5.2 Shaman changes

[Nitwit]

Yes, using all parses makes so much sense. That's only logical when there aren't a huge amount of parses to begin with (to make sure the sample size is reasonable..) Why would you use that when you have top 100 and months of data to have plenty of logs?

Inb4 "but it's only 100 parses" it's the top 100. It's the top 100 for a reason. So what, a more FOTM spec gets lower on all parses because FOTM players are naturally bad?

Using the best 100 parses from every spec is completely arbitrary and entirely meaningless as a comparative metric, because population between specs isn't even close to balanced.

Raidbots has a sample pool of 21,393 Fury Warrior parses but only 8,816 for Enhancement Shamans.

[Endus]

Using the best 100 parses from every spec is completely arbitrary and entirely meaningless as a comparative metric, because population between specs isn't even close to balanced.

Raidbots has a sample pool of 21,393 Fury Warrior parses but only 8,816 for Enhancement Shamans.

Plus different standard deviations between specs.
Plus fight-specific shenanigans being overvalued.
Etc.

It amounts to deliberate sample bias. There's literally no reason to use top X models for class balance discussions.

[Deleted]

GC just posted on the EU forums an answer to a destruction warlock question for a single target buff. Guess this applies to elemental shamans as well:

Q:Appreciate the update Ghostcrawler, but still waiting on news of a buff for Destro single target damage.

A: As I said above, it makes more sense for us to implement mechanics changes before we tune all the numbers. Otherwise, you throw out all the tuning work every time you make another mechanics change. I will post when we've finished our 5.2 tuning pass so you guys have a chance to offer feedback.

We think Destro may be a little behind, but it's not much. Affliction PvE damage is too high, which causes many warlocks to go Affliction on every fight rather than considering options. That creates a big sampling bias effect on sites like World of Logs and Raidbots. The lower performing DPS specs appear even lower than they actually are because the only players generating those logs are uninformed (which also tends to mean undergeared) or just messing around. To get a more accurate test, you need to see a player try every spec under similar circumstances (gear, skill, etc.), and those data are much more rare.

The 2nd part doesn't really apply to ele as we can't switch to enhance without gear, whereas pures can.

Destruction is also great, but not quite as overpwoered as affli.

Look here:
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Scor.../7/30/default/

All three warlock speccs are top, followed by arcane and rogues.

[Thanntos]

It amounts to deliberate sample bias. There's literally no reason to use top X models for class balance discussions.

Even Patchwerk style sim rankings on Simcraft?

[Etherius]

I'm looking forward to these changes~
Ever since TBC I've been playing my ele shaman, that as far as I'm concerned, will never change ^_^

[Deleted]

It does, somewhat; a lot of Shaman go Enhancement because Elemental is performing so much worse. It's not as easy to switch, so if a patch suddenly hosed Enhancement and boosted Elemental you wouldn't see as fast a turnaround, but it has a long-term effect.

That's just why it'll take a few weeks/months to see Elemental's true recovery once they're fixed, though, as people gear up their Elemental spec again, not an explanation for their current numbers.



Because "top X parses" is statistically dishonest and misleading for a host of reasons, always, regardless of the amount of data. In fact, as you get more data, it makes "top X parses" models MORE misleading, not less.

I dealt with this in excruciating detail in a blog post a while back. The specific numbers are obviously out of date, but the math theory that is the point of the post is math theory, and never goes out of date; http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/880800

There are still more Elemental than Enhancement shamans. There's not a lot of change, though enhancement got a little closer.

12 months: Ele to Enh: 1.11
6 months: 1.5
3 months: 1.63
1 month: 1.51
now: 1.42

But it's not like they simply respecc, reforge and suddenly can deal competitive dps.

[Endus]

Even Patchwerk style sim rankings on Simcraft?

Sims are inherently NOT "top X" models. They run X iterations (usually 10k), and determine the averages based on all 10k of them.

They don't use the top 100 of those simulated parses for the same reasons top X models with actual logs are awful; because it's just deliberately biasing the data for no good purpose.

[Kinnetik]

The lower performing DPS specs appear even lower than they actually are because the only players generating those logs are uninformed (which also tends to mean undergeared) or just messing around.

Am I the only one slightly offended by this statement? It feels like he's saying Elemental is only behind because everyone who plays it currently is substandard in skill and/or messing around...

[Raiju]

I did statistics, and your little post means absolutely nothing to people who frequently hit top 100's (the ranks that would be involved here). Random variation? Not multiple kills in a night, multiple nights in a week/month, etc. You don't get so many people who consistently get the high ranks because they're lucky.
History? It can apply, but as far as I'm aware nothing hit live recently.
Player bias, given there were no rogues or warlocks in most of my runs (and a frost dk only if unholy can still give frenzy to others) I don't see how this could apply either. This doesn't apply also when multiple in the same run get ranks on the same kills consistently.

Player skill (and gear) is huge. Now at this point most of the people who are raiding frequently are geared. That means that this will have little effect on the results, although naturally some (what maybe we count 200 dps either way?)

Standard deviation obviously can't be ignored, but then having played a warrior a lot of the damage is controlled. Much like enhance in 5.X. Much like elemental. We aren't fire mages, if anything all 3 specs are closer to cata arcane mages. Still taking the top percentile of a large amount of players (yes 8k of logs is good for a 100 sample...) you are going to run in issues with specs that are significantly more RNG, surely this just runs into random variation though?

But then, half the people here would refute with spec being fine by using simcraft.. says it all about the general level of analysis around these days.

[Endus]

Am I the only one slightly offended by this statement? It feels like he's saying Elemental is only behind because everyone who plays it currently is substandard in skill and/or messing around...

It's referring more to the specs that are so low they don't have enough parses to generate reasonable stats, like Arms warriors. There's a certain percentage of "just faffing about to test some stuff" in the parses, for everyone, and for those specs, the faffing about is most of the parses in question.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 02:31 PM ----------

I did statistics

If you really had, and you mean something more than a course you took in high school, then you should have been taught about how to bias a sample.

Deliberately selecting a sample based on certain factors always produces bias. There's no reason to exclude data. Top X parse models are inferior in pretty much every imaginable way, and as I went through years ago in that thread, the differences we're talking about in standard deviations and such absolutely ARE significant enough to sway the numbers hugely.

We're already looking at successful Heroic kills. That already controls for skill, enough to eliminate almost all the really bad players. You don't need to trim it further.

[zenga]

It does, somewhat; a lot of Shaman go Enhancement because Elemental is performing so much worse. It's not as easy to switch, so if a patch suddenly hosed Enhancement and boosted Elemental you wouldn't see as fast a turnaround, but it has a long-term effect.

That's just why it'll take a few weeks/months to see Elemental's true recovery once they're fixed, though, as people gear up their Elemental spec again, not an explanation for their current numbers.

That's a possibility of course, but it remains speculation. Personally I don't know anyone who at the start of MoP wanted to play ele but figured they were gonna be shit and went enhancement instead. From my experience it's the contrary: most ele shamans I know play their mage/shadow priest/warlock alt at a much higher standard than they play enhancement (and some of them just rerolled to one of these specs). But if that amount of players is big enough to have an influence on the overall pictures, ... I have my reservations. Contrary to mages for example, where frost and fire dropped massively when all mages went arcane. Point being: for pures that rule of thumb is more or less established, for hybrids not at all. At least not to the extend to draw conclusions.

[Raiju]

We're already looking at successful Heroic kills. That already controls for skill, enough to eliminate almost all the really bad players. You don't need to trim it further.

This is what we call an opinion displayed as fact, ladies and gentlemen.

[Deleted]

This is what we call an opinion displayed as fact, ladies and gentlemen.

No, that's just plainly his opinion. However as Endus is well known here on MMO-C and been helping with lots of shaman related stuff many people take his opinions as very close to facts. You are free to challenge his opinion, but like it's been proven your solution got quite a bit of loopholes in it. Also adding the "ladies and gentlemen" statement in the end just makes you sound like a total douchebag, and it won't make people take your side most of the time.

[Deleted]

I wonder, anyone have an idea about what is the reasoning behind the recent "buff" to enhance?
"Mental Quickness now has the additional bonus of making your shock spells cost 90% less mana."
I just wonder, it is already at 75% less mana on shocks, so why is it getting even lower? Like we really need those few hundred mana

[Endus]

No, that's just plainly his opinion.

Well, specifically, it's an argument, backed up by the math theory that I posted from that post I wrote years back that I didn't bother to repeat.

However as Endus is well known here on MMO-C and been helping with lots of shaman related stuff many people take his opinions as very close to facts. You are free to challenge his opinion, but like it's been proven your solution got quite a bit of loopholes in it. Also adding the "ladies and gentlemen" statement in the end just makes you sound like a total douchebag, and it won't make people take your side most of the time.

And while I support people challenging my arguments, you'd better be bringing equal or greater artillery to bear, to demonstrate where my argument was flawed. People generally trust me now, but at the time I wrote that post, most people thought I was being a jerk and was wrong. This particular argument I'm pretty darned confident in, because almost everyone took a shot at it, back when I wrote it. I was in the minority then, and today, almost everyone uses "all parses", for the reasons I detailed in that post.

[Kaeth]

So, what is the chance that Blizzard will un-link the cooldowns of shock spells?

Better or worse than the chance that they'll give Lava Burst the same crit scaling mechanic as Chaos Bolt?

[Deleted]

Well, specifically, it's an argument, backed up by the math theory that I posted from that post I wrote years back that I didn't bother to repeat.

Yeah, I messed up the wording there ^^

@kaeth
The cooldowns on our shock spells are on of the things that's still a challenge in our dps spec, and forces us to think a few steps ahead if we want to maximize, it's a good thing it's there, even though it can be annoying sometimes.

I would also like some change to the lava burst spell, just to make crit worth abit more, but at the same time if that would happend, crit would probably skyrocket to our best stat by quite abit, as it alredy pretty close to haste and mastery right now (depending on talents ofcourse)

[Nebria]

So, what is the chance that Blizzard will un-link the cooldowns of shock spells?

Better or worse than the chance that they'll give Lava Burst the same crit scaling mechanic as Chaos Bolt?

don't think this will happen in this patch.
they would have done this already to test it. I think for mechanic changes it is already to late.

[Raiju]

Except what you don't understand is that I don't feel the need to prove myself because I tried doing that years ago and noone listened because they had their head too far up simcraft's flawed values to think of anything else (back when there were alternatives even!) It's no secret that there's basically no theorycraft and analysis left among the shaman boards. It got gutted a long time ago and there's a handful of people going around. All well and good for them but without challenge an incorrect judgement becomes distributed as fact because the rest of what they say is right.

Shoe-horning your way into a trusted position where all the trusted people left is nothing I will respect someone for. You may make a balanced arguments, you may put a lot more effort in than I will (and I will stand down as I honestly can't be bothered to show analysis these days) but there's a reason so many people struggle to do what others do naturally. They just follow blindly and don't test and analyse numbers themselves. looking at the spell coefficients yourself and going "well that doesn't make sense" just doesn't happen anymore. Once it's on one website everyone uses that instead of actually thinking for themselves.

I dissected your main points for the top 100 and you came back with nothing except "but standard deviation is bigger than you could ever imagine!". Why is it that consistently 2 people in practically the same gear using the same theorycraft in the same raid group gaining the same buffs at the same time and doing the same tasks - one consistently will pull 10%+ more than another? It's player skill. It's always been player skill, and it always will be player skill.

But I guess saying that people in the top 100 just got lucky is easier for people who can't make the cut.

[Sarevokcz]

It does, somewhat; a lot of Shaman go Enhancement because Elemental is performing so much worse. It's not as easy to switch, so if a patch suddenly hosed Enhancement and boosted Elemental you wouldn't see as fast a turnaround, but it has a long-term effect.

That's just why it'll take a few weeks/months to see Elemental's true recovery once they're fixed, though, as people gear up their Elemental spec again, not an explanation for their current numbers.

There are more elementals then enhas on raidbots (heck, there are more eleshaman than firemages or WW monks for example). And really, anyone who can competitively play both specs and can do more dps by switching specs, has probably overload of elemental offspec gear, as its one of the least used types of gear anyway. And anyone who doesnt, or cant be bothered to get the gear wouldnt FOTM switch anyway

And they have yet to do anything regarding elemental single target, so far there wont be any "months of catch up" if we dont get the means to catch up. talents werent even supposed to be dps upgrade, just giving us alternatives to the most used talents. So far, we got zero changes to single target dps that were actually meant to be a boost.