So far it seems like my biggest concern in regards to the state of rogues is weapon itemization and drop rates.
We've been running naxx since the 2nd week of Wrath (people were still hitting 80 the first week) and have gotten 1 webbed death, 1 Anarchy? that dagger of saphiron that's 1.5 speed. 2 Silent Crusaders, and about 15 split greathammers. So our rogues were all running around with massively non optimal weapons, 2 of us (myself included) wielding silent crusader and the stupid hammer because nothing else is dropping. Sure this could be luck on our part but we can't even get a mutilate rogue up and running with the drops we've gotten, at least how they're distributed, to split the burden a little bit. Our dps is behind, way behind, but I think a large part of that is our non optimal weapons. As far as dps over all with "good" or well itemized weapons, it seems like we do pretty decently, maybe we could use a little bit of a buff, maybe not, I couldn't say for sure.
The next part of my post is about Fan of Knives.
My only concern really with fan of knives and the upcoming change is consistency. Currently some poisons only proc with fan of knives when you're in melee range, and some proc from the full 8 yard range, these melee poisons include instant, mind numbing, and anesthetic iirc. It seems somewhat inconsistent to have some proccing from full range and some only if you're standing on top of the mob (depending on the hit box of what you're aoeing).
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).
I can't find any decent parse for an older date, this one will have to do (if anyone have a WWS of their guild's first Patchwerk kill, that would be useful for comparison).
Note that it is from 26 November, so it was likely one of the guild's first Naxx 25 runs. On that parse, the highest rogue did 3425 DPS, and the highest mage did 4962. By comparing with the fourth parse I linked, the rogue did 31% more damage, and the mage did 13% more damage. Obviously it isn't a great comparison as I'm pretty much using completely different raid compositions and the player's ability isn't a factor, but I'm almost certain that if you compare a WWS of a guild's first Patchwerk kill and their latest Patchwerk kill, rogues should be one of the classes that scaled the most, if not the class that scaled the most.
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
If we are that much more gear-dependent than other classes, then that's something that needs fixing. The main culprit, as I said in my post quoted in the start of this article, is the dependency on very fast daggers. There are two ways they can fix that:
1) Itemise more fast daggers and fewer slow ones
2) Normalise poison proc rates based on weapon speed
The second would seem the more robust solution, since it prevents the issue arising again.
If you normalize poison procs, you would likely want to normalize Focused Attacks too, as I said in my first post in this thread as well (http://elitistjerks.com/1018728-post76.html).
One thing that Blizzard did mention though, is that itemization was supposed to be bad for this tier of raiding. I'm not sure if by that we can expect more 1.4 speed daggers, but I hope so.
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
No, that only exacerbates the scaling issue with weapon speed, and the scaling issue with multiple targets and FoK.
But FoK is only a trash tool. Trash DPS isn't really significant is it? Any semi-intelligent raider wouldn't flex epeen over a parse involving multiple mobs.
You are right about weapon speed scaling though, your Muts wont hit quite as hard for the same amount of energy with quicker weps, but having your poisons vamped in damage would be worth it, no? As long as we see PvE gains that dont affect PvP, it's not bad for anyone?
Who cares what speed daggers we use, as long as our overall DPS increases? Or did I take your statement the wrong way?
I can't find any decent parse for an older date, this one will have to do (if anyone have a WWS of their guild's first Patchwerk kill, that would be useful for comparison).
Note that it is from 26 November, so it was likely one of the guild's first Naxx 25 runs. On that parse, the highest rogue did 3425 DPS, and the highest mage did 4962. By comparing with the fourth parse I linked, the rogue did 31% more damage, and the mage did 13% more damage. Obviously it isn't a great comparison as I'm pretty much using completely different raid compositions and the player's ability isn't a factor, but I'm almost certain that if you compare a WWS of a guild's first Patchwerk kill and their latest Patchwerk kill, rogues should be one of the classes that scaled the most, if not the class that scaled the most.
Those are some good WWS reports, and certainly as I have stated Rogues are within the top 3-5 DPSers for Patchwerk. In terms of the comparison you did, there is also one more thing to look at , how many gear upgrades did the Rogue get compared to the Mage?
But FoK is only a trash tool. Trash DPS isn't really significant is it? Any semi-intelligent raider wouldn't flex epeen over a parse involving multiple mobs.
You are right about weapon speed scaling though, your Muts wont hit quite as hard for the same amount of energy with quicker weps, but having your poisons vamped in damage would be worth it, no? As long as we see PvE gains that dont affect PvP, it's not bad for anyone?
Who cares what speed daggers we use, as long as our overall DPS increases? Or did I take your statement the wrong way?
Read up a couple of posts. If we only care about really fast daggers, it makes it that much harder to gear up as everyone is fighting over the same drops. Unless Blizzard suddenly chooses to only put 1.4 and 1.3 speed daggers on the loot tables, which seems unlikely.
Read up a couple of posts. If we only care about really fast daggers, it makes it that much harder to gear up as everyone is fighting over the same drops. Unless Blizzard suddenly chooses to only put 1.4 and 1.3 speed daggers on the loot tables, which seems unlikely.
Shoot, I missed that post. Sorry.
I haven't been in that situation yet, as I'm the only raiding Rogue. I can see where you're coming from.
I had seen the post saying that blizzard wanted item selection to be a "skill" of sorts, but I had not seen any specific post where they said that it was supposed to have "bad" itemization, but then looking back at the t5 and t6 level I guess we had a similar situation with the sword off tidewalker being the only really good mh and I don't even remember if there was a good offhand, but then when hyjal and bt came out there was at least another option for top dps mh weapons (not counting legendaries, no matter how easy and/or hard they are to get) so I guess maybe Blizzard only really wants 1 viable set of weapons per spec per tier? it's just a shame that they coincide with eachother (webbed death is a hot item).
My only concern really with fan of knives and the upcoming change is consistency. Currently some poisons only proc with fan of knives when you're in melee range, and some proc from the full 8 yard range, these melee poisons include instant, mind numbing, and anesthetic iirc. It seems somewhat inconsistent to have some proccing from full range and some only if you're standing on top of the mob (depending on the hit box of what you're aoeing).
So yeah, my gear/weapons have improved a fair bit, but still wearing a few L70 pieces and blues. Memnoch has Grim Toll rather than the Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood, but a significantly worse mainhand. He does, however, have more pieces of 25-man Naxx gear than I do, and did much better at keeping up hunger than my poor efforts (was lagging horrifically due to catastrophic computer problems at the time. Luckily (?) my computer exploded, so I can justify upgrading it.
But that should prove to be a pretty good showing of "scaling" so to speak. 30% more damage from just a few upgrades here and there strikes me as pretty significant.
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I can't find any decent parse for an older date, this one will have to do (if anyone have a WWS of their guild's first Patchwerk kill, that would be useful for comparison).
Note that it is from 26 November, so it was likely one of the guild's first Naxx 25 runs. On that parse, the highest rogue did 3425 DPS, and the highest mage did 4962. By comparing with the fourth parse I linked, the rogue did 31% more damage, and the mage did 13% more damage. Obviously it isn't a great comparison as I'm pretty much using completely different raid compositions and the player's ability isn't a factor, but I'm almost certain that if you compare a WWS of a guild's first Patchwerk kill and their latest Patchwerk kill, rogues should be one of the classes that scaled the most, if not the class that scaled the most.
I am completly confused here. In all your WWS links, rogues DID NOT top the charts, and if I remember, placed 2nd in only one of them. If this is to validate that rogues do top dps, I don't know how you quantify it. In other words, we loose in the dps race with every other naxx boss and the one boss in which we should shine or that which is used to say "hey, we are doing good!", we are very rarely in the top 3. Huh. What have I missed? Sorry you all, I am just not quite ready to accept scraps and be thankful for placing in the top 4 on a completely pro-rogue fight, whereas eating dust everywhere else.
Lets start parsing all boss fights, not just the one pro-rogue one. I think that will give a better basis on how rogues are really doing, and how they are scaling. If mages/druids/fury warriors/deathknights are first 90% of the time on all boss fights, and in some rare circumstances rogues can place second or third, who really is single target dps champs? This is not qq'ing, I am just having a hard time adjusting to the mindset that things are 'pretty good' for us on one or two bosses if we can reach #2,and most often #4 or worse.
In terms of validating/verifying data, you can't even begin to quantify who has scaled the most and what is the real bump. We don't know who didn't show up for the raid, what gear did they have during the actual raid, their buffs. Having the stats is great, but I think we need to start getting very specific on item levels, buffs and some how roll that into the stats in real time.
The parse from Lunacy has a rogue coming top, and another coming 3rd. The whole point of comparing things on Patchwerk specifically is, I believe, that this is a fight we SHOULD win because it's a stand-and-nuke fight, no movement required, no adds, nothing. Neto's addressing the question of 'does rogue damage scale at all or is it still terrible even at higher gear levels', not 'is a rogue able to keep up on movement-oriented fights'.
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I am completly confused here. In all your WWS links, rogues DID NOT top the charts, and if I remember, placed 2nd in only one of them. If this is to validate that rogues do top dps, I don't know how you quantify it. In other words, we loose in the dps race with every other naxx boss and the one boss in which we should shine or that which is used to say "hey, we are doing good!", we are very rarely in the top 3. Huh. What have I missed? Sorry you all, I am just not quite ready to accept scraps and be thankful for placing in the top 4 on a completely pro-rogue fight, whereas eating dust everywhere else.
Lets start parsing all boss fights, not just the one pro-rogue one. I think that will give a better basis on how rogues are really doing, and how they are scaling. If mages/druids/fury warriors/deathknights are first 90% of the time on all boss fights, and in some rare circumstances rogues can place second or third, who really is single target dps champs? This is not qq'ing, I am just having a hard time adjusting to the mindset that things are 'pretty good' for us on one or two bosses if we can reach #2,and most often #4 or worse.
In terms of validating/verifying data, you can't even begin to quantify who has scaled the most and what is the real bump. We don't know who didn't show up for the raid, what gear did they have during the actual raid, their buffs. Having the stats is great, but I think we need to start getting very specific on item levels, buffs and some how roll that into the stats in real time.
Okay, here's some examples of a rogue topping the charts on fights that aren't Patchwerk.
I topped the chart on Malygos (Attempt 1 is phases 1 and 2), and 4 Horsemen. I also placed very well on Heigan (lost only to two classes with significant ability to DPS during dance phase, and not by much), Razubious and Loatheb. I died on Kel'thuzad because I am idiot who does not move out of void zones.
I'd say that's a pretty decent example of a rogue topping DPS, though my play was pretty far from flawless. Gear definitely makes a big difference, and I've come a long way from my first week or two of Wrath raiding.
We're playing on a pretty full server (Last Resort fanboys all over the place) and wednesdays means that we have around 2k ms the first two hours, with freezelags. Playing mutilate is somewhat impossible when you have to start refreshing HfB 10 seconds before it's about to run out, so the only mutilate friendly boss (Maexxna) got completly destroyed. You can also see that we tried Noth, but no one got off one single decurse because of the lag, so we went malygos while waiting for the lag to fix. One softreset later and we're back on track.
As you can see I'm getting destroyed on most bosses, but I'm fine with that since I'm pretty satisfied with my performance on all bosses. As you can see I'm constantly top 5 except for some fights where I drop to 7 and on patchwerk where healers failed and forgot to heal one of our OTs (what, isn't the DK tanking?). The thing is that my dps is pretty constant, and I'm always performing on fights where melee doesn't get totally screwed.
I'm getting quite frustrated with the damage situation. In 5 mans with competent members I never place 1st on damage anymore. (even in cases where I outgear the other members significantly) I almost never see any use of CC, and it really strikes me how blue's would express that this was only going to occur during lower levels, and once we hit higher instances it would stop. Fact of the matter is, we aoe from the start of wrath all the way to Naxx 25 (I can't comment on eye yet)
I am not new to mutilate, I was running daggers in Hyjal and Black Temple, and was much more competitive during that time then I am now. Make no mistake the cycles are tighter now and less forgiving then it was previously, and in my judgement with less benefit.
My thoughts are, that perhaps I am using tricks too much like feint was in the past, and it is drastically effecting my overall damage. (I am often the only rogue brought to raids). Also because cut to the chase does have some lag involved I am giving it a wider birth then I would like, Hfb is also in the same boat where I worry about stuns, gcd, kicks other considerations and I don't feel completely comfortable letting it get down to 1.5s or less on timer before refreshing.
Blanket statements like if you can't break 2k dps in a 5 man your bad irritating. Rogues still gain a large benefit from shouts, melee totems etc, and when I get a group where none of those are given, and then I get owned on meters, I wonder if they really are that dense to think I must be a bad player.
I've been trying to push everything I can to up the damage, but it just feels like the ceiling has dropped on me, over a few weeks with this new expansion.
I topped the chart on Malygos (Attempt 1 is phases 1 and 2), and 4 Horsemen. I also placed very well on Heigan (lost only to two classes with significant ability to DPS during dance phase, and not by much), Razubious and Loatheb. I died on Kel'thuzad because I am idiot who does not move out of void zones.
I'd say that's a pretty decent example of a rogue topping DPS, though my play was pretty far from flawless. Gear definitely makes a big difference, and I've come a long way from my first week or two of Wrath raiding.
Well, this is an example of the issue of using wws parses to show things, and not being in the same context.
Razuvious. Your parse has one person above 4k dps, you. Our parse this week has 9.
Your loatheb kill is over a minute longer than ours.
Your KT kill is over a minute longer than ours.
Now how can you compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of classes between the two parses, when the data is skewed, and the number of cooldowns you have available in a fight can change your relative worth/ranking?
I tried a mut build today, rocking my uber titansteel shanker with lpc and hit the 5k mark on Patch, and was ranked 6th, upped by 2 hunters, 2 warriors, and a warlock. Warrior damage is going up in 3.08 as well, allthough I am not sure 20%+ of their dmg coming from deep wounds (essentially a 5 talent point tier 3 talent) is warranted. I took second overall on Maexxna at a bit over 4800 dps, first place going to a warrior. Aside from hunters (getting nerfed in 3.08) and Warriors (who generate as much white dmg as deep wound dmg) I actually see things being pretty close so far, all though I think gear scaling may tell the ultimate tale.
I think before any buffs can or should happen to mutilate our pvp burst dps needs to be tuned down. I started arena's in a 3v3 together with a blood specced DK and the moment I get hysteria stuff dies extremely fast. Now our rating isn't very great but this mainly has to do with the fact our priest tends to get gibbed. The main problem s the combination of hysteria and cold blood. Taking out a warrior from full health to 0 in less then 5 seconds is the kind of thing that happens with double cold bloods on hysteria. I have also seen double crit mutilates up to 9k on cloth.
The earlier proposed version of a cold blood that works more as a pve version would really be a nice thing for pve and at the same time remove some of the extreme pvp burst. The only downside I see is combat falling behind even more which it really shouldn't be.
Another thing is that currently mutilate is good to do on the simpler fights, but the moment any kind of lag or lots of adds+other stuff happens it becomes extremely hard to keep your rotation going due to target switching. In my naxxramas raid yesterday I had to start refreshing HfB at the 6-10 second mark and still it would fall off. Getting my second webbed death and 4 piece I have seen my dps shoot up though so I wouldn't be surprised if the next tier gear will put us above most classes again. But as others have said it's silly our class is designed to only be competitive after x tiers of gear.
This is my first appearance on this forum, although I am stalking it for a while. I prefer reading, before writing. I found many interesting topics, and I answers to my unasked questions. I play rogue on the Arathor since 2005 October. I have cleared MC/BWL in the vanilla WOW and wiped in AQ40 a lot. I killed Illidan in the Black Temple. Before WoTLK I had one raid day for KJ. I always red a lot and talked to other rogues a lot to get better. My skills are not the best (I am pretty old ) but I always tried to be prepared to do my best. I am looser in PvP, since it was never and interest for me. I have raised a lock/mage/druid/shammy to lvl70 and I have experience with retpally, SP and hunter. I talk to other classes a lot to see their experiences with their class, since it helps me a lot to understand the raid dynamics. Well I am also a officer for my guild.
Since dinging the 80, I am trying to improve and find out the tricks to be good enough to be useful in raids. I read all the posts in this topic, and I read the other topics under the Rogue section as well. I have seen the QQs and the answers to the issues raised by the rogues. My understanding is that the Blizzard's intention is that the RLs "should take the player and not the class" and "If you max out yourself (gear, skill, raid and party setup) then you can be among the top DPSers of the raid". Is it true? Did I misunderstood the intent of the Blizz sooo badly? Please forgive me, but English is my 2. language only, so I have challenges sometimes to understand it well. As I said before, I have some insight to the other players' performance (capabilities of the individual, his/her net connection, computer that he/she uses, sometimes I know the UI that he/she uses, and many times I know the person from MC/BWL times), so please help me to get better understanding.
Lets focus on the damage dealing, since this is the area of the raiding where the rouges can contribute. There are classes and specs that can provide a "good" performance and beat me doing "the personal best" having similar gear. You can say that your personal best is not enough and you are not geared up completely, but the point is that the locks, mages, hunters can spit out relatively high DPS with less skill AND provide raid support. Maybe I am wrong, but this is not reflecting the philosophy of "bring the person, not the class". If you start the naxx25 and you have to choose then most of the guilds will pick hunters (will be balanced),locks, mages and DPS warriors. There will be maybe 1 raid spot for the rogues. (we had naxx25 raid with 3 hunters and 3 locks - it was fast...) I know that our gear will scale with the items that are available through the high-end instances (?) and we can get our gear from heroics and from reputation and from crafting... BUT with the limited possibilities to attend the 25-man raids the gearing will be very slow. With slow gearing the scaling is slow, so our performance improvement is going to be slow. Am I wrong? Do I have problems seeing the obvious?
I know that many of you are playing in the top guilds and you have broad experience playing your class. I am not top and I do not consider myself experienced. I have difficulties to figure out how to be the best, therefore I read and i try to adopt your recommendations, but not all my concerns were raised and answered.
My thoughts are, that perhaps I am using tricks too much like feint was in the past, and it is drastically effecting my overall damage.
Tricks should not affect your damage at all, since it has zero energy cost. The only "cost" to you is a single GCD. Sure, if that screws up your cycle and you let HfB or S'n'D drop, then that will cost you: but that comes under the "play better" heading. One place Tricks may be affecting perception of a problem is simply that it buffs the other person's damage (by ~3% if chained on cooldown). So if you find yourself in the top 3 or 4 on the damage meters, and the people above you are ahead by 1-3%, ask yourself whether they were the recipients of your Tricks, or someone else's. From a purely e-peen point of view, it would be "nicer" if ToTT buffed your own damage during the misdirect rather than the target's damage. However I won't lose any sleep over that one.
Bah, of course it does. Looked it up on thottbot to check and read the wrong line, sorry.
Hmm, so ToTT is costing us 15 energy every 30 seconds, or slightly less than 5% of our yellow damage - slightly less because of energy regen from focused attacks etc. Yellow damage is ~40% of our total, meaning that ToTT on cooldown costs us ~2% of our total damage. Considering that the only DPS benefit is 3% of the target's damage, that means it's only marginally worth the use.
There is also option in Roguecraft spreadsheet to check how much you lose from using ToTT. I'm still happy ToTT'ing other DPS'ers even though I hardly ever get ToTT on myself.
12/17/08, 5:49 PM
) but I always tried to be prepared to do my best. I am looser in PvP, since it was never and interest for me. I have raised a lock/mage/druid/shammy to lvl70 and I have experience with retpally, SP and hunter. I talk to other classes a lot to see their experiences with their class, since it helps me a lot to understand the raid dynamics. Well I am also a officer for my guild. 
) I know that our gear will scale with the items that are available through the high-end instances (?) and we can get our gear from heroics and from reputation and from crafting... BUT with the limited possibilities to attend the 25-man raids the gearing will be very slow. With slow gearing the scaling is slow, so our performance improvement is going to be slow. Am I wrong? Do I have problems seeing the obvious?
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