Ichichop

Yep, the faster the offhand the more mainhand sword spec procs you will get.

The dps spreadsheet very poorly measures DST and other proc-based effects which are greatly effected by haste (sword spec is another one). I wouldn't be surprised if the margin of error for the spreadsheet in that respect is more than 30dps. Also I believe that the spreadsheet assumes that all bosses have 5000 armor and I'm not sure if the incorporate full sunder and faerie fire into their equations. Bosses with lower armor will have a much higher dps increase from serrated blades than the spreadsheet gives them, while bosses with huge amounts of armor will get slightly less benefit from serrated blades. On that note, does anyone know if there is a list of boss armor values anywhere?

Does the spreadsheet add in the raid-dps that the hemo debuff adds?

/wave fsb

 

Siddown

Fantastic thread here everyone, I look forward to reading the updates as more numbers come in.

This is when comparing s straight Hemo to SS as there are still people out there who contend that an individual Hemo can be greater than an individual SS, which with Normalization, Aggression and Surprise Attacks just isn't feasable with any sort of realistic AP (it's in the 10s of thousands).

When comparing Build A to Build B that sort of gets thrown out the window because now you are including Ruptures, Serated Blades, extra damage due to Hemo Charges getting used by your teammates, etc.

After reading this thread, I started playing around with a Mace Spec/PvP version of your build, and I'm curious if it could work. I'm thinking it's not very likely, but the extra Vanish and to a lesser extent Evasion, the extra damage from Serated Blades and the quicker initial combo points without losing Riposte is interesting to say the least.

 

Ichichop

Interesting, can you post your build? I'm assuming that you drop improved slice and dice for riposte. I like sword spec in my build for pvp because I can do some insane damage during stunlock. CS -> hemo -> ghostly strike -> 5pt KS -> hemo hemo hemo hemo! You can pretty much kill anyone with this combo assuming that you get lucky with sword spec procs. Improved sprint with prep and cheap blind are not to be scoffed at either pvp-wise.

On another note, 25 second blind would be quite overpowered with this build. It is too bad that they reverted the change on PTR.

/wave fsb

 

Siddown

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I have one talent point unspent because I have no idea where to put it, no clue at all. 1/2 of Imp Sprint or Imp Kick means nothing, so maybe 1/3 Imp SnD to help with raiding on non-PvP nights?

Also, not sure on those first two tiers in Subtlety. Sleight of Hand seems a waste to me because if I'm getting hit by Warriors, 1% reduced damage means nothing (I'm already dead), and I just don't get hit by any other Melee in PvP. So I'd probably tweak it to get some Opportunity as I like to open with Garrote on casters in the Arena if I can.

If I change the build, I'll edit the post and add it to the bottom.

EDIT: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Also, I took out Imp Sap, even with a great connection, I get a lot of latency in the arena and I have yet to get off a Sap. In BGs if someone is moving my Saps rarely land as well.

 

MikaElias

have you ever thought about a Hemp/combat specc with dual adrenalin rush and bladeflurry?
It's an interesting specc 0/39/22
You have 4 points in cp and so you have more energy than in the specc of the TE.. So i think you are able to play this very good with a critchance >20% because you haven't skilled malice.
here a link do this specc:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
think about it instead of the TE's specc..

bye
Mika

oOo edit.. Preparation doesn't reset the cd of bladeflurry

 

mav1234

I like the look of that build, but you give up a ton of goodies out of early assassination talents. =\

 

MikaElias

so in my opinion is 4 points in cp and the adrenalin a lot of better than the 5% crit and relentless strikes because relentless only gives you 25energy on a finisher cp so should create more energy.
ok the critchance is a sweet little thing that misses... -.-
i've never tried this specc but i'm going to try it if i can reach a good sword so atm it's only a therory
In the dpssheet you lose 30dps buffed against classic combatbuilds but you will have a lot of more fun in pvp xD and you support your raid with the hemo debuff

edit: preparation is not avaiable in the spreadsheet so it's possible to get a higher dps if you use preparation in the right way..
so possible is at the beginnig of the fight:
adrenalin+bladeflurry->vanish->garrote->adrenalin->vanish and go on with standart cycle 1snd/5rupture. if you use it like that you can use adrenalin ones more often in a bossfight

 

Fugazor

I used spreadsheet and got results (buffed, my gear of course):
19/42/0 - 1374,44
11/28/22 - 1303,43
11/28/22 + hemo debuff - 1389,02
11/28/22 + hemo debuff + GS - 1348,21
0/40/21 - 1247,98
0/40/21 + hemo debuff - 1346,35
0/40/21 + hemo debuff + GS - 1313,45

Based on spreadsheet:
- 0/40/21 is not good
- 11/28/22 act like hunter surv spec, personal damage is lower but it seems higher when you include raid buff, however more than 1 rogue with that build would be loose of dps
- ghostly strike seems to lower dps

I will surely spec and check it out. Funny thing I was thinking about that build some time ago but passed it with "nah it cannot work".

 

Rudy

Am I correct in assuming combat will have a larger edge over hemo when not fully raid buffed? For example, Kara or just plain soloing?

 

Ichichop

Due to the nature of SS's constant damage modifier vs the un-normalized nature of hemo, yes the lower your AP the larger the difference between SS and hemo will be on special attacks. Your white damage will always be higher with the hemo build. In respect to soloing, due to the talents that you can put into improved openers you will do better solo as hemo. In karazhan I would imagine that deep combat might be better as you probably don't have items like DST and warp-spring coil yet and might not be close to the hit cap, but the hemo build would definately still be competitive on bosses. (note: there are many undead bosses in the early stages of karazhan which would be immune to rupture, affecting your dps).

/wave fsb

 

TheTrix

Ha, i had a similar ephiphany when i returned to raiding with my summer PvP spec, allmost full sub, and still managed to come top five in The Eye.

I went as far down as deadlyness, and whoa.. in your average uber melee dps group with a bs warrior and a shammy, with some flasks and food, i actually hit 3700ap at one point.. it was with windfury, true, but the char sheet actually updates :P

The biggest downside with Sub spec is the same as with deep assassinations specs... poison/bleed immune mobs FTL!

 

Whishes

Question:
If I have a Shaman in my grp for 10% more ap, is 11/20/30 not better than 11/28/22?

 

• Vulajin

If you have 3/3 Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes, a 1s/5r cycle requires you to generate (on average) 4.8 combo points. With Hemo, that costs on average 168 energy. Then you must also spend 20 energy (on average) for your Slice and Dice, and the Rupture is always free. Total cycle cost: 188 energy. With no CP, that's an average of 18.8 seconds. SnD uptime: 92.55%. Rupture uptime: 85.11%.

If you have 0/3 Ruthlessness and no Relentless Strikes, the 1s/5r requires you to generate all 6 combo points, a total of 210 energy with Hemo. You must also spend 50 energy on your two finishers. Total cycle cost: 260 energy. Let's say you're using a 1.4 speed offhand (just for the sake of argument) and never miss an attack or get dodged. With SnD up, you'll attack every 1.08 seconds. On average, then, CP will proc every 5.38 seconds during SnD (or 0.186 times per second) for an extra 2.79 energy per second. The 1-point SnD lasts 17.4 seconds, during which you should generate 222.47 energy. With SnD down, you'll attack every 1.4 seconds, generating on average 2.14 energy per second. To generate the remaining energy will take 3.09 seconds. Total cycle time: 20.49 seconds. SnD uptime: 84.92%. Rupture uptime: 78.08%.

Assuming nothing else below Sword Spec and Blade Flurry benefits this build besides Combat Potency, the 0/40/21 build is going to be worse than the 11/28/22 build all the time.

 

MikaElias

there's a little but very important defference between 0/40/21 and 0/39/22.. you don't think of the second time you can use adrenalin. One Adrenalin is about 25dps and that makes this specc 21dps better than 11/28/22.
And you missed in your calculation the vitaliy.. ok it's not much but there is a differance

bye
mika

 

Ichichop

Mika, where is the math to back up your hypothesis?

/wave fsb

 

sp00n

If anybody cares, before this thread came up, I calculated the formula to compare the DPE of SS vs. Hemo for purely PvP issues:

DPE SS <-> HEMO
(SS_BONUS*0.875*AGGRESSIOn*SURPRISE - HE_BONUS - DAMAGE*(1-0.875*AGGRESSION*SURPRISE)) / (SPEED - (2.4*0.875*AGGRESSION*SURPRISE)) * 14 = AP REQUIRED TO MATCH DPE


So for a [Merciless Gladiator's Slicer], the AP required for a Hemo strike to match SS DPE with a combat build (aggression and surprise attacks) would be:

(98*0.875*1.06*1.1 - 10 - 254*(1-0.875*1.06*1.1)) / (2.6 - (2.4*0.875*1.06*1,1)) * 14 = 8796.5 AP

Of course this doesn't take into account Serrated Blades at all.

 

• Vulajin

Adrenaline Rush is 150 bonus energy. Without Preparation, you get two Adrenaline Rushes every 10 minutes, or 300 energy per 600 seconds, 0.5 energy per second. With Preparation, you get three Adrenaline Rushes over the same timeframe, so 0.75 energy per second. Preparation is a gain of 0.25 energy per second. The cost of this gain is 1 point in Combat Potency (4/5 CP is 20% chance for 12 energy instead of 15). Again, let's assume you're using a 1.4 speed weapon and never missing or getting dodged. At 4/5 CP with no SnD, you're getting about 0.143 procs per second for 1.71 energy per second. At 5/5 CP with no SnD, you're getting about 2.14 energy per second. That's a difference of about 0.43 energy per second. If you add in SnD, the difference becomes 0.56 energy per second. In either case, even after you factor in a standard miss rate of 3-4% plus 5% chance to be dodged, you're still getting a lot more energy than that one extra Adrenaline Rush would have given you.

Obviously Preparation brings a lot more utility to the table (since you can refresh your other cooldowns as well). However, the extra Adrenaline Rush will not make up for the DPS loss of that single point in CP. Thus, 0/39/22 is not going to be superior in DPS to 0/40/21, and I've already explained why 0/40/21 is not superior to 11/28/22, so 0/39/22 is obviously not going to be superior to that either.

Also, I don't know if you're new to the forums, but around here we like to use proper grammar and capitalization, and we also don't sign our posts (since anyone with a brain can look to the left of what you wrote and see your name and server and guild, assuming you filled those out truthfully).

bye
Mika

 

Smear

Using this same formula (which I reduced for ease of use), in order to illustrate the efficacy of weapon speed on Hemo damage:

2.6 speed weapon: 1331.792 / (2.6 - 2.4486) = 8796.5 AP
2.7 speed weapon: 1331.792 / (2.7 - 2.4486) = 5297.5 AP
2.8 speed weapon: 1331.792 / (2.8 - 2.4486) = 3790.0 AP

Thus it is demonstrated that Hemo's DPE efficiency is tremendously influenced by weapon base speed. 3790 AP, or a comparable amount, might not even be all that out of reach for a fully raid-buffed Hemo rogue in a perfect party and wearing Tier 6.

 

Iquark

And on the 'more hemo style weapon' note, the AP where Hemo DPE = that of SS DPE cross over occurs at a sligtly more attainable ~3800 with the 2.8 speed Syphon of the Nathrizem.

Weapon speed is everything for Hemo, and there aren't a lot of options as far as this goes in BC. Basically the best two are Syphon, and the Warglaive, and the Syphon's drawback is the fact that it's a mace. This does open up the interesting option of saving the two points in weapon expertise for putting into lethality however.

On that note, another spot where Hemo also hurts in my eyes is the crit damage. We know that the gear starting at T5 is loaded up with crit, and at higher and higher crit rates, the DPE comparisons counting crit get a little harder and harder to achieve. Granted I'm looking at this from the 'SS vs Hemo attack' point of view alone without the other goodies, but it's another question in the hat.

For example factoring in crit rates into our DPE comparisons, and using the Syphon of the Nathrizem and a 25% crit rate (seems standard to me looking at the Rogues I use in BT) we get an AP crossover at: ~8100 AP without the 2 points from WpnExp into Lethality or ~5800 with those two points in Lethality.

It looks like the extra 30% on crits really helps out SS in this comparison, but 2 extra points in Lethality from using the best easily obtainable Hemo weapon close the gap quite a bit.

Now another question pops up, how much is the draw back of not using Sword Spec to try and get the most out of the Hemo attack itself? We all know that Sword Spec is a great increase to damage, and our best individual weapon spec (even after the 2.2 changes) but hopefully we can weigh the pro's of 2 Lethality points vs Sword spec here.

EDIT: Oh and I was beat on the weapon speed point by the guy above me due to my less than perfect Excel knowledge.

 

MikaElias

I'm sorry about my bad english, but I haven't spoken or written it for two years. I'm going to try better from now. In Germany the sign is polite and at this time I wanted to be polite to all of you, because i like the work you're doing here.
So thanks to you for the good maths. I'm going to try all of those speccs and find the best one for me.
In my opinion the 0/39/22 specc is a lot of more fun in pvp than the others.

 

Ichichop

Mika, if you are wanting to pvp then I would suggest dropping combat potency and taking up 3/3 Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes due to how they synergize so well with short dps bursts (you will probaby be using a lot of high CP finishers) and deadly throw. You might also consider dropping weapon expertise and blade flurry in favor of lethality (but this will have a large effect on your dps in pve). Combat potency really only shines in long fights and even it long fights it is mathematically inferior to 11 points in very key assassination talents.

Remember that the bottom half of the combat tree only improves special attack damage, which is what makes it so lackluster and easy to drop for 22 points in sublety while maintaining the same dps.

/wave fsb

 

Siddown

Yes, when I said "10s of thousands" for AP, I also factored in CP which any build with Surprise Attacks will have. It's been a while since I've done the math (and frankly I'm not even sure where it is anymore), but when considering it I figured out much energy you'd have gotten for CP with a 1.5 speed offhand during the timeframe, and lowered the cost of SS accordingly. Terrible math, but it was to counter all the people on the WoW forums who were saying "but you are forgetting that Hemo is only 35 energy, that means I get 8 Hemos to your 7!!!"

Since a Hemo Build with CP loses out on Relentless Strikes, it's still Hemo and it's 35 Energy v. SS + SA + Aggression + CP for figuring out DPE (at least in my eyes).

 

sp00n

Those variables really begin to sum up, and while certainly being interesting to see that number (CP + Lethality for SS, Serated Blades for Hemo), and I was doing my calculation purely based on PvP matters, I didn't find the need to calculate more.
Maybe, if you find it, or if I feel like doing so, one could post a more sophisticated formula.

 

Kapuras

Yesterday I was testing your build Ichipop in SSC and BT and here are the

WWS results for Leotheras, Karathress, Morogrim, Lady Vashj, High Warlord Naj'entus and Supremus.

In the next ID i will post the WWS for these encounters with a full combat Sword spec.

PS: Yes I know my hit rating is at me moment 332 and too high, but thursday i finally got Warp Spring Coil and i don't want to change my gems, because when i got the T5 Helmet i will need the hit gems.

 

• Cluey

I have been using a 11/21/29 build for quite a while on my rogue alt.
I am mostly finishing off quests for gold or doing five mans, I was really lucky on one Karazhan run I did to helps friends out and scored the mace from Illhoof, [Fool's Bane].

I have found that Ghostly Strike really quite ordinary and the only times I use it are:
1) while the mob is stunned as it can't avoid it.
2) while doing silly things with Blade Flurry and Evasion.

With my current gear and the 15% dodge bonus from GS coupled with Evasion means the mobs can't hit me, my dodge rate goes up to about 91% and Setup gives me a combo point almost every other dodge.
It works great on multi mob pulls as long as the tank is aware of the plan, Shattered Halls is great for it, I normally end up with enough combo points from dodging to use back to back Eviscerates.

I have thought about trying a 0/40/21 or 0/39/22 build but the maths in the recent posts has convinced me not to try, I had considered dropping deadliness for a weapon specialisation but again the maths on hemo and AP has convinced me to stay with what I have. If I had [Spiteblade] I would be tempted to try it but given I have two maces and mace spec doesn't add as much damage as sword spec I don't think its worth my time to try it out.