alienangel

The lack of consistency you see in the hunter figures is due to spec. I'd guess nearly all Brutallus parses will feature a survival hunter, doing several hundred DPS less than he'd do as BM, and dragging the average/quartiles down, while pushing the SD up. Since the thread so far has been comparing rogues to BM hunters, the lack of consistency showed on a site like wwscoreboard isn't really representative of anything. I'd imagine warlocks, warriors and shamans are all dragged down in a similar way since they all have lower DPS specs too.

edit:hmm, beaten to the post not once but twice, my apologies.

 

Feist-Mok

1) Rogue: PvE DPS - Elitist Jerks


Read it.

2) Then plug your gear into an appropriate spreadsheet with whatever specs might be appropriate and whatever gear combinations might be availiable to you.

3) Smash meters. Collect further purps.

 

tetracycloide

A 'pure' melee DPS group is not required but if an MS warrior and an enhancement shaman are in the same raid they will be in the same group. Given the presence of an MS warrior and an enhancement shaman this would require the classic melee group of ms/enhance/3x other. The question is what is the best usage of those three spaces and the argument is, from a DPS standpoint, that a rogue should be in at least one of them.

Placing the tanks in this group would reduce the DPS contribution of the shaman and the MS to the point where it would be better off not running with them at all. In addtion it would reduce the number of extra party memebers that can buff the tank with tank buffs like imps, trees, devotion auras, ect.

The argument that melee DPS itself is obsolete, that a raid would not have an MS warrior and an enhancement shaman, is outside the scope of if rogues themselves need buffs to stay viable. That's an entirely new argument, that melee DPS itself requires something new to remain viable.

The possibility of making a progression kill without any representation from a given class is specious. The fact that it's possible to kill something without rogues does not necessairly mean that the raid as a group, progressing through an entire instance, is better off without any rogues on the roster.

My vanity is justified.

Multiple classes using the same gear is an excellent idea. Just the other day I was thinking to myself 'Not enough toons look identical with arena and tier sets looking the same, we need more appearance homogenization.'

 

royaljester

Another point to consider. A lot of guilds, knowing the ability rogues have with large group/raid buffs, stack raids for them. Where as, a lot of guilds do NOT stack raids for locks/hunters/mages nearly as often, giving somewhat skewed data based on the raid.

Also, if you look at the top 5% of hunters vs. the top 5% of rogues, I'm fairly certain you'll see hunters numbers surpass rogues. Granted, not all those rogues had glaive sets at the parse time, but none of the hunters had a Bow at the parse time either and still racked up higher parses than rogues with equally stacked groups. Personally, I've seen a 3k Hunter with only a peice or two of Sunwell gear and have yet to see a 3k rogue without at least one glaive.

 

Rensy

To Vulajin and Left:

Thanks for the lengthy and well researched posts regarding mine. I am very good at DPS, but I am inferior in the ways of theorycrafting :P. One thing that should also be considered is the fact that the eviscerate will proc you another 10 seconds of the ~6.57% crit. Another thing that I think you are forgetting is the possibility of leaving 5/5 to go to 3/5 (or even less!) to help you get back to a 5/5 without losing very much slice and dice uptime. I find myself in countless situations where the question is whether or not dropping an eviscerate and then a 1 point SND to bridge back to a 5/5 SND is worth it.

Left, one thing I should mention is that I have parses with better results for more evsicerates (which I will search for), and much less overall white damage. I should have definitely emphasized however that what I like most about more finishers is the higher number of ashtongue procs. I'm assuming that on WWS "Swing" considers the crit rate not only for melee attacks but for extra swings as well, but one thing I always seem to notice (strangely less than usual with the parse I chose) with Ashtongue is a grossly large increase in crit for sinister strike and even white hits.

Vulajin, I was particularly interested in the math on the amount of combat potency procs required etc. What haste rating are you assuming there? I may have missed it. Also, I would like to know the considerations that need to be made for the value of the Ashtongue proc situationally. An Ashtongue proc is obviously worth a lot more with a heroism, for example-- which also happens to be a situation in which combat potency procs are much more prevalent.

 

gwystyl

The above snippet was what I was getting at; you wouldn't need the MS and *enh* shaman either. The second snippet is a fair point, too, but what I failed to communicate is that you can't say this of any other class thus far. What this shows is that rogue dps is expendable since other dps classes can come to a close enough range to diminish this while providing some other utility for the raid group.

It's just the tired and overdone discussion about rogues bringing nothing else to the table, therefore they must be clear and unrivaled single target boss beater-uppers. I guess this thread is premature anyway since we've all been drooling over the impressive future paths of other classes while rogues have been given zero guidance as to what to expect.

 

Imala

I humbly think going for the group buff solution isn't at all in the Rogue spirit. However a boss debuff (whichever new or a tweak of an existing one) sounds much more like rogue spirited.

The idea of reducing dodge/parry is a good idea albeit it gets less interesting as melee get more expertise.

I think the problem currently is the state of assassination VS combat. I think blizzard said they will buff assassination which is necessary. In my opinion, ass. should be number #1 DPS on single targets when in the back. Currently the fact that Combat is not only the best solo/grinding PvE spec AND best single target raid DPS is detrimental to the rogue class as it doesn't give anything to be Ass. over Combat.

I'd like to see an improvement on mutilate. I mean come on the name is so cool! :-). we could have an imp. Mutilate in WotLK making the target take 1% more dmg from critical strikes for 5 seconds, stacks 5 times.

I like the idea of the imp. kidney shot working on stun immune targets. too...it's in the same spirit really. Making EA stack with sunder is a good idea but it doesn't make you want have more rogues in the raid.

We could have a buff to rupture too, working along the line of Envenom (I love that mechanic, which is poorly exploited currently imo). Rupture could do x% more damage for each of your deadly poison dose.

 

tetracycloide

Ok, so to eliminate the possibility of off-specs throwing off the sample.

Quick side note: the worst case of this is warriors by a wide margin and the average DPS listed roughly 85 DPS lower than the average DPS of only DPS specs which isn't enough to tip any of the scales even if you assume this kind of massive variance in every other calss

Lets look at the numbers for just the Top 15

Top 15 hunters 2706 - 3042 Avg = 2808.13
Top 15 mages 2388 - 2651 Avg = 2451
Top 15 warlocks 2568 - 2792 Avg = 2649.667
Top 15 warriors 2414 - 2816 Avg = 2527.267
Top 15 shaman 2152 - 2392 Avg = 2222.067
Top 15 paladin 2058 - 2143 Avg = 2096.067
Top 15 rogues 2727 - 3031 Avg = 2822.2

Here we see a similar, though less pronounced, version of the same story. The top rogues average better DPS than the top DPSers of any other class, in most cases by wide margins. Could you replace a rogue with a BM hunter in the melee group and be better off? Yes, if you replace the rogue with a hunter who is among the best in the world.

The chances of having so many hunters that are so good at DPS in the same raid that it would actually be better to stack them instead of replacing the worst of them with one rogue is, on average, very very very small and that chance gets smaller and smaller as you move on to other possible replacement choices.

The only wrench in this entire endeavor is that the death knight is it self a melee class that will more than likely benifit from melee buffs in some significant way. The questions that remained unanswered are how well they scale with melee buffs vs. other buffs and what buffs, if any, they will provide the party they are in.

My vanity is justified.

Multiple classes using the same gear is an excellent idea. Just the other day I was thinking to myself 'Not enough toons look identical with arena and tier sets looking the same, we need more appearance homogenization.'

 

gwystyl

How is this a step in the right direction? Every single dps class out there has a right and wrong answer attached to it. You either follow the well-tested, researched and developed max-power spec or you're wrong. There will always be a clear right and wrong answer. Making Mutilate the new de-facto must-build for raiding rogues doesn't really do anything other than shift our skill cycle.

I like the ideas about having the Mutilate debuff talents stack and affect the raid group, though! Turning a Mutilate rogue into the rogue equivalent of an Expose Weakness hunter would be a nice option.

 

Rensy

This is a very strong point all around, and I think it is particularly important to emphasize that a cycle is a BASELINE. The general rogue population seems to be under the impression that choosing the correct cycle and sticking to it is the only possible way to DPS and will always yield the maximum. I think that a lack of emphasis on situational deviation even during a tank and spank (there is plenty of literature about how to play when you have to move), coupled with a lack of emphasis by most on the necessity of energy pooling and watching procs, has led to many instances of weak DPS rogues.

Another small point. After a 5 point rupture in a 5/5 cycle if well timed can often come at a time in which you have 95 energy and are about to tick over. Using that rupture with 1 second before your energy tick will mean that in the 10 seconds of ashtongue without any combat potency procs a rogue can generate 4 combo points with ease if I am not mistaken. With a ruthlessness, that is enough for 5 combo points. If no ruthlessness, you might run into trouble, but I was considering 0 combat potency procs.

 

gwystyl

It's important to note that every one of those rogues sports double warglaives. That's a *very* important thing to underscore. You can't assume that rogue dps is 2800. If anything you'd have to find the best non-glaive pair rogues and I think you'll find the average is closer to 2600 among the top 15 of that sample set.

 

tetracycloide

Itemization is outside the scope of this comparison as the current items in game are something entirely removed from the actual DPS mechanics of a given class. It could easily be argued that a DPS weapon set for rogues is blizzard's answer to rogue balance at the high end level and that to get the entire picture between classes samples with said weapon set must be included.

That said, the original analysis was an average for all specs of any given class with all the gear sets and arrived at a very similar, and much stronger, conclusion.

My vanity is justified.

Multiple classes using the same gear is an excellent idea. Just the other day I was thinking to myself 'Not enough toons look identical with arena and tier sets looking the same, we need more appearance homogenization.'

 

Imala

My only grief against having Combat better for raid than Ass. is that combat is clearly already better for solo/grinding PvE. (Blade furry is a talent in that direction... I think that's what combat is all about). The problem is that Ass. as it is clearly the weakest talent tree so far. I agree my point wasn't clearly related to the present discussion beside the fact that buffing combat more isn't, imho, where the buff should go. It should be something in Ass. to make this spec wanted again for raid DPS.

 

royaljester

Actually, with the inclusion of a Legandary bow, you have to assume that as part of the Hunter's "outfit" as well, since you're considering glaives part of a rogues "outfit". At that point, I'm fairly certain, actually 100% certain, a BM Hunter can outdps even the most skilled/geared rogue AND provide a group buff. once we get some stacked parses from stefang I think you'll see, but a 2800 Hunter with the bow now becomes 3k, easily.

 

Cally

From a DPS standpoint, 3 BM hunters may do equally well if not better in that group for increasing raid dps. Since rogues provide no group buffs, the MS warrior and enh shammy receive no benefit from rogues at all. However, they will get the benefit of a triple stacking FI if 3 BM hunters were placed in their group. The BM hunter pets will benefit from the warrior and shaman melee buffs and the hunters will benefit from GoA assuming the shaman totem twists. Plus the entire group gets triple stacking FIs.

Also, a look at the top ten Teron/Brutallus parses show BM hunters and rogues pretty much even in consistent dps. The average hunter dps is a little lower over all parses due to the fact that 1/3 of hunters are survival whereas almost 100% of rogues are combat specced. So I would probably say BM hunters and rogues are pretty consistent dps. And the BM hunters have done this without any legendary weapons.

As for gearing, I had already mentioned that hunters are easier to gear up due to the fact they can wear both leather and mail. Also, most of the best in slot gear for hunters are eerily identical to that of rogues. See Duplicitous Guise, Shoulderpads of Vehemence, Leggings of the Immortal Night etc.

 

gwystyl

I respectfully disagree that normalizing the presence of legendary weapons put to their ideal use is valid for comparison, but am content to leave it at that.
=)

 

◊ Vulajin

So, to address your points very briefly:

The thing about that extra AToL proc from the 5-point Eviscerate is that it will most likely carry into the time where your Slice is dropping, meaning that you're losing even more potential damage from the Slice downtime. Downgrading from 5/5 to 3/5 or 1/3/5 or any other variation for one cycle to avoid Slice downtime does prevent you from losing Slice DPS but delays your next Rupture even more and also wastes some energy on finishers.

I assumed no haste rating for the CP math. However, on inspection you can guess that haste rating will benefit Combat Potency much less than it will your white damage. Yes, Bloodlust/Heroism does increase the value of Exploit Weakness, as it does most other procs, but you obviously don't really plan around that. When Bloodlust is up, you will get more energy, and you can use more finishers.

It's true that some rogues tend to be over-reliant on cycles, but cycles are part of the fundamental understanding of the class that you really need in order to be able to make on-the-fly optimizations such as the ones you're suggesting. A rogue running 4s/5r without ever deviating will almost always perform better than a rogue who has never heard of a cycle and simply uses his abilities in haphazard fashion. You don't even need to know that you're following a cycle; as long as you know that your finishers should be used in a certain priority ordering, and that high-CP finishers are generally better than lower ones as long as you can manage enough combo points, you are following the general cycle principles.

Pooling 95 energy is not generally a good idea if you have Combat Potency, unless you like having your energy tick over 100 from a poorly-timed proc. Even using a finisher ~1 second before the next tick doesn't necessarily guarantee that you won't tick over.

 

Rensy

All good points. The second paragraph is nothing I'm disagreeing with, it's exactly what I am getting at.

The last part about pooling 95 energy, I probably should have made more clear. I would never pool over 80-- the 95 is due to a proc. I don't think I emphasized that. Pooling for greater than 85 would obviously be silly, but one can really tread a fine line with timing their energy ticks up to that point.

Once again, thank you for the time/math. I am looking forward to the next several months with a cleared Sunwell, where I can really test these and other things, and our guild can once again push for good parses instead of just racing to kill bosses.

 

tetracycloide

When hunters are running around with legendary bows pulling 3000 DPS from auto-shoot we can look at what state rogue DPS is in at that gear level as well and compare it to the hunter figure. In the mean time, comparing current rogue DPS values to possible future values of hunter DPS in hypothetical gear sets is completely irrelevent to the comparison of rogues in current gear vs. hunters in current gear.

My vanity is justified.

Multiple classes using the same gear is an excellent idea. Just the other day I was thinking to myself 'Not enough toons look identical with arena and tier sets looking the same, we need more appearance homogenization.'

 

royaljester

Actually, it's not. By including a legendary set for one class as part of his gear and possible dps potentional, you have to include at least the possibility of a Hunter with said legendary. That is now possible, since Stefang has one AND is a raider. Moreover, you posted rogues with about 20dps more than Hunters, on average-upper-end for Brutallus. That bow will be more than 20dps change for hunters. So while, for now (say a week or two at most) we can only see hunters pulling in right behind rogues, they still offer a 3% buff to each other's dmg, which would include the off spec, thus pushing them well ahead of said ~20dps difference.

Also, you're comparing rogues to hunters/other classes without coinciding their gear sets. How do you know all those rogues had roughly equivalent gear to the hunters (leaving out legendaries)? You don't. And Legendary weapons on a rogue put him WELL ahead of most other classes in terms of gear equality for given slot. No bow, until Thor'idal, matched up even close to that amount of damage in one-two slot(s). If you only looked at equivalent peices, aka a hunter in his best in slot up to X boss with a rogue having best in slot up to same boss, you might have an argument.

And again, you are making theoretical arguments yourself, yet saying that a group with 3 equally geared hunters is so small that it wouldnt occur, thus giving a spot up to a equally geared rogue? How is that even quantifiable. It's entirely possible that a guild, or even multiple guilds, see the potentional of a 3 hunter group, gear 3 of them out before anyone else and thus give you that perfect group. Just like it's fair that 2-3 rogues could be amazingly geared because of a guild/his/her own ideas.


Edit: Just noticed "pulling 3000 DPS from auto-shoot". What does that have to do with anything. No rogue, glaived or not, pulled 2800 from white attacks only (the equivalent to auto-shot). While anecdotal doesn't stand for much, I've already seen hunters pull close to 3k in non-parsed fights, without that bow, in less gear than I have now, so yes, it's still relevent.