I'm just going off what I believe I've heard ald say, which is as long as you have at least 355 weapon skill inserted in to that spreadsheet, your dps will be accurate. If you dont, it wont.

EDIT: I believe in the front page and in one of the last couple pages ald talks about doing so. (adding a stats section for your gear)

This has been briefly mentioned a few times throughout this thread but no definitive conclusion appears to have been made. The sheet appears to greatly favor Murder over Lethality point-for-point. For the purpose of discussion, assume all mobs are such that Murder is applicable (which is mostly the case for my current level of progression in SSC / TE).

Two questions:
1. Is Murder really that much better than Lethality point-for-point?
2. Isn't there an amount of crit % attainable such that Lethality yields more dps than Murder, particularly for dagger rogues w/ imp backstab?

1) Absolutely, on mobs that are affected by Murder. In places like SSC/TK, where mobs of the mobs are affected, it's a great talent.

2) Not really, it all depends on the type of mob being attacked. In Hyjal/BT, Murder becomes less valuable because of the lack of vulnerable mobs.

So, first off: the sheet assumes that all mobs are murderable, which, while certainly true of many mobs in SSC and TK, it is not true of all of them; notably, Hydross, Void Reaver, and Al'ar are excluded. Additionally, Vashj and Kael both have adds that are not effected by murder. So Murder isn't quite 100% universal even in SSC and TK. Once one moves *past* SSC/TK, the value of Murder drops somewhat; not a single enemy in Hyjal is murderable, and only about half of BT is.

That said: on the mobs that murder effects, it is point-for-point a pretty strong talent.

Running the actual numbers versus Lethality:

Murder increases your total damage output - white, yellow, poison, everything - by 1% per point. Lethality only increases the damage you do with yellow attacks. Yellow attacks typically comprise about 1/3 of ones damage; hence, in order for Lethality to match the contribution of Murder (on those mobs affected by both), a point of Lethality would need to increase your yellow damage by about 3%.

Lethality, mechanically speaking, increases the damage done by your critical strikes by 3% (the first point takes them from 200 -> 206%, a 3% increase). Hence, if the total damage done by both crits and noncrits is going to increase by 3%, all yellow attacks must crit. Hence, in order for Lethality to point-for-point compete with Murder on those mobs which are affected, one would basically need to have a 100% crit rate; even with improved backstab that would require a tooltip crit rate of 70%, which isn't really feasible.

Now, that said, *since* not all mobs are affected by Murder, Lethality doesn't necessarily need to do as much damage against those that are Murderable in order to be worthwhile. In particular, if one assumes that, say, 2/3 of mobs are Murderable (which is probably a fair assessment of bosses in SSC/TK), then only ~67% of yellow hits need to be crits in order for Lethality to yield the same average damage output - and a 37% crit rate is not out of the range of possibility for a raid-buffed dagger rogue. So I think there is a legitimate case to be made for Lethality even though Murder does do more damage on the mobs it affects.

that'll teach you to be helpfull, HAH! :p

Let me see if i got this straight, 1agi>1hit without the DST? and 1agi>hit with DST pos-patch?

Hit still provides point-for-point more damage than agility in purely sustained fights. However, in terms of weighted average (which includes a slight value for the dodge gained from agility), Agility scores a bit above hit.

Additionally, agility performs better relative to hit in interrupted fights; as such, while hit may be better in purely sustained fights, in real fights where their are damage interruptions (which includes, for instance, better than half of the 25-man raid bosses in existance), agility may be the better choice (I'm working on a model of this behavior, but haven't come up with one I'm wholly happy with.)

Finally, those numbers were based off the best possible gear setup - the target endgame gear. Until one gets there, the relative values of the different trinkets may be difference. For instance, in my *current* gear (as opposed to the endgame optimal gear), hit is still better than agility, and the trinket ordering is rather different:

1) Dragonspine - 198
2) Ashtongue - 180
3) Madness - 165
4) WSC - 155
5) TT - 151

In practice, I suspect practical considerations will outweigh the exact subtleties, specifically:
a) By the time one can get Madness, one is probably close to/already has Ashtongue, which is comparable or better. So you probably don't bother with Madness.

b) At the time you have access to them, while WSC is slightly better than TT, they are fairly comparable, so I would advocate the WDF (Whatever Drops First) or WDFAIC (...And Is Cheap) algorithm for deciding which to get.

c) Amongst BT gems, red gems tend to be more popular than orange gems, and the yellow +hit gem doesn't exist. So in practice, even if agi is marginally superior to hit, it doesn't matter enough that I'd worry about wrestling Crimson Spinels away from the casters and hunters; hence, regardless of the specifics, you probably wind up socketing everything with Glinting Pyrestones.

d) Pre-BT, hit is still better, so keep doing what you've been doing.

Regarding the interplay of DST and Hit, specifically: it was one of the very first discoveries of this sheet that DST dramatically increased the value of hit. The more general rule is "having powerful procs increases the value of hit". The reason why hit is king for rogues these days is the fact that we have so many procs: Combat Potency, Poison, Mongoose, DST, Windfury, Sword Spec, etc. So if you don't have DST (or Mongoose, or Combat Potency, or Windfury, or whatever), the value of hit is going to drop relative to a rogue that does. The reason why the value of hit is decreasing relative to previous versions of the sheet is based off the new findings regarding PPM effects and haste, plus the fact that DST is a less powerful proc due to the haste nerf and the internal cooldown.

9/14 16:17:51.718 Fury of the Crashing Waves fades from you
9/14 16:18:28.531 You gain Fury of the Crashing Waves.


9/14 16:33:10.718 Fury of the Crashing Waves fades from you.
9/14 16:33:46.156 You gain Fury of the Crashing Waves.

I measure cooldowns start-to-start, not end-to-start. So when I say "45 seconds", the actual time between end of proc and start of next would be 35 seconds. Those are spaced by 36.8 and 35.4 seconds, hence, start-to-start, they are still both over 45 seconds.

yea I figured. I was just adding 10 seconds to that. was just easier to copy paste that way while I'm alt-tabbing /farming :-p

I might of missed it, but manually going through there I see no instance where it procced sooner than 45 seconds.

Well, obviously you use yellow gems where you need them for socket bonuses - the rule of thumb is that any socket bonus that can be gotten with only yellow and red gems is worth getting (the only exception that comes to mind is Wastewalker Gloves, and even that one is debatable). And, certainly, one will need to socket 2-Tier 6 level pieces with yellow/blue gems to get the socket bonus (most likely shoulders + chest). But anywhere where you don't need the socket bonus, and in any red socket, one can make a case for using Delicate Crimson Spinels. I believe my endgame optimal gear, neglecting considerations of gem scarcity, involves 4 Delicate Crimson Spinel (one each in T6 gloves, T6 legs, Don Alejandro's Money Belt, and Shadowmaster's Boots).

However, as I say, in practice, you probably end up gemming even those 4 with Glinting Pyrestones, because the difference is so small that your guild probably benefits more by leaving the Crimson Spinels to the casters + hunters.