Those are mainly a bunch of assumptions. We can't really say at the moment which tree will have more dps at the start of expansion, but combat will probably scale more with gear if the current talents don't change, mainly because poison is a static source of damage and that finishers scale slower than instants. Just from the looks of it though, I would just speculate that combat dagger will probably find the pre TBC glory in the end.

Regarding hybrid vs. dps classes, there certainly will be a gap, but just to reflect blizzard words "not as big as BC". Remains to be seen whether this gap is in form of stackable buffs that only main dps classes bring (like rogues and mages do at the moment) or 10-15% more personal dps. You won't suddenly see people run with 2 ferals or furies though if they have the choice. that's counter productive to the global buff changes to allow guilds to just take a single hybrid for a given buff and rely on main dps classes more than BC.

I can understand the mentality of "wanting no fillers" but I remember combat dagger before Opportunity was on tier one or even after that. It was a very very boring pure DPS spec, just like 0-21-40 for warlocks is right now. Specs should have options and the only option for any rogue to take a non dps talent is if there is no DPS talent there. How many of you would take a five-pointer "increases your attack power by 0,1/0,2/0,3/0,4/0,5% ? Rogues would take anything that increases their "Brutallus or Patchwerk" DPS.

In most of the end fights in TBC (Malchezaar (ok not really the hardest one), Gruul, Vashj, Kael'Thas, Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden mobility for example is a big issue. On fights like Al'ar or Gruul or Archimonde for example a ShS rogue has a seriously better DPS uptime than a combat rogue and I tend to believe that on some of these fights a ShS rogue with the same gear will outdamage a combat rogue.

What Blizzard wants is to improve the fun of the specs and if the fillers a well enough done this will be the case. They can still change the new ranks or buff certain abilities if our DPS is too low in Naxxramas.

Do you think this spec ( War Tools :: Talent tree Rogues as per Blue ) with 5/5 SwordSpec and 3/5 MaceSpec could outdps a pure SwordSpec , wearing a mace on main hand and a sword on off hand ?
Sorry if it's inopportune.

I think it all depends on how the armor ignore is calculated, as already mentioned in this thread, before or after additional mitigation effects.
If it is before other effects, you might be better off going strictly with mace spec, however if you don't have a decent mace offhand, it looks like an interesting option. Maybe 5 mace spec and 3 sword is even better.

We'll have to wait and let the theorycrafting do its work.


// Edit
I did a very quick and very dirty hack to the DPS spreadsheet, altering fist spec to the new mace spec (didn't want to bother with the current implementation of mace spec). Copied over the warglaive as a fist and checked against my current Brutallus setup (have only main hand, so no set bonus included).
So all values are with current gear, current armor values and current talents (besides mace spec).

If mace spec is calculated before other armor reducing effects:
3/5 mace, 5/5 sword: +16 DPS
5/5 mace, 3/5 sword: +48 DPS

If mace spec is calculated after other armor reducing effects:
3/5 mace, 5/5 sword: -57 DPS
5/5 mace, 3/5 sword: -76 DPS


// Edit 2
Welcome Warfist of Azzinoth and Fist of Savagery. Here are results with both main and offhand being "maces":

If mace spec is calculated before other armor reducing effects:
5/5 mace: +11 DPS

If mace spec is calculated after other armor reducing effects:
5/5 mace: -112 DPS

Somewhat inconclusive results. Maybe I made an error somewhere (not so unlikely). However, these numbers will change anyway with the new talents and altered raid buffs.

To be honest, I don't know how much ArP I have, never bothered.
The DPS sheet says 791 ArP through equipment (and I just noticed that I haven't entered the correct legs there).
With FF, CoR and SA it is a total of 4801 armor reduction.

Remember that FF and CoR count as minor armor piercing debuffs so we'll only get 1 of them.

I agree with Aldriana in that SF is a worse talent than Ruthlessness. However I can't come up with a good way to fix the variability of SF. Making Ruthlessness 100% and skipping SF is my best solution to the SF's problem. A Ruthlessness proc and 2 mutilates would be 5 cp's every time for 5 talent points. I am currently spending 8 talent points to get an approximately 90% chance of the same thing.

Mutilate has the underlying problem of returning an even number of CP's in a pool with an odd numbered cap. Currently we put 3 points in Ruthlessness and 5 points in SF to try to gt that last CP. Yet it feels like I am still stuck at 4 points all the time having to decide between another mutilate and a weak rupture. Yet, I am also stuck with those talents because without them there is no good mutilate cycle.


The coolest solution would be a talent that increases the CP cap to 6, but I do not see it happening this late in beta.

I understand your point that adding talent points to any talent would make it better. However, I think that Surprise Attacks is a bad example. Ruthlessness is more like the old Sap that broke Stealth 50% of the time or the original Cheat Death that would resist the killing blow only 33% of the time, or the current Mace Stun that everyone is complaining about in the Arena.

I see a trend in removing the big RNG dependent talents in the game. I hope Ruthlessness becomes one of them.

Raising the cap to 6 would add problems with cycle lengths. The 2xmut per finisher cycle with CttC is already going to be strained without improved SnD and this would make it worth. Honestly I'd rather SF were changed to make 4 point finishers act like 5 point finishers than add another point for a 6 point cap.

E.G.
Seal Fate: Your finishing moves have a 5/10/15/20/25% chance per combo point to add a combo point to your target before striking.

Old seal fate RNG sillyness would be gone on 4pt + finishers and it would ease the cycle length problem mutilate as with CttC without requiring wasting 3 points in imp SnD and/or a glyph slot on glyph of SnD. Granted this would make ruthlessness almost completely worthless to mutilate builds.

Those are mostly PvP examples, and with good reason: a single lucky Mace Spec proc can swing an entire arena match and the like. A single Ruthlessness proc is not going to win or lose you a boss fight (well, unless you wiped with the boss under ~500 health or something.) RNG in general is a much bigger deal in PvP since the scale is so much smaller, and that's why Blizzard wants to change it. Since you only have 4/6/10 people fighting, one person getting dramatically lucky changes a lot more than one person getting lucky or unlucky out of 25 -- and especially in the case of DPS. Not only that, but a certain amount of RNG actually makes PvE difficult (fights that have too much RNG aren't that fun though -- yes I'm looking at you Eredar Twins -- ), you have to react to a situation (do something different if Ruthlessness procs or doesn't, but on a larger scale, something like heal the person who took that damage) Getting Ruthlessness to proc might give you a bit more damage but in a 10-minute fight you're never going to notice the difference anyways.

However, today, we the DPS get Blessing of Salvation. The boosts to tank threat generation in the beta appears to be < blessing of salvation (I have a level 70 paladin tank raiding at somewhat lower levels than my rogue and keep informed on the paladin changes also). I think it is likely that this kind of buff on the tank will be necessary. Paladin itemization is going to have to be completely different and if you currently have a paladin tank in your guild that tanks much, there will be a mad scramble for more warrior-like gear. It is not obvious that the proposed threat changes for paladins will make up the 30% Blessing of Salvation. It's also not obvious that they won't, but you can see where Tricks of the Trade might be needed down the road.

Imagine adding 30% to your TPS today (and to everyone in your guild, particularly locks who get threat capped first).