You didn't mention enough information for your post to be useful at all. You had no Battle Shout? Did you have an Enhancement Shaman? How were you buffed, what debuffs did the boss have? If you're going to make a statement, back it up with evidence or good reasoning. Don't expect your definitive statements about Shadowstep supported solely by an anecdote (without even half the details) not to be questioned.

Once again you guys seem to be totally missing the point.

For the shadowstep vs combat sword: I didnt try it once, I doubt that I would have been more lucky just because I specced shadowstep than when I was specced combat swords, why would I have been?

In regards to collecting data, all DMs and WWS showed the difference, what more data is needed?

I said it was only a footnote, it's not supposed to be taken as serious in regards to spreadsheets as previous posts since my observations have been from actual raiding and no theorycrafting (as I've said all the time.). Why are you getting so worked up? I'm stating my observations in order to contradict previous posts regarding shadowstep; If this forum's supposed to help people, I'm here to say that you can do good dps in more than one way. Why be so stuck up on just moving forward along one line when you can explore different possibilities? Here I did so. I wrote what I noticed and then you get insulted by that?

This is not supposed to be a monolog, it's supposed to be a debatorial forum, right? If one guy states that shadowstep would do 12% less dps than another, does that have to be true?

If you want to contradict that the spreadsheet shows this or that: I never mentioned anything about spreadsheet results, I stated what my actual raid dps turned out to show from the speccs.

I thought it'd be quite clear what buffs I'd have if I said I was "raid-buffed without warrior shout", but it's true that that depends on what classes are in my party etc... In my party I (in almost all cases) have enh shaman, warrior, paladin and druid to accompany me. Incidently, in most raids with shadowstep specc I seem to be missing druid in my party though.
Fully raid-buffed includes (dps-increasing buffs); Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, MotW, +20 hit-rating food and Flask or Relentless Assault (+120ap) with Deadly Poison on my offhand (WF totem applying to mainhand). When I'm in party with a druid I'd of course also have their leader of the pack buff.


If you are protective of your results from spreadsheets etc, that's fine. I'm not saying that your spreadsheets would show that what I'm saying is accurate, but this is what happens in the game, which is the whole points of this.
My white DPS increased (going from aprox 600 to above 700 dps) and my rupture increased alot in dmg (which is the only finishing move except for SnD that I use).

This is so far what I've noticed from playing around with different speccs. When I decided how to specc I simply tried some things out, and these are my conclusions.

I'm sorry that I wont spend hour after hour on providing proof for you guys. I'm not writing here to prove anyone wrong, I'm simply adding my point of view.

What I'm wondering is why anyone would be questioning my personal observations at all.
I like playing as the underdog, so I have something to chase. With shadowstep alot of people said I'd have trouble keeping up with the dps, and, sure I had trouble considering that rogues with BF would be able to go double dps for 15 seconds every 2 min. I'll keep trying this specc out, tweaking my strategies a bit, and post back with some WWS for "backup".

My overall conclusion so far has been that shadowstep is fun (kinda important to me...^^) and definitely reliable in raids.

TBC.

P.S. Personal insults? What makes you think I'd even care?

Why post in a theorycrafting forum if you're not providing any or asking for any? Since you're unable/refuse to provide any proof to back your statements up, it's been a bunch of pointless posts. We got no idea on your performance as a combat rogue (for all we know could just suck there), no idea how you actually performed as a shadowstep rogue, no idea on the un/lucky streaks you may have obtained, nor any of the buffs that were up (even your buff list was vague, may or may not have a feral druid). Anyways, seems like you wanted a footnote, so from our point of view it'd be like "One shadowstep rogue supposedly managed to come close to his own combat spec a few times in dps". That's it.

Bam, you seem to be missing the point of these forums. I'm sorry if anything came off as a personal attack from me, but your post was more than a slap in the face to a lot of people here.

You have claimed that your observation, opinion, experience, etc have given you similar results, but you argued so adamently against the use of spreadsheets and theorycrafting to support yourself. You're trying to elevate your opinion to truth by baselessly discrediting all the work that is done here.

If you want to discuss what you think is most fun, you should probably go elsewhere. If you want to continue discussing your spec and performance here, you might want to change your tone, and actually listen to what the mods tell you:

If you have a WWS (or multiple WWS's) showing your Shadowstep DPS in a raid setting, please provide them.

If you could also provide your specific gear sets for each WWS then we could plug it all into the sheet and evaluate our models. The models are the best we've got so far and in practice have closely matched actual DPS for many tests, and few people have tried Shadowstep because the model shows it to be inferior.

If you have a WWS to post to show that that isn't the case, please post it so we can evaluate it. I, for one, would spec Shadowstep in a heartbeat if I thought it was competitive... but I have no evidence to prove that it is. All the best theory and all the data we have points to it being significantly behind. If you want to convince people here that it isn't, we're going to have to see some data.

Ok, that post was something I wrote in about five minutes, just to throw in a different opinion than the ones stated here. I didnt mean to critizise the work that's been put into theorycrafting (I have read these forums alot myself and taken advice from here). I wanted to show what I noticed while raiding with shadowstep because it made me think, at least. I've always thought of shadowstep kinda like it's written here on the forums, but then I decided to try it out for a change and found it to be alot better than I thought... I tested and tried around for quite some time, and noticed that the increase in dps that I finally saw was alot different from what I've heard and read before regarding shadowstep; I think it needs to be looked at again.

I'll be collecting WWS etc for future data, but it will take some time since I can only raid a few times per week.

AFAIK, the stats on shadowstep, as it's written on the first post in this thread, is quite outdated (I remember reading those details a few months back) so one of the reasons for me to post here would be to update the info about shadowstep and the possibilities for raiding.

Left: How would you like me to provide the information on my gear? I assume you could simply check the armory to see what gear I have, but I might be in pvp gear when I log out...
I'll start gathering some WWS stats asap.

Ruqas: I'm not trying to prove anything except that shadowstep works better than it looks from the start of this thread. IMO that would be because of lack of information or just because no one's really put an effort into it lately (seeing as shadowstep's been painted as a bad raiding specc, why would they try it out?). I started trying it out of pure spite (as I said, I like playing as the underdog), and found it to be surprisingly effective. I'll try to show some WWS from raids in the upcoming days, though it may take some time depending on raidschedule.

One thing you should keep in mind is that the % values on this first page are based on that spreadsheet, where all things are equal and infinite. In an average boss fight, you might not see that 12% difference between Shadowstep and Combat simply because of the fallibility of human play, flukes in chance, etc.

The first post of this thread is right on, but you have to read it in the right context. Combat Swords is 2-3% better than Combat Maces. Don't turn that into "Combat Maces sucks".

Because you didn't even get it the first time... I will quote AGAIN...

Please stop posting crap about this build unless it includes the above WWSes. It's not doing anyone any good to talk about it otherwise. At your guild's progression level (early T6), you should easily be able to show me a 1600 DPS+ WWS if it's a competitve build. Do that and we'll start talking. Here's a 0 grave Morogrim kill for me as combat with realistically all the right buffs except CoR and Imp FF, hitting 1555 DPS:

Wow Web Stats


Edit to add: I'm guessing on your gear, since you logged in your PvP gear. But seriously, you're giving us hell for not evaluating something and not taking you seriously WHEN YOU GIVE US NO REASON TO DO SO. Information. Make with more of it. It's not like most of us haven't spec'd Shadowstep for shits and giggles on a vacation week or for a farm night or something. We've seen it do less DPS. I fully admit we may be missing something, but it cannot be figured out by people coming here and saying "I feel like this is better".

To be fair: there has actually quite a bit of examination of Shadowstep lately. The last few pages of the now-locked (and with good reason) Combat vs Hemo thread were primarily about Shadowstep, and less than a week ago in this very thread there was further analysis of it (see posts 893-895). So it's not really accurate to say no one has put any thought into it lately, because we have, and concluded that it's clearly inferior for stationary fights, and while there is some survivability and movement gained from it, most people seem to think that these advantages are insufficient to offset the loss of DPS.

As for collecting data on the matter: the problem is that there's just so much variance on Rogue DPS in practical situations. Even neglecting the issue of actual randomness in your rolls against the mob - lucky crit strings and whatever (which is a considerable source of variance), the fact that every fight is a little different, the positioning is a little different, the debuffs the boss passes out can be a little different, your gear can be a little different... basically, in order to get any truly statistical significant information out of WWS parses, you need to have literally dozens of parses with the same rogue in the same gear doing the same fights with each of the two different specs. Anything you can gather in a couple weeks - or even a couple of months - really just isn't that conclusive, and falls more under the category of "anecdotal evidence" rather than "proof".

So, fundamentally: if you enjoy SS and want to play it? Fine. But without some actual numbers - either statistical analysis, large-scale simulations, or a selection of WWS parses on a scale no one has yet attempted - you really don't have the evidence to say that it's better than asserted in the beginning of the thread. It has been analyzed by many of the top theorycrafters, weighed, and found wanting.

I was going to sit down and discredit everything that you have stated that is obviously wrong, but others have beaten me too it. So let me make it simple for you:

Theorycrafting can tell us how much we will hit for with any combination of gear and mob armor, we know the mechanics of the abilities, and we know how cycles work. Therefore with reasonable certainty we can determine that over an infinite period of time, your AVERAGE DPS, will be around a certain value, with a very high decree of accuracy.

More importantly, we can determine the relative value of stats, aka it is far more important to me to know if 10 Crit, 10 Hit, 5 Agi/Hit, 10 Agi, 5 Agi/7 Stam or 10 AP/7 Stam will give me the largest increase in DPS, based on a given set of gear, abilities and boss armor.

So based off of all of this information and testing, we have concluded that the highest current DPS Spec is Combat Swords, at certain gear levels the TOTAL CONTRIBUTION including Hemo Charges, from a Tri-Spec Hemo Build will come close, and a Shadow Step build will lag behind by about 12%. Considering T6 Gear, a good DPS number is ~2000, that means Shadowstep would do 240 DPS less, from my experience with an extremely talented rogue in my guild, that is accurate.

Here is our Teron kill 2 weeks ago, Levee, Apocc and I are combat, Hafoc is Shadowstep, while Combat Spec'ed Hafoc does essentially the same DPS as me, however here he is 210 DPS behind me (and ~150 DPS behind Levee and Apocc):
Wow Web Stats

Gurtogg - Levee got Fel Rage, Hafoc is 260 DPS behind me
Wow Web Stats

Mother - Levee's gear is the issue here (no 2 piece with SR Gear on), Hafoc is 190 DPS behind on a much lower DPS total)

Hyjal - More of the same
WWS Loading...

Now Hafoc is Shadowstep not because he thinks it is better, but because we are in full farm mode and he is having fun and not respecing from his PvP Spec each week, come Sunwell he will be Combat Swords.


Now you are trying to claim that Shadowstep does as much or more damage. There is no scenario or set of gear where that can occur. You talk about the skill of the player, guess what, I consider myself a skilled player, I will do more damage as Combat, the mechanics dictate it, you on the other hand may do more damage as Shadowstep, the cycles are much easier, you don't have the cooldowns to manage, you don't have random energy generation to deal with, you don't have to adjust on the fly.

Also, Kael is a horrible fight to model DPS on, the movement time alone means that Shadowstep if used properly is very helpful, however the spreadsheets do deal with movement time, which is why Cat's Swiftness has a lower DPS value then Dexterity and Swift Skyfire Diamond is one of the worst Meta's, yes in a movement fight these abilities will increase your DPS on SWS, because that is Total Damage/Total time raid is in combat, WWS does Total Damage/Time YOU are in combat (something like time from first interaction with boss to time of last interaction with boss, and if you don't do anything for more then 5 second in between it stops counting until you do)

Some things to keep in mind:
-Yes, your white damage will be higher, this is due to Serrated Blades, the exact value is variable depending on boss armor. Nothing at the bottom of the combat tree affects white damage (other then Expertise.
-Your yellow damage will go down, you have less energy, do fewer finishers, some of your finishers are dodged etc. Everything at the bottom of the Combat Tree affects Yellow Damage.


One final point:
Teron Parse again-
Me (Combat) -
Melee - 68%
Sinister Strike - 21%
Rupture - 5%
Deadly -3%

Hafoc (SS)
Melee - 57%
Hemo - 31%
Rupture - 5%
Deadly - %
Hafoc is a Assination/Shadowstep Build, which will have less white damage then a combat/Shadowstep build

His average Rupture ticked for 429, and mine for 286, however while he had 48 ticks, I got 68 due to more finishers, due to more energy, result, while his was ticking for 50% more, he only did 1000 more rupture damage then me.



So in conclusion, I have to assume that you are basing this entirely on Kael, thus your analysis is flawed, or you are a bad rogue and a complete idiot, hopefully it is the former, but based on your posting, I am leaning towards the later.

I posted some parses above, Hafoc is Shadowstep 20/0/41, while not ideal, it is going to be close to 0/20/41, with predictable variations:
-Lower White Damage due to no Duel Wield, no Precision
-More energy due to Relentless, and more CPs due to Ruthlessness

The issue is, that he is basing his conclusions off of Kael, which is the wrong fight to due it on, since your time on target could be significantly higher with Shadowstep, not to mention the time out of combat is hugely variable, along with many other factors.

Yes and no. I mean, the theoretical difference between Combat and Shadowstep is, what, 12%? I've posted ~2400 DPS on Teron (with insane buffs + heroisms, but still). 2400 minus 12 percent is still 2100. So, frankly, seeing a Shadowstep build hit 2100 wouldn't really surprise me that much.

In terms of other benchmarking fights: Anetheron, Azgalor (depending on strategy), and Gurtogg (assuming you don't get Fel Raged) are also reasonable sustained fights in T6 content.

Specifically, if you had any significant gear changes in between parses, let us know. Checking your armory doesn't work that well unless you log out in DPS gear; PVP gear vs. DPS gear will make about as much difference in damage as going from Combat to Shadowstep spec.

Also, the trinkets you use can have a huge impact. Did you get any trinket upgrades between parses? Between combat and Shadowstep specs? Etc.

However, since someone else has just posted several WWS's which convincingly are putting Shadowstep 150-250 DPS behind in T6 content, you probably have a tough audience. One thing we can (and will) look at is the damage breakdown in your WWS vs. Hafoc's to see what the differences between going combat and assassination are.

I don't think that's an error in methodology, then - but one of numbers. So I'll edit to say 2200 DPS in full T6 gear.

Well, Combat certainly does scale better, but I think Shadowstep can still hit 2k. For purposes of comparison: with a reasonable approximation of the buffs I had for the Teron kill in question, the Rogue Gear sheet estimates 2352 DPS against Teron. Swapping my spec to 0/20/40 (as the Rogue Gear sheet doesn't currently support Shadowstep) with the same gear and buffs estimates 2096 DPS. Shadowstep would add an additional, oh, 15 DPS or so, so with a lucky run I could easily see 2150 or even 2200 happening. It would require truly excessive levels of buff, to be sure; but I'm not prepared to say it's impossible.

What buffs/consumables are you using to hit 2400 DPS? I have personally capped out around 2100, however the other rogues in my guild haven't taken the initiative to level leatherworking for more DPS.

Oh, and yeah, one caveat to that WWS challenge is single-heroism. Multiple heroisms on a short fight will COMPLETELY skew numbers.

Okay, sure. If you disallow multi-heroism, we're probably back down to 2k or so being high-end for Shadowstep; see below for details.

The gear in question is what I'm currently wearing on armor, except WSC swapped out for Ashtongue Talisman, and Arcanite Steam-Pistol instead of Twisted Blades.

Disable Murder on the sheet, as Teron is not Murderable. Set boss armor to 6200, as Teron is a low-armor boss. Now, enable the following buffs:

Improved Gift of the Wild
Imp Battle Shout
Solarian's Sapphire
Imp Blessing of Might
Blessing of Kings
Leader of the Pack
Imp Hunter's Mark
Expose Weakness
Flask of Relentless Assault
Spicy Hot Talbuk
Grace of Air (yes, I had a shaman twisting it for the attempt in question)
Strength of Earth
Curse of Recklessness
Sunder Armor x5
Faerie Fire
Mangle
Use Haste Pots Every Cooldown
Drums of War
Heroism/Bloodlust
Windfury MH
Deadly Poison OH

So, I show that as 2114 DPS. But here's the key thing. Heroisms in the sheet are per 10 minutes; in order to get an accurate estimate of Heroism in a 3-minute fight, we should triple the number of Heroisms listed. Plus, on the fight in question, I got 3 Heroisms. Hence, to accurately model the amount of heroism I had for the attempt, set Number of Heroisms to 9. This brings total DPS to 2352.

Note that in reality, I also had a Scroll of Agility V on, and the 5th member of my group was a Ret Pally, which probably adds another 50 DPS or so, which gets us up to the 2400 range - which is what I observed.

Of course, by Shaker's point, we shouldn't be counting on 3 heroisms; rather, we can only use 1. However, for a 3 minute fight, that's still the equivalent of 3 per 10 minutes, so we set Number of Heroisms to 3. This drops DPS to 2173. If we then respec to 0/20/40, we're still reporting 1937 DPS. And with the aforementioned agility scroll and ret pally - or having an MS warrior in the raid, or whatever... 2k just doesn't look that unreasonable to me.

Within the flames, I want to point out some quick facts about the dps sheets concerning the shadowstep - combat-sword builds discussion.

The sheets tend to assume the best case for combat swords builds while assuming the worst case for the shadowstep builds in the following occasions.

1st assumption is, averaged out energy regeneration. This is a major assumption. With this assumption, the spreadsheet calculated DPS of the combat sword build tend to get higher than the real situation. The reason for that is, energy regeneration can spike and does not always allow the best cycle to be applied for a combat-swords build. On the other hand, shadowstep builds are much less subject to this and their real DPS should be more closer to the spreadsheet calculations.

2nd assumption is, non-stop white dps. While this assumption holds true for some boss-fights, clearly it does not hold true for the others. As (assasination) shadowstep builds rely heavily on yellow damage (mainly the hemorrhage damage), any interruption in the white DPS (i.e. running around, changing targets) will shift the scales to the (assasination) shadowstep builds due to the energy regeneration in the absence of white DPS.

Now, with regards to the (raid) utility, which build wins out? This should be the question we must ask. Answers can vary, and the question change its form depending on the raid progress.

1st case - progress run:

Are there any DPS checks that involve non-stop, single target DPS? Will there be a shadowstep rogue failing while a combat-sword rogue is passing this check?

Are there any strategy checks which involve escaping from damage in time? Will there be a combat-sword rogue failing while a shadowstep rogue is cheating death during these checks?

Which of the above are more important on the progress runs?

2nd case - farm run:

Assuming that both shadowstep rogue and combat-specced rogue already passed the DPS checks, what should be the concern of the raid?

I believe I have made my point by asking these questions.

Your statement is like saying 2+2=5 without showing how you got to that value.