• Ichichop

This is a follow up to this post with some statistics to back it up.

So this week I have been trying an alternative build to cookie-cutter combat swords, namely 11/28/22. I expected that I would see a slight reduction in dps due to the loss of combat potency even though I picked up serrated blades. The results I got were a surprise; I did not expect such a small delta (and circumstantially a dps increase if you incorporate the additional raid dps from the Hemo debuff):

combat dps Gruul
hemo dps Gruul

combat dps Morogrim
hemo dps Morogrim

(edit: note that on Gruul the combat WWS logs I had Leader of the Pack, but did not have the buff for the hemo WWS logs)

I do not find it hard to believe that Serrated blades scales better than the bottom half of the combat tree as it is a raw % dps increase on all attacks as well as a large dps increase to rupture vs combat potency and surprise attacks only affecting sinister strike which is a relatively small chunk of total dps for a rogue. Even on gruul if you add 300 extra damage per hemo hit, you come out on top on total damage (as well as having increased threat for the tank). I am curious to know the exact point at which it is better for a rogue to spec into sublety instead of 41+ points combat.

In conclusion, yes hemo is a viable spec for a pve raiding rogue and it does allow you to put points into some juicy "non-pve" abilities while maintaining dps equivalent to combat pve. I have to say that I would have a hard time going back to combat now that I have prep/MoD/Camo in a competitive pve build. I posted this information here to get a double-check on my statistics, so please tear apart my assumptions and prove me wrong/right.

A Note on my Spec: Opportunity would give me a small dps increase on my three garrotes that I can use per encounter if you were truly min/max'ing this pve spec. I believe that preparation brings a lot to the table in terms of utility from an extra evasion, sprint and vanish when you are learning encounters as opposed to one point in lethality.

[edit:] Post #10 below outlines the math behind this build

/wave fsb

 

Rudy

Very interesting conclusion, if this can be expanded upon and confirmed I would definitely consider breaking my vow of never touching the subtlety tree.

Just throwing this out there, would 4 points in deadliness make enough difference to justify losing sword spec and weapon expertise? I suppose 5 points if you think 2% ap > blade flurry.

 

Ossy

Interesting data but I supose more tests are needed before you can draw any big conlusions from it. If further tests show that your initial thoughts are correct I wouldnt call it anything else then a major breakthrough in the history of rogue builds! Keep up the work dude...

 

Koosai

Did nothing change in your groups and buffs between those kills? To begin to convince me you would need 5+ sets for each setup and then a trend might emerge. Certainly another thing to consider is what gear you have, is this only effective for rogues with insane gear, does it start to lag with gear increases? Also as a side note, why do you have 2/3 setup over 2/5 lethality?

EDIT: Nevermind about the setup... Should not post as 3am.

 

billbrown

Extremely interesting. Rupture being the bread and butter raid finisher and hemo's debuff make this... quite peculiar. Certainly worthy of taking a shot at myself. I think i'll switch to this build and report my findings in a week or so. Hmm trading AR, SA, CP(this one hurts)lethality and 4 points in vile poisons... for camo, MoD, GS, imp. sap and mad unmitigated bleed damage. This could be the sword/fist/mace partner to mutilate as the definitive raid/pvp hybrid build.... Although I could see this running into a brick wall against bleed immune mobs.

And Koosai, the build has absolutely no room to get more than 1 point of lethality, and you would have to trade Prep for it.

 

Zure

Great stuff. I'd echo everyone's sentiments that we're salivating for additional data.

Worth considering that the hemo debuff itself is neutral or possibly a net negative for some raids that are at the debuff cap.

 

• Ichichop

Well Sword spec is pretty much a raw 5% extra damage, so I would doubt it

I did upgrade from Signet of the Master Assassin to Ring of Lethality.

Oh yeah I'm sorry, and I did get LOTP for the Combat WWS logs, but we had three rogues the next week so I had no LOTP buff for the Hemo combat logs! (yet it still beat out the combat dps...)

I have 2/3 setup to reach Serrated Blades. You could keep 2/2 SS, skip Hemo/Prep and take 5/5 lethality but if you are so far into the sublety tree that it is hard for me not to take 5 more points and put them into Hemo. Is 5/5 lethality and SS better than taking hemo? I do not know.

Math is coming... I just need to look up some equations. I can also only get one sample per week, so bear with me.

/wave fsb

 

Tryss

edit: nevermind

 

Treval+

Hell yeah, that's exactly what I've been experiencing the last 2 months as well.
Again, a very valid point IMO.

I also read the initial post, and I find it very interesting to read. I will continue to tweak my talents around Hemo in our coming raids.

Trev

 

• Ichichop

The Math

--Analysis of armor reduction--

Armor Equation @ 70: DR% = armor / ( armor + 10557.5)

10000 armor = 48.644% DR = 51.356% of your damage hits
10000 - 560 = 9440 = 47.206% DR = 52.7941% of your damage hits
means 2.800% more damage

5000 armor = 32.1388% DR = 67.8612% of your damage hits
5000 - 560 = 4440 = 29.605% = 70.395% of your damage hits
means 3.734% more damage

560 armor = 5.0371% DR = 94.9629% of your damage hits
560 - 560 = 0 = 0% DR = 0% of your damage hits
means 5.3% more damage

So we gain up to 5.3% more damage from serrated blades on all attacks. This gives more value to items like WarpSpring Coil and the T6 items with -armor value that will put you closer to zero armor on boss fights. The bottom half of the combat tree adds nothing to white damage besides 2% extra agility, so this is a pure damage increase against combat on white damage.

If you assume that 60% of a a combat rogue's damage is white damage, then hemo has up to a 3.18% total damage increase versus combat based on white damage (math: 0.6*0.053). From the combat gruul attempt I pulled 1080 dps with 59% of it being white damage, or 638 white dps. Serrated blades can give up to a net 33.8 dps increase on this white damage. On bosses with high armor values this dps increase will slightly diminish, as you can see from the above calculations.

The question is then how much damage do you lose on specials?

--Special Attacks--

If you just spammed SS or hemo, you would get these results:

SS every 4 seconds or Hemo every 3.5 seconds:

Non-crit, my hemo averages for 553, SS averages for 660 on the two morogrim samples. Therefore SS is 165 dps and Hemo is 158 dps (6 dps loss). This calculation includes the armor reduction from serrated blades due to taking average damage from the actual fight. The real difference in hemo vs combat specials must therefore be combat potency.

Combat potency generated an extra 1,410 energy over 8:44, or equivalent to an extra 5.38 energy per tick. This changes SS to every 3.15 seconds bumping it up to 209dps. Hemo now loses 51 dps compared to combat.

Now we take into effect the hemo debuff in raids, where it will be fully utilized, therefore adding 300 damage every 3.5 seconds. We will trivialize this computation by ignoring the extra damage from criticals and abilities with damage multipliers like backstab. This brings hemo up another 85 dps, or 34 dps above sinister strike with combat potency.

Lethality will push sinister strike up close to hemo in terms of relative dps, but we have basically proven that hemo beats out combat on both white damage and beats or ties it on specials damage [if you include the additional raid utility]. We have not even gone into additional rupture damage with a 5r/1s cycle or the use of ghostly strike to increase special attack dps.

--In regards to dropping the assassination tree to go deeper in combat--

Relentless strikes and ruthlessness are equivalent to 4/5 CP, so you are basically giving up 5% crit and on all your attacks and 2% extra damage to most bosses to get Adrenaline Rush which is a lackluster raiding talent:

I view AR as just an extra 3.5 Sinister Strikes as that is all that the extra energy provides you. In my case, since I have around 25% crit you can calculate exactly how much extra damage this is:

75% normal hit (660 avg) 25% crit hit (1600 avg) = ( 3 * 660 + 1600 ) / 4 = 895 average hit
895 * 3.5 = 3132.5 extra damage from AR, or approximately 3 seconds of "free" dps. This is rather inconsequential if the fight goes on for much longer than 60 seconds. On short fights you have to take into effect that hemo provides slightly better burst than deep combat due to the nature of the better CP building from 35 energy combo points.

If you have prep and AR you can probably AR three times on a normal boss fight. This is an extra 10k damage but you are giving up 2% damage and 5% crit which on a fight where you are doing 500-600k damage I can hardly justify as a 'win'.

--Weapon Expertise Analysis--

Each point in a weapon skill lowers the chance that an opponent will dodge/miss/parry/block your attacks by 0.04% each. Therefore 10 weapon skill gives us 0.4% less dodge/miss/parry/block. Against monsters that are facing you this means that you will hit 1.2% more and be blocked 0.4% less. Against monsters that have their backs to you this means a 0.8% increase in "hit" with 0.4% of that coming from less dodges which is not mitigatable in any other way.

"The player will gain 0.1% to their critical strike rating per weapon skill against monsters above their level. " This comes from the 2.0.1 patch notes, so 10 weapon skill also gives the player 1% extra crit on boss fights.

In conclusion, 2 points in the talent appears to yield on boss fights 0.8% hit (0.4% of which you can not make up in hit rating) and 1% crit. Two points in weapon expertise has one of the largest 'bang per buck' of any raiding of any talent, rivaling Malice and Precision (which are undisputed as "must have" raiding talents).

--Conclusion--

I hope that the (albeit rough) theorycraft here helps to back up the statistical evidence first put forth in the post. I will try to post more examples of hemo dps and combat dps using the same gear and in the same group, and I ask that other rogues please do the same. One other item to note is that the effectiveness of a hemo rogue goes down if there are two in the raid, as their debuffs do not stack. The second hemo rogue loses 85 dps, though I still believe that they will be effective dps. In conclusion, you can now only say "lolol hemo rogue" if they are using daggers, otherwise you might find yourself in the uncomfortable position underneath them on the damage meters.

--Questions that I have still--

1) Is ghostly strike efficient dps? It has the nasty side effect of using 40 energy even if it is dodge/miss/parried, so you must include this in your calculations.
2) What is the best energy cycle for this hemo build? Is losing a few seconds of slice and dice uptime acceptable in order to keep 5 point ruputures active the entire fight?
3) When does it make sense to switch over to a hemo build? I'm guessing that obtaining a DST has a large part to do with this, as it boosts your white damage to a higher % of your total dps. Maintaining hit cap is also a large component.

/wave fsb

 

Azaziel

I raided for a long time as 11/21/29 spec with blacksmith mace. Now running as a 18/43 combat mace spec. I counted on around a 100 dps diffrence between the specs but I so miss all the utility of a prep/hemo spec. I need to do some math if the extra points in combat is worth it even for a mace user with a hemo build.

 

Spades

This is interesting. I don't have a Dragonspine (it's never dropped for our guild since we've started farming him) but I am very close to the hit cap. I'll respec for the farm runs on Wednesday and show my findings there.

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

 

Iquark

I'm a little interested to see how this works out as well. I've been thinking of having our rogue with Syphon of the Nathrizem and Swiftsteel Bludgeon go Hemo as the 2.8 speed is great for the unnormalized attack.

One thing I worry about with a 25man raid is whether or not the 30 Hemo charges can be eaten up in 3.5 seconds, and again about the times where they are wasted on slight in and out fights and back to back Hemos.

With 2-3 Rogues, a DPS warrior, Enhc Shammy, the tank and assuming a Feral Druid or 2 are we going to use 30 charges up in the 3.5 seconds between Hemos? It looks like that would probably eat them all, however it would be close depending on instant use.

Another thing which bothers me a little bit is the lowered effects of Heroism/Bloodlust, Drums of Battle, and other haste mechanics. A large part of these spell's DPS increase for Combat Rogues is the increased CP procs and thus more yellow damage.

It should be interesting to see how this could work out for the raid, testing of other melee DPS compared to non-hemo debuff would have to take place as well.

I guess the kicker will be in the details of actual raid experiences. Oh and one more thing, the lack of AR needs to be taken into account here, as it is a serious amount of burst damage in short fights. (Hi epic trash-mob Akama!)

 

Kapuras

@Ichichop

The Problem with the Morogrim fight is:

With Hemospec you had zero Watery Grave, but with Combat Spec you had 3.


With Combat Spec: you dealt 551,896 (98% presence)
With Hemo Spec: you dealt 546,470 (100% presence)

But saying 3 Watery Graves are those 2% missing presence isn't correct, because Deadly Poison makes damage on Morogrim while you are in a Grave and counts as presence time.

I suggest the different is higher then the 0,99% damage advantage for combat vs. hemo.

 

Koosai

Also, Ichichop, your hit rating is (to me atleast) rather low. I think that CP will show marked gains with a hit rating much higher, say 275-308.

I know also all of the SS vs. Hemo comparisons that I read previously have indicated that there was a "magic" AP that upon reaching it Hemo would win out for certain weapon speeds perhaps this is also a factor?

 

Apsalar

You need more hit rating to get the most out of a combat specc, 175 is very low.

Edit : Koosai beat me to it ^^

 

• Maestroquark

Ichichop - WWS

Says you were getting Imp LotP procs during hemo Morogrim, so that only held true for Gruul.

Edit: you "gained" LotP on the combat Morogrim 25 different times. That means you also lost it at least 24 times during the fight. The biggest affect you see from this is melee crit was down 1%, while SS vs Hemo the difference was 6% crit.

 

• Ichichop

Incorrect, the large part of these spell's dps increases are actually the extra white damage from the haste they provide.

I view AR as just an extra 3.5 Sinister Strikes as that is all that the extra energy provides you. In my case, since I have around 25% crit you can calculate exactly how much extra damage this is:

75% normal hit (660 avg) 25% crit hit (1600 avg) = ( 3 * 660 + 1600 ) / 4 = 895 average hit
895 * 3.5 = 3132.5 extra damage from AR, or approximately 3 seconds of "free" dps. To me, this is rather inconsequential if the fight goes on for much longer than 60 seconds. On short fights you have to take into effect that hemo provides slightly better burst than deep combat due to the nature of the better CP building from 35 energy combo points.

That is my pvp gear, if you had bothered to look at the WWS stats you would have noticed that I have a sub 1% miss rate on all fights (10 misses out of 509 swings on Morogrim). Why on earth would I wear some of that gear to raids...

I will try to log out in pve gear from now on.

It is much more complicated than just factoring in AP these days, as haste modifies the % of total damage that white hits contributes to your DPS significantly. As you can see from the math above, for white damage serrated blades is flat out 2-5% better than the bottom of the combat tree for dps. Therefore one can conclude that as the amount of haste that your character has increases, Serrated Blades becomes better and better vs Deep Combat.

Yes, the old adage that enough AP combined with slow weapons makes Hemo scale better than SS as well, however in TBC we see that this "Special Attack" dps is actually a very small % of a rogue's total dps.

In conclusion, there are three effects that seem to scale better with hemo/serrated blades better than deep combat: haste, AP, armor ignore (assuming that you are hit capped). Crit I would argue scales better with deep combat so I would tend to not focus on this stat as much with a hemo build (but it is in no way a bad stat to have with hemo, it just doesn't flat out scale better than deep combat)

/wave fsb

 

• Ichichop

Yeah I don't know what the hell my feral druid was doing, he was probably trying the "ghetto adrenaline rush swift-shifting" tactic. I will ask him next raid.

I believe that the crit % on hemo for both attempts was far off from my actual crit % due to their small sample sizes. If you notice on Gruul I have 63 hits landed, but only a 14% crit rate (10% below expected). On Morogrim I have 92 hemo hits, and a 31% crit rate (6% above expected). This can be attributed to a small sample size, and I feel that we will see more average hemo crit rates as more data comes in.

Re: Watery Graves on Morogrim in combat vs No Watery Graves while Hemo
This is the great thing about WWS stats, we can actually look at breakdowns beyond "total damage" done per fight. One thing that I can not control about a boss fight for benchmarking is how long it takes my guild to take down the boss that week (which will affect what my total damage is) or how many random effects hit me. We can mitigate these differences with some good logic and combat log parsing.

Combat spec Morogrim kill took 8:44 (08:12'00 to 08:20'44)
Hemo spec Morogrim kill took 7:34 (08:26'38 to 08:34'12)

So it took me over a minute more time to do the same amount of total damage with Combat than it took me to do with Hemo. If you can assume that I lost 15 seconds of dps per watery grave (unlikely considering that I can sprint at least 1 if not 2 watery graves) then I had an extra 25 seconds of 'pure' dps with combat vs hemo even if we factor out the watery graves and factor in the extra time it took us to kill him that week. 25 seconds of extra pure dps time and 4k extra damage? It still looks like hemo won that fight flat out and we haven't even factored in the extra 'raid utility dps' that hemo adds to it's damage.

/wave fsb

 

LiteSabre

Interesting. Picked up a Blade of Infamy and Merc. Glad's Quickblade yesterday; I'll try this spec out today on Teron (fairly tank-and-spank as long as you don't get ghosted) and tell you what I get. Luckily there's a combat rogue in my guild who's almost always neck-and-neck with me, so I'll at least have a 'control' of sorts.

As mentioned above, though, I noticed that you got graved three times in the combat Morogrim WWS, and got no graves in the hemo one.

 

• Ichichop

I would ask everyone trying the hemo build for data points to please use the 1s/5r cycle unless you have a compelling reason to use another cycle. Also I am beginning to think that ghostly strike is crap for raid dps due to the fact that you lose all 40 energy even if you miss and does not have the hemo debuff attached.

/wave fsb

 

Koosai

Well, I'm certainly glad that isn't your pve gear.

One other thing to consider is that without CP, is the offhand speed really as important now? Yes it will help poisons and any procs to have a fast OH, but it seems to me that with this spec OH speed is rather trivial compared to a dps upgrade on a weapon. Am I totally offbase here?