Art of Poisons : Combat Shiv Build & PvE Poison DPS - Discussion
It's about how important poison damage with haste is so that we might have to rely on poisons as our main source of energy activated damage. Now that the extra poison damage out weighs the lower DPE of Shiv ,it seems like a time to start testing the shiv build dps.
Obviously if you're curious as to how it performs, use the spreadsheet and/or test it yourself, because like other talent setups, it's fairly gear reliant.
It's a mistake to use Deadly Poison on MH-WD for Losing about 40K poison dmg ,WP outdps much better for 1.4 weapon because of the haste effect like snd/bloodlust/potion/flurry. It could have been 5700+ DPS.
In patch 3.1 you will gain 10% more haste from the LR and new fast high ilvl weapon from the new instance . Fist/Sword hybrid spec will not RIP by dropping "ImpSS" & "Blade Twisting" unless they nerf shiv again.
It's a time to start a new thread for further discussion.
I cant remember how they said it, but Blizz stated Shiv as a main combo point builder is unintended, or something to the effect when nerfing attacks combat potency was proc'd on. I would imagine this means the 'new' shiv builds will shortly be a thing of the past as well.
Supporting Wodahs comment: Shiv has been stated to be a way of automatically applying OH poison -- either to apply an effect (such as crippling or MN), or to build/refresh stacks of DP -- and has not been intended as a primary CP builder. Although this could change, I don't see evidence that such is the intention.
I cant remember how they said it, but Blizz stated Shiv as a main combo point builder is unintended, or something to the effect when nerfing attacks combat potency was proc'd on. I would imagine this means the 'new' shiv builds will shortly be a thing of the past as well.
I totally agree, but Blizz's new design for PvE seems to be to move more of our white damage to another form of autoattack damage, namely poison procs. As a result we then run into the problem where IP/WP on the offhand in conjunction with Shiv could result in higher damage than our main combo building specials (which in the case of Mutilate were recently nerfed).
I can almost guarantee that Shiv will not be allowed to stand as a main combo point builder; how Blizzard plans to do this is obviously unknown but based on past posts when this was brought up before (because of the benefits of Combat Potency) I tend to think that they'd be willing to remove Shiv itself rather than let it stand as such.
I totally agree, but Blizz's new design for PvE seems to be to move more of our white damage to another form of autoattack damage, namely poison procs. As a result we then run into the problem where IP/WP on the offhand in conjunction with Shiv could result in higher damage than our main combo building specials (which in the case of Mutilate were recently nerfed).
I can almost guarantee that Shiv will not be allowed to stand as a main combo point builder; how Blizzard plans to do this is obviously unknown but based on past posts when this was brought up before (because of the benefits of Combat Potency) I tend to think that they'd be willing to remove Shiv itself rather than let it stand as such.
The obvious 'fix' seems to be getting rid of OH sword spec procs, since that SEEMS at least to me, to be the last ounce of DPS that lets a Shiv build pull ahead of standard combat or Mutilate for me on the Spreadsheet.
Originally Posted by Actovision
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Now even for those non-OH sword spec SS build your better MH weapon choice is a high dps and fast non-dagger , you lose less ss dmg and gain more poison dmg from the fast MH.
So basically with the new SND changes the extra haste is giving enough poison procs to outwiegh a slow weapon in the mainhand.
So, I guess I just don't understand how your last statement makes sense. There is no way that I have been able to see poison dmg offset the SS dmg of a slower harder hitting weapon given an SS build (SS meaning sinister strike?). It's not even close assuming the slow weapon is something like Calamity's Grasp or KTs Reach and the fast (non-dagger?) weapon is something like Hailstorm, Hatestrike, Angry Dread...
So, I guess I just don't understand how your last statement makes sense. There is no way that I have been able to see poison dmg offset the SS dmg of a slower harder hitting weapon given an SS build (SS meaning sinister strike?). It's not even close assuming the slow weapon is something like Calamity's Grasp or KTs Reach and the fast (non-dagger?) weapon is something like Hailstorm, Hatestrike, Angry Dread...
Since shiv has 100% chance to apply the poison on the offhand, and Instant Poison hits really hard there is a way. It has been calculated, simulated, so statements that you don't believe it doesn't make any sense.
So, I guess I just don't understand how your last statement makes sense. There is no way that I have been able to see poison dmg offset the SS dmg of a slower harder hitting weapon given an SS build (SS meaning sinister strike?). It's not even close assuming the slow weapon is something like Calamity's Grasp or KTs Reach and the fast (non-dagger?) weapon is something like Hailstorm, Hatestrike, Angry Dread...
That means if you have two MH weapons with the same DPS & type , the faster one is better for either SS build or Shiv build
Originally Posted by Aldriana
Well, lets do a quick ballpark estimate here.
A combat rogue with a fast OH regenerates something on the order of 16 energy per second; thus, one averages something like one Sinister Strike every 2.5 seconds. With a 150 DPS MH Weapon, the difference between a 2.6 speed weapon and a 1.5 speed weapon is about 165 base damage, which is increased by 25% by talents but reduced by roughly a third due to armor, for a base difference of ~140 damage; when you factor in crits, the damge loss per SS due to a fast MH is on the order of 250. Since we postulated that there was one SS per 2.5 seconds, we thus lose about 100 DPS on SS by switching to an equal-damage fast MH.
Now, how much poison damage do we gain? Well, with the amount of haste one typically has in raids (1.4 * 1.2 * 1.03 and some haste rating), you probably gain close to a swing every 2 seconds, thus a WP proc every 4 seconds; hence, Wound Poison would need to proc for an average of 400 damage to make this break even. Which, of course, it does. Hence, the results proposed seem plausible, and it's probably worth investigating this further.
After downloading the new spreadsheet and fiddling around for a bit I came up with these results:
My theoretical maximum dps increased by ~470 after making these changes:
* CP builder changed to Shiv(obviously)
* Spec changed to 18/51/2, getting 5/5 CQC 5/5 SSpec and 1/2 imp SnD
* DPS cycle changed to 4s/5r
* Glyph of Blade Flurry swapped in for Glyph of SS
* Main hand weapon changed to Murder(best I have atm), poisons changed to wound/instant
The 4s/5r cycle seems to net the best numbers(for me, at least) even with 2/2 imp SnD, 4/5 SSpec and Glyph of Eviscerate.
Something tells me Blizzard won't let this remain as is, though I hope to be able to abuse it while I can.
Comments in other threads here at elitistjerks intrigued me enough to look into a Shiv build for myself. Using version 0.4.5 of Vulajin's spreadsheet, with my (not great) gear, raid buffs, etc:
SS Fist of the Deity DP & LPC WP = 2509dps
Shiv KoI DP & Furious Saronite Beatstick IP = 2637dps
Mutilate KoI DP & LPC IP = 2722dps (but I need to provide Savage Combat debuff)
For the Shiv build I replaced the Sinister Strike glyph with an Eviscerate Glyph. I experimented with different poisons but DP/IP came out best in the spreadsheet. For talents I ended up as 23/43/5, after trying most possible combinations e.g. the 18/51/2 build linked above gives 2591dps.
For the Shiv build, [Furious Saronite Beatstick] is surprisingly good. In my spreadsheet experiments, the only better offhand weapon is of course Webbed Death.
Here's a WWS from last night. I've linked just to our Gluth kill but there's more stats in the report. Please don't be too critical of the WWS, it was the first time my guild had fought any of those bosses and yes every single one of our DPS was melee (beggars can't be choosers).
Edit: my attack rotation for the Shiv build was 2s/5r/4e (again a result of spreadsheet experiments)
Last edited by luke_twigger : 02/16/09 at 5:41 AM.
I guess the least penalizing but still effective change would be to add a cooldown to Shiv, somewhere in the ballpark of 5 seconds. This would not destroy the utility aspect of this ability (to apply poisons once in a while when you need/want it), but totally prevent it to be used as the main combo point builder.
And on topic now:
I see a 100 DPS increase using 18/51/2 and Shiv as a finisher, as well as getting [Hailstorm] as my OH weapon and [Webbed Death] now being in the MH (from 5281 to 5382).
My cycle didn't change however, using 4s/5r/5e still provided the best results. The cycle length changed from ~25 seconds to 30.5 seconds of course, due to no SS glyph and missing points in Relentless Strikes.
As for glyphs, I replaced SS with Eviscerate, which yielded better results than BF.
[Hailstorm] really seems to be the weapon of choice for a Shiv based build:
- Dual Webbed Death looses by 90 DPS.
- In terms of maces: [Furious Saronite Beatstick] with 111 DPS as the off hand is only 1 DPS worse than [Deadly Gladiator's Bonecracker] with 156 DPS. But both are still around 75 DPS behind Hailstorm.
I wonder, how did playing Shiv feel in raid? When I tested a Shiv build right after 3.0 hit, it felt awful because I was flooded with energy and could hardly spend all my energy. Of course combat potency wasn't removed from Shiv back then, still I imagine a button mashing excess, especially during AR. Binding Shiv to your mouse wheel might help, but that is just so wrong.
PS:
Kospire, you might want to change your profile to reflect the character you play in game.
// Edit
Your DamageOut Skill Percent seems to be very much in line with the results of my spreadsheet. What cycle did you use?
To me the entire concept of shiv being a valid combopoint builder because of the poison damage, in combination with a fast mainhand is just further evidence of how the rogue class is starting to derail. Best mutilate build is double IP eviscerate, best combat build is based on shiv.
This needs to be addressed, and addressed soon. Slapping on haste is not a valid solution for the rogue DPS problems, normalizing poisons and re-examining the mechanics of some of our most basic skills and abilities is.
I wonder, how did playing Shiv feel in raid? When I tested a Shiv build right after 3.0 hit, it felt awful because I was flooded with energy and could hardly spend all my energy. Of course combat potency wasn't removed from Shiv back then, still I imagine a button mashing excess, especially during AR. Binding Shiv to your mouse wheel might help, but that is just so wrong.
I use a Belkin Nostromo n52 Speedpad, with the Shiv button scripted so when it's held down it simulates furiously mashing the key. If you haven't seen it, there's more info about the n52 at RogueSpot.
Also, I just re-checked the spreadsheet and (with my gear, buffs, etc) Hailstorm is indeed better than Furious Saronite Beatstick. I must have missed it, I was looking mainly at weapons I have a reasonable chance of obtaining personally.
To me the entire concept of shiv being a valid combopoint builder because of the poison damage, in combination with a fast mainhand is just further evidence of how the rogue class is starting to derail. Best mutilate build is double IP eviscerate, best combat build is based on shiv.
This needs to be addressed, and addressed soon. Slapping on haste is not a valid solution for the rogue DPS problems, normalizing poisons and re-examining the mechanics of some of our most basic skills and abilities is.
The problem seems to stem from two points :
- Poisons are becoming too big of a part of our damages, a bit like (though not as severe as) when the enh chamen started to use spellpower to their weapons to benefit from spell-based proc.
- Instant-proc'ed poisons do to much damage per proc, making Shiv's 100 % proc too good.
They could reduce the damage per proc but increase the proc frequency to counter Shiv's effectiveness. But I think that the better thing would simply be to reduce poison damage/proc and increase physical damages.
I suppose it depends on your view about the class, but honestly, rogue seems to me to be first and foremost a physical DPS class, with a notable but "bonus" addition with poisons. When these poisons take the place of our main combo builder/special attack, I see it more as a class mechanics breaking down than a shift in class-defining philosophy.
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... you simply haven't been violent enough !
I wonder, how did playing Shiv feel in raid? When I tested a Shiv build right after 3.0 hit, it felt awful because I was flooded with energy and could hardly spend all my energy. Of course combat potency wasn't removed from Shiv back then, still I imagine a button mashing excess, especially during AR. Binding Shiv to your mouse wheel might help, but that is just so wrong.
Well, I did bind Shiv to the old muti/SS key, and playstyle really didn't feel that different from combatfists.
Combo point increment is constant, which makes the spec and rotation very constant, predictable and easy (maybe boring), compared to muti with CB, or SS with glyph. Hailstorm shiv cost is 33 energy, SS 40, so the gcd's are in good use, and with AR, energy caps very easily. I might get some useful parses out this week from 18/51/2 build.
Pushing aside the fact that shiv *feels* wrong, I'm not sure there's anything conceptually wrong with offhand combobuilder. Sure, old players are used to the slow MH / fast OH mantra, but that's not true any more in other best raidbuilds, either (except combatfist/dagger, now that's the odd one out).
In my opinion, the rogue builds and damage breakdowns are broken in different, subtle way; weapon speed, dps and type change the optimal build, so much that the casual player without excel probably just can't know the rotation and spec he should use with the weapons his PUG Naxx happens to drop for him. Even the raidbuffs change the intuitive choices, MH/OH order and optimal poisons on weapons, sometimes in the order of hundreds of dps. I'm not sure if this is intended, "interesting" mechanics, or just a side effect from the mess rogue damagedealing has become.
I wonder, how did playing Shiv feel in raid? When I tested a Shiv build right after 3.0 hit, it felt awful because I was flooded with energy and could hardly spend all my energy.
I tried this build last night in 10-man Naxx with the exact setup I posted about in the spreadsheet thread, and found that it performed very well. I saw a DPS increase very close to what was predicted by the spreadsheet over previous runs. There was indeed some "button mashing" while AR was running but I seemed to be able to pump out Eviscerates while keeping SnD & Rupture up during these periods without noticeably throwing me off my rotation.
I did notice that the damage breakdown (in terms of the ratio of Melee to Poison damage) from recount was quite different than the spreadsheet prediction: my proportion of poison damage was actually quite a bit lower during the run. I might try to replicate "spreadsheet conditions" as best I can on a practice dummy this evening to see if I can get something closer to the expected percentages and report back.
One question I have on this topic: what is so inherently wrong about using Shiv as a combo point builder? I'm (relatively) new to the theorycrafting game so am unfamiliar with the discussions that went on the last time Shiv reared it's head as a viable spec. I agree that it makes us extremely reliant on poisons, but on the other hand the success of this build is opening up a lot of weapon options to a casual player such as myself (namely all of those funny 1.6/1.7 speed weapons are suddenly decent main hands!). Surely this can only be a good thing.
- Poisons are becoming too big of a part of our damages, a bit like (though not as severe as) when the enh chamen started to use spellpower to their weapons to benefit from spell-based proc.
- Instant-proc'ed poisons do to much damage per proc, making Shiv's 100 % proc too good.
They could reduce the damage per proc but increase the proc frequency to counter Shiv's effectiveness. But I think that the better thing would simply be to reduce poison damage/proc and increase physical damages.
Personally I don't mind poison being a good part of our damage. Poisons in TBC and vanilla always have been more or less a side effect, something extra that didn't particularly add anything to the rogue class. In WotLK they have become a much more class defining ability that sets us apart form fury warriors and enhancement shamans. An assassination build with poison talents using envenom as a finisher is a very distinct playing style and I personally quite enjoy it. So I don't see anything wrong with poisons as such.
The underlying mechanics of poisons however, are wrong. The stat that most decides poison DPS is not weighed by any sort of item budget, it's not even a real stat. That is where currently the biggest problems come from, in my opinion, when it come to poisons. Something easily fixed by normalizing poison application chance for auto attacks. The fact that shiv+IP is outscaling SS doesn't really seem to be a 'shiv+poison' issue, but rather a SS issue. The very fact that combat rogues are underperforming DPS wise plus the fact that the main intended combopoint builder is being outperformed by shiv would in my opinion warrant a new and improved version of SS. Something along the lines of lowering the energy value of SS to 40 by default and giving the improved SS talent a different effect perhaps.
One question I have on this topic: what is so inherently wrong about using Shiv as a combo point builder? I'm (relatively) new to the theorycrafting game so am unfamiliar with the discussions that went on the last time Shiv reared it's head as a viable spec. I agree that it makes us extremely reliant on poisons, but on the other hand the success of this build is opening up a lot of weapon options to a casual player such as myself (namely all of those funny 1.6/1.7 speed weapons are suddenly decent main hands!). Surely this can only be a good thing.
No, those funny 1.6/1.7 weapons are not much better MH weapons now than they are OH weapons with a 'normal' build (bare the effect of combat potency). You want a very fast weapon in both your MH and your OH now, rendering slower weapons completely useless (problem #1).
Problem #2 is that you are effectively abusing an ability that was intended to be situational/utility with an obviously broken mechanic (poisons). If I remember correctly, Blizzard has stated it in a similar way when they removed combat potency procs from Shiv.
Problem #3, at least to me and some people might disagree - which they already have when this discussion came up last time, is that suddenly you are attacking with your weak off hand. I know that denying logic and realism in a game where bolts of frost and fire coming out ouf redish-blueish glowing hands is always a popular knock-out argument, but jeez, please keep the least tiny bit of logic there!
You're attacking with your unskilled and weak off hand! In favour of your main hand! And you're doing more damage this way!
That is inherently wrong and flawed in my opinion, imagine standing there and only swinging the hand you normally do all other, complicated, things with, while your other hand, which lacks of mobility, sensitiveness and what do I know what other English words there are, is swinging around like crazy and performing the most sensible maneuvers possible.
That's just so wrong.
// Edit
Please forgive me if that last part resembled a whine; it wasn't intended to be. Maybe I just lack the rhetorical skills to express it more exactly.
I'm glad there has been a new thread for the Shiv build. I tested the build several days ago on target dummies and gained a couple of hundred dps over my old SS standard spec. I'm yet to test it out on 25 man Patchwerk so can't compare fully raid buffed dps until next reset, unfortunately. It has 5300dps to beat and I shall be interested to see whether it gets close or not.
One question I have on this topic: what is so inherently wrong about using Shiv as a combo point builder?
In addition to what sp00n said, Blizzard likes to only have to look at a few core abilities when balancing the game. If Shiv is allowed to stand as a main combo builder that brings up new balance/itemization/etc issues that they do not want to deal with. In the past Blizzard has altered skills and talents to prevent having to balance based around more abilities than they intended. It's safe to say they would do that again to avoid the balance and itemization issues.
No, those funny 1.6/1.7 weapons are not much better MH weapons now than they are OH weapons with a 'normal' build (bare the effect of combat potency). You want a very fast weapon in both your MH and your OH now, rendering slower weapons completely useless (problem #1).
Problem #2 is that you are effectively abusing an ability that was intended to be situational/utility with an obviously broken mechanic (poisons). If I remember correctly, Blizzard has stated it in a similar way when they removed combat potency procs from Shiv.
Problem #3, at least to me and some people might disagree - which they already have when this discussion came up last time, is that suddenly you are attacking with your weak off hand.
Okay well let me give you my views on those points:
Problem #1 is simply a matter of scaling: agreed if I had a similar DPS weapon as the 1.6 Maexxna's Femur I used last night which was faster it would likely lead to a DPS increase. However, speed doesn't scale in the same way with MH attacks as OH attacks. Specifically in my case, putting the 1.3 Paper Cutter in my MH leads to a DPS loss whereas the dagger outperforms every other ilvl 200 weapon I've found at my raid level on the OH. So in fact the existence of this build has given me three different weapon set options: Greed/Paper Cutter for a usual Combat SS build, Femur/Paper Cutter for Shiv, and Paper Cutter/Paper Cutter for Mutilate. All 3 of these builds are within 2% of eachother according to my spreadsheet calculations. The point being that those 1.6/1.7 weapons that were useless to me 3 days ago are no longer useless to me now.
Problem #2 is one I can't really argue against I guess. However in terms of play style, i.e. what buttons I'm hitting when, what buffs I'm watching, when I pop my cooldowns etc etc, playing this Shiv build isn't really all that different from playing a usual combat build: I'm using a (not too unconventional) 3s/5r/4e rotation but have simply swapped the Sinister Strike button for Shiv. This doesn't strike me as a massive detriment to my game play experience, and all it's done is bring me a little closer to mutilate builds. As long as I'm not doing vastly more damage than my gear level would dictate (see pre-fix HaT) I don't see why the "original intent" of Shiv is at all relevant.
Problem #3 I personally don't buy at all, but I tend to look at the game more empirically and have no problem with the lack of realism. However, for your benefit, I suppose I could use my still relatively healthy imagination to draw you a picture of a little Night Elf whacking a ghoul repeatedly over the head with a mace and sneaking in an occasional jab to the side with the poisoned dagger in her left hand. Remember, even though I'm building CP with Shiv, I'm still auto-attacking
In addition to what sp00n said, Blizzard likes to only have to look at a few core abilities when balancing the game. If Shiv is allowed to stand as a main combo builder that brings up new balance/itemization/etc issues that they do not want to deal with. In the past Blizzard has altered skills and talents to prevent having to balance based around more abilities than they intended. It's safe to say they would do that again to avoid the balance and itemization issues.
This strikes me as a reasonable concern but the effect of viable Shiv builds on game balance will likely make itself known soon enough. Now I find it understandable that Blizzard might not want to worry about including items meant specifically for Shiv builds in later releases, but they don't have to. I simply view Shiv as an alternative for combat rogues with limited access to items. If no combination of gear/rotation would improve it with respect to a standard combat build I simply wouldn't use it but in my particular case it has, and with no effort on Blizzard's part to itemize for it.
Just to clarify: I'm not trumpeting Shiv as the way of the future for combat rogues. I'm just saying that its emergence has made my life a little easier .... for now.
02/15/09, 6:54 PM
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