I would also like to add to the professions discussion that engineering has a very powerful enchant on gloves. It doesn't change the fact that Engineering is still a PvP profession but this one thing going for it is very powerful, and also I'd like to add that there is a very high possibility that new epic quality BoP Goggles pop up soon.
The Gloves Enchant can be found here.
Seems to me that Engineering could use this enchant as a serious power up by stacking haste effects. For now I am counting these effects:
All this combined would lead to: 2479 Haste rating for 8 seconds while all the effects are active, or 75% Haste.
Edit: Thank you drumbum for correcting my stupidity!
Originally Posted by drumbum
Not to distract from the discussion, but just to clarify the haste mechanics briefly:
Haste rating effects stack additively, but haste percentage effects stack multiplicatively. Therefore, with all 4 of these buffs active, you'd actually experience:
Last edited by Xerop : 09/20/08 at 4:10 AM.
Reason: Additional materials.
It also appears from that post that the haste-to-ring enchant is gone - but, for the moment, the AP enchant is better anyway so that's not a big deal.
In the professions thread it's being reported that profession specific perks may act like normal enchants, and there will only be one slot available per item (IE, you can choose between a fur lining to your bracers or an extra socket). If this is the case, from a pure min-max perspective, taking Leatherworking (still the top dog) diminishes the benefits gained by Blacksmithing, essentially pushing it down to a third tier profession choice.
A note before I continue: has it been verified whether Mutilate counts as one attack or two for purposes of Focused Attacks? That is, if both attacks crit, do you get 6 energy?
Quick test on the PTR confirmed Mutilate counts as 2 attacks and gives 6 energy if both attacks crit (order of text in the screenie is a bit off, probably due to lag on the PTR):
Did the same thing repeatedly using Coldblood to guarantee a double crit, and turning off auto-attack before and after, and got the same result each time.
Looks like the first 1.5s off-hand I've seen is a BoE epic from god knows where. They can't be serious with this.
<Picture cut out>
Yeah, I saw that. It's somewhat ridiculous. I mean, I can understand why you wouldn't put all the 1.4 speed weapons right in the first instance -- we had that with early BC, where pretty much the best you could get, PvEwise was probably Blazeguard or whatever it was called, I rolled BS for that when it was first shown. Combat Potency and a weapon just as fast as Iblis? Sounded too good to be true.
Then the arena weapons were shown. Oh boy, I sure felt screwed over with the arena off-hands being 1.5 speed. I don't quite get what they're aiming for, when it comes to itemization they just seem to forget whatever other items they created and put random stats on things. At this point you'd expect them to know what's good and what's not good of a stat for rogue-oriented weapons. Like I said, it makes sense to make the initial raid swords around 1.6 speed. But I don't know what they're thinking making a 1.5 speed BoE like that? I just can't really understand it.
Regardless, I'm not sure how the current numbers hold up but even with mutilate slightly nerfed I can't help but feel combat still needs a revision as well. It feels a bit lacking, I don't know. Mutilate on one hand has some really amazing raid-related talents and no room for filler -- combat feels the other way around right now. Compared to level 70 combat, it seems as if they went 'meh, you're good enough, here have some 20% extra crit damage on all melee attacks and yet another decent burst damage attack'.
Admittedly, I quite like Killing Spree from what I've seen on the PTR and I love the way they tried to make combat rogues have a lot more PvP tools - the thing I'm complaining about isn't mainly about actual combat potential in raiding, I really can't saw how it's holding up since the changes since they took out the 73 boss dummy in Orgrimmar (someone correct me if I'm wrong please!), - unbuffed anyway - I'd say my complaint is that I quite like how besides making mutilate more viable, that they added a ton of really cool mechanics to it -- deadly brew, CttC, HfB, the envenom change to go along with all of it -- I mean the mutilate I got to test out on the PTR at 70, with a 51/5/5 spec, was just insane fun and tons more interesting than current possible combat builds.
The 5/51/5 build I tested just seemed bland next to it. Cycles (the only one I could keep up was something like a 5s/5r/3s? Reminded me of the old 60 eviscerate cycles) were uninteresting and even more predictable without ruthlessness, harder to keep up and I just wish we could make sword cycles more interesting via changes in the tree rather than give us a glyph that's going to give us an extra combo point a 40% of the times. It just feels a bit meh.
It's also the fact that even though they've stated that they wanted daggers to be viable - I think they went overboard on that, as they usually do and I'm just -- and call me cynical -- convinced that they won't be able to bring up both trees to comparable levels as they seem to intend to do. They really do need to make gear more homogenous, more variety of gear and set bonuses less necessary as they've been trying to if they intend to do so.
Sorry, /rant off
On an aside, didn't mutilate always show up as two seperate attacks on the combat log? I'm pretty sure it always did, I mean you get shown the damage for each hand as well and either can crit individually, so I don't see why each hand wouldn't be accountable for a proc.
EDIT: Also on the bugged Deadly Brew, it'd be a shame if it is IP > Crippling as it is right now. It's a really interesting mechanic but I guess it was too much DPS for two points? Maybe less since the poison coeffs and damage changed, but I don't know. They could've made it less than 100% chance if they intended to change it. We'll see.
I would also like to add to the professions discussion that engineering has a very powerful enchant on gloves. It doesn't change the fact that Engineering is still a PvP profession but this one thing going for it is very powerful, and also I'd like to add that there is a very high possibility that new epic quality BoP Goggles pop up soon.
Lets see, 340 haste rating for 8 seconds every 2 minutes works out to 340/15 = 22.7 average haste rating. Which is...potentially better than the existing enchants (15 expertise, 20 agi, or 32 AP), but if so, not by very much. It's certainly not in the same league as the other profession bonuses. And while Goggles (or whatever) may help, the other professions may get items as well. So I think it's safe to say that there's insufficient evidence to believe that Engineering will be useful in PvE - though of course, it's still quite good for PvP.
Originally Posted by Dominus
In the professions thread it's being reported that profession specific perks may act like normal enchants, and there will only be one slot available per item (IE, you can choose between a fur lining to your bracers or an extra socket). If this is the case, from a pure min-max perspective, taking Leatherworking (still the top dog) diminishes the benefits gained by Blacksmithing, essentially pushing it down to a third tier profession choice.
Indeed, that would make sense. Although it seems to me that LW is pretty likely to get nerfed, which may affect things. Consider:
1) Blizzard has stated that no one profession should be significantly more powerful for a class, to avoid making it too "required".
2) Most classes have one profession-specific enchant; Leatherworking has two, bracers and legs.
3) The leg enchants were first seen, like, in Alpha, as far as I know, hasn't been seen since.
So my suspicion (and if you have reason to believe otherwise, please let me know) is that the LW-specific leg enchants may have been removed at some point, which will leave the benefit at only Fur Linings + Drums + any crafted items - which, don't get me wrong, is still a pretty nice set of benefits and makes a strong case for the top spot anyway. But it wouldn't be quite so ridiculously far ahead as it is right now.
Note that this doesn't devalue the BS argument, as you'd still have a bracer enchant from LW.
I would like to return to the SF/ruthlessness issue with a fact that i tried to put together a spec where i will take only the talents what will benefit my own dps in a measurable way and there was left no fillers at all.
The spec is here: Best DPS Spec
That is made with a given fact that envenom is superior to rupture and the buff from MP would be cancelled out by some other class (if your raid does not have one, then i say there is no use for you either to seek the max dps) The only talent what makes me wonder is Quick Recovery, but as stated already, the last 2 pts in SF will outdps that also.
Most useless talent in this build is Overkill and the second is CB, all others are a significant DPS increase.
I have another question, maybe it has been through here, but starting to read all the posts (majority of this thread) would hurt my time spent in the game
The Blood Poisoning debuff in combat tree, will that be overwritten by some other buff? Like the hunter one in TBC +3dam or some other. Havent had time to fill in on this matter. If not, then added 2% of the raids damage to the rogue, would increase its dps by alot. Given an extreme example from tbc, a Brutallus fight, where guilds are pushing over 30K dps. Blood poisoning debuff would make 600DPS from that. Watching the estimated dps numbers for wotlk they have almost doubled, so the benefit would be around 1K DPS.
It depends largely on the content you're progressing on as well. Naxx for example, has few humanoid, beasts, and dragonkin compared to other instances, so murder wouldn't provide as much benefit, while it has a number of fights where the 15% run speed from fleet footed would be beneficial.
Who knows what future instances will bring though.
Indeed, that would make sense. Although it seems to me that LW is pretty likely to get nerfed, which may affect things. Consider:
1) Blizzard has stated that no one profession should be significantly more powerful for a class, to avoid making it too "required".
2) Most classes have one profession-specific enchant; Leatherworking has two, bracers and legs.
3) The leg enchants were first seen, like, in Alpha, as far as I know, hasn't been seen since.
So my suspicion (and if you have reason to believe otherwise, please let me know) is that the LW-specific leg enchants may have been removed at some point, which will leave the benefit at only Fur Linings + Drums + any crafted items - which, don't get me wrong, is still a pretty nice set of benefits and makes a strong case for the top spot anyway. But it wouldn't be quite so ridiculously far ahead as it is right now.
Note that this doesn't devalue the BS argument, as you'd still have a bracer enchant from LW.
I believe the nerf to leg enchants already rolled in (although I can't actually confirm it yet). Instead of getting extra stats, leatherworkers get access to BoP patterns that are equal in potency but cheaper in cost. At least, that's if it followed suit with what happened to tailoring leg enchants, which I can only assume it did.
If true, we're currently looking at fur lining vs. extra socket and drums vs. glove socket, and then the financial perk of obtaining leg armors at a much cheaper cost.
Last edited by Dominus : 09/19/08 at 3:05 PM.
Reason: Can't confirm leg enchant nerfs just yet.
All this combined would lead to: 2479 Haste rating for 8 seconds while all the effects are active, or 75% Haste.
Not to distract from the discussion, but just to clarify the haste mechanics briefly:
Haste rating effects stack additively, but haste percentage effects stack multiplicatively. Therefore, with all 4 of these buffs active, you'd actually experience:
Sounds from that as though Focused Attacks is bugged - proccing off poisons, or something. Because average case there's no way it should be giving 5 energy per second. Lets break this down:
Let's say we're using 2x1.4 speed daggers. With SnD, WF, and, say, 10% haste from haste rating and buffs, this drops attack speed to about .82; thus, with two 1.4 speed daggers, you get 2.45 attacks per second. Assuming, say, 40% of those crit, , that's .98 crits per second. Given that HFB takes 1 energy per second to keep up, and Finishers eat about that much as well; hence, if one is regenerating, say, 14 energy per second, only 12 gets spent on Mutilate, thus we get about a Mutilate every 5 seconds.
A note before I continue: has it been verified whether Mutilate counts as one attack or two for purposes of Focused Attacks? That is, if both attacks crit, do you get 6 energy?
Regardless, assuming the more favorable interpretation of Mutilate and, say, a 60% crit rate for Mutilate attacks, that works out to an additional .24 crits per second thanks to Mutilate. Finally, with one Envenom every 10 seconds or so, again with a 40% crit rate, you get another .04 crits per second. That adds up to about 1.26 crits per second, or about 3.78 EPS. Note that this isn't even quite enough to do the number of Mutilates we had penciled in, so the actual regen would need to be a bit lower - say 3.75.
Now, don't get me wrong: Even 3.75 EPS is more than 5 points of Combat Potency, and about 50% more than what you get from 5 points in Relentless Strikes. It's a lot of regen. But I think if people are seeing over 5 energy per second, it's likely a bug, or perhaps a statistical fluke.
Focused attacks is definitely proccing off both hits from mutilate if they both crit. You see the 2 mutilate attacks with their code of insanity from the combat log with the silly little binary numbers showing that they each crit and then you see Focused Attacks +3 and a second Focused Attacks +3.
When I went back to look at other fights, it wasn't quite so OP (Focused Attacks) with not quite so much energy gained, but it was still performing at 2-2.5 times more energy than 3 points in Relentless Strikes. I'll sort through the details of the ugly combat log to see if I can observe what was proccing each Focused Attacks proc. When I saw it, I thought at first that someone else's attacks might have been proccing it, but didn't consider poisons. Tbh, looking at the numbers from the parse, poisons still wouldn't explain it. I'll see what I can find. I currently have combat logs from 3 boss fights in Kara and 3 in ZA from the PTR, along with all the associated trash. I also still have the recount results from ZA saved and maybe that will tell me if the parser I have is making parsing errors.
Also note that when I looked at the results from Dragonhawk, the energy regeneration was more inline with 3 energy per second, DPS was similar, number of attacks are similar. Either way, I'm going to dump the combat log into excel, filter for focused attacks and then go through a set of those to find what procced it. Should tell us where the bug is.
EDIT: Also on the bugged Deadly Brew, it'd be a shame if it is IP > Crippling as it is right now. It's a really interesting mechanic but I guess it was too much DPS for two points? Maybe less since the poison coeffs and damage changed, but I don't know. They could've made it less than 100% chance if they intended to change it. We'll see.
I really hope it's just a bug. Admittedly I've yet to patch the PTR, but it seems a little odd to me that they'd have all of the poisons proc crippling? I can see how it would be useful in pvp, I guess, but from the PVE standpoint I wouldn't bother with it anymore.
On a side note, from what I've read Aldriana was saying that the new "stat" is AP? For a mutilate build, wouldn't straight AGI be better since it will contribute to crit and ap, which would help with Focused Attacks?
Sorry if it's already been discussed, I hadn't seen anything to the extent posted in the last few pages and it had me scratching my head.
The short answer as to why I say AP appears to be the stat is, well, that's what my simulations have been showing - see post 2001 for my theory on why this is happening. The short version is that the diminishing returns on rating stats is stronger than the increase in their value due to higher weapon damage, so for at least the first instance or two, AP is going to be a lot relatively stronger. I suspect by the time the T9 instances roll around - if not before - we'll see the current lead stats reassert dominance, but that's not been the case so far.
However, the recent changes have reduced the dominance of AP somewhat. The Focused Attacks buff has increased the value of crit, and the poison changes have reduces the value of AP (though not by as much as you might think). It's just that instead of all the rating stats and Agility being worth around 1.3-1.6 EP, they're starting to creep up into the 1.8-1.9 range. Note that AP is still better - just by a smaller margin. And there's still plenty of time for that to change before things go live. But as things stand right now, socketing straight AP does appear to be the way to go for the first tier or two of raiding.
So I have the parse for the entire evening (bosses and not bosses) in front of me looking for an answer on Focused Attacks. For the evening, according to the parse, there were 665 crits in total (39 poisons, 8 envenom, 160 mutilate, 4 ambuse, 1 shiv, 453 melee swings). According to the power gain page, I see 1236 procs of Focused Attacks. When I start going through the detail, line by line, I see no unexpected procs of Focused Attacks. Each one I can link with a crit attack (not a poison).
So then I dumped the Nalorakk section into Excel and filtered for Focused Attacks. The parsing program is counting each one twice. Excel - 98 Focused Attacks, WowLogParser - 198 Focused Attacks. Combat log working properly. Skill working properly (confirmed each crit of mutilate - each hand - will proc Focused Attacks). WowLogParser, broken for Focused Attacks. Result, Focused Attacks returned approximately 2.5 energy per second. For Nalorakk (previously posted) there were 108 crits - 9 of those instant poison. Focused Attacks is proccing from all non-poison crits (including envenom, which is listed as a spell with other poisons).
As an update on stat weightings: updating with the new enchants, equipment, and weapons, it is possible to get to the point where AP is no longer the top stat. In particular, if you gear with best-known-item in every slot (mostly ilvl 213 and 226 stuff), I get stat weightings for Mutilate to be as follows:
Expertise passes AP cleanly, and Agi/Crit pull almost exactly even with AP. Note, however, that it'll take a little while to get to this itemization level.
It's also worth noting that with the latest Focused Attacks change, fast weapons now utterly destroy slow weapons in every respect. Switching your MH from Webbed Death (156 DPS, 1.4 speed) to Sinister Revenge (171 DPS, 1.8 speed) yields a net loss of almost 200 raid DPS, by my estimates. And you only lose another 100 by going to Fang of Kalecgos (108 DPS, 1.5 speed). Which, given the fact that over half of daggers appear to be 1.8 speed, is, shall we say, a concern.
I've read trough a ton of mutilate discussion and if i can just pop in a quick question about combat.
I know mutilate may very well be an awesome spec, and I was extremely excited until I've been seeing that two fast daggers is much more favorable, especially with new focused attacks, and call me closed minded but it strays from the idea of mutilate and the two slow daggers.
Now I'm very interested in combat and was wondering if, even with combat potency broken, any of you amazing theory crafters think combat will stand a chance, because what I've gotten so far is that mutilate has the potential to blow it out of the water. Also curious because from what I have seen combat isn't getting any HUGE buffs except for prey on the weak, nice yes but not so game breaking eh?
Numbers have been run on combat and find it to be generally pretty far behind; however, they've also said they still have plans to change it (or at least, replace Lightning Reflexes with something that isn't useless), so it's entirely possible that it will get some love yet. More to the point, I think it's pretty darn unlikely that Blizzard will repeat the mistake of the previous expansion and only have 1 remotely viable spec. So I wouldn't expect them to launch until they're pretty confident that they have things in a reasonable state of balance.
Latest version of MMO champs talen calc shows the description on deadly brew changed to "When you apply instant, wound or mind numbing to a target you have a 50%100% chance to apply crippling poison".
Yep, RIP Deadly Brew. I think the Combat changes as well as the Deadly Brew/further Improved Poisons nerf may align the overall DPS fairly well, but we need to test it of course .
- Gouge awards one combo point once again.
- Tricks of the Trade now costs 15 energy.
Talents
Assassination
- Hunger for Blood now only attempt to remove a Bleed effect. (Old - any harmful physical effect)
- Deadly Brew now only has a chance to apply Crippling poison
- Improved Poisons now increases the chance to apply Instant and Deadly poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% (Down from 3/6/9/12/15%)
Combat
- Savage Combat now also increases your total attack power by 2/4%.
- Vitality has been changed now increases your Energy renegeration rate by 3/6%.
- Aggression has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 5 and changed to 5 points. Now Increases the damage of your Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate abilities by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Endurance now increases your total stamina by 2/4% additionally from the Sprint / Evasion cooldown reduction
Subtlety
Filthy Tricks now the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 secs and Preparation by 2.5/5 min.
Note that the online calculator shows Vitality at THREE poitns for a 3/6/10% increae in energy regeneration. Of course, that's 3 talent points for 1 energy per second, so it's not quite up to par with Combat Potency.
Pretty big changes those. Combat seems to gain ground again, which is good in my opinion. I really look forward to going back to good old combat dagger again.
It's a definite step in the right direction for the Combat tree, but now there's a bottleneck midway down (tier 5). With both Aggression and 2 of the weapon specializations there, that tier is a huge point sink for non-dagger builds. What's perhaps more insulting is that the tier just below it (t4) has, at this point, nothing but filler. And there's still no sign of an improvement to LR.
In the end, it just means that a raiding spec wouldn't have Unfair Advantage any more, so it's not so huge a loss (except for... soloing?) if any at all. I also definitely like the changes to Blood Poisoning -> Savage Combat and Vitality becoming a genuine DPS boost.
It's a definite step in the right direction for the Combat tree, but now there's a bottleneck midway down (tier 5). With both Aggression and 2 of the weapon specializations there, that tier is a huge point sink for non-dagger builds. What's perhaps more insulting is that the tier just below it (t4) has, at this point, nothing but filler. And there's still no sign of an improvement to LR.
In the end, it just means that a raiding spec wouldn't have Unfair Advantage any more, so it's not so huge a loss (except for... soloing?) if any at all. I also definitely like the changes to Blood Poisoning -> Savage Combat and Vitality becoming a genuine DPS boost.
In my opinion the tree is well balanced between utility and dps talents. for example something like this . You can of course switch between parry and endurance etc.
The tree feels fairly good. The only issue still is RS which kind of reminds of the old "opportunity dilemma" for combat daggers. I still hope for a 3 points RS, just to make combat dagger a "smooth" spec.
Edit: my mistake. you mentioned non-dagger which I missed. Still, it comes down to the possible changes that could be done to dodge talent.
In my opinion the tree is well balanced between utility and dps talents. for example something like this . You can of course switch between parry and endurance etc.
The tree feels fairly good. The only issue still is RS which kind of reminds of the old "opportunity dilemma" for combat daggers. I still hope for a 3 points RS, just to make combat dagger a "smooth" spec.
I definitely agree that the tree feels much better now. However, I still feel that tier 5 just seems bloated. There are 11 mandatory points there for non-CQC builds, and I can't help but wonder why CQC can be down at t3 but the other weapon specs have to stay so deep (t5). Why not bump them down to t4, move LR up to t5, and give it the buff it so richly deserves now that it's deeper in the tree -- like 1% haste or 1% agi increase with (or instead of) each % dodge?
Originally Posted by Bishop200
I hate what they have done to deadly brew, maybe it was needed, but now it's almost useless
Agreed. Now it feels like most of the innovation of the original Assassination tree is gone. Then again, so is the bloat. Without Deadly Brew and Infectious Poisons, the tree is much more streamlined... for raiding at least. It's also far more boring though. Then again, those two talents were pretty imposing in terms of DPS increases. Now they might as well be invisible.
I hate what they have done to deadly brew, maybe it was needed, but now it's almost useless
Well, it makes it useless in PvE, but it's still very very good for PvP. And let's be honest: it was sort of overpowered before.
Combatwise: the top half of the tree is now tight (in that taking all the DPS talents leaves you at exactly 51 points), but there's still 6 points of filler below the 20-point level. Which is certainly progress, and will disappear nicely when/if they tweak Lightning Reflexes. Whether it's actually balanced or not remains to be seen - I'll work on some numbers tonight.
The assassination had too many DPS talents. Something had to get reverted to a utility talent to give the tree some room for customization and personal preference. And a poison talent was definitely the most likely. It's a sad day indeed, since it was a rather cool talent (and it kills the thought that they'll pull something similar for curses), and the name "Deadly" is no longer fitting. But it's up in the air for me whether it was tree-defining just because it was off-the-hook or because it really did fit the tree. If it's the later, maybe you can convince blizzard to gut some other poison talent instead.
09/19/08, 2:30 PM
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