PvE DPS / WotLK Discussion - Page 52

Cally · 07/25/08, 10:04 PM

Note that it's expertise rating and not pure expertise and remember that as you level up to 80 the amount of expertise rating required for pure expertise will go up. I'm not sure, but I think we don't have any solid numbers at this point how much expertise rating is required for 1 expertise. Like hit rating, and while we do have talents for +hit, we still have to stack hit rating somewhat in order to get a decent +hit. I'd imagine this may be the case for expertise as well but probably not to such a drastic extent.

• Aldriana · 07/25/08, 11:00 PM

Vulajin and I made some estimates during the alpha; our best guess is that it's going to be about 7.567 expertise rating to the expertise at 80. Thus, assuming the mob dodge rate doesn't change (which is far from certain), it would take 122.5 expertise rating past WEx to hit the Expertise cap. With enchants and gems giving it, I wouldn't expect that to be too hard to do - but we'll see.

That said: it's entirely reasonable that Blizzard might change the mob dodge rate. At the moment it's fairly low and thus easy to cap, which limits their ability to use Expertise as a general stat on gear like they do hit, crit, etc. So it wouldn't totally surprise me to see the mob dodge rate bumped up a ways, to make Expertise a more itemizable stat. We'll have to wait and see how things look at 80.

Slyness · 07/26/08, 1:26 AM

I think we should hold off on posting builds, especially Mutilate, until Blizzard releases their plans for poisons. It seems like it will have a significant effect on what talents we would take, especially if poison damage is changed to scale with our gear.

On a side note, I don't see the point in taking Turn the Tables without taking Cut to the Chase. Since most in this thread seem to be rather unimpressed with CTTC, it doesn't seem that TTT will be a viable option either.

Keegantir · 07/26/08, 8:10 PM

Anyone get a chance to test Murder Spree yet?

Will be interested to know a few things.

1. Will it break sheep and other CC?
2. Will it engage enemies that are not currently engaged?
3. Does it interrupt your swing timer?
4. Will it try to attack immune targets? (banished or whirlwinded targets)

• Vulajin · 07/26/08, 9:06 PM

Along with numerous other talents, Murder Spree is not implemented yet.

Fqubed · 07/27/08, 10:05 AM

On expertise its also possible that some bosses will have higher dodge than others. Actually the more one thinks about it, and devs wanting to make fights more dynamic. Having a boss P2 and gain 20% dodge/parry (have they fixed the parry /haste mechanic) sort of a MotheS for melee. Until we see any of the raid loot fights many things are just pure speculation.

Dextar · 07/27/08, 9:08 PM

Ok, I've been trolling this for a long time and I need to know some info if I could..

I've always been the standard cookie cutter combat sword spec until the badge fists came out (I had ToA/S2), since then I upgraded to the fists and changed my spec around to fit (cookie cutter combat fists). Now I've been reading that Aldriana's spreadsheet incorrectly modeled sword spec and undervalued it. Obviously doing the best I can in a raid is very important to me so I'm a bit concerned. So I punched in all my gear on Vulajin's sheet and came up with the following:
ToA/S2 = 2113.40 Vanir/Vanir = 2084.18 (spec was changed for each weapon type as well).

Ok, so the spreadsheet says it's higher.. but the problem I run into is switching back to swords I lose some stats (I lose 27ap, 4.36% crit, and the one I'm concerned about the 23(1.46%)haste rating but I gain 9 hit). The haste on the OH and passive attack speed on the MH fist is what concerns me about switching back to swords. With SnD going my attack speeds are as follows: ToA/S2 = 2.00/1.11 Vanir/Vanir = 1.8/1.08.

My question is, with everything added together (attack speed, crit, bit of ap) does sword spec still give enough of an advantage in DPS over dual vanir for myself?

(Wow Web Stats a link to a recent WWS, this was before I had T6 2pc, I had Swiftstrike shoulders on and this is fist spec)

Ratak - US KT · 07/28/08, 5:30 AM

Well the s/sheet calc will include the effect of the stats, so yes it looks like the swords are better as it includes all the latest mechanics as the Rogue community currently understand them to operate (and improving that understanding was what led to the Sword advance).

Akka · 07/28/08, 9:06 AM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

Hunters have better threat dumps than rogues, although last I heard they don't have a passive threat reduction like rogues do so need to pay someone more attention to it than we do. Meanwhile, while it's true that other classes have threat dumps, it's also true that ours is one of the better ones, and that we have a threat management ability outside of the dump. So while our threat management isn't necessarily a *lot* better than most classes, it's still among the strongest of all the classes. Also, the list of our primary competitors for raid slots - fury warrior, ret pally, enhancement shaman, feral druid (i.e., the other melee DPS classes) reads a lot like the list of classes without a threat dump. In the melee space, our aggro management really is a lot better. So I do think it's fair to say that threat-limited encounters work in the favor of rogues, on the whole.

Well, hunters don't have passive threat reduction, but they have the ranged buffer, which is almost as good. And anyway, they can FD quickly and very often, so they only have to pay attention for like the first 10-20 secondes into the fight (except for fights with lots of threat reset).
And though I recognize that rogues are a tiny bit better than most classes due to feint and instant reset, it's still very marginal, and not enough to be truly appart others in aggro management.
"a bit better", ok, but even something as "favored" feels a strong word for so little gain.

Originally Posted by Dorvan

You're overestimating the value of Dagger spec, at least in TBC terms. It's possible that finisher damage may be buffed enough to make it significantly better if you're using envenom a lot, but otherwise Opportunity represents a larger damage increase.

Note sure about that. Opportunity only works on the yellow attacks, while the dagger spec works on everything but poisons and rupture, and adds chances to get cp.
Seems pretty on-par to me.
Additionnally, dagger spec helps with the energy-restoring procs if you take Focused Attacks, even though it seems quite unimpressive for now and I don't think it's worth the talent points in it.

The best candidate I can think of for now is 43/28/0.
Of course, as many said, it's still lots of speculation, considering we don't know what the gear will be and how rogues will play with the new talents, but as extrapolation go, it feels like doing quite well.

Jelu · 07/28/08, 11:15 AM

I'm not sure anyone has considered this yet but with respect to Deadly Brew, Instant Poison is only a 20% proc rate while Deadly is 30%. Since there is no Deadly -> Instant included with the talent we should consider the reduction in proc rate for Deadly while using Instant and Deadly Brew. Being able to have Instant on both weapons will make up for this and it will be a dps increase but it's effectively reducing Deadly application rate by 33% per weapon resulting in an effective application rate of 36% I believe. This will have significant affects on Envenom, which could reduce the effectiveness of the finish significantly if you're regularly waiting on Deadly to stack up while you're full on combo points and even worse full on energy.

Admittedly, I have little experience with a Mutilate build, do people find they frequently lack the Deadly stack to Envenom if they don't have Deadly on both weapons?

Vodrin · 07/28/08, 11:38 AM

Curse of the Elements

[Apply Aura]: Mod Dmg % Taken (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, Shadow)
Value: 10

CoE is applying the 10% damage debuff to nature currently on the beta which will further increase the use of poisons. Hopefully the poison changes go in with the next beta push.

Luuca · 07/28/08, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Dextar

Ok, I've been trolling this for a long time and I need to know some info if I could..

I've always been the standard cookie cutter combat sword spec until the badge fists came out (I had ToA/S2), since then I upgraded to the fists and changed my spec around to fit (cookie cutter combat fists). Now I've been reading that Aldriana's spreadsheet incorrectly modeled sword spec and undervalued it. Obviously doing the best I can in a raid is very important to me so I'm a bit concerned. So I punched in all my gear on Vulajin's sheet and came up with the following:
ToA/S2 = 2113.40 Vanir/Vanir = 2084.18 (spec was changed for each weapon type as well).

Ok, so the spreadsheet says it's higher.. but the problem I run into is switching back to swords I lose some stats (I lose 27ap, 4.36% crit, and the one I'm concerned about the 23(1.46%)haste rating but I gain 9 hit). The haste on the OH and passive attack speed on the MH fist is what concerns me about switching back to swords. With SnD going my attack speeds are as follows: ToA/S2 = 2.00/1.11 Vanir/Vanir = 1.8/1.08.
My question is, with everything added together (attack speed, crit, bit of ap) does sword spec still give enough of an advantage in DPS over dual vanir for myself?

(Wow Web Stats a link to a recent WWS, this was before I had T6 2pc, I had Swiftstrike shoulders on and this is fist spec)

Double check your OH speed, your 1.5 speed OH probably isn't 1.8 w SnD going. Maybe a typo.

Yes, sword/sword is a little better Dps than Vanirs/Vanirs..I know, I used them for a while. Get BoS and go fist/sword. The sheet still has Sword/Sword as better, but in practice, with careful cycles and paying attaention, you won't see a difference in game compared to most Sword/Sword rogues (who use ToA/S2).

Akka · 07/28/08, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by Jelu

I'm not sure anyone has considered [...] on both weapons?

Don't forget that Improved Poison now add 5 % per talent point, up from 2 % now.
And that Vile Poison is only a 3-points talents.
So for the same 5 points you put right now in Vile Poison, you will get then both the +20 % damage in poison/envenom, and +10 % poison application (just like an actual full-talented Improved Poison).
And have Instant Poison damage as a bonus.

Shaker · 07/28/08, 1:22 PM

Re: Threat drops - just as a note, the rogue is the ONLY class with a 100% threat drop that's 100% reliable (barring bugs). Hunters/Warlocks have resists, mages have to avoid damage/spellcasts for a timed duration. While FD is very very solid, any hunter can tell you about riding the edge on Aggro and having a few resists completely halt any decent chance at DPSing for 1 minute or longer. As long as the rogue chooses a good time to use their vanish, they are probably the least concerned with threat of any dpsing class.

Dorvan · 07/28/08, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by Akka

Note sure about that. Opportunity only works on the yellow attacks, while the dagger spec works on everything but poisons and rupture, and adds chances to get cp.
Seems pretty on-par to me.
Additionnally, dagger spec helps with the energy-restoring procs if you take Focused Attacks, even though it seems quite unimpressive for now and I don't think it's worth the talent points in it.

The best candidate I can think of for now is 43/28/0.
Of course, as many said, it's still lots of speculation, considering we don't know what the gear will be and how rogues will play with the new talents, but as extrapolation go, it feels like doing quite well.

Here's a recent Gorefiend parse for me:

Wow Web Stats

The value of Opportunity is pretty straightforward to calculate: 20% of the mutilate damage dealt would be an additional 18629 damage.

For 5% crit, we can calculate the expected increase in damage by converting 5% of attack from hits to crits using average crit and hit damage. That results in the following gains:

White damage: 9400
Mutilate Damage: 3808
Total: 13208

Now, one could argue there's a little more damage gained from increased Seal Fate procs, but it's not enough to move you to a 3 finisher cycle, so the DPS gain is going to be pretty marginal there...mostly it'll just increase the clask time of your 3-5s/5r cycle slightly. More importantly, the DPS spreadsheet comes up with the same result: Opportunity is currently about 1.5x as effective as Dagger Spec per point. It is certainly possible that WotLK changes will cause Dagger spec to pass Opp do to the presence of double IP, envenom being a standard finisher, and/or the use of the Focused attacks talent, but it's got a lot of ground to make up. As I said in my previous post, I was speculating using what we know about TBC Mut, and from the perspective 41/21/5+3 handily beats the 43/28/0 build you suggested