Spell Variance Returning in Shadowlands

[Darknessvamp]

Just to do the statistics ... assume 100 attacks with a +/- 5% damage.. the chances of you even being +2% at the end of the fight all up... statistically zero
same for being -2% at the end of the fight.

This is nothing more than a flavour change.

I'm not sure we can correctly do the statistics atm considering we don't know how often it's intended for the variance to swing to the positive or negative modifier or if their intent is that the 5% is a flat or maximum cap value. Regardless you're right in the sense we'd probably get something like Hunter One doing 97,500 dmg (lower variance) over a fight whilst Hunter Two is closer to 100,000 (average) so by value alone 2500 dmg less doesn't seem like much but my point was the logs would show different. As in someone is going to look at the logs see that Hunter One performed worse than Hunter Two and assume player error over the system screwing their damage rolls. Especially so if there are more Hunters in the raid that end up in variance between or even higher than the two hunters and this is without even considering how crits, procs and such would factor into it.

I don't think you play beast mastery if you think this doesn't already happen with the current setup.

Well the hypothetically is assuming static damage without taking into account procs and how they might be changed going into Shadowlands which is why I wasn't basing it on the current fluctuating damage numbers. Even then if they continue to stay the same the variance system is still likely to mess with damage rolls especially in regards to crit values.

This would only happen in like 1 in a trillion pulls. You seem to not understand what variance is.

So assuming an average of 1000 damage you don't think it's likely you could low roll and get 950, 980, 960, 955, 971 etc consistently throughout a fight? Have you played a Blizzard game?

[TrollHunter3000]

If half ur raid does 3-5% less dmg, that means a potential kill is a wipe, just cause Ion felt we needed some more RNG.

That's not how variance works at all. It's not a 5% variance to your dps, it's a 5% variance to each individual attack, that's way different.

[ONCHEhap]

it's an average change of 0% to damage and healing

Still,people will find a way to blame it for their low performance

[Wuusah]

Back in the days such damage variance came from your weapon choice (for melee skills). It has an impact on what kind of weapon you chose. Slow weapons, fast weapons. Close min-max damage values, wide min-max values.

This here is just fluff for nostalgia’s sake. It will have no gameplay influence whatsoever. It’s not bad, it’s not good. It’s who cares.

[Poppincaps]

All of your dps just put up their dots and then sit there and stare at the boss?

....What are you talking about?

[TrollHunter3000]

I'm not sure we can correctly do the statistics atm considering we don't know how often it's intended for the variance to swing to the positive or negative modifier or if their intent is that the 5% is a flat or maximum cap value. Regardless you're right in the sense we'd probably get something like Hunter One doing 97,500 dmg (lower variance) over a fight whilst Hunter Two is closer to 100,000 (average) so by value alone 2500 dmg less doesn't seem like much but my point was the logs would show different. As in someone is going to look at the logs see that Hunter One performed worse than Hunter Two and assume player error over the system screwing their damage rolls. Especially so if there are more Hunters in the raid that end up in variance between or even higher than the two hunters and this is without even considering how crits, procs and such would factor into it.

what? How often it swings one way or the other is literally what the variance is. It's 5%. Currently, without procs, if your attack was to do 100 damage each hit and you made 100 attacks, you would 10,000 damage or 100 dps if we assume 1 attack per second. With this 5% variance your attacks instead would do somewhere between 95 and 105 damage. If you do 100 attacks that do a random number of damage between 95 and 105, you will do between 99-101 dps literally 99.99% of the time. And even more often as the number of attacks increase.

[TrollHunter3000]

So assuming an average of 1000 damage you don't think it's likely you could low roll and get 950, 980, 960, 955, 971 etc consistently throughout a fight? Have you played a Blizzard game?

Consistently? No. Because that's literally not how variance works. You would roll up just as often as you roll down. If it's like a 10 second fight then sure, maybe you only roll up for that duration but the average fight you will very very very rarely do dps any different dps than if this change didn't exist.

[Relapses]

Consistently? No. Because that's literally not how variance works. You would roll up just as often as you roll down. If it's like a 10 second fight then sure, maybe you only roll up for that duration but the average fight you will very very very rarely do dps any different dps than if this change didn't exist.

They're bringing back the God pull. Honestly, this change just makes farming old tier content a little bit more interesting again.

[Railander]

If they're gonna do this they may as well bring back DoT snapshotting.

I, for one, would welcome our new Affliction Warlock overlords.

i main affliction and i don't like snapshotting.

in paper it's great, it promotes skill and knowledge.

in practice, you download an addon that will light up your buttons to the most optical mathematical dps boost when clipping that no human can match against.

[Nefarious Tea]

1d8 damage for longswords in 1/e AD&D iirc. Brutal if the dice were against you.

Hasn't changed in fifty years.

[Unholyground]

i main affliction and i don't like snapshotting.

in paper it's great, it promotes skill and knowledge.

in practice, you download an addon that will light up your buttons to the most optical mathematical dps boost when clipping that no human can match against.

Exactly, also snapshotting was a big annoying part of feral druid too lol.

[Cæli]

I thought this was only a thing in the past because of "pure" and hybrid dmg classes;
hybrid classes would have on average slightly lower spell damage, but high variance which allows them to occasionally do big crit
thought it was good design

[Darknessvamp]

what? How often it swings one way or the other is literally what the variance is. It's 5%. Currently, without procs, if your attack was to do 100 damage each hit and you made 100 attacks, you would 10,000 damage or 100 dps if we assume 1 attack per second. With this 5% variance your attacks instead would do somewhere between 95 and 105 damage. If you do 100 attacks that do a random number of damage between 95 and 105, you will do between 99-101 dps literally 99.99% of the time. And even more often as the number of attacks increase.

Except the spell variance is being applied for each individual spell usage not over the course of the fight meaning it's not showing how often the damage will be swinging and the likelihood of a balanced 50/50 or close to split of positive and negative increases from the average isn't likely. Basically it's
Average Damage +/-(Percentage Variance x Average Damage) = Actual Damage. with the +/- being randomly chosen on each individual attack.
Literally what they're saying is that there is going to be a variance but there's no guarantee they're going to balance it so it cancels itself out otherwise there would be no point to this change. Plus considering it's Blizzard it's definitely more likely it's going to low roll more often than high as they're not making this change to let players consistently get out a tiny bit more extra damage.

[Relapses]

i main affliction and i don't like snapshotting.

in paper it's great, it promotes skill and knowledge.

in practice, you download an addon that will light up your buttons to the most optical mathematical dps boost when clipping that no human can match against.

To an extent -- the issue with MoP Affliction (esp in SoO) was the power of Soul Swap more than it was snapshotting itself.

[huth]

Except the spell variance is being applied for each individual spell usage not over the course of the fight meaning it's not showing how often the damage will be swinging and the likelihood of a balanced 50/50 or close to split of positive and negative increases from the average isn't likely.

It isn't likely. It's required. Do you even know what an average is?

[Redroniksre]

Man they could probably just ban the people complaining about this and it would make the game 100x better. Did people not read that this was how the game was all the way up until Legion and BFA? Hey look nobody died back then! I am sure you will survive this time too. God damn.

[Swnem]

This is a very minor change that will not have a major impact to anyone.



So expect a sea of criticism in 1...2...3...

Well, you say that, but for an insignificant difference, it still consumed resources. It's pretty illogical and likely will have a performance cost as it's another dice to roll with every cast.

*shrugs* you can call uneeded criticism, but it's an uneeded change that probably cost more than it's worth. But, whatever. The change itself doesn't bother me. Just that blanket you cast to all criticism sounds well... wrong. Actually, it would make more sense to deactivate them all and gain some performance but what do i know? I should just comply eh?

[Casperite]

It does not matter if this is just '5% so who cares' because it is probably true. It is just small thing that will probably not change much. Crit chance luck is probably already more than that but...

WHO THE HELL ASKED FOR THIS???

This is another pointless and stupid idea that Blizzard wants to fix artificial problems that do not exist.
Meanwhile corruptions can literally one shot people on arenas, raids can be done with tanks only and this seems to be fine for them.
What is the reason for this? Who thought that this is perfect idea?
Ion agreed with Preach that all of these calculations are the main reason of in-game lag... and now they want to add another multiplier, LOL.

Who asked for it? Every single person who said things shouldn't have changed last two expansions. It is going back to what it was before Legion, seems exactly what I see people here asking for.

[Accendor]

Yay randomproccs

[schwarzkopf]

I'm not sure we can correctly do the statistics atm considering we don't know how often it's intended for the variance to swing to the positive or negative modifier

We can, I did them ... the answers are of the order of 1^-10.