I would say that there is no need to say "less accurate". People will find out on their own the accuracy of the sheets, just as in using the Gear sheet they'll see slightly less flexibility and fewer updates.
I was under the impression this thread was about general knowledge for the rogue community, not a way to promote one sheet over the other. I look at both, mainly rely on Aldriana's sheet, but in the end, it's not for this thread to decide I don't think, its' for the person to evalute their needs and how each sheet fills those and go from there. Just my two cents.
I would say that there is no need to say "less accurate". People will find out on their own the accuracy of the sheets, just as in using the Gear sheet they'll see slightly less flexibility and fewer updates.
I was under the impression this thread was about general knowledge for the rogue community, not a way to promote one sheet over the other. I look at both, mainly rely on Aldriana's sheet, but in the end, it's not for this thread to decide I don't think, its' for the person to evalute their needs and how each sheet fills those and go from there. Just my two cents.
Just to play the devil's advocate, I would say that it IS this thread's job to decide. I would say that it is just as useful, if not more useful, to rule OUT bad info as it is to rule IN good info. So if one spreadsheet is more accurate than others then there should be a link to that spreadsheet and only that spreadsheet. If there is more than one, than uninformed readers won't know which to use and could leave with poor assumptions. Given the amount of posts in the last few pages along the lines of "what do you guys think of shard of contempt? I couldn't be bothered searching for it or reading the last page of posts." It's pretty clear that a lot of people coming to this thread are pretty clueless. If people are actually interested enough to use more than one spreadsheet I would imagine that many of those people are the ones that would also manage to find the DPS spreadsheet on there own.
Honestly, I'd say the largest difference between the two sheets these days in terms of reasons why one should pick one over the other is simply one spreadsheet program compatability. My sense is that the DPS sheet only works fully in Excel; much of it's functionality still works in OO, of course, but there's a few things that don't. Meanwhile, the Gear sheet has been designed from day 1 with the idea in mind that it should work with both OO and Excel (a fact which has nothing to do with the fact that I don't have Excel at home, I assure you).
I do think the Gear Sheet is somewhat more accurate (though I admit to a certain level of bias on the matter), but the DPS sheet has definitely improved in that department over time; at this point, with the possible exception of a few proc effects, they're probably both good enough for the questions most people are likely to have.
The DPS sheet does support some additional talents and thus specs, which means it's the one-stop-shop for Mutilate Builds. One could also argue that it's the only one that supports Shadowstep builds, but, frankly, Shadowstep is such an irrelevant DPS talent I don't see that that actually much matters (which is why it's not in the Gear sheet).
The DPS sheet does update more regularly, which is both good and bad. It's good in that new changes find their way in faster (though the Gear Sheet does get most of that in a timely fashion itself; it's just the more complicated proc effects that take a bit longer). However, it also means that there tend to be tweaks and balance updates and whatever that find their way in, meaning that if you enter the same gear in twice two weeks apart, you may get different answers, which I can see being frustrating.
I guess I'm a bit surprised to see "ease of use" marked in favor of the DPS sheet; I suppose Armory Import helps in that department, but personally I've always found the DPS sheet fairly confusing, and have made an effort to keep the Gear sheet as simple as possible. Though I suppose things like the ability to save + reimport your gear would save time in managing the many updates. Though since the the Gear sheet updates so rarely, I guess I've never felt that needing to spend 5 minutes once a month to enter your gear was a major issue. But fundamentally: if there are usability improvements (that don't require macros) you'd like to see in the Gear sheet, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
I guess my point in all this is: they're both good sheets, and in a lot of ways whichever one people pick will be fine. I guess it really comes down to whether the spreadsheet listings in the first post are supposed to be more "References" or "Additional Information". If it's intended purely as a bibliography of the first post, it's probably the way it is; but I think it's probably more productive to list it as an "Additional Information" section, meaning that, flattered though I am to have only the Gear sheet listed, it would probably make more sense to include both... though it might be worth including a brief (very brief) discussion of the pros and cons of each.
I'm guessing that for every person who prefers the gear sheet, there's one who prefers the dps sheet. I'm personally in the later camp (not a reflection of the quality of ald's work) and think not listing the dps sheet is doing a great diservice to both the community and to the work dmm has recently put in to it. My 2c as well.
I've heard rumors of them fixing daggers in general for WotLK, but does anyone have any idea how they could do this while keeping them balanced? Source
I was thinking about this recently, and I was thinking along the lines of some sort of passive armor penetration. Without doing any sort of math in my head, maybe 75% armor ignore on special attacks? Or just X amount of armor ignore on all attacks. Makes sense too, daggers piercing through armor and all.
Just to address a few things...
DPS Spreadsheet and Open Office compatibility -
Currently the spreadsheet should be just as accurate in Open Office as in Excel. Granted, a lot of the features that make things easier like the Armory import or saving Talent sets and the like do not work in Open Office, but the main spreadsheet is completely compatible and will continue to be. Of course without the Macros, entering the data may not be as straightforward and compact as the Gear spreadsheet. I can certainly see the Gear spreadsheet as being more user-friendly if you are using Open Office and are using a supported Talent build.
The only current deficiency is in the Open Office AEP category as that module has become quite outdated and I was forced to disable it as it was giving erratic results. This does not affect the accuracy of the spreadsheet relative to Excel versions, but is an inconvenience to those who wish to use player specific AEP values.
Accuracy -
Well, sometimes the DPS spreadsheet is behind, sometimes ahead. The DPS spreadsheet had the correct Mace crit formula long before the Gear spreadsheet. The Gear spreadsheet has had much more advanced proc modeling long ahead of the DPS spreadsheet (some proc effects still are behind). As I get to these, I hope to make these effects at least, if not more accurate, than those in the Gear spreadsheet. But its fair to admit some are still behind the Gear spreadsheet. Both sheets have run across their share of bugs, probably more so for the DPS spreadsheet. As anyone who has ever programmed would know, the more updates one makes, the more chances something gets screwed up. The extra variety of builds covered (including Mutilate and Seal Fate variants) doesn't help, as it creates more situations where a bug hides and only shows up in certain builds.
Mutilate has been all over the place lately. There have been a few bugs lately that have made it appear better relative to Combat builds. One a few versions back which devalued Sword Spec for one version, another which was fixed yesterday that overstated Mutilate a bit. Given the difference in how Mutilate operates, it makes it very difficult to fairly compare the two builds anyway. When more talents change, when your instant attack is different, when you use a completely different type of cycle, it's rather unlikely that any spreadsheet is going to be able to compare the DPS of those two builds with perfect accuracy.
At least the DPS spreadsheet has gotten past the days where Seal Fate was giving 100's of DPS and the endless posts about how X Seal fate build shows to be superior than Combat Swords when everyone knew that there was an undiscovered bug somewhere.
It doesn't help that with the expansion coming up probably sometime this year, that I'm doing a lot of reorganization of things to make the conversion go more smoothly. Hopefully, there will be an, at least, semi-functioning spreadsheet as the expansion hits. And of course, it's in the process of a cycle revamp which should give more usable and slightly more accurate results. Of course with any major changes come more chances of undiscovered bugs.
I prefer the DPS sheet at the moment as my gear is still pretty sub-par so the wider range of items and ease of adding gear that is not on the sheet is nice to have, especially when deciding what upgrades to focus on acquiring first. As my gear gets better I'll likely use the Gear spreadsheet more often.
That being said, I agree with Aldriana that it's probably best to put them both in the first post with a brief comparison so people know what to expect from each of them.
I removed the link to the DPS Spreadsheet thread because its recent history includes a number of results that are, at best, questionable. I greatly respect Dontmindme's efforts (as well as Left's and Todemax's on the upcoming Mutilate modeling), but I think the DPS Spreadsheet is, at this moment, more of a hindrance than a help to DPS-minded rogues.
To be fair, the link probably should have been removed a good deal sooner than it was. The sheet has come a fairly long way since DMM took over, and several of the bugs that motivated the sheet's removal from the list have actually been fixed.
As it is, most of the information in the post is based on conclusions drawn either from the Gear Spreadsheet or from my personal spreadsheet (both of which typically corroborate one another's results).
Without getting into the whole "weaving a third finisher into Mutilate cycles" point (as I have very little experience in the matter, though I understand that there are reasonable alternatives that some people prefer), fundamentally this really just comes down to the eternal question of Envenom vs Eviscerate. And conventional wisdom on this is that in most cases, the loss of DP damage is such that Eviscerate proves better. Now, I know you assert that it stacks up again pretty quickly, but lets look at this a minute:
1) If your attacks are happening every 1.08 seconds, and you have a 34% chance to proc, that's one stack every 3.18 seconds assuming everything hits. In practice, not everything hits; I'd say 90% hit rate is more likely, which takes us to one application every 3.5 seconds.
2) At one stack every 3.5 seconds, that's 17.5 seconds to get the full stack back up, during which you lose, on average, something like 945 poison damage. An Envenom may be bigger than an Eviscerate, but is it 900 damage bigger on average?
Also, of course, there's the fact that "it's worth using one every 3 cycles for Mutilate rogues" is not generally what is meant by "PvE viability".
4/5 vile poisons+misery+stormstrike+ it ignores armor, yes it hits WAY harder than evisc, it hit an average of 1345 only using 4 point envenoms, im getting this looking at Recount preservation on morogrim tidewalker. and on 90% hit rate, im hit capped. i experienced dodges 5.5% of my hits that fight. DP ticks every 3 seconds, the only question here is losing that dp dps worth using the envenom. evisc averaged 753 on morogrim, 0/3 imp evisc and full aggression.
The only current deficiency is in the Open Office AEP category as that module has become quite outdated and I was forced to disable it as it was giving erratic results. This does not affect the accuracy of the spreadsheet relative to Excel versions, but is an inconvenience to those who wish to use player specific AEP values.
<snip>
Accuracy -
Well, sometimes the DPS spreadsheet is behind, sometimes ahead. The DPS spreadsheet had the correct Mace crit formula long before the Gear spreadsheet. The Gear spreadsheet has had much more advanced proc modeling long ahead of the DPS spreadsheet (some proc effects still are behind). As I get to these, I hope to make these effects at least, if not more accurate, than those in the Gear spreadsheet. But its fair to admit some are still behind the Gear spreadsheet. Both sheets have run across their share of bugs, probably more so for the DPS spreadsheet. As anyone who has ever programmed would know, the more updates one makes, the more chances something gets screwed up. The extra variety of builds covered (including Mutilate and Seal Fate variants) doesn't help, as it creates more situations where a bug hides and only shows up in certain builds.
To be clear: I'm not trying to disparage the work anyone has put into the DPS Sheet. I do think it's a worthwhile resource, and I do appreciate the time and effort people have put into it. I just wanted to touch on these points briefly.
On OpenOffice: I would argue that if AEP doesn't work, that's a significant hindrance to the sheet. The vast majority of questions in this thread that get referred to the spreadsheet are of the form "which is better, X or Y" - and while plugging in all relevant combinations of gear and checking DPS total certainly does work, I am of the opinion that AEP are a valuable tool. It was, in fact, the breaking of the AEP calculations that I was specifically referring to. It's not crippling... but it is a loss of important and relevant functionality.
On accuracy: as I said, I do think the DPS Sheet has improved by leaps and bounds in more recent times, and perhaps in particular under DMM's stewardship. My point is, neglecting bugs for the moment (as both sheets have had their share) and looking at only the thoroughness and accuracy of the modeling, the Gear Sheet has been ahead more or less as long as it has existed. There are any number of interactions and dependencies between stats that were discovered in the Gear sheet and only later added to the DPS sheet. It might be easy to forget now, but: a year ago, the interaction between hit and proc uptime was totally unknown; it wasn't modeled in the DPS sheet - at all - so no one paid any attention to it. It wasn't until the very first version of the Gear sheet was created and started ranking hit a good .5 EP above it's previous values that anyone thought about it. Now, in time, the DPS sheet has made an effort to model these and the answers are again converging... but I think it's worth noting that the DPS sheet is only in the past 3 months catching up to where the Gear sheet was last summer on these effects.
Now, there are certainly other effects in play beyond procs, and the DPS sheet does - and for the most part, always has - done an admirable job of modeling them. But fundamentally, it's only these effects that make modeling Rogue DPS hard, so if you're not going to get them right, that strikes me as reasonable thing to count against the accuracy of a sheet.
It is, of course, also fair to note that in some areas of modeling - such as Mutilate - the DPS Sheet is miles ahead in it's own right, which is a fair critique, to be sure. But then, the Gear sheet never was intended to address these things, either; it's stated goal was to give the most accurate possible answer in the most usable possible form for the 95% case, which is combat rogues, and I like to think it's done quite well at meeting that goal.
In general, I think what it comes down to is that both the greatest advantage and the greatest flaw of the DPS sheet is the simple fact that it's on it's... 6th? or so? maintainer. Speaking as someone with a little experience on the matter: it's very hard to stay passionate and enthusiastic about maintaining a sheet, perfecting the modeling, adding new features, and so on for a year. So the fact that recently the DPS sheet has been handed off from one owner to the next every couple of months means there's a constant influx of new ideas and the enthusiasm to put them into practice, which is why it has more bells and whistles, and why it gets updated once a week instead of once a month. On the other hand, it means that no maintainer of it can possible understand all of it's intricacies as well as I understand the Gear sheet, as there's significant sections of it that were written 5 authors ago, and it's not always clear what the assumptions that went into creating such sections are, nor the limitations that they might have. So the fact that there has been a lot more turnover means it's also more prone to developing bugs, and there's less of a sense of a guiding vision of where the sheet should be headed. It's just the tradeoffs of it's history. So I guess I can see Vulajin's point that for the casual forum goer who just wants to compare a few items, the stability - even in the absence of nifty features - of the Gear Sheet might be desirable.
I would like to note here that this thread is not about spreadsheets. If you would like to discuss the merits of one spreadsheet over another, it's likely best to do so in the spreadsheets' respective topics. Discussing why the DPS Spreadsheet should be linked in the first post here is within the scope of the thread, but, for the moment, futile, as I'm not revising the first post at the moment while working on the new TTT version of it.
I removed the link to the DPS Spreadsheet thread because its recent history includes a number of results that are, at best, questionable. I greatly respect Dontmindme's efforts (as well as Left's and Todemax's on the upcoming Mutilate modeling), but I think the DPS Spreadsheet is, at this moment, more of a hindrance than a help to DPS-minded rogues.
To be fair, the link probably should have been removed a good deal sooner than it was. The sheet has come a fairly long way since DMM took over, and several of the bugs that motivated the sheet's removal from the list have actually been fixed.
As it is, most of the information in the post is based on conclusions drawn either from the Gear Spreadsheet or from my personal spreadsheet (both of which typically corroborate one another's results).
Originally Posted by Aldriana
So I guess I can see Vulajin's point that for the casual forum goer who just wants to compare a few items, the stability - even in the absence of nifty features - of the Gear Sheet might be desirable.
To be truly fair, we have to remember that the reason the DPS sheet is considered inaccurate is that the Gear sheet is considered accurate. When they disagree we just assume the Gear sheet is right because it has been in the past. Now we have good reasons for that, but we should recognize it's still an assumption we make sort of implicitly. It's good to remember that even a really excellent sheet (which the gear sheet is) can have issues: remember the Executioner vs. Mongoose bug? It turns out that was a nuance that made a small difference and a lot of rogues when with Executioner in order to eke out more DPS... but it wasn't right. In my mind, having two points of comparison is useful, even if you generally trust one more than the other. Since we are fortunate enough to have two sheets which use different techniques, I think we should use both.
As for the "user friendliness" issue, I bet a lot of rogues come in here, see the Gear sheet, say "what, I have to enter all my stuff by hand? But item x isn't in the sheet? When will it be added?" and, understandably, get somewhat frustrated. On the other hand, rogues with access to Excel can just Armory-import into the DPS sheet and off they go. Your casual user who doesn't want to search the thread doesn't want to take forever entering their gear either, especially when they find out that their spec (eg Shadowstep) isn't supported in the sheet.
The DPS spreadsheet is useful precisely because it supports all specs and so clearly shows (for example) how Shadowstep is severely inferior and Mutilate competitive. Nuance it doesn't have, sure. But, honestly, any rogue who is just coming in with "hai guys how can i improve my dps lol" needs the really basic stuff, which the DPS spreadsheet can provide. It will give a good overview and path to improvement. Following that, a rogue who truly wants to be good will read the discussion here anyway and use the other sheet.
In other words, I think there is a pretty clear case that the DPS spreadsheet has it's uses and should be offered as a resource, albeit with an explanation of it's particular pros and cons. Same for the Gear sheet.
To be truly fair, we have to remember that the reason the DPS sheet is considered inaccurate is that the Gear sheet is considered accurate.
I will respond once more on the spreadsheet debate only to say this: in my case, the above quote is simply not true. I maintain a personal spreadsheet that, more often than not, provides the same results the Gear Spreadsheet provides. This is largely the reason why I consider the Gear Spreadsheet more accurate.
Now I will reiterate, please do not use this thread as a location to debate the merits of the various spreadsheets. It is simply not a productive point of discussion, and quite frankly, I don't care which one anyone else thinks is more accurate or more useful or serves the rogue community better.
Originally Posted by Tosa
I think Elixir of Demonslaying should be noted somewhere in the self-buffs section. More than twice as much AP as a flask.
Will be covered in the upcoming Theorycrafting Think Tank article.
It adds 1%-1.5% damage at T6 (it fluctuates whenever I'm in BT/MH, but thats about a 3 hour long raid, big enough for test %), using Recount addon as the basis for my math. About 12-20 DPS.
I have 1834 attack power, adding 131 dps (Help here with my math please? I used 75% for OH). 131 + 0.75(131) = ~229 DPS per 1834 AP; 1834/229 = ~8AP per DPS; 200 for 10 seconds per minute; (200/6)/8 = 4 DPS added for the MH; 3 for the OH, by the Aldor neck. 7 dps total.
See if my math is wrong. It does look like the Scryer one wins.
Of course that is 7 dps on just passive attacks, I don't know how to do the math to add in dmg added for 200 AP for SS and Rupture. Maybe it's equalizing?
It adds 1%-1.5% damage at T6 (it fluctuates whenever I'm in BT/MH, but thats about a 3 hour long raid, big enough for test %), using Recount addon as the basis for my math. About 12-20 DPS.
I have 1834 attack power, adding 131 dps (Help here with my math please? I used 75% for OH). 131 + 0.75(131) = ~229 DPS per 1834 AP; 1834/229 = ~8AP per DPS; 200 for 10 seconds per minute; (200/6)/8 = 4 DPS added for the MH; 3 for the OH, by the Aldor neck. 7 dps total.
See if my math is wrong. It does look like the Scryer one wins.
You can't just divide attack power by 14 and get total effective dps. At least, I hope you're doing more than 131 dps if you have 1834 attack power.
At my gear level (complete T5) the Aldor neck proc provides ~12 dps, which is almost exactly what the scryer neck provides. The only major difference is the Aldor neck buff will scale better than the Scryer one, given the assumption that the Arcane proc only scales with crit, whereas the Aldor buff will scale with all the normal stats that AtkPower scales with.
It's my belief (though the other number crunchers are more suited to back this up or reject it) that the Scryer neck is more powerful at lower gear levels, and the Aldor one matches up with it at approximately the late T5 / early T6 level, and from there the aldor neck will do better. Of course, by then you should have access to better necks.
Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.
I have no clue what math you're doing to get 7 dps.
At my gear level (complete T5) the Aldor neck proc provides ~12 dps, which is almost exactly what the scryer neck provides. The only major difference is the Aldor neck buff will scale better than the Scryer one, given the assumption that the Arcane proc only scales with crit, whereas the Aldor buff will scale with all the normal stats that AtkPower scales with.
I'm assuming 8AP per DPS after I divide My AP per total dps on both of my weapons. It would be nice to be able to break that down better, this is a little complicated.
I'm assuming 8AP per DPS after I divide My AP per total dps on both of my weapons. It would be nice to be able to break that down better, this is a little complicated.
Yeah, that's a pretty flawed model. Honestly, my recommendation is to assume 12-15 DPS from the scryer proc, and assume an extra 40 AP on the Aldor proc (20% uptime), and plug into your favorite spreadsheet.
Edit to add: The model you're using completely ignores AP's effect on yellow damage (SS, Rupture), and also ignores haste effects. It's highly undervaluing AP.
Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.
Excuse me for adding to the spreadsheet discussion, but I thought it's the best thread to discuss a possible difference in modelling sword and fist spec in two, since I can find people using both here.
Basically, I've used both to compare the dps from standard combat swords using Talon of Azshara and MGQ to fist/sword spec with Vanir's MH and MGQ, and combat fist with dual Vanir's. (rest of the gear found in my armory profile). I was a bit puzzled by the results: the DPS spreadsheet (2.4.0.7) reported a 4,7 dps loss for fist/sword (3,6 for dual fists), while the gear spreadsheet (0.9.5) reported 7,4 and 15 dps gains respectively. To add to the confusion, version 2.4.0.5 of the DPS spreadsheet also reported gains, but this changed in the later ones. I suppose the change to sword spec proccing from specials in 2.4.0.6 is to blame.
Now, this seems like a huge discrepancy to me, and I'm wondering what are the differences between the two sheets that are causing it, and whether it's due to a difference in modelling. I didn't find any post on this so far, but two posts in the DPS spreadsheet had the same result of dps loss for vanir's.
I'm looking for a bit of help with gemming my rogue for a few pieces. Tonight has been very chaotic and I'm trying not to lose my head.
Before tonight, I had 1695 AP, 294 Hit, and 24.73% chance to crit.
Then tonight, I picked up the T5 gloves, which, in order to keep 2pcT4, forced me to go back to my T4 legs (so the 2pc is helm and legs). Tonight I also had the [Belt of Deep Shadow] crafted, and within the next week I will have the [Tunic of the Dark Hour]
With these 2 pieces un-gemmed, I believe I should be sitting at 1755 AP, 319 Hit and about 24% chance to crit.
I am curious what some suggestions for gemming these pieces would be? Currently my health is a bit on the low side, hovering around 8.4k, and I realize that I should probably bring this up for our level of content (5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 1/5 MH). However, I realize it would probably be a mistake to just put [Solid Star of Elune] or similar in the empty sockets.
Another option is to completely regem all my gear, if it is felt that I am leaning to heavily towards hit for my level of progression.
Armory link is here if anyone wishes to take a look at my current gems, hopefully the armory will update soon to reflect the [Belt of Deep Shadow] being added. Any help would be awesome.
Either they gem +10 hit all over, or they use 5 agi / 5 hit. WWS shows the dps difference to be insignificant, and the spreadsheets concur.
This choice makes a pretty significant difference in your end stats (upwards of 50 hit), so i'm wondering what the pros and cons of this choice are.
It's more of a question of supply.
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. - Mark Twain
meaning rogues with access to equal amounts of both gems would choose...what?
I vaguely remember reading that the extra agility might be better on interrupted movement fights, but i don't have the knowledge to verify that myself.
just to clarify, the spreadsheets show gemming 10 hit as a small dps gain over 5/5, but many rogues choose to go with 5/5 anyway. I'm wondering what hidden benefit is causing them to make this choice.
04/08/08, 1:04 PM
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