (like Rshaman and Prot Pala) can get carried by a good team without carrying even 10% of their own weight. People who were stuck below +7 pre nerfs are now basically on the same level with people who did +9 pre nerfs, which is a huge difference.

[@SummerAdventures]

I can relate to this. I'm in a guild with people I like, but pushing keys really isn't their thing. Most of them play delves, and alts. When we try M+7 as a guild people are constantly dying from mechanics. I have a much easier time with pugs.

[@muphsiprivate]

@@westin6455Yeah for sure man! I hope I didn’t come off as vindictive towards your point and video. I agree with basically everything you’ve said. I guess I’ve become a bit jaded from this season because of the difficulty spike that mythic+ has sort of had with the squish. And the urge to want to do more difficult things and not being able to without a super slow grind is a bit irritating. A big issue with why destiny 2 has died is because the lack of difficult and challenging content for the 1%. We constantly want harder things. And never got it. I now am put into a game with this giant wall of massive difficulty (mythic raid and high keys) and it’s basically impossible to get into that content lol. But we’ll get there. It is very satisfying and enjoyable to see the small incremental improvements over the course of this year that I’ve been playing. Hitting a 99 on heroic was awesome. What jades me about this community sometimes, being so new to it, is seeing streamers and big content creators, (not someone like you), being out of touch of what the general player base has to go through. It’s like we are playing different games. Seeing people and groups with a mindset like this video is great to me though. Having to fight with my own community full of entitled players who can’t clear basic content but want the rewards from the hardest content is what I’m used to. When people realize that 90% of things are skill issue, I think they start to improve at double the speed.

[@Magoo2851]

Hey, this is a great video that a lot of players should relate to, I fully agree with you. But I'm not sure if "fully leaning in the opposite direction" is the right call, at least for me. I've long past realized I'm the issue. When I watch logs of other people, I'm not trying to diminish their success to ease my ego. When I train 10 hours a week on a dummies, I'm not doing it to be better than my pairs. I'm doing it to get better as a player. I'm well aware blaming the healer isn't going to help me improve. I guess my real issue is, even after realizing I'm the issue I don't seem to be able to improve. Maybe I just blame myself and do not put enough effort in getting better... I'm the kind of dude who used to change completely my key binds every 2 weeks just to find the perfect assignments and the easiest way to press button, because my mechanical skills, I would say are under average. I then train myself hours upon hours on dummies. I review logs during hours every week. I'm the kind of dude that can't go in a raid if I don't know every abilities and mechanics. Not going to lie at the start of a new patch, I'm quite stressed, having to learn all of this. But that motivates me, learning is fun and surpassing my fears also is. Now again we are at the end of the patch and I feel exhausted, having lost all the good will I had months ago, refuging myself on my alts, and watching more gold making videos than trying to improve. Anyways, I really think your video caters to lots of people. And I would love if you had any tips for me and players feeling like me. Keep up the good work !

[@westin6455]

Everyone has their own motives for gaming, and everyone has their own limits. My advice would simply be to compare yourself to yourself, and not to others. If you are even getting slightly better, then you should feel good becuase you are already in the minority. Most people are completely stagnant and content to just stay the same forever. Even amongst mythic raiders I have found this to be true. In your case, it sounds like you feel you aren't improving, but someone with your mindset probably is. Even if it's slow, I promise you even thinking this way is the majority of the battle. But, if you really are stagnant, or just improving too slowly for your liking, I would suggest finding someone for your class who is trustworthy, and watching their gameplay/guides and following their advice closely. This is a very helpful strategy. In the mage discord I mentioned, there are people who on average 99 or 100 parse in mythic, who STILL wait for Forgyy to put out a guide to even play fire mage every season, because he is a very trustworthy source and genuinely gifted at theorycrafting on that spec. All the best players lean on other good players, and you should too!

[@pontuslilliequist3372]

Super clean UI. Where can I find it?

[@westin6455]

It's a bunch of different addons. I don't use elvui so there's no real way to share it all at once

[@KorvoneMalone]

Really great message and also very entertaining, truly a good video

[@cyndinn]

Sharing this to my wow friends!!

[@Draik41]

Never understood play to get mad instead of play to improve.

[@itummy18]

Great video - only question = what plater profile is that?

[@westin6455]

Quazii plater and weakauras. I have slightly customized both to my liking, but you can't go wrong with his stuff. Another great plater profile would be Jundies plater

[@psimozdzek]

wise word, i agree

[@dependentmany8359]

Good stuff!

[@kessler2356]

4:44 through 4:58, Jocko approved

[@ownzye-3630]

Giving my 2 cents as I watch, somewhat new Player here, played some classic years ago but new to retail & its honestly baffling how many ppl with 2.2-2.5k rio still dont know how to play mechanics in a dungeon and then insta leave when their dying, all while using 0 defensives and 0 kicks XD I just dont get it, its just delusional

[@shadowbanned3044]

I dare you to pull 95%+ logs as a healer in a normal raid with 2/3/9 :P

[@westin6455]

Yeah healing can be tough im sure. Sometimes people will just play really well and you won't be able to parse because they aren't taking any damage. Just like I said in the video, there are real excuses, it's just not good to focus on what you can't control. Thanks for the comment!

[@nymphia21]

healing parses are fundamentally different from dps parses healing is a zero sum game, you can't heal more than is required, nor does healing faster help much Damage is technically also zero sum, as you can't do more damage than the enemies have health, but the ceiling is significantly higher.

[@shadowbanned3044]

@@nymphia21 Think you misunderstand how parses work. You don't have nor need to heal faster. When healers go for parses in guilds, they drop healers if needed. You don't heal "faster"... For DPS it's obviously different, which is why I made the comment in the first place. Ceiling for dps is not really harder, not sure where you got this from. It's literally a fixed rotation from start to the end. This is not the case for healing.

[@Shamde]

​@@shadowbanned3044You completely misunderstood their comment

[@shadowbanned3044]

@@Shamde I actually did not, if anything it seems like you misunderstand.

[@marton_horvath]

Just keep a hunter in your group for blaming purposes at all times. Easy.

[@DemolitionDieter528]

do all of this and still can parse 80+ in mythic

[@westin6455]

Yeah I definitely could've played a lot better on those kills. Thanks for the comment!

[@DemolitionDieter528]

@@westin6455 na i wrote it wrong.. i do all of this and still cant parse 80+ in mythic raids.. :D

[@shadowbanned3044]

@@DemolitionDieter528 Because he is obviously not giving any advice but just calling out the obvious 99,9% of all people learn at the age of 5. His "examples" are basically: You are a donkey who can't press 123 in the right order or you are already god tier gamer. He also claims that the environment is basically not the issue, which is factually and obviously mathematically wrong. He speaks about his own environment. The environment matters, to make this very clear and obvious, here is an example: Try to heal a normal raid with 3-4 healers right now, you will get absolutely garbage logs because people know the mechanics, are usually too overgeared + we had nerfs and there is simply nothing to heal. Now try to heal it solo and you will notice your parses will change. Now even tho this is not exactly the same for dps, obviously, the environment still matters.

[@FBHgamer]

Can we make a religion out of this?

[@DwarfishSpy]

No… I’m not the problem… the other 19 players in my raid are 🤣🤣

[@remco2057]

How to get those enemy plates?

[@westin6455]

Quazii plater profile. First you need the plater addon, then you import his profile. Another good profile is jundies plater

[@remco2057]

@westin6455 thanks, you are the best 💪🏻

[@powerplay074]

Why is parse so important to you, its a toxic thing. And sometimes you are targeted or doing mechanics or the raid is strugling. Only the performance in your current raid matter why ego drive internetsite parses.

[@kalibos]

This comment brought to you by the guy who dies to web blades every time

[@97piet]

Fellow mage here! May I politely ask if your UI is available anywhere? It's so clean and seems to fit my needs.

[@westin6455]

I'm not using elvui so I can't really share it all at once, but the core of the UI is weakauras, vuhdo for party/raid frames, bartender for bars/keybinds, and plater for nameplates. I use quazii plater/weakauras (that ive tweaked a bit) which you can find on his website

[@97piet]

Thanks for all the info, I think I can work with that. How did you change the minimap? And is your Mage WA available anywhere? Have been using Porom's WA for arcane but on frost it brings no real advantage, so i am considering swapping.

[@westin6455]

@@97piet The minimap is the sexymap addons, just a simple square skin. The weakauras are from quazii. You can find them here: quazii.com/the-war-within-mage-weakauras-ui-arcane-fire-frost/ You can also just us elvui and copy his entire setup, which is pretty clean

[@97piet]

@@westin6455 Thank you so much!

[@Dxnnysc]

@@westin6455 would you be able to link the vuhdu frames ? i cant stand this addons settings menu but i love ur frames!

[@Morbidt123]

How to get better at wow: better PC, more weakauras, and more addons 😂

[@westin6455]

One of the best mages in the world (manather) has a pretty low end pc and uses minimal addons. He's the goat

[@Achtland44]

Excuses and laziness

[@MultiLock0n]

Maybe i could take more responsibility in our doubles matches if my teammate didn't suck so bad

[@westin6455]

my back can only take so much

[@gurraglad]

sounds like too much work

[@Moonwired]

Some good points, but i feel like this only relevant for people raging at pugs. I’ve never really cared about people making mistakes, what annoys me is the *ssholes that ALT+ F4 in the middle of a key. That really boils my blood, especially in 10s when all I really care about is getting some return on my time investment, 5 crests and a vault slot is still better then nothing, even if you overtime by 10mins. I Honestly don’t care about taking my sub average 75% parses to 100%. I rather just not stand in shit and live the entire encounter. All the 99% bro’s taking turns blowing the raid up just to maximize their deeps is more detrimental to killing bosses then if everyone just focused on mechanic’s and parsing around 50%. You want to parse? Great are you in a top100 guild? No? Then parse on reclear. My biggest problem I have with improving “At” wow, is getting my frame rate to a playable 60+ fps, tweaking my addons and settings is my “prep” for progress, and it’s a weekly struggle. And i’m far from the only one.

[@westin6455]

Doing mechanics well is not mutually exclusive with doing good dps, or parsing. In fact most really high parsers are usually very good with mechanics because the cleaner and faster a kill is, the better it is for the raid. Nobody actually goes around wiping raids trying to parse, because if you wipe you can't parse. That whole argument is a nonstarter.