[Rogue]The Combat vs Hemo Point of Inflection - Page 59

Keegantir · 11/12/07, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Hanos

For all the people asking about certain spec/gear combos, have you checked the spreadsheet? There is an excellent tool available for you to plug in your gear and play with the different specs. At this point the highest DPS Spec for Swords appears to be 4/5 Sword Spec, 2/2 Weapon Expertise, 2/2 Dirty Deeds, for Maces you are better off with Deadliness then with Mace Spec (although Mace Spec is nice for PvP), and I don't think there is a level of gear where Shadowstep will pass the value of the Assassination talents.

What I am very amused by is how people have proven, in this thread, mathematically that 5/5 Sword Spec, 1/2 Dirty Deeds is better than 4/5 Sword, 2/2 DD, yet people still think it is the other way around because the spreadsheet says so. Yes, the spreadsheets are great, but when hard math proves them wrong, then it is ok to go against the spreadsheet.

Logically you would think that 2/2 DD would be better but DD only affects yellow dmg, while Sword spec is on almost all attacks.

Killars · 11/12/07, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Xanthi

From [RAID] Boss armor values
"With 4010 armor taken off by outside debuffs, the player themselves only need to deal with 2190 or 3690 armor. It should be trivial to see what benefit certain items have then."

I tried to calculate the max armor penetration you could get from gear (ignoring serrated blade) and it came out to be 4051 if everything procced, 3051 without WSC. Assuming no procs at all that's 1911 ArP, pretty close to the lower end cap.

head Vengeful Gladiator's Leather Helm 84
neck Choker of Serrated Blades 175
shoulder Slayer's Shoulderpads 175
back Dory's Embrace 112
chest Shadowtooth Trollskin Cuirass 210
bracers -none- 0
gloves Slayer's Handguards 175
belt Bladeangel's Money Belt 77
pants Shady Dealer's Pantaloons 175
boots -none- 0
r1 Stormrage Signet Ring 126
r2 Signet of Primal Wrath 126
t1 Madness of the Betrayer 300
t2 Warp-Spring Coil 1000
mh Boundless Agony 210
oh Prowler's Strikeblade 140
range Ancient Sin'dorei Longbow 126
enchant Executioner 840

Looking at the gear choice though, some of it is rather unfeasable for raiding and although i still get to keep my 2pc t6 bonus, i doubt it'll be worth it to stack so much armor penetration at the cost of other stats. With min-maxing swords though it's likely that i'll only have around 602 passive armor penetration (no proc/serrated blade). With procs accounting for 2140 ArP (motb+executioner+wsc) it looks like there is still room for wsc in high armor encounters, making it very situational at best with executioner being the new MH enchant of choice for pve. Sorry if my post seems like its going in a circle, but my initial thought was that it's not possible to reach 0 armour, but i guess i proved myself wrong.

You're not gonna be using it in your dps cycle, but it has a few situational uses in pve to make it worth keeping on your bar. For example at illidan, for p1/3/5 i put wounding on my OH and shiv to stack 5 (esp p3/5) or to refresh the stack if it looks like its in danger of dropping off, while in p4 i switch to my spare OH which has crippling poison and shiv the demons before killing it. At RoS i shiv mind-numbing when it's in danger of dropping. Ultimately, shiv is pretty useless in pve if you're looking at pure snd/rupture cycles but has its situational use when you need the poisons to be up.

I'll answer you with my own quote a few pages back =P

Each boss has either 6200 or 7700 armor, that was posted a long time ago. Using raid debuffs, which should be up by default, you take these armors down to 2190 and 3690 via Sunder, CoR, and FF (-4010). So with some armor pen PvE gear, nothing crazy, you'd have 476 passive armor pen (shoulder/gloves/ring) leaving you with a static 1714 and 3214. Add MotB (-300) or WSC (-1000) proc to go along with Executioner (-840) and you'd be at either -126 and 1850 with WSC only or 574 and 2074 with MotB only. Obviously you wouldn't want to use WSC on a low armor boss after it was tested, but you can see how Serrated Blades can take you over the cap. Regardless, as I said the closer you get to the cap without going over makes armor pen increasingly amazing also making Serrated Blades and amazing talent that needs to be recognized as such.

For you imaginative viewing you can also look at these other ways of getting to the armor cap even on the high armor mobs. Here is a list of all the "raid viable" armor pen items I can find. You'll see I was modest in the above example, I kept most of the gear that decreased my hit and other stats out of my example.

Procs
Warp Spring Coil - 1000
Madness of the Betrayer - 300
Executioner - 840

Passive Gear
Stormrage Signet Ring - 126
Signet of Primal Wrath (ZA Ring) - 126
Choker of Serrated Blades - 175

Slayer's Handguards - 175
Slayer's Shoulderbads - 175
Shady Dealer's Pantaloons - 175
Bladeangel's Money Belt (ZA Belt) - 77
Shadowtooth Trollskin Cuirass (ZA Chest) - 210

Boundless Agony - 210
Dagger of Bad Mojo(ZA Dagger) - 140
Prowler's Strikeblade(ZA Dagger) - 140
Ancient Sin'dorei Longbow(ZA Bow) - 126

Your base value after debuffs is leaving out something, I assume CoR which by far is prob the curse that give the most raid DPS improvement in our guild. For me, I'd be hemo taking off another 560 I believe so thad change things a bit also. Basically for a person like me with just a few pieces of armor pen gear, all being the best for their socket anyway, id use the MoTB all the time with either the Ashtongue trinket on low armor bosses, and on high armor bosses id use MoTB with WSC. I don't have a DST btw, but if I did id prob use that with WSC considering how ridiculous armor pen scales. The two trinket MoTB and WSC have a total of 41 hit and in 2.3 that will be valuable anyway, so I see no reason using both trinkets as they theoretically get buffed when you go hemo (because of armor pen scaleing off itself).

Killars · 11/12/07, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Keegantir

What I am very amused by is how people have proven, in this thread, mathematically that 5/5 Sword Spec, 1/2 Dirty Deeds is better than 4/5 Sword, 2/2 DD, yet people still think it is the other way around because the spreadsheet says so. Yes, the spreadsheets are great, but when hard math proves them wrong, then it is ok to go against the spreadsheet.

Logically you would think that 2/2 DD would be better but DD only affects yellow dmg, while Sword spec is on almost all attacks.

Sword spec in total of the fight does 3-4% for me over the entire fight. Your telling me losing 1% chance to proc is going to drastically drop that percent more than gaining 10 on all special attacks for more than 1/3 of the fight... I dunno about that one. O and I myself don't go by the spreed sheet for this stuff, to me things like this have too many variables to just spread sheet. I may be a theorycrafter and a speculator, but I don't blindly look at a spread sheet. I also don't think armor pen stacking is correctly shown on the sheet as well as the new Hemo specs, but hey thats just ignorant me.

• Vulajin · 11/12/07, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Killars

Sword spec in total of the fight does 3-4% for me over the entire fight. Your telling me losing 1% chance to proc is going to drastically drop that percent more than gaining 10 on all special attacks for more than 1/3 of the fight... I dunno about that one. O and I myself don't go by the spreed sheet for this stuff, to me things like this have too many variables to just spread sheet. I may be a theorycrafter and a speculator, but I don't blindly look at a spread sheet. I also don't think armor pen stacking is correctly shown on the sheet as well as the new Hemo specs, but hey thats just ignorant me.

Except that the last 35% does not comprise more than 1/3 of the fight, due to fire mages, executing warriors, and of course, yourself (since, by the very nature of Dirty Deeds, your own DPS will increase and shorten the last 35%).

Inkm · 11/12/07, 10:34 AM

I belive people might've touched into it allready, but isn't there perhaps some sort of meta value of 2/2 DD ?

By this I mean the unquantifiable value of a skill that'll make the hardest part, for many anyway, easier?

Perhaps a bit out of the scope of theorycrafting and all that, but for a guild with certain progression issues (like my own), anything that'll make that first-kill easier to obtain is a good thing.

On the other hand, having a skill that'll do more dps in general should also shorten the fight, I guess that's what my pondering is all about. Is it better to be able to shorten the "harder" part then it is to shorten the fight in general (and yes I see the potential in "shorten the harder part").

Rerox · 11/12/07, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by Vulajin

Except that the last 35% does not comprise more than 1/3 of the fight, due to fire mages, executing warriors, and of course, yourself (since, by the very nature of Dirty Deeds, your own DPS will increase and shorten the last 35%).

That is true of course, but only if you watch the whole fight as one linear progression.

If you look at T5 and T6 Raidcontent you notice that there are many encounters where you have to face enrage-timers. Especially in those fights 2/2 DD comes in handy when the encounter isn't "on farm" yet. More damage in the last third of the fight often means "more damage when nearing the enrage timer".

So while any kind of talent distribution might be 0,1% better or worse when the dps is calculated linear to the whole fight aand everything works perfect, some talents show their worth only when viewed in regard to the actual benefit you gain while raiding (not only pure numbers).

Thus said i will most certainly spec 2/2 DD & 2/2 EXP and 4/5 Swordspec, not just because the Spreadsheet tells me thats a 0.79dps improve over any other variant of the three talents, but also because I "feel" like I can work better with these two talents (DD & EXP) maxed out.

Leoki · 11/12/07, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by Vesper

Does your classleader allow you to spec full subtlety build then?

my guildmaster/class leader sucks anyway he cant even kill his ghosts on teron

Maurice2u · 11/12/07, 11:28 AM

If the math from post #857 holds up on "live" (where the DD vs SS 1pt swap often is less than 0.5%) then I think it will really come down to a personal feel thing. Many who are fighting high end content will like the boost they see as the "hard part" of the fight comes around. For sheer math guys who are in exceptional guilds and/or very confident with their play and progression, they may simply choose based on what repeated testing on live says edges out in maximum DPS between the two, even if the difference is negligable.

I have been spec'd 11/28/22 since June. Long before the concept had any traction, and back when I would get funny looks until the run was over and SWstats proved I wasn't crazy. Thus, I'm very comfortable with the style, and I will probably respec the 1pt just to get a month or so of trying out the new DD talent. If I feel the late DPS surge comes noticeably into play enough times over that period, I'll keep it. If it turns out to be little more than fluff (ie: roughly the same DPS, and not a big enough swing in output to finish off those 1-4% wipe fights) then I'll probably go back.

As of right now, I think the two are probably right on part with each other, and will be more of a play feel than anything, but you never know w/ Blizz once it goes live. 2pt of DD could all of a sudden be HUGE, or float off into the land of mystery nerfs and be totally useless. The next 10 days or so whould allow us to compile enough data to say for sure.

Ozzmar · 11/12/07, 11:38 AM

I'm definitely not a math geek (and mad props to those of you who are), so this may be a stupid question.

Has anyone tried plugging a spec like this into a spreadsheet?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The big discussion points of Combat vs. Hemo in order to max DPS seem to have been

- 5/5 Sword Spec vs 2/2 Dirty Deeds, etc.
- How hard Hemo will hit compared to Sinister Strike, and when they would theoretically meet each other in DPE, etc.

I'm only conceptualizing here, but it seems that everyone agrees that 3/3 Serrated Blades and 2/2 Dirty Deeds are notable DPS increases. Would simply grabbing 22 in Subt to max those talents complement a standard Combat Sinister Strike spec nicely, or would Hemo win out as the "spam" skill?

It seems to me that the only real downside (if it even is one) is that Sinister Strike can be spammed less often due to the slightly higher energy cost, which would mean less theoretical benefit from Relentless Strikes, potentially less Mongoose and WF procs, etc.

But, on the bright side, if Sinister Strike / DD could pump out similar DPS, that would be 2 less talent points we'd have to waste in Tier 1 of the Combat tree.

Any thoughts?

• Vulajin · 11/12/07, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Ozzmar

I'm only conceptualizing here, but it seems that everyone agrees that 3/3 Serrated Blades and 2/2 Dirty Deeds are notable DPS increases. Would simply grabbing 22 in Subt to max those talents complement a standard Combat Sinister Strike spec nicely, or would Hemo win out as the "spam" skill?

It seems to me that the only real downside (if it even is one) is that Sinister Strike can be spammed less often due to the slightly higher energy cost, which would mean less theoretical benefit from Relentless Strikes, potentially less Mongoose and WF procs, etc.

But, on the bright side, if Sinister Strike / DD could pump out similar DPS, that would be 2 less talent points we'd have to waste in Tier 1 of the Combat tree.

Any thoughts?

It's not remotely viable. Combat Potency is essentially what currently drives Sinister Strike- and Backstab-based builds. If you take it away and use Sinister Strike anyway, your cycles go to hell and you lose a ton of DPS. You also would not be able to pick up Aggression unless you ignored Weapon Expertise and one point of Sword Spec, also not a worthwhile trade. And of course, losing Surprise Attacks is huge.

Hemorrhage is the Subtlety tree, for a PvE build.

For reference, I entered your proposed build quickly into my spreadsheet and lost roughly 100 DPS, plus an additional loss of ~90 raid DPS from the Hemo debuff.

Sarlunas · 11/12/07, 11:55 AM

You don't need to be a math geek to figure out that it's not a good idea to drop a 200+ dps talent to gain a 15 dps talent. Hemo is the best talent point spent anywhere in our 3 trees.

Ozzmar · 11/12/07, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by Vulajin

For reference, I entered your proposed build quickly into my spreadsheet and lost roughly 100 DPS, plus an additional loss of ~90 raid DPS from the Hemo debuff.

Ah yea, I forgot about Surprise Attacks and Aggression buffing Sinister. I didn't figure it would be a very tight build, but it's nice to have a frame of reference. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Sarlunas

You don't need to be a math geek to figure out that it's not a good idea to drop a 200+ dps talent to gain a 15 dps talent. Hemo is the best talent point spent anywhere in our 3 trees.

Well, by saying I'm not a math geek, I was trying to say that I can't name the theoretical DPS of a talent off the top of my head like that. Thanks for the insightful contribution though...

weirdaljr · 11/12/07, 12:34 PM

If possible could any make a recommendation for me on spec/rotation for 2.3? I am currently Kara/Gruul Geared with some BT quality gems. I am a casual raider who likes to do research to put out maximum DPS. I currently use a 19/42 spec with 2 piece t4 and a 1s/5r rotation. I am always looking to improve, and will be picking up S2 MH this week, and Master Assassin Wrist. I would really appreciate any analysis and recommendations to continue to improve my raid DPS through 2.3 launch.

P.S. WWS last raid had me at 780DPS downing Prince & Nightbane which was my personal best for sustained multiple bosses/trash.

Neckface · 11/12/07, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Vulajin

Except that the last 35% does not comprise more than 1/3 of the fight, due to fire mages, executing warriors, and of course, yourself (since, by the very nature of Dirty Deeds, your own DPS will increase and shorten the last 35%).

This assumes nobody dies during the fight. How many boss fights have you been on where the last 20, 10, 5% takes FOREVER?

On the other hand, if we want to accurately model this effect we have to include the fact that sometimes YOU are the one who dies before the end, so in many fights your damage will be front loaded in the early part of the fight, and it should all average out.

Still, I like the idea that I get more effective when things get desperate.

Killars · 11/12/07, 1:18 PM

Originally Posted by Vulajin

Except that the last 35% does not comprise more than 1/3 of the fight, due to fire mages, executing warriors, and of course, yourself (since, by the very nature of Dirty Deeds, your own DPS will increase and shorten the last 35%).

Shortens the fight... You just answered yourself as to why this ability can be better. It does more DPS, regardless if you look cooler on the damage meter at the end of the fight (and you won't cause it's not a big enough difference) your dps for the last 35% will be higher which is pretty importent especially on progress. Speaking of progress, people die pretty often making the last 35% sometimes longer and harder, which is something I'd consider. Anyways, people can choose, there really is no major difference that will make or break you spec, but you can use the info provided by the people posting here and make a choice based on opinion. Im going with 2/2 DD and 4/5 SS, thats just me though =P