• Aldriana

With enough haste and hit, a very fast OH, and 2/5 T4, one can run into a situation where 1s5r cycles can be completed in under 16 seconds, meaning that you have a bit of slack energy that could theoretically be used to maintain a longer cycle. However, I'm not aware of any proposals better than "ignore the problem and keep doing 1s/5r" for dealing with this situation. 1s5e and 1s5r1e can both be shown to be inferior with relative ease, meaning that the next "compressed" cycle achievable is 1s5r2e, which is at best marginally superior and in practice requires unattainable energy regen (as I recall). The other alternative would be to return to longer cycles and do something of the form 5s5rXe. I haven't run detailed numbers on this, but my feeling is that it's most likely inferior as well, given that such a cycle will only achieve ~50% rupture uptime which offsets the damage gained by eviscerate. So, at the moment, I think the best known option is to just stick with 1s5r.

On a related note, it might also be noted that there exists an itemization level past which 1s5r is no longer optimal; when ones gear reaches this level, it actually becomes optimal to do 5s5r even if you could support a shorter cycle. But I don't think there are many (if any) rogues that are quite at that level yet, so it's not a major concern .

 

koaschten

Does that imply that there is a point where Sinister Strike DPS is bigger then the downtime of rupture in a 5 snd 5 rupture cycle? o.O

 

• Aldriana

Roughly. I mean, the fundamental idea is as follows:

In a 5s/5r cycle with Relentless Strikes, the SnD and Rupture are free. So all energy is going into sinister strikes.

In a 1s/5r cycle, the rupture is free but the SnD costs, on average, 20 energy. Hence, only about 90% of your energy regen is going to sinister strikes.

Hence, with 1s/5r, you are actually launching about 10% fewer Sinister Strikes per unit time than with a 5s/5r cycle. At most reasonable levels of itemization, the is outweighed by the 50% increase is Rupture uptime.

However, if your AP and Crit% get high enough, it is theoretically possible to reach a point where the extra sinister strikes will do more damage than the extra rupture uptime, and at this point, 5s5r takes over as the optimal cycle.

Now, it takes a *lot* of AP and Crit (and, I guess, armor penetration) before this happens; I'm not sure if items actually exist that are equal to the task. But from a purely theoretical standpoint, it could happen. I'll try to dredge up my numbers on where the crossover point is in the next day or two.

 

songster

I don't understand how you could ever consider this. Eviscerate scales so badly with gear that even at my gear level a 2 point eviscerate does less damage than a sinister strike. Why would you ever use an Eviscerate of less than three points? With better weapons the cutoff is presumably even higher.

 

• Aldriana

I was writing from memory. I believe the last time I checked, a 2 point eviscerate has a marginally higher damage-per-energy efficiency than a Sinister Strike. Regardless, it's sort of a moot point since it's totally unattainable anyway.

 

Zurgat

With the Merciless gladiator's weapons, i've seen sinister strike crits near or over 2K, about the same as a 5 point eviscerate.
The reason rupture is good, is because it costs 10 energy less than eviscerate and thus has a much lower energy "bleed" which will allow you a more steady finisher rotation. That, and it works very nicely if you have a feral druid in the raid doing Mangle.

With 2 pieces of Netherblade, you'll probably be using a typical 1s/5r cycle.
Without those 2 pieces, you'll more likely to a 3s/5r or 5s/5r depending if you have combat potency, and your hit rating / haste / offhand speed.

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• Aldriana

So, a quick follow up on some comments I made yesterday:

1) With my current gear + usual buffs, the average damage dealt by a sinister strike is 1557 (premitigation). The average damage done by a 2-point evis would be 1216. So yes, the SS does more.

However, SS costs 40 energy and a two-point Evis only 25 (with Relentless Strikes); hence the energy efficiency of the SS is only 38.9 damage per energy, while the evis does 48.6 damage per energy; hence the evis converts energy to damage more efficiently, and is thus potentially worth using in a cycle.

2) As an example of itemization that makes 5s5r superior to the minimum cut cycle, consider the following gear setup:

Cursed Vision of Sargeras (RED, Glinting Pyrestone)
Choker of Endless Nightmare
Slayer's Shoulderpads (Glinting Pyrestone/Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst)
Shadowmoon Destoyer's Drape
Slayer's Chestguard (Glinting Pyrestone x2, Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst)
Insidious Bands (Glinting Pyrestone)
Slayers' Handguards (Delicate Crimson Spinel)
Don Alejandro's Money Belt (Delicate Crimson Spinel/Glinting Pyrestone)
Slayer's Legguards (Delicate Crimson Spinel)
Shadowmaster's Boots (Delicate Crimson Spinel/Glinting Pyrestone)
Stormrage Signet Ring (Striking enchant)
Ring of Deceitful Intent (Striking enchant)
Madness of the Betrayer
Dragonspine Trophy
Warglaive of Azzinoth
Warglaive of Azzinoth
Twisted Blades of Zarak

Now, with the buffs set to the default with which the sheet is uploaded, the recommended cycle is 3.2s5r, as usual - so the energy regen is sufficient to support such a thing. However, if you click off Mangle, the cycle recommendation switches to 5s5r, despite the fact that 3.2s5r is sustainable. This is because the gain in energy spent on Sinister Strike is sufficient to offset the loss of rupture damage.

Now, admittedly, this does require a high level of itemization (that gear setup yields an average 41.3% crit rate, 3660 AP, and 630 armor penetration - note that those are time-averaged raid-buffed stats, and not base stats), and some questionable socketing decisions (using Agi over Hit in a number of slots) - but it can happen.

 

• Aldriana

Version 0.7.7, 9/7/07:
Excel Version: Free file hosting by Savefile.com
OO Version: Free file hosting by Savefile.com

*Corrected ranged socketing bugs found by Karmon
*Added Merciless Gladiator's War Edge
*Implemented color-coded sockets on front page
*Removed Rigid Lionseye from recommendable gems.
*Possibly some other random tweaks and updates I've made over the last few weeks - I don't really remember if there's anything else I changed.

 

Laeus

I've been following these forums for a good while, but this is my first time posting.

I took a break from BC for about 5 months and came back a few weeks ago, at which point I dove into engineering and leatherworking in an attempt to catch my dps up to my guildies (via the eng helm and primalstrike set). I've also been grabbing stuff out of Karazhan as we put Gruul on farm, and will get T4 2pc and DST soon, drops permitting.

Given my gear level, my AP is somewhat high (over 1800) and my crit rating is just over 30%, but my hit rating is 186. I'm not trying to shoot for big crit numbers or to have the highest AP in my guild, it's just that every recommendation by the spreadsheet devalues hit rating for me. As an example, I was recently evaluating how to gem Skulker's Greaves, and triple +8 agi came out ahead of all other rare gems (especially raid-buffed). My question is: should I try to reach the hit cap first, regardless, and only then look at potential upgrades through other stats? Is being hit capped so much less important for a dagger rogue compared to a sword rogue that it's okay for me to be this low?

I'd like to emphasize that I don't mean for this to be a question about what gear to get, since I clearly have many required upgrades and many of those will increase my hit rating.

I've also thought about many of the fights my guild is currently doing. Almost none of them allow for uninterrupted dps, which seems to make hit rating even less useful since a larger proportion of my damage is coming from backstabs (which benefit from AP and crit, but not hit rating, at least above an easily-reached threshold).

I'm probably just missing something obvious. Thanks in advance guys.

 

niwrad

Not sure if there's a high enough demand for this feature but would it be possible to show the AP and crit % in addition to the hit for the selected gear configuration?

 

nilme

How accurate is the sheet regarding weapon skill?
I'm considering dropping my S2 OH Mace for the S2 OH Dagger for the extra CP procs, but I'm not sure if the sheet is considering weapon skill on the offhand(checking/unchecking weapon expertise with a mace spec build does nothing to shiv OH dps)

I've found that both the DPS and the Gear sheets agree on most gear choices, but I find it confusing that the DPS sheet considers the old rod of the sunking very superior to dragonstrike while the Gear sheet considers the new one a bit inferior.
I guess both sheets model the proc in a different way, and I hope the gear one is right as I really love my dragonmaw(soon to be dragonstrike )

 

Koosai

In general Hit Rating is very important though other stats can be better. Hit rating is less important with certain gear sets. For example when you don't have any procs from trinket or meta gems hit becomes less valuable than if you had such procs.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is nothing special about being hit capped. The reason that is is mentioned as so important is that hit rating is almost always the best stat point per point and so if that is the case for you then you should push towards that.

A good example of how stacking hit rating is not always the best thing to do is if you look at t5 vs t4 you will see alot less hit rating on t5. T5 is still better due to all the other stats it has on it.

 

Danther

If you take 1s/5r to be the baseline for constant Rupture uptime, with enough energy regen, wouldn't the cycle start to swing back towards 5s/5r but still maintaining 100% Rupture uptime?

 

koaschten

Cookie and Milk <3

 

Kytrarewn

So, Aldriana, wondering about your opinion here.

Options:
1. Take a slight DPS hit in the short-term, breaking NB bonus, but freeing myself up to upgrades later like Bloodsea Brigand's Vest, Deathmantle Gloves, Deathmantle Shoulders, Engineering helm (already have), which would increase my DPS beyond what Netherblade Provides.

2. Get NB legs/chest, which would open up the possibility for Deathmantle pieces when they come available, but also lock me into Netherblade for DPS purposes until such time that I can pick up the remaining pieces of deathmantle (working on Leotheras, so 4pc DM is a while away).

Granted that I enjoy my 1s/5r cut cycle more than 3s/5r, I'm leaning stronger towards option 1 because I hate being shoe-horned into a set bonus.

Thoughts?

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Sunbeams are always made on me
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• Aldriana

Fundamentally, what makes +hit powerful is that rogues gain a lot of DPS from proc effects, and effects can't proc if you're not hitting. This is why sword rogues benefit from it more strongly than dagger rogues: because sword spec is a proc, while dagger spec is not.

Moreover, in your particular case, you don't yet have many of the other important procs that rogues benefit from (Dragonspine Trophy and 2x Mongoose enchants, for instance). This further depressed the value of hit. Additionally, your OH is a bit slower than those used by most dagger rogues, which reduces the effect of combat potency somewhat as well.

Finally, the damage output of pre-Kara weapons like you are using lowers the raw weapon damage that you are putting out, which thus lowers the value of hit even further.

All in all: while I am a bit surprised the extent to which hit rating is discriminated against by your current gear, looking through your gear/spec, I can sort of see where it's coming from; I would expect that as your gear improves, you will see the value of hit increase.

I've been thinking about adding some sort of stat-summary sheet, yes. I'm not quite sure where I'd squeeze it in, but it is certainly something I've been considering.

For weapon skill under 355, this sheet is not accurate. For weapon skill 355 and over, it should be... reasonably accurate. I can't say totally accurate since I don't think the full effect of weapon skill is actually known at this point. But it's as accurate as I know how to make it.

Now, if weapon expertise isn't changing OH damage at *all*, that's probably a bug. If it's changing it, but not by very much, that's probably correct.

Regarding differences between the two sheets: assuming a) I have the proc rate on both correct (which I'm reasonably confident allbeit not certain that I do and b) Dragonstrike is not given an internal cooldown next patch (and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was), I believe that this sheet is correct. Now, admittedly, I'm likely somewhat biased in this (being the author and all) but as a general rule I do think this sheet does a better job of encoporating all the subtleties of the unusual proc effects that show up, such as Rod of the Sun King.

Yes, but the scaling in question isn't related to energy regen increasing; in practice, energy regen caps out under 14 energy per second, meaning that a 5s5r cycle will never have more than 65% or so rupture uptime. The scaling effect in question is that a) crit and armor penetration increase the damage of sinister strike but not rupture, and b) assuming reasonable crit and armor penetration, sinister strike scales more quickly with AP than does rupture. So, if your crit, AP, and armor pen get high enough, you can get to a point where the extra SS are worth more than the extra rupture uptime.

 

• Aldriana

I've always been of the opinion that T4 set bonuses are somewhat uninspiring as a sword rogue. As a dagger rogue, they certainly have their place. But as a sword rogue, I just don't find the benefit to be that big. This is (among other reasons) why I never got more than 1 piece of T4.

Looking at your gear setup for a moment:
*Your helm is significant better than T4
*Your legs are already somewhat better than T4.
*T4 gloves are mind-blowingly bad, particularly when compared to T5 gloves.
*If your guild is anything like mine, T5 shoulders will drop in price at a decent rate, as VR is a total farm job.

So I don't see that there's a lot of T4 you'd want to wear very long. It depends, of course, on how large an intermediate damage drop you're talking about and for how long you expect it to last. But my philosophy on T4 was that there wasn't anything compelling enough in T4 to warrant significant DKP expendature on it, such that I only picked up those items that I could get cheaply. Rather, I kept using my Karazhan loot + 2/5 WW until I could pick up T5 and T5-equivalent (i.e. Bloodsea Brigand's Vest, etc.) loot. But, doing it the other way works too; just a matter of personal preference.

 

Kytrarewn

I've already got the T5 shoulders, just haven't been wearing them yet because of the hit I take from losing the 2pc NB bonus (moving to deathmantle shoulders is something along the lines of
11DPS lost, depending on how I happen to gem them.

Again, I'm really unsure about which piece of T4 to take to continue the bonus. T4 legs would let me maintain my 2pc bonus with gloves, for now, while only costing me something along the lines of 150g to add a cobrascale armor kit to, while using the 2pc shoulders, especially as there's probably a few shamans and another rogue ahead of me on the gloves for now. I really, really do not want to lock myself into the chestpiece instead of the Bloodsea Brigand's though.

Since T5 legs already kinda suck, and as you mention, my current legs are "somewhat" better than T4, I sort of feel like it would be worth the bid, especially as they're *almost* on "side-spec/burn" status at present.

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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.

 

Grunge

Why are you so fixed on the T4 2 piece set bonus? Sure it's nice but breaking it isn't going to cost you that much dps wise.

Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.

 

nilme

According to the sheet the 2piece bonus of NB is worth 55ap for my gear. Considering I only have T5 content "checked", the only upgrade that offers such increase in ap is karathress chest or just going from maces to swords.
I'm trying to decide which t4 piece should I go for, having legs right now. I'm using Engineering googles// bladed shoulderpads// Conniver's chest and fel leather gloves. The only real upgrade beyond set bonuses is the chest, the others are just downgrades. But considering I will have access to karathress chest some day, I guess I'll pass on Mag tokens and go for the gloves(they are the lowest downgrade from my current gear to NB)

About the OH/Weapon skill issue: I think there's no such bug, just a wierd way of compairing weapons. I think the sheet is compairing each weapon without taking into account weapon expertise(BUT taking into account weapon spec, INCLUDING mace spec which gives weapon skill, which means the sheet is using weapon skill but just not weapon expertise?).
When you equip the shiv and "respec" to 2/2 weapon expertise you get a nice dps increase, but if you have the Mace on the offhand, the sheet considers the shiv an upgrade by the same amount with OR without 2/2 weapon expertise(which should improve the shiv but not the S2 OH mace)

*Edit: Again on the weapon expertise issue on offhand weapons. If I add sword/dagger/fist spec to my talent build(in addition to mace spec), the sheet starts to suggest me to switch to the S2 OH fist or sword, as expected. With 5/5 mace spec and 5/5 sword spec the sheet suggests switching from S2 OH Mace to S2 OH Sword by a big margin(141ap) or S1 OH by 101dps
Now, if instead of going swords I go fists I get the same result, but by a much smaller margin(50dps), again, as expected. In this case the S1 OH Fist doesnt even appear on the suggestion frame and is replaced by S2 OH Dagger(the shiv, from now) which would give me a 30.43ap increase. Fist spec is not good enough to compensate the .1 weapon speed decrease the shiv offers. Fine, I understand
Now, for the wierd thing: IF, while being 5/5 mace spec and 5/5 fist spec, I ADD 5/5 dagger spec(I know, not possible on a real build, but bear with me!) the fists dissapear from the suggestion frame and only the S2 Shiv appears, giving the SAME exact ap increase(30.43) it gave me without 5/5 dagger spec. The only other suggestion is my current oh mace, with a 0 ap increase. Below it: N/A
To narrow things down a bit, I respecced out of fist spec, leaving only mace and dagger spec. The only change is that now, the third suggestion changes from N/A to the S1 Shiv(-2.86ap)
And the last test:removing dagger spec and leaving my build with just 5/5 mace spec(the current situation on my real character) changes the suggestion frame to the situation at mace&fist&dagger spec: 30.43ap increase from the shiv, 0dps from the s2 oh mace[current weapon] and N/A

If I equip the shiv and respec to dagger&mace spec, I get a dps increase, which means that the only issue is on the suggestion column

 

deluXE

After reading quite a bit, I think I'll try to get four T5 pieces and drop the T4 shoulders and leggings I'm wearing at the moment.

 

• Aldriana

Hmm. I was pretty sure I had included weapon specializations and the like correctly; I'll have to look into it. I'll let you know when/if I find anything.

 

Kytrarewn

10DPS with equal gems moving from Netherblade Shoulderpads to Deathmantle Shoulderpads.

With gloves too, I still lose 1.36 DPS (per the DPS spreadsheet, haven't run it through this one yet).

So the only thing that would make it worthwhile to drop the whole Netherblade ideal would be grabbing the Bloodsea Brigand's vest, bringing it to a net upgrade of 6.04DPS, while, even then, NB shoulderpads and legs would be 13.43DPS higher, with 9.43DPS upgrade with gloves/leggings and the bloodsea brigand's vest.

Is it a phenomenal bonus? No. But it's damn hard to get rid of at my current progression level since it's, essentially, free, and deathmantle leggings are still kinda crap.

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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
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• Aldriana

So, I've been working on some ideas regarding Mutilate, and there are a few questions I need answered before I can move forward. So if those of you with some experience in the matter would care to assist, I would be greatful.

1) If one of the two attacks of a Mutilate misses or is dodged, do you still gain 2 combo points?
2) If both attacks miss/are dodged, do you gain combo points? Is the energy for the attack (mostly) refunded, as is true for backstab/sinister strike/hemo?
3) Is anyone aware of viable cycle propositions for Mutilate other than 4+ CPs with intelligent finisher selection?

Just so we're clear: I probably will not be integrating Mutilate into the main sheet; rather, I am currently thinking I will make a similar Mutilate sheet with roughly the same frontpage UI, that will only do computations for Mutilate builds. I will also probably not be updating it as faithfully as I do this one, but I do want to have at least a rough version of the spreadsheet so comparisons can be made.

 

Kytrarewn

Yes, and if the one that doesn't get dodged/misses is crit, you get 3.
I'm 95% sure that that is the case.
Not really... close to 100% find weakness and ashtongue uptime is about as good as you can do, but there is that slight bit of randomness.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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.