Maybe a few words about poisons and shaman totems would be useful ?

Change to "offhand speed".

Also, the gemming recommendations should be noted to be aimed at COMBAT rogues, as +hit will lose a ton of value from not having either DW Spec or Combat Potency. I'm not 100% sure what those rogues should gem for (well, I know Agility is good, but not sure if 1 crit rating will be better or worse than 1 hit rating).

Vulajin, you stated in the 'gear selection' section that besides haste, for which there is no real itemization, increasing hit rating is the best option for increasing DPS. Then in the 'regarding the hit cap' area you say, "Hit is an extremely valuable stat for rogues, but single-mindedly increasing hit at the expense of other stats will hurt your DPS output". I'm wondering how this can be possible if the first item is true. I was hoping you could elaborate on this, as I'm currently having issues with the spreadsheet.

An example I use to illustrate this is: let's say you are far below the hit cap and are trying to choose between two upgrades to your gear. If one upgrade gives you +1 AP and the other gives you +1 hit rating, you should choose +1 to hit, since it is clearly the better option.

If on the other hand, one upgrade gives you +100 AP and the other gives you +1 hit rating, you would be foolish to choose the +1 hit; regardless of how far below the cap you are, 100 AP is still a better upgrade.



It's an extreme case, but many people seem to think that the hit cap is the only thing that maximizes their DPS, and make the wrong choices in these kinds of tradeoffs without realizing it.

All this means is that although 1 hit rating is more valuable than 1 Agility, given the choice between 5 hit rating and 10 agility, take the agility.

Several sections modified based on suggestions, combo point cycle section added. Input is always appreciated, particularly where I have placed the text "(HELP!)" with some question or request for clarification.

I believe that Master Poisoner comes out to be worth slightly fewer additional poison procs per hit than Improved Poisons. As to why one would not take both, I don't necessarily know.

Actually, I have done testing that shows that Opportunity and Surprise Attacks are additive. Spec both without Murder. Go out to the Dwarf start area. Kick some level 1 Young Ragged Wolves to verify 0 armor gives 110/220 on a crit. Now backstab them multiple times with a starter dagger. Guess what?
The damage is consistant with (DAMAGE+(AP/14*1.7)) * 1.5 + 255 ) * 1.3
and not with
(DAMAGE+(AP/14*1.7)) * 1.5 + 255 ) * 1.2 * 1.1

Even if you want to believe the armor is above 0 but still rounds to 110, the kick test proves the armor is not high enough to give damage reduction consistant with Opportunity and Surprise Attacks being multiplicative.

I suspect the same of Aggression and Surprise Attacks but have not tested this.

Question:

On the topic of maces, given their improvement in 2.3 and available weapons in T6 content I'm assuming they will be desired above all other types of specs. If this is the case, how does [Dragonstrike] compare to [Syphon of the Nathrezim]?

When I did the testing, both when Surprise Attacks was first added and recently when I saw that the spreadsheets were calling the combination multiplicative, I did not take combat logs. But quite frankly, this is one instance where a combat log tells you little.

You can't tell from the combat log whether I'm attacking Level 1 Young Ragged Wolves or Level 2. If you get lucky and get a crit and a hit with your kicks, it takes a minimum of 2 to demonstrate armor and using a 1-3 damage dagger, it doesn't take many swings to see min and max damage for both normal hits and crits. It's very easy to replicate. But most of the important information doesn't show in the combat log, like your base AP, equipment, etc.

I have since switched to swords and now have Murder which has been showing some unusual behavior at times given that Wolves are beasts, so I cannot currently repeat this on Live without blowing 20g respecing (and I'm cash tight after buying some LW patterns recently. I plan to do a more comprehensive analysis if I can ever get a character copied to the PTR to see which talent synergies are additive and which are multiplicative and checking again how the PTR is handling Murder. Until that time, I have done testing with this. I could not find a post anywhere on these forums showing where someone tested that they multiplicative. It seems people are assuming they multiply.

I reported this information [Rogue] DPS Spreadsheet
You can verify my math...

The weapon in question was the 1.6 speed 1-3 dagger Dirk sold by the vendor.

Does this apply even when Windfury is unavailable?

We are low on raiding shamans and typically rely on poisons; I've always used Deadly Mainhand, Instant Offhand in the (perhaps mistaken) belief that the faster attack speed of my offhand will generate more poison applications. Does factoring in the extra hits of Sinister Strike/Sword Specialisation outweigh the faster speed? Windfury being unavailable, is it worth applying Instant to the mainhand instead?

If so, at what point in the discrepancy between mainhand-offhand speeds are you more likely to achieve a higher rate of Instant procs with the offhand?

Okay, did a quick model assuming that mace spec functions additively with RED (I have no idea if this will be the case, but it seems to be the most likely assumption to make). Started with [Talon of Azshara] and [Merciless Gladiator's Quickblade] as my control set. Then I switched to [Dragonstrike] and [Merciless Gladiator's Bonecracker] and lost 35 DPS. Upgraded the main hand to [Syphon of the Nathrezim] and lost another 11 DPS. Switched the offhand to [Swiftsteel Bludgeon] and gained back 16.5 DPS.

Long story short, looks like mace spec will be right up there with fists in 2.3, but swords and fist+sword will still win out.