Zace

I will once i get home from work, just thought i could get some opinions before that.

 

• Aldriana

2 line summary of the answer:

The only piece of ZA gear that competes at the T6 level by itself is the ring, which is, in fact, the 2nd best ring in the game and indeed superior to the Exalted Hyjal ring. The bow is not generally worth it compared to the top ranged weapons; however, as you're using Twisted Blades rather than Arcanite Steam-Pistol or Barrel-Blade Longrifle, it might be worth considering. To get more detail, you will need to use the spreadsheet.

Okay, so 3 lines. Close enough.

 

◊ Hanos

Also, you can't base much on the spec's of anyone farming BT now, most people respec for Arena after the raid week, the raid week is now down to 1 or 2 days for top tier guilds, and some rogues have basically decided it isn't even worth respecing then, and are fine doing less DPS. In other words, people should draw conclusions based off seeing a rogue in a top 100 guild spec'ed mutilate or 0/31/30 or 20/0/41 or 11/9/41 thinking it is the new best thing for rogues, basically the guy logged out with a PvP Spec, and might be in PvE Gear.

 

Zace

Thanks for your answer, helped alot.
I was assuming the bow would be better since the more armor pen the better. Guess ill have to wait and use the spreadsheet.

 

Cyn

That would require adding bloodfang back onto the spreadsheet too!

 

◊ Shaker

Yeah, I was gonna say - I think 8/8 BF was one of our best looks, though I really like the 'black' version in BC reskinned quest loot.

 

• Aldriana

Personally, I rather liked the look of Tier 3; I think I prefer it to Tier 2. Regardless, in a decision that should surprise no one, neither of them is getting added back in to the spreadsheet.

However, on the topic of pre-BC loots: I have been thinking about adding Might of the Scourge to the sheet, given that technically it is the best shoulder enchant available to us (although good luck with getting your guild to farm Sapphiron for shoulder enchants). Any opinions on whether this is worth adding?

 

• Aldriana

Public service announcement: I just found a bug in the spreadsheet that is causing it to improperly overvalue Expertise. I'll be releasing a fix within the next couple of days.

 

Alexsiss

About might of the scourge i think it is worth adding. Purely because Sapph drops the best shoulder enchants for literally every class and it is possible a guild that has bt/hyjal cleared has the free time to get an enchant easily

 

leebis

[quote=Aldriana;590279]2 line summary of the answer:

The only piece of ZA gear that competes at the T6 level by itself is the ring, which is, in fact, the 2nd best ring in the game and indeed superior to the Exalted Hyjal ring. The bow is not generally worth it compared to the top ranged weapons; however, as you're using Twisted Blades rather than Arcanite Steam-Pistol or Barrel-Blade Longrifle, it might be worth considering. To get more detail, you will need to use the spreadsheet.

According to the spreadsheet Ancient Sin'dorei Longbow is now going to do more dps for me than the Arcanite Steam Pistol, I'm assuming because the armor penetration on the Longbow will scale with what I already have. So I've swapped them.

Anyway thanks Aldriana for the explanation, I'll keep it in mind as I adjust to having what I percieve as an uncomfortably low (but apparently optimal) amount of hit. I should also note that after bringing my hit down from 313 to 242 with 6 +10 agility jems, the ranged weapon swap described above, re-enchanting my boots from surefooted (+10 hit) to dexterity (+12agi), and some smaller changes, my "rough dps" rose by (drumroll)...about 4. Nevertheless, even if nothing drops for me in BT this week, I can still say, thanks to your awesome spreadsheet, that I have improved my rogue for the week (which isn't always the case).

Incidentally, have you included the damage added by the supremely powerful "ember of azzinoth" proc on the shard of azzinoth in your dps calculations?

And sure Might of the Scourge would be a good...conversation piece for the spreadsheet, though it would amount to kind of an eyesore since we can't get our hands on it. Up to you.

 

royaljester

Agreed. A lot of the major BT/Hyjal guilds run a pug group for Nax, only laying claim to the Ashbringer and the shoulder enchants, so keeping it in or putting it in seems like a good idea.

 

• Aldriana

I've been working on some modeling projects, and it occurred to me that there's a detail that I've been ignoring. It doesn't make a huge difference, but, nevertheless, I'd like to know. And that detail is: can finishers proc stuff? That is, if I Eviscerate, can it proc my MH Executioner? My OH Mongoose? Both? Neither? What about Rupture? What about SnD? What about effects like WSC? Given the rate that we do finishers at is relatively low compared to other attacks I don't think this is likely to be a huge difference, but... I'd be curious to know. Anyone have any data/experience with this?

 

• Latito

A while ago I tested for procs off of SnD - didn't get any DST or Mongoose procs (wish I had equiped WSC..). That said, my test method was: gouge the mob, run away and hit SnD.. when SnD runs out, turn around and gouge the thing (which should be catching up by now) and run back to where you started, etc.

This basically means I wasn't in melee range ever.. doubt it makes a difference (especially for DST, which CAN proc off of thrown/etc attacks). Testing for Evis and Rupture becomes a touchy issue. With the way Combat Logging works - it would take some pretty meticulous work be sure that you proc'd off the finisher, as opposed to the auto attack 0.5 seconds before/after.

Do we know if Sword spec can proc off of finishers? Is there ANYTHING we know about this topic? I suppose Evis (and Envenom) use your MH crit rate..

 

Stabmaster

Finishers definitely use your MH crits rate. However, when I have in the past tested whether or not finishers also proc effects (Mongoose, etc) I got inconclusive results. My methodology was to run a sequence of ~2000 auto-attacks + as many Sinister Strikes as I could get in that time, and then run another sequence of ~2000 auto-attacks + Sinister Strikes + Eviscerates. Not the greatest, I know, but it's kind of a hard thing to test. IIRC The results were roughly the same, but the margin of error was enough to basically make the whole exercise a waste of time.

I'd definitely be interested in knowing for sure, but given that the number of finishers for a PVE Rogue is generally quite small, the DPS contribution would be minor even if they did proc effects, so it's probably not worth the effort. If someone obsessed with the truth wants to work it out, by all means go for it though

 

Arindelest

I suppose there's a lot of combat logs out there which could be used if they are useful (if they are in the current way combat logging is done). If not I'd be happy to do some testing if someone could tell me the most optimal procedure for doing so.

 

• Aldriana

Well, WSC would be easy to test as it gets around the whole "did it proc off the finisher or off the white attack" issue. For the rest: it seems like the best way to do this would be to dequip your OH and use a proc with an instantaneous effect (Romulo's Poison Vial, maybe) and look for double procs, using a methodology similar to what Latito describes. You should be able to set it up so you only have the finisher + white attack within a 2 second-ish range, meaning any double proc would have to come from the finisher.

Only downside is that, given that the proc rate for a 1 PPM effect is down around 5%, you'd have to do at least 400 finishers before you even *expect* to see a double proc. I think what we're seeing here is that it's a hard thing to test - which makes sense. If it were easy, we'd've done it already.

 

◊ Shaker

There's a (well, comparitively) simple method for checking this - spec Setup, sit and doge a blasted lands mob, use evisc and cancel auto-attacks (a macro with /stopattack should make this possible) immediately afterwards.

You'd be able to tell if WSC can proc off an evisc before long at all since you KNOW it won't proc off even accidental auto-attacks, but you'll have to be very methodical about making sure no autoattacks sneak in if you want to test other procs.

This should be doable with all finishers as long as the stopattack macro doesn't let any autos sneak through, but I think Aldrianna would be the one to come up with the # of finishers you'd have to perform for us to be reasonably sure of a negative result (i.e. if Mongoose doesn't proc after 100 finishers.. etc). Sorry, but my stats background is limited to 1 class in the basics and helping a significant other at the time who was a stats major on her homework here and there. :P

 

koaschten

It is even easier. There is a sweet spot when turning away from a target where your auto-attacks will stop hitting but your styles and finishers still work. I recall using it to try figuring out if shiv can proc Combat Potency. Sadly i forgot the result (did that test in the closed TBC beta).*cough*

 

• Aldriana

Ah, yes, that would do the trick. I'd forgotten about that technique. So now we just need someone to go through and test with some common procs for Evis, Rupture, and SnD. WSC will be easy to deduce; at a 25% proc rate, 10 finishers will be enough to be 95% sure about the answer, and 16 will get us to 99% certainty. Mongoose, Executioner, etc. will be somewhat harder due to the lower proc rate, admittedly; however, a good rough picture of what's going on will be fairly easy to come by simply by loading up lots of procs to test at the same time. For instance, put a different enchant on each hand, a different poison on each hand, and 2 proc trinkets on, and you're doing 6 tests at once.

...now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Dire Maul...

 

Koosai

I tested them all, SnD never proced anything that I noticed. Evis, Rupture Expose armor and Kidney Shot all proced WSC and the first three also procced MH mongoose (got lazy and didn't test for KS). They also skilled maces up when I swapped my MH with mongoose on it out. Shiv also proced Combat Potency. I can post a combat log if needed.

 

• Aldriana

Agreed; I tested eviscerate and rupture, and got MH Poison, MH Enchant, Dragonspine, and WSC procs on both, but no OH poisons or enchant on either. Additionally, SnD didn't proc anything. It appears that Eviscerate and Rupture proc as normal MH hits, and SnD doesn't proc at all.

Edit: Oh, and Sword Spec procced off Rupture and Eviscerate as well. Forgot to mention that one.

 

• Latito

Confirming most of this - mostly that SnD doesn't proc a damn thing, but any melee dmg finisher does (Deadly Throw never proc'd anything.. although I might of been unlucky with DST.)

 

Koosai

One thought that I had a bit ago, if anyone wants to do actual testing of dps on highish level mobs, the halaa guards while only level 65 have an obscene amount of hit points, 150k I think. I can't check currenlty as horde has it on my server, but it was alot when I was playing around with them. They also hit fairly weakly, and so if you get a healer to come with you you could test stuff, or just practice cycles and such.

 

• Latito

The Servants in Blasted Lands work fine for short or medium length testing (or if you bring a class which can heal once every 5 min). Ogre Spirits in the back of DM North work well for longer tests as you don't get hit.

None of these mobs are lvl ?? so the miss/dodge chance will be skewed (slightly less on the Halaa guards).. won't make a *huge* difference to your cycle. Lose some hit rating or get a tank/healer to go to MC/ZG/etc with you if you really want to test and reflect a more accurate amount of combat potency regen.

Not trying to knock you - its just I don't really see much of a purpose in the Halaa guards considering they DO require a substantial amount more healing and aren't much closer to 73 than other mobs. That said - do you dodge/parry on them still at this level? Perhaps that would balance out with the decreased miss chance.

 

Alexsiss

Deadly throw procs trinkets for sure. ive had both DST and WSC proc on illidan fire elementals. I have never had it proc my mh or oh enchant though