Probably the main problem is that Agi = 2AP is what used to be true for hunters. If it had been a weird value like Agi = 2.24782 then it would've been clear that it's an equivalence.

AEP is Agility Equivalence Points, which was equating everything to 1 point of agility instead of 1 point of AP. AEP values are generally less than 1, while APe (or whatever) are generally more than 1. AP is generally easier to equate to anyway, as agility has crit involved which is always a bit funny (lots of modifiers because of RED and other stuff).

@Vul/rogue community,

Recently I've been reading everywhere about combat sword dps in comparison to combat dagger dps, and in every comparison drawn swords comes out top hands down. Now when I first saw these posts popping up on the official rogue forums about everyone turning to swords I stuck it through with daggers, as generally I don't beleive anything on those BS forums.

I am not benign to the fact that on paper swords > daggers (combat) and will not flat out deny objective truths. However the amount of dps I still produce easily equals the other two combat rogues in my guild (who are both swords). Comparing our profiles you will see that we are pretty much all equally geared:

The World of Warcraft Armory

The World of Warcraft Armory

The World of Warcraft Armory

(I would appreciate no commenting about improving my current stats - I know 306 +hit is far from optimal with the amount of AP I have, but there are some major upgrades in store so right now there would be no use in re-socketing my gear accordingly as I usually do if I receive upgrades).

So I am just inquiring as to WHY combat daggers is such a no go for most people, even in mid-high end BT? In my experience it's as viable as combat swords.

Thanks in advance for answers,

Manuva.

P.S. Sorry for taking it slightly off topic, but I thought posting a new thread about this is pointless.

Everyone has their rockstar players and their not-as-rockstar players. You'd see a DPS boost by going swords, and you'd still beat those guys. Your example proves that player skill > spec and gear, and that spec/gear only make a difference when they're either drastically different (i.e. T6 vs T4 gear or really crappy spec), or when player skill is very similar.

I can show you WWS of fights where my holdout frost mage beats the snot out of a similarly equipped fire mage - but that doesn't mean frost beats fire. It means he's pushing really hard, and my fire mage isn't.

Edit to add: I by no means am suggesting "You should go swords" - I (personally) think daggers is within acceptable limits of swords as far as raid viability, and you're certainly proving that you deserve your spot - I'm merely addressing the fallacy raised by "Well, I do more damage with X spec" - small sample size. Also, seeing as there's what, 7(?) dagger drops through the raid game, vs the 4 sword drops (Netherspite, Morogrim, Sharhaz, Anetheron..) pre-Illidan, it's always good to have a little spread so that more gear gets used. :P

As far as your fellow rogues, Ciara has great gear that's just gemmed all wrong - Blazefury is also a less optimal offhand (wish that wasn't the case, buut). She's got +7 agi on her boots, that's .. a pre-BC enchant. Solid Star of Elune is never a rogue purchase, except maybe for resist or pvp gear (and even then . . . ). Her spec doesn't have any fundamental errors, though having Imp Evisc, I get a funny feeling she might be using it too much, which would be less than optimal.

Eldorian has good gear, and generally good gem choices (I'd skip the 4crit/6sta for 4agi/6sta gems..) His talent spec is darn similar to Ciara's, so he might be overusing Evisc as well.

Since I'm into the armory critique game, I looked at your gear - it IS somewhat surprising that you're beating those two out, seeing as your gear is mostly T4 level, whereas theirs is mostly T5+. You do have a few flaws in your gemming as well - you need 2 blues to activate your meta gem, yet you do so with a red slot in your hat that has a great set bonus (bad), and then 1 slot in a belt with 2 blue slots and a decent set bonus. Also, the set bonus on the NB breastplate is really nice as well, so you have 3 blue slots that could take blue gems without costing you anything, and you're utilizing one of them... :P Specwise, I think you'd see some improvement (mostly from the accessability of being able to run 1s/3r) in moving 2/2 Murder into 2/3 Ruthlessness. Other than that, looks totally clean.

Probably more than you asked for, but heyyy, why not. :P

Of course combat daggers are VIABLE, that's not the issue in the least. At worst, combat swords are roughly equivalent to combat daggers. At best, they are superior in DPS. Now let's think in addition the utility that one gains from that. You can go deeper into the assassination tree for more DPS gains and you are free from positional restraints.

In Hyjal, you sometimes have to tank the caster trash, sometimes you can't safely get behind a boss, etc.

When you add the utility to the DPS, combat swords comes out as a pretty clear winner in the overall best raid department. However, this does not mean combat daggers is not viable, of course it is, but it's not optimal, or in many cases, friendly to manage.

As to why you stay competitive/beat the other rogues in your guild, there's a number of reasons, all anecdotal. Maybe you run a tighter rotation, pay more attention to CD's, get more procs, pop more potions, etc. There's a number of intangibles that can cause identically geared rogues with identical specs to perform not identically.

Hopefully this answers your question.

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.

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.

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).

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)

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.)

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.

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".