Noone thought about the chance that fist weapon and dagger specs might outdps swords when you spec into Prey on the weak?
It's been thought about, but it's a question that we really have no way of answering right now. Until we get a feeling for what itemization at 80 looks like, and what all the numbers are for the new abilities, we can't really make DPS estimates accurate enough to say for certain. That said: my guess is what we will find is that fist/sword passes sword/sword, but fist/fist does not.
Originally Posted by Ribs
That would be a total of 0,623 cp/s. Add 30% proc, you'd be looking at a 0,1869 cp/s. Add the 0,22 from normal backstabbing, you'd have a 0,4069 cp/s. Which would make for a 2,5 cp/s on and about.
Furthermore you can see how quickly these numbers change if you add fast attacks with high crit chances, like Mutilate and Backstab. Furthermore if you consider wf procs are considered yellow damage and thus can be special abilities, the cp generation are only going up.
WF Totem counts as a white attack in all other situations, so I can't imagine it - or any proc - would apply here. I suppose WF Weapon on the Enhancement shaman may count... and it's entirely possibly that poison procs would, which could change the situation in interesting ways.
That said: .4 cp per sec isn't that much higher than a combat rogue does with combat potency, so while it's certainly good I'm not sure it's going to really change that much - your optimal cycle is probably just 5s/5r/Xe, where the eviscerate is just the largest thing you can squeeze in - probably 3 or 4 points, in most cases. The fundamental problem is that nonSnD finishers are just such a small portion of your DPS - even with the buffs, I don't imagine they'll top 10%, so squeezing in a few extra is not necessarily as large a boost as one might like.
Originally Posted by Fog
Now, when we factor in Focused Attacks and assuming you can get a crit every second (and with poison crits being affected by your crit rating, that is one more source for crits, particulary interesting if you use IP on OH or possibly on both hands if no WF), that means you get 3 energy per second...on 60 seconds that's...yep 180 energy.
3 energy per second would require over 3 crits per second, and even with a 45% crit rate that would require 7 attacks per second, which I seriously doubt anyone will achieve. It's more like 1 energy per second - still good, definitely, but not enough to cover Hunger. Not that that means Hunger isn't worth using - it just means that it will reduce the number of Mutilates and Finishers you can land... which seems a bit out of character for assassination somehow.
I think it's of dire importance that we find out whether hunger for blood has a graphic. there's no cooldown on it and it can be used out of combat. Do I sense the return of swirly ball?
ok, nonsense aside: Assuming assasination will be the primary pve dps tree, there's a number of things that spring to mind. I am not going to answer any of your questions in this post, because i don't know the answers. I'm just naming the topics that in my opinion deserve some attention.
First off, there is the matter of WF vs IP. IP will have 45% chance to be applied versus wf's 20%. I don't know whether windfury gives a bonus attack that has increased attack power, or whether it actually increases your attack power for a ~0.1s time interval when it procs. I do know WF can't proc from mutilate/eviscerate. We don't know whether poison crits will do 1.5x damage or 2.0. As far as i understand it's also not entirely clear yet whether the crit rate on poisons will be equal to melee crit chance or a bit lower. Either way, as a really crude guess, your mainhand swing damage will have to be roughly twice as much as a poison proc for wf to be better than IP. We haven't seen any new ranks of poisons yet, so the actual amount of damage we can expect a poison proc to do is also still a blank.
Second, slow daggers vs fast daggers in MH and OH. The only advantage to having a slow offhander is slightly increased Mutilate dps. The disadvantages are reduced poison dps and reduced energy gain from focused attacks. For the mainhand, a slow weapon has a 25% bigger impact on mutilate damage than it has in the offhand, and if wf proves superior to IP there is no loss of poison dps from a slow mainhander. However, the impact on mutilate damage is still quite small. I think we may well end up with 2 1.3 speed daggers.
Third, finishers. The new rupture does an underwhelming amount of damage compared to the new eviscerate. I don't know how well evisc will scale with ap in the expansion, but it will have to be pretty damn lousy if they want us to use rupture instead of it. Also, there is (so far) no new rank of envenom. We can't say anything about this with certainty until we see the ap coefficients for the new ranks of the finishers, but so far it looks like eviscerate is intended to be our primary finisher. If this is the case, it will mean we'll be spending a larger percentage of our energy on finishing moves.
Fourth, rotation. I think Cut to the Chase will probably be changed in some way before release. However, with the general idea of this talent and the new and improved eviscerate in mind, along with the 15% increased crit chance on mutilate (which means noncrit mutilates will be rarer), it may be worthwhile to finish with 3 cp. Once again, we can't say anything truly sensible about this until the new ap coefficients have been determined.
Fifth, scaling. Our damage in wotlk is going to come from 4 sources. White swings, poison procs, mutilate damage, and finisher damage. Here's a list of which of those damage sources scale with which dps stat.
Hit - directly scales up all 4 up to the hit cap for specials, which is 9% atm, and may or may not change in the expansion. Beyond the special hit cap it scales with white swings and poisons.
Crit - Scales with everything, In fact, it's better than that because it also increases energy gain through focused attacks and cp generation with SF.
AP - Scales with everything but poison dps.
Haste - Scales with white damage and poison dps, also slightly increases mutilate and finisher dps due to focused attacks.
Expertise - Scales with white damage and poisons, also slightly increases mutilate and finisher dps due to the small energy loss on a dodged special.
Armor Penetration - scales with everything but poison dps.
From this list it's apparent that some stat weightings will inevitably change. Haste is likely to become better than hit beyond the special hit cap, although 1% hit is still more than 1% white damage increase while 1% haste is less than 1% white damage increase, so it will be a relatively close call. Crit has been significantly buffed, and may well be better than hit beyond 9%. We'll have to wait on the new coefficients to see which of agility and pure crit will be the superior stat, expertise will likely be less good than it is now, and armor penetration remains roughly the same.
Finally, there are some things that concern me about the talents. For starters there are too many of them. Either some talents will have to be merged together, or we will be forced to forfeit some of the talents. Hunger for blood, in its current form, is way too pvp-oriented and possibly imbalanced in pvp. It doesn't synergize with the tree's other talents particularly well, in fact it synergizes quite badly, especially with cut to the chase (which i think is an underpowered talent and needs to be buffed). It's a really great talent, but i think it definitely needs some work done before it's ready for release. Also, it would be nice if they let us take either opportunity or dagger specialization instead of lightning fucking reflexes, but that's probably too much to ask for.
We don't know whether poison crits will do 1.5x damage or 2.0. As far as i understand it's also not entirely clear yet whether the crit rate on poisons will be equal to melee crit chance or a bit lower.
For what it is worth, poisons currently use a 1.5x multiplier. I have a screenshot of Wound poison critting on a lower leveled mob. It did 100-something damage, and at the time I had several ranks in Vile Poisons. I can try to dig up the screenshot later, but I remember it being not enough damage for a 2x multiplier.
Assuming that (a) poisons are still treated as spells in WotLK, (b) melee and spell crit rating get combined into 1 stat, and (c) agility will increase melee crit only, I think it is likely that poisons will crit at an amount significantly lower than the melee crit rate. The only thing increasing poison crit will be your crit rating; agility, talents, and group buffs will not affect them. This could change, of course, most notably if they choose to make poisons a melee spell attack in the style of Seal of Command or Judgments.
For what it is worth, poisons currently use a 1.5x multiplier. I have a screenshot of Wound poison critting on a lower leveled mob. It did 100-something damage, and at the time I had several ranks in Vile Poisons. I can try to dig up the screenshot later, but I remember it being not enough damage for a 2x multiplier.
Assuming that (a) poisons are still treated as spells in WotLK, (b) melee and spell crit rating get combined into 1 stat, and (c) agility will increase melee crit only, I think it is likely that poisons will crit at an amount significantly lower than the melee crit rate. The only thing increasing poison crit will be your crit rating; agility, talents, and group buffs will not affect them. This could change, of course, most notably if they choose to make poisons a melee spell attack in the style of Seal of Command or Judgments.
Why whould crit gained from agility be any different than pure critrating?
For melee attacks, with the exception of the conversion rate, it wouldn't.
But when referring to poisons, what people are talking about is the hinting at the possibility of melee and spell crit rating getting rolled into a single stat, thereby allowing the crit rating on our gear to affect our poison critical strike chance.
However, crit chance gained through agility has nothing to do with "critical strike rating"; the two stats are different. As it is now they both add to our melee crit (which is the only crit we care about), but if spell critical strike rating and melee critical strike rating become a single stat, then the difference between crit gained from rating and crit gained from agility becomes apparent and meaningful.
Currently, crit from agility increases your melee crit chance only. I see no real reason for this to change in WotLK, even if crit and spell crit are combined into a single stat. If they do make agility affect spell crit (which, by the way, doesn't make much sense), then, of course, your poison crit and melee crit will be much closer.
This could change, of course, most notably if they choose to make poisons a melee spell attack in the style of Seal of Command or Judgments.
I got the impression that that might be the case, but I probably just unleashed my vivid imagination on the possibility that spell and melee crit will be rolled into one.
I just questioned myself: Is hunger for blood that good ?
Hunger For Blood: Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 5%. If used while a Bleeding or Magic effect is afflicting you, it will remove one Bleed and one Magic effect and refund the energy cost. This effect can be stacked up to 3 times. Lasts up to 10 sec.
Some Facts:
- grants up to +15% to all damage caused ( all is suposed to be white, special and poison dmg )
- can be used outside of combat, so a rogue can start the battle with this buff X3.
- on a fight with a high number of magic or bleeding affecting you ( like kalecgos ), its energy cost can even come to 0
- if it stacks, every new "cast" should refresh its effect to 10sec CD.
Assuming the worst case scenario, where it allways cost you 30 energy, and there are no procs from Relentless or Focused, it is possible to use it as a replacement for the second finisher on basic mutilate cycles, since Rupture costs 25 energy, but most times we had time for a third finisher anyway, basically speaking:
HfB - HfB - HfB - wait for combat - Mutilate - S&D - Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB, etc.
In this way, we would not benefit from the silly Cut to the Chase, but we would benefit more from ap, armor perf, +hit, +crit and haste then usual. The only requirement is to keep HtB up, even when not close to the boss otherwise you would need to reset stacking up to 3.
If I'm understanding you correctly (use only SnD as a finisher), following your suggestion would significantly reduce your Find Weakness uptime. Since you're spending an extra 30 energy every 10 seconds, maintaining FW seems like it'll be a challenge. Perhaps something like a 5s/5r rotation where you do something like
Mut -> Mut -> pool -> HfB -> pool -> finisher -> repeat
would be best, so that all your Muts would still fall within FW.
I think though that right now the bottom line is that Deep Assassination needs a little more oomph if it's going to beat out the potent alternatives of Dagger Spec, Opportunity, and Blade Flurry.
Currently, crit from agility increases your melee crit chance only. I see no real reason for this to change in WotLK, even if crit and spell crit are combined into a single stat. If they do make agility affect spell crit (which, by the way, doesn't make much sense), then, of course, your poison crit and melee crit will be much closer.
EDIT: Crit rating is the same for melee and spell crit... agility doesnt affect spell crit. Just confirming your thoughts. Also, talents in the rogue tree that increase crit rates does not affect spell crit. Only +crit rating from gear affects your spell crit.
Sorry to interrupt your wotlk discussion with stuff that we are still hitting with:
So my rogue is running 4pt6, mh glaive, Atol and thus going 5s/5r cycle, which leads to my question:
When you have 5p ready to refresh your snd and there's still a lot of time left in your old snd and you will cap out in energy before the snd is even close to running out. Is is more sufficient to cut your snd when you are at 60-70 energy or hit extra sinisters strike, as there are times when even with the extra sinister I would have 50-60 energy left to refresh snd(to make aotl worthwile). So more rupture uptime vs the extra sinister dmg?
I'm sorry if this has been discussed somewhere before, but I couldn't find it in: this topic, the old one or by using search.
So, if you're running 5s/5r technically regardless of what you do 100% of your energy is going towards Sinister Strike. Whether you Sinister Strike now and refresh Slice later or cut your Slice early, you're getting the same total energy expenditure on Sinister Strike. However, cutting your Slice does two things. First, if your AToL proc has fallen off, delaying the refresh means you get less overall AToL uptime. Second, delaying the refresh means your next Rupture starts later, which means lower overall Rupture uptime.
So, if you're running 5s/5r technically regardless of what you do 100% of your energy is going towards Sinister Strike. Whether you Sinister Strike now and refresh Slice later or cut your Slice early, you're getting the same total energy expenditure on Sinister Strike. However, cutting your Slice does two things. First, if your AToL proc has fallen off, delaying the refresh means you get less overall AToL uptime. Second, delaying the refresh means your next Rupture starts later, which means lower overall Rupture uptime.
If I'm understanding you correctly (use only SnD as a finisher), following your suggestion would significantly reduce your Find Weakness uptime. Since you're spending an extra 30 energy every 10 seconds, maintaining FW seems like it'll be a challenge. Perhaps something like a 5s/5r rotation where you do something like
Mut -> Mut -> pool -> HfB -> pool -> finisher -> repeat
would be best, so that all your Muts would still fall within FW.
I think though that right now the bottom line is that Deep Assassination needs a little more oomph if it's going to beat out the potent alternatives of Dagger Spec, Opportunity, and Blade Flurry.
The point in that rotation is to never let HfB down, otherwise you would need to start stacking again.
+15% to all dmg is better than the +10% Fw gaves only to specials ( only mutilate on this simulation ).
Acumulating some energy befor SnD would be enough keep FW up on both Mutilates with a relentless proc.
After some Excel simulations, considering a worst case scenarion, the rotation would be something like:
Mutilate - HfB - S&D - Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D - Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D
Basically speaking: Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D
A combo Mutilate + HfB uses 90 energy, you need 10 secs to get that energy back with simple energy regen, so its a very tight energy spending cycle.
I just can't measure right now if this rotation does more dmg than the other rotations.
Warrior
Sword Specialization - "This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds." added to the description.
Any guesses if this change will come into play for rogues as well, and if so, what are the ramifications to Combat Swords place at the top of rogue DPS (which could already be questionable given Assassination changes)?
Inadvertently a cold-blooded water-breathing vertebrate with a mood disorder.
Basically speaking: Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D
A combo Mutilate + HfB uses 90 energy, you need 10 secs to get that energy back with simple energy regen, so its a very tight energy spending cycle.
Very very tight cycle. Now lets add to that the need to move during your dps cycle (cave in, doomfire), or that lovely reposition by the MT that moves the hit box just out of range and you miss a refresh etc. This can be problematic. Regaining this cycle seems to be energy inefficient during a fight.
Currently, Mutilate in a raid is characterized by is outstanding short-cycle burst damage on in-n-out or move-to-target fights. It looks to me like their intent is to maintain this characteristic, while giving the rogue some ability (with skill) to sustain dps on a non-movement fight.
Originally Posted by gbmaia
I just can't measure right now if this rotation does more dmg than the other rotations.
I guess the question is this: Will this incarnation of Raid-Mutilate continue being the short-cycle burst damage it is now, or do you see this as viable as Combat Swords for sustained DpS fights? Has Blizzard done enough in Assassination to even the score? A 30% chance for 3 energy from FA on a crit, without the opportunity to point into Dagger Specialization, may not be enough to overcome Sword Specialization and CP in deep combat.
I, too, was assassination/mutilate through Kara and loved the overall playability and burst damage of Mut. Going back to daggers is probably welcomed by most every rogue without glaives. I'm just concerned that these changes, again, will leave us with the same conclusions and choices as before.
The point in that rotation is to never let HfB down, otherwise you would need to start stacking again.
+15% to all dmg is better than the +10% Fw gaves only to specials ( only mutilate on this simulation ).
Acumulating some energy befor SnD would be enough keep FW up on both Mutilates with a relentless proc.
After some Excel simulations, considering a worst case scenarion, the rotation would be something like:
Mutilate - HfB - S&D - Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D - Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D
Basically speaking: Mutilate - HfB - Mutilate - HfB - S&D
A combo Mutilate + HfB uses 90 energy, you need 10 secs to get that energy back with simple energy regen, so its a very tight energy spending cycle.
I just can't measure right now if this rotation does more dmg than the other rotations.
I guess this just takes me back to: If you're having to sacrifice FW uptime to gain HfB uptime...even if it's a net DPS gain, wouldn't a 44/22/5 spec likely be a little better still? I guess the modeling can answer the soon enough. IT's certainly subjective, but the playstyle invoked by HfB doesn't doesn't seem very interesting/fun....very tight cycles with no finisher decision making.
Very very tight cycle. Now lets add to that the need to move during your dps cycle (cave in, doomfire), or that lovely reposition by the MT that moves the hit box just out of range and you miss a refresh etc. This can be problematic. Regaining this cycle seems to be energy inefficient during a fight.
The good thing is that, HfB can be used away from the boss, so i think you could still be able to keep it up...
And the good thing, it removes 1 bleeding and one magic from the user, so if tou are affected by any of this, the energy cost of this ability becomes 0.
Originally Posted by Dorvan
I guess this just takes me back to: If you're having to sacrifice FW uptime to gain HfB uptime...even if it's a net DPS gain, wouldn't a 44/22/5 spec likely be a little better still? I guess the modeling can answer the soon enough. IT's certainly subjective, but the playstyle invoked by HfB doesn't doesn't seem very interesting/fun....very tight cycles with no finisher decision making.
I agree that this cycle might not be fun as mutilate is today, and right now, with no available data, a lot of builds seems very promissing, and i think 44/22/5 is safer route. But since its a new ability, and cut to the chase seems weak, i dediced to start with HfB.
Any guesses if this change will come into play for rogues as well, and if so, what are the ramifications to Combat Swords place at the top of rogue DPS (which could already be questionable given Assassination changes)?
This would depend on how much average haste the rogue has. Currently a rogue with sword/sword and ~430 average haste and hit capped 2.8 speed MH and 1.4 speed off hand is generating one sword spec proc every ~8.4 secs on average. Obviously with a random proc like this an internal cooldown is less than ideal but currently there is little danger of the internal cooldown hard capping the scaling from haste, which is the true danger, so the effect on overall DPS should be very small reduction in DPS and an decrease in DPS variance.
edit - adjusted for hit cap
Last edited by tetracycloide : 06/19/08 at 4:09 PM.
Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work that way. If the expected time between procs is currently 9 seconds, the addition of a 6-second cooldown increases that to 15 seconds; hence, we will only have about 60% as many sword spec procs as current, which would be pretty devastating to swords builds - they'd still do respectably DPS, but fist specs would almost certainly do more.
If they do add a cooldown to rogue Sword Spec, it would probably be smaller because the procs themselves are smaller. They may not add a cooldown to the rogue version anyways. It's possible the point of the warrior cooldown is to nerf the burst of back-to-back 2H sword spec autoattack swings, and a rogue procing sword spec is more about sustained vs burst than the warrior version is.
06/18/08, 12:04 PM
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