Deep Subtlety: Thread and Spec Necromancy - Page 88

NetRollTUZ · 03/17/10, 7:43 PM

I checked it the other day. You just cancel aggro-transfer to target.

Tipme · 03/18/10, 3:09 AM

Aren't all the buffs given and received called Tricks of the trade? How would that work when another rogue tricks you at the same time, or is there a specific cancelaura macro to get rid of the threat transfer but not the damage increase one.

Shot · 03/18/10, 5:00 AM

Assuming both the self buff and the and given/received buffs are both called Tricks of the Trade, and we only want to cancel the self buff, it should be pretty simple to cancel it with a macro.

For example:

/run local n,c,i=true,false,0; while n do if n=="Tricks of the Trade" and c and UnitIsUnit(c,"player") then CancelUnitBuff("player", i) end i=i+1; n,_,_,_,_,_,_,c = UnitBuff("player", i) end

Dry coded, but should be fine. It should cancel any tricks cast by you but leave ones cast by others alone. Will be able to test when I get home, unless someone else does first.

bural · 03/18/10, 11:50 AM

Problem with that macro is it'll cancel the initial Tricks of the Trade buff (the one that on next hit will proc the treat transfer on you and the damage buff on your TotT-target) just as well as the treat transfer.
Of course, if you wait abit it's not a problem, but if you where to cancel the buff based on spellID (59628), you'd be on the safe side. SpellID is the 11th parameter in UnitAura().

Videl · 03/18/10, 9:42 PM

If not that then I'm pretty sure a very simple addon could make that distinction and take care of it for you, something along the lines of the WiseEclipse addon balance druids used to use (in fact, I bet 90% of the code from that addon could be taken outright, just changing some ability names and times).

At any rate, I see a lot of reasons for it not to really be an issue, atleast some of which are probably relevant to any raid. There are a lot of really high dps specs out there with either threat dumps or really generous negative threat mods or both. Your locks, shadow priests and DKs might all be waiting in line to get tricks'd dots that they can roll for the whole fight. With sub's low energy regen and unimpressive personal dps a lot of the time it will be possible to just use it at low energy and CP without any cost to overall damage. Barring all that, as someone mentioned, you can just rotate it between your top 4-5 dps and it will probably go unnoticed threat-wise.

Cooljo · 03/19/10, 6:03 AM

Is it just me or does everybody else see something that I have missed?
I wonder why people keep saying, that Sub has a low energy regen.

OK, Focused Attacks, Combat Potency and Vitality are missing, but I consider Relentless Strikes a core talent of Subtlety. Sure, as an Assasination rogue you also take Relentless Strikes, but you don't finish as often as Subtlety.

Everytime someone says, that Sub has low energy regen, this question comes back into my mind. I remember that the energy gain from RS was really high before the 1sec CD on HaT was implemented. And before you all start screaming at me, let me tell you, that out of a lucky coincidence I have a recent log where I was playing HaT. It's a random PvP spec, so no DW spec and no Filthy Tricks, but I decided, that Shadowstep makes it up for this fight.

And since there was an Assasination rogue present, we're lucky again and can compare numbers:

Effect	Subtlety	Assasination
# of finishers	40	23+
Relentless Strikes	1475 energy	125 energy
Focused Attacks	0 energy	720 energy
Overkill	0 energy	120 energy
sum	1475 energy	965 energy

Here is the log. I left out the unimportant energy sources and energy from Tricks of the Trade, because it's virtually the same and would differ (favor Sub) if I was specced for PvE.

And since the other Rogue only had 2/5 RS we can project his gain with 5/5 RS as 312 energy which would be 1152 in sum, and still less than the Sub rogue.

As for Combat the number would look like this:

Effect	Combat
Relentless Strikes	0 energy
Combat Potency	~640 energy
Vitality	~900 energy
Adrenalin Rush	300 energy
sum	~1840 energy

These are estimates for a 6min fight as seen in the log above.

Due to this, I wonder how people can say, that Sub is a low energy spec....

Anyways, I plan to test HaT (pre and post 3.3.3) on static bosses like Saurfang and Festergut and return with even more numbers.

Zujamar · 03/19/10, 7:53 AM

Cooljo, may I add that your "testing" environment wasn't entirely unbiased. I mean, it's BPC10 heroic and you're playing a spec with Shadowstep. You didn't have any kind of melee haste or crit buff for the fight, both of which affect the energy gains for Focused Attacks. Just to compare those figures, on our H:Saurfang25 kill (4:52, your log is 5:59) with all the relevant buffs sans improved melee haste, and obviously continuous time on target, our mutilate rogues gained 1120&1164 energy from FA, and 500&400 from RS. While I am interested to see how HaT-based specs fare on those kind of bosses, with the 1s ICD in place and whatnot, it's unlikely that the returns increase all that much.

So the main point isn't low energy regen per se, but that the energy regen doesn't scale wildly with raid buffs like FA&CP do.

Vikken · 03/19/10, 8:54 AM

Ok, now give us the damage done by both specs so that we can see the Damage per Energy numbers. Also, how many of those Sub finishers were eviscerate, since it the only finished with a net loss. It has a net 10 energy loss. If you are finishing more, with an energy loss per finisher, you will require more energy and hence, energy per unit time (energy regen).

Mutilate also gets SnD for free, which decreases that spec need for energy. Where as, sub would be spending (and gaining) 25 energy on every refresh instead of doing damage, which inflates the energy gain numbers if you don't normalize for what that energy is going to and decreases the damage done since that finisher is not doing any damage directly.

Thats a half ass explanation, but I think the idea comes across. You can't just look at the amount of energy gain, you also have to consider the amount of energy used, what the energy is used for, and the amount of damage done to really see the full picture. Mutilate doesn't have those energy gains, but it doesn't need more energy either.

Now, I could be wrong. I don't have the skills to analyze your log for these numbers, so I can't say one way or the other. Have you looked at your log from this perspective?

Cooljo · 03/19/10, 9:27 AM

Your objection is right Vikken, though your argumentation lacks a bit... But my point wasn't to compare the dmg, but to get rid of the "Sub is a low energy spec" argument that gets thrown around a lot. The dmg of Sub will be considerably higher come 3.3.3, so there is no point in comparing the dmg of the specs atm.

Since I don't have the possibility to do Sarufang25H (or any 25H encounter) my testing will be restricted to 10H and 25N encounters and will have according results and implications. I will try to make sure (at least in the 25s) that all relevant buffs are present, for the tests.

Vikken · 03/19/10, 9:51 AM

I thought I might elaborate a bit, but I got off on a tangent with the math and realized something.

Rotations:

-Mutilate-

Mut + SnD + n * (2 * Mut + Env) : Thats looks pretty simple to me. You can just add in HfB every ~60 seconds. We can even assume 5/5 RS and realize that we are limited by Mutilate. It pretty easy to plan your energy expenditures to make sure that you have 35 energy after mutilate to imediately envenom.

-Hat-

n * {(m - hatproc) * Hemo + Snd + (m - hatproc) * Hemo + Rupture + k * [(m - hatproc) * Hemo + Evis)]}

Move things around so we ca see things better.

n * [(k + 2) * (m - hatproc) * Hemo + Snd + Rupture + (k * Evis)]

Thats not much better, but you can start to get an understanding why. We have 4 coeffecients (m, n, k, and hatproc).

Now, I don't know about you, but if was running this rotation, I'd have a hard time knowing when to pool my energy to finish. Remember, to get that free energy from RS, you have to have enough energy to finish.

No doubt, this is why Sub is so fun, but it can also be overwelming. Its hard to master. Remember, you still have to tricks and kick and all that other rogue stuff like positioning.

I bet the biggest source of frustration of for Hat rogues is misspending energy because it is complicated, and then being pissed because your sitting at 5 CB and no energy.

Alphabet Soup · 03/21/10, 5:35 PM

Relentless strikes is an energy discount when you use a finisher. So yes Subtlety is very energy efficient, but being energy efficient is not the same as having high energy regen. It would be similar to say that Hack and Slash decrease your swing timers therefor increasing your haste.

Avatara · 03/23/10, 8:50 PM

That is incorrect, alphabet soup. Relentless Strikes is an energy regen talent based on your finishers. I am not quite sure why you call it an energy discount, when it literally gives you increased energy regen, and does not discount anything. It being based on the frequency of your finishers does not change this fact.

Danen3 · 03/23/10, 9:28 PM

Its a discount because 5/5 Relentless Strikes basically reduces the energy cost of your finishers by 25. Snd and rupture become free and evis costs 5.

Its not giving you energy, its discounting your finishers. See?

• Aldriana · 03/23/10, 9:36 PM

Two different ways of thinking about it. Both are reasonable - it's just a matter of which makes more sense to you. So let's stop the pointless arguments, thanks.

Avatara · 03/23/10, 11:40 PM

Originally Posted by Danen3

Its a discount because 5/5 Relentless Strikes basically reduces the energy cost of your finishers by 25. Snd and rupture become free and evis costs 5.

Its not giving you energy, its discounting your finishers. See?

You can spend that energy on anything, so it is not a 'discount on your finishers.'

Anyway, anyone tried Sub in a raid yet?