• Aldriana

I don't think SF is fundamentally *that* hard to model; it's just that one sheet has a bug in it that causes it to give invalid results, and the other hasn't bothered to implement high-end assassination talents yet (more due to Mutilate than SF, in reality)

 

Stabmaster

The fact that neither has modeled it correctly tells me it is non-trivial

 

• Aldriana

Well, that's a fair point, I suppose. I can't speak for the DPS sheet, but, speaking for the Gear sheet: I have a pretty good idea how to go about implementing it; it just strikes me as a low-priority feature, so I haven't bothered.

 

songster

It's trivial to model, at least in the average case where you get the expected number of crits per cycle. The problem is that such a model is irrelevant in the real world.

Look at is this way, taking a generic 5s/5r cycle, you need to build 10 combo points per cycle. Leaving aside Ruthlessness for the moment, with a crit rate of 25%, that corresponds roughly to 8 combo point building abilities, with the other two combo points coming from Seal Fate. (8 * 1.25 = 10). However, if all 8 of your attacks fail to crit, you end up seriously combo-point starved - your s'n'd may drop off, losing you a lot of damage. What is the chance of this? It's 0.75 ^ 8 = 10%. So 1 in 10 of your cycles will be screwed up due to non-crit streaks. Conversely, what do you do when you're on 4 combo points? Do you build for a 5th, and haved a 25% chance of wasting a combo point from a Seal Fate proc? Or do you only ever use low-combo-point finishers and thus waste energy?

The key point is that deep assassination builds (i.e. anything including Seal Fate, whether that's SF/Hemo, Mutilate, or any other weird build) can't be modelled as a succession of identical cycles. What you do in each "cycle" will depend critically on how many crits you happen to have during that cycle. This is a fatal issue for both the existing spreadsheets, since they depend entirely on modelling an average cycle.

 

Dontmindme

But the same can be said for any of the modeling. Your cycles get screwed up from lack of Combat Potency procs, or whether Relentlessness doesn't proc in a non-5-point cycle, or based on the 60% on finishers. Yet these do not really affect the modeling all that much. Good players adjust their cycles on the fly and it still approximates the damage fairly accurately. I certainly wouldn't call these fatal issues and they are not unique to Seal Fate. I would think the only effect that calls for extra modeling is the lost combo point possibility. To be honest, it's also not hard to model. It wouldn't be that hard to model a 4-5s/4-5r cycle either, just it hasn't been done yet.

 

• Vulajin

The thing is, Relentless Strikes and Ruthlessness are only one chance of proc/no-proc per finisher in the cycle. Combat Potency has enough chances to proc during a cycle that it's usually pretty rare to experience "bad luck" of the kind that drastically harms your cycle. On the other hand, let's look at how many different ways there are to generate "4+" CP with Hemorrhage and Seal Fate, and the variance between them (assume a 30% crit rate for simplicity):

- Ruthlessness does not proc, you crit twice (7.0s, 4 CP, 40% x 30% x 30% = 3.6%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you crit once, you hit once, you crit again (10.5s, 5 CP, 40% x 30% x 70% x 30% = 2.52%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you hit once, you crit twice (10.5s, 5 CP, 40% x 70% x 30% x 30% = 2.52%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you crit once, you hit twice (10.5s, 4 CP, 40% x 30% x 70% x 70% = 5.88%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you hit once, you crit once, you hit again (10.5s, 4 CP, 40% x 70% x 30% x 70% = 5.88%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you hit twice, you crit once (10.5s, 4 CP, 40% x 70% x 70% x 30% = 5.88%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you hit three times, you crit once (14.0s, 5 CP, 40% x 70% x 70% x 70% x 30% = 4.116%)
- Ruthlessness does not proc, you hit four times (14.0s, 4 CP, 40% x 70% x 70% x 70% x 70% = 9.604%)
- Ruthlessness procs, you crit twice (7.0s, 5 CP, 60% x 30% x 30% = 5.4%)
- Ruthlessness procs, you crit once, you hit once (7.0s, 4 CP, 60% x 30% x 70% = 12.6%)
- Ruthlessness procs, you hit once, you crit once (7.0s, 4 CP, 60% x 70% x 30% = 12.6%)
- Ruthlessness procs, you hit twice, you crit once (10.5s, 5 CP, 60% x 70% x 70% x 30% = 8.82%)
- Ruthlessness procs, you hit three times (10.5s, 4 CP, 60% x 70% x 70% x 70% = 20.58%)

This portion of the cycle can vary in lengthy by as much as 7 seconds. If the entire cycle being used is (4+)s/(4+)r, for example, then the whole thing can vary by as much as 14 seconds, while the Slice will only be either 18s or 21s. Roughly 1.88% of the time, you will have a 28.0s (assuming Relentless Strikes procs on both finishers) cycle with huge Slice downtime. Another ~11.70% of the time, you will have a 14.0s (again, assuming Relentless Strikes) cycle with a sizable chunk of wasted Slice time. A pretty good amount of the time (~36.51%), your cycle will be roughly 21.0s, but the Slice will vary between dropping too early and staying up just long enough. Other durations are possible: 17.5s (where your Slice will always be wasted a bit) and 24.5s (where you'll never sustain Slice).

The overall level of variance between the different possible cycles means that computing an "average case" cycle where Seal Fate gives you 1.3 CP per Hemo and you get 0.6 CP per finisher and 5 energy back per CP used on the finisher is not going to accurately model it. But let's take a look at that model anyway, assuming we want to run 5s/5r:

10 CP - 0.6 * 2 = 8.8 CP
8.8 CP / 1.3 CP = ~6.77 Hemos
~6.77 x 35 = ~236.92 energy
Finisher energy = 0
Cycle duration = 23.69s
Slice uptime = 88.64%

But this can't possibly be accurate, because in reality each Hemo is not going to generate 1.3 CP, and things won't line up this perfectly. Even for normal cycles, this kind of modeling is inaccurate to some degree. The reason is that some iterations of your cycle will be fast enough that some of your Slice will be wasted, meaning your Slice uptime is technically over 100%. This kind of modeling that doesn't figure in the individual possible cycles will allow those "Slice uptime over 100%" iterations to increase the average Slice uptime estimate above what it should be. For a cycle with only Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes, this effect is very minimal (to check this, I wrote a spreadsheet that calculated every possible combination of Ruthlessness/Relentless Strikes procs for some of the common cycles, and all of the numbers it provided for Slice and Rupture uptime were quite close to the estimates we can make using the above "average case" cycle method). However, for a Seal Fate cycle where the duration of the cycle may vary a lot and even the Slice duration may vary, the "average case" method is not going to be anywhere near as accurate.

What we need is a model that accounts for every possible combination of procs/no-procs and the resulting cycle duration and Slice duration in a (4+)s/(4+)r cycle. Either way I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work out to be anywhere near as good as a standard Hemo build with combat talents. The point of Seal Fate is to improve the cycles you can run; since you'll give up Imp SnD in order to pick up Seal Fate, your cycles are essentially going to have to stay the same just so that you can keep Slice up.

 

ekval

I'm quite sure 31/0/30 SF + Hemo + 5/5 Deadliness spec is far better than 3/5 Find Weakness variation. These specs look good on paper but in practice they don't work well enough (PvE).

 

Raynforce

Hi all,

I just needed to clarify something about Sword spec. I understand when sword spec procs on OH it triggers a MH swing. I'm using fist/sword. so my OH sword procs my MH fist swing with 5% crit on it due to fist spec. So this spec comes out with slightly higher DPS because my fist has 5% crit on it right?

What I needed to know is what happens if my MH is sword too. Does my MH proc another MH swing as well? If MH and OH procs MH attacks only ( OH never gets an extra swing from SS ), isn't MH and OH sword superior to MH fist / OH sword?

Also, I heard rumors that this has been corrected in patch 2.3 but on my combat logs, my OH sword still procs my MH fist so I assume nothing has been changed at all. Am I right?

 

Dontmindme

But the same can be said for Combat Potency. Lucky streaks mean extra SnD time or quicker cuts, yet no one seems to want to claim that is an "irrelevant" model, to use your own words. Nor would I consider it a "fatal issue". People still use the spreadsheets to model their DPS in fights where you need to run in and out. This cuts up all the cycles. Still the spreadsheet, using averages, can still approximate relative DPS. You could also try to make a similar chart for Combat Potency charts and show all the extra SnD time wasted when every offhand procs energy in a cycle.

Now, that said, I'm not clear what the current modeling is and whether it accounts at all for wasted CPs while giving full benefit of a 5r cycle. On the other hand, if the sheet had a model for 4r cycles, one could conceivably adjust one's cycle to the time remaining, dropping down to 3r or up to 5r when appropriate to minimize the streakiness. This would account for most of the various uptime options.

My main gripe is the way you have chosen to just throw out the spreadsheet data because of one perceived flaw. Combat Potency is flawed similarly, maybe we should just throw that out too. And most fights you can't just stand there, so let's throw the entire sheet out.

Assuming that Seal Fate is modeled correctly, it should still provide a decent enough approximation.

 

◊ Shaker

The main issue is that given a rogue being reasonably attentive, you can always use the extra energy from Combat Potency, even if it's just to add another SS when you're at 5 CP, or get a 3CP SnD, so while it does break up your cycles, IN GENERAL, the additional effect is not WASTED - you get a longer SnD, buying you slack for later on, that you may cut, or you may need. In other words, there is built in balances for the ebb and flow of the randomness of Combat Potency which reduce the inaccuracy and make an average model more accurate and tolerable.

Seal fate, when it procs and you have 4cp, completely wastes the extra point. There's no recovery mechanism, you don't just get to hold onto it and put it into your next cycle, it's gone.

Vulajin put a pretty nice, LONG post detailing why SF was very difficult to model and none of it boiled down to "waahhh it's too hard and I don't want to" which is what your response seems to entail he said.

The other MAJOR factor for Seal Fate not being modelled is that it just ISN'T putting out the DPS - Mut builds, 30/0/30 + 1 builds, they all fall a bit flat - is it because we haven't discovered "the secret" that makes them good? Maaaybe - but you'd think we'd see a lot more "I can do 1400+ DPS in my mixmatch T4/T5 gear as Mutilate" style posts if it was just that people needed to learn to play Mut. I've seen some GOOD rogues play as Mut, and they still fall behind. I don't discount the possibility that we're just missing something, but the fact that we haven't seen that stuff yet leads us to believe that it isn't optimal - so modelling it is just theorycraft masturbation, and while there is PLENTY of that around here, no doubt, demanding that other people do it for you is just lame.

 

arasai

Okay, so I did some searching on here and couldn't find anything so I'm asking.

How does the DPS of a 11/27/23 build compare to typical combat swords? Using the main DPS spreadsheet I get an increase in overall DPS by like 20 with my current gear... but people still say combat swords takes the cake.

 

• Vulajin

You obviously didn't search very hard, as the answer is given in the first post of this thread. Also, you'd better fill out your profile, unless you want to get banned.

 

• Aldriana

So, all of what has been said here regarding SF is true: there are certainly logistical difficulties with running SF. It is harder to model than some of the other talents... I just dispute assertions of the form "I wouldn't trust any spreadsheet model of it, ever". It's true, none of the existing spreadsheets handle it. It's true, it would take a fair amount of work to model - more than for other talents. But neither of those means that it wouldn't be possible to write a spreadsheet that *does* model it.

For instance, lets look at Vulajin's handy table regarding CP generation for 4+ CP cycles in SF/Hemo. Now, there's a lot of different possibilities there, and a lot of different probabilities to keep track of. But, on the other hand: it's also a well-defined distribution. How long does it take to get 4+ CPs? Well, 9% of the time it takes 7.0 seconds, and 13.7% of the time it takes 14.0 seconds, and the other 77.3% of the time it takes 10.5 seconds. How many combo points do you wind up with? Well, if it took 7 seconds to get them, it is 60% likely that you have 5 CPs and 40% likely that you have 4 CPs. If it took 14.0 seconds to get them, it is 100% likely that you have 5 CPs. And if it took 10.5 seconds to get them... well, I'm not going to actually work it out, but you get the idea. Well, now we just have 5 different cases to work through and the probability that each occurs. From here it's not that hard to work through all the probabilities.

Scaling it back a level: it's true, using straight averages doesn't quite work. And trying to set up a perfectly sustainable cycle is an exercise in frustration, because it generally doesn't work. So one simply models it the way you'd actually do the cycle in real life: you perform some standard sequence of moves, see how many CPs you have left, see how much SnD uptime you have, and figure out what to do next.

So, in this case: my proposed cycle is as follows: you must always keep 100% SnD uptime, and you do a 4+ CP Rupture after each time you do a 4pt SnD. So, most of the time, you're just running 4+s/4+r. However, if you get an unlucky string of procs and after your rupture is performed you don't have 4+CP before your SnD is about to expire - you use a smaller SnD, followed by building up CPs to get a new 4+CP SnD, and then go back to the regular cycle. If you get a lucky string of procs that get you to 4+CP before you need to refresh SnD, you save up some energy to use in the next cycle.

Well, that sounds like an awful mess, right? Well, no, not really. Since we have the probability distributions for the number of combo points generated and the amount of time it takes to get them, it's not really that hard to work out the probability that each event above happens. You figure out the probability that you have to throw in an extra SnD in a given cycle, and you figure out the probability that you have to refresh SnD early to avoid energy capping in a given cycle, and from this you can work out pretty easily how many ruptures you're going to be able to fit in a given period of time, at which point the problem is solved. Is there a lot of bookkeeping to do? Yes. Would the calculation page in the Rogue Gear Spreadsheet for this be 1000 lines long instead of 400? Probably. But is there anything here that prevents such a model from being made? No. So, again: it's a harder problem, and it's a messy problem, and for these reasons (as well as Shaker's observation that it's just theorycraft masturbation since it's almost certain to be found inferior in the end) it hasn't been done yet. But there's absolutely no reason why it *couldn't* be done.

 

arasai

Don't blame me if the forum software's search feature is subpar...

I don't see the answer anyplace on your first post. The closest you have is an 11/28/22 build, which trades one point in
sword space with one point in dirty deeds. This trade off is actually a fairly large amount of DPS if you go by the spreadsheets, and if that's the build you're using for your numbers in the DPS comparison listed above then you might want to take another look and see if a recalculation is in order.

The actual answer I was looking for was a new post in the Combat/Hemo thread.

In 25 man raids combat seems to edge over hemo because the charges vanish before you can reapply it... but this is in part due to a bug, so I guess I'll wait and see when its fixed.

 

• Latito

You did not look very hard. [Rogue]The Combat vs Hemo Point of Inflection




I would say it increases your personal DPS by ~20. Ok.. so that was a bit mean. Generally you'll find you get more dps out of Combat Swords personally, but slightly more raid dps by going hemo. This is also, generally, only true for the first 1-2 rogues. After that, the debuff usage % isn't high enough.. again, in general.

If the Spreadsheet is giving you a higher personal dps with hemo - likely you have either lowish hit and/or lowish haste - two stats which scale much better for combat potency than any hemo-build talent. Also, which spreadsheet did you use? Rogue DPS or Rogue gear? In the DPS spreadsheet there are some checkboxes for hemo - if you set them up wrong you will get an incorrect dps value. I believe the correct way to configure them is somewhere within the last ~2 days worth of posts on this thread or the one I linked above... maybe the Rogue Gear Spreadsheet.. I dunno.

 

Dontmindme

Shaker, you completely missed my point. I pointed out that Combat Potency has the same flaws, you even stated it yourself. It procs a lot you can cut it short. Well, every time you are cutting it shorter than modeled on the spreadsheet is changing your damage relative to the spreadsheet model in a negative way. Nevertheless, you can still model it. Yet, you call such "theorycraft masturbation", Vulajin calls all such averages "irrelevant". Yet, these averages can still approximate the results. Just because a post is lengthy or even detailed, doesn't make it completely right. Vulajin used an example with Relentless Strikes and Ruthlessness modeling, but you notice his example excluded Combat Potency. Combat Potency's randomness will also screw up cycles. How many times have people ended up with 5 seconds or more left to cut on SnD? That's not the same as the expected model on the spreadsheet and there is wasted SnD energy unmodeled by the sheet. Cycle times can fluctuate greatly with Combat Potency as well (at least as a percentage of the cycle time). Yet, dps in action seems to at least approximate Combat Swords.

Now if you want to know why I think all the builds are falling short, quite simply I think there is a bug in the spreadsheet with combo point modeling. Let me give you an example, I was playing around with numbers, wanted to get an approximation of the value of 4-piece T4, so I forced it on...and the spreadsheet said the DPS went down. Please explain to me how giving free Combo Points to a build actually decreases one's DPS.

Now, I never said I think the spreadsheet is posting the correct numbers, it clearly isn't. Hence, no Mutilate or Seal Fate builds getting anywhere close to the supposed theoretical DPS. I think this is the same issue with T4 4-piece modeling. I seem to remember old posts about plans to look into that problem, but no follow-up.

As to Seal Fate follow-up and no recovery, I gave you a recovery in my post, but you seemed not to read it. You accept 4 CP and not waste the combo points. How to play the Seal Fate/Hemo build seems pretty obvious. You cap SnD and Rupture/Evis when you have 4 or more CP so as not to waste any. You have extra SnD time, you let your energy regen a bit before finishing the cycle, hit it just before your energy fills up. You don't have enough, you cut the cycle off early and keep SnD up instead. It's really not as difficult as it seems. I just don't think the number coming out of the sheet are correct.

In summary, I still don't believe the average case will be that far off in practice, if a 4+s/4+r were modeled. It would not be "irrelevant" nor "theoretical masturbation", the problem is that the only sheet that tries to model Seal Fate seems flawed; either because it doesn't model 4r cycles or because there is a deeper calculation problem in the sheet.

 

• Vulajin

I used neither the words "irrelevant" nor "fatal issue." Those are attributable to Songster.

I'm still not clear what exactly you're arguing against. No one has said that Seal Fate is not able to be modeled. What has been said is that the existing model is inaccurate, and that it is a pain in the ass to properly model it. Combat Potency is able to be modeled the way it is because the large number of trials (offhand swings) per cycle mean that your average performance will quite often fall close to the expected mean. Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes technically should not be modeled that way, but based on my own spreadsheet (which models Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes in the piecemeal fashion I described), modeling them as overall averages works just fine for all intents and purposes. Seal Fate cannot be modeled in the same way because the variance is much greater than that caused by either Ruthlessness or Relentless Strikes.

 

• Aldriana

I think the "theorycraft masturbation" critique comes in due to the fact that SF builds are empirically inferior to the other options available; hence, constructing a detailed model for them accomplishes very little other than demonstrating that it is possible to model them, because any optimizations that could be gleaned from a detailed model would be dwarfed by the optimization of "spec combat". It's the same reason that not a lot of time is spent optimizing holy priest DPS - because there's just no good reason to use that spec in a raid environment.

 

◊ Shaker

That is exactly what I meant, and I believe Vulajin's longer post detailing exact probabilities with Seal Fate combo point acquisition does not account for combat potency because .. uhm, at least for the next 6 months or so, that build isn't possible.

Dontmindme, I suppose I am missing your point, because from all I can tell you're trying to get someone else to make a spreadsheet to model a cycle that isn't being reported correctly - if you're so on fire for it - do it. As Ald said above, for most of us, the response to "how do I improve my DPS as a rogue with Seal Fate" is "respec". IFF there exists some twist to playing SF and/or Mutilate builds that we're missing that makes them highly competitive with deep combat and combat/hemo builds, develop the concept, test it, bring your proof forward, and you will have a WORLD of interested parties.

It's not like we're all combat-nazis here, the moment Hemo became desmonstratably viable, there was a ton of work done to figure out how to optomize it and integrate it into the raid environment. I'm sure (at least personally) there would be just as much excitement over seeing deep assassination builds being brought into the fold as well.

 

• Aldriana

In defense of SF, I can imagine one situation under which it might be potentially useful to play a deep assassination build. Consider: it's been calculated that Cat's Swiftness is better than 12 agi to boots provided that one spends at least 3% or so of the fight in motion. Hence, at 3% movement, we have 8% movement speed > 6 agility, meaning that Fleet Footed would be worth at least 11 or so agility with it's 15% movement speed increase on a 3% movement fight.

If, then, one were in a situation wherein there were significant numbers of fight that were well above the 3% movement line - say, the end of AQ40 with the Twin Emps (tons of movement) and Ouro/C'thun (both if which have significant movement requirements) - one could imagine that the value of Fleet Footed could get relatively large. For instance, on the Twin Emps fights, where movement time is as high as 25%, the value of Fleet Footed shoots up to almost 100 agility. Under such circumstances, it's conceivable that an otherwise mediocre DPS build could compete for the top spot; logical contenders would seem to be 30/0/31 or, perhaps more likely, 30/28/3 (and, of course, Mutilate). Unfortunately, the only raid situation I can concoct where this would be true would be late SSC/TK, wherein Leotharas, Al'ar, Astromancer, and Kael all have decent movement components, and Vashj has both significant movement and snares. In this case it would be at least plausible for such a build to compete, although I suspect in practice it still falls short.

 

◊ Shaker

Oh, absolutely - combined with the fact that Mut builds ramp up FAST, a fight like Twin Emps (oh god, man.. the memories) would definitely favor that sort of build. Alas...

Unfortunately, on some of those fights, movement speed becomes a non-issue yet again - Al'ar taunt resists in phase 1, for example. And our astromancer strat has barely any movement in it (well, okay, 2 wrath inside 1 minute, but that's pretty rare). I've been using Tricky Treats on Leo.

 

ekval

When Aldriana mentationed, could 30/28/3 spec work? Or why haven't anyone mentationed about it that much? I tried once to calculate roughly how much movement there is over MH/BT instances and I got to in conclusion that Fleet Footed doesn't add much on bosses, even thought its nice talent to pick if you are going deeper in Assassination. Overall I'm just satisfied the funfactor of SealFate builds and was really waiting 3x/0/3x to give some sort of hope for SF in PvE.

If we compare typical 41/20/0 Mutilate vs. 30/28/3 it comes to Mutilate vs Backstab as talent and their both different chances to proc SF, Poison talents + Find Weakness vs. Dagger spec + Blade Flurry + WEx + 3/5 Opportunity. Without no real testing I'm assuming Backstab as talent is better for proccing SF than Mutilate? I would definetly take 30/28/3 combat tree talents (+ Opportunity) over Poison talents and Find Weakness.

We could assume that rogue with MH/BT gear has 30-35% crit chance, add in Imp. Backstab (+30%) and Dagger spec (+5%) we are probably getting higher SF procs than with Mutilate spec. SealFate would probably allow faster cycles for dagger, therefore it would raise Ashtongue/BT trinket value for this spec also. Does it after all come down to how well Mutilate scales versus Backstab?

 

◊ Kalman

The major difference in using average modeling between CP and SF is the size of the buffer; energy is much more capable of absorbing randomness than combo points, simply because there's a larger buffer to work within.

 

Dontmindme

Here's my point. Right now, the spreadsheet is modeling at least one Seal Fate build as superior to all the builds "we know" to be better. To that extent, the problem needs to be fixed. Personally, I'm trying to fix the spreadsheet and continue the project, but I'm not going to come out and say I'm developing it until I have worked through the ins and out of the cycle sheets and am sure I can really continue the project. It's a lot harder to proof other people's work. I only make changes I know are correct, so the cycle sheets are staying mostly untouched until I work through it all. What I'm really worried about is whether these CP issues are actually affecting the Relentless Strikes modeling. It's possible that since there are usually only 2 possible procs per cycle it isn't skewing the results as much as Seal Fate that has more chance. But it seems something is throwing Seal Fate off or the theoretical to in action DPS should be much closer.

To this point, on my sheets, I have:
1) Fixed the calculations for additive vs. multiplicative for Aggression/Surprise Attacks/Opportunity. [current version is still multiplicative]
2) Made Aggression work with Backstab. [Current version does not give backstab these benefits]
3) Fixed Brutal Earthstorm Diamond for min/max damage on the (un)buffed DPS Sheets, not a calculation issue though. [broken for those values on current sheet]
4) Fixed values for 2 or 3 Ranged weapons that were incorrect [had changed with Expertise changes and Blizz buff-ups but were not updated in the sheet].
5) Added Spinesever. [discovered since last sheet update]

To me, the only real advantage of the DPS sheet over the Gear sheet *IS* the supposed capability to model alternative builds. If those builds aren't working correctly, then I'm not sure this second sheet is really all that useful, especially given the loss of any designated developer.

And if what people are saying is "We don't care about alternative builds such as Seal Fate", then maybe it's time the DPS sheet just fades away. That way all the focus could go the the Gear sheet which currently strictly models the top DPS builds.

 

• Aldriana

I might point out that there's nothing fundamentally stopping the gear sheet from including the last half-dozen talents it's missing; it's just that since they're messy to add and not really that important, I didn't bother. If some reasonably dedicated person (who would not be me, as I don't feel like investing that much time) would like to go through and make the changes necessary for that to happen, I would certainly be supportive of that goal, and would be happy to go through the sheet with them and explain what needs to be changed. So if the lack of multispec support is considered a major problem with the sheet, it can probably be remedied.

In terms of merits of the two sheets: I would say that the other advantage the DPS sheet has is shorter development time. When game mechanics change, it usually takes me a few weeks (if not months) to get caught up with all of them, as a lot of the changes are hard to make; meanwhile, the DPS sheet usually has a new release in a couple days with an estimate of the effects of the changes. Basically, if you want quick and dirty estimates in the short term, the DPS sheet is better; but if you want the richer, more detailed answer, the Gear sheet tends to be better about that. So I'm not sure I'd totally abandon the DPS sheet so long as that's the case, as it does have it's uses even if it's accuracy is questionable at times (which, frankly, I don't know if is still true. I know 6 months ago it was pretty bad, which is why I wrote my own instead; but I've heard it's improved somewhat in the interim, though I haven't verified that myself). If, however, someone wants to take responsibility for getting quick updates to the Gear sheet out when mechanics change, it may be feasible to discontinue maintenance of the DPS sheet.