PvE DPS / WotLK Discussion - Page 2

royaljester · 05/28/08, 6:34 PM

Well, I'd agree in some aspects Sinborn, except that you're very similar to a rogue dps with the new 40/21 spec (double iceblock-Fire). You have amazing survivability on fights like brut/felmyst/kalecgos while still putting up warlock numbers. True, your aoe is less than stellar when SoC is brought into the equation, but you're still really good, quality, almost agro free (if the fight allows a full invis cycle) class, similar to a rogue.

At that same time, you provide quality cc on trash/bosses (M'uru) and give food/water/int to the raid (Yea, not great buffs, but there none the less). In the end, you give more than a rogue in utility while being very similar to a rogue in damage considering the survivability and agro dump. In the end though, I think almost every mage would like to see the same utility or "need" that a warlock has been show in a raid. So in the end, you're probably right, we could both use something worthwhile in the raid utility buff department

.

That would be a great buff Ald. Being able to provide a +dmg taken debuff on a boss that affected either all dmg or a majority of dmg would be immense in the utility department, especially if they could confine it to Mut or Hemo. Allowing either of those spec's raiding room would def raise Rogue morale overall, as well as give us a little job security.

BlackCadian · 05/29/08, 7:02 AM

Originally Posted by jonnnney

One thing that could be done, though it may be a bit too powerful, is to make it so combat potency and find weakness talents applied to the whole group instead of just the rogue who proc'ed them. It is a nice simple fix, they could do it with an improved CP or FW later in the talent tree and it allows rogues to buff each other or the melee group as a whole. Especially if the FW buff stacked

I must say I like that idea, particulary if it'd apply to Find Weakness. I personally find Combat Swords soooo boring, especially since 99% of all raiding rogues are specced that way. I'm actually considering going back to CDaggers which, suprisingly, I found more fun than Swords.

But back on topic, my preferred solution to the problem at hand would be something unique to the rogue class that does not encompass any kind of group/raid buff. I never really saw the Rogue class as a buff class, to me it's just not rogue-ish and would be more of a band-aid. What that solution would be I don't know, but I'm sure Blizz could find something cool and fitting for us.
At the end of the day I'm a rogue, I don't care about buffing other people, I want to destroy my enemies and then quietly melt back into the shadows, if you get what I mean.

Capek · 05/29/08, 10:17 AM

How about combining the hemo debuff into sinister strike?

◊ Hanos · 05/29/08, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by BlackCadian

At the end of the day I'm a rogue, I don't care about buffing other people, I want to destroy my enemies and then quietly melt back into the shadows, if you get what I mean.

The problem is if your value to the raid doesn't justify bringing you to the raid, then it is kind of hard to do that. As I said, something like the Hunter Buffs (Ferocious Inspiration or Expose Weakness) or Enhancement's Unleash Rage would be ideal, where it is simply based on us being on target, so it doesn't become an issue of which rogue is going to use the +Fire Poison and who is using the + Shadow, and who is doing whatever else. Basically if it is inline with most of the other melee synergy buffs/debuffs you won't even have to worry about it beyond spec.

• astearns · 05/29/08, 1:11 PM

A raid or party DPS buff isn't the only path to raid slot justification. Abilities like Cloak of Shadows or Vanish could be extended - cloaking someone else, resetting someone else aggro, or some other new useful trick. Hunters have good DPS and some DPS buffs, but you bring a hunter for Misdirect. We need something indispensable - whether that's a buff or a trick doesn't really matter.

tïara · 05/29/08, 1:41 PM

I, i aggre with most of the last post here, but i think that we need to bring a buff on haste which is important for us but also for must of melee spec and at least it's the Talent everybody want's to up at this time.

so they must increase shs spec with a kind of ultimate haste talent + hémo débuff it became really powerfull for a 25 men raid

i'm 15/41/5 daggers

Tïa

ps: apologize fro my poor english, unfortunatly i'm french

Lokthra · 05/29/08, 1:52 PM

Originally Posted by astearns

A raid or party DPS buff isn't the only path to raid slot justification. Abilities like Cloak of Shadows or Vanish could be extended - cloaking someone else, resetting someone else aggro, or some other new useful trick. Hunters have good DPS and some DPS buffs, but you bring a hunter for Misdirect. We need something indispensable - whether that's a buff or a trick doesn't really matter.

This would be pretty interesting to see. Give rogues the ability to "step" to a friendly player. This teleports the rogue to the player (similar to shadow step) and also allows certain abilities used by the rogue to also effect the stepped player if used within a short time.

Example: Warlock A is about to pull aggro. Rogue A step's to Warlock A, uses vanish, then returns to combat with the boss. Both player's lose aggro.

This would require some tuning though, possibly lowered effects on the recieving target (chaining stepped evasions on a tank could be slightly overpowered).

Also, an Unleashed Rage type ability for rogues, one for each tree, would be a nice way to increase our viability. Deep assassination could have a "presence" that increases crit chance for group members every time the rogue crits a special attack, stacking up to 10%. Deep combat could have a similar presence to Increase group members attack speed by 1% on a chance on offhand hit, stacking up to 10%. Subtlety could have a stacking armor pen presence (almost like a group version of serrated blades, that stacks like, 50-100 armor penetration every time the rogue does something. They would obviously require balancing (so each one provides similar overall dps bonuses, and similar scaling). This could not only encourage multiple types of rogues in groups (maybe each presence can only be on once, so more different spec rogues = more presences applied), but also give rogues more raid utility.

Eyegore · 05/29/08, 2:59 PM

Giving rogues a direct buffing ability seems to me to be counter to the intended theme or "feel" of the class, i.e. sneeky, underhanded, literally backstabbing. Generously buffing people seems to be playing a bit too well with others for a "rogue". If anything I would expect improved boss debuffing abilities like a more useful hemo, or in keeping with their recent buff to mutilate (assuming that indicates the desire to push assassination into the, or at least an acceptable, high end dps spec) something interesting in that tree. Perhaps a talent to add an armor pen debuff to the mutilate attack that stacks with sunder (as if the attack had penetrated or damaged the targets armor).

As it stands currently rogues are the best mele buff sponge, standing on the shoulders of our buffing but non aggro dropping compatriots to selfishly leap to the top of the dps meters. And this strikes me as a perfectly useful, as well as thematically appropriate role, for the rogue class. As long as this remains true in future I would not expect the addition of a buffing ability to be necessary to justify having rogues in a raid.

• Aldriana · 05/29/08, 3:08 PM

I agree that a direct buff is not precisely in flavor, and that a boss debuff is probably a more likely direction to go. But we'll just have to wait and see how things work out.

I disagree, however, that being purely a buff sponge is sufficient to guarantee rogue spots in raids. It's fine so long as you can afford to bring 6+ melee to a fight, so you can have a couple of buff sponges on top of all the buffers in the first place; but on fights with limited room for melee (for whatever reason), it becomes more important to bring the buffers than the buffees. You need to have the DPS warrior and the enhancement shaman around for buffs before it makes sense to bring the rogues to use those buffs, and with the utility of ret paladins it's not uncommon to bring one of those before a rogue as well. Fundamentally: there are certain melee DPSers that are necessary or at least highly useful - classes that make you say "we actively want to have an X in the raid". Rogues are not one of them; rogues are more "we have extra spots in the raid that can be used on melee DPS, so we'll bring some rogues to fill things up". The fact that we're very very good in that role is nice; but it would also be nice to be actually useful/necessary for raids, rather than just being highly effective filler.

Valustria · 05/29/08, 4:15 PM

I agree that raid buffing doesn't seem to fit the style of rogues. I definitely like the idea of different poison types increasing vulnerability to different types of damage -- I think poisons could be a lot more diverse than they are.

Something else that I think could contribute to a rogue's value is more damage, but not more base damage... I'm thinking something like bonus damage against a target that is calculated increasingly based on the amount of damage the rogue himself has already done to it. It would obviously require some fine-tuning, but what if rogues had a talent that enabled them to deal something like 1% more damage for every 75,000 damage the rogue has dealt to that target? It would hardly break anything in PvP, but against boss mobs you are hitting for hundreds of thousands of damage, it means that as other classes are running out of steam, you are becoming more and more valuable. Of course, threat generation will become more of an issue, so you'd better save your Vanish to reset aggro later in the fight. Anyway, that ratio 1% : 75k damage is just something I pulled out of my ass to give people an idea what I was thinking. Like I said, I'm sure this kind of talent would require some serious tuning to ensure that rogues are doing enough extra damage to earn their place in raids, but not so much more that leaders are stacking rogues to the exclusion of other physical DPS classes.

Left · 05/29/08, 5:29 PM

Originally Posted by Auturgist

I agree that raid buffing doesn't seem to fit the style of rogues. I definitely like the idea of different poison types increasing vulnerability to different types of damage -- I think poisons could be a lot more diverse than they are.

Something else that I think could contribute to a rogue's value is more damage, but not more base damage... I'm thinking something like bonus damage against a target that is calculated increasingly based on the amount of damage the rogue himself has already done to it. It would obviously require some fine-tuning, but what if rogues had a talent that enabled them to deal something like 1% more damage for every 75,000 damage the rogue has dealt to that target? It would hardly break anything in PvP, but against boss mobs you are hitting for hundreds of thousands of damage, it means that as other classes are running out of steam, you are becoming more and more valuable. Of course, threat generation will become more of an issue, so you'd better save your Vanish to reset aggro later in the fight. Anyway, that ratio 1% : 75k damage is just something I pulled out of my ass to give people an idea what I was thinking. Like I said, I'm sure this kind of talent would require some serious tuning to ensure that rogues are doing enough extra damage to earn their place in raids, but not so much more that leaders are stacking rogues to the exclusion of other physical DPS classes.

Building off of that idea and the idea that debuffs are more in the character of the rogue class than buffs (which I agree with), I have the following three (and a half) ideas:

1] A rogue talent that would cause the rogue's special attacks (or special attack crits, or finishers) to reduce the target's chance to dodge and parry. It makes sense, as a rogue already hinders and cripples their targets in order to win the fight (think "Blade Turning", crippling poison, wound poison, and mind numbing poison). This provides a significant buff to melee attackers (and tanks) by way of a debuff on the target. It also isn't a truly significant PvP ability, as most casters (read, rogue targets) already don't really dodge or parry, while rogues could use some PvP buffing against the classes that do dodge and parry (warriors and paladins, mostly). This would be a good fit in the combat tree.

2a] A rogue talent that provides a stacking debuff every time the rogue successfully lands a direct damage finishing move. Say, the debuff increases physical damage against the target by x% (say 1%) of the rogue's agility (or AP), stacking up to 20 times. For a rogue with 700 agility, this is a 7 damage boost for 1 stack. 7 damage is a relatively insignificant physical damage boost by itself, but stacked to 20 it provides a 140 physical damage boost to every attack. In PvP, it is relatively insignificant, as at most the rogue will get 3-4 damaging finishing moves off on his/her target before either dying or winning the fight. In a typical boss fight, though, this ability stacks up as the fight progresses, enhancing all physical DPS as the fight goes on. For a gorefiend-type fight, this won't stack much beyond 10 or so, but for a very long fight it would get to 20 and hold steady. This might be a good fit in the subtlety tree.

2b] Alternatively, just adapt Hemo to have the effect described in 2a: Hemo applies a debuff that increases physical damage done to the target by y, lasting 15 seconds and stacking up to 20 times. Then you just have to adjust "y" to make sense. It could either be based on AP or Agility, or be a flat value that goes up as you train higher ranks of Hemo.

3] Judging by the number of poison-related talents, you would think the Assassination tree is all about poisons. Too bad that even with all those talents poisons still aren't very important. I'd like to see a "shadow embrace" or "mangle" style debuff such as either "Your deadly poison also increases all nature damage taken by the target by 2/4/6%" or "Your wound poison also increases the effect of all bleeds on the target by 5/10/15%". Other options would be good as well. (As an aside, I'd also like to see an assassination target that increases your poison damage by a percentage of your attack power.)

Xaoc · 05/29/08, 5:39 PM

With the addition of new debuffs to targets, I dont think adding another debuff to a target is a wise idea. DKs and Druids will both be getting diseases, and DKs will probably be able to use additional debuffs as well. I would like to see a slight buff to poisons (namely Deadly, but can be a talent that adds the effect to all poisons) that add a dmg increase. With Deadly/Wound, it would be 1% physical dmg per application, stacking to 5% (this would deter stacking rogues). With Mind Numbing, add a 3~5% magic dmg (obviously if this was a talent option, it would allow the dmg increase, but the cast time increase wouldnt have an affect on bosses). I think someone mentioned this before, but add a poison that stacks with Sunder, decreasing armor, stacking up to 5. I agree with what's been said so far about adding group buffs to Rogues isnt in line with our 'lore'. I also dont want to have 10 new poisons that get added, all of which add to an increasingly difficult to maintain debuff cap (which is also something they need to work on, but is out of the scope of this discussion).

EDIT: Left, you post too fast. Something along those lines with his 3rd point, but again, I'd like to see something -other- than an additional debuff slot. If it gets to be a debuff, Blizz would most likely make it a low priority debuff, and it would be constantly kicked off, rendering it useless. Combining the debuff into the poisons just makes a little bit more sense.

Tercero · 05/29/08, 5:45 PM

Originally Posted by Auturgist

I agree that raid buffing doesn't seem to fit the style of rogues. I definitely like the idea of different poison types increasing vulnerability to different types of damage -- I think poisons could be a lot more diverse than they are.

Something else that I think could contribute to a rogue's value is more damage, but not more base damage... I'm thinking something like bonus damage against a target that is calculated increasingly based on the amount of damage the rogue himself has already done to it. It would obviously require some fine-tuning, but what if rogues had a talent that enabled them to deal something like 1% more damage for every 75,000 damage the rogue has dealt to that target? It would hardly break anything in PvP, but against boss mobs you are hitting for hundreds of thousands of damage, it means that as other classes are running out of steam, you are becoming more and more valuable. Of course, threat generation will become more of an issue, so you'd better save your Vanish to reset aggro later in the fight. Anyway, that ratio 1% : 75k damage is just something I pulled out of my ass to give people an idea what I was thinking. Like I said, I'm sure this kind of talent would require some serious tuning to ensure that rogues are doing enough extra damage to earn their place in raids, but not so much more that leaders are stacking rogues to the exclusion of other physical DPS classes.

I agree about the poison direction. It wouldn't be outside the lore of Rogue or realm of reason to spec deeper into poisons that make the target more vulnerable to additional damage types and sources - ie frost, fire, shadow, nature, etc - and allow the poison mastery rogue to spec into a specialized poison talent to increase a specific kind of damage.

Of course this is all wishful contemplation.

I'd love to see some of the Rogue class quest lines get revisited with some lasting usable reward at the end... Maybe make Ravenhodlt reputation significant in some way.

Eyegore · 05/29/08, 6:40 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I disagree, however, that being purely a buff sponge is sufficient to guarantee rogue spots in raids. It's fine so long as you can afford to bring 6+ melee to a fight, so you can have a couple of buff sponges on top of all the buffers in the first place; but on fights with limited room for melee (for whatever reason), it becomes more important to bring the buffers than the buffees. You need to have the DPS warrior and the enhancement shaman around for buffs before it makes sense to bring the rogues to use those buffs, and with the utility of ret paladins it's not uncommon to bring one of those before a rogue as well. Fundamentally: there are certain melee DPSers that are necessary or at least highly useful - classes that make you say "we actively want to have an X in the raid". Rogues are not one of them; rogues are more "we have extra spots in the raid that can be used on melee DPS, so we'll bring some rogues to fill things up". The fact that we're very very good in that role is nice; but it would also be nice to be actually useful/necessary for raids, rather than just being highly effective filler.

Perhaps I should have elaborated a bit more. There will always be fights that prove unfavorable to certain classes, not always just mele (mages on bloodboil springs to mind off hand). And in a fight that limits the number of mele you can bring taking the rogues along while dropping the buffers certainly makes less sense than does the reverse. In the general case however once you have your enhancement shaman, dps warrior, and retadin siting in a group no other class brings the raid as a whole as much dps as a rogue in those last 2 spots. Unless that changes I don't see the class really has that much to worry about. Although certainly if they decide to make every fight in wrath mele unfriendly that may not be the case... so that comes down to wait and see.

I do like the idea of expanding the scope of what poisons can do. May I suggest an acidic poison that melts armor? They have already given a rogue one of the best armor pen abilities going... only to make it unusable in most cases by not having it stack with sunder. With the proliferation of armor penetration of a stat in the later half of BC here I would not be surprised if they do not keep finding ways to work it in in future.

edit* not to hit the same note again with my previous armor pen suggestion, but I see the idea that they would introduce rogue/caster synergy to be a bit odd and a definite departure from how they currently have mele classes that do buff buff other mele (and similarly for casters). Also the anti-avoidance idea which I really like as well was taken

Corbet · 05/30/08, 3:30 AM

I know everyone says to "trust the spreadsheets" but I must bring something up: Madness of the Betrayer vs. Ashtongue Talisman. Is Ashtongue really that much better compared to Madness? I use the spreadsheets for my gear choices but quite a few Rogues in my guild insist that Madness is better.

Caladnei · 05/30/08, 3:51 AM

Is there a reason why you are posting this question in 2 threads?
Why don't you take a look at the first post in this thread and the Rogue DPS theorycrafting thread, in both of which Vulajin and others invested a lot of hard work and time?
And yes, trust the spreadsheets.

Jakani · 05/30/08, 4:20 AM

Originally Posted by Corbet

I know everyone says to "trust the spreadsheets" but I must bring something up: Madness of the Betrayer vs. Ashtongue Talisman. Is Ashtongue really that much better compared to Madness? I use the spreadsheets for my gear choices but quite a few Rogues in my guild insist that Madness is better.

The spreadsheets are a compilation of all the best rogue theorycraft to date. Trust them over your guildies.

saedo · 05/30/08, 4:36 AM

Originally Posted by Corbet

I know everyone says to "trust the spreadsheets" but I must bring something up: Madness of the Betrayer vs. Ashtongue Talisman. Is Ashtongue really that much better compared to Madness? I use the spreadsheets for my gear choices but quite a few Rogues in my guild insist that Madness is better.

Besides, what basis do they have to dispute a spreadsheet answer? Gut feeling?

Corbet · 05/30/08, 5:09 AM

Originally Posted by saedo

Besides, what basis do they have to dispute a spreadsheet answer? Gut feeling?

Their argument is that the AP + Hit is always there while the extra crit from Ashtongue relies on combo points and the chance to proc.

drumbum · 05/30/08, 5:11 AM

Originally Posted by Corbet

Their argument is that the AP + Hit is always there while the extra crit from Ashtongue relies on combo points and the chance to proc.

Sure, and it's possible to have 362 hit rating and miss every single white attack, too. It's also possible for the armor penetration proc to never proc an entire boss fight. But we base gear decisions on averages, not luck (or the lack thereof).

• Neto- · 05/30/08, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by Corbet

Their argument is that the AP + Hit is always there while the extra crit from Ashtongue relies on combo points and the chance to proc.

That isn't a good argument, considering this game is nothing but a math problem. If a spreadsheet calculates Ashtongue to be better, then it most likely is; especially since it doesn't model the effects of "energy pooling" - which puts the Ashtongue even further ahead.

• Feist-Mok · 05/30/08, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by Corbet

Their argument is that the AP + Hit is always there while the extra crit from Ashtongue relies on combo points and the chance to proc.

If you're at the gear level to be running ashtongue, you're at the gear level to be running either only 5 point finishers (5s/5r) most likely. So there is no 'chance' to proc, it's 100% so long as you maintain your cycle.

• Vulajin · 05/30/08, 11:08 AM

Because I'm tired of people contesting the given explanation of sword spec functionality and providing no evidence or shoddy evidence to support their claims, I went to Blasted Lands this morning and did some solid testing.

The methodology was to first confirm that sword spec does function on a per-weapon basis; that is, your main hand can get sword spec procs only if your main hand is a sword, and your off hand can get sword spec procs only if your off hand is a sword. Once this was confirmed, I performed a substantial about of regular melee auto attacking using Slice and Dice (generating CP only with the special that would NOT proc sword spec) to confirm the combat log pattern upon a sword spec proc.

To perform all of these tests, I used two sets of weapons: [Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality] with [Blade of Savagery] for the non-sword MH/sword OH tests, and [Talon of Azshara] with [Tracker's Blade] for the sword MH/non-sword OH tests.

First test: confirm that non-sword MH/sword OH can only get sword spec procs from the off hand. To do this, I engaged a Servant of Razelikh and angled myself relative to the mob such that, with auto attack turned on, I still could not perform regular melee attacks, but I could perform special attacks. Then, I performed Shiv once and immediately had a sword spec proc:

5/30 08:22:21.504  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:22:21.642  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,5940,"Shiv",0x1,309,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

After this, I performed Sinister Strike 100 times and experienced 0 sword spec procs. If Sinister Strike with a fist weapon were able to cause a sword spec proc, the chance of experiencing 0 procs in 100 swings is 0.59%. Thus, we can say with a high degree of certainty that with non-sword MH/sword OH can only get sword spec procs from the off hand.

Second test: confirm that sword MH/non-sword OH can only get sword spec procs from the main hand. I used the same positioning described in the previous test and performed Sinister Strike 8 times before having a sword spec proc:

5/30 08:31:08.584  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26862,"Sinister Strike",0x1
5/30 08:31:08.587  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:31:08.784  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26862,"Sinister Strike",0x1,648,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

I also performed one Eviscerate and one Rupture each, both of which caused sword spec procs:

5/30 08:31:20.238  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26865,"Eviscerate",0x1
5/30 08:31:20.243  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:31:20.555  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26865,"Eviscerate",0x1,1171,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
5/30 08:31:20.556  SPELL_ENERGIZE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,14181,"Relentless Strikes Effect",0x1,25,3

5/30 08:31:24.442  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26867,"Rupture",0x1
5/30 08:31:24.447  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:31:24.511  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,28093,"Lightning Speed",0x1,BUFF
5/30 08:31:24.921  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,26867,"Rupture",0x1,DEBUFF

I then performed 100 Shivs and experienced 0 sword spec procs. Again, we can say with a high degree of certainty that, with sword MH/non-sword OH, only the main hand may cause sword spec procs.

Third test: I now returned to the case of non-sword MH/sword OH and performed 1001 melee swings over the course of about 10 minutes. Note that my main hand damage range is roughly twice that of my off hand using either of the weapon combinations I identified earlier in this post. Thus, a main hand hit or crit should be readily distinguishable from an off hand hit or crit, provided both take place while under the effect of the same buffs. Note that my main hand speed with SnD up is roughly 1.92, and my OH speed roughly 1.08.

Here is an example sword spec proc event from this test (there are no damage events from the Servant of Razelikh in this snippet because he was in his "banished" state at the time):

5/30 08:10:24.988  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,1089,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:25.105  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,491,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:25.874  SPELL_AURA_REMOVED,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,35081,"Band of the Eternal Champion",0x1,BUFF
5/30 08:10:26.071  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:10:26.072  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,402,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:26.422  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,1168,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:26.752  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,472,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:27.019  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,217,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

What you see above, paraphrased:

-1.083 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 1089. (MH swing)
-0.966 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 491. (OH swing)
-0.197 Band of the Eternal Champion fades from Vulajin. (irrelevant)
+0.000 Vulajin gains 1 extra attack through Sword Specialization.
+0.001 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 402. (OH swing, 0.967s since the last OH)
+0.351 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 1168. (MH swing, 1.434s since the last MH)
+0.680 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 472. (MH swing, 0.329s since the last MH, 1.763s since the prior one)
+0.947 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 217. (OH swing, 0.946s since the last OH)

Looking at this chain of events, it is possible that either the OH swing at -0.966 or the OH swing at +0.001 caused the sword spec proc. If the swing at -0.966 caused the proc, then the swing at +0.001 must have been the extra swing. However, if this was the case, the two MH swings within 0.329 seconds of one another are completely impossible to explain. If, on the other hand, the OH swing at +0.001 caused the proc and the MH swing at +0.351 was the extra swing, then the MH swing at +0.680 was on the normal MH timer (within reasonable tolerance of my actual MH speed) and is perfectly explainable.

Here's another example:

5/30 08:10:34.837  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,184,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:35.420  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,464,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:35.855  SPELL_EXTRA_ATTACKS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,16459,"Sword Specialization",0x1,1
5/30 08:10:35.855  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,202,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:35.970  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,6774,"Slice and Dice",0x1
5/30 08:10:35.972  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,896,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:36.837  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,433,1,0,0,0,1,nil,nil
5/30 08:10:37.203  SWING_DAMAGE,0x0000000001A71666,"Vulajin",0x511,0xF130001DF4087AD0,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,436,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

-1.018 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 184. (OH swing)
-0.435 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 464. (MH swing)
+0.000 Vulajin gains 1 extra attack through Sword Specialization.
+0.000 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 202. (OH swing, 1.018s since the last OH)
+0.115 Vulajin performs Slice and Dice. (note that there's no aura gain event, I was just refreshing the buff, so my speed is constant)
+0.117 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 896. (MH swing, 0.552s since the last MH)
+0.982 Vulajin's swing crits Servant of Razelikh for 433. (OH swing, 0.982s since the last OH)
+1.348 Vulajin's swing hits Servant of Razelikh for 436. (MH swing, 1.231s since the last MH, 1.783s since the prior one)

Only the OH swings at -1.018 or +0.000 could have caused the proc. Again, if the -1.018 OH caused the proc and the +0.000 OH were the extra attack, then the MH at +0.117 is completely impossible. On the other hand, if the +0.000 OH caused the proc and the +0.117 is the extra swing, then the MH at +1.348 is reasonable. I won't waste space with more examples, there are plenty in the combat log, which I will attach. Suffice it to say that the pattern is consistent: the sword spec proc event always immediately precedes the swing that caused the proc, which is followed by the extra swing, which is performed by the MH even if the OH caused the proc.

Fourth test: I returned to the case of sword MH/non-sword OH and performed 756 melee swings over the course of about 7 minutes. Again, in this test my main hand damage range was roughly twice that of my off hand. In the interest of saving time, I will not go in-depth into examples for this test; I have provided the combat log below and invite any skeptics to open it themselves and verify that sword spec procs from the MH follow the pattern I have identified in the previous test.

Attachments: In the attached log files, "mhsspec.txt" contains the test of sword MH/non-sword OH using white attacks (listed above as "fourth test"). "mhsspec2.txt" contains the text of sword MH/non-sword OH using Sinister Strike, Shiv, Eviscerate, and Rupture (listed above as "second test"). "ohsspec.txt" contains the test of non-sword MH/sword OH using white attacks (listed above as "third test"). "ohsspec2.txt" contains the test of non-sword MH/sword OH using Sinister Strike and Shiv (listed above as "first test").

Please keep any questions to this thread.

Valustria · 05/31/08, 8:13 AM

I read all of that post, Vulajin, and it was very informative. My only complaint about it was that it lacked the cool little graphics for BUSTED, CONFIRMED, or even PLAUSIBLE in some cases that they use on Mythbusters. I think all future extensive reports of testing should include them!

Seriously, though, thanks for the testing! I hope everyone can now put to rest their doubts about the way sword spec works.

Banja · 05/31/08, 6:07 PM

Originally Posted by Hanos

That is still purely a personal DPS buff, I am looking for something along the lines of a rogue Totem of Wrath or Ferocious Inspiration that not only buffs us, but buffs the rest of our party so that not only is there a reason to bring rogues for our DPS, but because we increase the DPS of everyone else. Think about it, right now in the melee group everyone but an additional rogue buffs the rest of the group, with the addition of Death Knights, you really need to increase the group synergy not just that rogues get, but that they provide in order to hold on to the 2-3 raid slots we have.

Typically speaking I would think being top DPS would be a viable enough reason to be in the raid.

Reading a bit more I'll expand upon that a bit more: I disagree that being a buff sponge isn't enough of a reason to bring a rogue as we still top the DPS charts. Consistently on boss fights I see rogues as 1-2-3, and in my guild I see saw with another rogue, all depends who was a bit faster onthe click for that fight.

If you'd like to see a bit more "reason" to bring a rogue I would suggest looking at mob debuffs as Aldriana suggested. I remember when expose armor was supposed to be % based and stack ontop of sunders.

Turns out that's a bit overpowered, but I would suggest something along that line. I'd also like to see some multi use poisions-especially since feral druids get to poision inthe expac.