so is that a 0/31/30 build slighted toward PvE or PvP? I'm assuming that since you raid with it that it would look like an extended 11/27/23 build, but I thought I would ask.

Personally, I don't believe there is a true contender in the PvP&PvE magic spec category but that doesn't mean I don't wish there was =)

Do you have any WWS of some boss fights as both specs?

[edit]
PvE slighted 0/31/30
PvP slighted 0/31/30

I'm tired of this bullshit in this thread. Empirical evidence is almost useless in a discussion comparing builds that are even remotely close together in DPS. Spreadsheets put 0/31/30 something like 10% behind combat, which means the likelihood of observing no difference is pretty good in a real fight where any number of variations may occur, including differences in DPS time, in gear, in the mob's facing, in the number of times the mob casts (which reduces dodges/parries/etc.), in the phase of the moon, in pretty much everything. In order to actually arrive at an adequate amount of data, you'd need to compare a large number of fights from both specs with the same people and the same gear the entire time, not just the one or two fights' worth that are commonplace in threads like this.

If you don't accept the theorycraft, that's fine, but stop shitting up the thread by insisting that anyone's feeling or experience on a single boss is more useful than the countless hours of work that have been done to accurately model every aspect of the build you're discussing (hi, every talent in combat and subtlety is really easy to model).

don't forget, there are several special occasion specs which would be quite difficult to model. imagine a hemo-spec with the setup talent an ghostly strike on encounters reliquary of souls evasion-tanking an enrage phase or gurtogg evasion tanking a fel rage phase. would imp evi make sense in such a situation where you would have 5cps rdy on every gcd? just like trying to model a seal fate/sinister strike spec designed specifically for use only during the loatheb encounter, for me the efficiency of a setup-based cp generating spec is unpredictable. i imagine evaluating/modeling such kind of specifically for a certain encounter/environment tailored specs to be very hard, yet maybe i'm wrong.

Well, sure, if you want to measure every possible spec on every possible fight, it gets more complicated. But very few people spec for optimal evasion tanking on Reliquary of Souls. It's not that it isn't nice to do good damage in that situation - it is. It's just that it's only one fight, so it doesn't make much sense to spec around it. In practice, what makes sense is to optimize for situations where you a) aren't being attacked and b) are trying to do as much damage as you can without other considerations. And under those assumptions, Vulajin's comments re: ease of modeling are dead on. The only talents that are particularly hard to model are Mutilate and SF (and to a slightly lesser extent, Find Weakness) - i.e., high-end Assassination.

At the risk of piling on, you are not doing more damage than the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is actually best case. Unless you are playing your rogue flawlessly, you are under the spreadsheet esitimate of what your gear/buffs allow. If you are doing more damage than the spreadsheet says, you are simply not using the spreadsheet correctly.

Perhaps your contempt for the theorycrafting is due to that? I don't know.

What I do know is that differences in playing skill >> differences in gear/spec/etc. People would like to believe they are all perfectly skilled, but they aren't. I'm consistently outplayed by one of our rogues and consistently outplay another.

Ok... Here are two facts we know.

1. The spreadsheet gives a good baseline for a wide scope of specs which takes into account most cases and can gauge the specs with the gear accordingly.
2. However, the spreadsheet is not perfect, and thus a situation could exist that would be normally missed by the spreadsheet because it has to do with raid synergy and team work and not flat numbers.

Problem: There are simply TOO many variables to take into account that it would be insanely difficult to model them in a spreadsheet.

So, considering this you're both right.

The truth of the matter is if the boss fight it only going to last 10 minutes max, IE enrage timer or just normal kill time, then a 0/31/30 build has the potential (in theory) to put out very interesting dps if played correctly. You will have a minimum of 3-4 vanishes, 5 blade flurries, 3 adrenaline rushes. Also, if you get heroism after 35% and save prep for that time it will give you 2 of those vanishes, blade flurries, and adrenaline rushes at your best case scenario.

Would the spreadsheet model this currently? I doubt it, I haven't looked but considering prep isn't even a talent choice I HIGHLY doubt it.

Does that mean it's cool to go off and say the spreadsheet is crap and I don't care what it says? No
Does it mean that a 0/31/30 build should be ruled out because the spreadsheet shows a 10% decrease? No
What it does mean is that the build should be tested extensively then compared to a raiding staple like 19/42/0 to get a better representation of what's going on.

After said testing is done then not only a rational argument can be made but perhaps it will stir the interest of enough to make it another globally accepted raiding build, only with a different way to play then a staple combat build.

So, why does heroism matter at 35%? Heroism doesn't effect yellow attacks that would actually make the 35% factor of Dirty Deeds matter. Also you won't be getting two blade flurries. Hate to say it, but I really can't go by your opinion when you say things like this.

Here are the real facts.

1. Any build without Relentless Strikes / Ruthlessness sucks for PvE.

2. If your not hemo, and you want a PvE build, you better be 41 points into combat.

3. 20/41 is the way to go (once again) to maximize sustained DPS. Pipe down otherwise.

4. Spreadsheets are great guidelines that give a rough estimate of the damage you should be doing with the specified spec/gear. You can pretend in your mind that a particular spec adds up to do more or close to the same damage, but in the end your just fooling yourself.

Edit: Crap someone said it before me =/

Sorry, oversight on my part. It would apply if you had combat potency, which in this case you wouldn't.

Still applies to AR... anyway, the point isn't that it is a viable raid spec; but rather to look at it from both sides.

About Hemo vs. trash:

To keep up with the combat rogues, it could help to use the strong points of the Hemo build for trash, Camo, Serrated Blades (Imp. Rupture) and Opportunity. Be there first, have a bigger Garrote, use a 3 point Rupture. I don't know if this outdamages Combat in theory (probably not) but I feel these things can have a bigger outcome on damage then specs.

About 11/28/22 in pvp:

Is it really that bad for Arena, if you can only choose between 19/42 and 11/28/22 for raid reasons ? Sure you miss AR a lot, but Dirty Tricks and Camo helps me with sapping. The stun duration is long too. I was under the impression my 11/28/22 (the current one with 125% hemo) was actually a build that's good for both raiding and any kind of pvp. But I might be wrong there.

Hemo is fine on trash, just dps. On our last Najentus through Reliquary run, I had #1 dps on trash, as well as #1 dps for the entire raid, with a trispec hemo build.

Wow Web Stats

Granted, some of the trash/boss split is off, as WWS has an issue with splitting reliquary, and doesnt include mobs part of the shade event, but Hemo is pretty potent, hence the incoming nerf.

From a PvE perspective, in 2.3.2, Hemo is dead. Long live combat.

Hemo's re-emergence is a spec came when it was 125% weapon damage. It scaled better than SS's 116% (when talented). Now, Hemo will be 110% and doesn't have CP to feed it energy. It was already losing the number of yellow attacks per minute game, and now it will be doing even less damage. The physical debuff just doesn't make up for the damage loss, and the debuff doesn't scale with gear.

Sorry, guys, the book is closed on Hemo as an ultimately viable PvE build. It's still a solid PvP build, but Prep being nerfed to not include AR will probably see people moving in one of two directions. Either from 0/33/28 to something like 33/0/28 to grab fleet footed, quick recovery, seal fate, and all the other PvP goodies from Assassination and combine it with Subtlety's avoidance talents. Or maybe people will continue into combat just enough to get mace spec, but forego AR in a 0/25/36 fashion, grabbing Cheat Death and Master of Subtlety, or even going another way and grabbing Premed and Prep, still, but just knowing it'll be silghtly less before. I'd probably prefer 33/0/28 in 5s and 0/25/36 in 2s.

Hmm. I'll see if I can find a credible link, but more than one rogue had been lamenting it to me. Still, having prep + AR doesn't save Hemo from a PvE perspective. AR is a very miniscule DPS talent from a PvE light.

So, the reason why the spreadsheet doesn't include Prep is that AR is the *only* talent it increases the damage of, and 1) Prep/AR builds are pretty rare, and 2) AR doesn't add that much sustained DPS in any event. Grabbing, for instance, my copy of the 0.8 sheet, I find that Adrenaline Rush is increasing my DPS from 1470.85 to 1486.91 - about a 1% increase. Prep basically gives you 50% more ARs in the sustained case (as you get 3 per 10 min instead of 2 per 5) - so the DPS increase of Prep is about .5%. Oh, and Dirty Deeds means that the 2 that occur below 35% do 20% more damage, so that's another .13% damage or so. So, all in all, the spreadsheet's error in the case of AR is about 2/3 of a percent.... versus it's 10% damage shortcoming. That just isn't going to cut it.

I mean, fundamentally, I agree: the spreadsheet isn't 100% correct - I never claimed it was, or even intended it to be. But for comparisons on this level, it's accurate enough that no amount of anecdotal evidence is going to do better; to get more accurate results you'll need to measure dozens of fights with identical gear sets and two different specs; we're talking days if not weeks spent on careful, systematic analysis on raid encounters - which just isn't very practical. So, fundamentally: the spreadsheets are our best way to compare various specs, not because they're perfect but because in a very real sense they're the *only* way to have compare specs.

Don't know anyone that specs for trash damage, but eh whatever. Opportunity is a god awful talent to say the least, unless you wanna get some cool ambushes or something I personally would rather get some stealth for saps etc. and it obviously wouldn't help much in as far as damage.

11/28/22 isn't good at all for arena. You lose out on a lot of helpful PvP talent's you could potentially get for raid talent's that are purely meant for sustained damage rather than burst damage. Try dueling a pally or basically any healer with that spec, you'll prob lose. It's still good (currently 125%) for PvE, but will soon be nerfed and made once again just a dream to be comparable with Combat for raiding.


Hemo some day down the road (WotLK) may come back as a good raid spec considering how well it scales/depends on your weapon damage. For now it's a dead weight spec. If your gonna spec hemo, you better be doing it for PvP or if you like to be gimp in raids, then you might as well be totally gimp and spec for the double AR to at least make it worth while in PvP as well.

I personally will keep the same PvP build. The nerf is substantial, but for 2v2/3v3 and depending on your 5v5, double AR is still an insane amount of burst damage. That goes without mentioning the utility you get from being able to vanish/sprint/evasion back to back. Hemo/AR/maces imo for PvP. Combat is still good for PvP though if you like that sort of thing. I just enjoy the Sub talents for fighting druids/rogues, it really helps out.

I was on a 2v2 with another rogue. Besides Pally/Lock and some Pally/Warrior combos we pretty much nuked the crap outta everything before something could really be done. We topped out at 2225 the 2nd to last week of S2, then stop playing due to it just being ridiculous que time (14min av). That combo got nerfed pretty significantly now, so did Rogue/SP, but I'll still check it out when nerf hits. Not many 2v2 double Rogue, anyone else try that successfully?

New patch notes:
Rogues

* Ambush: The damage multiplier on this ability has been increased from 250% to 275%.
* Cheat Death: When multiple attacks land simultaenously, all those resolved after the attack which triggered Cheat Death will now have their damage reduced by 90% as intended. However, the combat log will still report them doing full damage.
* Hemorrhage: Rank 4 of this ability no longer has its charges consumed by non-physical attacks and spells.
* Hemorrhage weapon damage reduced from 125% to 110%, but the damage debuff has been increased.
* Hemorrhage: This ability now correctly does additional damage when its debuff has already been applied.
* Preparation now resets the cooldown of Shadowstep and no longer resets the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush.
* Shadowstep now adds a 3 second, 70% movement speed increase.
* Sinister Calling now also increases the percentage damage bonus of Hemorrhage and Backstab by 2/4/6/8/10%.

The only things affecting PvE are the hemo damage fix(It's benefiting from the debuff now) and Sinister Calling Hemo damage increase, although It's still not worth it going so deep on Subtlety in my opinion. However it's strange that they nerf both hemo and AR. It's not like you can raid with deep subtlety at its current state, so they're either hallucinating or they don't want subtlety raid friendly. The nerf on Hemorrhage is not killing the tri-spec but the fact that it scales so badly is a kick in the nuts.

The AR, hemo, and sinister calling changes look like PvP changes to me (and shadowstep obviously), and they admirably meet their design goals of having exactly zero effect on the raid game. Hemo isn't the awesome-stabity spam that is was 2.3.0 unless you're deeper sub, discouraging tri-spec. The AR change is pretty obviously only going to affect AR/prep builds, which are arena builds anyways.
I assume that the shadowstep change is replacing the combo point, in line with the general PTR forum community consensus. It's more useful for catching a running opponent this way.

I think saying that they don't want you raiding subtlety isn't quite right, although they're not good at making it raid-viable. They seem not to want people using tri-spec builds because it means the powerful talents are all shallow in the trees, and the deep talents are worth sacrificing.

New rogue updates at WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes.

11/2x/2x will probably still be viable for a raid spec (if you include the debuff of course), but I think there's some very strong competition coming from 11/9/41. Well, 11/10/40 or 11/13/37 might actually be stronger, but it's getting soooo close to getting Shadowstep, it's hard to resist..

Bye bye AR/Prep. It was fun while it lasted. So it seems Blizz are really encouraging the use of ShadowStep. I can admire their tenacity for wanting to make it viable, at least in the pvp environment. Was thinking (roughly) of something like this to change from AR/Prep:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Could use some tweaking of course. I will miss riposte, mace stun and AR. I couldn't do without dual wield either, otherwise I'd probably sink the points into assassination. I'll check it out on the PTR, but knowing me I will probably just keep the 2.3 build.

I have no idea what to think of those changes yet, but Preparation becomes more and more of a defensive ability. Telling from mind in 2.3.2 it will now reset Evasion, Sprint, Vanish and .. Shadowstep?

No it won't. If Hemo benefits from the debuff, one would presume it also consumes a charge, so there is zero net gain. It makes it marginally easier to consume charges when soloing or in small groups - i.e. a PvP benefit.

Some posts back there was someone prooving that a deep Shadowstep build would to something like 5% less damage than a trispec, with the 125% hemo.

No we should take into account some new factors when reevaluating the situation.

One is that Hemo gets the damage lowered from 125% to 110% as a base but the debuff increased from +36 to +42.
The second is that now it seems to be taking benefit from its own debuff when renewing the effect. So +42 to the hemo damage.
The third is that sinester calling now, not only increases agility and therefor crit an AP, but a 10% on hemo damage:
We wouls asume for the comparishon a weapon damage of 260 (average damage of talon of azshara)
before: (weapon damage*1.25) = 325
after: ( ( (weapon damage*1.1)+(hemo damage*0.1) ) * 1.1 ) + 42 = 314.6 + 42 = 356.6
The fourth is that now Hemo charges wont be consumed by non physical effects so our white damage will get a greater benefit (plus the debuff is beter).

Im not extremly good at figures and maybe I did some mistake in the calculations, but looks like the deep subtelty damage might be looking at least good enought for raiding.

The net changes for shadowstep before and after the patch are:

Hemo goes from 125% to 120% (including the 10% from Sinister calling)
Hemo debuff goes from 36 to 42

This is more or less no net difference, meaning that shadowstep is still a weak PvE build. Furthermore, it has no controllable burst damage / cooldowns, which is a blessing in terms of mindless buttonmashing, but a weakness in terms of intelligent play.

Hemo consuming its own charges is irrelevant - in a raid situation all charges are consumed anyway. Indeed, it's essential that the debuff be fully consumed *before* you hit your next Hemo.

The bugfix on charge consumption by spells is also irrelevant: this was never modelled in the first place. Shadowstep is a weak build, period.