Mythic DPS Analysis - Top 10% of Parses, Week 2

[Zagam 1,982]

This is post nerf/buff sweep.  This is coming from Warcraftlogs, top 10% of parses, 1 week of data:

 

 

This image shows one week's worth of data, the most recent week, and looks at the percentages and standard deviations from each to see where specs lie. As you can see, Survival is in a really bad spot. Fury and Affliction are also incredibly overpowered comparably. Keep in mind, these are the top parses, so these specs are played incredibly well with fast kill times, so classes with temporary buffs will look inflated here. It's also to note that if you remove the top and bottom two specs, the worst spec remaining, Assassination, is 83% of the best remaining spec, Fire Mage.

 

If you leave the top two and bottom two specs in, all other specs are within one standard deviation of the median which is typically a good measuring stick of balance. Note the jump from Fire Mage, at 0.96 stdevs to 1.52 for Affliction and 1.71 for Fury. Likewise at the bottom, look at the jump from 0.87 for Assassination to 1.67 for Beast Mastery and a whopping 3.07 for Survival. Removing the top two and bottom two specs for a new standard deviation calculation shows just how far off the outside 4 specs are.

 

If Blizzard justified a sweeping nerf/buff last week, I think they need to do one more just to make things smooth here. I would take Fury and Affliction down approximately 8-10%, bring Beast Mastery up 10%, and bring Survival up approximately 35%.

[Storm 426]

This data is extremely skewed though because of the average fight length at the moment. some classes like Affliction have a strong burst phase at the start of the fight, but will drop down more in line with the other specs in a longer fight. The same thing goes for Unholy Vs. Frost DK's. they're both extremely close in a 5 minute fight, but in a 1-2min burn unholy will easily be 1-2k ahead just because of the stronger opener with gargoyle, and having the ghoul transformed for like 90% of the fight duration from our 4pc.

 

If you look at the top 10% for a longer fight like Garrosh you'll see that affliction is the lowest of the Warlock specs, but they're all within 200dps of eachother.

 

Survival is still extremely low though, it definitely needs about a 15% boost. BM is also a bit too low and could use a 5% +/- buff. and Fury is still 1300dps ahead of #2 (Arms), so I'd agree that fury needs about a 5% nerf. everything else still looks really close on the longer duration fight though.

[Zagam 1,982]

This data is extremely skewed though because of the average fight length at the moment. some classes like Affliction have a strong burst phase at the start of the fight, but will drop down more in line with the other specs in a longer fight.

I clearly mention this...but people want to know where DPS stands right now, so the data isn't skewed - it's reality.

[Atrais 38]

This data is extremely skewed though because of the average fight length at the moment. some classes like Affliction have a strong burst phase at the start of the fight, but will drop down more in line with the other specs in a longer fight. The same thing goes for Unholy Vs. Frost DK's. they're both extremely close in a 5 minute fight, but in a 1-2min burn unholy will easily be 1-2k ahead just because of the stronger opener with gargoyle, and having the ghoul transformed for like 90% of the fight duration from our 4pc.

 

If you look at the top 10% for a longer fight like Garrosh you'll see that affliction is the lowest of the Warlock specs, but they're all within 200dps of eachother.

 

Survival is still extremely low though, it definitely needs about a 15% boost. BM is also a bit too low and could use a 5% +/- buff. and Fury is still 1300dps ahead of #2 (Arms), so I'd agree that fury needs about a 5% nerf. everything else still looks really close on the longer duration fight though.

 

What Survival needs is an actual DPS CD, it would solve 90% of the issues with the class.  I am reasonably sure we are the only DPS spec without a baseline CD.  Even Shadow Priests get their little pet. 

Would also be nice to lower BA CD to allow 100% uptime without AoC and make Explosive Trap worthwhile for single target, but those are minor comparatively.  It also doesnt help that Survival is built around a stat that you can't get yet, outside of one trinket and a raid buff.  Based on the level 100, Tier 17 Sims, they are doing much, much better.

[Storm 426]

I clearly mention this...but people want to know where DPS stands right now, so the data isn't skewed - it's reality.

 

I know you mentioned it, but I was just reiterating it, with some data to show that for a few classes there is a massive difference in dps between a 2 minute fight and a 5 minute fight. Yes, obviously 2 minute fights are where we're at for most of us and it isn't going to change, but that's just for 2 more weeks, so some of the issues will balance themselves out just by getting back to normal fight lengths in WoD. And I was also pointing it out for anyone in a guild that doesn't have the benefit of sub 1 min siegecrafter kills.

 

here's affliction nearly 30% ahead of anyone else. on seige

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/5/#sample=7&dataset=10&boss=1601

 

and here's affliction smack dab in the middle of the pack on garrosh

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/5/#sample=7&dataset=10&boss=1623

[Zagam 1,982]

The chart I posted pushes all fights together.  You're conflicting on how to do statistical analysis by looking only at the outliers when you link Garrosh and Siegecrafter.  Overall, Affliction and Fury are powerful because of how they perform on ALL fights.

[GirandzimA52 1]

The chart I posted pushes all fights together.  You're conflicting on how to do statistical analysis by looking only at the outliers when you link Garrosh and Siegecrafter.  Overall, Affliction and Fury are powerful because of how they perform on ALL fights.

They perform so well because of not only how SoO fights have essentially catered to Affliction's playstyle but also because of the laughable fight durations currently. They need to stop worrying so much about balancing at 90 and start worrying about balancing at 100. In fact, it's ludicrous that they are even attempting to balance at 90 since the vast majority of us will be 100 in 3 weeks.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yup, the buff/nerf wave last week was silly. 

[Gnar 26]

Yup, the buff/nerf wave last week was silly. 

 

Agreed. Just caused my guild to struggle with figuring out our roster based on who wanted to reroll to what. Lose/lose if you ask me.

[Zagam 1,982]

I told people I didn't care what they came as because it didn't matter.  I was right.  Oh, you gotta go AFK?  It's fine, we can 19 man this just the same.  You, too?  Ok, we're still good with 18.  Pull.  2 more?  Whatever, we're fine - go with 16. 

 

Being able to carry 15 off-of-the-boost-boat noobies through Heroic Garrosh with 15 of our core raiders with absolutely no issues, no wipes, no DPS problems, etc was a clear enough indicator for me.

[Soulzar 42]

Gotta say, just a bit disappointed you didn't slip Woodcutter spec in the list to see who noticed first!

 

I am still confused why after week one showing Demo, Fury, and Fire as top offenders of the OP train.. they made a few tweaks to each Fury and Fire.. and when it came to demo changed EVERYTHING!

Edited October 24, 2014 by Soulzar

[Kazistrasz 216]

Gotta say, just a bit disappointed you didn't slip Woodcutter spec in the list to see who noticed first!

 

I am still confused why after week one showing Demo, Fury, and Fire as top offenders of the OP train.. they made a few tweaks to each Fury and Fire.. and when it came to demo changed EVERYTHING!

 

 

Fury got pretty much a 17% nerf across the board.

 

Let's do a little log analysis, shall we? I'm looking at mine, Zag's, and Locky's Malkorok from last week where we were all reasonably close in DPS with totally different damage breakdowns.

 

Me:

 

My top 3:

Soul Fire (meta) - 21.75%

Hand of Gul'dan (DoT) - 10.26%

Zig-garath - Melee - 8.83%

 

Total damage before application of nerfs: 4015.8k Damage

Total damage after application of nerfs: 3494.73k Damage

 

Effective nerf: 12.98%

 

Locky:

 

His top 3:

 

Soul Fire (Meta) - 16.77%

Kizlikad - Melee - 10.21%

Doom - 10.01%

 

Total damage before application of nerfs: 4000.8k Damage

Total damage after application of nerfs: 3518.14k Damage

 

Effective nerf: 12.06%

 

Zag:

 

His top 3:

Touch of Chaos - 18.10%

Chaos Wave - 9.58%

Ziggorath - Melee - 9.26%

 

Total damage before application of nerfs: 3921.6k Damage

Total damage after application of nerfs: 3426.94k Damage

 

Effective nerf: 12.61%

 

Taking the same approach to Rage's logs, he saw an effective nerf of 7.29%  Sure, it's more than ours, but only about a 5% to 5.5% difference. The effective nerf wasn't THAT far apart.

 

They didn't hit us with everything - 30 to 35% of our damage was unaffected (pet damage plus cloak proc), and it wasn't even 20% across the board for everything they nerfed.

 

I'm not saying I think it was totally justified or called for to apply such sweeping nerfs for four weeks of content, but I am saying that it's not near as huge as that comment and many other warlocks are making it out to be.

[Deamux 4]

It suprises me how 'low' retri paladins stand. We have 2 of them in our raid team and they seem very strong. 

[Niix 169]

What Survival needs is an actual DPS CD, it would solve 90% of the issues with the class.  I am reasonably sure we are the only DPS spec without a baseline CD.  Even Shadow Priests get their little pet. 

Would also be nice to lower BA CD to allow 100% uptime without AoC and make Explosive Trap worthwhile for single target, but those are minor comparatively.  It also doesnt help that Survival is built around a stat that you can't get yet, outside of one trinket and a raid buff.  Based on the level 100, Tier 17 Sims, they are doing much, much better.

 

Survival needs a CD and about a 30% damage buff to every single spell we cast. Plus maybe a baseline passive that increases our damage by 25% on targets below 20%. The more gear people get, and the shorter the fights become the worse and worse SV will be in T17. It has absolutely 0 burst, and burst is everything when the fights become shorter. Blizzard is acting like that kid in middle school who gets really defensive when he's been proven wrong but he won't admit he's wrong.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Survival needs a CD and about a 30% damage buff to every single spell we cast. Plus maybe a baseline passive that increases our damage by 25% on targets below 20%. The more gear people get, and the shorter the fights become the worse and worse SV will be in T17. It has absolutely 0 burst, and burst is everything when the fights become shorter. Blizzard is acting like that kid in middle school who gets really defensive when he's been proven wrong but he won't admit he's wrong.

I'm not going to comment on how much of a buff SV needs, but I did want to point out that how much DPS a spec does on farm content shouldn't be your main argument when calling for buffs.

 

In 588 gear, Affliction destroyed Destruction on practically every single encounter, but back in sub 570 gear on progress, Destruction was clearly the better spec. It offered controlled burst, amazing execute, and was generally more adaptable to any encounter or situation thrown its way.

 

Base your argument on progress instead of farm and I think people will take more notice.

 

(Note, I'm not saying you're wrong, just that using farm status for DPS tuning is a bit flawed).

[Niix 169]

I'm not going to comment on how much of a buff SV needs, but I did want to point out that how much DPS a spec does on farm content shouldn't be your main argument when calling for buffs.

 

In 588 gear, Affliction destroyed Destruction on practically every single encounter, but back in sub 570 gear on progress, Destruction was clearly the better spec. It offered controlled burst, amazing execute, and was generally more adaptable to any encounter or situation thrown its way.

 

Base your argument on progress instead of farm and I think people will take more notice.

 

(Note, I'm not saying you're wrong, just that using farm status for DPS tuning is a bit flawed).

 

I'm not using farm so much as progression, my argument was for farm simply because that's what people are looking at right now.

 

If we wanna talk about progression the spec is even worse. It will stay bottom of the meters most of the fight, and ONLY when the fight hits 7+ minutes will it get within 10% of the other two. It's atrocious DPS.

[briala 6]

I'm always skeptical of anything that looks at the Top X% of parses, because that immediately makes higher variability specs appear to be higher performing specs.

 

To take an overly simplified example for purposes of illustration, let's imagine one spec has an ability that always hits for exactly 1,000 damage, while another spec, perhaps the Goblin Engineer spec, has an ability that is 50% likely to hit for 500 damage, and 50% likely to hit for 1,500 damage.

 

Now on paper these two abilities have the same average damage, just with different predictability. Each will hit, on average, for 1000 damage. But if you were to examine the "top 10% parses" or even worse, the "top parse", what you'd almost certainly see is all Goblin Engineers who were averaging well over 1,000 damage per hit.

 

That doesn't mean its a better spec. The bottom 10% were certainly doing well less than 1,000 damage per hit.

[Berlinia 168]

Shadow Priests also don't have a dps cooldown.

[spikeysquad 50]

Berlinia, like Atrais said, what about their Shadowfiend/Mindbender?

[Bombsauce 3]

All I know is this, my average DPS has climbed since I switched from destro/demo to affliction/demo. I am running with affliction and not using soul swap at all. I gemmed/enchanted pure haste coming out to around 55% raid buffed. 584 iLvl. All I have to  say is that Affliction is killing the other two specs because of how fast stuff is dying. I know it's been said before but if you are doing mythic farm content up until the expansion, I would recommend affliction for everything minus a fight like galakras where there is tons of aoe.

[Hurtlocker 11]

and here's affliction smack dab in the middle of the pack on garrosh

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/5/#sample=7&dataset=10&boss=1623

 

Lower dps on Garry is expected as Affliction.  Keeping 100% uptime for Agony with 10 stacks is important for affliction, but transition phases makes it difficult.  in my group, we get at least one transition which requires it to be ramped up again.  The new Soul Swap glyph would help, but we don't have that yet.

[Arthnir 0]

Quick question what is the top warlock spec at the moment?

[Lockybalboa 618]

Depends on fight times. If you're in a raid like mine that kills every boss in SoO in less then 120 seconds (other then Garry) Aff with GoServ is top by a mile.

 

More normal fight times 2-4 min, Destro and Demo are fairly even and Aff is total shite.

[Arthnir 0]

Yea we kill them pretty quick in Mythic ran demo last week but everyone was saying destro was back on top. Figured I'd ask around

[Lockybalboa 618]

The people that say it's on top is because they 1) cant play demo 2) havent seen someone good play demo.

 

Destro is destro, nothing has really change other then it's become a lot easier. Demo still takes some doing and some gaming of the system.

 

Aff on a short fight will crush both without breaking a sweat.