[Rogue] Mace Specialization and DPS (PVE)
 

I'd crunch the numbers myself, but the only mechanic I'm not too sure about how it actually works (mathematically) is haste effect. And when I want to judge how well Mace Specialization does for DPS (PVE), thats possibly the most important thing I'd need to know. So, I'm bringing it here.

What I'm trying to do is compare MACES with other weapons such as SWORDS or FISTS. I'm currently combat fists with 280 hit rating, 1450ap, 26% crit, but my gear is only halfway to what I'd like it to be - it's temporary. I have Drakefist banked along with my Gladiator Mace Offhand.

What I want to know is how DPS will be affected if I were to go back to combat maces once I've upgraded my gear a bit, including Dragonmaw (Tier2 BS), with current 2.0 (for now at least) Gladiator Fists and Gladiator Maces.

Assuming these are the stats, how would DPS work in comparison?:

[Unbuffed, no racials, untalented, full geared MINUS weapons]
500agi
1600ap
24%crit
250 hit rating

[Weapon Combos]
Dragonmaw/Glad OH vs Glad Fists vs Glad Swords


This is of course with all gear on MINUS weapons. Weapon stats are to be added in separately since Dragonmaw vs Gladiators has different stats.

Also, this next part doesn't have to be true, but I would also love to see comparison between Maces WITH Vitality talented (from 2 extra pts vs Swords/Fist and WE), and Fists/Swords without it. Otherwise, assume the typical combat talents.

I'll check back later tonight, and also might be able to crack at some numbers for fists/swords while I'm at it. I hope there are rogues out there trying to make mace spec work as I do. I know Ippon, you use combat maces at times too, so I'd love to see your input here.

Hi, click me

Anyhoo, general concensus is that sword spec is better than Fist/Mace right now. Due to the fact it always gives a mainhand swing regardless of which hand procs it, and it's now yellow so can no longer glance.

I personally was running a Dragonmaw/Latro's with sword spec for awhile just due to shitty drops. The DPS was not bad, it just didn't seem to do as much damage as a 91dps weapon should be doing. I switched to Spiteblade today so can't really judge just yet,

It's different when factoring in haste. Haste scales with gear, and as it gets better, so does the benefits of having haste, and that's what I want to figure out.

I still think it's pretty much bandwagonning to say maces aren't able to DPS competitively, at least until real theorycrafting is done on it.

Okay, ballpark estimate:

Neglecting OHs for the moment (since you could use a sword OH with a mace MH), Sword Spec increases the number of MH attacks you get by 5%. A bit more, actually, due to procs off SS - probably more like 7% in reality. And each of those attacks does more damage than a standard white hit, since they can't glance. Hence, wielding a sword rather than a mace MH is comperable to having ~75 haste rating as a free mod on the weapon. Hence, for a mace to be worth using, it must be otherwise superior to a sword by 75 haste rating - which is hard to do.

Isn't sword itemization kind of behind tho? You can make a dragonstrike relatively easily now but the highest sword you can get is talon of azhshara no? That atleast has to play a certain part in your decision to choose sword or mace.

Have you taken into account 212 haste with a high PPM on maces though? Higher topend and avg dmg on maces as well. ><

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=xlbfbeakn4ote

This was from last week's Mag. Note that I'm using both haste maces (t2 BS and Blackout Truncheon), along with DST. My group was a shm/war/rogue x3.

It's competitve with swords and daggers (both in our raid and if you compare to other Mag kills on the WWS site), but I suspect if I swapped out my maces for sword spec with similar-level swords, swords would win out. When second arena season comes out, I'll be giving them a go.

I have no theory numbers, but I'll be glad to link a bunch of WWS parses if you're curious.

Sure. I'm not saying it doesn't. I'm just saying that a mace needs to be *really* a *lot* better in order to be worth using. Phrasing my earlier argument another way: getting 7% more attacks is superior to each attack doing 7% more damage (due to procs). Hence, a mace needs to do at least 7% more damage *per swing* to be superior to a sword with equivalent stat mods. Since your typical PvE rogue with raid buffs is easily running with north of 2100 AP, that means *each hit* with Talon of Azshara (for instance) does 150*2.7+253 = 658 damage. Hence, to be even comperable, a mace would need to do at least 1.07 times that, or 704 damage. Subtracting off the damage from AP, that means the mace itself would need to do 299 damage per hit, which equates to 110.7 dps. And since I don't see any 110.7 dps maces floating around, what we conclude is that a MH mace would need *vastly* superior stat mods to be competitive.

Average damage? Not really. The Gladiator Mace and Gladiator Sword have the same DPS, as do Fool's Bane and Spiteblade. Top end damage? Maybe, but who cares? Average is what matters.

As for specific mods, such as the haste proc - they're not hugely relevant to my original statement, which is: a mace needs to be independantly really a lot better before it's worth considering over a sword. The haste proc may qualify - but lets find out, shall we?

Dragonstrike has a chance to proc 212 haste rating for 10 seconds. I have no idea what the proc rate is, so for simplicity I'm going to guess 1 PPM. With haste effects and instant attacks, a SS rogue can push 1 attack per second with such a MH weapon, which means we'd expect 2.7 procs per minute, which works out to an uptime of 37% or so. Hence, the proc is roughly equivalent to 78 haste rating - so we conclude that Dragonstrike is roughly as good as a 98.5 dps sword with no other stat mods. Well, grabbing a spreadsheet for a moment, we find that if we convert the stats on Talon of Azshara to a equivalent amount of raw DPS, it works out to be equivalent to a 107 dps sword with no other stat mods. So as an off-the-cuff estimate... Talon of Azshara should produce significantly higher dps than Dragonstrike.

So, based on this analysis, seems to me that the only MH mace with a reasonable shot at being worthwhile is Rod of the Sun King - I haven't had a chance to grind the numbers, so I can't say for sure how it stacks up. But I *do* feel pretty confident in saying that no other mace is likely to be worthwhile.

Yeah... looking at that data set, and the armory links for the relevant rogues, I think the DPS difference between Moorog and Deitin is in no small part due to the difference in gear (Moorog has significantly better gear on a number of slots), and also partly due to spending more time on target (launched 5% more sinister strikes and 20% more autoattacks, significantly more than the average ~7% haste from the proc should grant). I think the conclusion here is that while maces aren't so much worse that you can't make up the difference on other slots and with superior play, they are somewhat worse - such that if a given rogue switches from a sword to a mace of comperable quality, it is reasonable to expect a dps increase to result.

Thats a good way to compare DPS between Talon of Azshara and Dragonestrike, however there are a few things missing that could play a bigger role in terms of PVE DPS.

First of all, from my own testing, I've found out through 1000 swings of auto-attack, dragonmaw has a PPM of 1.6, but I heard testing from between 1.4 and 1.8, so I think it's somewhere there. Secondly, haste procs combat potency, and combat potency plays a large role in our DPS. Haste also procs off itself (I believe), so the more haste you have, the higher chance your haste effects will proc from items such as dragonspine, or vice versa (Or so people have said they have tested).

And two spare talent points since the weapon skill comes with the spec

...assuming you're giving up SS procs from OH as well. If you want to OH a sword, you're actually down 5 talent points. And if you don't OH a sword, you lose even more damage.

Sure - I mean, it was intended as a ballpark figure. I feel pretty comfortable saying, as an off-the-cuff estimate, that Dragonstrike is at best comperable to Talon despite the awesome proc and superior DPS. To get exact numbers, of course, would require extensive modeling. But I think their is value in such estimates.

Edit: I hacked up the Rogue Gear Spreadsheet a bit to get a better estimate. Assuming you're double-wielding maces, Dragonstrike would need 73% haste uptime to match the dps of Talon of Azshara - which would require a 12.3% chance to proc each second. Under the above-stated assumption that you land 1 MH hit per second, this would require the proc to be up around 3 PPM - which it's not. Again: Dragonstrike isn't totally blown away, but it appears that Talon is better.

I've noticed a lot of rogues with a Dragonmaw/Dragonstrike have picked up Sword Spec while Off handing a Gladiatiors Quickblade. It seems like the optimal spec for bumping up PVE damage when MH'ing a mace

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0eboxLZMIV0bVtx0hot