Caladnei

Get yourself a spreadsheet of your choosing linked in the first post in this thread and compare your equip options to find out what's best for you. Find yourself a leatherworker for a suitable trousers enchantment (which will be recommended in aforementioned spreadsheet). Always heed the 7 commandmends of rogue dps. Mind your rotation, watch your procs. Everything you need is to be found in the first post.
Invest time and hard work to farm badges - probably by far the most effective way to upgrade your equip (and thus your dps) at your level of progression.

 

Dampfbrumsel

I am not arguing that putting hunters in the melee group is generally a good idea, but depending on the composition of the raid, it can actually make sense.
To illustrate it, here's an example from on of our recent raids: Group 1 is the tank group (2 prot warriors, 1 paladin, 1 r-shaman, X), group 2's the melee one (1 Enhancer, 1 Arms warrior, 3 rogues). The other groups are filled with casters. Now there's one BM hunter in the raid. For several reasons, mostly encounter dependent, there's no room for him in group 3-5. So we could put him in group 1, where all the support he'd get would be an untalented Battle Shout for his pet while his pets Ferocious Inspiration would only increase the tanks DPS (1000 DPS * 0.03 = 30 DPS), or we could switch a rogue in group 1 and put the hunter in group 2. The rogue would lose around 300 DPS (according to the Gear spreadsheet) from this switch and the hunter would gain around 100 personal DPS (more like 180 DPS according to my guilds hunter, but since I don't trust him that much and I myself know very little about hunters, I chose a conservative value). So there's 200 + 30 DPS to be covered by Ferocious Inspiration. For that to happen, the other 4 DDs (2 rogues [2500 DPS, 2300 DPS], 1 arms warrior [1500 DPS], 1 enh-shaman [1900 DPS]) need to put out a total DPS of >7667. This is the case.
The most debatable variable here is the hunters gain from the melee buffs and I guess we all know too little about that. If someone could prove me wrong, I'd be genuinely pleased though!

Summary: An unusually poor group composition can call for an unusual group setup, sometimes even kicking a rogue out of a melee group in favour of a huntard.

And since this discussion has left the field of rogue theorycrafting and is now somewhere between hunter DPS and raid leading, I suggest we drop it or take it some place else

 

Towelette

You neglected to explain why placing the Hunter in one of the other three groups was not a possibility. This is a pretty important fact considering your entire argument is based on it.

Beyond that though, I guess when there's a subpar composition it may make sense to have "different" group structures, but not many guilds are in the business of running with bad raid comps.

 

Trivia

Posting my very first message here. Before I go on would like to say that this has been a very helpful forum ( thanks EJ ! ) for various classes.

If I'm posting this on the wrong thread, my apoligies - but didn't find another suitable thread for this.

On to my question :

First off : link to webstats report of last night's SSC raid Here

I was comparing myself to the other combat sword rogue ( Ordos )
and he's not that far behind me in total damage and dps ( even above me on some vashj attempts )

I've been looking at his talent build ( practically the same as mine ) and gear he is using - and i should be normally way above him, DPS & dmg wise. I've also compared his stats to mine ( i have much higher hit rating, that's about the only obvious thing that i can see ). My agility is also higher, so i don't really get it. What am I doing wrong - or am I just fine and shouldn't i worry ?

Secondly , on the hit & miss ratings.

Very weird thing with misses, I got more miss on sinister then on auto attack and Ordos got more on autoattack. I thought sinister strike required less hit rating to cap than the auto attack.

I'm 300% certain that i was nicely positioned in the back for the tidewalker fight.

Can anyone shed some light on that

 

Towelette

On the Tidewalker kill you were far above him. On the Vashj attempts where he beat you, his DPS in-time was significantly higher than yours. Basically, he did more damage than you because he got onto the mobs faster than you did. It could be reaction speed, his use of Sprint compared to yours, something like that.

You're looking at total misses -- this includes dodges and parries. If you bring up your Sinister Strikes on WWS and click the line to expand for more details, you'll see that your Sinister Strike misses were actually the boss dodging your SS, not you outright missing it. Expertise is the only way to reduce this, so you may want to make some serious efforts towards getting a Shard of Contempt from Heroic Magister's Terrace if you haven't already. It would be a pretty significant upgrade to either of the trinkets you have equipped now.

 

Trivia

Didn't look that far. Seems the miss rate is not that big of an issue. Also saw that i haven't used Blade Flurry enough, compared to the other rogues.

Have been trying to get that trinket, after 7 runs still hasn't dropped for me =/

Other then that, think gear+equipment wise i'm pretty much set, don't think I have to regem.

Just spent 100 badges on the scryers pants, next upgrade will be the ring ( angelista's revenge ) for 50 badges.

 

Primalr

First of all.. It was previously stated that a rogue loose approx 1/3 of his dps without a good group. And you say this is 300 dps, so that rogue should be 900 dps then... Then you state the other melee dps deals 7667/4 = 1916 dps each... Seems quite skewed approximations in my opinion. Maybe if you have a group with 5x full T6 and one single rogue with blue gear it can be justified. Is this the case?

Then you forgot to measure in the fact that Feroicous Inspiration buffs ANY damage aswell, so putting the hunter in a group with ANY other dps will increase their dps, hence contributing to raid dps without having to gimp one specific rogue.

 

Arindelest

1/3 was a rough approximation, perhaps based on the idea that the rogue would lose WF and Battle Shout as well as everything else. 300 seems more accurate -- but possibly a bit low. I, for example, lose 370 DPS in the above posited scenario (T6-level gear; we're 5/5 9/9 0/6), pushing the DPS reqs for the other group members up further. On the other hand, 1916 DPS is easily attainable for any guild in Sunwell among a melee group. Bottom line is that under almost every reasonable circumstance, putting a hunter in a melee group is silly.

 

Dampfbrumsel

I had a wall of text lined up, but Firefox crashed on me, so here's the short version:
Losing 1/3 of his DPS going from what to what? In my example, the rogue went from a twisting enhancement shaman to an unskilled WF totem and from a fully skilled / sapphired battle shout to a basic one. With these changes, a rogue geared like me loses 300 DPS (check the gear spreadsheet if you don't trust me).
And again, the rogue DPS was not guessed, but taken from the gear spreadsheet. The other two estimates on the other hand were taken from WWS logs, so there might be a slight inaccuracy, but nothing that would have changed the outcome.
And as stated before, the other groups were untouchable for several rather complex and mostly idiotic reasons. Healers and their hiccups, hn?

This will be my last post regarding this subject. I feel we've left the topic of this thread behind us miles ago and it's not leading anywhere anyway. Putting a hunter in a melee group is usually a silly idea, but not always.

 

◊ Hanos

This is the problem. Screwing a rogue over and losing total raid DPS because you have a bunch of whiny healers, and no one willing to tell them to "Shut up and pot", means that you are optimizing a stupid situation, if you eliminate the stupid situation, then you eliminate the reason for screwing over the rogue. If you only have 1 Hunter in a raid, first off he should be survival, but if he is BM, he will normally benefit more from being in a caster group where he can get mana spring, mana tide, and a shadow priest and run a 3:2 rotation, while buffing all the casters. Your scenario is essentially net even, this is an improvement.

PvP = The Reason We Can't Have Nice Things

 

◊ Shaker

To sum up what I believe Hanos is saying is - the biggest optimization you can do on a stupid situation is to clean up the stupidity. Theorycrafting the best hunter shot rotations in +dmg gear isn't worthwhile, and neither is 'should i put the rogue in the healer group or the caster dps group'.

Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.

 

Left

In my guild, the MT group runs Warrior/Paladin/Resto Druid/Warlock/Shaman. The only shout in the group is Commanding; the totem is often GoA depending on the avoidance requirements for the fight. Thus, for my guild dropping a rogue in there somewhere loses WF entirely, drops to untalented GoA, and doesn't get a battle shout at all. That's likely to be more than 300 DPS lost, especially when factoring in the loss of Unleashed Rage as well.

 

Dragonus-Drenden

Hello,

I am a primarily raiding rogue, my guild currently has cleared Gruul's a few times, attempts on Mag's ( Got close ), and is starting into early SSC and TK atm.

My question is; How important is expertise to have at my level of progression? And if it is, what should i roughly be at?

Also, I currently am Fist/Sword spec, and i have been told that this is a stronger spec then Sword/Sword for SSC and early TK. Any thoughts or opinions on whether this is correct?

Thanks

 

Caspian

Expertise is always important since mobs can always dodge you, even if you are behind them. There is no magic number for expertise until you've hit the cap. For those check the first post of this thread and use the spreadsheet at the bottom of that post.

 

amtracker1

All you need to do is make sure you get a [Shard of Contempt] from H MGT.

That will give you all the expertise you need for your progression level.

 

mmreed

Hello fellow rogues.

I have been reading through the many pages here, and would like to solicit some advice and help.

I am a combat dagger rogue.
The World of Warcraft Armory

Currently my rotation is use Sinister Strike to build 4CPs then do a SnD. Use SinStrike to build 5CPs and do a rupture. By the time I sinstrike 4 CPs, its time to renew Snd (has a few seconds left).. so basically I repeat the sequence.

In looking at the damage formulas, it looks like it would be better if I switched to Backstabs to generate my CPs. They would generate slower, but the BS dmg would be better than the SinStrike. Am I looking at this the right way?

Also - I have tried looking over my stats and gear to see if there is anything I should change. Not the actual gear yet, but the gems and enchants - I havent noticed any, but I would like some of the better versed players to take a look.

My main goal is to put out as much DPS as I can witht he current gear that I have. My intent is to upgrade via badge items as soon as possible.

 

• Aldriana

Sinister striking as a dagger rogue is, if you'll pardon me for saying so, beyond stupid. There are occasionally times when you don't have a choice in the matter, but as a general rule you want to be using backstab whenever you possibly can if you're using daggers. If you prefer to use SS, you should get yourself some good swords/fists/maces; the Vanir's fists from badges are a nice option if you wish to go that route.

 

Stabmaster

1) Using Sinister Strike as your main attack for Combat Dagger is HORRIBLE. You should be using Backstab.
2) You shouldn't even be Combat Dagger, switch to Mutilate.

 

Ruqas

At the risk of sounding like an ass, is this a joke? Seriously, dude, wtf?

At your gear level, you should know this by now. Of course, backstab does more damage. Sinister Strike is an absolutely terrible substitute for your main damaging move with a combat daggers build. And you're not even specced right. Go 15/41/5. Dude, get your shit together.

Now how she taketh mine eye.

 

Dragonus-Drenden

Hey,

I've been debating this for a few days now, and im wondering if the Spiteblade off Netherspite would be a worthwhile upgrade from my S1 Glad. Fist .......

If you have any thoughts, plz feel free to take a look at my gear on the armory and get back here.

Thanks,

Any input is greatly appreciated

D

 

Ashere

Short answer: No.
Long story: Spiteblade has a horrible droprate, about every rogue who wanted it at first suddenly went to AV and EotS when S1 gear became wellfare, and the only reason why some still want spiteblade is: out of spite, for the sodded thing never dropping in 20+ kara raids (if not more)

 

Dragonus-Drenden

However, if it does happen to drop, is it a worthwhile upgrade?

That was more my question .... if it doesn't drop, then it doesn't drop. But if, by chance, it does ... is it worth switching to? Do that +stats on it make it worth the loss in DPS from the Fist?

 

Caspian

I did a general switch based on how you're specced. Yes, if the Spiteblade drops and you switch to 5/5 Sword spec, then Spiteblade is an upgrade.
For future questions like these, might I suggest using the Rogue Spreadsheet. It will help you get your answer much more quickly.

 

Furien

Plug it into one of the spreadsheets because that's what we have to do to give you an answer.

However I think you'll find Spiteblade a sidegrade, the S1 weapons are slightly superior to Spiteblade.

 

Annihilus

Do an above poster about Expertise, it's frickin' sweet, period. I'm about Expertise capped (not now I'm in Pvp gear and spec) and the other night against Vashj my Sinister Strike miss% was less than 1%, which is a personal record. My missed melee swings were like 1.2% misses.

Question, a Rogue in my guild got the Claw of Molten Fury but he already had Vanir's Fist of Brutality for his main hand. He also has the OH and now has the two-piece set. I ran him through the Rogue DPS Spreadsheet with his current gear/spec and then again with the Claw replacing the Vanir's fist and it shows him losing 17DPS. He is arguing the point that the proc rate on the weapon will make up the difference. In my opinion, I don't see how because 17DPS is well..., 17DPS. Does the proc rate of the Claw of Molten Fury's set bonus make up for the loss of DPS? Please somebody chime in on this.

Thanks,

Anni