yes the general idea was to go for Serrated blades due to armor reduction and the boost to Rupture. And using a SS/Ghostly macro while still benefitting from Aggression and Adrenaline rush. my crit chance is pretty low(23%) so the loss of Lethality wont be big.

However is there anyone who can confirm that ghostly strike is NOT normalized(working as hemo) ? I have a vague memory of it but i want it confirmed before respeccing :P

GS isn't normalized.

DST is pretty awesome I must say, and buffs are huge, but number of graves, and which one(s) you get stuck in can have a crippling impact.

Last week I managed about 1440 on Tidewalker with one grave, but my one grave was in a close spot, I have DST, and I had a perfect group setup (Enh Sham/DPS War/Feral/Rogue/Rogue).

(NOTE: I did this as combat daggers. I don't have a sword for the hemo build being discussed.)

I say "about 1440" 'cuz I'm not 100% sure. We rarely WWS anything, so I'm working off the DPS reading on top of my SWS, which, from what I can tell, starts counting the first time you perform an attack, and after counts till you drop combat. Murlocs spawned right before he died, and I remember seeing either 1436 or 1446 on the meter, but it was down to 1411 by the time all the murlocs were dead and I dropped combat.

I think if I throw absolutely everything I've got at it, I might be able to crack 1500 on a graveless run, but I'd have to be pretty irresponsible.

This week I took 3 graves and could only manage 12xx, forget exact number. Also had 2nd warrior instead of druid :-/.

I do use haste pots btw. I think such numbers would be impossible for me without them.

Towards the end of vanilla WoW, Hemo become a very viable raid spec if you had the best of the best gear. And now it seems that TBC is reaching that pinnacle to where the nice little things in the sub tree can shine.

Now the question I propose is: "Is Weapon Ex really worth 2 talent points?" I personally could justify not having it and therefore utilizing an 11/26/22 +2 build.

EDIT: Nevermind seems I lived in jungle and had old data.

Please try reading this whole thread (and others) before posting 'facts'. Where's this 2.9% to-hit number from? The best tested number we have (which isn't definitive, we admit) is 1%. There are numerous WWS parses (also not definitive, but lead at least to a questioning of your 'facts', the whole POINT of this thread) which are showing comparitive personal DPS, not even accounting for bonus raid dps given by the hemo debuff.

WoWWiki's reasonably outdated, best current estimate to-hit needed for boss mobs is 25.5%, and I still don't get where you get 2.9% to hit from 10 weapon skill. (as stated earlier, tested results seem to place it at 1% for 10 weapon skill). We have VERY good confirmation on 308 hit rating giving 0 misses on bosses with precision and weapon skill.

Search the old rogue dps spreadsheet thread for all the testing - I forget what page it's on ... :P

As far as sourcing the spreadsheet, again, THAT'S WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT. Read above you - people are posting parses with a hemo build that is doing comparitive dps as the combat build, before adding in the extra damage from the hemo debuff.

These boards would be mostly useless if everyone just quoted old "accepted facts" and didn't question them, test them, and post results. Ignoring that is just basically trolling. :P

EDIT: Nevermind, WE mystery solved below (or is it?)

How is sub tree more versatile for pvp?
What type of pvp? Arena? BG? World? Duels?

Prep alone does not make the pve hemo spec here a versatile pvp spec. You lose out on cold blood which is the only on command burst damage ability classic prep builds have.

Prep is only versatile if you have useful cooldowns to reset, w/o coldblood pve combat/hemo has no burst damage whatsoever.

I just don't see how 11/26+x/22+x is a more "versatile" pvp spec than say 16+x/41+x combat sword/fist/mace build. 11/26+x/22+x certainly would not be viable in arena and when it comes to bg zergs just about any spec would do.

IF hemo is a viable pve spec than it is a breath of fresh air ( sorta, spam hemo instead of sinister strike -_- ) and a change of pace of sorts for some, but why bother with it unless it is a much high dps spec if you would lose viability in arenas and gain very little if anything in other pvp area's( BG's , world , duels )

With hemo you gain a big perk: improved stealth from MoD. That alone makes PvP more bearable. Not to mention you can snag a few points in Camo if you so choose, buffing your stealth even more.

Besides which, Prep is amazing for resetting survival cooldowns (Evasion/Vanish/Sprint). They may not be offensive exclusively, but in arenas it's sometimes better to not die than burst once.

I use the Dragonstrike currently and it seems to fit well with the reasons for using this type of build (hits hard and has a built in haste proc).

I am interested inthe 11/26/24 build with dirty deeds. This would reduce the cost of garotte and help you energy situation out at the beginning of a fight or after any vanish.

Any comments on this?

Are the two points better spent elsewhere? Lethality?

Yea, I have been thinking that Weapon Ex was only +1% hit and I could justify losing that talent to pick up a plethora of other talents.

I'm kind of partial to dirty deeds myself. It lends itself well in pvp to a good stun lock and may be ok on garrote openers in raids. But those 2 extra points could go to a lot of good talents.

If you're using maces there's really no reason to go mace spec for PvE damage, you should just go 11/21/29 with 4/5 deadliness in my opinion.

MoD, Camo, Elusivness, Dirty Tricks, Dirty Deeds, Heightened Senses, Premed, Prep, etc.

You have to be blind to not see the sub trees pvp usefulness.

That is a really good point. I had not thought of that.

I wonder if losing 1% to hit is made up for by getting into deadliness?

I am going to test out some other builds, all of them along these lines.

You are right. But in the 11/28/22 build, most of those are not taken. It's really a personal choice ... you could go full Combat and have AR and SA for Arena, along with whatever PvP toys you decided to pick up along the way, or you could get MoD, Camo, and Prep. Personally if I were going to go Sub for PvP I would go all the way, otherwise I'll stick with 19/42. What I like about Hemo spec is all the new stuff in deep Sub.

You are forgetting that you also have to give up Sword/Fist Spec to go into Deadliness.

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).

Regarding Ghostly Strike, I can't see this ability being viable in raiding until they remove the 40 energy cost on a miss/dodge/parry. 40 energy for zero damage and 0 CP not only puts a large dent in the dps of Ghostly Strike, but will also mess up the 5r/1s rotation.

Flask of Relentless Assault
All three pally buffs
LOTP (our third rogue is on vacation this week)
Unleashed Rage
Strength of Earth
Windfury Totem
Improved Battle Shout (no Solarian trinket, we are not that far yet)
Healing Stream Totem =D

Thanks for clearing up on weapon skill. I just realized I was living in pre-TBC world. Doh!

So if I am correct now, after TBC changes and with 350 skill DW have ~25% miss chance and hunters/druids/2h/specials have ~6% miss chance against "normal" boss?

EDIT: 19.5 (308 HR) + 5 + 0.4 (10 weapon skill) ~ 25. Of course there is additional parry/dodge/block "miss" chance mitigated by weapon skill only.

Is the weapon skill still limited (more than 365 will give you nothing)?

You're missing .4-.5% according to most figures I've seen.

I run with about 289 hit rating and have a sub 1% miss rate with weapon expertise and precision, so I feel that I am in a good spot aka no wasted stat points and almost perfect miss rate.

Yeah, but he said he was using a Dragonstrike, so no sword/fist spec anyways. Deadliness spec is probably the most viable hemo spec anyways since the only 2.8 weapon (other than Warglaive of Azzinoth) is a mace.