LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

....Breathe.....

Ok, we got the laugh out of the way. Now in all seriousness I'd like to explore this a bit. (Apologies if this has been discussed recently; I did a cursory search and couldn't find a thread on this topic.)

I've been envious lately of the synergies casters get in raids and the concomitant impact on damage meters. More precisely, I've been feeling insecure about my (a rogue's) relative value to the raid. So I've been thinking about class synergies, and trying to figure out what the possible melee (or physical damage) synergies are that I could optimize. There's the warrior bleed debuff, the druid Mangle debuff, rogue Improved Kidney Shot (although not applicable to bosses)...and Hemo.

It's pretty easy to imagine 30 charges of hemo getting used by a 25 man raid in 3.5 seconds (the time it takes to generate enough energy for another hemo strike) and at +10 damage per hit that works out to a base 85 dps. (See footnote A) So the question is: would one rogue speccing hemo reduce his own dps by more than 85?

I'm guessing that one reason hemo has always gotten a bad rap is that hemo rogues tend to be specced deeply into the subtlety tree, and specifically for pvp. So I started playing around with the talent trees and came up with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fbe0obZ0ei00VzxZVbgoMhoo

It's basically a sword spec tree that sacrifices Adrenaline Rush, Combat Potency, and Aggression (plus a few points in Assassination) to get deep enough into subtlety for hemo. (See footnote B)

According to the spreadsheet with my gear (and the 2.7 speed Illidari-Bane sword I had in my bank...I'm a dagger rogue normally) the difference between this spec and a full 17/44/0 sword spec is around 35 dps. That's a net 50 dps for the raid, plus Rupture becomes the preferred finisher and would get a 30% synergy bonus with from a feral druid.

I wanted to test this in practice by respeccing both specs and beating on Servants in Blasted Lands, but neither CombatStats nor SWStats seems to work on the PTR and I didn't want to spend the gold on 3 respecs (would have to go back to daggers when I'm done.)

I'm curious if anybody has either modeled the value of having a hemo rogue in a 25 man raid, or tested it and has some numbers. Two more considerations:
1) Debuff Slots. Is hemo one boss debuff too many?
2) Scaling: since hemo doesn't scale at all, how long before the % reduction in rogue dps becomes greater than the fixed 85 dps raid bonus?
3) (Edit) One more point: the implication is that the raid's weakest rogue should be the one to respec


Notes:
A) I've always assumed that +10 hemo bonus gets added before criticals and multipliers, but I'm not an experienced hemo rogue so I didn't want to factor this in without verifying. If so, the 85 dps figure would go up considerably.
B) I went swords rather than fists because of the upcoming change to the mechanics of sword spec. The one point in Preparation could be moved to Lethality or Imp Eviscerate, but double evasion, double vanish, and double blade flurry all have their uses as well. There are other specific points that colud be argued over, too. Please save it.

All of the in game studies i have read indicate the hemo debuff is more than just +10 damage on each hit. The +10 damage is effected by crit rates and damage multipliers. As such you'll see the greatest dps bonus from the hemo debuff when most of your other melee classes are dagger rogues since the +10 damage will work out to be much greater than that after you factor in backstab crit rates, damage multipliers, and crit multipliers.

given the fact that hemo does scale with crit the same way striking enchants scale with crit and that rupture plays well with the mangle debuff i would say your best bet for a raid viable hemo rogue is making sure you have a feral druid around for mangle and the +crit aura. you will see the greatest benifit when playing with dagger rogues.

Hemo rogue (using your build) , combat rogue, feral druid, and hunter/warrior/enh shaman for the last two spots could be a great set up. I'm not sure which two out of the last three would make for the best synergy, however.

It would be interesting to see how close a group like that can come to a party of shadow priests and warlocks.

I have had a good chance to try out something of this sort. My hemo however, was far deeper into the combat tree. The reason for my change was because I was a sword rogue, with a great heavy MH... and then I came to the point where I wanted to do many heroics. As you all know, for a rogue sword, this means sacrificing 7 points, into subtelty. I figured if I was going to go that far, why not go all the way to 22, and get hemo.

My build was close to (0/39/22) It's what I prefer, and with my gear yields a very small dps increase, according to the rogue dpscalc. As far as i'm concerned, it's all preference when it gets in the 0.2% range. I noticed you put two points into lethality. Sword rogues generally have a very low crit rate, compared with dagger rogues. Our specials will also be happening more frequently. That makes this talent much less desierable than others, if you are focused on pve.

This one's updated for 2.1, where imp sap won't be required. I am fairly confident it will yield much more dps than the one you linked, with a fast offhand sword. Do not underestimate the power of combat potency. I was using Lattro's for my offhand at the time. If I would do it in 2.1, I would have to go with the gladiator's offhand.

Testing out that build, I didn't notice a huge drop in my dps. I had fun with it... Though I did spec out of it now. I guess for me it's just a matter of playstyle. Though it was great being able to use three adrenaline rushes and blade flurries on say a 6min boss fight. I'm not sure if the rogue dps calculator takes this into account.

Doing calculations with the spreadsheet, the hemo debuff seems to add about 100 dps, 110 buffed. If you count this, with my gear at least, I don't theoretically lose any dps.

Personally I think it's a great asset to any guild/raid that has a variety of specs. It's one of the main reasons I use swords as my weapons. All of our other rogues use daggers. Different specs will do better in some situations.

Itemization on fists is lacking at the moment... if you have access to either Spiteblade, or talon of ashzara. They will be your best bets in 2.1.

Well, if there's already a combat sword rogue.. he's the most likely candidate.

Let us know if you do play around with it, and come up with some conclusive or measuable results.

In a melee heavy 25-man it might be possible that you use every charge, i.e

3 Rogues - 1.8 attacks/sec
2 Hunters 1.8
Enh. Shaman - 1.4 (might be lower with WF nerfs and slow OH)
DPS Warrior - 1.5
MT - 1 (no clue on MT attacks/s)
OT Feral - 1 (no clue on feral bear cycles either)

14 attacks/sec, up to ~50 charges every 3.5 seconds.

But, your Hemo pattern won't be a Hemo every 3.5 seconds, sometimes you'll spam Hemo as fast as the GCD allows and sometimes you'll wait 8 seconds from 0->80 energy for SnD/Rupture cycles, etc. And if you don't go with a melee heavy raid you'll most likely see a rather sharp loss in DPS from the debuff. I see a net loss of ~30 DPS even with the optimal debuff estimate included, from a quick talent/MH change with my gear. As the debuff doesn't scale that good I don't see this changing with T5/T6.

i don't see why it couldn't be at least close to this pattern. you don't have to use energy just because you have it, as long as you're not ticking when you're already full you're not loosing energy i.e. no dps loss. the only reason you spam backstabs and mutilates as fast as you can is because there's no reason to insert pauses but with hemo there clearly is and you can easily incorperate that into the cp rotation without wasting any energy with the exception of the first 2 or 3 (which isn't going to matter in the long run anyway).

PVE Hemo was briefly touched up on the large Rogue DPS thread awhile ago. The two builds with the best output were either 11/21/29 or 11/20/30 depending on Blade Flurry or 2% AP. Over long time periods the 2% AP was shown to be more damage, while Blade Flurry is more of an opportunity ability that depends on having multiple targets available. Here's an example of a 11/21/29 build which happens to be the build I'm currently running:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=i0eboZhfV0bVzZxrfoMGkoL

I switched over to this build after crafting a Dragonmaw and over the past month it has proven a fun and capable raiding build. (Note: I clear Karazhan and am working on Gruul.) It also works well in arenas given the decent amount of Subtlety talents you grab along the way. My relative position on the damage meter did not change much in my raid and I certainly feel the Hemo debuff is valuable to the raid.

It's fine if the debuff goes away...that just means every charge has been used. Whether that happens in 1 second or 3.49 seconds, it still averages out to an 85 dps bonus, as long as the debuff reappears on average every 3.5 seconds.

This is where a mod like Debuff Filter is useful...tells the rogue if hemo is still up so doesn't refresh it before all charges are used.

I'm currently combat swords with Blinkstrike, but having no luck getting Latro's to drop (using Guile of Khoraazi for now).

I'm considering going blacksmithing to get Drakefist/Dragonmaw. The speed on it makes me think Hemo may start to become a more attractive build - would certainly mean I can give up grinding like a nutter for Latro's (Pugging Black Morass is a real pain...)

Now I've not been Hemo since my nub levelling days. What would be a good Hemo build with the blacksmith mace? Is mace spec really worth it? Should I forget combat totally and go Assassination/Sub with the poison talents for Envenom?

Something like this one.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fMe0oExsV0VZZVbgoMh0o

Finisher is Envenom on trash or when grinding - fights are short, and so the loss of DP damage is less significant. Finish with S'n'D / Rupture cycle on bosses. Loss of imp S'n'D is a pain, but I think Find Weakness makes up for it in part, and I just can't justify the loss of 5 points in the (useless) first tier of combat. I'm aware I'm sacrificing some pure damage for utility talents (e.g. Imp. Kidney Shot for heroics).

Any comments/brickbats/suggestions?

You won't do hemo every 3.5 seconds on average, it'll be around every 3.6 seconds giving you less than 83 DPS instead of 85. In a perfect world with a melee heavy raid.