JulianMaiev

So total raid DPS contribution from having your Hemo rogue be deep Subtlety, specced into Cheat Death and not accounting for the possible increased DPS uptime from Shadowstep, is going to be between 5-8% behind total raid DPS contribution from having your Hemo rogue be tri-spec?

 

◊ Hanos

Because your name is on the rogue 101 post, and when they try to convince their raid leader that Shadowstep is an ok raid spec, only to have him come here and see that you called it terrible, makes it more difficult for them. Basically this thread has devolved from a mathematical analysis of when and if Hemo would surpass Combat due to scaling to a: "Let me try to justify raiding with a PvP Spec" thread.

 

◊ Hanos

Yes

 

Buanna

If you give the actual numbers, then everyone else can come to their conclusions based on the objective data. You don't need to add any subjective qualifiers.

When someone reads through the data and sees the discrepency, you calling the spec terrible at the end is redundant.

Boni and Bonii are not words.
Bonuses is.

 

JulianMaiev

So, basically, if that rogue is dying prematurely more than about 1 in every 20 encounters, where Cheat Death would have saved him, then Subtlety is looking like a reasonable option. That really isn't a bad place to be.

 

Ravashak

The actual numbers have been given around in the last few pages of this thread, well more than one time. I guess it starts getting frustrating when people come claiming their spec is viable post after post even when they are faced with hard maths proving the opposite.

At the end of the day it's all a matter of what you call "raid-viable" (or your raid leader does for you): Hemo specs are perfectly viable at low gear levels, but since they scale far worse than combat specs, they will start to lag down in damage the more progressed your guild is, right when you want to be min-maxing your dps output.

And there shall be wailing,
And gnashing of teeth...
And great loss of experience!

 

◊ Hanos

No, you can't justify spec'ing for less DPS simply because you are too stupid to survive with the right spec. We have a term for people like this "Unguilded"

 

JulianMaiev

Greater survivability has a nonzero value. So does greater DPS.

Trading off some DPS for survivability is a totally reasonable thing to do on some encounters. Kael isn't a gigantic DPS race; it's a control fight. It is *very* possible that Shadowstep is a better spec for that fight. Same for Vashj. Same for Archimonde.

Put this this way: if you could alter your spec so that you did 1% less DPS, but would never die to making a stupid mistake, would you do so? I'd argue that you'd be a fool not to do so.

Or back it out another step. Are there encounters where you wear full or partial PvP gear, or resistance gear, for increased survivability? Then you're already making the tradeoff.

 

hannigaholic

You did

In terms of sustained overall raid dps your data stated that Shadowstep builds come in at a net raid dps loss of between 4.17 and 5.85% compared to Combat Swords. I'm going to assume the numbers are roughly correct, given that your model overestimated the rupture damage but I'm convinced you underestimated the cycle efficiency of Shadowstep builds.

This, hoewver, I admit I hadn't considered. If, as you say, it's only worth having a single Hemo rogue in the raid (and I don't contend that point at all) then for them to spec Shadowstep, as it currently stands on the PTR, most assuredly means that they lose out on potential dps from taking one of the trispec hybrid builds. Due to this I am of course now 100% behind you in saying that it's not worth it for raiding rogues to spec Shadowstep, but I still wouldn't call the builds terrible. Definitely sub-par for raiding, but nothing that's going to stop you providing high enough overall raid damage for at least farm content.

 

Ashere

No, as said, it depends majorly on gear, the difference can be more marginal, like 1-2%

FYI, my gear could be easily looked up on the armoury, but here's the link anyway:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Replace the OH Malchazeen with a mongoosed Gladiator Left Ripper to get a shadowstep spec that outdamages combat-swords (to get those figures, just replace the S1 fists with equivalent S1 swords and adjust the talents)

Not playing Arena, only 1 or 2 BG's a day, so only S1 weaponry. Offhand fist should follow soon. And why did I take fists instead of swords? Who cares, I might as well have taken maces.

Is it the best combination there is? No.
Is it viable? Definitely.
How much better is the trispec? 1%
Then why take this over tri-spec? Survivability, since not dying > 1% damage

 

songster

Yes, at Kara / S1 level, Shadowstep gets closer to parity with combat (though it's still pretty far off). Tri-spec is still streets ahead for PvE DPS. And what you seem to have missed is that this is not a board aimed at groups for whom Void Reaver would be progression content.

 

songster

In fact, to drag this thread back on topic, let's make it explicit.

There is indeed a Combat/Hemo point of inflection. At low gear levels, Hemo is better. At higher gear levels, Combat pulls ahead due to two factors:

1) It scales much better with base weapon damage, so will overtake Hemo as your gear improves
2) It scales better with hit rating and expertise, because of Combat Potency. While Hemo scales better with AP/Agility than combat does, since hit/expertise are intrinsically higher-value stats due to the way itemisation formulas operate, Combat builds scale better with increasing stat budget on items

Taken together, these mean that Shadowstep is not a viable build for anything past (approximately) early Karazhan, and even then a Hemo tri-spec is superior. The Hemo tri-spec, in turn, gets overtaken around about the T6 level. In the T4/T5 region, whether you choose combat or tri-spec really comes down to personal preference and playstyle. It should however be noted that combat (especially combat maces) is a superior PvP spec to Hemo tri-spec.

 

◊ Shaker

Well, I'm glad this thread has continued in its purpose - pretty much a fly trap for shitty rogue posts.

I mean, I can't even FATHOM why Vulajin doesn't mention the viability of my cold blood riposte build, it works GREAT when levelling from 65 to 68 on the ogres in blade's edge, they can be disarmed and it really ups my DPS.

Just so this post has a semblance of substance - there needs to be a baseline when comparing builds. Most of the time we're assuming a reasonable level of raid-level gear. There's TONS of math that hasn't been done on these boards, but that's because it ISN'T IN THE CONTEXT of what we're doing here. This is a board about min/maxing raiding builds for medium to cutting edge guilds.

To clarify:

In that context, 5% less DPS is FATAL, 10% less is just STUPID.
In that context, survivability talents are not discussed because they save rogues from SILLY deaths that could be avoided without having to spec into them. If this situation changes, we WILL discuss them.

Seriously - the rogue community here wants ONE thing. To do the most dps we can do. Period. If changes make it so using thrown weapons at exactly 28 yard range while wearing engineering overalls is the best dps rogues can do, there'll be a post here on whether you should be wearing blue or red overalls, and the benefits of each.

 

Lenaldo

I disagree completely. In everyone of those instances you mentioned, poor play seems to lead to deaths. As a raid leader in my guild I rarely will accept "bad luck" as a reason for dying. For me, the same 3-4 people always seem to be the ones complaining about how unlucky their death was. Sure, these type of people would benefit from added survivability... but replacing them with better players will benefit the guild even more.

More so, the fights where you wear pvp gear is more to increase your max health - which is something shadowstep/cheatdeath arn't going to help.

Sure added survivability will help rogues who "close their eyes and button smash"(which is how I describe them), but a rogue who is aware of their surroundings, knows the fight, and understand game mechanics hardly needs to drop their dps for a talant that they will rarely, if ever use. Cloak of skill/evasion/vanish are all the survivability I need and I honestly can't think of an instance where shadow step and cheatdeath would save my life; unless I made a critical error

 

Nurru

The faster you kill Advisors and Weapons on Kael the more control you have.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

◊ Hanos

Since you aren't a rogue I will chalk this up to you not having a clue. I have Evasion, Vanish, Cloak of Shadows, Healing Pots, Resistance Pots, Stuns, Interrupts, and Mic to yell on vent. If I die the raid screwed up or I screwed up. I am not going to give up 10% of my DPS... which for me is 190-200 DPS for a freak occurrence, odds are if it saves me once, I will die anyway a second or 2 later.

To my knowledge the ONLY fight I have swapped out gear for is Council when I am on kick duty, and I have done it fine in normal gear, however if I know in advance I grab my Arena gear and go in with 15k hps... because it makes it easier and I don't have to DPS at all (other then Mother, and no spec will let me do that without SR Gear).

I looked up your gear, hence my comment. To be blunt at your progression level you can raid shadow step, hell for 1-2 BG's a day and Kara you could spec 0/31/30 Arena Spec or 31/0/30 SF Hemo, at that level it really doesn't matter, basically you haven't even put in the effort to lose 10 games a week for S2 Weapons. As far as it depending on gear... no not really, the more your gear sucks, the better the set modifier from the Hemo debuff is, the better your gear gets, the worse Hemo gets. I don't care what pieces you pick from Hyjal/BT, there is no combination of gear + gems that will beat out Combat.

Again for you weekly Kara Pug and BGs, spec shadowstep, for cutting edge content where your DPS actually matters, spec combat.

I get a kick out of helping change the minds of a couple people. There was a rogue in City chat the other day saying that Daggers was the best DPS, and while others laughed, I sat in AV and explained to him why that wasn't the case, how he should spec, what rotations he should use etc, get a tell from him a couple days later thanking me and telling me how much his DPS has improved. Some people play in shitty guilds, and as a result they can top the meters spec'ed shadowstep or mutilate, but that doesn't mean it is the best or ideal. Part of the purpose of these forums is to educate those willing to listen, if no one corrects the mistakes, then it hurts not just the posters but all the people reading it.

Originally Posted by songster In fact, to drag this thread back on topic, let's make it explicit. There is indeed a Combat/Hemo point of inflection. At low gear levels, Hemo is better. At higher gear levels, Combat pulls ahead due to two factors: 1) It scales much better with base weapon damage, so will overtake Hemo as your gear improves 2) It scales better with hit rating and expertise, because of Combat Potency. While Hemo scales better with AP/Agility than combat does, since hit/expertise are intrinsically higher-value stats due to the way itemisation formulas operate, Combat builds scale better with increasing stat budget on items Taken together, these mean that Shadowstep is not a viable build for anything past (approximately) early Karazhan, and even then a Hemo tri-spec is superior. The Hemo tri-spec, in turn, gets overtaken around about the T6 level. In the T4/T5 region, whether you choose combat or tri-spec really comes down to personal preference and playstyle. It should however be noted that combat (especially combat maces) is a superior PvP spec to Hemo tri-spec.

Bolded for emphasis:
-TriSpec Shadowstep is ok up to Kara/T4
-TriSpec Hemo is ok up to T4/T5
-T5/T6 and beyond Combat is the winner

 

◊ Hanos

Every fight is a DPS race, as a Paladin you might not realize that, but every fight goes better if the boss(es) die faster. More DPS means fewer transitions, fewer spawns, less healing required, less opportunity for something to go wrong.

 

JulianMaiev

You mean, like some of your DPS dying?

edit: If you guys are going to sit here straight-faced and argue that absolutely nothing matters besides DPS, then that's fine.

I think you're wrong, and I suspect that you're lying to yourselves if you say that you never ever screw up and take a death that you could have avoided.

For my part, I think that people *do* screw up and that buying yourself more tolerance for screwups *at some price point* is a legitimate thing to do.

Now, it may be that the DPS price you have to pay for Cheat Death is too high for what you get. I'm not arguing that, and what price is too high seems likely to me to vary based on the needs of the encounter.

But it seems pretty clear to me that you would rather have Cheat Death than not have Cheat Death. So what amount of your DPS is a legitimate trade for it? 5% may be too much, but 1% surely isn't-- I'm pretty confident that a stupid rogue mistake causes a wipe more often than lack of 15-20 raidwide DPS would.

 

◊ Hanos

No, DPS dying is a personal failure 9 out of 10 times, and most of the time that other 1 can be prevented by playing better and being more aware. By something going wrong, I mean things like lag resulting in a tank missing reflecting a deaden, someone else kicking a deaden, tank not shield blocking shear, getting Grip + Air Burst while everything is on cooldown and you can't be cleansed, and landing in Doomfire... that type of thing.

 

PSGarak

I don't thing any hard numbers ever came out of it the last time, but it's been discussed before that Cheat Death can be used as a proactive offensive ability, sort of similar to movement speed increases affecting DPS. If you're too dumb to move that's one thing, but if you can move but chose to use your Cheat Death to not have to stop DPS for a few seconds, it's a useful DPS talent. Admitedly it's difficult to see who's using Cheat Death as a DPS utility tool and who's just being lazy or using it as a crutch. However, it can be used to open up new DPS options by choosing to eat a doomfire or a whirlwind once a minute rather than run out. The major distinction is that it's a choice, rather than a lack of ability, to perform the mobility/survivability portions of an encounter in that fashion.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Lenaldo

To add to more to the discussion: dpsing on a rogue is really the easy part. Most people with about 15mins of research can figure out a good rotation that will put them near the top of the dps charts as a rogue. There arn't very many "difficult" tricks (vanish->rupture, stacking CDs, etc) that are needed to do great dps. These type of things add additional numbers, but in the end are not going to make a significant difference when comparing two rogues.

Instead, the way that I look at a rogues skill is how good they are at keeping themselves alive while still putting out top-tier numbers. A decent rogue will put out great dps and stay alive through most "expected" elements of a fight(ie- alar fires, kael flamestrikes, archimonde's doomfires, etc). A great rogue will put out the same dps(or more) and almost never die to an encounters element. The latter of the rogues are the type that we populate my guild with.

In my opinion, melee have the hardest job in TBC and unless you are bringing quality players who know how to stay alive; you are hurting your raid. Finding a rogue putting out good numbers is easy - we have had several. However, finding one that can do "everything" as well as stay alive; not as easy. These are the type of rogues that you should be trying to find.

So again, for myself, I would never trade even 1% of dps for more survivability. Never, ever, ever. Why? Because if I die during an attempt it is almost ALWAYS because the main tank is already dead. We did over 40 archimonde attempts last week and of those I died early 0 times. I am not trying to claim I am "the most amazing rogue ever", quite the contrary. I consider myself slightly above average and I am sure there are a LOT better rogues out there than even myself. Meaning, if you really look hard you can find rogues that don't need to lower their dps to increase their survivability.

If your rogue is gimping his own dps to increase his survivability, you should probably look to replace them. This is more likely a result of lazy play-style(IE not paying attention to their surroundings) rather than a result of the class itself.

 

• Vulajin

Eating a Doomfire or a Leo whirlwind is a pretty awful idea, since those are not instant kills, but rather ticks that will reduce you nearly to zero, then you'll be essentially invincible for three seconds, then you will either tick to death or you'll ned a ton of extra healing that you would not have needed if you weren't specced Cheat Death.

Pretty much the typical situation I can see where Cheat Death is genuinely useful with no negatives is on Magtheridon, where as long as you move out of the fire, you could just stand there DPSing him all day without worrying about the ceiling caving in on you (unless it happens twice in a minute, in which case you're screwed).

 

Ozzmar

Cheat Death could help in the Malchezzar fight as well. No need to run out of melee range for the Shadow Nova if your health has been reduced to 1. Granted it would worry me with axes flying around, but that's another discussion.

I think the survivability vs. dps thing can be argued to death, and no one is going to win. People have perfectly legitimate reasons for seeing value in both, and that's fine. I think we just need to agree to disagree.

 

• Aldriana

You would think that, but in my experience it just isn't true. There truly are a staggering number of rogues around that fail to put out good DPS numbers; I have been in several guilds where I consistently and reliably beat all the other rogues on damage despite comparable or inferior gear; and with the variance on DPS, this is only possible if I'm averaging significantly more damage than they are. Nor are these stupid people; they're people that seem to have a good working knowledge of the class and are doing (or at least, tell me they're doing) the right cycles.

Fundamentally: it's pretty easy to get the first 80% of the damage out of a rogue; most people with a little study can get the next 10%; but for some reason getting the last 10% of DPS out of people seems to be pretty challenging - or at least, very few people do it. And I'm not even referring to fights where there's significant sophistication to what the rogues need to do; the differences hold up even on pure tank and spank fights. In pre-expansion days there was a pretty solid Naxx guild (made it to 10/15 before the expansion came out) that didn't have a single rogue that could get within 100 DPS of me on Patchwerk. So, clearly, for all that it seems like it should be easy to put out good DPS, people struggle with it.

That said: I mostly agree with the rest of your post; the ability to survive, and in particular to survive and do decent DPS, is one of the more important attributes to look for when recruiting. I'd rather have a rogue that could survive every time but had weak DPS, since teaching cycles and energy management tends to be easier than teaching situational awareness to stay alive. Back when I was recruiting rogues for my guild I generally looked at applicants not so much in terms of their current ability and performance as in terms of how easy I felt it would be to train them up to the top levels of performance; there are very few rogues around that are already knowledgable and proficient at all aspects of the game, and even fewer who are actively looking to change guilds; hence, it was always more of a consideration of potential than current performance.

Additionally, I would say that the attitude that concessions to survivability are bad is a mistake; by that logic, we should not factor in stamina in our gear selection. The reality of the situation is: sometimes, you're gonna get hit, and there's just not much you can do about it. Hence, increasing your chance of surviving these situations is definitely worthwhile, if not the primary focus of the class. As with all things, it's a matter of tradeoffs. If we're talking 1 DPS vs 10 stamina, taking the stamina is a no-brainer. If it's 10 DPS for 1 stamina, it's similarly an easy decision. But what if it's 10 DPS vs 10 stamina? Well, now it's a bit more ambiguous.

Hence, when assessing cheat death, it's worth considering as a benefit to the spec, but once must consider how much you're giving up to get it. Is it worth 1 DPS? 10 DPS? 100 DPS? As a ballpark estimate: lets say it saves you once every 50 fights. Then, one in 50 fights, you get to DPS for, on average, an extra half-fight. Hence, in long-term average case, it increases you average DPS by about 1%. If it saves you more than that, it's worth more. If it saves you less than that, it's worth somewhat less. But I do think it's probably fair to say that it's worth something on the order of 1% of your damage in it's own right - which means that the damage done by a deep sub build would need to be less than 1% behind combat to be considered competitive - which it's not. So I do agree with the conclusion that Cheat Death is not enough to make Deep Sub viable, if not the logic involved in getting there.

 

Ruqas

In that context, they are ok. They are also ok in the context that at lower gear levels hemo can actually pull out ahead of combat.

Now how she taketh mine eye.