Kilted Raven

I think Aldriana sums it up well there.

I've done the calculations for myself as a Kara/Gruul/S3 Rogue, and I'll be down maybe 15 or so dps with the changes, as it's not such a big scaling difference down at my gear level. If I was running at T6 I would probably make a different choice.

But I'm taking the active decision to take the slight performance hit to keep the versatility of the trispec. My current dps is adequate for the content we're tackling, and I've found that the convenience elements of low-mid Sub make my Rogue more enjoyable to play, and give me more options outside of raiding. At my level, there's still heroics and badges to be grabbed, and arena fights to be won and lost.

I'd still love to see some more genuine options beyond pure damage so that we don't have to feel pushed into this 'dps or bust' mindset, but at least I'm comfortable that the specs are close enough to give us a few options.

 

songster

Now that's the thing I don't understand. Tri-spec is not particularly good in PvP. It has very little burst DPS, it doesn't have much in the way of utility from stuns, etc. If you want a genuinely good hybrid spec, by far the best option is combat maces. Up until early T6, it's easily on a par with combat swords for PvE DPS due to the easy accessibility of a ~T6 weapon in Dragonstrike. And it's pretty monstrous in PvP, with BF, AR and mace stun procs.

 

Melnor

I'd have to agree with songster that combat maces is a more middle of the road build than tri-spec. Especially in the pvp aspect.

 

Kilted Raven

Funnily enough, I had a discussion on that very topic recently.

I've found that Combat Maces was annoying the tanks, the random stuns when they were trying to move or reposition mobs was really irritating (to them). I wondered if it was just me, but when it came up in conversation with some other Rogues on my server, it seems I'm not alone.

Maybe just something that's an issue at our Heroic/Kara/Gruul level of play. Otherwise I'd agree, it would certainly be nice for Arena work. Having said that, I've become very used to the faster stealth movement and quick restealthing you get from Sub, as well as Dirty Deeds and Prep. I can't stunlock someone to death any more with the new health totals, but I can certainly hold down a healer long enough to let my team put a dps rush on another target.

Still, I don't want to derail off into a PvP thing here. I'm finding that the dps of trispec is close enough to optimum that I'm not hurting our progression by taking it, and I do find it more fun to play than straight up Combat. Benefits of being ex-hardcore I guess, we're far enough from the bleeding edge that squeezing every last drop of performance out isn't such a factor.

 

Captain Winky

I've been tri-spec since 2.3 hit, and I really like it, even with the slight dps hit. I agree that tri-spec isn't as good as most Combat builds for Arena PvP. However, as Arena isn't a big part of my game, that's not what I'm looking for in versatility. First and foremost I want to maximize my dps, but I also like stealth talents more than straight combat talents. If I can hold the DPS of a Combat rogue while picking up stealth talents, I'm going to do it. Naturally, any kind of a serious DPS hit is going to make me rethink that, but I've yet to see any significant change in my performance. Going by the spreadsheet numbers, I strongly doubt I'm going to. 2.3.2 may change that, but it's hard to tell at this point.

I think it's really a matter of taste. If 20 dps isn't significant to you, and you'd rather have some stealth, Combat Hemo seems to remain a viable T4-T5 build. I doubt I'd keep it into the upper echelons of raid gear, though.

 

ollepe

Sorry if this has been asked before but what weapon do you use in Trispec?

 

koaschten

My Armory-Fu is strong today. The World of Warcraft Armory
He obviously uses S2 swords.

 

Ghost

Is RogueDPS_2_3_2_5.xls up to date with the latest test server info? Because I am getting spreadsheet results that contradict what some peoples posts here have been saying about how raiding hemo is dead after the patch.

Strangely, after putting in my gear, I come out with these numbers for dps when check marking the "include hemo debuff" option.

(19/42/0) Combat Spec: 828/1451
(11/20/30) Tri-spec Hemo: 870/1507
(11/9/41) Shadowstep Hemo: 832/1466

Those are dps numbers unbuffed and buffed. Trispec is still showing top dps and shadowstep is actually ahead of combat? What am I missing here...

 

robfang

I have been using ShS 12/8/41 build in battlegrounds and in raids for a week.

I never felt so powerful with my rogue in bg's before using this spec. I went to killing spree more than once in a couple of arathi's. You may think that shs to be only effective against kiting classes like hunter and mage. However, even against a warrior or a rogue it is very effective. You confuse them and you can vanish safely behind them. They lose you as a target, you can get a cheap shot if not dotted or if you are lucky, and your next attack hits good.

On top of that, cheat death is like a heaven. Potentially cold blooded eviscerates and executes goes to ashtray, leaving your opponents with empty rage bars and 0 combo points. Not to mention the less damage you take after cheating death. Against caster classes it works even better. Since they are attacking with big shots, it is nice to have their last ditch effort absorbed.

Concerning the raids, my dps on lurker increased by 100 since i specced to ShS from hemo tri spec. I think most of the dps increase is from the increased mobility provided by ShS. I will test this spec on void-reaver to compare my last week's performance with hemo tri-spec on a single target sustained dps. I will post it here after the raid. Also, by the next week, i will try 20/41/0 combat to see what I am losing and what I am gaining by speccing ShS over combat in a raid situation.

 

Ashere

Gear, hemo is very gear dependant. And where it used to become better as you got better gear, it now works reversed: it becomes worse with better gear. I'm basically at the same stage you are:
trispec being way ahead of combat, Shadowstep being just ahead of Combat. So I assume you're also in AP heavy heroic/Kara gear like me. At T6 lvl, Combat sadly outdamages hemo now. Gief debuff scaling with AP!

edit: Oh, I notice how your stuff is quite a lot better then T6. Good to see, there's been too much nonsense spewed by hemo-haters like a certain Mr "Roguecraft101" V

 

Kellhus

Moreso than the stand alone measure of Cheat Death's value as a talent, is it's location and the spec options forced by taking it. If you're cutting your personal dps by speccing into one of the small variants that can fit the talent in, then yes it will proc at some point and you will live -- but is there a real benefit to doing so?

If you live longer just to catch up to the more traditional specs output before he/she died, you're trading tit for tat. If the other rogue happens to live and blows you away on the damage meter, then the talent seems invalidated on the premise that heads up play negates the need to consider speccing into it because of what it's doing to your ability to deal damage in a primary DPS role.

 

Ghost

It cant be that, I am in a mix of T4->T6 level gear, with a fair amount of hit rating and a number of haste items, which should favor Combat Potency. Using maces must be the reason my combat dps number is under preforming, but by switching my gear over to two swords it only adds ~30dps. This still comes out less than tri-spec, and is a far cry from raiding hemo being dead.

 

Asherz

I'm not sure that I agree. While Cheat Death may allow you to prolong the fight in this type of situation, it will not fix the problem that would cause the death in the first place. In this particular example it would be lack of focus at the times that adds spawn and lack of communication of where they have spawned. So perhaps a rogue with cheat death may not die.. but someone else in your raid will if this is the type of thing that is causing you to wipe - and in this case cheat death is just a bandaid over a much bigger problem.

With exception of some sort of sacrifice element in a boss fight, when you die in a raid it is an indicator that you, or your raid group has done something wrong. Having cheat death prevent it is a crutch and you will end up facing the problem in another encounter. I think it is a pvp talent more than anything else and it would probably be wise not to think of its very questionable utility as a possible dps increase.

 

• Vulajin

You've misinterpreted my Shadowstep hate for Hemo hate. Allow me to restate my conclusions just so they're 100% clear:

- After the patch, a Hemo trispec (be it 11/28/22 or 11/21/29) will be roughly on par for total damage output with its combat equivalent (swords or other, respectively).
- It will be worthwhile to bring one or zero Hemo rogues to a raid, but almost certainly not more.
- Cheat Death and Shadowstep builds are universally inferior to Hemo trispecs. "Providing the Hemo debuff" is not a valid justification for using these inferior builds.
- Survivability and mobility are potential justifications for those builds. That's your own consideration to make.

 

maxpowers

Actually, according to the most recent sheet (2.3.2.5), with the default gear, it shows tri-spec hemo inches ahead of combat swords (1.08%) and shadowstep just slightly below combat swords (2.14%).

The default gear set in the spreadsheet is more or less optimal, and I feel that a 1-3% margin in either direction is statistically insignificant.

 

• Aldriana

I largely agree with this assessment, with the two additional notes:

- Tri-spec is relatively stronger at lower gear levels; hence, the recommended number of Hemo rogues is closer to 1 for T4-T5 guilds, and drops to zero by the end of T6.
- While the survivability and mobility of Shadowstep builds do have value, on the whole no numerical case for Shadowstep can be made; if you take the average across all fights, a good player will find that the increased survivability does not give enough extra DPS time to offset the damage losses relative to Tri-spec Hemo. Hence, the primary reason to play Shadowstep in raids would be if you find it sufficiently more fun/interesting that you are able to play it with a higher level of focus and hence more fully realize the potential of the build.

 

◊ Hanos

Did you honestly just say "quite a lot better then T6". Thanks for showing us how completely incompetent you are, right now on a piece by piece basis the helm off Illidan is the only one that is better the T6.

Actually this is where you are wrong, your gear favors Hemo, you have a relatively low hit rating (222 with PvP Trinket on, so best case you are at 240 or so), a high hit rating would be 330+ considering the cap is 363, the closer you get to the cap, the more valuable Combat Potency is, whereas Hemo will scale the same with high or low hit rating assuming you have enough hit not to miss specials and to keep a full stack of Deadly up.

Haste items are actually inferior to non-haste items with the exception of Swiftstrike shoulders compared to the other offset T6 shoulders (Slayer's are significantly better then all 3). Again, the haste would be better with more hit, but you would actually be better with the bracers off Teron or Rage, and any other T5 or T6 Belt (Vashj's, Deep Shadows or Don's). Maces make the biggest difference, but the real issue is you have some of the most poorly itemized T6 items (Bracers, Belt, Legs, not to mention that ranged weapon...). Hemo is far more forgiving with gear, once you get the top end T6 items, Combat pulls ahead significantly.

 

Asherz

I have seen many state that while the (new)tri-spec hemo is competitive with combat swords there is a point when you have "enough t6/t5" gear that combat begins to scale better. Has anyone already done enough gear comparisons that point towards a rough benchmark of AP/Crit/Hit/Armor Ignore that we would see combat begin to scale better? ..or set bonuses that push it over?

Just hoping to save some trial & error spreadsheet manipulation when I get home from work if someone has already done this.

Past the theorycrafting... practically speaking, is the difference in the way that higher lvl gear scales between the two specs even really enough to show up on the meters?

 

• Vulajin

Random number generation and statistical variance mean that if the builds are within ~5-10% of one another, you'll have a pretty wide range of results, with the lower build winning sometimes, and the higher build winning sometimes, and the rest of the times being nearly a wash. This is why you almost always shouldn't theorycraft on the basis of WWS parses or any other form of anecdotal data.

 

• Aldriana

It's kind of hard to come up with benchmark numbers for this, as upgrading from T4 to T5 (and to a lesser extent T5 to T6) involves a lot of tradeoffs in stats; for instance, as you move from T4 into T5, most people find their hit drops as their AP and crit increase. The difficulty with this is that depending on what order you pick up upgrades in (and which upgrades you actually get), every rogue is going to have a different stat pattern as they move from T4 to T5 to T6. So you can't really say "it happens at 1900 AP, 30% crit, 250 hit rating, and 300 armor pen" since some rogues will never get there - some rogues will instead hit it at 2000 ap, 25% crit, 300 hit rating, and 500 armor pen (or whatever - note that these numbers are totally made up and have nothing to do with the actual crossover point).

It might be noted, however, that both of the T6 set bonuses are better for a combat rogue, so generally by the time one hits 4/5 T6 - if not before - combat will take the lead.

 

maxpowers

Apparently I didn't say it loudly enough earlier. With the latest version of one of the spreadsheets, tri-spec (11/27/23) is about 1% better than combat swords. I used the default gear to compare the two sets, which is almost the best gear set you could achieve.

 

◊ Hanos

Which spreadsheet are you referring to?

 

Wandatin

I tried inputting all T6 gear into the latest version of the spreadsheet and Combat only came out about 20 dps higher than Tri-Spec. I didn't spend alot of time optimizing everything, but I expected more of a significant difference than that.

 

Graecus

My armory to the left produces this value with an 11/27/23 spec in the most recent spreadsheet (2.3.2.5). I typically get very close to this amount on most sustained fights, sometimes going over and sometimes going under. I prefer to stay hit-capped.

Total DPS 1575.40

Switching to the cookie cutter sword combat 20/41, it drops to the following.

Total DPS 1554.26

Personally, I have found this in line with my parses and experience.

Using the sheet's DPS upgrades function (and common sense with most choices), I choose the top-most gear available to rogues at this current point in time. I'm talking 4/4 t6 with cursed, supremus neck / gorefiend cloak, etc. My hit is reduced to 27.07% (gemming a few slots to +hit, but not going overboard - I'm sure you could max hit and see a slight improvement).

Same 11/27/23 hybrid:

Total DPS 1698.05

With 20/41:

Total DPS 1699.60

And a gimme - with 2/2 warglaive

Hybrid:

Total DPS 1754.27

Combat sword:

Total DPS 1761.44

I continue to see people say "well, once you get best t5/t6 gear, combat simply wins hands down" but I still haven't seen it (edit: if "hands down" is simply besting the other build, regardless of the size of damage gap, then I think this is a minor point and needs not be argued). Both myself and another rogue in the guild raid with Warglaives now (his gear is a bit more progressed than mine in a few slots - most notably I still have t4 gloves/pants and don't mind passing to others as I enjoy the extra snd time), and swap specs constantly for specific fights to see what we can do and how much we can put out. While it does vary wildly with certain bosses, armors, the specs are so damn close it seems like this entire argument is pointless.

My question is this - if the main designers of these sheets in this community lead us to believe that combat simply pulls away from hybrid at higher gear levels, then what stat or cycle or talent is being so undervalued on the combat side of the spread sheet where, in a sustained and continuous dps fest, they show neck-and-neck? This is a vague question, considering the chances of chain sword-procs and nrg-procs that sometimes go off and you go nuts, and sometimes you have a slump, so not every parse will be identical. I feel this is a legitimate question when the argument continues to go back and forth about gear being the deciding factor in what build ultimately wins out.





And a bit off topic, and more of a personal rant - can we stop using the word "viable" so much? The other rogue with the glaive (Xalpha) tends to come to raids as a full-on SStep build, usually getting a summon straight out of pvp. In the most intensely sustained dps fights, he can be anywhere between 200-400 dps below me. On a fight like Archimonde, he routinely ssteps back to archi while I am bursted yards away, and will tie or best me in dps. In the Rain of Fire boss, he constantly stays in for more dps, typically tying our better dps.

Sure, he can increase his personal dps to the point of top 2 on the charts, but in a lot of respects, he is reducing healing from the healers, providing a drum buff rather than being unluckily out of range or dead. The list goes on and on. The definition of viable is practicable, or workable. I find that even though he is providing less personal dps, he is providing a hemo debuff and longevity in unlucky situations (it's great for RoS as well where he and I are kick bitches).

Oh, and we raid with 2 hemo rogues. My debuff is chewed through in a fraction of a second and I see his refresh immediately. We don't time it, and I'm sure there are wasted charges, but more people are getting the debuff right now since it's being eaten up by things other than melee. I do believe we will focus on only one hemo rogue come 2.3.2.

Precision in Paradise

 

Asherz

I suppose I was just wondering if the difference in the way that gear scales between hemo and combat swords significant enough to put 5%, 10%, or more difference between the two specs and really start to warrant a respec? I see what you're saying though - the best way appears to be to just look at the spreadsheet and see what is best for each person individually.

I had hoped that we could've found some small range of stats that we could look at and say "ok when you near this the difference really starts widen and a respec to combat is warranted" (or if maxpowers is right, stay hemo) but what you(aldriana) say makes perfect sense as far as the way different people come to upgrade differently.

I'm dealing with some of those changes myself, an odd mishmash of gear from kara, t5 instances and now hyjal/bt.