The 4.0.1 Rogue FAQ - Page 33

Shoj · 10/26/10, 5:59 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

For Assassination, energy regen is likely around 14 per second (assuming you don't have rupture running, which for a 20 second AoE pack is usually a good assumption), plus 120 starting energy, works out to about 400 energy and thus 11 FoKs in 20 seconds. Each has a 50% chance to proc your DP from the OH, so we *do* actually get up to 5 stacks right around the 20 second mark. Hence, on a 20 second fight, we do actually get bonus MH procs from DP on our ranged weapon; in particular, in 11 FoKs we expect to get 5.5 MH poison procs from FoK, versus 4.24 if we just put IP on our thrown weapon directly. So for a 20 second (11 FoK) fight, yes, DP is perhaps a bit better. However, now lets look at, say, a 8 FoK fight: now we get 8 DP procs (4 from OH, 4 from thrown) and thus 3 MH poison procs; meanwhile, if we just put IP on our thrown weapon, we'd get about 3.1 MH procs.

So, in short: on a long enough fight, DP will pass IP for Assassination - the crossover is probably around 8 FoKs, or a little under 15 seconds. Since fights of this duration are actually somewhat common, it may well make sense to make the switch. However, for Combat and Subtlety, its not even *close* to worth it.

You're not including the way Vile Poisons interacts with this whole thing. Two of the FoK targets will stack DP much faster because every time those two proc DP from your thrown, they will also have a 50% chance to proc your OH, which will add another DP stack. Once those two targets are at 5 stacks, they will both have three chances to proc your MH poison every time you push FoK: once from the initial thrown proc refresh (50%), once from VP causing your OH to refresh again (50%), and once from VP causing your MH to proc (30%).

In about 30 tests, I found that I could get two targets to 5 stacks in an average of 7 seconds (minimum 2s, maximum 15s). After that, each time you press FoK, you have 6 separate chances to proc IP; four 50% chances, two 30% chances, and each additional target will add another 50% chance after ~15s. With IP/DP/IP, you always have four 30% chances, and once DP stacks to 5, two additional 50% chances (but DP will stack much slower in this configuration). And this is all without taking Master Poisoner or the actual damage you will get from DP into consideration.

• Aldriana · 10/26/10, 7:28 PM

I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of two targets stacking up DP faster; so far as I know (and I certainly could be wrong, and by all means correct me if so) Vile Poisons procs on all your targets, so *all* targets, however many there are, get a poison proc chance for MH, one for OH, and one for the thrown weapon - and that's accounted for in my above calculations. To restate them in a way that's perhaps more clear:

In the 8 FoKs case, we get about 3 MH procs (assuming a 1.8 speed MH and thus a 30 * 1.8/1.4 = 39% proc rate) and 4 OH DP procs. If we have DP on thrown, we'll get 4 more OH procs; if we have IP on thrown, we'll get ~3 more IP procs. In the IP case, this gives, per target, 6 IP procs and 4 DP procs, for 4 IP procs total. In the DP case, you get 3 and 8, so 3 of the DP procs also proc IP and you wind up with about 6 IP procs. So the number of actual IP procs will be about the same in both cases - if you run with a few extra sig figs, you find you actually get slightly more IP procs with IP at 8 FoKs, and slightly more with DP at 9 FoKs.

Now, it's true that this neglects the higher DP damage from using DP. But the point was never to find the exact crossover point - it's merely to point out that while on longer fights DP is superior, on short enough fights IP will maintain the lead. And that's really only reinforced by the DP damage consideration - on a very short fight you spend most of your time stacking DP and thus don't get as much damage as you would from having an extra IP proc in the first place, whereas in a longer fight where you can establish and roll a DP stack it's clearly better to run with DP on thrown. The crossover might turn out to be at 6 or 7 in reality (instead of 8) - but a crossover point *does* exist. DP is better for *some* - perhaps even *most* - AoE situations (for Assassination), but it's not best in *all* situations. And it's still clearly inferior for Combat and Subtlety.

fourdots · 10/27/10, 11:52 AM

So when the poisons on your mh and oh proc via the vile poisons talent, is the proc rate based on the respective weapon speed of each weapon, or is it based on the weapon speed of your thrown weapon, in the same way the physical damage is calculated off the thrown weapon?

If it's still based on the mh and oh weapons, mightn't it then be a good idea to equip 2.8 speed mh and oh weapons for encounters in which fok is going to be the only attack one uses, such as the opening trash in icc? Granted, one loses some energy in the process, but it seems that the additional ip procs from having three weapons proccing ip all at once more than make up for it.

I know prior to the patch that this technique served me well (a simple macro will switch the weapons in and out as need be), but with the damage now coming from the thrown weapon, it occured to me that the proc rate might also be calculated the same way.

Edit: after a more careful reading of the VP talent tooltip, along with some lengthy although admittedly unscientific testing on the dummy, it would appear that IP still procs based on the speed of the MH and OH weapons, leading me to conclude that for aoe fights, a pair of 2.6 weapons is best.

Shoj · 10/27/10, 3:12 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I have no idea what you're talking about in terms of two targets stacking up DP faster; so far as I know (and I certainly could be wrong, and by all means correct me if so) Vile Poisons procs on all your targets, so *all* targets, however many there are, get a poison proc chance for MH, one for OH, and one for the thrown weapon - and that's accounted for in my above calculations.

Prior to the recent 4.0.1a patch, Vile Poisons would only affect up to two targets. I was under the impression this was a know feature, though it wasn't clear if it was intended. I just tested it again, and it seems to be fixed with yesterday's patch.

Edit: they also seem to have fixed the bug where VP procs wouldn't trigger Master Poisoner or Deadly Brew, meaning there's really very little difference between using IP or DP on your thrown now.

Reapzilla · 10/27/10, 5:33 PM

I think it is important to mention that blade flurry now has an uptime of 50%. DP may actually be stacking much quicker for a combat rogue as each FoK should give 2 chances to proc DP. Not sure if this affects anything though.

Feist-Mok · 10/27/10, 5:34 PM

Originally Posted by Reapzilla

I think it is important to mention that blade flurry now has an uptime of 50%. DP may actually be stacking much quicker for a combat rogue as each FoK should give 2 chances to proc DP. Not sure if this affects anything though.

Historically, Blade Flurry damage duplication has not proc'd poisons. If you have evidence that this has changed in 4.0, please do share it.

• Aldriana · 10/27/10, 5:36 PM

Last I heard BF doesn't work on FoK anymore. I haven't confirmed that myself, but that's what I've been told.

Heirox[Rational Gaze] · 10/27/10, 7:10 PM

I was testing out the new below 35% backstab rotation on the raging spirits and valks on 25m LK last night and I was really disappointed with it, im not sure if it was latency or something but I was only gaining about 200dps. Anyone else have any feelings on the "execute style" rotation.

Syleion · 10/27/10, 7:16 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

Last I heard BF doesn't work on FoK anymore. I haven't confirmed that myself, but that's what I've been told.

I can confirm BF does not work on FoK any longer.

azraele · 10/28/10, 6:45 AM

I can also confirm Blade flurry is not working with FoK.

Kanan · 10/28/10, 10:15 AM

I've seen a number of posts in this thread regarding the value of 4-piece Tier 10 for Assassination specs, but nothing regarding 2-piece. Has a rough EP value been established for Assassination?

In particular, I'm considering dropping 2-piece (277 helm, 264 shoulders) to go to Cultist's 277, an EP difference of 121.1 in straight comparison, given the Assassination EPs in the OP.

Feist-Mok · 10/28/10, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Kanan

I've seen a number of posts in this thread regarding the value of 4-piece Tier 10 for Assassination specs, but nothing regarding 2-piece. Has a rough EP value been established for Assassination?

In particular, I'm considering dropping 2-piece (277 helm, 264 shoulders) to go to Cultist's 277, an EP difference of 121.1 in straight comparison, given the Assassination EPs in the OP.

2 T10 is almost never worth dropping.

Aerlyn · 10/28/10, 12:56 PM

Hello, some recent happenings on my realms had made me curious and, a little bit puzzled. I hope here I will find the answer.

Recently, lot of combat rogues started using a dagger as their offhand. While that did seem to me a good idea in the immediate aftermath of 4.0 "not bound to weapon specs anymore?" I quickly took back this idea as I saw how "nuts the energy regeneration was at the current state. Now, those rogues are advocating that a dagger is better for MG procs, regardless of it being normalized or not (it is normalized, but what they say is that, even if it was not it would not make a difference, a dagger will be still superior.

While I can see the idea of using a dagger offhand due to combat potency IF we really needed to boost our energy regen more (which right now, we do not). Why should a dagger beast a Sword/axe in the offhand (talking about a 1.50 axe sword) considering that:

-In the case of MG being not normalized, you would be looking at a 1.40-1.50 dagger in your offhand, that would obviously do less damage than a 1.50 axe/sword.
-In the case of MG being normalized (which it is), daggers are normalized at 1.7 while sword/axes at 2.4. Which again would result in a sword/axe beasting a dagger for offhand purposed.

Those were my ponderings, of which I am pretty sure about. However, due to the massive shifting of rogues on my realm to a offhand dagger, I've started wondering if there's something pretty obvious I am missing.

PikaPika1006 · 10/28/10, 1:00 PM

Originally Posted by Aerlyn

Hello, some recent happenings on my realms had made me curious and, a little bit puzzled. I hope here I will find the answer.

Recently, lot of combat rogues started using a dagger as their offhand. While that did seem to me a good idea in the immediate aftermath of 4.0 "not bound to weapon specs anymore?" I quickly took back this idea as I saw how "nuts the energy regeneration was at the current state. Now, those rogues are advocating that a dagger is better for MG procs, regardless of it being normalized or not (it is normalized, but what they say is that, even if it was not it would not make a difference, a dagger will be still superior.

While I can see the idea of using a dagger offhand due to combat potency IF we really needed to boost our energy regen more (which right now, we do not). Why should a dagger beast a Sword/axe in the offhand (talking about a 1.50 axe sword) considering that:

-In the case of MG being not normalized, you would be looking at a 1.40-1.50 dagger in your offhand, that would obviously do less damage than a 1.50 axe/sword.
-In the case of MG being normalized (which it is), daggers are normalized at 1.7 while sword/axes at 2.4. Which again would result in a sword/axe beasting a dagger for offhand purposed.

Those were my ponderings, of which I am pretty sure about. However, due to the massive shifting of rogues on my realm to a offhand dagger, I've started wondering if there's something pretty obvious I am missing.

More energy regen and more poison damage heavily outweighs more damage from a terrible mastery.

tronyx · 10/28/10, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Heirox[Rational Gaze]

I was testing out the new below 35% backstab rotation on the raging spirits and valks on 25m LK last night and I was really disappointed with it, im not sure if it was latency or something but I was only gaining about 200dps. Anyone else have any feelings on the "execute style" rotation.

I can attest that using backstab over mutilate at 35% target hp is much more effective than mutilate, especially when glyphed backstab.
Here is a log from a ICC10(H) Saurfang: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Note that mutilate damage for that particular fight was roughly 8.3%.
Backstab amounted to 8.9%.

Bloodlust may have been active for execute phase in addition to popping some additional cooldowns. However if you check additional fights backstab at 35%hp is clearly better.