On the subject of other racials, if and when you implement them you could atleast try for a simplified version, just to give people an idea. I know that for berserking I rarely (read never) look at my health, I just pop it when it is up and the timing is right. I think it would be helpful and not hard to just model the effect and assume we are at full health. I think it should be modeled to some extent as it is another haste effect and it will change the value of hit.
As some of you may have heard (or not), in addition to the blanket haste nerf next patch, they also appear to be adding an internal cooldown to Dragonspine Trophy. Based on 15 min in Blasted Lands last night, said internal cooldown appears to be 20 seconds. So, if you're like me, you're probably wondering what this does to the value of the trinket.
And the answer is: it's still the best trinket in the game by a decent margin. I hacked a copy of the spreadsheet to model this, and I come up with the following valuations of trinkets (assuming my gear/spec):
Dragonspine Trophy: 238
Madness of the Betrayer: 176
Ashtongue Talisman: 170
Warp-Spring Coil: 156
Tsunami Talisman: 149
So, it's still pretty clearly the winner. Which, the way things have been going, probably means it's going to be nerfed some more. Personally, I'm hoping they bump the internal cooldown up to, oh, 45 sec or so and revert the haste nerf (which would still leave it as the best trinket in the game, but by a more reasonable margin).
Anyway, yeah. It's being nerfed, but it's still the best game in town.
As a side note, assuming Warglaives wind up with the same internal cooldown as Dragonspine (which, honestly, seems likely), I estimate that rogues will be topping out in the ballpark of 2100 DPS in long sustained fights.
As some of you may have heard (or not), in addition to the blanket haste nerf next patch, they also appear to be adding an internal cooldown to Dragonspine Trophy. Based on 15 min in Blasted Lands last night, said internal cooldown appears to be 20 seconds. So, if you're like me, you're probably wondering what this does to the value of the trinket.
And the answer is: it's still the best trinket in the game by a decent margin. I hacked a copy of the spreadsheet to model this, and I come up with the following valuations of trinkets (assuming my gear/spec):
Dragonspine Trophy: 238
Madness of the Betrayer: 176
Ashtongue Talisman: 170
Warp-Spring Coil: 156
Tsunami Talisman: 149
So, it's still pretty clearly the winner. Which, the way things have been going, probably means it's going to be nerfed some more. Personally, I'm hoping they bump the internal cooldown up to, oh, 45 sec or so and revert the haste nerf (which would still leave it as the best trinket in the game, but by a more reasonable margin).
Anyway, yeah. It's being nerfed, but it's still the best game in town.
As a side note, assuming Warglaives wind up with the same internal cooldown as Dragonspine (which, honestly, seems likely), I estimate that rogues will be topping out in the ballpark of 2100 DPS in long sustained fights.
Thank you once again for making itemization easy and for a better understanding of the class. You rock out.
I haven't played my rogue since BC came out and I rerolled Paladin. I've recently been playing my rogue again and just hit 69. I came across the anesthetic poison. I was wondering if someone could answer for me which is a better poison to use as far as raiding instant poisons? I noticed that anesthetic has about 30 less damage then instant. Is the "no additional threat" mechanic in Anesthetic effective enough to overcome the damage you lose from poisons? It seems like one would rather use anesthetic, but I'm not sure if I'm missing something.
Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.
If anyone is wondering why I posted here, it's cause I don't seem to have the ability to create a new thread on the forums. Thanks again for the feedback!!
Depends on the fight, and your tank. On most fights, if your tank has good aggro, you can basically go all out using only vanish as your aggro dump, hence the zero-threat mechanic is irrelevant and you might as well use instant poison. However, on fights with frequent aggro resets and/or deaggros, particularly if your tanks aggro is a bit sub-par, the zero threat can be useful.
As a rule of thumb: use Instant Poison unless you have significant reason to do otherwise. If you find yourself feinting constantly and/or needing to hold fire to avoid pulling aggro, then switch over to Anaesthetic.
Thanks for the input Aldriana. I had a feeling it would be situational, but I wanted to check. Had a combat rogue in our guild always complaining about pulling aggro, and then I found out he never uses anesthetic poison. I wanted to do some research on the theorycraft behind the new poison before I said anything to him.
Figured this would be one of the best places to check as I highly respect the opinions of the forum posters in Elitist Jerks. Any other opinions would be appreciated, but that was pretty much the answer I was looking for.
Also, in raids, you will usually not be using poison on your main hand with an enhancement shaman in your group. Your off hand should always have Deadly on it. So the choice is usually made for you: use neither instant nor anesthetic.
Thanks for the input Aldriana. I had a feeling it would be situational, but I wanted to check. Had a combat rogue in our guild always complaining about pulling aggro, and then I found out he never uses anesthetic poison. I wanted to do some research on the theorycraft behind the new poison before I said anything to him.
Figured this would be one of the best places to check as I highly respect the opinions of the forum posters in Elitist Jerks. Any other opinions would be appreciated, but that was pretty much the answer I was looking for.
Also, sorry for hijacking this thread.
Well, I would argue that if your rogues are pulling aggro frequently, then either a) they need to get better at managing the use of vanish or b) your tanks aggro could use some help. For instance, I would argue that the only fight in SSC/TK where the aggro situation is such that vanish + a good tank isn't necessarily equal to the task is probably Leo.
I dont suppose anyone has done testing on the other trinkets? Heard gossip flying around about some of the other raid trinkets having their cooldowns reduced to put em more in line with dragonspine.
I have not heard of any such testing, although I suppose I do have WSC and TT that I could fiddle with. I may try to do that in the next day or two, but if other people would like to collect data on other trinkets, that would be helpful.
I was wondering if someone could give me a hand. I am sure a few of you have had this problem, but how did you go about Breaking up your WW 2 piece bonus? I keep looking at gear I could potentially grab, but being a slave to this stupid bonus seems to be an overall downgrade.
I don't feel right about snatching up loot that i am not going to wear, but at the same time it looks like it is the only way that i am going to be able to make this work, so any advise you guys have would be appriciated.
Edit:
I currently wear the Shoulders and chest, and I have the gloves in the bank. I can pretty much pickup the t4 pants whenever i am ready, but i have been waiting on a DST. So i am looking for upgrade ideas moving into t5 gear.
Last edited by roq : 09/05/07 at 1:58 PM.
Reason: Just adding a little more information
Thanks for the input Aldriana. I had a feeling it would be situational, but I wanted to check. Had a combat rogue in our guild always complaining about pulling aggro, and then I found out he never uses anesthetic poison. I wanted to do some research on the theorycraft behind the new poison before I said anything to him.
Figured this would be one of the best places to check as I highly respect the opinions of the forum posters in Elitist Jerks. Any other opinions would be appreciated, but that was pretty much the answer I was looking for.
Also, sorry for hijacking this thread.
Poison isn't a huge contributor to Rogue TPS. 187 damage (w/ 1/5 Vile) every 2 seconds, or 75ish TPS). Compared to the 900-1200 DPS that your rogue's putting out, it won't make or break the bank, but, if you're having issues with debuff slots anyway, might as well use Anesthetic instead of instant/deadly, since it's not a terrifyingly huge DPS loss, but does help a bit on fights where you might have some issue with aggro (See Warrior offtank on Gruul).
Originally Posted by roq
I was wondering if someone could give me a hand. I am sure a few of you have had this problem, but how did you go about Breaking up your WW 2 piece bonus? I keep looking at gear I could potentially grab, but being a slave to this stupid bonus seems to be an overall downgrade.
I don't feel right about snatching up loot that i am not going to wear, but at the same time it looks like it is the only way that i am going to be able to make this work, so any advise you guys have would be appriciated.
NB 2pc bonus + stats > WW 2pc bonus. As a side note, that I actually feel kind of shitty about, I picked up the Deathmantle Shoulders last night before having run them through the spreadsheet. Can't wear them until I get a new pair of pants to maintain the netherblade bonus.
Jesus don't want me in a sunbeam
Sunbeams are always made on me
Don't expect me to cry, for all the reasons I'm gonna die
Don't ever ask your kick of me.
Depends on your spec and which pieces of WW you have. Personally, I didn't stop wearing WW Shoulders + Gloves till I had T5 for both slots. However, as a dagger rogue, the T4 2/5 is more powerful and is generally more worth getting, so it's potentially worth breaking WW to get Netherblade. Of course, ideally, you hold on to *both* 2/5 set bonuses for a while, and then you're back into waiting-for-T5 territory.
I didn't seem to have a problem reaching the hit cap and pretty decent AP/crit using just karazhan drops with heroic badge rewards to fill in the gaps. 2piece t4 bonus from gloves and legs. Replaced t4 legs with skulker's once I picked up t5 gloves and shoulders. To me t5 isn't good enough to wear more than the legs and shoulders unless you're mutilate. I think looting consequence should play a role in how you equip yourself. Personally I'm just holding out for t6.
Hell I'm still using skulker's, bloodsea, bloodlust brooch and engi goggles in bt/hyjal. Makes me feel kinda gimp but whatever works I guess.
Moral of my story, don't ever become a slave to a set bonus. You will have to break it eventually, might as well do it now before you give it a name, spend your lifetime feeding and bathing it only to have it reject you and call you names. In the end 90% of your dps isn't your stats, it's your ability to play and focus. Proper gearing just helps give you a better edge.
I didn't seem to have a problem reaching the hit cap and pretty decent AP/crit using just karazhan drops with heroic badge rewards to fill in the gaps. 2piece t4 bonus from gloves and legs. Replaced t4 legs with skulker's once I picked up t5 gloves and shoulders. To me t5 isn't good enough to wear more than the legs and shoulders unless you're mutilate. I think looting consequence should play a role in how you equip yourself. Personally I'm just holding out for t6.
I would argue that, in a vacuum, the shoulders (and helm, if you're not an engineer) are both more worthwhile than the legs, which are a sidegrade to Skulker's. But the real value of T5 is in... guess what... the set bonus. Assuming I have the 4/5 T5 set bonus proc rate even close to right in this sheet (and I think I do), one actually gets a significant DPS boost from the set bonus which makes 4/5 T5 worth using well into MH/BT (in particular, it's not worth breaking until you can get 2/5 T6).
Also, I'd again point out that there's no mystical significance to being at the hit-cap. With my current gear setup I'm at 274, and I do more damage than ever before. Sure, you can get pretty good stats with Karazhan + Heroic gear. But you can get even better stats with SC/TK gear, and better still with MH/BT gear (assuming you pick the right pieces, of course - but that's why we have spreadsheets for that sort of thing).
Moral of my story, don't ever become a slave to a set bonus. You will have to break it eventually, might as well do it now before you give it a name, spend your lifetime feeding and bathing it only to have it reject you and call you names.
I disagree with this. While it's true that eventually all set bonuses end up getting broken, that's no reason not to make as much use as possible of them in the meantime. Sure, eventually you're going to want to break 4/5 T5 to go to T6, but in between you clear about a dozen bosses and there's no reason no to use the damage output from 4/5 in the meantime.
In the specific case of WW 2/5: you already have it, so you might as well wear it. This doesn't mean you shouldn't pick up upgrades for those slots at some point; what it means is that if you pick up an upgrade for one slot and are deciding whether to wear it immediately or wait until you get another upgrade, you should factor in the set bonus. Is it worth getting T5 shoulders over WW? Obviously. But should you equip them the moment you get them, breaking the 2/5 set bonus? Probably not; you should wait till you have an upgrade for the other slot as well.
In the end 90% of your dps isn't your stats, it's your ability to play and focus. Proper gearing just helps give you a better edge.
While it's true that attention to detail while actually playing is a larger factor, it's also true that paying adequate attention to get to 95% of the damage potential of your gear isn't particularly hard on the vast majority of fights.
Additionally, the effect of gear is not to be underestimated; it's not unreasonable for one's damage output to roughly double from early Kara-level gear to end-BT level gear. So while it's certainly not the only effect that effects your damage output, or even the largest one, it's certainly non-negligible.
Besides which, I would argue that if a question is posted on a gear comparison spreadsheet thread, the questioner is sufficiently interested in optomizing his gear that it's worth getting the answer right; even if the right gear selection was only 1% of your total damage output (and it's a lot more than that), that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing right.
I can't agree more with Aldriana. 4 piece t5 is almost equal to 2 piece t6 and at that point the stat increase from t6 tips the balance in it's favor. For that effect I really would've preferred t5 chest over bloodsea (not that either dropped for me... Conniver->T6...), since you're not swapping that out any time soon. Helm...is a tricky thing. If you want 4piece as soon as possible it's easier to kill Archimonde, but on the long run holding T5 Head-Chest-Legs-Shoulders with T6 gloves until you can pick up Chest/Shoulder/Pants is really worth it. And Illidan helm is superior to T6 anyway so you're not sacrificing a lot.
Before that breaking t5 is rather pointless. Especially if you take note of the haste nerf. Not many non-set items are available (if any?) besides the soon-to-be nerfed haste itemization.
So there really isn't any reason not to take t5. You shouldn't be hit starved anyway at that point so that's not a issue (Deep Shadows with 2x 8hit, WSC/Tsunami). Overall the offensive stat increase on t5 covers any lost hit anyway.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
First of all, nice spreadsheet. It's an interesting approach how you quickly just show the gear upgrade choices are.
Originally Posted by Aldriana
...as near as I can tell, it's computing DPS in an abstracted situation that doesn't actually occur in any real fight. The assumptions about sustainability aren't even valid for Patchwerk, much less any other fight. It's calculating the numbers assuming, roughly speaking, a fight of infinite length against a stationary target with no tea use. Whereas in practice, the longest uninterrupted stationary fight we have is Patchwerk at 7 minutes, and that's short enough that the edge effects do matter. So, yes, as a theoretical exercise in damage computation, it's fine - but has nothing to do with any real situation, even neglecting the issues of stamina and survivability.
I wanted to respond to this, even though the quote is really old, given how I was one of the authors of the original DPS sheet. The caveat that it only works for sustained fights is very much true, and this was something that I tried to make clear whenever describing the sheet.
However, I disagree that the sheet was inaccurate for a fight like Patchwerk. Perhaps it was in your usage case, but at least for me it was extremely accurate. I could put in exactly what buffs, potions, and gear I had and the returned DPS was within 1-2%. Which given the DPS was around 700 in total, that's a pretty good margin of error. Not saying it was perfect, because of course it had issues, and there were assumptions that were made. But overall, it was rather accurate for something like Patchwerk where you could DPS non-stop with no worry of dying.
I think calculating for the "assumed sustained DPS" is fair, because otherwise you really don't have any baseline to compare it against. There's so many fights and situations that you really would go crazy trying to compute for all the specific scenarios.
I'd actually argue for using T5 helm over chest, given that there are some very compelling chests that drop quite early in Hyjal/BT; Nether Shadow Tunic drops off Supremus, and Midnight Chestguard off Archimonde (which the earliest you can get a helm upgrade after Deathmantle); both of these are *significant* upgrades over either Deathmantle or Bloodsea Brigand's. When you throw in the fact that, long term, you don't actually want to use Slayer's Helm anyway (as Cursed Vision + the other 4 pieces of T6 is optimal), I would argue that using 4/5 T5 + nonset chest until you down *Shahraz* and can swap out for T6 gloves + shoulders is probably the way to go. Of course, Slayer's Helm is a fairly massive upgrade in it's own right, so I could see the argument for breaking 4/5 T5 with Helm + Gloves and waiting to upgrade to Cursed Vision until after you have the other 4 pieces of T6.
...of course, this is all purely hypothetical, as, only having killed Kael for the first time last week, it'll probably be a while before I have access to any T6 at all. However, the point remains; from a theoretical point of view, it's hard to argue that 4/5 T5 until at least Archimonde if not Shahraz is optimal.
However, I disagree that the sheet was inaccurate for a fight like Patchwerk. Perhaps it was in your usage case, but at least for me it was extremely accurate. I could put in exactly what buffs, potions, and gear I had and the returned DPS was within 1-2%. Which given the DPS was around 700 in total, that's a pretty good margin of error. Not saying it was perfect, because of course it had issues, and there were assumptions that were made. But overall, it was rather accurate for something like Patchwerk where you could DPS non-stop with no worry of dying.
Admittedly, when I made that quote I was to some extent exaggerating for effect; however, I do think there is some merit in the assertion. My particular argument is that endless combat does not consider the fact that you A) start with one hundred energy or B) can squeeze two ARs into a 7 minute fight. When you work it out, your actual available energy for the fight was more like 4600 (4200 + 100 starting + 2x150 AR) than the 4410 (4200 + 1.4x150 AR) that sheet predicted. And while a 5% energy discrepancy is not a *huge* deviation from theory, it is enough to tweak the white/yellow damage balance a bit, which will in turn cause slight adjustments in the value of stats, such that if two items of very comparable quality were modeled (such as, for instance, Bonescythe Belt and Belt of Never-Ending Agony or Deathdealer's Vest and Bonescythe Breastplate), the answers could change a bit relative to the endless combat model.
More to the point, at the time it was actually possible to do better; I included in the sheet I had been using at the time a parameter by which one could adjust the number of seconds of autoattack damage that you were able to perform between each backstab, on average; in an endless combat model, neglecting AR, this would be 7.8, in that you have 6 seconds between backstabs and 30% haste active from SnD. However, when I measured this parameter in actual fights, I found it tended to range from about 5 (on Chromaggus, Twin Emps, and the like) up to a little over 7 (for fights like Patchwerk). I could then adjust this parameter within my sheet to get valid DPS numbers over a range of fights, which I considered to be a superior implementation (in terms of accuracy if not user-friendliness) at the time.
I think calculating for the "assumed sustained DPS" is fair, because otherwise you really don't have any baseline to compare it against. There's so many fights and situations that you really would go crazy trying to compute for all the specific scenarios.
In the expansion, I certainly agree; the fact that white and yellow damage can no longer be easily separated as they could pre-expansion due to Combat Potency, haste procs, cycle maintenance, and so on means a more sophisticated model of the interaction is necessary. In the expansion, to obtain truly accurate results, one must know the exact uptime/downtime pattern of the fight to get good results, which is just not practical. Hence, a sustained calculator is about the best you can do - which is why this sheet is what it is. However, I do maintain that preexpansion mechanics were sufficiently straightforward that modeling interrupted fights was possible.
As long as we're on the topic, I should mention that I've been thinking about this problem for a few weeks, and I'm starting to get some ideas about how to model more interrupted fights. I haven't solved all the issues yet, but I do think it might be possible to put together a useful if not perfectly accurate model of interrupted combat; as I'm starting to run low on other features to implement, I may try to build such a thing in at some future date. No promises, but it is something that I'd like to try to do.
I guess I should of expanded on the looting consequence part of my post. My aim wasn't to argue that set bonuses aren't worth it, if you can get them obviously you should go for it. I just think one should consider how it affects your loot order and other people.
But yea I admit the thinking I'm working towards doesn't really belong in this thread.
I'd actually argue for using T5 helm over chest, given that there are some very compelling chests that drop quite early in Hyjal/BT; Nether Shadow Tunic drops off Supremus, and Midnight Chestguard off Archimonde (which the earliest you can get a helm upgrade after Deathmantle); both of these are *significant* upgrades over either Deathmantle or Bloodsea Brigand's. When you throw in the fact that, long term, you don't actually want to use Slayer's Helm anyway (as Cursed Vision + the other 4 pieces of T6 is optimal), I would argue that using 4/5 T5 + nonset chest until you down *Shahraz* and can swap out for T6 gloves + shoulders is probably the way to go. Of course, Slayer's Helm is a fairly massive upgrade in it's own right, so I could see the argument for breaking 4/5 T5 with Helm + Gloves and waiting to upgrade to Cursed Vision until after you have the other 4 pieces of T6.
Aldriana,
Your sheet continues to show Skulkers as being superior to Deathmantle (14 AP equivalent for my gear) , which I understand in a 1 against the other comparison. However, if I were to pick up t6 helm (74 AP equivalent over Deathmantle), would the helm upgrade plus the deathmantle to skulkers switch be worth it to drop 4/5 DM? Reason I ask is that we have had a ton of the helm tokens drop and the gloves have not dropped in over a month, thus there are a ton of people in line ahead of me for gloves, but I am next up for helm. Thanks again for your thoughts.
Your sheet continues to show Skulkers as being superior to Deathmantle (14 AP equivalent for my gear) , which I understand in a 1 against the other comparison. However, if I were to pick up t6 helm (74 AP equivalent over Deathmantle), would the helm upgrade plus the deathmantle to skulkers switch be worth it to drop 4/5 DM? Reason I ask is that we have had a ton of the helm tokens drop and the gloves have not dropped in over a month, thus there are a ton of people in line ahead of me for gloves, but I am next up for helm. Thanks again for your thoughts.
Uh, If I remember correctly the spreadsheet didn't add the dps increase from the set bonuses (otherwise it wouldn't suggest any single t6 piece over 4pc t5). So to check if it's worth losing 4 piece dm you need to consult the Set Bonus Values on the Spreadsheet.
I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be worth it though. Only reason to break 4/5 DM is 2/5 Slayer's.
Other than that I don't see any combination that would break it.
Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.
Well, the short answer would be "plug it into the spreadsheet and find out" - the "Rough DPS" estimate should be adequate to figure this out. The somewhat longer answer would be that it depends on a variety of factors, but probably not.
1) First, Skulker's are really only a 14 AP upgrade assuming you're able to socket them with BT gems, which, depending on your guild's gear situation, may or may not be possible; if you're comparing socketing with Blue gems in both cases, Skulker's is a sidegrade more than an upgrade to Deathmantle.
2) It somewhat depends on where you are on the hit and stamina spectrum. If you're anywhere near the hit cap (which, depending on what sort of fights you're doing these days, can be reasonably considered to be as low as 284), you may not have the room under the hit cap to absorb the full benefit of Skulker's Greaves. On the other hand, one of the benefits of Deathmantle that keeps them somewhat close is that it presents a significant stamina upgrade, which, if it's not necessary for you at the moment, may reasonably be discounted as a benefit thereof. So if you're high on hit and/or low on sta, Skulkers is probably not a good choice.
But, assuming for the moment that neither 1 nor 2 applies, that you have sufficient epic gems available to gem your Karazhan gear, and the hit and sta factors do not apply, in terms of raw damage output, it *still* looks to me like 4/5 is good enough that Slayer's Helm + Skulker's Greaves is insufficient reason to break it; not by a whole heck of a lot, of course, but even with BT gems I only count an 81 AP upgrade for Slayer's Helm over Deathmantle, compared to a 116 AP bonus from 4/5. So it would take a 2nd upgrade on the order of 35 AP to qualify, and Skulker's over Deathmantle does not qualify.
All in all: for a variety of circumstantial reasons as well as the straight-up-damage argument, I'm reasonably confident that breaking 4/5 T5 without getting 2/5 T6 is never worthwhile... assuming that I have the proc rate for 4/5 anywhere close to right. However, as I have mentioned before, the 4/5 number is purely an estimate, and until Vashj gets around to cooperating (she hasn't dropped a rogue helm in close to a month), I have no ability to test the accuracy of it. So it may be that I am over (or under) estimating the value of 4/5, so take all this analysis with a grain of salt until someone gets around to testing that proc rate.
On a related note, I'd also still be intereted in seeing proc rate info for Band of the Eternal Champion, if someone who has it would like to do some testing. Or, alternately, if someone would like to invite me to an end-hyjal guild so I can rep up and test myself... .
It seems like the suggested upgrades do not take into account removing a piece that you are getting a set bonus from.
For example, put the primalstrike set on. It suggests the Netherblade chestpiece as an upgrade, but when you equip it, the dps (for me) goes down by 3.
It seems like the suggested upgrades do not take into account removing a piece that you are getting a set bonus from.
For example, put the primalstrike set on. It suggests the Netherblade chestpiece as an upgrade, but when you equip it, the dps (for me) goes down by 3.
Yup, you're right. When equipping/unequipping sets, check the rough DPS cell (or the AP value of the set bonus on the appropriate sheet) to see if it's worth losing. It's a per-slot upgrade suggestion.
09/04/07, 2:38 PM
Similar Threads
