Was there a substantial shadow nerf with last hotfix?

[SFBayGamer]

SimC Build Date
Jul 23 2017: my simdps is 1.141m ST 300sec fight

SimC Build Date
Jul 26 2017: simdps now 1.069m same conditions, same gear, same talents (with only a +10ilvl of the exact same shadow relic difference, so should be higher now, not lower)

Nothing mentioned whatsoever in patch notes for Shadow.

Did I miss something?

[Yvaelle]

I didn't see a nerf, it could just be a sample size issue?

[SFBayGamer]

I didn't see a nerf, it could just be a sample size issue?

dunno, this was with raidbots which uses simcraft and actually neatly stores all the parameters of each test by date so I can quickly do a side by side comparison.

Maybe the prior build was overly optimistic? I dont main Shadow and dont have the ability to monitor every alt discord channel for chatter but figured someone here might know because they saw the same thing?

[Zirhark]

Likely the shadow sim profile has been updated in some way and is now more accurate than before. Or there is a bug. Either are possible, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Yvaelle]

dunno, this was with raidbots which uses simcraft and actually neatly stores all the parameters of each test by date so I can quickly do a side by side comparison.

Maybe the prior build was overly optimistic? I dont main Shadow and dont have the ability to monitor every alt discord channel for chatter but figured someone here might know because they saw the same thing?

Right, I'm saying I haven't seen a nerf - and I'm pretty attentive to Shadow changes: so there likely hasn't been one.

My explanation is that if you are doing too few simulations in your batch (sample size), which is common as it makes it sim much faster, you have a higher margin of error, which results in more variability.

There is only a 72k difference between those two, if they are both equidistant outliers from a mean, then they are +/- 36k in either way, that's +/- 3.5%: so if you aren't doing enough simulations, then that's an entirely explainable gap. How many simulations are you running?

[Naux]

SimCraft is not a representation of the exact game bud.

[Zirhark]

Rule #1 of the how to priest shadow community, Don't sim yourself. 99% chance you're doing it wrong anyways. Check out our discord if you want a font of information as well as the most up to date changes and thoughts on shadow priest. Also https://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8687 is a link to all the guides and stat weights as well as most information you'll need/want.

also incase you (or anyone else) needs it, https://discord.gg/HowToPriest

Cheers.

[dmfg]

If anything, it seems like they fixed some SimC bugs, as the old profile seemed to over estimate DPS. Not noticed any in game change at all.

[davesignal]

Rule #1 of the how to priest shadow community, Don't sim yourself. 99% chance you're doing it wrong anyways. Check out our discord if you want a font of information as well as the most up to date changes and thoughts on shadow priest. Also https://howtopriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8687 is a link to all the guides and stat weights as well as most information you'll need/want.

also incase you (or anyone else) needs it, https://discord.gg/HowToPriest

Cheers.

I really hate that shadow is the one spec in the entire game where the eternal mantra of "sim yourself" is wrong, because of how overwrought and fucked up the spec as a whole is.

[Kilee25]

It's more complicated than that. Shadow can be simmed by "normal people" and you can get "good enough" results for about 80% of the game. There's a point of target difficulty however where generic, almost-right results aren't good enough. That point is a moving target somewhere between mid-heroic and mythic, depending on a myriad of factors surrounding how you play and what your personal skill level is. Spriest community for the past few years really focuses on this upper range of players, and everything else is considered a don't-care or even harmful-to-the-class view. This doesn't mean you can blindly run a sim and figure out what's going on, but there's degrees of acceptable effort, depending on what you are doing and what level of the game you are playing.

The thing is, almost all classes would benefit from this type of upper-level analysis. There's always more to it. So I think the "perception" that other classes are simmable by individuals, while spriests are not, is a bit of a misnomer. It's more that other class communities don't stop normal people from simming by telling them that they can't do it, and to stop bothering trying.

However, I do think it's true that spriests have an extremely difficult APL to "get right".

Enh, I worry that I haven't explained my point of view very well, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say.

[Gurg]

... Spriest community for the past few years really focuses on this upper range of players, and everything else is considered a don't-care or even harmful-to-the-class view....

How you wrote it.. It sounds like a bunch of egoistic ppl that have phobia that "normal" people sims can harm their delicate class which they are pleased with. Afraid that something might change.


On the other hand, i do agree that classes need more of those "higher-end" dedicated people to push the class to the limits. However, on other-other hand that sounds like a bad approach because.. well "normal people" need help too, a "dont-care" attitude looks kinda.. like i wrote it above.

OFC, no offence to anyone.

[davesignal]

The goal of high level theorycrafting for awhile has been, if not exclusively then at least in part, perpetuating its own position as an essential pillar of the community. Has been ever since people became preoccupied with stuffing Simcraft APLs with strange, brittle bits of optimization that threatens to fall apart in the hands of the average player, in lieu of optimizing robust, reliable rotations that produce consistent results.

Basically, like Kilee said: it's a mindset that mythic raiders are the only players worth caring about. Ironically, they're the people who probably need theorycrafting and guidance least of all.

[Kilee25]

Pretty much.