Keyne

Purely for the sake of arguement....

The implied proof here is that a player that has 'skill' yields better results than a player that has no/less 'skill'. The same is true for 'good' gear vs 'bad' gear. There is no way to meaningfully quantify whether 'skill' (and its implications) are > or < 'gear'. Spec and gear ALWAYS make a difference, as each marginal change in how talent points are spent, or how gear is itemized has a non-zero change on a relevant variable in the game, whether a stat on the stat sheet, DPS, health, etc. (which I guess are all stats on the stat sheet :P). Only reason one might say that these two things 'don't matter' is that they are not quantifiable until 'skill' can be controlled out of the equation...

Granted this post is more relevent to a thread about raid-leading, but its something good for everyone to be aware of when thinking (incorrectly) that you can compare your dps against anyone else's in the raid (with very specific exceptions).

 

• Vulajin

Definitely true. I think the important thing to glean, though, is that skill is definitely a consideration. I've heard many a rogue quip that playing a rogue takes zero skill, hell, I've certainly joked about it from time to time. However, we regularly see instances where a rogue with a particular level of gear, gemmed and specced properly, defies logic by putting out DPS that rogues half his level could achieve.

There are a lot of intangibles at play. Sometimes, it has to do with how you survive during fights. Sometimes, it has to do with how attentively you keep on target. Sometimes, it has to do with simply being more awake and alert during a raid than someone else. Never let yourself believe for a second, though, that maximizing your DPS takes zero skill. There's a wide gulf between your max theoretical DPS output and what you can do if you just go on autopilot during raids.

...sorry, a lot of that rant is horribly off-topic, but it's just something I've talked about with my guild lately.

 

xumie

Has anyone looked into +5% to crit damage via mace spec as being superior to +5% extra attack via sword spec in 2.3? I sit around 40% crit raid buffed, and I'm sure there's some point in which one spec becomes superior to the other, depending on your ap/crit.

 

• Vulajin

Post #30 in this very thread.

(edit) Never mind, I see, you're looking for information on how it may scale with gear. Let me see if I can't cook up some numbers on that.

(edit 2) Taking the same spreadsheet I used to do the comparison from post #30, I first started with [Talon of Azshara] and [Merciless Gladiator's Quickblade]. Theoretical DPS: 1407.68.

Arbitrarily, I add 1000 AP. DPS increases by 290.57.
Now I remove that AP and instead arbitrarily add 600 crit rating. DPS increases by 285.38.

Now I switch weapons to [Dragonstrike] and [Merciless Gladiator's Bonecracker]. Theoretical DPS: 1372.82.

Arbitrarily, I add 1000 AP. DPS increases by 285.09.
Now I remove that AP and instead arbitrarily add 600 crit rating. DPS increases by 297.77.

Obviously, the implication is that maces scale better with crit rating after the change, but swords continue to scale better with AP. Additionally, it would clearly take ungodly amounts of crit rating for the mace bonus to scale past the inherent DPS deficit it suffers at this gear level (and itemization doesn't really favor maces past this gear level, either, whereas swords have one more tier to go).

 

xumie

Totally skimmed right past that. Thanks.

(edit) It answered the question roughly. I was just thinking that when you got 2400ish+ ap and 40%ish+ crit, that the 5% extra crit damage would outweigh the MH sword proc.

 

Autolycus

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but I noticed under the gear enchants section in your post you mentioned dexterity and cat's swiftness however you did not say anything about the Surefooted enchant. Based on your AP conversion, dexterity (12 agility = 24 AP), and cat's swiftness (9 agility = 18 AP). Since you're saying 1 hit rating = 2.3 AP, then shouldn't surefooted be right up there as well? (10 hit rating = 23 AP)

 

xumie

Roughly, going by just white damage, you get an extra sword attack proc every 20 swings. Brief check of the Illidan WWS last night shows my MH hitting for an average (noncrit)of 523, with a 34% average crit, so the average sword proc would hit for 700?

So for mace spec, in that 20 swings, the extra crit damage would have to add up to more than 700 damage, or 35 damage a swing. Average MH crit was ~1192, which would occur 6.8 times in those 20 swings. +5% damage of 1192 is 59.6 damage * 6.8 occurances in 20 swings = 405 damage, and that's just counting MH swings.

Seems like sword spec would still be superior, unless I suck at math, which is very likely.

(edit - I'm using s2 MH and s2 OH, which have a very confined damage range, so it's likely that the wider range on maces ie syphon, s2 mace, etc would make up for some of the lost damage.)

 

• Vulajin

That raises an interesting question...for raiding purposes, does anyone actually use Surefooted? It's definitely a good DPS enchant, but the allure of Cat's Swiftness is actually the speed boost, which you can't replicate with any combination of stats. I vaguely recall a derivation in the first post of the enhancement shaman thread showing that Cat's Swiftness easily surpasses any other enchant if you spend a certain percentage of a fight having to move between targets. It was a small percentage.

If anyone can make a serious case that Surefooted is useful and is used in raids, then I will be sure to add a note saying so. Otherwise, perhaps I will instead add a summary of my above paragraph explaining why Cat's Swiftness is preferred over the other two.

 

◊ Shaker

Cat's swiftness is 6 agility + runspeed, not 9. (So 12 AEP +whatever you value runspeed at, which I value relatively high).

Surefooted is a decent enchant if you need the hit rating, but given that Dexterity is easier to get, takes 1 less primal nether (i.e. 0), and is better (even if by only 1 AEP) then I'd argue for going Dexterity if you're considering only damage output. I have Cat's Swiftness on my boots, and I doubt I'm going back - there's just far too many fights where movement is a key concept. I think Aldriana had a post on it somewhere in the gear thread that said she used two pairs of boots, one with swiftness, the other without - and swapped them based on the fight.... and that she used the swiftness boots far more and was putting it on her next upgrade... that's pretty much my exact sentiment.

 

◊ Shaker

I believe, and I think the post I responded to supports, that a T4 geared character with a reasonably higher level of skill will equally perform, if not outperform, a T5/T6 geared character. While it's true you can't exactly quantify it, I still will assert (also as a raid leader) that skill is the largest variable in raid performance. This is assuming that we're talking about "viable" specs and "raid gear", I'm not saying a 0/0/0 kid in greens can outdps a sluggish T6 geared rogue, but I DO think that skill plays a much larger factor than "daggers vs swords", or "T4 vs T5 gear".

 

Autolycus

Well I'm clearly not in the most amazing raiding guild around. Currently we are only 3 bosses into SSC and 2 in TK, but I've always based my rogue's gearing around what information i can find from the more experienced, and the socket/enchant choices of some of the best guilds in the world.

As long as I've been watching rogues in those guilds armory pages get updated, they've always seemed to prefer surefooted to any other enchant.

Just to reference you to where I'm looking:

The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm not going to go specifically into the math on run speed, but if you just think logically about it and compare the amount of time you spend moving to your target, to the amount of time you spend dpsing, you can then calculate exactly (theoretically of course) how much dps you gain from the movement speed. Take the total amount of time spent running x.08% to find out how much time that movement speed enchant saves you, and then multiply that by your personal DPS achieved that fight will give you how much more damage you could have done. In most fights it seems incredibly miniscule to me. Although in specific fights like Al'ar the number might be a lot higher, personally I just don't see an incredibly significant value in the runspeed to justify taking the enchant.

edit: also, sorry my mistake about the 6 agility on the enchant

 

vokzhen

For Cat's Swiftness, read the opening post in the Enhance Shammy Theorycraft thread. They have there that a 6 minute fight with more than 4.68 second of movement, Cat's Swiftness offers more damage. Afaik, that's pretty much every single fight.

 

◊ Shaker

Might be a small number, but you're comparing it to the opportunity cost of 6 agility (going from Dex (12agi) to Cat's (6agi + runspeed). I'm pretty sure that in any fight involving movement (as noted above), you can make up 6 agi's worth of damage by getting just a few more autoattacks off.

 

Oscarvil

Here's the latest post in the shaman thread on cat's swiftness.

http://elitistjerks.com/470765-post2228.html

 

• Aldriana

Rough numbers on run speed:

With my current gear, according to the rogue gear sheet, I do 1486.91 DPS. The loss of 6 agility reduces this to 1482.92.

Lets assume that without Cat's Swiftness, I spend X seconds out of every minute moving; thus, my damage per minute is (60-X)*1486.91. With Cat's Swiftness, it would instead be (60-x/1.08)*1482.92. Equating these and solving for X, we find that the break-even point is at X = 2.1. So, by this estimate, if you're spending more than 2.1 seconds out of every minute moving, Cat's Swiftness is better.

In practice, this isn't *quite* a fair estimate, since movement time generally doesn't diminish your yellow DPS, only your white DPS; hence, this calculation should be redone considering only white damage loss. But this is probably a reasonable estimate to start from.

So, any fight in which you spend more than 2.1 seconds out of every minute moving favors Cat's Swiftness. So, for instance, in T5 instances, this would be everything except Tidewalker and, depending on your guild's strategy, Void Reaver; for these instances, Cat's Swiftness is thus fairly clearly superior. However, the situation is a bit less clear in the T6 instances; I would argue that for Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Naj'entus, Teron, Gurtogg, and Reliquary there is insufficient running to warrant using Cat's Speed, and there are a few others where it is questionable (Rage Winterchill and Anetheron, for instance) where it doesn't make sense to use Cat's Swiftness from a DPS perspective but one could argue that there's reason to do so from a survival perspective, given that there is AoE to run out of. Also note that one one of the remaining fights (Shahraz) you will not be wearing your regular boots anyway, so Cat's Swiftness is only the superior choice for your day-to-day boots on 5 out of 13 fights.

My current solution to this problem is to maintain 2 sets of boots, one with Cat's Swiftness on for movement fights, and one with 12 agi on them for more sustained fights. This does require one to have access to two reasonably comparable sets of boots, of course, but I do believe it's the right decision in general.

Regarding Surefooted: the snare break is only useful from a PvE perspective on Vashj, and, in practice, using Vanish/Cloak/Imp Sprint is usually sufficient to stay clear on her. As such, the only motivation for Surefooted (from a purely PvE standpoint) would be if 10 hit is superior DPS to 12 agi, which is not true for the majority of raid-buffed PvE rogues.

In brief: 12 agi and Cat's Swiftness are competitive enchants, with each being superior on some fights. Surefooted is generally inferior from a PvE perspective.

 

• Vulajin

Linked from the enchants section to your post, Ald. We can always count on you for an insightful post when one is needed.

I'm thinking of adding another section, under the general heading of "Mechanics." I don't want to exclude information, but I also don't want to cram the post so full of crap that no one reads it. Thus, I'm thinking of omitting things like the formulas provided by sp00n on the first page, and rather focusing on things such as cooldown management (with a link to a thread where I recall seeing the effects of stacking BF/AR/etc. versus not stacking them analyzed), Evis vs. Envenom, Shiv vs. Sinister Strike. Any thoughts?

 

Bshan

Just to chipping in on combat mutilate builds:

OH weapon speed: sorta a toss up as mentioned. However, with a fast OH weapon and the poison talents, using Instant Poison OH becomes a better option.

Fleet Footed: marginal for PvE right now, but it'll be very good in 2.3.

Mutilate cycle: although it was shown in the talent tree, I think special emphasis needs to be put on Ruthlessness. That extra combo point makes it viable to use a finisher after a single Mutilate, and that's what you want to be doing. That improves your chance at Relentless Strikes working: your only energy since you don't have Combat Potency.

If you're doing 2 Mutilates before a finisher (ex: Ruth didn't proc & Mutilate didn't crit), then you're suddenly in the hole energy-wise, and hurting your dps.


Edit:

Dual Deadly is good in two cases. One - if the mob has high enough armor that Eviscerates are wasteful. Two - if the mob can strip poisons. Good example here is Tidalvess on the Fathom Lord fight. He can drop Greater Poison Cleansing totems which can mess up your Deadly stacks, and worst case, cause you to briefly lose the Mutilate bonus damage. Deadly on both weapons keeps it stacked, even though Envenom is not so hot on him.

You'll always be doing at least some Evisc / Envenom because you generate combo points faster than SnD and Rupture wear off.

 

Autolycus

Alright well reguardless, i just thought that if dexterity was worth mentioning for boot enchant, surefooted would be as well. currently i'm sitting at 276 hit rating, so i personally don't think i can give up that 10 hit rating.

I don't have to agree with everything posted on these forums right?

 

• Vulajin

On the contrary, I wish more people would contradict me and get some discussion going so that this thread stays up and so that I get ideas for ways to improve it.

 

• Aldriana

No, you're not obligated to agree with everything on these forums, but, allow me to ask you:

In what sense can you "not afford to give up that 10 hit rating"? If you will demonstrably do more damage with 12 agi than with 10 hit on your boots, why does it matter what the actual hit rating number is?

I bring this up purely because it's a common mistake I see people make. A lot of people are bought into the idea of magic numbers - "I must have 275 hit rating or I'm gimping myself", and the like. The thing is: there is nothing fundamentally special about being at or near the hit cap. Hit is a powerful stat, so items that have a lot of it tend to be good, so if you select "good" equipment you will tend to have a lot of hit; however, it is important to remember that what makes the items good is not that they have a lot of hit, but that they generate good DPS output. Hit is just a number; damage is what matters in the end. And regardless of your current stats, there always exist tradeoffs. Even if the Surefooted enchant was the *only* you hit you had, there would exist some amount of AP, Crit, and other stats that would be worth trading it for. If there was a +1000 AP enchant, would you still feel those 10 points of hit were necessary?

Now, this is an extreme example, of course, but it is true that most rogues - and in particular almost all rogues who are optimizing in terms of 25-man raids - will benefit more from 12 agi than 10 hit, and, as such, I would encourage them to not get too fixated on exactly what their hit number is right now and make the superior DPS choice.

I'm not trying to pick on you, and I'm sorry if it comes across that way. This is just one of my pet peaves .

 

Autolycus

I don't know. I mean, I understand exactly what your saying in your example, however, I just have it drilled into my brain that every single swing I miss is a huge potential amount of increased damage dealt. I know it's argued all the time that there is no magic hit number, but I still put more value on closing the +hit rating cap with my gear, and THEN focusing on the other stats.

This may not be the most ideal way to gear yourself theoretically, but it's what I do, and I absolutely dominate the dps boards in our raids, so I must be doing something right.

I see rogues around all the time with gear that looks almost identical to my own except the cram in 8 agility gems, wicked noble topaz etc etc, and they sit around 225 hit rating. They have much more attack power and much more crit than myself, but I believe I would destroy their dps.

I set this magic *never go below this number* for myself at 252 (+16 % hit since we regularly do raid with a moonkin) although i try to shoot higher since imp FF isn't always going to be there for me. (actually clearing up to alar right now with no moonkin)

As soon as i get my tunic of assassination upgraded to bloodsail brigand's vest (hopefully this week!), i'll switch to cat's swiftness k?

 

◊ Shaker

Well, Ald, there is ONE magic number for hit rating - I mean, if you're missing Sinister Strikes... I mean, that's not a huge concern for combat rogues - though, I suppose at REALLY low gear levels it might be once we're switched to Expertise .. but that would be ~60 hit rating. However, for a Mutilate spec that doesn't pick up precision, that "magic hit number" is going to be a little more important, and it is at 142. (ceil(9 x 15.769))

Edit to add: I'm not trying to be a devil's advocate - for any raiding situation, which Ald's normal stuff is applied to, she is 100% correct. I think this post caters to a slightly broader crowd, including people who might be raiding in pvp specs. It's the only reason I posted that.. I swear.

 

• Aldriana

So, a couple of points here:

Yes, it's true, every attack that doesn't hit is DPS loss. But, by the same token, every hit that doesn't crit is damage lost as well. As is every attack that is made with the opponent being at full mitigation due to lack of armor pen. As is every attack that doesn't get made due to not stacking haste rating.

I mean, I see where you're coming from, and it's a totally valid way to look at things... but what's important to remember is that *all* stats increase your DPS, so the relevant question is not *if* you're gaining DPS from stacking that stat, but *how much* DPS you're gaining, and, in turn, *how much* DPS you're losing by not stacking the other available stats.

As a general rule of thumb you want to be socketing with either agi or hit. There are exceptions, to be sure; but it's a good starting point. So socketing with Delicate is perfectly valid; socketing with Wicked, less so.

So, to be perfectly technical: 60 hit (or whatever it is) is not a "you must not drop below this line", but a "below this line hit is worth more than it was before, so it takes *even more* other assorted stats in order to make it worth it".

And to be even more perfectly technical: the amount of difference it makes is actually surprisingly small. Hit below the yellow hit cap is only worth about 10-15% more than hit above the yellow hit cap.

Of course, while we're on the topic: it's pretty much impossible to wind up with that little hit without actively trying to, so the distinction is not necessarily relevant.

 

Lunaviel

I'm afraid you just had to hit one of my pet peeves; drawing conclusions based on your performance compared to other rogues in your raids.

As was repeated earlier in this thread, even subtle differences in play style will make a much larger difference than gemming delicate/wicked over rigid/glinting, etc.

You may dominate the meters now, but that doesn't mean your +hit tunnel vision is the cause. While their lack of focus on +hit likely contributes to the difference, I would wager that you could further increase the gap by going for dps instead of hit.

 

sp00n

I did some calculations here: [Rogue] Haste rating info - skills

This was before the haste nerf, but the base thesis is still valid.