Using the hit calculator provided in the OP post, Weapon Skill

Is the pvp hit cap with duel wield versus a level 70 mob with 5/5 precision (350 wep skill) really 299.62? (for white attacks)

see reasoning below.

(change mob level to 70 (from 73) and select duel wield box (so check is showing) and put in 5 on +hit from talents (percentage 5 % from precision if you have it). it will show that the hit cap is 299.62 (19% chance to miss on a 70 target with 5/5 precision) (64 hit rating for with 5/5 precision for special not to miss on 73/boss mob (not sure of figure for 70 mob) without 5/5 precision its 24% chance chance to miss 378.46 hit cap on a level target.

for a warrior on the other hand with a 2H, base chance to miss is 5% leaving their hit cap at 78.85 with no +hit chance from talents... on a level 70

QQ without hit talents hit cap on level 70 mob for non duel wield 78.85 for a duel wielder 378.46

I don't see your point really.
5% has ever been the standard miss chance for 1 hand or 2 hand against an even level mob (or PvP target). Dual wielding this increases by 19% and the rating to hit conversion is 15.769.
So yes, against a level 70 mob and Precision your miss chance for white attacks is 19% and 0% for special attacks.

For PvP, you would want to have at least 10% hit, as e.g. mages have a talent that increases their chance to be missed by 5% (and missing a finisher just sucks).

Here is my build:

The World of Warcraft Armory

It's pretty similar to the cookie cutter one posted in the first post. I do have some questions regarding the choices in the cookie cutter one though

1) Why Imp. Gouge? Is Gouge a widely used opening move in Kara and beyond? I usually open with Garrote.

2) Why Imp. Sprint over Endurance?

3) Why no Imp. Eviscerate?


Just wondering cause if 19/42/0 as shown in that build is truly better than what I've chosen I would probably switch.

1) It's between 3/3 gouge and 3/5 dodge, both of which doesn't really matter for pve. Chances are if you pull aggro and a boss turns on you, the 3% dodge isn't really gonna be a lifesaver. If it does, you could thank your lucky stars but the first 3 points are more of a filler really, doesn't really make a difference. I prefer to take gouge only because i pvp sometimes when i'm bored.

2) Imp Sprint is also another filler, but has alot of situational use being able to break free from snare. Of course, i pick it again mainly because of the pvp benefit, but i can't count the times when having an extra snare removal saved my life (vashj p3 and illidari council comes to mind), though it's mainly only on trash that its use comes in handy (off my mind there's morogrim, gurtogg, akama and gorefiend trash). I prefer it over endurance because generally for pve, sprint and evasion is a lifeline for when you get careless (only time it's part of the strat is ros p1 and gurtogg maybe) and if you're gonna need to use it everytime it's up to save your life then it's more of a l2p issue than being careless/unlucky.

3) Rupture > Eviscerate for bleed-able targets. As a 2pt filler, murder > 2/3 evis for murder-able targets (hence i picked 2/3 evis for my spec because iirc, all but 1 boss in the whole of bt/hyjal benefits from murder). Otherwise, the dps per talent point of murder makes it a very good talent to pick up.

Thanks! I'm still in Kara atm...but I think we're moving to ZA where I believe the targets are bleedable AND humanoid/beast So I will probably change to 1/3 Imp. Eviscerate and 2/2 Murder.

Why don't you just get 3/3 ruthlessness and 0/3 eviscerate instead of 2/3 ruth 1/3 evis? The extra 20% chance for ruthlessness to proc is really nice to have when you're trying to keep up snd/rupture cycles. On bleedable ZA mobs, barring situational requirements, the only time you actually use eviscerate is when you blow your AR cooldown, and even than it's just once every 5mins for 5% more damage in that one finisher.

you wouldn't be able to reach the 3rd or 4th tier (vile poisons) of talents in the assassination tree though, so that 1 point has to be spent in one of the first 2 tiers, can't just make 5/5 vile poisons.

Well that limits my decision then now doesn't it. What about 4/5 Lethality and 5/5 Vile Poisons? Yay or NAAAY?

Howdy all, a few questions here regarding 2.3.

1) Human Racial. Reading through this thread, I've seen a few people mention that the human racial is going to remain at +5skill with maces/swords instead of +1% crit like all other racials are being changed to. Is this pretty much confirmed?

2) Weapon Expertise talent. Now according to the patch notes, all items and abilities that give weapon skill/rating are being changed to expertise/expertise rating. I had naturally assumed this would mean the WE talent would be changed over as well. Is this not the case, though? Looking at the 2.3 talents on wowhead.com shows that it's still adding skill.

3) Weapon skill refresher. I'm actually coming back from a 2 month hiatus, so I'm not sure if I still have the math/mechanics down correctly. Versus a level 73, for each point of weapon skill above the cap, your chance to get dodged is lowered by .25, right? So for Humans with swordsmaces and 2/2 WE (provided it still gives skill), the base chance to be dodged is dropped to 2.75%?

4) Character sheet. How will the new combat stat show? Will it be listed as "Expertise" or "Expertise Rating"? Also, is the +5% from precision still "invisible" (i.e. not converted and shown in the hit rating box)?

1) The human racial will be Expertise, this is confirmed.

2) This will grant Expertise as well, this is confirmed.

3) You will not be able to increase weapon skill above 350, so this is immaterial.

4) There is a listing for Expertise on your Melee tab. Yes, the 5% from Precision is still invisible.

Thanks. So, since it's listed as Expertise instead of Expertise Rating, does that mean we should take the numbers from the front post:

and divide by 4 to get the number we actually want to see on our character sheet?

Seems like humans are getting a pretty decent buff to their racial over other classes that had similar skills.

Actually after DLing the patch today and reading the notes, the racial weapon skills ARE 1% crit not expertise. The notes also didnt mention backstab being added to aggression or the hemo debuff being changed to +36. We'll have to wait till the servers up to see if the last two were actually changed but not noted.

-_- And obviously the patch notes are always 100% accurate and up-to-date with all the PTR changes. Ask yourself how many times the patch notes have changed since they were released with the initial 2.3 PTR build.

I'm talking about the patch notes that come up after you DL the patch on patch day not the ones released like a month ago. These notes mention the hemo 125% weapon damage change that the ones a month ago didnt mention. It also shows the cheat death change that also wasnt mentioned a month ago.

It does not however mention the +36dmg on hemo debuff or the aggression change.

The PTR hasn't shown the hemo debuff since they added the 125% weapon dmg.

Just to clarify, take the 1 point out of "Nerves of Steel" in combat tree and put it in Vile poisons. Another 4% dmg on your poisons over a fight is wayyyy more imporatnt than an extra 5% to resist stun and fear affects. Rarely will it matter and if it does, you should have some fear wards up so that it won't matter about the fear and stuns.....pvp? not important for a purely pve build.

The issue with that computation is 14 AP doesn't add 1 DPS; it adds 1 DPS to each hand. Hence, the conversion from DPS to AP you're doing is invalid.

ahh i see... but is the dps computation correct? and is there anyone able to do the math for a rough estimate of +total ap

This would be a fine idea...except that would mean I wouldn't get Surprise Attacks cause I'd only have 40 pts. in combat.

Well, the damage calculation is more or less correct for what it is, but it's not really a very useful number; the key thing to remember in terms of SS and Hemo builds with regards to ring enchants is that over half of your white damage and all your yellow damage - and, hence, about 2/3 of your total damage - is performed with the MH weapon, which gains little benefit from striking; hence, if you exclude yellow damage, you're going to get a skewed calculation.

As a ballpark figure:

On MH white attacks with a 2.6 speed weapon, 2 weapon damage adds roughly the same DPS to those attacks as would be added by 11 AP.

On MH yellow attacks, 2 weapon damage adds roughly the same DPS to those attacks as would be added by 12 AP.

On OH white attacks with a 2.6 speed weapon, 2 weapon damage adds roughly the same DPS to those attacks as would be added by 19 AP.

Hence, if we assume that our damage is something like 40% MH white, 30% OH white, and 30% yellow (which is roughly the right ballpark), the AP contribution of striking is something like .4*11+.3*12+.3*19 = 13.7 AP.

In practice, it's even less than that since AP also boosts rupture DPS while I don't believe that Weapon Damage does, and Sword Spec/Windfury mean that an even larger portion of your damage comes from the MH than is estimated above. Hence, when you grind the numbers on an actual raid scenario, the damage contribution for Striking tends to be around 12-12.5 AP.

Meanwhile, stats is worth about 12 AP + 4 stamina straight up, and is boosted further by the addition of Kings. As such, for a sword rogue, +stats is the clear winner.

For raiding purposes, if it came down to it, would it be better to have 4/5 Lethality and 5/5 Vile Poisons or 5/5 Lethality and 4/5 Vile Poisons?

Hello.. not sure if this is the thread to ask in.. but I'm looking to start re gemming for 2.3. Was wondering if anyone had suggestion.. i was looking at my leggings and thinking about putting 4hit / 4agi gems in there. i know my weps aren't great.. but i just decided to use swords within the last week.. been daggers till now. Going to try to get some S2.. and if im super lucky and get my skill OVER 9000 ill try for s3. Other then that.. any other suggestions? Oh btw.. i have romilo's Poison vile... I use the sky guard cross to farm.

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