Agony Stealth Nerf? (Affirmed)

[uconnfan34 4]

I do not see any posts on this, but agony may have gotten nerfed. I was confused when all our locks UA was top in damage for spells yesterday. It seemed like agony was not hitting as hard as is it used to, and now after looking around at other lock forums (and all the rumors going around), it may be because agony got stealth nerfed.

Edited October 2, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Lockybalboa 618]

Logs? GM confirm? Blue post?

[uconnfan34 4]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-wps53ioqm8j91jdb/sum/damageDone/?s=10110&e=10385

 

google "agony stealth nerf"

 

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1354883-UA-doing-more-damage-than-agony

 

going to test it again on iron jug tonight, but all signs point to that it was nerfed

 

there are no blue post or anything at least that I am aware of - looks like a ninja hot fix.

Edited October 2, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Omaric 246]

9/24 Malkorok attempts:  http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-dyb8pt3rhqjbdekq/sum/damageDone/?enc=bosses&boss=71454

 

10/01 Malkorok attempts:  http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-hho7wx29rz9zz00n/sum/damageDone/?enc=bosses&boss=71454

 

Based off these logs I can definitely see a shift in damage ratios.  This isn't the greatest sampling in the world, but I'll keep digging.

[Unburdened 0]

Looking at my logs, my average agony crit ticks went down from 80-95k the past weeks to ~70k. I would chalk it up to a difference in procs since it's just from last night, but I'm seeing it through all the fights.

[Zagam 1,982]

Everyone is making this assumption on tooltip changes.

 

Guess what?  Tooltips are wrong.  Agony was NOT magically stealth nerfed.  You're seeing changes in spell distribution because of the scaling of UA.  Remember that Agony hits like shit at the start and only beats UA after high stacks, so if people are using Soulburn:Soul Swap to put DoTs up, of course UA will be higher than Agony.

 

STOP POSTING ABOUT STEALTH NERFS.  THEY DIDN'T HAPPEN!

[Omaric 246]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-wps53ioqm8j91jdb/sum/damageDone/?s=10110&e=10385

 

google "agony stealth nerf"

 

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1354883-UA-doing-more-damage-than-agony

 

going to test it again on iron jug tonight, but all signs point to that it was nerfed

 

there are no blue post or anything at least that I am aware of - looks like a ninja hot fix.

 

FYI, Norushen is a terrible fight to base this off of.  New targets all the time and we don't know if you're maintaining a 10 stack Agony on at least 1 target all fight.  If you have a single target fight like Malkorok or Iron Juggernaut that you played Affliction on this week and last week, we'll be more in business.

[Omaric 246]

Everyone is making this assumption on tooltip changes.

 

Guess what?  Tooltips are wrong.  Agony was NOT magically stealth nerfed.  You're seeing changes in spell distribution because of the scaling of UA.  Remember that Agony hits like shit at the start and only beats UA after high stacks, so if people are using Soulburn:Soul Swap to put DoTs up, of course UA will be higher than Agony.

 

STOP POSTING ABOUT STEALTH NERFS.  THEY DIDN'T HAPPEN!

 

As much as I don't want to entertain the idea, it still matches up Zags.  Look through your logs and compare this week to last for a few fights.

[Zagam 1,982]

I did.  I looked at all of my logs this week and Agony beat UA every single time.  There is no magic change in my DPS, and I can't look at logs from last week to this week because of gear changes.

[Annoroth 5]

Everyone is making this assumption on tooltip changes.

 

Guess what?  Tooltips are wrong.  Agony was NOT magically stealth nerfed.  You're seeing changes in spell distribution because of the scaling of UA.  Remember that Agony hits like shit at the start and only beats UA after high stacks, so if people are using Soulburn:Soul Swap to put DoTs up, of course UA will be higher than Agony.

 

STOP POSTING ABOUT STEALTH NERFS.  THEY DIDN'T HAPPEN!

 

 

I don't know the last time I've looked a tooltip. This is based on actual damage done, as well as the the ratio of damage done from Agony to UA over the course of a fight. 

[Zagam 1,982]

I posted my logs from all of my Heroic Dark Shaman wipes last night.  UA never beat Agony in total damage done.  The average tick was higher in some places, but the frequency of ticks in Agony made it a higher overall contribution. 

 

Someone posted some 30 second parse and claimed UA was better than Agony and it just blows my mind someone could make such an assumption on a ridiculously small window without realizing what was happening.

[Omaric 246]

Yeah I just looked through a lot more logs from last week on top Affliction performers in single-target fights, I'm not seeing a 10-15% nerf.  I vote this thread is deleted.

[Zagam 1,982]

Here is a comparison log from last week's Heroic Protectors kill and this week's Heroic Protector kill with NO CHANGE IN GEAR OR REFORGING:

 

9/24

Agony: 76691405 (36.2%) 992 normal ticks (40062) 391 crit ticks (94500)

UA: 5138147 (24.3%) 649 normal ticks (38999) 292 crit ticks (89284)

 

10/1

Agony: 71554312 (37.5%) 913 normal ticks (40287) 396 crit ticks (87805)

UA: 49195376 (25.8%) 639 normal ticks (39706) 385 crit ticks (83590)

 

Where is the nerf?  I don't see it.  It pretty much goes without saying that you don't report a nerf unless you can back it up.  Prove to me two separate situations with all other constants remaining the same and note the difference.  This goes to everyone claiming a nerf.  Blizzard has NEVER been shy about nerfing us.  They don't do it behind the scenes...they let us know we just got smashed. 

 

TL;DR: if you don't have proof, don't link it.

[Annoroth 5]

Someone posted some 30 second parse and claimed UA was better than Agony and it just blows my mind someone could make such an assumption on a ridiculously small window without realizing what was happening.

 

It wasn't as much about UA being better than Agony as Agony being reduced in general. Not my logs, but got these from someone who noticed something.

 

 

Last Week: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-yw0oxa0vdakpm86l/sum/damageDone/?s=966&e=1283

This Week: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-vsnlwgfnkf37occn/sum/damageDone/?s=908&e=1216

 

Despite roughly similar fight times (within 9 seconds), the damage done by Agony has a significant decrease between last week and this week. 

 

Edit: I'm not saying that there's definitely a nerf, but just that we shouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand without further testing through the week. Remember how it took three weeks for them to fess up to Chaos Bolt?

Edited October 2, 2013 by Annoroth

[Omaric 246]

Multi-target isn't where you'd want to test this, assuming the nerf is true, which I'm no longer disillusioned to think.  It's way more easy for you to lose UA uptime on Protectors than Agony uptime.  Unless you're saying you play perfectly and whenever Agony was on a target, UA was as well, without a doubt.

 

Also:

 

9/24 = 1383 ticks of Agony and 941 ticks of UA total.

 

10/01 = 1309 ticks of Agony and 1024 ticks of UA total.

 

You have a much higher tick count with UA on 10/01 relative to Agony when compared to 9/24, which will skew data.

[uconnfan34 4]

FYI, Norushen is a terrible fight to base this off of.  New targets all the time and we don't know if you're maintaining a 10 stack Agony on at least 1 target all fight.  If you have a single target fight like Malkorok or Iron Juggernaut that you played Affliction on this week and last week, we'll be more in business.

 

100% understand this, didnt have any solid fights to base it off, just my overall damage between spells and compared to last week. Like I said, I will have to test it out tonight on iron jug, but for now, i'll assume that our king zagam is right and every other lock is wrong.

Edited October 2, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Zagam 1,982]

Multi-target should be no different than single target if you're using Soul Swap properly (I am).  You're just moving the same DoTs around, and since I was over 97% uptime on all DoTs, I'd say it's a fine measure.  I used this as an example because of the multitude of actual hits creating a more accurate representation of the DoT damage. 

 

DoT damage will largely be influenced by how well you time your DoTs with big trinket procs.  You can see that some of my damage fell in some of my DoTs the second week, but not by much.  I had a lower uptime and more scattered procs of BBoY creating a slightly lower UA damage but a similar Agony damage pool because Agony lasts longer with current procs while UA had to be reapplied more often.

 

Logs with higher UA damage likely had better trinket uptimes during UA recast times when you didn't necessarily want to recast Agony.  Therefore, the average UA damage was higher.  DoTs are VERY dynamic.  Someone's log of their UA being higher doesn't mean Agony got nerfed...it means they had different RNG on application than someone else.

[uconnfan34 4]

You can delete this thread is you want since you know for sure, but it may help other locks who may think it was nerfed since there is a HUGE buzz going around about it. That is why I posted here to get clarification because you cant get it anywhere else, so thank you.

Edited October 2, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Zagam 1,982]

No problem.  And I'd like to leave it up here so others can be directed to it and just talking about it.  If it's not in the patch notes, it's a tooltip error. 

 

Affliction is going to create some weird things like this because of the dynamic between Empowered DoTs and trinket procs.  You can do everything right and see a drastic swing up or down the DPS meter because of procs.  This is an isolated event that caught some steam because of some tooltip errors...happens all the time.  Math and numbers always have a story behind them.

[Omaric 246]

Multi-target should be no different than single target if you're using Soul Swap properly (I am).  You're just moving the same DoTs around, and since I was over 97% uptime on all DoTs, I'd say it's a fine measure.  I used this as an example because of the multitude of actual hits creating a more accurate representation of the DoT damage. 

 

I understand, but it's skewing data hard.  On a single target fight you should have VERY similar tick counts, assuming consistent uptimes.  Your logs have vastly different counts on Agony and UA, when they would be within 10 ticks on a single target fight.  Another thing to take into account on Protectors is that when one Panda disappears, I'm pretty sure your DoT's keep ticking.  You can't refresh them while they're gone, but Agony will get extra ticks everytime this happens (assuming the DoT's tick while phased).

[Zagam 1,982]

Number of ticks doesn't reflect any type of nerf.  If a nerf happened, it would be in the average tick.  Having a Panda disappear is irrelevant because I'm not reapplying DoTs, I'm transferring DoTs to them when they reappear preserving the average tick mentality. 

 

Single target DPS will have the same phenomena.  UA has to be recast every 14ish seconds +/- 7 seconds with Pandemic.  Agony only has to be recasted every 24 seconds +/- 12 seconds.  If you have low trinket procs or other DPS buffs, your Agony will preserve the low procs longer while UA will be lower in damage because you can't carry the empowered effect longer.  If you have higher trinket and buff uptimes, UA will be MUCH higher because you can preserve that power for more time. 

 

I'm not sure on the SP scaling of both spells since the tooltips can't be trusted, but UA is supposed to be somewhat close to Agony.  The reason Agony wins is because of Pandemic and the empowered effect of carrying buffs longer than UA can.  When UA wins the overall damage department, it is an outlier and I can promise you that high trinket uptime and EXCELLENT reapplication of UA with procs was present during that parse.  UA beating Agony will be an outlier, not the standard.  If you see UA > Agony, it's an outlier and had something significant impact the parse.

[Annoroth 5]

Thanks. The wild swings in affliction RNG are apparently more wild than I initially understood. Your explanation makes sense, and provides a more likely interpretation of the data. That's why I love this forum though.

[Zagam 1,982]

YAY I MADE SENSE TO SOMEONE! 

 

Know what would happen if I posted that on the WoW Warlock forums?  THE HUMANITY!!!  Just tell your friends...it's not a stealth nerf, it's stealth reactions of trinkets and Affliction being a wild bitch who has an empty cup of care.

[uconnfan34 4]

Thanks. The wild swings in affliction RNG are apparently more wild than I initially understood. Your explanation makes sense, and provides a more likely interpretation of the data. That's why I love this forum though.

 

Agree 100%. I did not want to assume anything, but had not seen anything on these forums yet, so I thought I would bring it up since there is a huge buzz going on about it in the lock community. Like usual, icy veins warlock forums came through and cleared things up for me in a ridiculously quick time frame, and that is why this is the best lock forums of them all.

Edited October 2, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Zagam 1,982]

YAY I MADE SENSE TO TWO PEOPLE!  Damien, where's my gold star?