1) You do not aim for 350 hit raiting. Beyond the poison hit cap, hit rating is very much non-optimal. That cap is 237 if you have a moonkin or shadow priest, 315 otherwise. Neither of these numbers are "magic", and having less than the poison hit cap is not always wrong.
2) You do not stack crit - crit is one of the worst stats. You want expertise up to the cap, then hit to somewhere around the poison hit cap, then AP or agility.
4) A strict 4r/4e/4e rotation is wrong. You do 4+r, then 4+envenom until you need to refresh rupture - repeat as appropriate
5) Envenom damage is not affected by base weapon damage, so weapon speed is irrelevant for Envenom damage
6) A slow main hand is suboptimal. You DEFINITELY do not want deadly poison on your fastest weapon. You want the slower weapon in the main hand with DP on, and the faster weapon in the offhand with IP on.
7) Yes, Tricks of the Trade can be useful. However, attacking the second mob is not a good idea, it won't be debuffed, and overall damage will be suckier than if you hit the right target.
8) As demonstrated extensively above, FoK will be very powerful after the changes. It's not a 50 energy cost due to the returns from Focused Attacks. Saying you can "use it twice" neglects that point that, you know, energy regenerates
9) The 1.5 damage multiplier on daggers for FoK does not make it an Assassination ability, it merely compensates for the facts that combat uses slower weapons. A 1.8 dagger will hit the same as a 2.7 sword. A 1.4 dagger will hit the same as a 2.1 sword.
10) Trainable blade flurry would be insanely overpowered.
4) indeed, repeate as appropriate. 4r/4e/4e. Perfectily syncrhonized.
7) issue us... first traget dies usually too fast on -trash- mobs. so hitting the second makes you deal more damage because of rotation.
8) energy regenerates but mobs die and they do before you can use FoK the the third time, always speaking of -trash- pulls.
10) and? how many insane overposwered ability do the other classes have?
We did a full clear of Naxx last night (and Archavon) and I continue to be quite pleased with my performance as Mutilate when compared to other classes. Even on total damage done I finished middle of the pack; with the FoK change and the short duration of most trash pulls I am becoming more excited in this area. As I've said in earlier posts, there isn't a good benchmark fight in Naxx that lets a Mutilate Rogue shine though so never hitting #1 on any fight isn't surprising.
I do continue to find my DPS behind what Vulajin's sheet puts me at but each week the gap closes as I tighten up my play. (I know what I need to do but it's a matter of more practice with what is essentially a new playstyle for me.) I have every confidence that this will close further; I'm already quite close on Patchwerk style fights.
In comparison to other classes I generally find myself at the top or near top of the other melee classes. With ranged classes I'm fairly competitive but currently there is a FF Mage in our raid that I just can't touch; as to gear we're fairly evenly matched (both having 2pc T7) but I consistently find myself behind him by 2-8% DPS on single targets, part of this is the fact that I only have access to the untalented Windfury buff for haste but that can't account the full difference. I'm also usually behind one of our Hunters by a similar amount but he was not there last night and with 3.0.8 I'm not sure he could continue to do so.
I'm still of the opinion that the DPS gap between 'optimal play' and 'good play' is wider for Rogues than other classes and this may be a bigger cause for any QQ'ing than whether or not we could use a 1-2% total DPS increase. Basing any buffs/nerfs on 'good play' though is a bad idea. Suddenly the 'good' Rogues (ie me) are right up there with everyone else and kicking ass and the 'optimal' rogues are plowing every other class into the dirt.
I'm not saying that Rogue play needs to be dumbed down per se; it's certainly not rocket science in it's current state. However, Blizz has stated that 'good play' shouldn't require addons to do but as has been expressed more than a few times in this thread and others, Mutilate is currently very, very hard to do at any level of play without addons. Combat is probably more in line with other classes in the amount of benefit addons provide.
I took the time last night to respec to check out this HaT "exploit."
I can easily say that it's probably the least fun I've ever had raiding. I was bored to tears spamming Eviscerate. But when you see numbers like almost 6K on Patchwerk, no wonder so many rogues are using this right now.
I guess the entire point here is that if rogues are feeling the need to do this, then there's something wrong with our class.
We're falling behind (on average) other classes that bring utility. Certainly, there are plenty of outstanding rogues that are able to execute perfect rotations, effective use of CDs with on-hit procs, etc, but the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of rogues (and WoW players in general, for that matter) just aren't skilled enough to play at that level.
It appears that rogue DPS scales quite well when we get fully (or almost fully) geared out of 25s... which is fine. But if that's how Blizzard intended it to work, it's a failure for most players. What I think a lot of the excellent rogues here forget (or choose to ignore) is that great WoW players are in the minority in this game... and what does that mean? Simple: it means the average rogue won't have the opportunity to earn that gear that will allow them to *become* competitive. Think about it, it's perfectly logical... why would guilds award top level gear to players who aren't topping the meters in your average guild full of average players? It's wasted, in their minds.
WotLK has been clearly (so far, anyway) defined by Blizzard to be a game that caters to the "average" player... which I can see was their intent in leveling the DPS playing field. Did they go too far? Probably. A lot of good (but not great) rogues are being sat, passed over for loot, or re-rolling because they're being destroyed by other classes that in the past couldn't hold a flame to them.
I guess the entire point here is that if rogues are feeling the need to do this, then there's something wrong with our class.
Sorry, that's rubbish. If we did 6k by default, beat everyone else to pulp, and yet had a bugged spec that did 10k - people would abuse the bugged spec! People like big numbers, it's that simple.
4) indeed, repeate as appropriate. 4r/4e/4e. Perfectily syncrhonized.
7) issue us... first traget dies usually too fast on -trash- mobs. so hitting the second makes you deal more damage because of rotation.
8) energy regenerates but mobs die and they do before you can use FoK the the third time, always speaking of -trash- pulls.
10) and? how many insane overposwered ability do the other classes have?
4) Seal Fate procs are unpredictable, you cannot synchronise it. Sometimes you will be able to fit 1 Envenom between Ruptures, sometimes 3.
7) If you don't have S'n'D running, yes, there can sometimes be an issue with mobs dying before you ever manage to bootstrap it. However it should be possible to not let it drop in the first place. Depends how fast the tank is pulling new groups.
8) If the mobs are dying that quickly, then FoK becomes better, not worse. The frontloaded burst you get from having a full 100 energy is better than all other classes' AoE.
10) Irrelevant, overpowered is overpowered. And no, there's nothing trainable that's as powerful as Blade Flurry.
I currently think we sit a little short on damage, but I am not too upset with out state. If you know how to execute various rotations/etc, you can easily do better than people who fail at executing, which is a good thing I think. I feel a little short on damage, but to be honest, when looking back at our wws parses, I hit #1 in something like 55 of the last 60 wws parses I kept from tbc, so not sitting at the top feels wierd.
Why don't we have a deep wounds/ignite sort of bleed. Instead of getting some sort of stacking bleed, we cant even overwrite a 5000ap 5 point rupture that has 2 seconds left with a 4900 ap 5 point rupture, but warriors can just feed their deep wounds and ride it. In beta we had a bleed, which was quite op. It was called hemorrhage, and applied a dot = 1/2 your crit dmg over a short period, like 6 seconds or something. That was with lethality and other talents.
For the record, Relentless is additive, it will always proc on 5 point finishers.
As for the actual topic, I must admit that as we gear up, we do seem to be scaling back up towards the top. Our first few Naxx runs were dominated by BM, Affliction, and one of our Shadowpriests. As we've all continued to gear up, it's usually the BM Hunter (which is moot now), and then Rogues/Warlocks/Titan's Grip.
Here is our Patchwerk from last night: Wow Web Stats
Deathbiscuit and Injek have similar gear, DB might have a slight edge. I am still missing several important pieces that they have (DC:Greatness, and I'm still wearing 3 level 70 items).
If the PTR changes were live for that kill, it would have been Warrior, Rogue, Lock, Rogue, Rogue (maybe Skhope sneaking in there), which isn't a huge departure from the way it used to be. I think our mages under-represent in general, but I don't think the rest of our DPS massively misplays their characters or anything.
I have seen similar results in my guild. The hunters, warlock, two TG warriors, and two rogues are all very close on most fights that aren't unfavorable for any of them.
Were they to add a 3-4 second cooldown to FoK, we'd be in the same situation we are now. One can only assume that the "point" of removing the cooldown is to allow rogues to get off 2 FOK's in 2 GCDs and move on with their life normally.
Give it an AoE damage cap, maybe remove it from cold blood. Of course remove Focused Attacks from it.
Re: Overkill? Overkill with FOK gives Vigor and Glyph of Vigor a purpose, so there is that.
I'd be fine with it if there were a way to put on a cooldown after 2 or 3 FOKs. Maybe a stacking debuff a la Arcane Blast such that energy cost increases 25%, multiplicatively, after each Fan?
Jesus don't want me in a sunbeam
Sunbeams are always made on me
Don't expect me to cry, for all the reasons I'm gonna die
Don't ever ask your kick of me.
Given the response to my post that indicated the strength of Mind Sear by comparison, I don't really think it needs to be restricted. However, there is still the fact that, the more targets you hit, the more ridiculous it eventually becomes. I'd be in favor of preventing it from interacting with Focused Attacks, but reducing the energy cost slightly so that all rogues benefit from cheaper Fan without the scaling issues.
1. I get usually beaten by hunters, our good mage, and our fury warrior. We are similarly geared. The rest of the classes I haven't had much problem staying ahead of. I need one of the above to screw up in order to beat them. With the incoming buffs to Fury and TG I can only see this getting worse w.r.t. warriors.
2. Why are people saying slow MH is bad? According to the spreadsheet Sinister Revenge is a fair amount of DPS ahead of a second Webbed Death. Are these people saying the spreadsheet is wrong?
3. Mutilate feels like it is at a significant disadvantage for any type of burst damage. I have no timers to use like AR or BF, all I can do is just continue to do my normal rotation.
The TG change has 0 effect on any Fury warrior that isn't bad. They all have more than enough hit to not be affected by the current TG penalty, and that won't change after it is removed.
To participate in this discussion, I have to go back to Why I rolled a Rogue. I did maybe 2 hours or so of research before I actually logged into WoW and created my character and I read the Wiki and other fan sites to decide which class to roll. The Rogue stood out to me because the each of those resources said that Rogues are useful to groups and raids because of their damage. In case of the other classes I was thinking of rolling it was damage yes but they can also perform other utility functions.
In TBC, the fight that I saw before 3.0 came that allowed me to really see my performance was Void Reaver and I was satisfied, and I was also satisfied in the other fights are participated in. There was a feeling amongst the raid that brining a Rogue was good because they provided good DPS.
Throughout the development of Wrath, I heard the new motto of Blizzard - "Bring the Player, not the class". I found that to be very ambitious goal but also a good one at that. Wrath launched and I hit 80, I still ask myself the same question again, "Why did I roll a Rogue?". The answer that I find myself giving still is because Rogues do good DPS.
As I have gone through Naxx25, I have become better geared and as a result also scale nicely with the new gear. So that is certainly good, I have also seen other classes namely DKs and TG Warriors scale pretty well with the new gear.
The question that I can't answer with the release of Wrath is, "How good of a player do I have to be as a Rogue to do competent DPS?".
I feel like if I am able to use my CDs optimally, make sure SnD never ever drops, use optimal roations, max Rupture uptime, etc then I am in Top 5 DPS with others who do not have to be that optimal in their play. Things are different when I can get two ARs in, 3 BFs in, 3 KS in.
It requires even more control in fights where I have to switch off the target or move away from the target to do competent DPS. In TBC I told myself that is fine because Rogues were the King of single target meele DPS, thats not the case anymore. We neither stand out in Single target DPS nor in fights with movement or adds (Yes I know the FoK change will be godly for fights with adds).
And you know I look at a few months into the future, when Blizzard has implemented the dual spec system, there will be classes in their current of future state which will provide a good advantage to the raid in dual roles of meele DPS and something else. Rogues will still have a singular role and that is meele DPS and if it requires that I be the absolute best at playing this class to pump out competent DPS at that point in time, I think there is something wrong with the state of the Rogue class.
Were they to add a 3-4 second cooldown to FoK, we'd be in the same situation we are now. One can only assume that the "point" of removing the cooldown is to allow rogues to get off 2 FOK's in 2 GCDs and move on with their life normally.
With a 3 second cooldown we would be very far from the situation we're in with a 10 second cooldown. In fact, our AoE output would have more than tripled.
As for the "point" of the changes I don't agree. In fact, I'd say the exact opposite. It looks to me as though the reason for having a cooldown in the first place was to prevent spam usage, and in particular to prevent dumping the initial 100 energy in two GCDs. I may of course be wrong on that, but I very much doubt Blizzard intends for use to be the BEST burst AoE class, which is what we will be if there's no cooldown on FoK. What it basically boils down to is:
1) Does Blizzard intend for us to have superb burst AoE capability and weaker sustained AoE? If not, FoK needs a cooldown, to prevent "dumping" of a full energy bar (and also silly tricks with Adrenaline Rush)
2) Does Blizzard intend for the damage per target to scale upwards with the number of targets? If not, FoK needs to be taken off Focused Attacks, or a cooldown imposed so that you can't use all the returned energy on FoK, or a maximum number of targets imposed
3) Does Blizzard intend us to be able to apply our utility poisons in an AoE manner? With Deadly Brew, a rogue could effectively apply Mortal Strike, Hamstring and Curse of Tongues to all nearby targets in the space of ~2 seconds. That seems somewhat overpowered in battlegrounds at least. If Blizzard doesn't want this to happen, FoK should not proc poisons.
4) Where does Blizzard want our sustained AoE damage to be? Can be tweaked by altering energy cost, percent damage multiplier, whether poisons proc, etc.
Of these questions, the last one (our actual AoE damage output), while obviously the most important to us as raiders, is by far the least important to Blizzard, and the easiest to tune. It can be trivially tweaked in any number of ways: adjusting energy costs, applying a simple damage multiplier, tweaking the scaling with AP, adding a flat damage component, etc.
Something that caught my eye that might help a fair bit with Mutilates current lack of 'on demand' burst, is the upcoming change to Elemental Mastery for shamans.
Elemental Mastery: Redesigned. Now increases the Shaman’s critical strike chance by 20% for 30 seconds. Cooldown remains at 3 minutes.
Like Cold Blood, EM currently confers an on-demand single special ability crit with a single attack. Like Cold Blood, Elemental Mastery was primarily a PvP talent allowing an Ele shaman to insta-gib a single target on demand every 3 minutes.
Currently, Mutilate/Prep builds with Cold Blood are causing a great deal of PvP distress because of the fairly obscene burst they can put out in very few gcd's - in large part because of CB/Ambush combos.
Turning Cold Blood into an on demand increase to crit chance for all attacks (including auto) for a short duration gives it significant increased synergy with Focused Attacks (much like Blade Flurry does w/ Combat Potency), synergy with raidwide cooldowns like heroism, and allows Mutilate rogues to put out on-demand damage to a target during 'burn periods' without relying entirely on consumables or external buffs to provide that burst. It also makes Cold Blood worthwhile in PvE for more than just 'getting to seal fate' and making ToT/FoK combos more potent.
I like that idea you have there although Ele Shaman have slower attacks per minute than Rogues and the duration of such a change would have to be cut to bring the talent more in line. 30 Seconds of burst seems too high, 30 seconds in itself doesn't jive well with the term 'burst'; I think 10-15 seconds of some amount of increased crit rate would be much more reasonable and would be more in line with durations seen in Combats burst abilities.
In reality though, if Rogue DPS is in fact behind what it should be it's Combat that needs more help than Mutilate.
Sorry, that's rubbish. If we did 6k by default, beat everyone else to pulp, and yet had a bugged spec that did 10k - people would abuse the bugged spec! People like big numbers, it's that simple.
Of course there would still be people using it... it's silly to assume they wouldn't. But that's not the point!
Are you telling me that the oodles of rogues out there using this now are doing it solely to top the meters?
Or perhaps there are rogues out there that feel like Blizzard passed them by and are doing whatever they can in order to remain competitive and clear content to gear for Ulduar?
There are plenty of rogues out there whose rationale for using HaT is the latter.
I've always kinda liked the idea of turning Cold Blood more into a Combustion-style ability.
"Increases the chance to crit with special abilities by 10%. Stacks by 10% each time until you have critically-struck with special abilities 3 times".
Reduces the burstiness of the talent (can't depend on two subsequent crits to destro something completely) but in the same breath improves the talent for PvE purposes, especially where cycle stability is concerned.
Jesus don't want me in a sunbeam
Sunbeams are always made on me
Don't expect me to cry, for all the reasons I'm gonna die
Don't ever ask your kick of me.
I like that idea you have there although Ele Shaman have slower attacks per minute than Rogues and the duration of such a change would have to be cut to bring the talent more in line. 30 Seconds of burst seems too high, 30 seconds in itself doesn't jive well with the term 'burst'; I think 10-15 seconds of some amount of increased crit rate would be much more reasonable and would be more in line with durations seen in Combats burst abilities.
The duration is entirely tweakable. The point is, that for a class that has, traditionally, been all about cooldowns, Assassination builds don't have any of worth, and this significantly hurts the realworld utility of the spec outside of patchwerk style burns.
Combat needs help too, but of the opposite sort - it's cooldowns, burst and utility are fine, the spec is just lacking some sustained damage to keep up.
I'm running mutilate spec and really enjoying it. HfB is a bit of a PITA, but you get used to it being part of your rotation.
I'm lucky to be in a guild that really just emphasizes teamwork in 25-man raiding but the damage meters are still an everpresent source of pressure to do better. I'm less geared than most of my guildies (they raid the 10-man as well; wife agro prevents me from doing so. ) and I do pretty well on boss fights. I typically come in fourth or fifth and I don't have fast daggers. However, it's the trash that just brings me down. I guess spamming FoK after the patch will remedy that to some extent.
One thing: I keep hearing how we don't bring utility. We do. But it's not the kind of utility that's very noticeable. We help tank threat and mitigation with TotT and various stuns and locks. MN and now Anesthetic poisons have their uses in certain fights. Evasion tanking is useful in the Rezuvious fight while the priests get MC going. Blizz has been careful to provide roles for us. It's not the obvious boon that a 30-minute buff gets you but there are many things we do that help.
I don't see reason to raise the alarm. It would be nice to get a bit of a dps buff. I think it's ridiculous that hunters can mash 2-3 keys and do 1.5x the damage we do while we have to hotkey like eight different things to keep our damage flowing. But all in all, I think we're close to where we should be.
Point taken. DKs removed from my critical statement.
I really don't think you can trivialize DK DPS that much. Just looking at Chalon's recent WWS shows quite a few abilities used by both Frost and Blood DKs. Multiple sources of damage and cooldowns, I haven't leveled a DK to 80 yet but I don't think they are as easy as BM hunters by any means.
I really don't think you can trivialize DK DPS that much. Just looking at Chalon's recent WWS shows quite a few abilities used by both Frost and Blood DKs. Multiple sources of damage and cooldowns, I haven't leveled a DK to 80 yet but I don't think they are as easy as BM hunters by any means.
Having done M'uru and KJ multiple times as a Hunter, and leveling a DK in beta, it's a complete and utter disservice to compare them like that. DK plays like a rogue/warlock hybrid, if anything.
My shot at DKs was probably unwarranted. My misgiving with the Death Knight class isn't really that it's easy to play. What does bother me is that Blizzard may have neglected our class while creating a class that gets to start at level 55 and then does massive amounts of damage by design, thereby taking a bit of the chrome off the rogue bumper.
I don't want to stray too far from the topic, though. Taking this back to "the state of rogues" if Blizzard wants us to be competitive with other dps classes, some of whom have more apparent contributions to raids, then they need to give us a bit of a buff and avoid using the "but rogues are still great in pvp" argument. Other than that, I still find the rogue play style fun and entertaining. HaT is just another way to play and even though a lot of people are complaining that it's just mashing eviscerates, it does provide an alternative. Giving the class some diverse choices like this is a good thing, IMO.
I don't want to stray too far from the topic, though. Taking this back to "the state of rogues" if Blizzard wants us to be competitive with other dps classes, some of whom have more apparent contributions to raids, then they need to give us a bit of a buff and avoid using the "but rogues are still great in pvp" argument.
Please link to a quote where any blue uses that argument. I won't hold my breath.
Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler
Rogues should be doing very high dps if not the highest dps for some fights. If that isn't happening we will buff them (ideally in a way that does not inflate their PvP damage potential).
I think this is the latest quote regarding rogues. Honestly, after seeing multiple parses of rogues being pretty high on damage, I think gear scaling will likely fix our, at the moment, perhaps subpar performance. I can't remember of any parse showing rogues *anywhere* near top damage for Patchwerk at the first weeks of Wrath, and now there are plenty. With the nerfs to the overtuned classes and our gear scaling, by Ulduar I wouldn't be surprised if we're back to top DPS.
Originally Posted by Aldriana
But while Vulajin is only a pale shadow of my brilliance, he still contributes a fair amount to the community so I'd feel guilty
I think this is the latest quote regarding rogues. Honestly, after seeing multiple parses of rogues being pretty high on damage, I think gear scaling will likely fix our, at the moment, perhaps subpar performance. I can't remember of any parse showing rogues *anywhere* near top damage for Patchwerk at the first weeks of Wrath, and now there are plenty. With the nerfs to the overtuned classes and our gear scaling, by Ulduar I wouldn't be surprised if we're back to top DPS.
I have yet to see a non-HaT exploit WWS where a Rogue Tops Patchwerk, I have seen quite a few in which they are top 3-5. But I trust your research and thats great news that we are able to achieve Top DPS on a fight that suits us the most. I would of course like to see the skills of these Rogues compared to the rest of their raid. I feel currently, a Rogue has to do everything almost perfect to be able to do competent DPS (not talking about top DPS).
The gear scaling part is actually something that Blizzard should work towards fixing. It is not a good thing if everytime an expansion hits, Rogues start as medicore and only improve with better gear compared to other classes. I also think in its current form DKs and TG Warriors will scale almost as good as Rogues with gear.
I like to compare Rogues with other meele classes, and I think Rogues still suffer the most amongst them in fights with adds and movement.
I also do not think the class is in a good State when if with every expansion it has to wait to be in full Tier X gear before it can shine in DPS.
12/17/08, 12:19 PM
) and I do pretty well on boss fights. I typically come in fourth or fifth and I don't have fast daggers. However, it's the trash that just brings me down. I guess spamming FoK after the patch will remedy that to some extent.
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