Pocket Guide to WOTLK (Updated for 3.3) - Page 17

Tinwhisker · 12/16/08, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by theirwin

Am I better served using a lower lvl item that gives a tiny bit more AR, Crit or Exp?

I tend to remain a little lost in how HR has changed since BC and fret about dropping it too much.

Also concerning Mutilate weapon use. I am currently at a 10-man lvl and my options seem to be Librarian Paper Cutters, Titansteel Shanker and Namlak's Sticker. I assume the Paper Cutter is the best match for OH but is it the ideal for MH given the weapon dmg of the other two?

Take gear upgrades as they come, gem for AP/Agi paying attention to socket bonuses. If you use the spreadsheets, they may not give you the perfect answer but they certainly won't give the wrong answer.

There are several optimal 25-man gear sets theorized and posted in these forums in prominent places but as you gear up don't worry about stat minimums or stacking one stat over another. Concerning +hit specifically, being at the specials hit cap is a good idea, being at the poison hit cap is good but hardly required.

As for your weapons, that's a spreadsheet answer based on you current gear.

Ambits · 12/16/08, 5:42 PM

I personally found for myself as going to combat from my mut spec I'm doing more consistent DPS and on almost all bosses I'm doing more dps because now instead of having to focus on keeping hfb and snd up 100%, I can focus on the fights more and my rotations and I'm pulling more dmg then my mut, not to mention the extra 2% physical dmg that everyone else is getting since we are a heavy melee dps guild. This most likely won't be the case for everyone but I'm loving being combat again, oh and I love accuracy. I enchanted them the other day since after getting beserking I died way too much and took a lot more dmg, and I think it works best for me overall, but granted it is a little pricey but well worth it in my opinion for the crit and hit. On the calculator mut vs combat only shows about a 200dps loss for me but I think because of the utility of the spec it actually for me comes out on top.

On a side note beserking is expensive to do on my server as well so thats the main reason I'm not looking at it right now until maybe later on down the road.

sephfiroth · 12/16/08, 7:04 PM

Originally Posted by Ambits

I personally found for myself as going to combat from my mut spec I'm doing more consistent DPS and on almost all bosses I'm doing more dps because now instead of having to focus on keeping hfb and snd up 100%, I can focus on the fights more and my rotations and I'm pulling more dmg then my mut, not to mention the extra 2% physical dmg that everyone else is getting since we are a heavy melee dps guild. This most likely won't be the case for everyone but I'm loving being combat again, oh and I love accuracy. I enchanted them the other day since after getting beserking I died way too much and took a lot more dmg, and I think it works best for me overall, but granted it is a little pricey but well worth it in my opinion for the crit and hit. On the calculator mut vs combat only shows about a 200dps loss for me but I think because of the utility of the spec it actually for me comes out on top.

On a side note beserking is expensive to do on my server as well so thats the main reason I'm not looking at it right now until maybe later on down the road.

First you said that you do more DPS as Combat than Mut, but then you said that your spreadsheet shows Mut beign 200 DPS higher.

If you did your cycles/rotations right then you would have done more damage as Mut.

You also said that youre not looking at getting Berserking, but before that you said you had it and you were taking too much damage. Which is should have no affect on you for raid damage.

Shenanigans I say.

Ambits · 12/16/08, 7:06 PM

The issue at hand is trying to keep 100% HFB and SnD up, if you even for once miss it and it drops off and screw up your rotation your done over, thats why I say I'm doing more dps now because I don't care how perfect you are its not hard to miss a HfB and once you loose it, its over. As far as beserking for me, right now I don't care much for it cause I can notice a big difference when its proc'ing I'm taking a lot more damage and have died on occasions due to it so thats why I changed back to accuracy for now. If your dead you can't do dps, my issue right now is we have some healers not fully geared yet, once we do and mana isn't a issue I will go back to beserking, but seeing how I'm not hit capped yet and will be after a few more items from naxx, then I'll revisit it.

Bliksem · 12/16/08, 9:23 PM

Hey, if you play better as combat, you're of course going to do more DPS as combat; regardless of spreadsheets.

But, if you are willing to learn muti properly, and don't drop your HfB stacks, you will do more damage.

By the way, mongoose > accuracy.

Almehym · 12/16/08, 9:49 PM

There are three fights in Naxx where it's possible for HfB to drop, and all are avoidable (the last one not so much so, but to some extent). Maexxna, Sapphiron, and KT. There are timers for the first two, so you can have your HfB fully refreshed before you lose control of your character. The last one can be solved by refreshing HfB <6 seconds and it won't matter when you get tombed.

Berserking drops your armor by 25% for each weapon. Since we don't run with more than even 9k armor, I have to cry foul here. First of all, we shouldn't be taking extra physical damage almost ever (most raid damage is magical if I'm remembering right), and second, 25% less armor on a rogue isn't going to be the end all and be all. That's akin to getting a lucky dodge when you moved in front of a cleaving boss (or an unlucky one, for that matter).

As for your statement about hit caps, this further verifies my opinion that you probably just have to re-read the first post in a few of these threads, and maybe practice on a training dummy for a bit. There is no magic number for hit that you need to have.

Neto- · 12/17/08, 1:53 AM

Originally Posted by Almehym

The last one can be solved by refreshing HfB <6 seconds and it won't matter when you get tombed.

This might actually not be worth doing. By refreshing HfB at >6 seconds (I assume that's what you mean), you'd HfB once every 23 seconds instead of once every 30 seconds, therefore, you spend 1.3 energy per second to do this. The only time HfB would drop if you get Frost Blasted would be if it is below 7 seconds. So, if you refresh HfB normally at 29.x seconds, and you happen to get frost tombed, there's a 23% chance that when you get blasted, it's below 7 seconds. If it happens anyway, you can Vanish and, while under Overkill, restack it up, spending a total of 60 extra energy. That's still less than the 391 energy you would spend just refreshing HfB >6 seconds. I don't think I got hit by Frost Blast any time on my guild's last KT, but it's admittedly totally based on luck.

evl · 12/17/08, 3:45 AM

Originally Posted by Ambits

The issue at hand is trying to keep 100% HFB and SnD up, if you even for once miss it and it drops off and screw up your rotation your done over

I usually recover from this pretty easily by doing Vanish -> HfBx3 and you're back on track.

♦ Asgorath · 12/17/08, 12:16 PM

I was taking a look at the new Wowhead links for gem weightings, and noticed a problem with the versions of hit/crit/haste ratings. The original link uses the melee version of these, for example:

Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

However, in the offensive stats section, there's also the raw hit/crit/haste ratings, which dramatically change the results:

Gems - Items - World of Warcraft

Those are more in line with what I'd expect, but maybe I'm missing something.

Fazzmania · 12/18/08, 8:42 AM

Cally, I love your work, but would it be possible to post this on the official forums so we could get a sticky perhaps? Every day the forums are clogged with people asking simple questions which would be answered very effectively by the guide. With the guide, maybe some of that could be trimmed down.

ekval · 12/18/08, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Bliksem

By the way, mongoose > accuracy.

This is not necessarily true, at certain gear level Accuracy > Mongoose as offhand enchant. Also there has been talk about Mongoose's proc rate going down when level goes up from 70 to 80.

RobertM · 12/19/08, 5:17 AM

Originally Posted by Cally

EP Weights for Level 80 (Rough Draft)

Originally posted by Aldriana.

For Mutilate:

Stat	EP
Str	1.1
Agi	2.0
Crit	1.6
Exp	1.9
Haste	1.4
ArPen	1.0

Hit is worth about 2.2 below the yellow hit cap, 1.8 below the poison hit cap, and 1.3 above both caps.

For Combat:

Stat	EP
Str	1.1
Agi	2.0
Crit	1.5
Exp	1.6
Haste	1.4
ArPen	1.2

Hit is about 1.8 below the yellow hit cap, 1.6 below the poison hit cap, and 1.4 thereafter.

Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but since this article mentions these EP Weights, I believe it may be worth asking.

Is there any way to assign some kind of value to weapon DPS in the same very rough way that other stats are assigned "Equivalence Points"?

• Aldriana · 12/19/08, 5:58 AM

Yes, any itemization parameter can be converted to EP; for Mutilate, 1 MH DPS is worth around 4.1 EP, and 1 OH DPS is around 3.1 EP. It should also be noted that speed plays a vital role in DPS for both hands as well; my best estimates for Mutilate put each .1 increase in MH speed at around 35 EP, and each .1 increase of OH speed around 75 EP.

Edit: don't use these numbers. There was a bug in the sheet

As an additional note, I'd probably revise the Mutilate EP chart above a bit based on my latest spreadsheet revision; I'd bump expertise up to 2.0, haste to 1.5, and ArPen to 1.1, while dropping hit below to poison hit cap to 1.6.

Neto- · 12/19/08, 6:26 AM

One thing worth to keep in mind, though, is that the faster your weapon is, the higher the DPS increase is.

I got these results using the default gear in Aldriana's spreadsheet:

Mainhand DPS loss:

62.10 = 1.3 -> 1.4
52.77 = 1.4 -> 1.5
45.03 = 1.5 -> 1.6
38.55 = 1.6 -> 1.7
33.07 = 1.7 -> 1.8

Offhand DPS loss:

80.14 = 1.3 -> 1.4
69.27 = 1.4 -> 1.5
60.39 = 1.5 -> 1.6
53.10 = 1.6 -> 1.7
47.04 = 1.7 -> 1.8

Clemenza · 12/19/08, 6:58 AM

First of, thanks everyone here for the great work. I have been reading the forums for months and it improved my understanding of the class. Sorry for my bad English. English is not my first language.

Question to you, Aldriana:
I know you have tried to stay below the Level 70 hit cap through bc in order to optimize your dps on adds/trash and to improve survivability through additional dodge provided by gemming more towards agility. At this time hit was very slightly better in terms of pure dps.

Now given your updated ep weights in post 253, it should not make any difference whether you gem ap/agility or expertise in terms of boss dps. But gemming for ap/agility would improve your dps on adds/trash once you have passed the level 80 expertise cap.

So it would be intuitive to gem for ap/agility. But as I can see from the armory, you have gemed for expertise up to the cap.

Can you maybe tell why you prefer expertise? I am asking this because I am interested in the reasoning behind your choice.