This has probably been discussed already many times. However the great spreadsheets created by Chalon & Co for combat dagger and combat sword for the first time (I think) allow for an objective comparison between the two in the sustained damage department, which is why I would like to bring up this topic here, where I can expect a good discussion of the subject.

I have searched this forum for a similar thread and found none. If I simply missed said thread, or if the admins think this dead horse smells too much already, please feel free to remove the post.

So what I did was the following: I used the combat sword and combat dagger spreadsheets created by Chalon and guildmates that can be found here: http://www.savefile.com/projects/299694

I chose the best alliance race in regards to pure DPS for each spec and compared a Nightelf Combat Dagger Rogue with a Human Combat Sword Rogue. The choice of a Human is rather obvious, and I chose Nightelf for daggers simply because of the marginal advantage the slightly higher natural stats offer.

First I entered the optimum End-of-BWL gear for each spec. (I Intentionally omitted drops from non-instance-bosses, as these are almost impossible to obtain for the majority of the players. I also omitted Dagger of the Veiled Shadows, as its a pain to get for the 0,5 DPS increase it offers :-)) The items chosen (feel free to correct me if I missed something) and the resulting DPS with regular Raid buffs were:

Combat Daggers:
Perdition's Blade [Crusader/Instant Poison VI]
Core Hound Tooth [+15 Agility/Instant Poison VI]
Striker's Mark
Bloodfang Hood [Death's Embrace]
Prestor's Talisman of Connivery
Nightslayer Shoulder Pads [Zandalar Signet of Might]
Bloodfang Chestpiece [+4 All Stats]
Mugger's Belt
Bloodfang Pants [Death's Embrace]
Boots of the Shadow Flame [+7 Agility]
Bloodfang Bracers [+9 Strength]
Aged Core Leather Gloves [+15 Agility]
Cloak of Firemaw [+3 Agility]
Band of Accuria
Master Dragonslayer's Ring
Hand of Justice
Drake Fang Talisman
========
619,22 DPS

Combat Swords:
Chromatically Tempered Sword [Crusader/Instant Poison VI]
Maladath, Runed Blade of the Black Flight [+15 Agility/Instant Poison VI]
Striker's Mark
Bloodfang Hood [Death's Embrace]
Prestor's Talisman of Connivery
Bloodfang Spaulders [Zandalar Signet of Might]
Bloodfang Chestpiece [+4 All Stats]
Bloodfang Belt
Bloodfang Pants [Death's Embrace]
Bloodfang Boots [+7 Agility]
Bloodfang Bracers [+9 Strength]
Bloodfang Gloves [+15 Agility]
Cloak of Firemaw [+3 Agility]
Master Dragonslayer's Ring
Band of Accuria
Hand of Justice
Drake Fang Talisman
========
616,69 DPS

Now factor in Adrenaline Rush (AR DPS = Avg. Sinister Strike DMG * 3,75 / 360 s = 6,08) and Combat Swords actually comes out ahead...

Now End-of-BWL might not be the fairest point to compare the two, as dagger itemization in BWL is basically non-existent, while there are two very good swords to be had in BWL, so I tried the same with End-of-AQ40, where daggers should have a slight advantage itemwise.

Combat Daggers:
Death's Sting [Crusader/Instant Poison VI]
Blessed Qiraji Pugio [+15 Agility/Instant Poison VI]
Striker's Mark
Deathdealer's Helm [Death's Embrace]
Prestor's Talisman of Connivery
Deathdealer's Spaulders [Zandalar Signet of Might]
Bloodfang Chestpiece [+4 All Stats]
Belt of Never-ending Agony
Bloodfang Pants [Death's Embrace]
Deathdealer's Boots [+7 Agility]
Bloodfang Bracers [+9 Strength]
Aged Core Leather Gloves [+15 Agility]
Cloak of the Fallen God [+3 Agility]
Band of Accuria
Signet Ring of the Bronze Dragonflight - Exalted
Hand of Justice
Drake Fang Talisman
========
675,01 DPS

Combat Swords:
Ancient Qiraji Ripper [Crusader/Instant Poison VI]
Maladath, Runed Blade of the Black Flight [+15 Agility/Instant Poison VI]
Striker's Mark
Deathdealer's Helm [Death's Embrace]
Prestor's Talisman of Connivery
Deathdealer's Spaulders [Zandalar Signet of Might]
Deathdealer's Vest [+4 All Stats]
Belt of Never-ending Agony
Deathdealer's Leggings [Death's Embrace]
Deathdealer's Boots [+7 Agility]
Qiraji Execution Bracers [+9 Strength]
Gloves of Enforcement [+15 Agility]
Cloak of the Fallen God [+3 Agility]
Signet Ring of the Bronze Dragonflight - Exalted
Band of Accuria
Hand of Justice
Drake Fang Talisman
========
645,49 DPS

Naturally the gap has widened, but it is still less than a 5% damage increase, especially if you factor in the 6,48 DPS from Adrenaine Rush.

So the main question is: Is Combat Dagger really the best Raid-PvE spec if all you are interested in is to maximize your DPS? Is the less than 5% advantage (at most) over Combat Swords worth the positioning requirement?

Some random thoughts:
- The gap is only so narrow because the sword rogue is a human. That alone offers more than 20 DPS in both cases. If you simply are not a human there is not much short of a reroll you can do about that, so for non-humans the dagger spec holds more appeal.
- I am aware of the fact that for many people other factors than theoretical maximum DPS influence the decision. Some players simply are more comfortable with one playstyle or another and unwilling to change.
- For the raid as a whole a mixture of dagger- and sword rogues is probably the best, as there are different fights favouring one or the other and it also would be a shame to disenchant a Death's Sting (or to give it to a Hunter) only because all rogues in the raid are human sword combat.

What do you think?

I ran a very similar calculation yesterday for the rogues on my guild forums using BWL level gear after someone linked a Kalman post on the WoW forum. I used gear close to what our rogues are using now.

Kalman's post:
My post
Windfury is *huge* for sword rogues, but my numbers would back up what you're saying about dagger rogues being capable of more dps if windfury isn't available.

disclaimer: my numbers are only as accurate as Chalon's spreadsheets.

Since changing the race midgame is impossible, I think the comparison is slighly imbalanced. One might say: sword combat is better for humans only, all other races profit more from combat dagger. (I know, you say pretty much the same, but I fell with a different emphasis).

Very important point. A player will only be able to maximise his dps if he feels comfortable with his setup.

Considering this it would probably better to have an all dagger outfit than an all sword outfit, since swords tend to get more love from other classes. But yes, sometimes sword setups are simply better because of lag, positioning problems and so on. Getting the maximum out of a dagger spec requires more attention and skill than spamming SSs. Furthermore, dagger specs are more dependent on a good computer and a fast connection.

Finally: I think comparing post AQ gear ist not really fair to sword spec since there are about 7 dps difference between AQR and DS. At least the base DPS of Perditions and CTS are in the same neighbourhood. Best comparison would be a post Naxx Setup imho, since dagger and sword rogues get comparable loots there.

Was giving the 2nd Combat Dagger Rogue 3 Bloodfang better than replacing it with Deathdealer?

The 5% dps advantage of a dagger user matters on your playstyle. Do you want to work harder to get more damage in? (Consider if you don't work harder you will do less damage than a sword user).

Also you have to consider weapon drops. It is possible to never see a Sword drop but have lots of daggers drop, and the opposite is possible as well.

The point I was trying to make was that even though AQ40 itemization favours combat dagger, the lead it has over combat swords is relatively small.
The base DPS yes, the stats in no way. The stats on CTS alone give more than 2DPS, before applying it to SnD-hasted mainhand and offhand and the sinsiter strikes, totalling in an increase of roughly 5DPS.
I agree. But since we have no really reliebale and final data on the Naxx items (and since I was too lazy to add the current numbers to both spreadsheets) I omitted that for now.
Yes.
Don't just trust me, try it yourself in the spreadsheet.
Simply put, the 5 piece DD-bonus is almost worthless for a combat dagger rogue, while the 3 piece BF-bonus is very useful considering how fast daggers are. Add to the fact that in those three slots the individually better pieces offer almost no upgrade from BF and this is the result you get.

Our experience has generally been that combat daggers will win tank & spank style fights(Fankriss or C'thun), while combat swords will win the more mobile ones(ie Sartura-esque) and trash. Anecdotally, I switched from combat fists to combat daggers mid-BWL and saw my DPS go up a decent amount. Realistically you want a 50/50 split among the rogues who raid on a regular basis, because they're good at different kinds of fights and it ensures you get the optimal use out of your swords and daggers.

If you're really thinking long-term, then you should also look into getting the combat dagger rogues good epic swords. This will probably be unpopular with the rest of the raidforce, but having a high-quality(ie current tier) epic SS weapon allows the combat dagger rogue to perform much better in situations where backstabbing is untenable. It might be a good use of slow epic maces that would otherwise be disfavored due to the lack of a useful weapon spec, now that I think of it.

That is a very good point. I also switched to combat dagger Mid-BWL, when the effect of +skill became public knowledge and I was annoyed that I was not human. Therefore I have the Claw of the Black Drake, and e.g. in Razorgore Phase 1 I still pretend I am 20/31/0. Which actually is also a good idea for solo farming.

Another point I just thought about: Fear of the future.

Combat dagger is arguably the only dagger spec that can compete with combat sword regarding raid DPS with some very rare exceptions (on Geddon e.g. both get owned by Seal Fate). However combat dagger already has to stretch its 51 points to get the talents it needs out of all the three trees, and it has to compromise as it is 2 points short.

Now imagine Blizzard moving one of the key talents up only one tier in the Rogue review, or adding an awesome 41 pt talent in the combat tree (or even an awesome 41 pt talent in each tree) in the expansion. Combat daggers would be basically dead, while combat swords could easily adapt.

Remember that I'm alliance, so windfury doesn't enter into it for me. I'm also a gnome, so it isn't like I get the human racial.

Yeah, I was trying to figure out how combat daggers was better when my numbers were showing otherwise, then I went back and checked your faction. I hadn't ever really looked at the effect of windfury compared to BoK and I was amazed at how good it can be. I've read comments for a while about it, but I never saw numbers to back it up.

I was pushing our BWL raid last night to stack up the rogue groups with sword rogues in 1 group with a wf dropping shaman and the dagger rogues in another group with a goa dropping shaman. The rogues love me now.

The other thing I'm really curious about is the 8 piece BF proc - is it *really* worth 15 DPS? That seems very, very high for the little playing around I did with it on test.

(WF/SoE is so much better than horde folks like to give it credit for, it really does make up for BoK/BoM in terms of DPS - obviously, it requires a shaman in your group, and it doesn't make up for the stamina component of BoK, but it really is good.)

Yeah. One of our rogues just recently picked up a Spineshatter for backstab-unfriendly fights.

Since we've had one Perdition's Blade since we first killed Rag (last year) I don't have much personal experience, but with Vis'kag/BB/Hakkari offhand I've always been pretty far ahead of the dagger guys on trash, with them all using Gutgore or FotF and CHT offhanded bar one. Next week I'll reset my DM before engaging Garr or something and see how it goes.

Edit:

It's a 2% proc rate, isn't it? If so, I think 15 dps may be correct. Hand of Justice procs a whole lot for me.

I'd have to check some really old recap data but it was never more than 1% of my DPS through a full BWL clear, at work right now however, but have a few old screens saved at home.

I alway consider BF 8/8 proc as about 10 dps (which is more or less the result of some bossfights with activated recap). Wouldn't call that scientific evidence, but thats how I treat it when considering what to equip.

300 damage, pre-mitigation, on 2% of my attacks, would give me an ~8 DPS result. Not 15. He's modeling it, actually, as a 1 PPM enchant. Not having the gear, I can't say whether that's accurate.

Seems very high. Guess I'll have to wait for Chalon to get back to ask him about that.

Yeah, but what's the opportunity cost of wearing 8/8 BF? Just the jump from BF boots > Shadowflame probably closes a lot of that 8 dps gap. Nevermind BF gloves > ACLG or BF shoulders > anything of the eagle. ;)