I think you are right about this. I found that in Phase 2, I was only able to Backstab from the Altar side as well.

You're also forgetting Pugio (not great tanking stats, but better than nothing) and the axe from Imperial Qiraji Regalia (pretty damned good, though your druids will hate you).

By this same token, you're saying that you consider 31/8/12 or 21/8/22 to be better than 18/33/0, 20/31/0 or any of the PvE-sword builds.

Let's look at equivalent gear with Chalon's Calculator. 5/8 Bloodfang, Drake Fang Talisman, Hand of Justice, Barbed Choker, MDR, BOA, Cloak of Firemaw. Swords will use AQR/Iblis. Daggers will use Pugio/DFB. Both with Striker's Mark also. Full DPS enchants. Sword 3/8: BONEA, Gloves of Enforcement, Boots of the Shadow Flame. Dagger 3/8: ACL, Boots of the Shadow Flame, BONEA. Both have Weapon Expertise.

Dagger build will do, with standard Horde buffs (15/31/5 build) (ie. Windfury, IPVI on offhand, SoE and Mongoose/Firewater/Giants, 290 Battle Shout): 660.71DPS

Sword build will do, with standard Horde buffs (18/33/0 build, loses one ruthlessness 1 imp evisc for weapon expertise): 638.40DPS

However, on fights that are position dependent, the combat swords build gains a LOT of DPS over the combat daggers build (ie. Thaddius, Heigan), as well as added utility from spare CP for stuns or Imp Expose Armor.

It's definitely a fair trade for the 22DPS, losing only 3.4% buffed damage. Swapping from Maladath to Iblis, by the way, provides a solid 10DPS increase according to the spreadsheet.

In other words, just like there's more than one raid-viable spec for warriors (ie. Prot vs. MS vs. Fury), swords vs. daggers for Rogues is definitely a tossup. The Dagger rogue loses a lot more than that 3.4% DPS on fights where he's asked to stun, or where he needs to pull out a Sinister Strike weapon because of positional requirements.

TLDR? You're being very short-sighted.

I will be very surprised if I replace Iblis in even the first few levels of BC. It's absolutely ridiculously good. While I miss the +skill from Maladath, 1.12 will be fixing that little problem, and Iblis is still outperforming Maladath even without the +skill, both by the numbers and in practice. In short: "You ain't kidding."

All I was saying is that either swords or daggers must be considered the primary rogue spec, not both. Swords are rarer than daggers, swords do not have sword only moves like daggers do, and sword rogues are less common than dagger rogues. Itemization and class abilities say dagger spec is primary and swords secondary and everything else tertiary.

And yes I know swords rogues do plenty of dps and its a great spec if you can get the gear for it, but its easier to go daggers.

And yes I know about pugio (my old goal weapon) and war hammer which are both great tanking weapons although your rogues and casters will hate you and you will have to justify not getting the shield somehow or justify getting both.

As far as agro goes, if a tank does 10% better agro, you can start dpsing 10% earlier lowering the amount of throttle time you need to give your tanks. Rogues have very high snap agro abilities at the start of a fight due to starting at 100 energy so initial snap agro is important for a warrior. Compare the amount of head start you have to give your TF warriors then your non-TF warriors. A 1.6 speed weapon has higher snap agro on average than TF does assuming you start a fight with a rage pot + bloodrage. Sure TF rapidly passes the faster weapon at a rate of about 70 agro a second but weapon speed does help some if you havent been blessed by the MC gods.

My whole point in this thread is that rogue dps will actually go up if your tank has a better agro weapon and MHs are more important than OHs. Looking at spreadsheets is great but making up a 1.4% dps upgrade by being able to dps for 1.4% longer due to 1.4% higher tank agro is just as good from an individual perspective and much better from a raid perspective. And we are talking a higher agro gain than 1.4% compared to the next best weapons (pugio and Crul) and much higher than Quel or any BWL/MC non-daggers. The smaller the amount of lead time you need to give your tank the better. Sure on some fights it doesnt matter, but its still nice. The other arguement is for alliance at least, Iblis is the best non-dagger MH for dps due to the faster execute speed and better heroic strike efficiencies, so that same offtank who now has higher agro will also have higher execute dps at the end of the fight when hes on the boss instead of tanking. The more accurately you model dps the better faster weapons do for alliance fury warriors. Horde with windfury does not have the same fast weapons advantage so the arguement doesnt work there of course.

I'm fully aware of how good sword rogue dps is and I encourage sword rogues to get Iblis, but if a warrior has higher dkp, I dont see why they shouldnt get it. They have earned it as far as the dkp system goes and likely have higher attendence or worse gear than the lower dkp rogue. Priority simply isnt needed for your high attendence rogues to get iblis if they want it, it will only take away from your high attendence warriors.

Warriors = better options regardless of spec
Rogues = no better options if sword spec

I'd rather put my warriors in Dragonfang Blades were they to take rogue loot. It provides stamina, dodge, armor, vs a little more damage and half a crit.

However, Windfury does not get hit by weapon normalization, most tanks get windfury Horde-side. Give tanks something medium speed and hard hitting and they will build more "snap-aggro" (shield slams role) in the first 10 or 12 seconds than they would with Ilbis. I.E. Edge of Chaos, BQWH

I think you don't know what "snap aggro" means.

I'd use snap aggro to mean "the speed at which you can turn an untauntable mob onto you".

Such as the first few hits in any fight. The abilities you use to turn a mob of an overzealous rogue. The abilities you use during a tank transition on Vael.

I would think shield slam is designed for this role. In lieu of that, a strong amount of melee damage. Perhaps fast heroic strike spam (alcor's on vael), or a strong windfury hit (1 good spineshatter windfury).

In any situation, Harbinger or Iblis would be great. But there are other better options as well.

Windfury is ignored for the following because I dont have it and havent experienced the difference at a high end level.

There are no better options than iblis for alliance if all you care about is most consistant fastest agro for the first 5s of a fight using a rage pot. This is of course a rediculous arguement if it was just about that first 5s and you are going to not use healing potions for the first 2 minutes of the fight. But total agro is higher as well due to more efficent heroic strikes. For alliance, non-procing weapons, there is absolutely 0 benefit to having a slow weapon when tanking. Any weapon you say is better than Iblis for tanking, I guarantee you drop it to 1.6 (or 1.3 drool) speed and it will be higher agro and still have whatever quality you liked (tanking stats or whatever). The main reason Widow's Remorse is so good isnt the ac and stamina and 1%hit, its the 1.6 speed. If it was 2.6 speed like spineshatter it would be worse than the 2 aq40 quest options and worse than crul.


Snap agro is simply how much agro you can generate with X rage in a very short amount of time. You have to get into rotations like: shield block(8) + heroic(12) + revenge(5) + heroic(12) +shield slam(20) + heroic(12) + sunder(12) + heroic(12) + revenge(5) which takes 99 rage exactly and generates ~400*4 + 600 + 600 + 300 = 3100 agro in 5 seconds and you can only do with a 1.6 speed or faster weapon. Then there is the 3s you have after a taunt to get back the 10% agro where once again how fast you can dump your rage into high agro abilities is important.

If you lose agro for 12s the raid is going to wipe or that rogue is going to die.

For alliance, faster weapons is far higher sustained and snap agro. For horde faster is higher snap and lower sustained (stupid windfury)

Having a tank with a fast weapon and a rage pot is like having a car with nitrous. When you really need that agro you can hit a button and crank up the speed. Sure your corvette(1.6 speed tank weapon) with its nitrous addon isnt going to catch up to that Ferrari (TF) miles away but you can pass that Ricer (rogue) who was showing off going faster than the speed limit.

Most classes are no longer threat-limited on most fights. Rogues *definitely* are not threat limited on most fights. So a 1.4% threatgen increase helps... well, DPS warriors and warlocks, pretty much. Mages specced properly don't threatcap. Rogues don't generally threatcap by dint of Vanish. Same for hunters and feign. Your argument is flawed.

If Widow's Remorse didn't exist, you might have a point. But it does. And if you truly need a rapid ragedump to snap aggro, just use a Alcor's or Julie's for that initial snap aggro, then once you're locked swap in a mitigation weapon. After all, fast is better, right?

As an alliance tank I can assure you spineshatter is fine :p And I'm still struggling to think of the encounter you would need that corvette.

All further responses in this thread will use car analogies because they are amusing me much more than this thread is enlightening anyone.

Yes, the ricers can do that drifting thing and go faster without getting too far ahead by swaying back and forth in front of the camaro and sure the priuses and the pickup trucks arent going to pass anyhow and only the other souped up camaros and the sedans are going to be able to go a bit faster. Do remember that the ricers cant do the drifting thing at the start of the race very well cuz it burns out the tires and then they cant do it anymore.

If you are quick enough to hop out of your camaro into the corolla with its nitrous, hit the nitrous, use it up and then hop back sure but its easier to just buy a corvette and put nitrous in it. Then again, maybe you got lucky and already have a fast pace car like a Viper or you have are a pro at driving that volvo around with its good combination of speed and safety. Or just get lucky and grab that awesome dodge viper truck, its better than a corvette in a crash and almost as fast anyhow.

Yeah I think thats the point. Sure Iblis is a fine tanking weapon cause of the high speed. But there are other options to take without taking the best offhand sword rogue/fury warrior weapon in the game. There are plenty of other weapons that are fast and can be used for higher threat generation. I'm sure you'll get a lot less complaints taking a regalia for the hammer or arnament for the pugio than you would taking a specific drop off of one boss in the Iblis. Especially since the regalia/arnaments are from a previous dungeon. Heck I'd even say it would likely be more acceptable to rogues to take a Harbringer. Between Death's Sting, Maexxna's fang and the Harbringer there is more good dagger choices at this point in the itemization curve then there is swords, of which Iblis is really the only option.

Those options arent quite as fast as a corvette but I do concede they are close enough, this year's model isnt that much better. And sure if you wanted to give me that Riced up ferrari you can keep the silly corvette.

But yes, along with being a pace car I also race about half the time. Its nice to be able to use the same car for both cuz i get to save some $$$. I'm really just sick of using my ancient clunker much like many others. Sure it was fast and the best of class at the time but its starting to rust and its getting harder and harder to keep up with those Ricers who have much more recent models..

Just to be sure... are you talking about specific encounters or about fury wars tanking trash mobs?

Doesn't matter because mommy won't let you have the Corvette because she's buying you the next Saleen off the line.

Happy?

Bah this one is really hard to answer with just car analogies :(

No I wasnt talking about non-sponsored street races where the head starts would be lower although it does make a difference there. Its more the big races with the little mini races in between the different race stages and those races where your car slows down to a stop and then has to accelerate again. The straight forward drag races arent very difficult for any pace car of course but the really curvy ones have some places where top end speed isnt as important as acceleration. The corvette has both acceleration and high top end speed which is why its such a good pace car even if it gets dinged up a bit more than that shiny dodge viper truck that everyone wants. Sure if every pace car has a dodge viper truck we wouldnt care if the ricers all got the corvettes, they'd mod em up better than we could anyhow, but we are already letting them get those other cars that are just as good for them already so I dont think its fair that they would get to cut in line in front of us to get theirs first and who knows how many corvettes they are going to make anyhow? They could run out before the next model year when noone will care about this anyhow.

I am glad I watched The Fast and Furious, I understood all those car examples.

I think Celandro is talking tanking in general, not just Fury Warriors, but it is sort of hard to follow.

The answer was there and in other posts. Im starting to repeat myself so this is going to be my last post.

Basically there are lots of agro sensitive types of fights in the game where faster hate generation is helpful although obviously not required. Knockbacks, tauntable bosses with mem clears, stunnable bosses or adds(so you gain less rage), bosses that stun (so you dont have as much time to spend your rage), bosses with adds that you want to burn down quick, super rage gen mobs (Vael and mobs that hit really hard), etc. There are others where mitigation is more important. A skilled player with a slow weapon can make do but switching to a faster weapon is better. If you've ever used Esk Right Claw compared to Quel you know the difference that weapon speed makes. Now maybe you are horde and windfury makes slow tank weapons viable but the difference for alliance is pretty easy to see.

I really dont think using priority very often is a good idea even if it occassionally ends up having crul go to a hunter. If your dkp system is working well enough, the total benefit to total raid ability for X raids will be fairly consistant regardless of who gets which individual item. If you are going to use priority such as giving tanks priority on dreadnaught over weapons but giving rogues priority on weapons over tanks thats certainly fair since the 4 piece bonus is so good for agro and its such a high mitigation set. Just try and be fair on your priority rules so noone feels slighted (even those hunters who want a crul). Or just say F it and give your MT anything he could theoretically use to make a fight easier and tell everyone else to deal with it. If thunderfury didnt exist, tank agro weapons would be a much bigger deal for most guilds but luckily or unluckily it does so it isnt.

Blessed Qiraji War Hammer
Binds when picked up
One-Hand Mace
89 - 166 Damage Speed 2.10
(60.7 damage per second)
70 Armor
+10 Strength
+12 Stamina
Durability 105 / 105
Requires Level 60
Equip: +280 Attack Power in Cat, Bear, and Dire Bear forms only.
Equip: Increased Defense +8.

Widow's Remorse
Binds when picked up
Unique
One-Hand Sword
70 - 131 Damage Speed 1.60
(62.8 damage per second)
100 Armor
+17 Stamina
Durability 105 / 105
Requires Level 60
Equip: Improves your chance to hit by 1%.


The biggest upgrade is obviously the speed, the 1% hit, and the 5 stamina, at the tradeoff of 8 defense (negligible with Dreadnaught). The DPS difference =/= AP difference works out too close for me to calculate, so I won't.

But there you have it, 2 easily attainable tank weapons with perfection for stat allotment, one Ilvl 79, one Ilvl 81.
Just because it has Druid AP that doesn't effect Ilvl at all on it, doesn't mean you should fail to mention it in your assertment that Iblis should EVER go to a tank.

Yes I'm aware and have mentioned them, but both aq40 quests have pretty high competition in our guild
Iblis is a better version of Pugio
Widows Remorse is a better version of War Hammer

In AQ, did you give priority on the pugio quest to rogues and the war hammer quest to warriors or did you let dkp sort it out? Just wondering. We let dkp sort out almost everything although certain flaws in our dkp system become quite apparent when this happens.

I stopped reading when he started talking about cars. Besides, if he's alliance and he needs that tiny bit of threat gen to hold aggro then his guild is doing something amazingly wrong.

I think this thread wins by virtue of the car analogies. I was agreeing about a page back where they said to drop it because obviously we're just butting heads like its our job, but then the car analogy idea came along and suddenly this one became a winner.

Unfortunately, I think the actual worth besides comedy in this post is about 0.