I went with Gruul because that is about where he is on progression. Teron would be better, but he's not there yet.

I picked the Kara fights for different reasons. I picked Curator because I was curious how a shadowstep rogue would do on a fight with lots of quickly-killed adds and bouncing between targets. Intuitively, I would think they'd perform well because of less time wasted chasing down flares. Aran is a fight rogues usually do very well on. Prince is one they often don't do well on because of nova/enfeebles but that a shadowstep rogue could possibly do better on than a straight combat rogue thanks to cheat death and being able to bamf back to him after a nova.

I didn't think about Maiden because she's such a short fight, but you're right about Attumen probably being best. I don't even think about him as a boss anymore, so he completely slipped my mind.

The best way of synthetical benchmark you can do is stealthing through Diremaul North and beat on a ogre spirit in the kings room. Re-Spec, Rinse and Repeat.

My point is that napkin math doesn't work for Rogue Theorycraft. You can't value finishers based off of time or anything like that, the only concern is total DPS of the full rotation, and the calculation you are doing doesn't have any relevance to anything. That is like saying you can only Sinister Strike every 4 seconds, it isn't true either, and again isn't relevant when comparing specs.

Your math there is flawed first of all because 100% of the time that cycle would cost 200 energy, not 225. Also, analyzing finishers independent of the build and the rest of the cycle doesn't work. The relative cost of S&D in my application is 0, because the real and opportunity cost are 0. If I have 5 Combo Points, I can either SS again for 40, or do S&D which costs 25 energy, but generates 25 energy, thus the cost is 0.

Based off your math the most efficient cycle would be 1s/1r because you get the most S&D uptime per combo point/energy. You also don't take into account the lost DPS from having to S&D 50% more often that could instead be used to use Rupture. Basically you are taking far too simplistic of a view, and of course when you disregard or ignore everything that would make your hypothesis wrong, then it is easy to conclude that you are correct, in this case you are wrong.

Gruul is a horrible fight to test specs on, it is far from the "gold standard", it might be "reasonable acceptable within a certain set of circumstances", not all of the fights I listed are T6, but then again, that is all I really raid any more on my rogue (as I am sure is the case with Aldriana and others).

I found the mascot.

If you'll look up a few you'll notice that Aldriana proved my point in numbers more your style. Point being that SF/Hemo offers higher cps during any cycle for more finishing damage. I mean, I'd be pretty pissed if that weren't the case with Seal Fate. Point being that Seal Fate does more for your rota than just compensate for not having Imp. SnD.

Forgive me if I believe that speccing to improve your AUTO attacks is a lame way to play, I'm just trying to offer some fresh ideas to the people that know the math.

The point I think people have been trying to make for 2 pages or so now, is that if you want to spec something other than the accepted top DPS spec because you think it is more fun (or less "lame") then fine, do it. We're not trying to stop you.

However, don't come into a thread designed around theorycrafting maximum possible rogue dps and try to say that your spec is somehow superior (or equal) in damage to the spec that has been mathematically proven to be the best. "Lameness" doesn't come into our calculations in this thread (or forum for that matter), only maximum damage output.

Again, if you have more fun playing it, and that's all you care about, then by all means. Hell, I stayed Shadowstep for Hyjal last week and while my damage was atrocious, it was the most fun I've had raiding that godawful instance in probably 6 months. But I wouldn't for a second think of doing that on progression content where maximizing dps is a major concern.

Is not a thread designed around theorycrafting the place to do just that? There is no theory crafting in closing your mind around only one spec. Besides, the game changes. I outlined the aspects in which my spec was both superior and inferior to the accepted standard, and asked opinions on those. I asked how this would relate to my overall increase in DPS. I should have expected nothing less than a good flame on a board named such as this.

You walked into a theorycrafting and said you didn't want to talk math:

The thing is, the mathematical models give something meaningful to talk about rather than just "I like my method better" or "I get this feeling that my DPS isn't to far behind". If you want to participate in a theorycrafting thread, be prepared to bring evidence to back your claims, especially if they go against conventional wisdom. If you're not willing to gather, present, and defend evidence to support your position, a theorycrafting forum isn't the right place to be. As others have said, even a WWS to support your claims would be a decent place to start, but you've walked into this thread proposing a build that's been pretty well established as significantly inferior DPS-wise, provided no support to your claim, and then you're surprised when people dismiss you?

No one was particularly flaming you; you're just wrong, is all. You proposed an alternate spec and asked for opinions. I expressed the opinion that it wasn't particularly good. You disagreed and gave reasons. Myself and others than gave more detailed explanations, showing the errors in your estimates, and more fully demonstrating it's inferiority. There's no personal attack here - or at least, that's not my intent. It's just the build you proposed, regardless of it's lameness or lack thereof - is just plain not as good as the other available options. The reason why people spec to boost their white damage is because it works - it's really that simple. White damage is the majority of the damage you do as a rogue, so boosting it just plain works better than any other approach - hence, lame or not, it yields higher DPS. You're welcome to spec however you want, of course, but that's wholly separate from the issue of how much DPS the spec does. And the DPS the spec does, according to all the theorycraft and napkinmath we've done, is going to be lower than the damage that Combat Swords does. So until you have some evidence otherwise (see Shaker's post for information on what would suffice in that respect), I don't really see much point in further discussion. We theorycrafted, we discussed, we concluded it sucked, and it's time to move on.

Well my napkin math has sensitive feelings. If it does manage to produce good numbers when I'm around T4 I'll post some evidence, as it's a fun build.

This was mentioned back when the expertise patch first came out, but I haven't seen it addressed again, so here goes:

When I equip a mace (and am human) in the main hand and a sword in the off hand, I have 20 expertise with the talent WEx. This would seem to indicate, at least on the character sheet, that I get the bonus both from the mace racial and the sword racial. Is this actually the case, or is it just a character sheet bug?

It is believed to just be a character sheet bug but to my knowledge nobody has bothered to verify whether or not it is.

edit: There is no reason to think it would apply to both hands, bonus crit/weapon skill for specific weapon types has only applied to the hand wielding said weapon since release.

I haven't tested it recently, but circumstantially in 2.3.0 I tested it out on Najentus with a Talon/Swiftsteel Bludgeon as a human (With 100 Deaths and 2/2 WeapEx) and did not record a dodge through 3 attempts (/cry). I switched back to my Merciless Quickblade and started seeing dodges again.

I might have just gotten a weird RNG streak, but at least for the moment I believe it stacks, unless someone has some WWS reports they could direct me to?

My guild's rogue chat came up with an interesting question concerning food buffs.


On fights with lots of adds (FLK for example) where most of your time is on mobs <lvl 73 (Boss lvl) would it be more beneficial to use agi food over hit food for combat spec IF your already capped on hit for the adds?

Very likely. Agility and hit rating come out close to each other as far as their respective DPS increases, and I keep a stack of mudfish on me for trash as well as my stack of talbuk. With FLK, though, I'd just go with the hit rating food, unless you were -really- butting up against the hit cap. That's not usually a good idea, anyway, as you don't want to have to regem to make room for an imp faerie fire if one comes your way. Someone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

edit: Looking at your gear, you have some room before the hit cap. I'd say that you'll probably end up getting more milage out of hit rating food on that right than agility food. On trash, though, agility food might not be uncalled for.

Hi there,

yesterday I got myself the ashtongue reputation trinket. After clearing MH I came to think mabye another trinket would be better for the trash waves.

On a boss its relativly easy to maintain the buff by running your cycles, but with the trash i've seen it rarely proccing.

How are your experiences with this trinket? Any suggestions how to use it the most efficient way?

thanks, Daeruth

ps: sry for the bad english

The same should apply to Shadowstep, giving Shadowstep higher dps contribution than spreadsheet calculates on any fight where movement is needed. Also, on fights like archimonde, every melee usually spend x amount of time unable to reach the boss due to fire between them and boss. Shadowstep makes it possible to jump over the fire. Also on the same fight, I believe (although I haven't tested it) that shadowstepping to the boss just as airburst hits would make you able to skip the whole air-burst giving more on-target time.

Bosses is where the dps is important. Using different trinkets for trash and boss is only likely to make you forget switching every now and then, resulting in less dps where it's important.

Shadowstep is a good idea for rogues that tend to react a bit slower. A combat sword rogue not keeping up with the seven golden rules surely is less effective than a shadowstep rogue caring about those.

The DPS difference is about 15% as stated on page one. So for some rogues the increased survivability (stay out of the f***ing fire) and mobility may actually increase their DPS. On very movement intense fights (Al'ar as example) Shadow Step may result in more damage. The DPS is way lower, but the DPS uptime is increased a lot.

Came over this thread when browsing shadowpanther

WoW Forums -> How does Shadowpanther account for gems?

and this guy, willsucks, had some interesting theories. See post 29. While i, ofcourse, dont agree with hes hate for shadowpanther this idea seems pretty cool. Anyone tried it? It basically mean you save energy for 2-3 SS to use when the mob have debuffs, making these SS have more AP and higher crit chance.

quoting:

"Pool energy.
Don't go over 85 post tick if.

65-85, hit SS right as/before you tick up to 85, might want to use a swing timer to monitor your OH strikes if you get as into it as I am - LD50 Abar is a good one.

60-80, you want to hit it 1 sec before you tick to 100 OR combat potency procs, if you're squeemish about getting this close, just do it as you tick to 80.

Monitor your mongoose & perceived weakness (if applicable) buffs.
You want to spam your energy down on a triple, or at least double proc. If you get a single proc, keep saving energy. Wait until that proc gets down to about 4-5 seconds, then spam your energy down to take advantage of it before it runs off.

This allows you to invest more energy in proc events.

It's micromanagement and it requires a lot of attention not to tunnel vision and screw up on something else, some might say an inordinate amount of attention - I obviously don't think so as I play this game as a sort of meditation, but it is a DPS increase.

Make sure you're still monitoring CPs, SND & rupture timers so you can still calculate your rotations. Get your CPs in regardless of procs for your rotation, but be wary of low and high energy zones."

double post

First, I think it is legitimate to think about easily accessible bosses for DPS-testing at T4/5-level because that's were most players are. And there might be different results at T6 and T5 level as we know from the hemo/trispec debate.

If I really want to compare the raw DPS potential of talent builds, I need a boss where all talent points that directly result in dps of both specs do have an effect. Murder and Vile Poisons being part of standard combat swords builds and rupture being the best finisher, I would want to compare builds on a poisonable and rupturable boss where Murder works. This could be Gruul (with the obvious ground slam problems). It could be Magtheridon, too (unless I have to work the cubes).

My favorite at T4/5-level is Morogrim, because watery graves are only minor downtimes, pointing out clearly where comparison will not be 100% exact (just count them...). The tricky thing with Karazhan is that you just can't rely on all bosses being rupturable or poisonable. If I remember correctly, Attumen does not bleed, so he's not perfect. I agree, that Maiden would be ok, but the fight gets really short with epic equipment. Aditionally 10-mens generally have a tendency to lack buffs, and some builds scale better than other. Otherwise I'd suggest Zul'Aman's Nalorrak to be a pretty good testing boss.

In regards to the question which buff food to chose: Check it in your spreadsheet. Even with a lot to go until reaching the hit cap, warp burgers can be better. It just depends on your equip, talent build, buffs. For me (±270 +hit) it's better in any situation by a tiny margin... but I'm a dagger rogue and somehow reached a efficiency-cap for hit (i.e. Hit<1AEP).

I'm combat daggers currently also. I carry both +hit and +agi food. I have noticed that the agility food gives my dps a bigger boost on trash and on fights with more running in and out, (like Gruul) and the +hit food works better for the longer sustained "tank and spank" boss fights. Also, normally I end up in a group with a feral druid and get the +crit buff, but when I don't, I find the agility food is a bigger boost for the +crit. My hit unbuffed is around 290 right now and my crit is around 28%. I'm not great with math, but I think it makes sense that the +agi food will give you more crits and AP and on mobile fights, energy regen isn't as big an issue. Whereas the sustained fights require more hits for potency to procc, allowing for more backstabs which are a larger % of a combat daggers dps. I do not know if combat swords finds that different foods boost their fights depending on style as well.