Changes to Pandemic in 5.1 (14 replies to this topic)

From the blue notes :-

"Pandemic no longer smooths the damage when extending dots with different amounts of spellpower."

What does this mean? What effect will this have on our DPS or game play style?

My understanding is that this is a positive change.   Currently, Pandemic is not refreshing Corruption properly, and this results in a DPS loss.   If you pop over to the Simulationcraft thread on EJ, you'll see that this has been a major topic of discussion lately.   What's apparently happening is that Pandemic is currently not updating spell damage from some periodic damage abilities in cases where you refresh the DOT before it expires and a trinket or other damage buffing proc happens in the meantime.   Since Affliction generally suggests you take advantage of Pandemic and refresh DOTs before they fall off, this is a Bad Thing™.   This change apparently fixes that on the PTR.

IT means when u dot with your full trinkets and buffs activated and keep redoting after this, your SpellPower from trinkets and stuff on the DOT will not decrease.

What I understand from that post is that Pandemic is bugged as hell and it's crippling our DPS.

JvChequer, on 14 November 2012 - 08:29 PM, said:

Can someone confirms if I'm right or wrong? 'Cause a lot of ppl are saying different thing about Pandemic change and I'm pretty much confused right now.

Before today, this is how things worked...

Let's pretend we're in this situation at some point during the fight.

Applying Corruption with no Corruption on boss...we now have Corruption on boss for 16 second duration.  Let's say with a spell modifier (completely arbitrary here) of 100.

We let Corruption tick down to 8 seconds left and we use Dark Soul and a Potion of the Jade Serpent to get a spell modifier of 300.  Applying Corruption now will put it up to 24 seconds with a SM of 300.  Dark Soul lasts for 20 seconds.  Lets say we reapply Corruption at 8 seconds left to refresh it to 24 seconds duration with 4 seconds left on Dark Soul.  We still have a SM of 300.

Before today, this is what would have happened...
Corruption would tick at the spell modifier of 300 until Dark Soul wore off.  Because the DoT duration was extended due to Pandemic, the game's "smoothing" effort doesn't pick up on this and let's Corruption's spell modifier reset to it's normal value of 100 for ticks after Dark Soul wears off.  This would result in a sizeable DPS loss for players actually keeping DoTs to maximum durations with high spell modifiers (Dark Soul, Bloodlust, Potions, etc).  For typical players who don't min max as hard, this would be a very minor DPS loss which is why it wasn't caught onto early.

Today, after the 5.1 change, this "smoothing" mechanic will no longer fail.  When you apply a DoT, it will take a snapshot of your spell power and haste level for the ENTIRE duration of the DoT.  For the Warlocks playing at an optimal level, this will give you a sizeable DPS gain while most will see a minor gain.  This places more emphasis on watching and maintaining empowered DoTs.

This is all confusing, but basically just play with your DoTs correctly now and Blizzard's combat mechanics will reward your effort instead of penalizing it now.

Zagam, on 27 November 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

and what ends the duration?  the time it would have normally fallen off?   Or does it continually roll so long as we keep it refreshed every 8 seconds?

Gravyspasm, on 27 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

The duration is ended when you either reapply or it falls off.  The bug was that the empowered part of the DoT fell off when it would have fallen off without the use of Pandemic.  We no longer have to worry about that.

Zagam, on 27 November 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

so then we need to make sure (as i think i've seen you suggest before), to only refresh an empowered dot at its last tick ( as opposed to early)?

Gravyspasm, on 27 November 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Correct.

I don't know if my english It's just bad as fuck or I'm stupid but I still not understanding if it will be a dps increase or not in a scenario like that PE in TES:

http://www.worldoflo.../?s=5729&e=6206

God, I really need to improve my vocabulary.

Edited by JvChequer, 27 November 2012 - 08:29 PM.

Hey Jv,

Not sure if by reading Zagam's post you've answered your own question or not, but hopefully to help you clarify:

JvChequer, on 27 November 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

You are/were wrong. Your statement implies that any DoT applied will STAY permanently buffed at whatever SP/Haste you first applied it at, so long as you keep refreshing it.

Zagam's analysis is correct. All DoTs will now correctly update, at the time of application, with a snapshot of your stats at that time.
E.g. Corruption on target with NO buffs, has 10 secs left.
Light of Cosmos procs.
You reapply Corruption(Light of Cosmos buff).
Corruption(Light of Cosmos buff) on target, has 24 seconds left.
That will last until it falls off, or until you overwrite it with another Corruption.

Basically, Pandemic was always supposed to work this way, but due to some mistakes it wasn't doing it properly. Thanks to 5.1, now it will.

Edit: i just realzied my corruption numbers are wrong since it has a max duration of 21 secs, sorry . I'm bad at examples /shame.

Edited by Auracle, 28 November 2012 - 02:12 AM.

Finally I get it.
I'm really tard today.

This was supposed to have been fixed in 5.1, yet the official patch notes on the game loader don't mention anything about it.  Has this made it through to 5.1 or has it been bumped?

*EDIT* - forget it, it IS included.  I was looking under the Warlock class changes but it was actually listed down in the Bugs section.  *phew* !!

Edited by Toffees, 28 November 2012 - 06:46 PM.

@toffees,

Hahahah yyyep I had the exact same reaction XD