But is a good rogue better than a good ret paly, who can improvise nearly as much, and bring on top of that several very powerful buffs ? I certainly don't think so, and honestly I don't see how the opposite can be argued.
I've argued so a number of times. Rogues bring more than just high dps now. Rogues will bring more than just high dps in wotlk as well. Believing that rogues only bring dps is a mistake, though perhaps one which not just rogues, but also raidleaders make.
* High damage
* High damage/threat (less useful now with few threat capped fights, possibly more useful in the future, particularly with Salv changing so substantially)
* CloS capabilities. (As just one example where this comes to bear: how many times have rogues caused a wipe-inducing soul shard on Archimonde? Lots fewer than other classes, because we can cloak out of Grip and Fire damage once per minute. Not to mention having more room for error with the fall damage, and being able to sprint back once we land.)
* Interruption capabilities with a top 2 lockout/cooldown ratios with (realistically) no resistance problems
* Ability to do our jobs while moving - i.e. staying out of AoE on Illidari Council
* Evasion tanking capabilities (though typically this will either be gimmicky, or an oh shit skill - just last night we did a three rogue evasion tank finale on Bloodboil which dropped him with 3 toons left alive)
* MN, Wound, and Crippling poison capability. Oh, and anesthetic (heh, at least for now).
* Complete disregard of Silence debuffs
For the moment at least, the issue of dps/threat seems a moot one, since tank threat maintenance is such a joke right now. I haven't seen any disputing the other points, though. I haven't even seen any acknowledging them, if even just to hand-wave and assert that they are not as valuable as other class "utility".
DKs will with 3 different specs (2 of those DPS) fill a melee group quite nicely with their debuffs. As it is, I see a melee group consist of 2 DKs, shaman and a dps warrior/retri and a feral being there in place of any rogue with their similiar dps.
Speaking as a feral druid considering rerolling to a rogue come the xpac I find the discussion here to be somewhat confusing. I guess what is throwing me is that what I consider the rogue's greatest strength in raiding (especially in Sunwell) is survivability.
To be specific:
Kalecgos: Cloak of Shadows drops arcane debuffs resulting
Brut: Cloak clears Burns
Felmyst: Cloak clears Encapsulate
Twins: Vanish avoids the Conflag
These are all huge advantages for a rogue over any other dps (excepting mages and Paladins who have similar abilities but on longer cooldowns). Now admittedly this is all dead content in a month but looking forward you now have all these mechanics and you also have a misdirect and the ability to emulate/replace arms warrior/ret paladin.
From the hybrid perspective the change to raidwide buffs is huge. While there is certainly an incentive to bring hybrids, there is also a disincentive to bring more than one. As well please keep in mind that alot of the benefits you list are class specific rather than spec specific. Battle rez and Innervate are nice, but the buff that a physical dps druid brings is Leader of the Pack. Now with raidwide buffs there's no real reason to bring both a feral druid and a fury warrior (barring Imp LotP which is increasingly difficult to justify with the current feral tree) and certainly no reason to bring two ferals. Shaman totems are similar in that there is no real reason to have more than one set going for the raid, and bloodlust/heroism having the cooldown also discourages stacking that class. Add in that alot of the raid buffs can be (and often are) applied by other specs than dps (resto shamans/druids for brez, innervate, totems) and that holy paladins can now spec so they can apply judgements from 30yrds away (alleviating some of the utility of the ret paladin) and the need for/focus on dps hybrids drops further.
Unless I'm missing something crucial rogues are going to continue to be a very desirable raid member due not only to high personal dps, the ability to bring buffs, but also because on encounter attempts they generally require less healer attention than other classes which certainly increases success rate.
Nobody uses any kind of CC in Wrath. I tried sheeping a few things a handful of times and got whispers that I should skip that and just do damage.
Something that is useful is CCing a loose add. Gouge/Blind style, just to get it off the healer until the tank can pick it up again.
Ret paladins who know how to toss a well-timed Repentence and also know how to BoP are pretty suited for that role.
But the times of old shattered halls and shadow labyrinth or magister's terrace where you wanted tank/healer and 3 mages are definately over.
Ah, well, I don't have a beta key! But as you say, we have Blind, Gouge (as well as Kidney shot and, in a pinch, Crippling Poison and Vanish + Cheap Shot).
As a mage in mostly blues and sme epic, I'm at 20k HP raid buffed now with PWF/GotW/BoK and Blood Pact.
I have seen half the ten-mans out there, and 20k seems like a decent baseline now.
I could well image that this goes up to 25k or more for the future Naj'entus/Council HP checks.
Wow, 20k? Well, wasn't baseline in Classic, pre-BC 6k or something? I suppose, with raid buffs, it isn't that unreasonable to expect hp to double (I'm just over 9k right now). Well, in any case, hp's the least of my worries...
Originally Posted by Akka
Second, what's ludicrous is that you seem to only validate worries if they mean that the class will disappear from raiding. I consider that imbalance itself is reason enough to point at a problem, even though my own place in raid is secure beyond any doubt : I'm an officer, raid leader and one of the most reliable player in my guild, nobody's gonna take my place whatever the class balance is. But that's not the point. The point is, if there is an imbalance, it's bad for the game as a whole.
If there's *such* a huge imbalance, Blizzard will have to do something about it. I mean, they buffed the Retribution tree in 2.3, even though Holy and Prot were/are perfectly good specs. If neither Mutilate nor Combat are raid-worthy (which I highly doubt, Mutilate looks great right now; Combat's damage is getting pumped up [Source]). From those new blue posts that someone else brought up, I'm confident that the devs aren't going to let some crazy imbalance happen.
And right now, with the expansion's design idea of rogues being, even though they are "buff-sponge", at the same DPS than other classes in a raid setting, they will logically deal less DPS in buffless settings, and will have dubious raid utility. I'm not really concerned about rogues not being taken for raid anymore - I don't think it will be the case, if only because of social reason. But I'm not being thrilled with the concept of playing a class that bring nothing special in a raid, and is subpar outside of raids (talking about PvE here, not PvP).
I'm not sure what you mean about being "subpar outside of raids." Are you actually concerned about not being able to do heroics after you're wearing Naxx purples?
To be honest, I'm not much of a raider - my guild is stuck in Kara, and I only PUGed 2/4 TK once and 4/6 ZA once (T5 shoulders and Cloak of Fiends, woo). But the issue of getting a raid invite - and by extension, recruited by a progression guild - is based on two things, from my experience. Being a particular class/spec that matches with what the guild/PUG raid needs is important, for sure, but I don't buy it that guilds will suddenly not need Rogues in Wrath. The second factor is gear! Let's face it, if you aren't ready for Black Temple gear-wise, it doesn't matter how good of a player you are. (Although with the badge rewards, it now seems possible to gear up for T6 while dressed in a T4 set + badge items, but that'll be irrelevant pretty soon.) But hey, I'm sure it's different in T6.
Anyhow, this is all speculation. Come November, if guilds start stacking Enh Shaman (I wanna see, like, 20x Feral Spirit wolves on Kel'Thuzad, can someone take that screenshot?) and giving them Rogue leather, I'll admit I was wrong and our class is a failure. But even in that terrible scenario, I'm sure Blizzard will rebalance...and maybe give us back the Deadly part of Deadly Brew.
EDIT: Oh, but the Cloak of Shadows nerf makes me sadface.
While rogue utility is a bit weak atm, I think it's a bit unfair to criticize the "EA is part of your utility" line from Blizzard -- at least quite as much as is fashionable.
Provided you're expected to actually bring that utility to the table (ie, no prot warrior keeping sunders up), there's a seriously large debuff missing on the boss: the armour debuff we take for granted today. I'm pulling numbers out of my arse here, but I'm willing to bet that expose armour is only bested as a personal dps finisher by slice and dice. (Best I could find is an estimate of 11k armour for lvl80 bosses, which would drop their armour to 7k. That's better than 10% extra physical damage, if I'm not mistaken).
What ends up happening is that most raiding guilds will end up recruiting a prot warrior specifically for sunders because the prot warrior can keep it up with zero cost versus the dps loss and the higher chance of the debuff falling off from the rogue keeping EA up. I believe this is the scenario that Blizzard does not want happening.
So, in order for EA to be viable, there should no opportunity cost for the rogue keeping EA up the same way there is no opportunity cost for a prot warrior keeping sunders up. In TBC, improved EA was better than sunder armor so the rogue's dps loss was offset by gains in raid dps. This is no longer the case in WOTLK.
The second factor is gear! Let's face it, if you aren't ready for Black Temple gear-wise, it doesn't matter how good of a player you are. (Although with the badge rewards, it now seems possible to gear up for T6 while dressed in a T4 set + badge items, but that'll be irrelevant pretty soon.) But hey, I'm sure it's different in T6.
This isn't necessarily true. It isn't hard to gear up excellent players. I'll take a smart, dedicated, skilled player in badge gear and blues over a retard in raid epics anyday.
Rogues have a good niche with self survavibility, and less healing pressure (still being a melee). Or they would if we could get talents such as cheat death or quick recovery without lowering our dps. PvP balance I guess...
But Blizzard doesn't want to improve said survivability for raiders it seems (clos cd, new assa tree...).
They also buff up our poisons' share in our total dps, and still take for granted Wound/Mind Numbing.
On the other hand, raiding guilds get full on rogues pretty fast in TBC, and start refusing a lot of them. At least that's what I noticed. And with the new open-raid system, it would be tempting to recruit more rogues, and bring more in a raid.
WotLK will also have to overcome the currently active idea that rogues are great dpsers once you have all the buffing classes (I don't say best dpsers).
So, for WotLK launch, Blizzard may emphasize not overpowering rogues in a raid environnement, even if it means nerfing them a little.
This isn't necessarily true. It isn't hard to gear up excellent players. I'll take a smart, dedicated, skilled player in badge gear and blues over a retard in raid epics anyday.
Of course you won't keep someone who moves every time on Flame Wreath, even if they have 2k AP. But if you're actively progressing, instead of farming T6, if someone's in blues, he or she probably won't get a raid spot. There are minimum stats, whether you're doing Heroic MgT or Sunwell, right?
But with that in mind, for you guys in Beta, how hard is Naxx? I know people in T6 seem to do fine, but has anyone tried with lvl 80 blues? How did your dps compare?
I think I would still take Quick Recovery - there's still a small chance that your finishing moves will not hit, right, unless you're Expertise capped AND yellow hit capped?
So i decided to copy my dude over, and try out mutilate. Using my current gear + both 1.8 badges daggers of course. BT trinket and Shard. Im thinking ill use Tsunami and shard tonight.
Okay, I think this discussion has gone on just about long enough. I'm not saying that debating the viability of rogues in raids is a waste of time, but given that the recent conversation has basically been a rehash of the one 60 pages ago with a dash of "the sky is falling" thrown in for good measure, I think it's about time to call a halt to it. So let me make a few things clear:
First, Blizzard is not going to leave rogues - or any other class - in a state where they are undesirable to bring to raids. Roughly 10% of their player base is rogues. They are not going to alienate 10% of their player base for no reason. So if rogues stop getting raid spots, they will buff us until that stops being true. So the whole argument about raid viability is basically ridiculous.
Second, even were that not the case, it is worth noting that basically every class is at this point worried about their raid viability relative to other classes. There are very few, if any, classes/specs at the moment who are saying "you know what, we're pretty much good. I'm not at all worried about our position in raids". So the fact that we are having those concerns as well is not even remotely concerning to me. Particularly since Blizzard has flat-out said that there will be more changes coming for us to help with some of the major existing issues.
Third, as I mentioned a few pages back, the perception that no guilds want to recruit rogues is just a flat-out myth. I said it before, and I said it again: I've recently been recruiting rogues. It's taken me over a month so far to find an applicant that has SWP experience past Kalecgos and doesn't drop SnD 7-9 times on Brutallus. There's hardly a surplus of rogues at the top levels - if anything, I'd say there's more guilds looking for rogues than rogues looking for guilds.
So, lets be clear, here: there is no current problem, and there is no reason to believe that there will be a problem when WotLK goes live. While I admit there may be some minor legitimate concerns at the moment (although I'd need some convincing), there is still plenty of time for them to be fixed. If you would like to discuss these specific issues, you're welcome to do so. But the general "the sky is falling" talk needs to stop.
Of course you won't keep someone who moves every time on Flame Wreath, even if they have 2k AP. But if you're actively progressing, instead of farming T6, if someone's in blues, he or she probably won't get a raid spot. There are minimum stats, whether you're doing Heroic MgT or Sunwell, right?
I'm not gonna derail this thread with any more recruitment theory, but I've been raiding and a Rogue officer since MC, and while you're correct that there are certain levels of itemization for progression instances, but it's absolutely always worthwhile to grab good reliable players instead of geared ones. The gear will come one way or another.
I would much rather build up a solid core of people, and take more time to progress, than push content with geared idiots. It's just... draining
First, Expose Armor obviously has nearly no utility in a 25-man, because you are essentially guaranteed to have a Warrior in some capacity, and they're going to be able to run Sunder Armor at a much lower opportunity cost. And if your Warrior is tanking you don't want to run Expose at all because it greatly hurts their threat generation.
However, in a 10-man, if you do not have a Warrior, it's worth it. And with DKs thrown in as a viable tank without a major armor debuff, it's very well likely to occur. I've been on several runs with a DK and a Paladin tanking, and in that case provided you have other physical DPSers, it's certainly worth to use. It's not optimal, it means you will lose out on Rupture DPS, but the overall raid benefit is definitely there. In a 10 man you're far more likely to run with what you have as opposed to 100% min/maxing everything, because they're designed with that assumption. Keep in mind a large reasoning for the buff consolidation is to try to make forming a 10-man raid easier, because you don't necessarily need specific classes to fill up your slots.
As for Kick, honestly, Kick is the least of my worries. With it off the GCD it's really not that bad to maintain your cycle while still interrupting every time it's up. I've done it multiple times on KT fights and still done very well damage-wise (FWIW, KT seems to be the only fight thus far implemented in WotLK where kick is a factor). It's not hard at all to maintain a cycle, at least a Mutilate one, because you have so much spare room thrown in there. You definitely still lose DPS, but it's not that bad.
Poisons are a little more difficult. If you have to run Wound/Anaesthetic poison on Gluth, you won't have any Deadly Poison, which means no Envenom, which means you have to replace it in your cycle with the clearly inferior Eviscerate. So not only do you lose DP DPS, you also lose DPS downgrading from Envenom to Eviscerate. I guess what's problematic is kind of what's problematic with Expose Armor. You have to alter your cycle to accommodate it, as opposed to it just being something you can just add in when needed (as Kick).
So if we broke down our current raid utility into categories, here's how I'd break it down:
No Opportunity Cost - Blood Poisoning (you likely want to pick this up regardless of whether or not there's an Arms Warrior), Sap (it's marginal but hey it works on Dragonkin in Obsidian Sanctum!)
Little Opportunity Cost - Master Poisoner (could take a personal DPS talent instead, provided there's a Ret Pally present)
Moderate Opportunity Cost - Tricks of the Trade, Kick
Large Opportunity Cost - Wound Poison, Anaesthetic Poison, Expose Armor, Hemorrhage
Compare this to say a Survival Hunter, and I'm not sure you can say any of their raid utility falls into the "large" opportunity cost category. They all are moderate or better. But I don't want to turn this into a "grass is greener" argument. We definitely have utility, it'd just be nice if some of our most expensive utility was rethought a little to not be quite as expensive (I liked the idea of having Dismantle Refresh EA as posted by someone else).
Really though, what I am worried about currently is we do not seem to scale as well as other classes from 10->25 man right now. I need more data points to definitively know that's the case, but at least my experience on the weekend seemed to indicate this issue. I do very well in 10-man runs, almost always in the top couple (outside of a couple of key fights), but I seem to end up more middle-of-the-pack once all buffs are in play.
As for the comment someone made a few pages back, that we should respond to GC's question about what feels out of place within our damage breakdowns, I have already replied to that, on page one of that thread in fact! So assuming she read that, they probably do know about it in some capacity. Whether or not it'll be replied to, or anything will change remains to be seen.
Third, as I mentioned a few pages back, the perception that no guilds want to recruit rogues is just a flat-out myth. I said it before, and I said it again: I've recently been recruiting rogues. It's taken me over a month so far to find an applicant that has SWP experience past Kalecgos and doesn't drop SnD 7-9 times on Brutallus. There's hardly a surplus of rogues at the top levels - if anything, I'd say there's more guilds looking for rogues than rogues looking for guilds.
So, lets be clear, here: there is no current problem, and there is no reason to believe that there will be a problem when WotLK goes live. While I admit there may be some minor legitimate concerns at the moment (although I'd need some convincing), there is still plenty of time for them to be fixed. If you would like to discuss these specific issues, you're welcome to do so. But the general "the sky is falling" talk needs to stop.
I'm not sure anyone is saying there is a CURRENT problem. In T6 content, rogues are doing...ok. Not great, but ok. And there's a few fights that are tailor made for our Kick.
The point is, when everyone's dps is nearly identical, the coin of the realm is utility. Based on what we've been told about WotLK to date, and what we can realistically expect coming (ie, it's just over a month away - I doubt there will be any earth shattering new mechanics), Rogues look poor.
Again, in a WotLK raiding guild, do you forsee recruiting rogues? If so, why? Is Kick really all that important?
It seems as if there will be a lot more things to "keep up" during Wrath. As a Combat Rogue right now, it's generally just a matter of keeping SnD and Rupture ticking, burning Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry, and hoping for Mongoose and trinket procs. That looks pretty unchanged for Wrath.
(Maybe the rest of this should be in Mutilate discussion, but as the new build isn't live yet, I'm going to include it here. Sorry if this is redundant...)
With the new potential 51/10/5 Mutilate build - correct me if I'm wrong - you'll be looking to keep up Hunger for Blood and SnD (which will hopefully stay refreshed). If there's no Warrior, as Chalon mentioned, Expose Armor also looks good, and it looks like Envenom is the "instant" finishing of choice. Assuming you get 4-5 combo points per two Mutilates, my question is, which effect (Expose Armor, SnD, Rupture, HfB) do you prioritize? Right now as Combat, I usually begin a boss fight with Garotte -> SnD, then build up Rupture and SnD, always keeping SnD up. Since Mutilate doesn't get as much damage from white attacks, would it be better to keep HfB up first? And how does Cold Blood fit in?
EDIT: On the other hand, there's a case for using SnD first for more poison procs and Focused Attacks procs. So, would it be: Hunger For Blood > SnD > Rupture > Expose Armor > Envenom?
You can pre-stack Hunger for Blood before the pull. I usually hit a refresh right before the tank pulls, throw up Tricks of the Trade on the tank, then run in. By the time I get back I should be close to full energy. Then I just open with 2 Mutilates, hit SnD, then the next 5 CP I can use for Rupture or EA, depending on what I'm running. Obviously start in stealth if at all possible, because your first two Mutilates will cost only 50 energy instead of 60. If you're running EA, you pretty much won't be running Rupture consistently. It replaces it in your cycle more or less, though sometimes you may have a few spare CP/time to throw in from time to time into Rupture. Then at some point in there my HfB will need to be refreshed, and after that I'll hit an Envenom.
Finally I get into the cycle of watching the EA/Rupture timer and trying to get a 5 CP one up when practical, but prioritizing not letting HfB or SnD drop. The cycle is a bit different depending on crits/Ruthlessness procs, but that's ultimately what you go for. It's not that hard to keep up with a good timer mod, but it's definitely something you have to pay attention to.
I'm not sure anyone is saying there is a CURRENT problem. In T6 content, rogues are doing...ok. Not great, but ok. And there's a few fights that are tailor made for our Kick.
The point is, when everyone's dps is nearly identical, the coin of the realm is utility. Based on what we've been told about WotLK to date, and what we can realistically expect coming (ie, it's just over a month away - I doubt there will be any earth shattering new mechanics), Rogues look poor.
Again, in a WotLK raiding guild, do you forsee recruiting rogues? If so, why? Is Kick really all that important?
Actually, quite a few people have been saying it's a current problem, and it's just not true. To say that in T6 rogues are doing "okay, not great" in understating how well we're doing. As I say: there is more demand for SWP rogues than there are available T6 rogues to fill that demand. Guilds are actively going out and saying "we need more rogues" and are unable to find them. I'm very happy with the balance of rogues at the moment.
Now, as for recruiting in the expansion, will I still want rogues? Well, that's a hard question to answer. Based on the current balance, I have no idea. I don't know if rogues on beta are competing in terms of practical DPS or not. But lets assume for the moment that they are - that is, a good rogue does is not significantly beaten on DPS by any one class on a majority of fights. Would I want rogues? Absolutely. Why? Because, discounting global raid buffs/debuffs for the moment, rogues have has much miscellaneous utility as any class, and more than most. Kick, poisons, CoS, Evasion, Sprint, Vanish, Tricks of the Trade - the list goes on and on. And even were that not the case, I'd *still* want rogues. For a lengthier discussion of the reasoning behind this, I might refer you to, for instance, this post.
As a note: it's worth pointing out that said post was made 70 pages ago in this thread. As I say: this discussion has been had. It doesn't need to be had again. If you have specific concerns about our functional DPS output, that's a legitimate topic for debate. But if you're just griping about our utility being insufficient, I don't want to hear it.
Frankly, my biggest disappointment with rogues at the moment is that our level 80 skill is a joke. This is not to say that there aren't other problems with the class - that's just the only one which I don't see getting fixed within the next few weeks.
I admit I have a tendency to stay clear of bandwagon specs (which doesn't mean that I stay clear of cookie cutters), so I was kinda wondering again. I'd just need some feedback from beta testers to think it over:
1) What is the estimated CP generation for Honor Among Thieves in a raiding environment? It has a 1 second internal cooldown, but what kind of generation do you actually see? 1 CP/10 seconds? 1 CP/4 seconds? 1CP/2 seconds? Or does it get real close to that cooldown of 1 CP/second?
2) Combined with the result from the previous question, how long does it take to build up 5 CP, so including those from your normal main attack? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? It's definitely going to be better than the 15 seconds we currently have on live, I just still haven't seen many ballpark estimates from people who actually tested it, with everybody "testing" mutilate.
3) What finishers would be suggestable with the amount of CP's available? SnD for starters, and probably also rupture. But given a high enough CP generation, one might be able to squeeze in 2 or even 3 more finishers, during 1 Improved SnD. Eviscerate being a very obvious one. But assuming the tank is not a warrior, though a DPS warrior might be present, how do Eviscerate and Expose Armor compare? And how about the talented versions of these abilities?
4) Assuming you have the CP's to deal extra finishers besides the standard SnD and Rupture, and assuming EA is not as strong a finisher as Eviscerate, could Imp Eviscerate become a better filler talent than Lethality on a per-point basis? Or in other words, which would be better: 3/3 Imp Eviscerate or 3/5 Lethality. Both are filler talents, for lack of anything better, but when assuming that a quarter upto half ones finishers might be Eviscerates, which would be the better?
Just some things about talents, mechanics and effects that I hear very little, if anything at all, about. About everything that can be said about Mutilate has already been said. I'm pretty sure similar questions can be made about some mechanics in the Combat tree, by the way.
Here's a perplexing Blizzard quote that refers to Fan of Knives:
We picked that cost pretty much because it competes with Sinister Strike. If FoK is 40 or 30, we worry you would hit it every single time it's up. Now that depends a little on your weapons and poisons, etc. But that was the concern.
I don't understand this rationale at all. Why shouldn't Fan of Knives be a go-to ability whenever it's cooled down? Isn't this how survival hunters use multi-shot or warriors use mortal strike?
Considering it's on a 30s cooldown, I don't understand why it is a problem for it to be superior to just another sinister strike, even on a single target.
I think Fan of Knives should either be low to know cost, but with a cooldown, or high cost with no cooldown. It doesn't make much sense to put in two mechanics--high energy cost and a cooldown-- which serve to prevent spamming the ability. Either one would work. As a third (and rather different) option, they could make Fan of Knives a finisher. It could cost 35 or 40 energy (equal to or slightly higher than eviscerate) and do equal damage to eviscerate per target (if 40 energy) or slightly less (if 35 energy) so that you lose dps by using it on only one target, but gain dps by using it in a multi-target situation. Finally, being a finishing move would remove the ability to spam it, while allowing it to be used often enough in an AOE fight to be useful at all.
I admit I have a tendency to stay clear of bandwagon specs (which doesn't mean that I stay clear of cookie cutters), so I was kinda wondering again. I'd just need some feedback from beta testers to think it over:
1) What is the estimated CP generation for Honor Among Thieves in a raiding environment? It has a 1 second internal cooldown, but what kind of generation do you actually see? 1 CP/10 seconds? 1 CP/4 seconds? 1CP/2 seconds? Or does it get real close to that cooldown of 1 CP/second?
2) Combined with the result from the previous question, how long does it take to build up 5 CP, so including those from your normal main attack? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? It's definitely going to be better than the 15 seconds we currently have on live, I just still haven't seen many ballpark estimates from people who actually tested it, with everybody "testing" mutilate.
3) What finishers would be suggestable with the amount of CP's available? SnD for starters, and probably also rupture. But given a high enough CP generation, one might be able to squeeze in 2 or even 3 more finishers, during 1 Improved SnD. Eviscerate being a very obvious one. But assuming the tank is not a warrior, though a DPS warrior might be present, how do Eviscerate and Expose Armor compare? And how about the talented versions of these abilities?
4) Assuming you have the CP's to deal extra finishers besides the standard SnD and Rupture, and assuming EA is not as strong a finisher as Eviscerate, could Imp Eviscerate become a better filler talent than Lethality on a per-point basis? Or in other words, which would be better: 3/3 Imp Eviscerate or 3/5 Lethality. Both are filler talents, for lack of anything better, but when assuming that a quarter upto half ones finishers might be Eviscerates, which would be the better?
Just some things about talents, mechanics and effects that I hear very little, if anything at all, about. About everything that can be said about Mutilate has already been said. I'm pretty sure similar questions can be made about some mechanics in the Combat tree, by the way.
FWIW, it seems like the "best" Hemo raid spec at the moment is a 7/43/21 variant. In which case you wouldn't take Imp. Eviscerate or Lethality. I'm fairly certain that even with 1 CP/second the 7/43/21 variety will out DPS any spec going that deep into Subtlety. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has really done the math for Honor Among Thieves.
Looking at Vulajin's current spreadsheet version, the default Combat Fist/Swords spec does about 4485 DPS. If I change to a 7/43/21 spec, it's about 3974 (about 11% lower). If I go with a 7/14/50 variant with everything else I'd normally get with Honor Among Thieves, I get 3675 DPS (Honor Among Thieves appears to be NYI in the current sheet). So you'd have to get about 300 DPS from the talent just to make up the ground with 7/43/21 (which I'd suspect it doesn't), and it's still well behind a standard Combat spec.
Well, Deadly Throw already provides the role of a ranged finisher. And no, it doesn't see much PvE use, either.
As far as Fan of Knives, my Wardens always took Shadow Strike; you had Huntresses for lots of little guys.
...
Hi-five, WC3 players!
But seriously, Fan of Knives is cute and flavorful, and might be worth hitting when it's off cooldown, but I don't think it's going to be an essential part of a rotation.
EDIT: Thanks for the rundown, Chalon. Mutilate looks a lot more interesting than Combat rotation. Do you ever use Garotte, or is it more efficient to just Mutilate? What about Ambush?
I realize this a very minor issue, and balancing PvE damage between classes, balancing PvP, and even balancing the Rogue trees relative to one another is more important. On the other hand, it seems like a relatively easy change.
Maces are currently the worse weapon for both PvP and PvE. On the Roguecraft spreadsheet, I've been unable to find a situation where you would ever want to spec maces, for any armor level of your target (including limited PvP modelling). While Sword/Sword seems like the best combat build, Fist/Sword gets close, and with CQC being at a different part of the tree than Sword Specialization, builds that trade Fists for Swords might have different properties (depending on unknown Lighting Reflexes buffs).
Maces, on the other hand, compete directly with Swords. There's no reason to use a Mace in addition to another type of weapon, unlike Swords. In BC, there was at least a PvP reason to use Maces, but now that they have no utility other than their subpar dps. Maces are so bad that using Swords of a lower tier is better than using Maces.
For example, comparing a bunch of combat builds with Merciless Gladiator weapons
(assuming you can take all weapon specializations for no loss of other talent points):
MaceMace: 1250
FistMace: 1285
FistFist: 1300
FistDagger: 1306
FistSword: 1323
SwordSword: 1324
MaceMace(with Vengeful rather than Merciless): 1284
Is there any reason at all to use maces? Should they just be removed as a Rogue weapon?
1) What is the estimated CP generation for Honor Among Thieves in a raiding environment? It has a 1 second internal cooldown, but what kind of generation do you actually see? 1 CP/10 seconds? 1 CP/4 seconds? 1CP/2 seconds? Or does it get real close to that cooldown of 1 CP/second?
I would say that this depends greatly on whether you are using Hemo or Backstab and wpn spds.
As Hemo:
Assuming hasted MH of 2.0 and OH of 1.0, and a hemo every 30 secs (30 energy) and 30% base crit:
crits/per second MH: .15
crits/per second OH: .30
crits/per second Hemo: .10
Total crits/per second = .55
Time to crit = 1.81
@40% crit rate:
crits/per second MH: .2
crits/per second OH: .4
crits/per second Hemo: .133
Total crits/per second = .7333
Time to crit = 1.364
As Backstab @ 30% crit (85% BS), 1.4 hasted MH, 1.0 hasted OH
crits/per second MH: .2174
crits/per second OH: .3000
crits/per second BS: .1700
Total crits/per second = .6874
Time to crit = 1.455
As Backstab @ 40% crit (95% BS), 1.4 hasted MH, 1.0 hasted OH
crits/per second MH: .2899
crits/per second OH: .4000
crits/per second BS: .1900
Total crits/per second = .8799
Time to crit = 1.137
You can see that worst case it might be around 2 secs solo, but with high crit and sub daggers, it can be nearly 1 sec just by yourself. Add in 4 other mates and you should easily cap out at 1 CP per second no matter what...in a perfect world. My testing on PTR showed me getting a free CP about every 3rd second though.
2) Combined with the result from the previous question, how long does it take to build up 5 CP, so including those from your normal main attack? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? It's definitely going to be better than the 15 seconds we currently have on live, I just still haven't seen many ballpark estimates from people who actually tested it, with everybody "testing" mutilate.
Hypothetically you could get 5 cps in 4 secs (4 cps over 4 secs from Honor + 1 from Hemo). Realistically crits aren't coming at even spaced intervals so you'd actually have a bunch of wasted ones probably.
Keep in mind also other skills. Shadowdance allows you to use Ambush instead of Backstab. Ambush procs Initiative so that is 2 cps plus the free one on a crit (~90% crit rate). combined with Vanish and Premed, you can get quite a few Ambushes off that folks would normally not consider.
So in the real world this is hard to answer for me. In my testing, I never went more than 8 secs I'd say before getting a full 5 cps. In addition, often after a finisher, by the time I got around to my 2nd combo attack, I already had 5 cps. When using Shadow Dance, twice I got cps faster than I could use them (my reaction time that is).
3) What finishers would be suggestable with the amount of CP's available? SnD for starters, and probably also rupture. But given a high enough CP generation, one might be able to squeeze in 2 or even 3 more finishers, during 1 Improved SnD. Eviscerate being a very obvious one. But assuming the tank is not a warrior, though a DPS warrior might be present, how do Eviscerate and Expose Armor compare? And how about the talented versions of these abilities?
I'd use envenom. With the poison rate increase following an envenom, its pretty quick to restack 5 applications of Deadly.
I haven't tested out the additional things you ask. But I believe Envenom is stronger than Eviscerate, so you'd be better off putting points in Lethality. But the type of Subtlety build you are also plays into this. Whether you go Hemo or Backstab.
Edit: And please, the better Theorycrafters out there correct my math. I'd like to make sure I am following this properly.
Last edited by Rupp : 09/29/08 at 4:54 PM.
Reason: Request for double checking.
I've got one double check already: HaT isn't supposed to proc from white crits (it currently happens on the PTR I heard, it's a bit unreliable there), so we'd be looking at
crits/per second Hemo: .10 / .133
and
crits/per second BS: .1700/.1900
respectively, and in addition to those, get to count crits from Evisc/Envenom as well, though that's a rather small amount.
09/29/08, 2:16 PM
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