Nihilism / NR / Gift line etc and damage number attribution

[Araxes]

I have been wondering about something for quite awhile ... If I stack Virulent Grasp and Nihilism ... And then say I cast Gift ... All these numbers fly ... they are flying becuase of ME and MY buffs ... But the numbers are attributed to the wielder (tank, scout, whomever). HERE's THE THING: Prior to LU13 going live it was stated - I think by Moorgard - that Warlocks were trading top spots for DPS consistently over a month's worth of server-wide parsing done by the alpha team on Test ... Very soon after release of LU 13 it was noted by many here in the Warlock community that we could not possibly get rid of aggro because all of our procs coming off the above (Nihilism / Gift / Shroud / Grasp etc etc) were having the damage directly attributed to US ... So ... the fix was that all these small numbers would be attributed to the wielder ... SO -- Did we lose a whole LOT of that damage that was parsed prior to LU13 going live when they changed that distribution?  Because now all those numbers that go off 100 times during a fight and hit for 13-30 apiece ... are going to someone else. Would love to hear from a member of the team on this. It's not a complaint - I'm happy where I'm at with my class - I'm curious though.  <div></div>

[Kazimer]

Good point, and it's been discussed several times since the damage was changed to tank instead of us.  We've never gotten a response on it though, so don't hold your breath.

[Korpo]

It would be nice if the damage went to us, but the agro to the person that has the effect. I can tell you from experience though, you don't want things changed back to the way they were. I could go afk and get agro just from Nihilism procs.<div></div>

[Araxes]

lol ... oh I was very much around when the change went live.  I don't want us to receive that aggro. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  I'm just curious if other spells were adjusted accordingly to keep us in line with the tier system when we lost all those numbers ... <div></div>

[Crono1321]

We didn't lose too much dps over it, considering a few days after LU13 came out, Nihilism got its newly appointed damage nerfed by about 50%.  I remember it doing around 150 per proc to each mob, now its at around 80.  If you want to talk about a ninja nerf, take time to remember the 25,000dps +++ that we could get by chaining Anarchic Maelstrom with Wicked Gift, Frostbound Gift (Wizard), Dissonant Note (Troubador), Netherous realm...omg I miss those days.  Epics in Rujark down in 5 seconds after 1 cast of nil absolution heheheheheheheheehe!!!!!!!!!!!!  They would proc repeatedly over and over from the "contagious" part of Anarchic Maelstrom, causing procs off of procs off of procs.  You can still get this to some effect between the gift lines, maelstom, and NR, but its impossible to get it the way it used to be. <div></div>

[Korpo]

Really, having BillyJoeWarlock in the group casting Nihilism and NR and blah blah blah adds a given amount of DPS. Whether it all shows up in parses as BillyJoeWarlock's DPS or not doesn't make a bit of difference in the long run, except to those who fawn over parses.<div></div>

[Araxes]

Well, that's true, but - I'm very supportive of our class - and very supportive of the game in general and of the design team - but I would like some clarification on this issue all the same. I mean if you've done extensive parsing during an alpha-beta state and then changed certain things during delta release that siginificantly alter the previous parsing you'd done - which in turn was information you had used to balance out your class tiers - then yes.  I think it warrants clarification.  It's not about fawning over numbers.  As I've said I'm not unhappy with my role in groups.  I expect that SOE probably did a trade-off of some kind when this was changed.  I just never saw mention of what that was and I'm curious. <div></div>

[Korpo]

If we work on the assumption that a given warlock did 500dps in a group when all the proc damage was logged as "BillyJoe's Nihilism hits A Crab for 150 points of damage!", and now that same warlock does 450dps in a group (FrankyTank does +50dps) when the proc damage is logged as "FrankyTank's Nihilism hits A Crab for 150 points of damage!", the overall balance relative to another class hasn't changed. I still bring my 500 dps to the table. In the current state, I only "see" 450 out of that 500, but without me that 500 wouldn't be there.To give an example, I was killing giants in PoF with a group pre-Maelstrom-nerf. The zerk tank wanted to see how much damage he could do, so I fired up the parser and we all let loose. The tank parsed like 1800dps or whatever it was and was walking around like he was [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] of the walk (wonder if that gets edited?). I asked him to try again, and this time I'd take Nihilism off him, and not cast Maelstrom, Gift, and Realm. Suddenly he does like 300dps and doesn't understand why. See, he thought he was responsible for all the Nihilism procs Maelstrom procs Gift procs Realm etc, because it showed up as HIS damage.So in the end, maybe I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. In my mind the problem is more of a logging issue than a balance issue. Sure, if the procs showed up as our damage we could brag about bigger numbers, but the mob wouldn't die any faster.<div></div>

[Araxes]

<div></div><div></div>I'm getting at the issue of assignment / attribution.  Other players INCLUDING many disillusioned warlocks think we are "nerfed" becuase when they run their parsers they don't see those numbers.  As you've pointed out and as myself and others in this thread are aware - we still bring the same DPS to the table that we did before. The difference being that not everyone sees it that way because - as you noted - parsers don't assign it becuase the game does not attribute it to us. So no - this is not about DPS or lack thereof except IN NAME ONLY.  (literally)  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div><p>Message Edited by Vicontessa on <span class=date_text>12-31-2005</span> <span class=time_text>07:17 PM</span>