Rogue Simple Questions Thread: Cataclysm Edition - Page 7

• Aldriana · 12/17/10, 5:09 PM

With the usual caveats about these numbers being based on a specific set of gear which probably isn't what you're using, such that these answers will be approximately right but not exact:

Originally Posted by Kuroiryu

Q: Are there EP values for MH and OH DPS?

Assassination

mh_dps:          3.35670631008
oh_dps:          1.0366898638

Combat

mh_dps:           4.44592063073
oh_dps:           2.15697250072

Originally Posted by randyspears

How does weapon speed affect the damage output on mainhand weapons for combat rogues? I got a weapon with 2.7 speed, all others i've seen are 2.6. Does the slower speed means that this weapon becomes "better" in any way?

2.7 MHs for Combat tend to be slightly better than 2.6 OHs. Your Sinister Strikes (and RvS, and Killing Spree) will hit harder, and you'll get a few extra MH poison procs; but you'll also lose a few Main Gauche procs. As a rule of thumb, the difference between a 2.7 weapon and a 2.6 weapon is probably about 65 EP, meaning that a slower weapon will usually be better at equal ilvl, but a higher ilvl weapon will usually be better independent of speed.

winst · 12/17/10, 5:21 PM

RE: Expertise and current content.

Without going into encounter specifics there are several situations (Maloriak, Conclave adds, Chimaeron and Argaloth from personal experience) where you are directly attacking mobs from the front due to Saber Lash 'split the damage' mechanics or just plain short term aggro. There are also a few instances of having to move from fire into a position which can present parries (most encounters), as well as random secondary target abilities which can turn the boss to you for a couple of attacks.

Is there any way of pinning down the inflation of expertise value due to these mechanics? It's fine to look at things in a Patchwerk bubble, but if that's not really how things ever play out, it's a little useless. More than once I've had to refresh SnD due to a parry or two on envenom when the raid clusters up in front of a boss. Not to mention in these circumstances you're looking at an extra what, 14% avoidance on all attacks when these mechanics are present?

• Aldriana · 12/17/10, 5:47 PM

In terms of a quick and dirty estimate: Expertise roughly doubles in value when attacking from the front, as its reducing both Dodge and Parry instead of just Dodge. So if you had to attack from the front all fight every fight, the value would go up to ~2.2 instead of 1.1. However, you don't. Most fights where you attack from the front you only do so for a portion of the fight, and its not all fights that you have to do it on. So if you, for instance, spend 10% of your time attacking from the front, a decent estimate of the EP value might be 2.2 * .1 + 1.1 * .9 = 1.21 - i.e., on a par with haste. In practice, though, i suspect most of us don't even spend that much time in raids attacking from the front, so unless you're having serious cycle stability issues when it happens I don't think its a large enough factor to make expertise worth reforging for.

Shadowwaltz · 12/17/10, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by Caffeine

Not done the fight this week, but last week I was able to run out of the raid with Twilight Meteor and avoid the damage with cloak:

There's also an instance of being immune to it:

[23:46:05.360]  Cappuccino gains Cloak of Shadows from  Cappuccino
[23:46:05.360]  Cappuccino casts Cloak of Shadows
[23:46:05.641] Valiona begins to cast Twilight Meteorite
[23:46:06.148] Valiona Twilight Meteorite  Cappuccino Immune

This was a few posts back, but since no one said it I'll go ahead. You can immune anything (even melee and ranged attacks) with the new cloak as long as you cast cloak at the very end of a cast, while projectiles are midair heading at you, and/or at the same time as the enemy's melee swing. It's the same mechanic as using vanish to go immune to Saurfang's Mark back in ICC. They took it away from vanish and gave it to cloak.

bigwhey · 12/18/10, 5:15 PM

I have seen "envenom clipping" or other abilities mentioned like that and was wondering what exactly that meant. I assumed it had something to do with letting your energy pool, but I'm not real sure as to why we are supposed to do that either.
I searched and could not find the answer. A brief explanation of both would be much appreciated.

wuffles · 12/18/10, 6:52 PM

I'm seeing something weird with SnD's duration while leveling, and I'm guessing it has to do with the glyph. Due to the dearth of useful prime glyphs for a low level (he's 66) assassination rogue, I'm using the SnD glyph (with mutilate as the other) to help keep the buff rolling when I have to grind mobs. With glyph, a 5cp SnD runs for 27 seconds and refreshes to 27 seconds when a mob dies thanks to deadly momentum (as expected). What is strange is that CttC, with the glyph, only refreshes SnD to 24 seconds--meaning the glyph is only adding 3sec and not 6. Is this a known bug? Am I retarded and missing something here?

Sulphuric · 12/18/10, 8:31 PM

Originally Posted by wuffles

I'm seeing something weird with SnD's duration while leveling, and I'm guessing it has to do with the glyph. Due to the dearth of useful prime glyphs for a low level (he's 66) assassination rogue, I'm using the SnD glyph (with mutilate as the other) to help keep the buff rolling when I have to grind mobs. With glyph, a 5cp SnD runs for 27 seconds and refreshes to 27 seconds when a mob dies thanks to deadly momentum (as expected). What is strange is that CttC, with the glyph, only refreshes SnD to 24 seconds--meaning the glyph is only adding 3sec and not 6. Is this a known bug? Am I retarded and missing something here?

Well, the old glyph used to only add 3 seconds to the SND timer, so you can probably assume it's a bug where they simply forgot to update the glyph with all effects. Just report it as a bug.

zafro · 12/18/10, 8:37 PM

Has anyone done arenas as both Sub and assassination ?

I currently use assassination, but feel a little limited in terms of mobility. Teams like to kite me, its a given. This is why I want to look into the sub spec for arenas. They have more mobility in terms of not getting kited and CC's, but it seems the downside of this is their damage. Especially when playing against mail/plate.

Any thoughts / advice on this ?

Zereo · 12/19/10, 2:22 AM

Originally Posted by bigwhey

I have seen "envenom clipping" or other abilities mentioned like that and was wondering what exactly that meant. I assumed it had something to do with letting your energy pool, but I'm not real sure as to why we are supposed to do that either.
I searched and could not find the answer. A brief explanation of both would be much appreciated.

Envenom clipping refers to using Envenom while you still have the Envenom buff up on your target. The correct way to do it, as of Wrath (not sure it's changed) is to pool energy while the buff is up, hence not doing anything, and re-Envenom when there is 0.5 seconds of the buff left. This is a DPS increase as you will have the extra energy for your next Mutilate, etc. after Envenoming again and re-applying a full Envenom buff. Alot of your damage comes from having that buff up, so clipping it is a bad idea in terms of DPS.
The reasoning behind using Envenom at 0.5 seconds of the buff left is strictly server lag as far as I know.

bariel · 12/19/10, 11:16 AM

Hello, I have a macro question but i think it still somehow relates to PvE/Raiding as Zereo said above.
I have a macro for mutilate/backstabing bind to a key. What it does it switches ActionBar1 (default action bar) with another action bar (ActionBar6 in my case) which is the exact copy of ActionBar1 except it has Backstab in place of Mutilate. That way if boss hits 35% mark i just press one key enter Backstab mode.
It's simple '/swapactionbar 6 1'
The question I'd like to get an answer to is, can you make such a macro to show the tooltip of any given ActionButton?
I tried #show ActionButton 2 (thats the name of the button in WoW UI) but it didnt work.
Is it maybe possible to add a condition to '#show' command making it showing one tooltip when i'm on action bar 1 and another one when i'm on action bar 6?
I'd really like my macro to have a dynamic icon showing Mutialte and Backstab respectively.

Zulkeir · 12/19/10, 1:49 PM

Originally Posted by Zereo

Envenom clipping refers to using Envenom while you still have the Envenom buff up on your target. The correct way to do it, as of Wrath (not sure it's changed) is to pool energy while the buff is up, hence not doing anything, and re-Envenom when there is 0.5 seconds of the buff left. This is a DPS increase as you will have the extra energy for your next Mutilate, etc. after Envenoming again and re-applying a full Envenom buff. Alot of your damage comes from having that buff up, so clipping it is a bad idea in terms of DPS.
The reasoning behind using Envenom at 0.5 seconds of the buff left is strictly server lag as far as I know.

To expand upon this explanation: A rogue's damage is not GCD capped, but energy limited. This gives us a bit of leeway as to when we use our moves as it is our energy, and not our GCDs that determine how many moves we pull off in a fight. The idea behind the envenom buff is then to maximize the amount of time it is up, as it boosts our regular melee hit damage through more poison procs. You would then want to delay using mutilate envenom again (while the buff is active) as long as you are able to (pooling energy), since waiting would not affect the number of moves you do in the fight, and would prolong the buff time by allowing the first buff to roll as long as possible. The important thing in all this though, is to not let your energy cap, as this would reduce the number of abilities you can use in a fight. Envenom clipping is the act of clipping the envenom buff due to being unable to hold back any more due to potentially losing energy due to capping out.

Edit for typo.

wuffles · 12/19/10, 9:10 PM

Originally Posted by bariel

Hello, I have a macro question but i think it still somehow relates to PvE/Raiding as Zereo said above.
I have a macro for mutilate/backstabing bind to a key. What it does it switches ActionBar1 (default action bar) with another action bar (ActionBar6 in my case) which is the exact copy of ActionBar1 except it has Backstab in place of Mutilate. That way if boss hits 35% mark i just press one key enter Backstab mode.
It's simple '/swapactionbar 6 1'
The question I'd like to get an answer to is, can you make such a macro to show the tooltip of any given ActionButton?
I tried #show ActionButton 2 (thats the name of the button in WoW UI) but it didnt work.
Is it maybe possible to add a condition to '#show' command making it showing one tooltip when i'm on action bar 1 and another one when i'm on action bar 6?
I'd really like my macro to have a dynamic icon showing Mutialte and Backstab respectively.

I might be misunderstanding your question but it sounds like you just need to use #showtooltip on the first line and use the '?' icon

bariel · 12/19/10, 9:24 PM

Originally Posted by wuffles

I might be misunderstanding your question but it sounds like you just need to use #showtooltip on the first line and use the '?' icon

'#showtooltip' and '?' as an icon makes the macro show icon and tooltip of the first skill/item you have in your macro.
my macro is just '/swapactionbar 6 1', there's no skill or item to be shown even when i use '#showtooltip'.

I think my problem can be resolved with some scripting like "show mutilate icon, pressing one time changes icon to backstab, pressing another time changes it back to mutilate icon" but unfortunately i have no idea how to write such a script.

Sarvius · 12/19/10, 10:04 PM

Macros aren't conditional, and that includes showtooltip.

bigwhey · 12/19/10, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by Zulkeir

To expand upon this explanation: A rogue's damage is not GCD capped, but energy limited. This gives us a bit of leeway as to when we use our moves as it is our energy, and not our GCDs that determine how many moves we pull off in a fight. The idea behind the envenom buff is then to maximize the amount of time it is up, as it boosts our regular melee hit damage through more poison procs. You would then want to delay using mutilate again (while the buff is active) as long as you are able to (pooling energy), since waiting would not affect the number of moves you do in the fight, and would prolong the buff time by allowing the first buff to roll as long as possible. The important thing in all this though, is to not let your energy cap, as this would reduce the number of abilities you can use in a fight. Envenom clipping is the act of clipping the envenom buff due to being unable to hold back any more due to potentially losing energy due to capping out.

Thank you for the explanations. I understand the importance of not letting the energy go to wasted and getting the most out of the envenom caused buff before doing another envenom, however, how does using mutilate while that buff is up effect it negatively?