Warning for Synek: 2. All opinions should be stated as succinctly as possible.

• Aldriana · 01/18/12, 7:48 PM

Post: Cataclysm Subtlety Compendium
User: Synek
Infraction: 2. All opinions should be stated as succinctly as possible.
Points: 0

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

Please don't quote-split. Thanks.

Original Post:

Originally Posted by 101010

I am wondering if it wouldn't be better to spam Ambush almost during all the duration of Tendons, without finishing moves for at least until ShD is over. According to our logs, the average hit of Ambush is significantly higher than the average hit of Eviscerate. Here is what I am thinking:

Get 5cp SnD and Recup before the Hideous Amalgamation explodes. It would be helpful to Shadowstep it as well. Vanish and open the Tendon with Prem + Ambush (pref with 2/2 Initiative to eliminate the RNG factor) and finish with 5cp Eviscerate. Use VP trinket, Tricks and Shadow Dance. Now just spam Ambushes until ShD is over and finish the Tendon with an Eviscerate. Then just Backstab to 5cp and finish with Eviscerate.

Energy is still a limiting factor, and Eviscerate does far more damage per energy spent. I think it's safe to assume that you should still be using Eviscerate during Shadow Dance; damage per energy is still very important as long as you're not in a GCD-capped situation where energy is irrelevant. For example, if you 'waste' two Eviscerates during your Shadow Dance by Ambushing at 5 Combo Points, you will be spending 30 more energy on those two GCDs spent on Ambush, losing you nearly 2 full Backstabs worth of energy over the course of the Tendon phase.

Originally Posted by 101010

Looking at some parses I notice that Burning Wounds is almost useless as it does only ~40k damage per Tendon for me. I strongly advice that people use 4pc T13 instead which is surely at least one Ambush more which is ~55k damage for me. Also Vial of Shadows does ~125k damage per Tendon for me which is a lot.

You're forgetting that the 2 extra seconds on Shadow Dance allows you to effectively 'replace' one Backstab with one Ambush, it's not an Ambush on top of your current damage. That Ambush is only worth about 15k more damage than a Backstab (ballpark figure) at most. Also, you don't gain any extra Find Weakness uptime from the extra 2 seconds either, since you have full Find Weakness uptime on the Tendon anyway, so all you gain is one extra Ambush in the place of a Backstab.

Originally Posted by 101010

Also I have some ideas about the fight as a Sub rogue. First, would it be viable to skill in Deadly Momentum and kill a blood before the Amalgamation explodes or even a second after that? Second idea, would it be viable to equip a slow non-dagger mainhand for the Tendon phases as this will increase the damage of Ambushes and melee attacks, which are the two main sources of damage? The only loss of damage will be off of Backstab, but I cant tell if its replaced with Hemo spam what will be the total change. Would it be possitive or negative for a rogue with 1 stage daggers and heroic Morningstar of Heroic Will as slow mainhand?

Deadly Momentum is a viable option, but it is possible to do the fight without it and simply refresh Slice and Dice/Recuperate before the Tendon phase, allowing you to put those two Talent Points into something more useful.

A non-dagger won't produce harder hitting Ambushes; the % weapon damage modifier changes depending on the weapon you use. For example, a dagger uses a 390% (or so, I don't have the tooltip at hand) modifier, but a non-dagger uses a 190% modifier. This is designed to compensate for the lower weapon damage on a dagger and keep the effective damage of an Ambush equal across weapon types. Sure the figures may not be exactly the same, but the difference is small enough for the swing-timer reset from a weapon switch to negate any potential gains.

You won't see any gain in melee attacks. Attack Power converts directly into DPS (at 1 DPS per 14 attack power), and an equal item level dagger/non-dagger main hand will have the same DPS, so you should get almost equal amounts of auto-attack damage. A non-dagger will, however, give more poison procs, but I doubt that it's worth equipping one just for that.