Assassination from the Mists - Page 5

SirRuk · 10/16/12, 5:37 PM

But garrote gives energy procs cause of venumous wounds.Isn't that better than just burst damage?

• Aldriana · 10/16/12, 6:24 PM

The key is that Garrote and Rupture don't both proc VW at the same time, so you'll only get the energy/damage bonus from Garrote if you hold off on Rupturing, which seems unlikely to be worthwhile.

Isebel · 10/16/12, 7:12 PM

I've used both openers (referring to Ambush vs. Mut) and I really haven't seen a giant difference unless you get a Blindside proc off of that Mut. If that happens it's really nice and although I don't have any test logs to really show any difference between the two I would venture to say even if Mut has the extra chance to get your poisons up and running that the extra damage from Ambush would probably negate that.

Typically, even though it's a set proc chance, I tend to not see many Blindsides off that opening Mut so I've stuck with Ambush for now (I've ran under a lot of ladders or something to accumulate such terrible luck though).

As mentioned a few times though I wouldn't really suggest Garrote as it's pretty nominal damage in comparison to Mut or Ambush, 1 CP and although it has the bonus of immediate chance at VW procs I'd agree with Aldriana in that you probably don't want to hold off Rupture all that long.

Leonoire · 10/16/12, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

The key is that Garrote and Rupture don't both proc VW at the same time, so you'll only get the energy/damage bonus from Garrote if you hold off on Rupturing, which seems unlikely to be worthwhile.

Typically I open with garrote so i can get SnD up as fast as possible and envenom to refresh it and then replace garrote with rupture when it falls off (usually have just enough time.)
This also makes using CD's a little smoother for me at the beginning, since i will also have trinket procs up and can lay down a very strong rupture with everything up (trinkets, vendetta)
Garrote>SnD>Mut>Mut(BS)>Envenom>Mut>Mut(BS)>CD's>Rupture>...(Vendetta about to fall)>Rupture

That is the typical pattern I have been using, allowing me to get 2 ruptures off while vendetta is active. Is there any possibility that this may be more viable?

fourdots · 10/16/12, 7:39 PM

Even a 3 cp Rupture does more damage than Garotte, so it seems to me it should be our bleed of choice, since we can't get VW from both now.

And Ambush hits harder than Mutilate (at least for Assassination) since 470% of MH is better than 200% MH + 200% OH/2 (don't forget about the OH penalty).

So my open goes like:

Shadowstep>Ambush>S&D>Mutilate>Rupture, etc., with Dispatch getting worked in when possible.

If there's a better way, I'm always eager to hear it.

Leonoire · 10/16/12, 8:30 PM

Originally Posted by fourdots

Even a 3 cp Rupture does more damage than Garotte, so it seems to me it should be our bleed of choice, since we can't get VW from both now.

And Ambush hits harder than Mutilate (at least for Assassination) since 470% of MH is better than 200% MH + 200% OH/2 (don't forget about the OH penalty).

So my open goes like:

Shadowstep>Ambush>S&D>Mutilate>Rupture, etc., with Dispatch getting worked in when possible.

If there's a better way, I'm always eager to hear it.

You have to take CP generation and BS procs into account, along with poisons being applied from both weapons. my guess is that Mut wins out when these are considered.

Arrek · 10/16/12, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by mr-jolly

Add to these points the fact that Mutilate is situation proof. For whatever reason if you are not able to get behind the target, mutilate hits and gets you into combat.

Garrote no longer requires your toon to be behind its target. So Garrote and Mutilate are now both situation proof.

mr-jolly · 10/17/12, 12:10 AM

Originally Posted by mr-jolly

Before being able to run heroic 5-man content I reforged hit and expertise to 6-6.5%. When I started running heroics I reforged to 7.5% hit and expertise and saw horrendous DPS.

After reforging to 7.5% hit, then mastery and then haste if mastery was not possible and taking the expertise that was left I ended up with ~4/5% expertise and ~4% more mastery than I had previously.

On the training dummy I saw my DPS double. This was at iLevel 450 with a 450 MH and / 440ish OH (green quest dagger).

My thinking is that at this lower iLevel, especially with the low damage weapons that mastery scales better than expertise - in other words poison damage gained was much higher than the direct damage lost via misses.

I don't have logs for this and my dummy sessions were short - one full cooldown of shadow blades - just to see where the DPS was settling. Obviously this does not take into account execute damage, but for me it was enough for the short fights in heroic 5-man content.

I am going to revisit this now that I have 460+ gear with logging and better analysis, but I wanted to give my informal experience.

After more formal testing in game, I was not able to reproduce what I saw on that particular day. My apologies for the red herring.

Here are my results for posterity:

All testing done on raid dummy with no buffs and deadly poison applied.

MH: Liuyang's Light-Lit Longshank - 450
OH: Saltscale Dagger - 437
Trinkets: Windswept Pages, Zen Alchemist Stone

Average gear level 450
Hit: 7.48%; Exp: 7.42%; Mast: 49.32% - 29897 dps
Hit: 7.57%; Exp: 3.81%; Mast: 54.33% - 29146 dps

Average gear level 460
Hit: 7.54%; Exp: 7.46%; Mast: 53.33% - 32919 dps
Hit: 7.54%; Exp: 4.44%; Mast: 54.83% - 33893 dps

The ratios of damage types (Deadly Posion, Melee, Venomous Wounds, etc) stayed relatively constant throughout. In both uncapped expertise cases, excess reforge points were put into haste.

Each run was 6 minutes (3 Vendetta CDs and 2 Shadow Blades CDs).

As you can see there was very little difference between the runs. I am going back to reforging Hit AND Expertise to 7.5% for cycle stability.

Again - apologies for the red herring - I am not sure what happened on the previous day of reforge testing.

fourdots · 10/17/12, 1:27 AM

Originally Posted by Leonoire

You have to take CP generation and BS procs into account, along with poisons being applied from both weapons. my guess is that Mut wins out when these are considered.

Actually forgot to mention above that it's 470% of MH plus 3516 as opposed to (200% MH + 200% OH/2) plus (535 x 2), at least in my current gear.

Even with the 30% blindside chance, I don't see how mutilate beats ambush as an opener. As far as cp generation goes, they both give you two cp's. Yes, Mutilate gives you a slightly higher chance to get that third cp, but the slightly increased chance doesn't seem to justify the loss in guaranteed damage.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's a huge difference, just that according to wot is writ on the tooltip, Ambush should come out a bit ahead. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing this worked out by better mathematical minds than my own.

Chenz · 10/17/12, 4:09 AM

Originally Posted by fourdots

Actually forgot to mention above that it's 470% of MH plus 3516 as opposed to (200% MH + 200% OH/2) plus (535 x 2), at least in my current gear.

Even with the 30% blindside chance, I don't see how mutilate beats ambush as an opener. As far as cp generation goes, they both give you two cp's. Yes, Mutilate gives you a slightly higher chance to get that third cp, but the slightly increased chance doesn't seem to justify the loss in guaranteed damage.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's a huge difference, just that according to wot is writ on the tooltip, Ambush should come out a bit ahead. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing this worked out by better mathematical minds than my own.

Alright, Ambush hits for 470% weapon damage + 3516, and 50% Deadly Poison damage. Mutilate is 300% weapon damage + 1070 + 120% weapon damage and 700 static damage from the dispatch proc, and 115% Deadly Poison Damage.

That leaves 50% weapon damage + 1746 versus 65% Deadly Poison damage. I think that leaves Mutilate at an advantage at most gear levels, or at least very close.

In addition, at a crit rate of 20% Ambush generates 2.2 combo points. Mutilate generates 2 + (1 - 0.8^2) + 0.3 * (1 + 0.2) = 2.64 combo points.

Fnar · 10/17/12, 8:32 AM

What are people's opinions of using shadow blades in our opening rotation for the extra CP generation during that initial energy starved cycle? As long as we know it is not going to be needed in the next 3 minutes, this should be a good way to get everything up (snd, rupture, envenom) in as few GCDs as possible. We would end up with an opening cycle along the lines of:

Stealth (for shadow focus)
Tricks of the trade for free
Shadowblades
Mutilate/Dispatch to 5 CP then rupture
Mutilate/Dispatch to 2-4 CP (depends on crits and whether you use dispatch or mutilate, basically you use 1 cp generator) then SnD
Mutilate/Dispatch to 5 CP then envenom

Anticipation feels pretty mandatory unless there is a fight with a prolonged ranged-only phase (in which case the rogues would probably get benched anyway) or significant target switching (blood princes, omnotron) so i guess with that talent we will always (apart from SnD) be using 5cp finishers for the 100% restless blades proc and longer duration/more damage/greater efficiency.

ZelosRaine · 10/17/12, 12:38 PM

Real world concerns (positioning behind boss, etc) are valid. However, simcraft seems to be correct in this. Ambush hits just that much harder than mutilate (seriously guys, mutilate hits like the proverbial noodle); even with the poison proc and the dispatch proc, Mutilate just can't compete with ambush's damage. The only reason we weren't using it before is that Garrote USED to be a good opener and that it was so freaking expensive. Shadow focus removes this problem. My typical opener tends to be Trix, pot, stealth, shadowstep (if not needed early in the fight), ambush, SnD, Shadow Blades, Vendetta, trinkets, etc, Muta, rupture, Muta, vanish, ambush, envenom, muta, preperation into ambush (if chosen instead of shadowstep), muta, probably reapply rupture, muta and start our cycle of energy pooling while waiting for envenom buff from last envenom to finish so we can envenom with maximum special attacks in the 5 sec window. Obviously dispatch procs get worked in before the next muta. Also, you should obviously save cds if needed within the first minute or so of the fight (but not longer imo).

• Aldriana · 10/17/12, 1:56 PM

I see a lot of assertions here, but not very much in the way of actual numbers to back it up. Do you have any evidence that Ambush hits a lot harder? I mean, I realize that the number that pops up on your screen is larger, but - as Chenz indicates a few posts up - Mutilates damage is spread across as much as 5 different attacks (2 mutilate hits, a dispatch hit, a poison proc, and an earlier/better finisher on account of higher CP gen) so the fact that ambush hits harder than any one of those attacks... isn't really relevant.

I think the real answer here is that Mutilate vs Ambush doesn't have an obvious winner; eventually we may be able to theorycraft out which is theoretically better, but no amount of anecdotal in-game evidence is going to separate them.

ZelosRaine · 10/17/12, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I think the real answer here is that Mutilate vs Ambush doesn't have an obvious winner; eventually we may be able to theorycraft out which is theoretically better, but no amount of anecdotal in-game evidence is going to separate them.

Obviously, Aldriana is correct in that theorycrafting can only do so much. However, for those of us who wish to understand why a certain approach is more or less valid, conceptional, here are some numbers taken from the log of one of the top Assassination Rogues on 10 man Feng the Accursed (other logs seem about the same so I just picked one).

All numbers are averages.

Ambush: 49205

vs

Mutilate (main hand): 20089
Mutilate (off-hand): 9288
Dispatch: 42342
Deadly Poison (proc on already poisoned target): 11904 x2 with off-hand of Mutilate hitting=23808

Total=95527

Obviously, the above numbers are just napkin math. The first mutilate would never give you x2 deadly poison instant damage as it would do initial poisoning. However, your later attacks would benefit from that initial poison. Also, Ambush could proc deadly poison but is simply less likely to than Mutilate. Finally, the dispatch proc, of course, drives the numbers up very high but is only a 30% proc rate.

A "worst" case scenario would say that opening with Mutilate would do simply 29377. However, you are extremely likely to get the poison proc, so we might buff that damage via poison, in which case Mutilate would pull ahead in the long term effects of the fight.

At the moment, my own napkin math is suggesting, at least to me, that Mutilate does pull ahead, in the long run, of Ambush. The only problem might be energy capping making dispatch procs less effective. Still, with dispatch hitting so hard (and some of that is from potting and using trinkets/Vendetta during sub-35% phases), I will have to rethink my own opening.

phup · 10/17/12, 5:31 PM

If you trust Simcraft's modeling of the mechanics and damage modifiers, then it doesn't matter if you use ambush or mute to open.

T14-Normal Geared Assassination Rogue 450 second fight with 20% variance, 15000 iterations

Ambush -> SnD -> Mutilate -> Rupture = 881184.4 dps
Mutilate -> SnD -> (dispatch if able) -> Mutilate -> Rupture = 87974.1 dps

That was the opening. It also used prep and vanish, and used ambush in the first set of sims and mutilate in the second after vanishes.

So that setup has ambush winning by a whopping 144.3 dps or 0.164% for a fight of that length.

In the 15000 sims that included ambush...

ambush - 20.3% crit 62.2k average dmg
mutilate - 20.9% crit 39k average dmg sum of mh and oh
deadly poison hit - 16.7k avg dmg
dispatch - 52.7k avg