I've been reading your forums for the past few months after hamlet (probably has the record for SH's) sent me here to read a few posts. I know the amount of knowledge that most of you guys have about the game and want your opinion.

I've been a sword rogue for the last 6 months, and finally laid my hand on a perditions blade. Temporarily i put +5 damage on it because i had the mats available and it was cheap to get done.

What i'm wondering is whether +5 damage is better than crusader?

I've worked with crusader on my MH for 6 months, and mainly i only pve. The procrate is decent, but over time it seems like it's about 3-7%. If you can show me or know more details about that feel free, but looking at my combat log it procs within those amounts.

Now, AFAIK +5 damage is roughly equal to a 40 AP bonus (correct me if i'm wrong).

Crusader obviously procs with a 100 AP bonus and a 75-125 heal.

What do most dagger rogues choose (perhaps something different than both of these)? I'm just looking for opinions, or possibly insights into what is best.

Keep in mind i tend to pve more, and i'd like to get a discussion going on weapon enchants to learn what i can.

Crusader is better than +5 Damage with a Combat Daggers build.

+5 Damage is better with a seal-fate or prep dagger build.

Seems like an easy enough answer.

ATM i'm a seal fate spec, 31/8/12.

I will be switching to combat daggers when i get a good off-hand. Because my OH stinks so much now, i think i'm getting the most out of the all out seal fate build.

The last MC full clear we did ended with a 30/21 dagger spec leading the charts by about 30k over 1.4 million. We've had a drought with weapons dropping until this night when we finally got a PB. In most circumstances i've heard that the 16/25/10 build dominates, but does it make a huge difference?

How many rogues use the hybrid builds compared to combat or seal fate? Or is seal fate pretty uncommon?

I'm pretty sure that Crusader is basically always better than +5 for PvE raiding (but more expensive, obviously).

When crusader procs, you're getting a 100 AP gain.

+5 damage for a Perdition's Blade is the equivalent of 2.78 DPS, or 38 AP, but only on your main hand. Even with Seal Fate daggers spec, white damage is roughly 40-45% of your overall damage. Thus, you are really only getting 38 * 0.6 = 22.8 effective AP out of +5 damage. Thus if the Crusader buff is up at least 20% of the time, you are gaining more out of it. In my experience Crusader is up far more than 20% of the time.

That math is very rough, I'm sure Wodin will come in and give you better math :P. But basically, for a raiding main hand, it's all about Crusader. PvP, +5 is superior, because the fights aren't long enough to get many Crusader procs.

Well, in my experience, who wins the damage meters for full clears depends far more on who pays attention (and also who brings consumables) as opposed to spec. Someone with weak gear can smoke someone with strong gear, if the person with strong gear is not playing efficiently/paying attention entirely. Similarly, someone with a non-optimal spec can smoke someone with an optimal spec, if they put in more effort.

But if you take two people with similar gear levels, the same buffs, paying attention, and efficiently using their combo points, in the long term Combat Daggers will smoke Seal Fate daggers by somewhere around 5-10%. For individual/short fights, Seal Fate can sometimes win if they get a good crit streak, but long term you can't compete with Combat Daggers DPS.

As for specs, in my guild out of the 7 active rogues, 2 are Combat Daggers (17/24/10), 4 are 30/8/13 variants, and 1 is 20/31/0 Swords.

EDIT: Also, it is worth noting that a big advantage of Combat Daggers is it is easier to use your combo points efficiently. A big issue with Seal Fate is your combo point intake will fluctuate greatly, so it becomes pretty damn hard to effeciently use every last combo point. Whereas for Combat Daggers or Swords, you can get in consistent combo point cycles, and rarely have to deviate from them.

As for your scenario yeah, you are correct in thinking that Combat Daggers starts to pull away more based on the amount of AP you have and the quality of your off-hand. If you're in the say, 700-800 AP range and your off-hand is some 40 DPS blue, you're probably better sticking with Seal Fate for now.

I did the math for this already; a more or less applicable spreadsheet can be found at:

http://www.radiationnow.net/wow/enchant.xls

It assumes 10% +hit when it does the Crusader uptime calculation, though, so that will vary slightly with your +hit percentage.

Honestly, the only reason my Perdition's has +5 is because I only use it for Vael, and I want to minimize spiking on Vael (hence no +15 or Crusader). +5 provides a smooth aggro profile rather than a spiky one. For general use, Crusader is pretty much categorically superior to +5, no matter what your spec.

The spreadsheet Wodin posted awhile ago was actually an earlier version of Kalman's pet project. He's definitely one of the best mechanics guys out there.

didn't fiery weapon come out way near the top of that spreadsheet?

Ding ding ding - the spreadsheet was shamelessly stolen from Kalman because Kalman actually creates useful user-friendly things to communicate the information. Communication skills are a wonderful thing in a smart person.

And no, Fiery weapon didn't come out on top. It was, IIRC, fourth for swords.

Spec is what you make of it. Combat specs win damagemeters, but are relatively gimp in PVP. Always fun and games.

Actually, I have a question about the crusader uptime numbers, Kalman.

My understanding is that crusader's base chance is a PPM...thus the actual percent chance per hit is affected by the speed of your weapon. I understand why the uptimes would be different depending specs, since more specials = more procs. But for instance, why would a slower sword have a better uptime than a faster one, if the proc is a PPM?

Because the slower the sword is, the higher the "Chance on Hit" to apply the proc.

For example, on a 2.40 speed weapon, you will get 25 attacks per minute, purely autoattacking. Crusader is a 1PPM rate, and, as such, each attack will have a 4% chance of applying the proc.

Now, let's apply Slice and Dice, which will bring it up to 32.5 attacks per minute, and Sinister Strike, which will bring it up to 47.5 attacks per minute. Multiply that by the 4%, and you will get an average of 1.9 procs per minute... or a 47.5% "uptime", if you assume that the procs don't overlap and mess up your overall duration.

Now, on a 2.80 speed weapon, you will get ~ 21.5 white attacks per minute. As such, the chance on hit is 4.7%. Now, with Slice and Dice and Sinister Strike, you will get 43 attacks per minute.

Now, 43/21.5 = 2, so you will get a 50% uptime on your enchant, again assuming that the procs don't overlap and you get full duration from each proc.

Here's an interesting question for you, if you can run your simulator about this:

Does the number of procs that overlap change significantly (let's say 10% or greater "overlap procs") between, say, a 1.7 speed weapon SSing (say, Warblade of the Hakkari) and a 2.90 speed weapon SSing (say, Teebu's Blazing Longsword)?

Curious about this one.

Oh, ok, that makes sense. Thanks!

Well you guys answered my question pretty thoroughly and thank you for that.

I'll let you take the thread wherever you please from here.

Assumes SnD is up at all times.

Uptimes:

With 0% +hit, 1.7 yields 29.75%, 2.9 yields 35%.

With 10% +hit, 1.7 yields 32.5%, 2.9 yields 37.5%.

With 19% +hit, 1.7 yields 34.5%, 2.9 yields 40%.

Overlap procs:

With 0% +hit, 1.7 yields 27%, 2.9 yields 32.25%.

With 10% +hit, 1.7 yields 31.5%, 2.9 yields 36%.

With 19% +hit, 1.7 yields 35%, 2.9 yields 37%.

It looks like the spread is pretty much 5% across those weapon speeds, for both uptime and "wasted proc" percentage, until you start getting a ton of +hit, where the fast weapon speed catches the 1.7 speed weapon up to the higher chance on hit of the 2.9.

At first, it may seem counterintuitive that 2.9 "wastes" more procs than 1.7, yet has better uptime, but if you think about it - more procs, more wasted procs.

Aww. I love you too, Wodin.

(When I was taking them, I hated my technical writing courses. Now that I'm actually working, they're probably more useful to me than any other course I took, excepting my core coursework in controls and signals.)