My guild is starting attempts on Vashj (yeah, I know), and there's some disagreement over what the melee should be killing during Phase 2. Some members feel that Rogues should be on the backs of the Coilfang Elites, while others (like myself) think that Rogues should be on the Elementals. What are all of your experiences with Vashj Phase 2 for Rogues and which adds have you had the most success with?
We had much more success with melee on the Elites. If we had extra melee (which we usually did), then we'd put warriors on the elementals. They can get around a lot better than we can.
Just make sure you hold off on DPSing the Elites for a second or two until they are fully in position. They tend to ping-pong their facing just a little bit as they're being moved, and that can put you in cleave range if you're not careful. With solid melee on them, four people can keep up with them no problem. Pick off any stray elementals that get by, but make sure you all don't run for the same one. Task one or two people to be on elemental pickup. Everyone else stay on the Elites full time. Also remember to remind your elemental DPS folks that it's better to let one elemental through with 100% health than to let three slip by with 33% health. The latter requires that melee folks are running every which way to pick them off, when it's easier to focus on one and burn it down in one second.
On Phase 3, I fell into the camp of "don't save your abilities for anything" with regards to root and goo. That is, I didn't wait until I was rooted+goo'd+charged to blow my Cloak/Sprint/Vanish. The second I was rooted, I got out of it immediately and continued DPSing. She has to die fast, and I'd rather take the 100% chance to continue damaging her than hold off and see how the dice roll later.
Season 4 items are up on the PTR now. I've been scouring the internet and can't find the stats for (what I assume to be called) Guardian's Leather/Dragonhide Bracers. As a rogue stuck in t5 content, I was wondering if anyone has been onto the PTR to see the stats for it? I'd like to plug it into the Gear Spreadsheet to see what kind of upgrade I can look forward to.
The new Season 4 helm looks promising for rogues stuck in my situation as well, although the look makes me (and my rogue look as if he wants to) cry.
Since your best weapons are fist/sword, you really don't have the option of speccing Hemo. A 11/28/22 build does not give the flexibility of picking up more than one weapon specialization talent. If you have the offhand badge fist also you could possibly get away with Hemo fists, but I don't know how much of a damage hit it is. As always, consult the spreadsheets.
Season 4 items are up on the PTR now. I've been scouring the internet and can't find the stats for (what I assume to be called) Guardian's Leather/Dragonhide Bracers. As a rogue stuck in t5 content, I was wondering if anyone has been onto the PTR to see the stats for it? I'd like to plug it into the Gear Spreadsheet to see what kind of upgrade I can look forward to.
The new Season 4 helm looks promising for rogues stuck in my situation as well, although the look makes me (and my rogue look as if he wants to) cry.
This seemed like as good a thread as any to ask my question.
My guild is starting attempts on Vashj (yeah, I know), and there's some disagreement over what the melee should be killing during Phase 2. Some members feel that Rogues should be on the backs of the Coilfang Elites, while others (like myself) think that Rogues should be on the Elementals. What are all of your experiences with Vashj Phase 2 for Rogues and which adds have you had the most success with?
Echoing some others - we also ran with melee on the Elites. I found it difficult to keep up with the elementals when we put melee on them instead of the Elites, because all of that target switching is not exactly conducive to maximizing a rogue's abilities. We put our DPS warrior on core duty - he picked up the cores when the Tainted Elemental was killed, tossed them up to a ranged DPS class on the top of the stairs, then went to a generator to dunk the core.
We rarely ended up with more than 2 Elites up at a time at any point during the fight with our melee on them, which also gave us some time to clean up leaks if they happened to get through (because Elites weren't overrunning the raid, we could stop DPS on them for a moment to clean up leaks).
4) The spreadsheet showed me having a small DPS gain by going TSH (including debuff) over Fist + Sword. My thinking was that in addition to the DPS gain over Combat, even on an endless uninterrupted fight, TSH may be hurt less by the target switching and downtime than Combat, and might gain more from lower armor values when burning Phase 1 + 3.
You shouldn't be including the debuff when analyzing killing the elementals. If assigned to elemental duty, you are likely to be the only one using Hemo charges. Thus, you won't get full benefit out of your Hemos, especially since you are also unlikely to get a Windfury totem at that range to help you eat them up.
Combat potency is helpful anytime that you are DPSing a target for longer than it takes to empty your energy bar from full. It may be most helpful long-term on a target, but if you are staying on the elementals for longer than ~10 seconds you are likely to get a good amount of benefit from combat potency, especially if you keep up SnD.
All that said, my guild as well used melee on Coilfang Elites. It made much more sense. We were able to clean up stray elementals and also stay on a long-term DPS target nearly the whole time. With 3-4 melee in the mix (and occasionally help from our warlocks) we were able (after much practice) to consistently get the Elites down within the 45 second window.
This seemed like as good a thread as any to ask my question.
My guild is starting attempts on Vashj (yeah, I know), and there's some disagreement over what the melee should be killing during Phase 2. Some members feel that Rogues should be on the backs of the Coilfang Elites, while others (like myself) think that Rogues should be on the Elementals. What are all of your experiences with Vashj Phase 2 for Rogues and which adds have you had the most success with?
The main question I have is this: Given the nature of the fight, I've been considering going TSH for Vashj nights. The fight doesn't seem to favor melee in general or Combat Rogues in particular. I was thinking that the added cooldown availability, constant target switching, and relatively low armor of Vashj may favor a more mobile spec with better armor penetration and Rupture damage. Have any of you tried Vashj as both Combat and TSH? Or have any comments on one or the other?
I'm open to all suggestions, and any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.
Note: I'm normally Combat Fist + Sword. The spec I have now is just an idea I was toying around with in my head, mostly with the intention of getting 3 Sprints and some other talents I thought may be situationally useful on Vashj. The gear I logged in is my PvE raiding gear, though. I may have the Honor AP trinket equipped, but I run with WSC and SoC in raids.
I went TSH for the same reasons you're thinking of doing it, and ran into a different problem; my hemo charges weren't getting used up in phase two all the time due to the fact that the raid was so split up fighting different things.
That is exactly the problem with nearly all melee classes on the elementals. Have a class which can either stand at the top of the stairs and nuke or charge around from target to target do the elemental stuff. Melee dps, Rogues in particular, are best on the Elites. Remember that we are a class which scales with buffs more than basically any other class. Elementals means no WF, no Battle Shout, no UR, etc. As TSH, you won't even be making use of half of the debuff charges and lose some cooldowns which come in handy when a Tainted spawns and you're 30+ yards away from it.
Putting mele on the naga is of course ideal in terms on getting the most dps out of them, on elementals the amount of time spent running around kills your efficiency while a ranged class could stand in the center of their zone and non stop nuke (more or less). Elemental duty can be done by a rogue however, should you not happen to have the perfect people for every job. I have done it on my rogue alt when we went and did an alt/friends/pugish ssc off night run a while ago, and I would say that combat is the way to go for it. Perfecting dps on the elementals is really not the issue, doing enough damage to keep up while absolutely positively never letting a tainted get by is. If you get caught up at the top of the steps on the far side of your zone when a tainted spawns the on demand burst of AR-BF may make the difference between getting that core (once you sprint over if its up, if not you will have even less time once you get there) and getting to phase 3, or wiping.
edit* beaten by 20 minutes it looks like ^ man I type slow :-/
This feels like a discussion better handled in the Vashj thread in Public Discussion, but since we're here...
Rogues are obviously better suited to Elite duty, but if you have too much melee in your raid balance, you may end up on elemental duty. I almost always did. I was either assigned a 2-panel side, or paired with a ranged person where I was only accountable for 2 out of 3 panels. Save sprint and AR for tainted elementals (this is the one time i would have to hit the 3rd panel on my side, potentially). Help out up top when needed, or when nothing is happening in your two panels, but don't get too carried away, since it's easy to fall behind on your own stuff if you're busy doing other people's jobs.
Don't even think about comparing your dps to anyone on naga duty - it won't even be close.
Since your best weapons are fist/sword, you really don't have the option of speccing Hemo. A 11/28/22 build does not give the flexibility of picking up more than one weapon specialization talent. If you have the offhand badge fist also you could possibly get away with Hemo fists, but I don't know how much of a damage hit it is. As always, consult the spreadsheets.
I did. 11/22(21)/28(29) came up as better DPS when including the debuff bonus. My thinking was that if it came out better in even an uninterrupted, endless fight, that it would do equally as well or better in an interrupted one.
Originally Posted by Danther
Just make sure you hold off on DPSing the Elites for a second or two until they are fully in position. They tend to ping-pong their facing just a little bit as they're being moved, and that can put you in cleave range if you're not careful. With solid melee on them, four people can keep up with them no problem. Pick off any stray elementals that get by, but make sure you all don't run for the same one. Task one or two people to be on elemental pickup. Everyone else stay on the Elites full time. Also remember to remind your elemental DPS folks that it's better to let one elemental through with 100% health than to let three slip by with 33% health. The latter requires that melee folks are running every which way to pick them off, when it's easier to focus on one and burn it down in one second.
This was my primary concern with melee on the Elites. I didn't want a bad spin, or a slightly off adjustment during the Forked Lightning, to get the melee group cleaved and be down several people for Phase 3.
Originally Posted by Left
You shouldn't be including the debuff when analyzing killing the elementals. If assigned to elemental duty, you are likely to be the only one using Hemo charges. Thus, you won't get full benefit out of your Hemos, especially since you are also unlikely to get a Windfury totem at that range to help you eat them up.
Combat potency is helpful anytime that you are DPSing a target for longer than it takes to empty your energy bar from full. It may be most helpful long-term on a target, but if you are staying on the elementals for longer than ~10 seconds you are likely to get a good amount of benefit from combat potency, especially if you keep up SnD.
All that said, my guild as well used melee on Coilfang Elites. It made much more sense. We were able to clean up stray elementals and also stay on a long-term DPS target nearly the whole time. With 3-4 melee in the mix (and occasionally help from our warlocks) we were able (after much practice) to consistently get the Elites down within the 45 second window.
I think I was unclear about this, I wasn't considering it a benefit for the Elementals, but rather on Vashj herself and the Elites if that was the direction we took with our melee's assignments. Personally, I'm not sure at what length of in-time that Combat Potency becomes very powerful, but I have a hard time believing that point to be getting one proc while moving between Elementals. On the Elites though, I can definitely understand CP's value. I've been Combat for ages now, I just didn't know how badly the benefit was affected when a ton of movement was involved.
I can see that melee on Elites is definitely the way to go. Thank you for all of your help everyone, much appreciated
I have a two part question. First I use a 1s/5r Cut Rotation and sometimes i find myself with 5 combo points with 4 or 5 seconds left on rupture. My question is what do i do since a lot of the time i cant rupture and my energy is just regenerating and being wasted?
The second question is when i pop AR, should i just use the same cycle as i do normally or what should i do spam SS and Rupture?
I am in a little discussion with my raid leader about best group synergy effect. The reason for this is that he put me (the only rogue at that time in the raid) in group with a couple of paladin healers and the maintank and he put a BM hunter in group with the other melee. Which was a enhancement shaman, Retridin, Feral druid (cat form) and a MS warrior.
His point being was that I wouldnt bring anything into the melee group while the BM hunter does. Now that is absolutely true that a BM hunter does bring some dmg buff to the group while a rogue doesn't (Blizz please fix this).
My question is what would be the best way to go. I know that for my own dps it would be best if I am in the group and my dps will even be better then the hunters cause I benefit from more buff that the other melee give.
The only problem here is that my RL wants proof as to what does more dmg. Having the hunter in the melee group or me in the melee group and the hunter in a caster group.
Well, the fact is you, the retadin, and the warrior benefit insanely from Windfury, the BM hunter only benefits nicely from GoA, which would be a disaster for the retadin and the MS warrior if it was used. The hunter would not benefit from WF. You should be in the melee group, the hunter should not, this is a no brainer.
You will never bring anything to any group, the question is who will leech more successfully from the group and / or where can you go? If the raid has a boomkin or shadow priest, the hunter can go in with that group and get some synergy out of it. Otherwise, it's a bummer for the hunter but he'll be fine. For you, that Windfury totem is going to be mammoth as will the battle shout. If they want to put you outside the melee group, they should like to go without rogues entirely.
Well, the fact is you, the retadin, and the warrior benefit insanely from Windfury, the BM hunter only benefits nicely from GoA, which would be a disaster for the retadin and the MS warrior if it was used. The hunter would not benefit from WF. You should be in the melee group, the hunter should not, this is a no brainer.
I know that. The shaman wasnt useing GoA in this case since there where more people who had benefit from the WF totem. Also he just chaged his UI and lost his keybinds for totemtwisting.
My point here is the fact that my RL came up with the arguement that I bring nothing to the melee group while the hunter does with his 3% dmg increase. (He's a BM hunter).
Hehe I told them that on our forums that not having me in the melee group was a waste of my raid slot. And I am top dps in our guild. On Bossencounters that is.
Your best bet is to use a 2s/5r cycle, as the loss of rupture uptime is made up by the increased reliability and flexibility of this cycle. Using 1s/5r even with 350-360hit rating sometimes my SnD dropped for 1-2sec if i had a bad streak of procs. The other extreme is not better either, since sometimes i found myself with 5cp while the previous rupture was still ticking, unable to refresh it because of the "a more powerful spell ..." message, while SnD was running out. Not to mention that any fight that required kick/feint made 1s/5r unusable.
It's true that sometimes i have to cut 5-6 seconds of SnD, even if i pool energy up to 60-70, but I find that preferable to SnD dropping for several seconds.
About Adrenaline Rush, in my opinion the best time to use it right after you renew SnD, since most of the times you can get both a 5cp Rupture and a 5cp Evis before you have to renew SnD again. However i find it even better to time AR with AP/ArPen/Crit procs(Shard of Contempt, SSO neck, Mongoose, WSC) and improvise your cycle(while making sure SnD stays up).
Last edited by Zenith : 05/02/08 at 8:27 AM.
Reason: Typo, English is not my native languag
My point here is the fact that my RL came up with the arguement that I bring nothing to the melee group while the hunter does with his 3% dmg increase. (He's a BM hunter).
Sure, but Ferocious Inspiration is also a nice buff for any DPS group, because it affects both magic and physical damage. So the buff is not wasted just because he's not in the melee group. On the other hand, your own damage output is going to suffer a lot without Battle Shout or Windfury.
Yes, rogues don't provide any "tangible" benefit to the rest of the raid in the general sense. However, that doesn't mean you should ignore them. Really the benefit that the rogue brings to the table is the ability to scale ridiculously with all the buffs from other raid members, while having an innate lower threat generation. That's the way Blizzard created the classes, and your raid leader just needs to get over it and put you in the melee group. That is, if he has maximizing your raid's DPS as a goal.
I did a little calculation with the DPS spreadsheet here and this is my conclusion:
Ok my own numbers without being in the melee group.
Melee White ------ DPS: 638,84 85%
Sinister Strike ---- DPS: 303,61 28%
Finisher ----------- DPS: 67,48 6%
Other ------------- DPS: 85,85 8%
Total DPS--------------- 1095,78 100%
This is with the following buffs: BoM, BoK, MotW, 20hit Food and Flask (120AP)
Now if I add the buffs I would get from a warrior, Retridin, Shaman and druid my DPS would be this.
Melee White -------- DPS: 1004,91 63%
Sinister Strike ------ DPS: 394,57 25%
Finisher ------------- DPS: 102,37 6%
Other ---------------- DPS: 98,13 6%
Total DPS ----------------- 1599,98 100%
(this calculation was done with the latest version of the rogue dps spreadsheet. With my current gear and talent build).
That would be an increase of more then 400 dps. This are the numbers for actuall DPS. The numbers for Base DPS are a bit higher.
Note that Ferocious Inspiration (BM hunter buff) will give me a dps increase of ~15. I don't exactly know how much it is with other classes but I doubt it is alot more then that.
Kaiyn, I think your raid leader is suffering from adult-onset Down Syndrome. Someone who cannot grasp concepts that obvious may be a lost cause, but if you want to take a shot at convincing him, just send him two copies of the spreadsheet you just filled out - one with group buffs, one without. Then show him how much benefit FI gives. If you're not in the melee group next week, find a new raid.
"Aggro" (n): in the Ancient Lordaeranian, a battle cry roughly translating to "Victory and death!"
Yes, rogues don't provide any "tangible" benefit to the rest of the raid in the general sense.
This is because rogues are the class you build your groups around buffing. They are the premier melee dps class. The other classes are there, yes, to improve their own damage, but their main priority is to increase raid DPS, which in most cases, translates to "buff the rogues".
This is why classes like Ret paladins and kitty druids still have trouble getting into raids - it's often simply more beneficial to stack the melee group with good rogues.
Yes, a ret paladin is useless to the raid without WF, and if you put him in the melee group, he's going to put out some excellent DPS (assuming the player is good). But if you're bumping a rogue to put in that ret paladin, you're going to have to be able to properly accommodate the rogue in another DPS group (Hunter, Hunter, Feral Druid, Rogue, Resto Shaman ain't bad with poisons), and justify the move with math on overall raid DPS with the two possible variations.
If the Ret pally in the melee group/Rogue in hunter group offers higher raid DPS, as well as offering additional judgements and blessings, then yes, that's a good trade.
But if the raid DPS is lower, or you wind up with a rogue in a caster group, then you're being stupid, and the Ret Pally needs to sit or be put in the tank group (also non-optimal, but the rogue simply does more DPS).
Putting a hunter in the melee group, however, is just braindead. You're literally hurting both players' DPS by organizing the groups that way. The hunter doesn't benefit from UR or SoE either.
I did a little calculation with the DPS spreadsheet here and this is my conclusion:
Ok my own numbers without being in the melee group.
Melee White ------ DPS: 638,84 85%
Sinister Strike ---- DPS: 303,61 28%
Finisher ----------- DPS: 67,48 6%
Other ------------- DPS: 85,85 8%
Total DPS--------------- 1095,78 100%
This is with the following buffs: BoM, BoK, MotW, 20hit Food and Flask (120AP)
Your non-buffed melee white percentage is a bit suspect... probably 58% is what you meant to type.
What others have said about party makeup is correct. Email your raid leader with the link to these forums so he can see for himself. Raid damage is more important than party damage. Rogues do damage. If the RL is going to bring a rogue then that damage should be maximized. The only time you won't end up in the "melee" group is when you've got a lot of rogues in the raid--and then you should be hanging out with the warrior and druid tanks probably.
edit: others got their posts up quicker... what they said
Your non-buffed melee white percentage is a bit suspect... probably 58% is what you meant to type.
Oops typo. Yes it is 58% not 85%. I blame fast typing and no sleep.
Well anyway I have made a nice "little" post on our own forums now. With alot of explenation about melee group setup. I also added my dps graphs I gto from the spreadsheet. And to make it all total I added the dps the warrior, paladin, shaman and druid would get from Ferocious Inspiration (which is about 150 dps in total). I did make alot of friends with our other melee classes in the guild btw. The thanked me for the fact that finally someone pointed this out to the RL.
Now the only thing we can do is wait and see I guess.
Ohh btw. We killed Archimonde for the first time yesterday.
But if the raid DPS is lower, or you wind up with a rogue in a caster group, then you're being stupid, and the Ret Pally needs to sit or be put in the tank group (also non-optimal, but the rogue simply does more DPS).
Although their absolute DPS is lower, Ret Pallies scale better with melee group buffs than Rogues do: WF affects a larger portion of Pally damage (and instant poison mitigates the loss of that damage better for rogues), Strength of Earth gives them more than double the AP benefit, Unleashed Rage gives Ret Pallies a bigger boost since they have more AP than rogues. If you've got enhance shammy, arms warrior, ret pally, rogue x3, raid DPS is almost always maximized by moving your lowest DPS rogue out of the melee group, not the Ret Pally.
I am a SS Rogue, and my guild is doing Leotharas/Al'ar as our next target boss' to down. I am at 313 HR unbuffed, and am wondering, do I need to max out my HR before focusing on another stat, or can I step back a little and start looking to my other stats? And when I do move my focus to a new stat, what should I work on? IE- armor reduction, agility, crit, etc.
I am a SS Rogue, and my guild is doing Leotharas/Al'ar as our next target boss' to down. I am at 313 HR unbuffed, and am wondering, do I need to max out my HR before focusing on another stat, or can I step back a little and start looking to my other stats? And when I do move my focus to a new stat, what should I work on? IE- armor reduction, agility, crit, etc.
Just read the first post of this thread and you'll find the answers for your questions. But to sum it up, while powerful, hit rating is still a stat like any other. It might be better than say crit/agi/ap point for point, but every stat has it's value, you can't just stack hit to get to a certain threshold disregarding your other offensive attributes. Just use the spreadsheet linked countless times here to look for potential upgrades.
05/01/08, 11:21 AM
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