Kurani

Sorry if If I missed something, but how exaclty the Offensive/Defensive/Weighted Total tool work? Because if I put it in WT the spreadsheet says that AGI gives me more AP than Hit. But on Offensive I should go Hit all out. Is there something about dodge related?




ps: sorry for the bad english, its not my first language

 

royaljester

Agreed. I think the problem most of them have, though, is that by lowering sword spec to meet the other specs where they currently sit, you'd see BM hunters/Fury Warriors (especially after 2.3) rise above us on the dmg meter. I am against that whole-heartedly. At the same time though, I don't see why a rogue shouldn't be able to spec whatever he so chooses (besides deep assass) and do relatively close dmg. Also, think of it from an RP standpoint and a logical standpoint, "Why the eff would an offhand swing proc a mh swing?" That is an obviously messed up mechanic that has led to a disparity in the specs.

But, once you fix that and maybe add in the +snd %, you'd still see most rogues (sword rogues at least) drop another 50+dps which is horrible in relation to other classes gaining dps. Again, retooling the specs would be nice, having an almost equal chance to use any spec and still top dmg meters, the problem is, as a non sword rogue, you probably won't top the dmg meters.

oh and someone said "but that would be too imbalanced in PvP" about mutilate and raising it's base dmg.... Thank you for following Blizzard into their doomed attempts at trying to balance PvE and PvP through the talent trees. I've never seen a more idiotic thing than trying to retool and rework specs and weapons and realizing "oh, that won't work for our already broken PvP, guess we'd better change it so PvP'ers dont cry...even if it screws over PvE'ers". /sigh

 

Mojofabulous

I'm going to second that. I'm all for this debate being had, but it's going on in the wrong thread.



Weighted and Defensive give a higher value to stamina and dodge (and probably a couple other things I'm too lazy to think of right now). The reason it suggests agi gems instead of hit when you switch to weighted is because Hit is only worth slightly more DPS than Agi is, so when the value of dodge is taken in to account agi ends up coming out on top. That doesn't necessarely mean it's the best choice for you, it's just a suggestion :-)

 

Dontmindme

Actually I think that is a very good point. When I read what sword specialization does in the tooltip, I do not think offhand attacks get mainhand procs. I think that you get 5% more white attacks of each type. The tooltip itself is misleading or the mechanic isn't working as intended. Regardless, either the tooltip or the mechanic needs fixing.

It should be noted that I take this position having recently switched to swords. Just from soloing utility, I think it unlikely I'd switch back to daggers even for a 5% damage advantage. The increase in soloing capability isn't even comparable.

 

Koosai

The Offensive setting makes the spreadsheet look only at the offensive gains, such as crit and ap from agi. The defensive and weighted settings value agi for crit, ap, dodge and armor. So Agi will get valued more in weighted and defensive than in offensive. I'm not sure what values it is using for weighting, just that defensive will weight more. Also I personally use the offensive setting and then compare the agi and stam on gear afterwards.

EDIT: Missed that it was answered in all the OMG don't nerf/DO nerf discussion.

 

Mideci

There are so many fundamental issues with these bogus straw man arguments some of you insist on making.

(1) Some of us don't agree that sword rogues need a nerf. It's the damage of sword rogues -- as things stand -- that currently justify our presence in raids. We're not interested in seeing that damage reduced any more. If it's 5% more damage than dagger rogues are doing, figure out a way to improve daggers 5%.

(2) Some of us don't agree that the mechanic is broken at all. It's been working this way for a long time. When the swing timer was being reset, it was safe to conclude the mechanic was broken (fixed). When the proc was proc-ing another proc it was reasonable to conclude the mechanic was broken (fixed). That the OH can proc the effect is fine. When Mongooose procs on my offhand, I get haste and 120agi, not some nerfed version of Mongoose because it's offhand.

(3) Some of us don't agree that hybrid-spec use exists is a problem that requires nerfing sword spec. We've proposed alternatives to make hybrid-spec use uninteresting. So we can now simply disregard that strawman.

(4) Some of us don't agree that the proposed solutions are the only ones or simple ones. In fact, if you read the above ideas, they often move horribly into the complex. "Remove the dual wield penalty" and then fix that elsewhere? Change multiple talent tiers in multiple trees? Occam's Razor need not apply. I have no interest in the second-order effects those will create and the need to nerf thiem later.

And all due respect to Aldriana, the notion that those are the only two solutions and that by ruling out the second of them you have hit on the only possibly solution to this "problem" is not really easy to take seriously. You are capable of crafting so many good arguments, claiming some paired change between OH procs and Slice and Dice is the lone solution is off.

(5) Some of us don't agree that many different talent specs should be about equal in their damage. Surely no one would argue that fire needs to equal frost needs to equal arcane after all this time with regard to mages. There are tradeoffs in WoW. You pick daggers, you can ambush people for insane crits. You pick swords, you get the best single-target, stand-around damage. Sorry, but this isn't broken, it just *is*.

(6) Some of us see no reason to "fix" what isn't broken. We don't want a change. We don't need a change. There just isn't evidence outside of here that people are screaming and clamoring for this change. There are so many game issues and rogue issues that exceed the fact that for the moment sword rogues are ahead of dagger rogues. An itemization change could alter that calculus in a second. A fight that requires the added stuns of mace spec could alter that calculus in a second.

We are asking you to acknowledging that what is now is indeed what is now. We feel that our damage is hardly so far ahead of other classes -- never mind other rogues -- that it's somehow overpowered, especially after the haste nerfs. We don't want to see yet another reduction in our dps simply because those of you wielding daggers do less damage. The fact is that fists have been the bastard child of rogue weapons forever, due to itemization as much as anything (i.e. there are and always have been few fists). Maces have their place because of extraordinary PVP benefits. For that, they might do less damage in PVE. Fine. Daggers offer tremendous unique benefits in ambush and backstab.

The game is just not broken there. And the slight superiority of swords to daggers in PVE raid context is just fine, thank you. Dagger rogues can do things in PVP and 5-man that sword rogues cannot and vice versa.

 

elandriel

Not quite sure if solution #1 will shorten the gap as more attacks from OH result in more Combat Potency procs thus more energy. Have you run any tests to see what happens if you make that change with a 1.4 OH sword for example?

Also on solution #2: forgive me for saying so but i think you are pushing it out of proportion. Freeing 2 talent points to enable Combat Dagger rogue to gain full Lethality / Ruthlessness is neither messy or difficult. Plus the introduction of a decent 1.3 OH dagger into the loot pool. Anything further than that IS messy but also unneeded.

And to all the debaters out there: if Combat Swords had a 10-20 DPS difference (up or down) from other speccs nobody would make any discussion at this point. But the fact remains that atm it vastly surpasses that number, which forces all raiding rogues to grab a sword sooner or later.

 

Grunge

I don't see how sword spec alone justifies rogue presence in raids. We currently have 5 rogues. Me as Mutilate, two sword, one mace and one fist/sword rogue. I doubt we'll have any downsizing planned should sword spec be "fixed".
Intercept was working like it was for a long time as well. It was broken and then it was fixed.
2 years later or so if I'm not mistaken?
Just because it's been working as it has doesn't mean it's working as intended.
Shamans cried when windfury was fixed.
Anyway if you happened to miss it, the argument was that with any other spec you don't get a offhand "spec" proccing on mainhand.
Off-hand Mace does not add +5% critical damage to your main hand if your main-hand is not a Mace.
Off-hand Dagger or Fist does not add +5% crit to your main hand if your main-hand is not a Dagger or a Fist.
Off-hand Sword has 5% chance to proc a extra attack. For some reason it is a main-hand attack, and if your main-hand is not a Sword you still gain the attack on your main-hand.
Wait what?
Then propose solutions that would fix the problem. Ignoring it won't make it go away. Sword spec is far to superior to alternatives. Either "Fix" Sword spec or Buff other specs to similar standards.
Also DW and Sword spec change might balance each other out, if not it would be possible to always tweak the percentages.


I didn't see Aldriana chiseling the proposals in stone. They were suggestions. Food for thought you could say.

I haven't seen anyone suggesting 30/0/31 to be buffed to be raid viable, so I'm assuming you're talking about Combat Daggers. In which case I must take a range check on my comment to (3)
"Wait what?"
Traditional Combat Daggers (15/41/5) is pretty much the worst spec to pvp with. Have you even tried it?
I mean "insane" Ambush crits? Combat Daggers doesn't go deep enough in Subtlety to pick up Imp. Ambush, nor does it have full lethality.
I fail to see what you meant by that.
Perhaps 20/0/41 would offer that? But then that spec has no relevancy to PvE?

As for the notion that swords are picked since they offer best single-target dps?
I guess it's true with TBC swords has changed from the 2nd place (while also being the best overall build) for damage dealing to the 1st place of damage dealing (as well as retaining it's best overall status) build.
Combat Daggers which had the edge on the damage pre-TBC and was considered the "Best Single-Target dps build" has now lost both standings and I'd say trails far behind swords.
A lot of people I know tried Combat Daggers with the start of TBC, myself included. The build even had better itemization from PvE: (Malchazeen+Searing Sunblade vs Spiteblade/Hope Ender+Latro's). But Swords beat it and most of the high-end rogues I know have pretty much converted to Swords.
So I'd people chose Swords because they lacked a better dagger alternative.
See this is where I'd say you're wrong.
WoW you see is in the end, a game of math. If you assume equal variables then you can calculate the theoretical maximum values for each spec/attribute/etc.
And it's been proven over and over again that under equal conditions Combat Swords does better than Combat Daggers. That is including theoretical "skill".
Which yes in the real world might not always be "equal". But that doesn't change the facts, nor does it change the math behind the facts.

As for your statement that there is no evidence outside here that sword spec is too "strong". Well I match it with my own. There's no evidence to the contrary. So until someone actually does some actual data gathering and analyzing.
Which I guess it wouldn't be that hard with the help of the Armory.
Just how many percent of the high-end rogue population is using swords?
Of course then you could also want to question why they use swords over other specs?
But somehow, I think most of them would have the same answer: "Because swords are the best dps spec at the moment."

Please. Do not use superlatives.
Perhaps Pre-TBC Fists were rare. This is no longer the case. I can't come up with a reason why Fists should be inferior to Swords. If you can think of any reasonable ones. Feel free to share?

Maces are hardly "extraordinary". They are definitely not the end-all be all PvP Spec. Sure Mace-Stuns are beneficial but I doubt most games are won because someone favored maces over swords or fists for PvP.

I can't think of a single reason why a 15/41/5 rogue would use Ambush.
And Backstab? Has Positional requirement, a higher energy cost and much worse sustainability (in dps cycles) in erratic environments. So I fail to see the "tremendous unique" benefits that you mention. I can see huge downsides for what essentially is a inferior spec to swords.

No. It's not fine. 20/41 Combat Swords out-preforms 15/41/5 in each aspect that you suggest. PVP, 5-man, 25-man. I'd add Solo-farming/question to that as well.

So please, elaborate on why you believe that it is "just fine" for combat swords to be superior to combat daggers in EVERY aspect with no redeeming qualities.

Because at the moment it seems to me that your rigidness and unwillingness to change from Combat Swords is clouding your judgment. Am I wrong?

EDIT: Actually I'm not sure this is the place to discuss any possible changes to sword spec. Such ideas should be better suited for the rogue theorycraft topic I think?

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

 

• Thellas

Why should combat fists and combat swords differ at all? There is no change in play style. Neither offers a unique benefit to PvP or PvE. They are completely the same, until you see the difference in damage output. Personally, I think Blizzard's original plan was to have the two interchangeable, they probably thought combat maces should be that way as well.

As I see it, picking between combat fist and sword spec should only be a choice of which weapons you get first, or which one look the most bad ass. Combat daggers should have very slight DPS advantage on a stationary single target fight, and combat maces should fall very slightly behind.

Now, should overall rogue dps be reduced to balance this out? Of course not. A damage reduction of sword spec, added to a overall increase in rogue dps would work just fine, IMO.

Really, whats so bad about having a greater choice of which weapons to use?

 

• Aldriana

If you'd read what I actually posted, you'd have seen that I was not advocating reducing sword rogue DPS in any way shape or form. I was advocating reducing sword rogue DPS by 5%, and then increasing *all* rogue DPS, sword and otherwise, by 5%, thus resulting in sword rogues doing *exactly* the same amount of DPS they are doing now, but allowing all the other specs to also do as much.

I assert that it's broken only to the extent that it creates a balance nightmare. And it does.

And, in reality, Mongoose *is* weaker on your OH; it only maintains about half the uptime that your MH Mongoose generates... as opposed to Sword Spec which generates almost twice as much damage on your OH as it does on your MH.

Again, I think you missed my point. The point I was attempting to make with that example was very similar to your overall point here; most of the solutions being proposed that *don't* involve a nerf to sword spec are horribly convoluted, and require 10 separate buffs, each of which carefully crafted so as not to affect swords but increase the damage output of other specs, will be loaded with unintended consequences that would in turn need to be fixed, and so on. Meanwhile, by coupling a slight sword spec nerf with a slight rogue buff, you bring them all into balance with only 2 simple changes. Is this the only way to fix it? No. Are there other buffs and other ways of nerfing sword spec that would yield the same result? For sure. However, my point remains: rebalancing rogues to be less reliant on sword spec is a far far easier fix than trying to leave Sword Spec the way it is and buff all the other talents to match, and, as such, is a) more likely to actually occur and b) less likely to introduce other balance issues that would need to be fixed down the line.

Now, if you disagree that the specs should be equal - that's a totally separate issue, and I can definitely see the argument there. On the other hand, I would argue that your analogy to mage specs is invalid. If, for instance, fire spec vastly outdamaged any other raiding mage spec, but all the caster itemization in raid instances had only +frost damage on it, do you think the mages might perhaps complain? I view this to be analagous to our situation. There is one raid spec that is clearly superior to all others, and almost no itemization to support it, but tons of itemization to support inferior specs. Thus, the case can be made that it would be advantageous to us, as a class, to have the ability to make use of that itemization.

You're welcome to disagree, of course - that's why we have discussion forums. I merely assert that *if* one wishes to bring the specs into parity, the most elegant solution proposed to date is to couple a slight nerf to sword spec with a matching buff to the class, and frankly I can't really see how there's an argument about that.

 

Mideci

Due respect intended but I re-read 1223, and you seem to say "nerf swords, add SnD time to help daggers". If you meant, nerf swords a bit and buff all rogues so that sword rogue dps is unchanged then fine. I agree that's reasonable. I don't agree there *needs* to be DPS equivalence, but I don't have a problem with DPS equivalence -- except with maces, which have a very weird, non-PVE benefit and therefore should either get a new bonus, or do less damage in PVE in aggregte.

Now, to say that the existing itemization ought to be more useful and therefore we ought to have spec changes to make it so is again something I don't see a problem with. But that said, outside of places like this, I'm quite certain all those fists and daggers are indeed getting used. You see in post 1258 that some presumably somewhat high-end guild has 3 rogues who are clearly spec-ed in an inferior manner -- i.e. they don't make use of swords. And yet they invite 5 rogues to raids (which I personally find insane, but whatever works for them). If the poster was suggesting his guild's non-sword rogues match the damage of the sword rogues, then we again learn that skill >> theorycrafting. If he isn't saying that, then apparently, the inferior damage of non-sword rogues is fine for his guild.

My point, which he somehow seems to be missing, is worth reiterating: Rogues at sword dps levels are sufficiently the best single target dpsers to justify being in raids at all. We have a nice, yet reasonable margin over other classes and enough fights where we can sit around and slice and dice away. If we are nerfed by 5% in damage, no serious theorycrafting guild is going to bother with rogues. And that's a very dangerous change to be advocating -- or even hiniting at.

Blizzard has a way of taking these ideas and making them reality. Let's be awfully careful in what they are being fed. I'd rather have the imbalance in favor of swords persis -- swords are the best, but the other specs still allow people to top the meters -- than see a class-wide nerf after the damage done by the haste nerf.

I find the argument in 1258 non-persuasive. You want me to prove the negative with regard to it being overpowered? Go to the soapbox -- aka the WoW forums -- and show me the clamor over the overpoweredness of sword spec. It's just not there. You can armory all day and show me that most elite guild rogues are swords right now and I'll again say so what? When Rag was the endgame, all elite mages were frost. Raiding hunters find one spec or the other superior at a given moment. That's always the case in WoW. There isn't perfect frost/fire/arcane balance in mages at the moment. There isn't perfect affliction/demo balance in locks. Etc. etc.

And since I've mashed two totally different posts to reply to into one, I'm going to explain one thing again (though it's crystal clear above). "Off-hand Sword has 5% chance to proc a extra attack. For some reason it is a main-hand attack, and if your main-hand is not a Sword you still gain the attack on your main-hand. "

I know. And so the proposal above was simple: End hybrid spec abuse. If the MH isn't a sword, sword spec can't proc from it. Done.

The "strawman" is the notion you can't fix that problem without nerfing swords when in fact you can fix that problem with about 10 lines of code.

Now Aldriana, having said that in response to Grunge, let me reiterate that I don't have a problem fixing the rest of the issue. But I'm simply not persuaded it's particularly necessary. Sword itemization is mediocre and yet you can get a S2 arena offhand in no time to upgrade Latro's and that'll keep you just fine. You can get a Vindictors or Arena weapon, hope for the Talon and move on. I wish there was more out there, but I'm not sure how this is any different than the same pathetic situation in vanilla. Krol.. wait forever... Brutaltiy... wait forever ... CTS. It was about a year between Krol and CTS for me. Blizzard doesn't much like to hand out weapon upgrades for whatever reason and I presume that's why many of us went to the arena to get them (they aren't perfect, but the S2 MH --> Vindicators for me and after 6 months of not getting a Spiteblade, I deserved something).

If the daggers and fists in SSC/TK are getting DE-ed, they're in good company. So much of that loot is borderline/sidegrade material it is what it is. Our shadow priest got the one item she needs... Our survival hunter waits on the 1-2 items she needs (and this across all 10 bosses).

There are so many huge issues in WoW, this isn't one of them. At least as far as I'm concerned. And in this case, I think I speak for the majority. There are endless screams in the WoW forums about this warlock talent or that, about warrior overpoweredness in PVP or weakness in tanking for PVE. The "ZOMG sword rogues are OP" chorus is a pretty small one.

 

Koban

Why all the hassle around bringing non-sword builds back in line?

I agree that it would be more comforting for us to be able to have another possible build beside swords, but there is no real argument that another build must be competitive.

Most dps-classes have a certain talent build wich is considered "best" for pve dps, with certain offbuilds that provide other things beside damage. (this could just be a different playstyle)

 

exog

Because its combat builds we are discussing, its accepted that sub or assassination builds have other strengths and thus lack some PVE dps. But why shouldnt one be able to do competitive dps, having specced combat, if you put 5 points in dagger/fist copared to swords (and ofc weapontype related talents)?

If you give up on the deep assassination/subtelty talents to specc combat for sustained dps, why shouldnt daggers be at least equal in dps?

 

neg^

Especially considering the pvp and solo pve tradeoffs with speccing combat daggers. But that's maybe it... not alot of people want sword spec fixed, since there is one spec that is best at everything now.

 

Gryzemuis

No need to nerf combat swords. Any nerf for rogues anywhere only risks us losing dps over all specs and weapons.

Sword/sword is fine.
Fist/sword is fine.
I couldn't care less about the Subtelty tree. If they wanna buff it, buff it with extra pvp skills.
Mutilate, I don't know what to think about it. I haven't seen many mutilate rogues. Maybe it could use some buffs.

How to fix combat daggers ? Or combat fists ?

Some suggestions:
*) Improve the the dagger specialization to give up to 10% increased crit chance (6-10 or 2/4/6/8/10).
*) Or improve the dagger and fist spec to give 1-5% aura *per weapon*. If you wear 2 daggers or fists, you get 10% increased critrating aura on both weapons. It would make offhand daggers and fist weapons certainly as viable as offhand swords.
*) Decrease the cost of backstab. Maybe to 55 energy. Or 50 energy. Decrease it as much as is need to make similar geared dagger rogues do 5-10% more damage on stationary targets than sword/first rogues.
*) Implement both last 2 suggestions
*) Increase the dps of daggers further above the dps of swords found in the same instance. Still, while everyone agrees that swords are nicer, it isn't really easy to find anything above a Vindicator's Brand. You need luck to get a better sword. You need a lot of luck before you can outfit 4 rogues in your raid with Talons.

There are many ways to do this. Simple ways. Ways that allows Blizzard to precisely buff dps to where it should be.

The problem with daggers is this. A rogue can surprise his opponents in pvp (esp while ganking). Therefor he can stay behind a target until it is dead. Ambush/backstab/backstab gives great burst damage. If you increase dagger rogue's backstab even more than it is today, ganking becomes even simpler. 90% of Blizzard's customers wouldn't like that. Pvp is the limiting factor dagger rogue's pve dps.

 

Valen

Combat dagger is simply a spec with zero harmony at the moment and it needs some work in my opinion. Alot of us predicted this during the TBC beta, even though the fact that OH daggers were way faster than OH swords made the gap to look slightly smaller than what it is now.

Suggestions have been enough, even though I don't see blizzard actually making any real changes anytime soon.

-Opportunity. Either get rid of it or make it a 2 or 3 points talent.
-Lethality. *the* talent designed to work best with backstab. Funny enough, backstab rogues can't grab it fully.
-SnD. There is no reason why this shouldn't be longer. Make improved backstab also increase the base duration by 5 sec for each rank, or just add a new rank.
-Energy cost. Add a talent in combat which gives you 10 energy after each special attack critical strike. OR, make the white critical strikes have a chance to restore 5 energy. Both of those suggestions give a edge to daggers.
-Base damage: Backstab's non crit damage is simply too low compared to SS. Either increase the base damage or increase the critical chance. (12% per rank instead of 10%).

Any of the above will help backstab rogues to get back to where they really should be.

 

Wodahs

I was running 8 piece bonescythe pre tbc, and the bonus I liked the most, was 5 energy per special crit. That really was awesome. If they did what Valen said, the combat dagger hybrid would be more competetive, and play better.

Opportunity. This is a must for combat backstab builds, but it costs 5 points, and is in a different tree. If every dagger user takes a specific talent, doesnt that indicate something to blizzard? Lethality being the single talent that backstab builds shine the most, why can you not max it without gimping on lethality? It makes no sense.
Base damage. I really do think the base damage of the highest backstab rank is just a little too low.

 

Em.

Sorry for the newb question but...

I'm using the spreadsheet on a Mac (I have Office for Mac), and I can't figure out how to add new gear to the drop-down lists. And help would be appreciated. (I tried searching the forums for this question to no avail - sorry if it's already been answered before).

 

• Aldriana