laforce

I've been testing a MH Fist + OH Sword on PTR and I've gotten some interesting results...

16/45 build, with 5/5 imp swords, and 5/5 imp fists.. that means +5% on my MH attacks, and the ability to proc sword specialization swings.. and it does work indeed! I just dont get the order of the attacks, example:

(1) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You hit Shienor Talonite for 421.
(2) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You gain 1 extra attack through Sword Specialization.
(3) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You hit Shienor Talonite for 163.
(4) 6/15 00:18:39.781 You crit Shienor Talonite for 769.

Which hit is my sword spec dmg, and which hit proc'd the dmg? I have a 1.5 low dmg sword on OH and a high dmg fist on MH... I'm soo confused! Did it proc a OH swing? I thought OH sword procs a MH attack.. :O

Another set:

(1) 6/15 00:20:08.296 You hit Shienor Talonite for 162.
(2) 6/15 00:20:08.671 Shienor Talonite hits you for 243.
(3) 6/15 00:20:09.562 You gain 1 extra attack through Sword Specialization.
(4) 6/15 00:20:09.562 You hit Shienor Talonite for 170.
(5) 6/15 00:20:09.578 You hit Shienor Talonite for 361.
(6) 6/15 00:20:10.015 You crit Shienor Talonite for 849.


Can someone help me understand this? This might be a freakin awesome build.. :P

 

Mahama

You'd read those lines as follows:
1) MH attack
2) Sword spec proc
3) Off-hand hit that procced Sword spec
4) Sword spec MH crit

And the other one:
1) OH attack
2) Mob attack
3) Sword spec proc
4) Off-hand hit that procced Sword spec
5) Sword spec MH hit
6) MH attack


I've been playing with Fist/Sword spec for the last month or so rather than sword spec, simply because of the weapons available to me. Consider that in the patch though, all sword spec attacks will be normal white main-hand attacks. This obviously means that it will no longer proc combat potency, but what it does mean is that it should have the potential to proc off itself, as well as proc any other poisons or on-hit trinkets (I did about 30 minutes of testing on sword spec, but would have to go back through it to confirm this because I was more interested in whether the sword spec procs where main hand or off-hand). Obviously having a main hand fist would nullify that effect.

I would put Fist/Sword spec far ahead of pure Fist though, simply because you're giving up 5% crit on your off-hand for a 5% chance to get an extra main hand attack... Fairly easy choice.

 

sp00n

Oh no, has it been changed back to this inaccurate display in the combat log?
I hoped they would keep "Your Swordspec hits xx for yy" and just make it white damage.

 

laforce

Thanks for clarifing... I can see now that, even if you have a fist on MH, the OH sword spec will proc a MH fist attack, that's awesome Having +5% crit on of your SS/Evis/etc *and* having x% of chance to proc sword spec is awesome in my opinion... Also, I'd think that sword spec procs much more from OH (faster?!) than MH.. so, let's say we'd still have a ~3% sword spec proc...

I really need to test that new Season 2 MH Fist + OH sword combo..

 

laforce

Any thought from other testers?

 

• Shifft

Wow...I'd never actually considered a build like this, but looking at the talent trees from my current build...

Lose 2/2 Vitality, Lose 2/2 Murder, Down to 2/3 Imp Evis (from 3/3)...maybe change around the points in Murder and Imp Evis.

All in all a fairly negligible loss when compared to a 5% chance for an extra MH swing...this needs testing! I'll get on PTR tonight when I get home and buy an offhand sword if nothing's been done by that time.

Edit: On second thought I don't even like Imp Kick anymore, so put those points in Imp Evis/Murder for even more DPS

 

laforce

@ Shifft

You dont need to lose Vitality...

You can spec 16/45, but you will lose Imp Evis (well, who uses evis? I like rupture a LOT better, much more consistent damage.. I hate when I see a 1400dmg non-crit evis .. while Rupture ticks for ~300 x 8 = 2400dmg.. every single time.)

I tested on the PTR like below (assassination tree):
5/5 Malice
3/3 Ruthlessness
2/2 Murder
5/5 Lethality
1/1 Relentless strikes

45 points on combat.. just the usual non-riposte build, xcept with 5/5 fist and 5/5 swords

Cheers \o/

 

Lucke

I thought the PTR also changed the OH sword procs so that it actually followed the OH dmg table? That would mean that the extra attack no longer comes from the MH, or in this case the fist...

 

Spades

The combat log excerpts he posted show this is clearly not the case, although if you have an appreciably fast offhand that can crit for 769, I'd like to borrow it for a while.

"Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

 

Lucke

I must have missed it; on my 15 minute lunch break while teaching summer school, just catching up on my theory-crafting while I eat

 

Lucke

1) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You hit Shienor Talonite for 421.
(2) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You gain 1 extra attack through Sword Specialization.
(3) 6/15 00:18:39.359 You hit Shienor Talonite for 163.
(4) 6/15 00:18:39.781 You crit Shienor Talonite for 769.


Ok, now I am looking at this again and I am having trouble following - it appears to me that the attack immediately following the SS proc hits for 163, which would put it on the OH dmg table; the 769 = the MH normal swing?

7 minutes to go on lunch, go go response!

 

Spades

1 = MH swing
2 = Sword Spec Proc
3 = OH swing that procced sword spec
4 = resulting Sword Spec swing

The "You gain an extra attack from blah blah" has always been fairly terrible at providing accurate information with regards to who procced what. I do find it odd that both the MH and the OH swings went off at the same time. I wonder what his weapon speeds are.

"Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

 

laforce

A.K.A Laaaaaaagggggg...

Weapons speed were: Bladefist (2.6 I think) and Merciless Gladiator Quickblade (1.5).. they both went off at the same time just coz of lag issues.. but I'm 100% sure that OH procs do proc a MH swing, not OH.

My latency is usualy 350-450ms, hehe.

 

• Shifft

Oh well I considered vitality less important than 2/3 imp evis, since I actually end up eviscerating quite regularly in raids because of:

Void Reaver
Hydross
Kael Weapons (i think?)
More than 4 secs left on rupture and 5cps.
Mob almost dead.

I think it'd end up being better.

 

Cunning

I tried doing a fist/sword build prior to the change to sword specialization. At that time, it actually proved to be a considerable amount less damage, (I was weighing 5/5 Vile Poisons v.s. 5/5 Sword Specialization at the time).

However, I hadn't even thought to try it after, that is until reading this thread. If I get a chance to respec before Gruul tonight, I'll give it a shot.

With the previous tests I had done, I was particularly interested in "effects" such as combat potency procs, poison procs etc. I had kept combat logs, and processed them through WWS for comparison and will do the same this time.

I'll update this post with a link to my WWS site once I've had a chance to get some testing done.

 

• Shifft

That WWS would be very interesting to see...I had another thought though. Would the 5% crit from fist spec apply to your sword spec procs? I mean they're technically mainhand swings...

 

Spades

Pretty certain they would.

"Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

 

Mahama

Having been playing with this spec for a while now, I've had a close look into most of what's been brought up.

Combat Potency does proc off sword spec attacks, even though the attack itself takes its damage from the main hand. This will no longer be possible in the patch though, as sword spec attacks will be changed to 'real' white main hand attacks.

Sword Spec *does* take its crit chance from your main hand fist, and so it gets the 5% bonus crit chance. I've pretty well confirmed this just through merging all the data in my SW Stats' time line and comparing crit rates between Sword Spec, normal attacks and sinister strike. This is something that wont change in the patch.

And as for DPS, this is probably the cleanest example I could find at such short notice:
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...=5104-5390&a=6
Taken from the night before we downed Morogrim for the first time. You can see fairly easily where sword spec takes its crit chance from, and where it takes its damage from (Main hand for both).
Myself and the top dagger rogue have roughly the same gear, and we tend to have fairly equal DPS on most fights, so there is certainly nothing lacking damage-wise.

The only problem I have with it, and its the reason I'm probably changing to pure swords as soon as the new arena season comes out, is that I think having the chance to proc an extra attack with your main hand is just plain old better than extra chance to crit with it, especially given sword spec will likely be able to chain proc come the patch (Will test this).

 

Spades

It'll also be able to proc Windfury D: Or poison if you're not lucky enough to have a shaman.

"Existence has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long."
-Rorschach, Watchmen

 

naxro

I tried the 5/5 sword and fist specialization idea on the spreadsheet using the season one gladiator's offhand sword/fist (same speed and damage range, same stats) and otherwise identical gear and specs. The dps change for these 5 points spent changing the fist out into the sword was slightly less than 6 unbuffed. You would think it would be higher, but apparently not.... so according to the spreadsheet the 5 points in sword specialization is worse than 1 point in murder.

Or its 8 in the morning and i was up all night, am I am totally wrong.

 

sp00n

How did the Buffed DPS look like? Especially with windfury?

 

Rev

Somewhat of a topic ressurection, and sorry if this is posted in another area, but;

With the changes to sword specailization, and windfury, has anybody else been contemplating reviving this idea of sword offhand, fist mainhand? The sword procs from a sword in offhand are still better than offhand "procs" (i.e. crits) from fist specailization, owing to the attack occuring on the mainhand. (Crit adds 100% damage to the attack, whereas a mainhand attack would be around 150% extra damage (on average) over the offhand attack.)
However, it would seem that five percent extra crit, which affects yellow and white attacks, is better than a proc that can only occurr off of the white damage attacks. As mainhands are traiditionally slower weapons, the sword procs from the mainhand arent as frequent, as fist spec procs (extra crits) as these can occur from specail attacks too. Also, the specail attack crits gain the benefit of Lethality.

Since 2.2, sword spec doesnt "chain proc" off itself, nor can it proc off yellow attacks, having a sword in the mainhand doesnt seem as attractive as it did before.

I am planning to test this on the PTR as soon as the arena season 3 gear is released (as these are the weapons I will be using). I was thinking of a 16/45 build, which simpley means i drop 2 points from improved kick, and 3 points from vile poisons, and put these into fist spec, Hence changing my 19/42 sword spec, into a 16/45 fist/sword hybrid.

I would be interested to hear if any of my assumptions in this post are wrong, or if anybody already has some data collected reguarding fist/sword hybrid builds.

 

• Aldriana

Even since 2.2, I don't see any particular advantage to fist MH/sword OH. The damage estimates I have put together seem to indicate that, from a sustained DPS perspective, sword spec and fist spec contribute almost identical amounts of DPS to MH attacks; it's been a while since I ran exact numbers, but I recall sword spec even being a bit ahead, even on the MH. Moreover, even if they were identical, I would expect Sword Spec to have better applicability to PvP, as it is hurt less by resilience and tends to be more burst-ish.

Hence, my assessment of first/sword spec, relative to sword/sword spec, is that it takes 5 points out of otherwise useful talents in order to allow you to use a MH that's not quite as good anyway. So, personally, I wouldn't bother with it.

 

Rev

Hmm, ok. Well i will still test it on the PTR, although im not sure how useful that will be. As for pvp, i respec maces for pvp anyways, so thats a bit of a none-factor in my descision, although ofc it will be very useful for more fiscially restrained players to consider.

 

• Vulajin

Aldriana, check out the fist/sword spec using Talon of the Phoenix and Blade of Savagery, compared to Talon of Azshara (or Blade of Infamy, for that matter) and Blade of Savagery. It's surprisingly close.

I would assert that the real drawback of the fist/sword spec is having to tie up 5 talent points in a second weapon spec that you could instead use on some other talent, either Vile Poisons to boost your DPS or else some other combat PvP filler talents.