Warcraft Logs Poll for How to Handle Power Infusion in Dragonflight Rankings

Live Posted 2022/07/15 at 4:40 PM by Squishei

Warcraft Logs Poll on Power InfusionWarcraft LogsImage Taken by PantheaThis poll is about the Power Infusion ability in Dragonflight and how you would like to see it handled in rankings. There are several possible options. Vote for the option you most prefer below:

I don't care.
Ban Power Infusion from rankings completely.
Leave Power Infusion the way it is now, with the uses being shown in an extra column in rankings.
Ban Power Infusion from rankings when the player receives it too often (i.e., gets fed it above a reaosnable threshold).
Have two entirely separate sets of rankings (with PI and without PI). The default would remain as it is now.

Ion Hazzikostas Comments on Power InfusionGroup Interview with Ion HazzikostasIn terms of community feedback, one of the hot topics recently has been the return of the controversial ability, Power Infusion, on the priest talent tree. Are there any changes being planned to address some of the issues the community has with the ability, such how it impacts class balance?

I understand it’s controversial, but at the same time, some of this gets back to the earlier discussion of party and raid buffs, and our philosophy there with adding new ones. It is a cooperative MMO, where in the design space of “I can make my comrades, my allies stronger!” it seems like a viable support type role that should exist in an RPG setting. Internally, it’s interesting, the team has coined this problem. There are two games being played in a raid group. There is game 1, which is the game that we built, which is beat the raid boss, clear the dungeon in the time limit. Then there’s game 2, which players have largely created for themselves, which is win DPS meters, beat my performance from last week, get a purple parse, get a gold parse, whatever else. We don’t create that game. But many people are playing it, and it is almost the primary motivation for them. A question is, how sensitive should we be to that? How much should we be designing around that?

Because yes, certainly, if we were making a game, and the point of the game was maximize your score, maximize this number, it would be problematic to introduce elements into the game that are very random or skew outcomes one way or another. But that’s also not the game that we have made. We have created a cooperative game that presents these challenges to be overcome. And so something in that environment like Power Infusion is a really interesting decision in a range of raid settings. Maybe on farm you sell it to the person with the best burst window, but when you’re learning an encounter for the first time, it’s more “what are the moments in the fight that are most challenging for us? Do we need to burst down this wave of adds before this next thing happens and who should we PI? Should we PI a healer because we need a throughput burst to make it through this thing? DPS isn’t an issue, we’re just trying to survive but we don’t want to add a healer?” It’s those sorts of decisions that are interesting group dynamics that we would hate to take away.

And game 2, so to speak, is also one where the rules in other places are shaped by the community. Like everyone at this point thinks nothing of the fact that log sites completely ignore padding. You can maximize your number by just damaging a bunch of extraneous adds in a fight that don’t really serve the interest of the group. And doing that will make you have the biggest number and win meters, and the community has collectively decided this is unhealthy, we’re not going to count or reward that behavior, just because you’re multi-dotting all these adds that will die on their own…we’re not going to count this damage at all. And that shapes player behavior there. To some extent, we want to focus on designing for the so-called game 1, and making that the best experience possible, and leave to the community and log sites and others to figure out the rules for how they want to determine who the best hunter is, who the best mage is etc. on this fight.

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Comment by dlbert2000Why even make a poll? Just let us filter out PI logsComment by TheRedRogueWhy even make a poll? Just let us filter out PI logsComment by MurzacWhy even make a poll? Just let us filter out PI logsComment by PurinzuI think we can get more accurate rankings if everyone is on equal ground. Ofc you can stack other buffs on someone, but PI is one of the most significant to boost numbers and makes parses look way too unrealistic in comparison to the average class/spec.Comment by hfxRosImo PI in logs should be fine if you're receiving it from one priest. It only really seems degenerate when you have multiple priests rotating PIs on you.

If it was just outright banned you'd get these weird situations where the best target in a raid for PI wouldn't want PI because it would be detrimental to playing the WCL minigame, which would be bad for the group. Logs/Parsing shouldn't encourage doing things that work against the group killing a boss.Comment by CaptainDopeI don't understand. How is Power Infusion "controversial" ?Comment by Swalshy4#3 for meComment by Makz42Whats the problem with PI and logs? Just go down the list and match your log to someone who didnt have PI if you didnt get it?Comment by minka25Just remove it from the game. Problem solvedComment by RhampantFyreMaybe wow is dead because they designed it for people who care about logs.
Why not talk about the fact they are only releasing 4 dungeons with this expac?Comment by AzrajinI think PI is what it is. You either get it or you don't. But I think filtering a list of PI vs no PI may be the play here. Or banning anything more than say 2-3 PIs.

When you're looking at logs and seeing someone with like 13 buffs on them it does skew the results a bit. When you see your crappy parse because results are based on that group at the top with giga buffs can be a little odd.Comment by zaeteMaybe wow is dead because they designed it for people who care about logs.
Why not talk about the fact they are only releasing 4 dungeons with this expac?Comment by ShirofuneLogging and parsing is a competition in some sorts, you're ranked for your execution. If you have extra tools that other people do not have, you're basically cheating.

Option 5 is the most fair, imo.Comment by ProdigitalIt's a weird predicament with the PI filtering options. On the one hand, the current system makes you dive deep to find logs without externals to compare to your own play. The problem with having two separate categories is the same problem that meta vs. non-meta specs face: the best players are going to get externals and the data on how to play the spec in the non-external category will be less solid. Completely removing the buff from logs is basically the same thing, but you never have to look at all the logs of players doing more damage than you (which could be worse cuz how do you find info if you're getting PI?). And like...how do you determine what is "receiving PI too often"? All that does is clip-off the very very min-maxed parses like that one shadow priest with 91 externals on Sylv (which literally effects nothing).

But at the same time, if you wanted to try and filter out the *benefit* of the buff, you can't quantify what 20% haste does for a player in terms of actual numbers ...so like, what is the other option?Comment by IronwareHmm, unfortunately the website poll isn't loading for me? I would really love to vote on this.Comment by DranightI would honestly have PI show up on the casters logs instead of who it was cast on. Pretty much any external buffs should show up on the caster's logs, not the target of the buff.Comment by grayshirtIs the point of parses not to achieve the highest Dps you can?

We didn't ban things from rankings in the past like people that equipped an excessive number of titanforges putting them well above gear anyone else had or certain encounters like Alysrazor where you can control who receives the Dps buff or cheese strats like letting the person you want to have a good parse handle all the AoE solo on Lei Shen. In WoD in an attempt to get the best parses for individuals, groups would coordinate Legendary ring usage around their CDs. You also have strats like not sending X person to deal with any mechanics so they can focus 100% on Dps.

If a group wants to load a player with externals, have them ignore mechanics, give them every buff within the encounter, and have them funnel/keep things up all fight for them to cleave so they end up with an awesome looking parse, that shouldn't be an issue. If the point of parsing is just to create a log with the highest Dps you can.Comment by roldy27Imagine PI logs being invalid. The whole situation would shift completely and people would fight to not get PI to parse - It would be really funny to see that.Comment by Assassin14xban PI from the whole thing.Comment by justgizAs someone who doesn't play a priest nor keep up with ability names of other classes (or even my own class sometimes) I'm disappointed that not once in this post is it said what power infusion is or even does...

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