Enhancement: Live vs PTR (Sims)

[bearlolzx]

AS > hailstorm on live

[Muh]

AS > hailstorm on live

What? Why would you even consider writing this?

[Rallaster]

What? Why would you even consider writing this?

Bear = troll

[Deleted]

What? Why would you even consider writing this?

Also depends which version of Simcraft you run, one of the latest versions, sims out hailstorm as a 40k dps loss for me vs AS... I'm assuming because it's using ptr values as live..

[Deleted]

I have 1 question. Are all these sims considering the new tier sets? Or are we siming dps without the set bonus. All I'm saying is maybe the set compensates for the nerf and puts us in a good spot?

[Gunwolf]

Just look at Guam:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...962&dataset=90

Whatever you look at, we're far from overpowered. In fact, we're currently one of the weaker melees in top mythic raiding. "We can pull our weight" is somewhat weird. Because by that logic, you say it's okay to be weak as long as we arent too far behind? Currently, only monks and dks are on ST behind us, but pretty much everyone has more and stronger AOE burst.

If a spec has only single target dps, it has to be strong in that department and not mediocre.

I see Fury, DH, DK's, and Monks below us in the link you just posted. Enhance is also in the top third there... I'm not really seeing the problem here, that is a pretty good spot. Enhance has been doing pretty good so far and competitive in raids or M+.... we got good single target, decent cleave, and good utility.

Usually people look at 75 or 80th percentile, not 90 or 99%. Those top parses are like outliers, its not typical but rather someone with BiS who gets perfect rng rolls and doesn't make for a good comparison. Also, looking at mythic difficulty is fine since it is looked at as the high standard, but heroic gives you way more parses then mythic which also means more reliable data.

Just few simcraft results:

Ret T19M sims 430k on live and 449k on PTR.

Enh T19M sims 440k on live and 416k on PTR. Optimizing that profile with better APL and best talent spec improves it to 422k.

So Rets got buffed by 4%, we got 3-4% nerf. Considering ret gets an overpowered trinket in Nighthold (which is pretty weak for us) and others have stronger set bonuses, the current balancing isnt fair. Rets are already on our level in raids and have much better AOE. That's why it's time to tell that something is going completely wrong on PTR. If we don't do it, noone will.

Relative to rets, we lose about 8%. That's a lot in raiding environments. Especially if you look at those statistics.

I personally don't really trust simcraft results... esp not PTR, maybe after the patch goes live and they update the sims. There are a thousand things that could be off when coding like certain talents, abilities, trinkets, or set bonuses that can skew results. The SA trinket for example, when people found out the appendages could proc SB they updated the coding to reflect that and it changed the sim results for dps as well as BiS gear/trinkets by alot. There is also the fact that its a patchwerk fight and doesn't take into account various raid mechanics, single vs cleave vs aoe, and stuff like that.

Using the sim to try and get a basic idea of what talents might be better or which trinket combo might be best is a good use of a sim.... using it to judge your class vs every other class seems like asking too much. It gives a very general idea but people act like whatever the sim puts out is fact. Better to wait till you have a good amount of live data w/ combat logs to compare.... if we are underperforming in live raids then I'd say its worth complaining about.



If I had to criticize something it would be that our legendaries don't seem as creative, useful, or playstyle changing as some other classes.... and I don't like our 4 set bonus at all, with enough mastery it seems almost useless. Instead of LL giving chance to proc SB, I would have much preferred if SB buffed LL.... like SS via SB procs would stack a buff, once this buff gets to say 5 stacks then our LL hits for triple damage or something. We rarely use LL, but this way after enough SS's we might actually want to use LL once its buffed and does a ton more damage. Or if that is too complicated, then just have LL proc a stronger SS... that way regardless of if we have SB or not it will always be useful, whereas if we already have SB and use LL the proc is wasted. Just my opinion tho... maybe with the nerf to secondary stats the 4set will actually still be useful (doubt it tho).

[Imnick]

The four set is very useful, once you pick it up then CL drops completely from our rotation and LL then smoothes out long gaps without procs.
The issue is it is that while this is a good thing for our rotation it's not necessarily a huge dps boost in all circumstances. It raises the average because it means less luck is needed, but if you were having a really lucky fight its benefit is marginal.

[Deleted]

I see Fury, DH, DK's, and Monks below us in the link you just posted. Enhance is also in the top third there... I'm not really seeing the problem here, that is a pretty good spot. Enhance has been doing pretty good so far and competitive in raids or M+.... we got good single target, decent cleave, and good utility.

Top warriors play Arms, so fury warriors are the same class. And i said clearly behind us - and DHs/Fury are only 2% behind us. We're 6% behind rogues and 10% behind arms warrs. That's nothing that requires the PTR nerfs we are currently seeing.

And we're not doing great in M+. We have some utility, but we need to pick 1 or 2 AOE DPS to have decent comps. And i'm not concerned about m+, i'm concerned about raiding performance.

And if you look at 75% or 95%, it's all the same picture. We are midpack melee dps. Not top. We're not ahead of rets, who seem to get decent buffs, where as we got nerfs. Simcraft just shows what every napkin math already shows.

I personally don't really trust simcraft results... esp not PTR, maybe after the patch goes live and they update the sims. There are a thousand things that could be off when coding like certain talents, abilities, trinkets, or set bonuses that can skew results. The SA trinket for example, when people found out the appendages could proc SB they updated the coding to reflect that and it changed the sim results for dps as well as BiS gear/trinkets by alot. There is also the fact that its a patchwerk fight and doesn't take into account various raid mechanics, single vs cleave vs aoe, and stuff like that.

Boah wtf. Simcraft just proves what every napkin math already showed. In BF Spec, we lost 10% crit and 40% Hailstorm damage. Hailstorm is currently 14-15% of our dps, so 40% is about 6%. 10% crit lost is another 9-10% nerf. So we'rer looking at a 15% dps nerf.

In compensation we got 16% to about 55-60% of our dps. Wait. 100% - 15 % = 85%. Those 85 + (0.55*85*0.16) = 92.5%. And yeah, the current CS spec is about 6-7% behind. With some optimization towards better talents, we gain about 2%. That's why we still see that 4-5% nerf, depending on gear and spec. The rest is pretty mathmatical (with those changes to secondaries).

Simcraft is just showing what every simple napkin math already showed. The 16% damage aura affects only slightly more than 50% of our dps, that's the problem some people like you don't understand. Simcraft is showing us losing 4-5% because we really lose 4-5%. The crit nerfs and Hailstorm nerfs were huge, that 16% buff is in pratice only 9-10% overall damage buff.

And none of the nerfs were difficult to calcaluate. 10% crit is the same as simulating with XX less crit rating. And removing 40% of Hailstorm damage is simple. The LL buff and 16% damage aura simply never were enough to counter the complete nerf.

In fact, if they added into that aura Spirit Wolves (8%), Artifact traits(>10%), Hailstorm (8%!!) and Stormlash (4%), that 16% buff to the aura would be nearly enough. But that aura affects only a pretty small percentage of our dps. Much smaller than some people believe.

Simcraft doesn't care about wrong napkin math. All it does is show the results of all the changes. And simcraft in its current release doesnt seem to have any bigger bug for enhance.

- - - Updated - - -

The four set is very useful, once you pick it up then CL drops completely from our rotation and LL then smoothes out long gaps without procs.
The issue is it is that while this is a good thing for our rotation it's not necessarily a huge dps boost in all circumstances. It raises the average because it means less luck is needed, but if you were having a really lucky fight its benefit is marginal.

That's okay'ish. With extreme proc luck, the set bonus is pretty much non existent, but it will be substential in some tries, where SB simply doesnt want to proc. I'm okay with it.

The real issue is that LL needs that effect baseline after Nighthold anyways. Without 4p, it's still better to dump with CS.

And our legendaries are currently a joke. Hailstorm is still 3% behind AS with 4p T19, so AS still beats HS with Akainu...

Akainu is currently nothing else then a stat stick. And one of the worst. Picking 910 bracers with haste/mastery will be a strict dps increase over 910 Akainu if the current iteration goes live...

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AS > hailstorm on live

HS > AS on live.

AS > HS on PTR. Even with Akainu...

[MakeMeLaugh]

Even with both akainu and ring?

Are we going to completely replace CL with lava lash once we get our 4pc? I didn't test it, but we barely use lava lash at all, which means we will barely use our 4pc bonus?

[Imnick]

Are we going to completely replace CL with lava lash once we get our 4pc? I didn't test it, but we barely use lava lash at all, which means we will barely use our 4pc bonus?

LL does more DPET and DPMS than CL on PTR, but we might still use CL because it procs SB and LL doesn't.
LL with the 4 set not only does more damage, more efficiently, it also has about twice the chance to proc SB. So yes.

The reasons we barely hit LL are because CL is always there on a 6 second cooldown, and because of Tempest and SA. With CL out of the way, LL usage increases quite a lot.

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So how about that... no balance changes since the last simc lists were posted, only changes to APLs and more accurate simming, and this happens...

http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19M.html

But no guys, the sky is falling and we're going to be third from last, better reroll

(Note: it's still not complete, this data is almost just as useless as it was last time people freaked out about it. Survival's APL for example is just fucked and doesn't work at all.)

[Bilgekhan]

LL does more DPET and DPMS than CL on PTR, but we might still use CL because it procs SB and LL doesn't.
LL with the 4 set not only does more damage, more efficiently, it also has about twice the chance to proc SB. So yes.

The reasons we barely hit LL are because CL is always there on a 6 second cooldown, and because of Tempest and SA. With CL out of the way, LL usage increases quite a lot.

- - - Updated - - -

So how about that... no balance changes since the last simc lists were posted, only changes to APLs and more accurate simming, and this happens...

http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19M.html

But no guys, the sky is falling and we're going to be third from last, better reroll

(Note: it's still not complete, this data is almost just as useless as it was last time people freaked out about it. Survival's APL for example is just fucked and doesn't work at all.)

1st class is 504dps, last class is 321dps.
It is unacceptable.
even this chart shows developers have no clue and talent about wow designing.

[Imnick]

Did you even read what I said about the last class? Or about how this list is garbage and not at all representative of how it will be on live?
Nah though it's more fun to baselessly complain.

[Arachnofiend]

The fact that Arms and Demo are at the top is pretty hilarious, those are the two most inconsistent DPS specs in the game. Anyone who knows anything about Demo knows that it's real world performance will be waaaay lower than the sims portray.

[bearlolzx]

tbh AS makes the play style more fluid; you get to use all of your SS procs from appendages for example

[Gunwolf]

Top warriors play Arms, so fury warriors are the same class. And i said clearly behind us - and DHs/Fury are only 2% behind us. We're 6% behind rogues and 10% behind arms warrs. That's nothing that requires the PTR nerfs we are currently seeing.

And we're not doing great in M+. We have some utility, but we need to pick 1 or 2 AOE DPS to have decent comps. And i'm not concerned about m+, i'm concerned about raiding performance.

And if you look at 75% or 95%, it's all the same picture. We are midpack melee dps. Not top. We're not ahead of rets, who seem to get decent buffs, where as we got nerfs. Simcraft just shows what every napkin math already shows.

Everyone is getting nerfs.... lower secondary stats, lower base crit but higher base damage, and other adjustments. They have the passive damage auras which can be easily adjusted if needed. I think Blizz has done a pretty good job of class balance and I have faith that if there is a problem they will fix it. I know you are just trying to highlight these problems early to try and get them fixed soon as possible, which is good, but give it time, a few weeks after Nighthold comes out they will have a ton of new data to work with that both Blizz and the playerbase can use to actually judge performance. If some specs are too high or low then you can be sure they will have a balance patch to fix it like they did for EN.

Also, "midpack" is a perfectly fine spot to be in.... we are top third overall in most of those logs so I think that is pretty good.

Simcraft is just showing what every simple napkin math already showed. The 16% damage aura affects only slightly more than 50% of our dps, that's the problem some people like you don't understand. Simcraft is showing us losing 4-5% because we really lose 4-5%. The crit nerfs and Hailstorm nerfs were huge, that 16% buff is in pratice only 9-10% overall damage buff.

And none of the nerfs were difficult to calcaluate. 10% crit is the same as simulating with XX less crit rating. And removing 40% of Hailstorm damage is simple. The LL buff and 16% damage aura simply never were enough to counter the complete nerf.

In fact, if they added into that aura Spirit Wolves (8%), Artifact traits(>10%), Hailstorm (8%!!) and Stormlash (4%), that 16% buff to the aura would be nearly enough. But that aura affects only a pretty small percentage of our dps. Much smaller than some people believe.

Like I said before, the sims are good for a general idea but NOT fact, they constantly update and get fixes and there are tons of variables that are not factored in which make our actual DPS very different. Taking those results and saying stuff like "well were 6% behind Ret but they got buffed and we got nerfed, what gives?" doesn't mean much cause it may be 6% behind according to the sim but that may not be the case on live servers. I am not sure about the math you have posted here, but it seems like you are subtracting the hailstorm damage without adding any DPS gain that either AS or Lightning shield would give. Either way... these are things that can be adjusted if its needed.... we just have to see what the numbers are on live servers and they can adjust from there.

Simcraft doesn't care about wrong napkin math. All it does is show the results of all the changes. And simcraft in its current release doesnt seem to have any bigger bug for enhance.

So how about that... no balance changes since the last simc lists were posted, only changes to APLs and more accurate simming, and this happens...

http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19M.html

But no guys, the sky is falling and we're going to be third from last, better reroll

(Note: it's still not complete, this data is almost just as useless as it was last time people freaked out about it. Survival's APL for example is just fucked and doesn't work at all.)

Thanks for posting this... so just like I said earlier.... a few weeks later, sim gets updated, bugs are fixed, tweaks are done, and you get much different results. Now Enhance is again back in the top third overall DPS. Is it still worth complaining about? We may get another update that puts us back in the bottom... or our actual dps in Nighthold raid may not be as high as the simmed results... or maybe its higher. Until we get actual logs from Nighthold raid in live servers there isn't much use in claiming our DPS is gimp or that we were overly nerfed or anything. If we are truely nerfed.... then Blizz will most likely give us buffs, they have been pretty good about it so far.

1st class is 504dps, last class is 321dps.
It is unacceptable.
even this chart shows developers have no clue and talent about wow designing.

Sim results =/= Actual, ingame results.

It shows you have no clue how sims work or how to use them. Like Imnick said, Survival's coding is off so it is not simming very accurately. It is pointless to use sim results to compare one class to another.... you use em for gearing choices like which trinket might give you more DPS or maybe which talent build works best, but even that should still be taken with a grain of salt and still tested in game to make sure its right. It amazes me how many people treat simcraft results as if they were actual in game data.

[Deleted]

Even with both akainu and ring?

Are we going to completely replace CL with lava lash once we get our 4pc? I didn't test it, but we barely use lava lash at all, which means we will barely use our 4pc bonus?

Ring and Akainu are enough to mak Hailstorm a small increase (1.5%) over AS.

[Imnick]

The sims that were being run in Discord last night implied that actually using Ring and Aikanu's and Hailstorm is effectively DPS neutral to the ordinary build... which means you'd be better off using AS and almost any other item.

I'm expecting HS to get a small buff before we go live though.

[Deleted]

Everyone is getting nerfs.... lower secondary stats, lower base crit but higher base damage, and other adjustments. They have the passive damage auras which can be easily adjusted if needed. I think Blizz has done a pretty good job of class balance and I have faith that if there is a problem they will fix it. I know you are just trying to highlight these problems early to try and get them fixed soon as possible, which is good, but give it time, a few weeks after Nighthold comes out they will have a ton of new data to work with that both Blizz and the playerbase can use to actually judge performance. If some specs are too high or low then you can be sure they will have a balance patch to fix it like they did for EN.

You dont understand anything at all. Those sims already include those "nerfs". E.g. the ret profile does more damage although it has less crit chance, less attacks (becuase of less haste) and so on. Rets didnt lose 5% crit, they only lost SDM (7-8% of their damage) and gained 12%. The difference is: their aura includes nearly all of their dps. Not only 55%.

That's our problem: we have thousands of damage sources, others have 4 or 5 main abilites and those abilites make up 90% of their damage.

Like i told you, those sim results make perfect sense. Even Purge said one week ago, that after his calculation, the talent changes alone are a 5% nerf still (16% damage lost, about 11% gained). So that's not absurd. I know about a simcraft bug, but that's no issue because my FT uptime is already nearly 100%.

And honestly, i dont care about survivals coding. I just wanted to show that a lot of classes got buffed after all those changes, we got nerfs (ret gained about 4%, we lost about 4-5%). That's it. This mostly includes just the changes to talents and makes perfect sense.

And how is anyone supposed to deliver ingame results? I can show you that Hailstorm is only 7.5%-8% ingame. Just like in the sims, depending.



And about that stupid screenshot to simcraft: THAT is stupid. I didn't compare absolute values. In fact, could this person share their APLs so we can take a closer look at that? I'd love to check their new APL if there are really improvements. Asbolute values were always stupid, i didnt care about those. I saw enough sims where people optimized with legendaries or higher stats on gear. I'd love to check on that new APL, if there's one with better results.

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The sims that were being run in Discord last night implied that actually using Ring and Aikanu's and Hailstorm is effectively DPS neutral to the ordinary build... which means you'd be better off using AS and almost any other item.

I'm expecting HS to get a small buff before we go live though.

Small? If needs to go up from 21% back to at least 30% to be competitive with 4p set bonus. And considering it adds some complexity and rampup, it should go up to 35% again. You need to understand that Hailstorm got hard nerfs in 7.1.5 and Nighthold, even without the Attackpower change.
The not so famous nerfs were:
- (5/10% crit lost)

- Buffs to Lava Lash
- Buffs from Aura (LL, SS and so on)
- Buff to rockbiter (generates now 5 MS more)
- T19 Set, especially 4p, made using LL to dump MS much better
- Nerfs to secondary stats -> less mastery

All those changes devalued Hailstorm over AS. Why? Because attack speed profits from buffs to our abilities. Hailstorm pretty much stays the same.

Not to mention that keeping up HS now costs a lot more dps since they massively buffed LL as filler spell. Right now, in the most actual Simcraft version, keeping up Frostbrand still costs over 20k DPS, but Hailstorm is only 36k. While AS is straightout 30k dps gain. So AShas 30k net dps gain, Hailstorm only 16k (36k-20k).

[MakeMeLaugh]

Stuff is getting so confusing now. Currently I have Akainu, ring and the CL chest legendaries. I'm starting to think next patch it will be better to not use HS anymore and stick to the ring and chest, even though the chest does nothing on single target, simply because it's a better stat stick than Akainu.

This whole thing with HS makes no sense, since it should be the best option in that tier for being an active talent rather than a simple passive.

[Rouncer]

Stuff is getting so confusing now. Currently I have Akainu, ring and the CL chest legendaries. I'm starting to think next patch it will be better to not use HS anymore and stick to the ring and chest, even though the chest does nothing on single target, simply because it's a better stat stick than Akainu.

This whole thing with HS makes no sense, since it should be the best option in that tier for being an active talent rather than a simple passive.

Thing is it's not really any more active then any of the other options. It's a button pressed on a fixed schedule to maintain a buff. If you spec either of the other talents on that tier you aren't just going to be twiddling your thumbs without that button to press. You will be using a different active ability depending on your opponent(s) and MS levels. Which seems to me to be just as skill involved as adding a second "DoT" to our rotation.