If these nerfs scale through the content with the same intensity (i.e. 7.5% for mutilate and 2.3% for combat), in the bis gear, mutilate dps will be only 300 dps ahead of combat dps on the single target. Having to switch gear all over again is really annoying.
The nerf doesn't seem quite as severe for Mutilate at high gear levels, for reasons which are not entirely clear to me. I'm showing about 7.8% in my current Mutilate gear, versus just under 7% in near-BIS setups. So: it's definitely bringing the specs closer together. But Mutilate is still ahead for tank+spanks, and when you think about it's there's really only one fight so far (Gunship) that's truly awful for Mutilate. Putricide and Deathwhisper might not be great, but the others are perfectly reasonable with either spec. So while the balance has definitely tipped back towards Combat, I think it's still fair to say that both specs are reasonably viable.
One thing that puts Combat ahead (at least for me) is the savage combat debuff. Another thing, we still haven't seen black bruise. If we can generalize from the other proc weapons, it should scale up combat dps quite a bit. The last thing is of course the controlled burst of combat. Given these factors I really doubt the viability of mutilate in the high end.
But I mean, 5%, that's not really a hunger, is it? It's more like uh, "Munchies for Blood" or "I'm bored, and watching TV, might as well grab a bag of chips for Blood" or "meh for Blood."
Do you think the coefficient change will shift gemming away from AP and back to agi for mutilate?
Nope, for crit cap reasons if nothing else. And I'd like to ask that people not flood the forums with a bajillion trivial questions about the changes that you will be easily able to answer for yourself in a day or two when updated spreadsheets are available. Questions about gear/gemming/enchant choices aren't okay under normal circumstances, they don't suddenly become okay just because there's a two day gap when the spreadsheets are out of date.
Originally Posted by robfang
One thing that puts Combat ahead (at least for me) is the savage combat debuff. Another thing, we still haven't seen black bruise. If we can generalize from the other proc weapons, it should scale up combat dps quite a bit. The last thing is of course the controlled burst of combat. Given these factors I really doubt the viability of mutilate in the high end.
Savage combat means you need *a* combat rogue. Everyone else could still go Mutilate. And while it's true that for 10mans it might be nice to provide it for your raid if the usual savage combat rogue isn't there... it's also true that Mutilate gives Master Poisoner, which you also may not have in 10mans and is vastly superior as a raid buff. So: savage combat is a nice perk, but it's not a reason for all rogues to immediately change specs, either.
Also note that Black Bruise would need to be really quite incredible to make up for the crit cap issues it creates. Which is not to say it won't be, but I'm personally highly dubious that it's going to be a significant DPS increase over Bloodvenom Blade based setups.
It is, however, true that Lich King drops and Tiny Abom may play with the balance, but until we actually get those it's going to be hard to comment on how, exactly.
Aldriana, given that all the tests concluded 51-18-2 was very close to 51-13-7 prior nerf (they were almost even, mind you), and given that 51-18-2's core was exacerbating poison damage, I feel that the classic 51-13-7 should be on top after nerf, or in the worst case equal. I will start my tests right now, will get back with info on this if something fancy will come up.
<update>
Yes, it appears that my hunch is good, 51-13-7 is coming on top with an average of 100 dps, me being completely unbuffed. The test was pretty concludent, I used samples of 4 millions damage on heroic dummy, should be enough for some early conclusions.
P.S. For the records, when I said "I feel", I ment it in a mathematical way, 51-13-7 is based more on physical then 51-17-2. I will try to be more precise from now on, /peace.
I do not belive they have complety changed the mechanics of poison damage added this patch.. and while we are seeing a decrease in attack power in its relation to poison I fail to see how talenting for more crit,bleeds, and energy regen would make up for the loss of attack power poison damage...
I could be wrong however.. But mutilate before was based on poison damage, we simply respeced to add mele haste, I have yet to read anything that suggests we start doing otherwise.
I do not belive they have complety changed the mechanics of poison damage added this patch.. and while we are seeing a decrease in attack power in its relation to poison I fail to see how talenting for more crit,bleeds, and energy regen would make up for the loss of attack power poison damage...
I could be wrong however.. But mutilate before was based on poison damage, we simply respeced to add mele haste, I have yet to read anything that suggests we start doing otherwise.
There is not about bleeds, its about the coeficient on poisons being dropped by the hotfix. So naturally the first thought was to test to see IF its not better to try to boost something else, in this case the mutilate dmg itself via opportunity. Mutilate is still an undeniable percent of assassination, a net gain of 20% combined with the ability to land more via a much more reliable Relentless Strikes made me start the test which finished with the classic build being on top. I hope more of you will test it and confirm my numbers.
The idear is decent enough, but there's abit more going on when speccing 51 13 7 than just more Mutilate damage. More importantly it also comes with higher uptime on the Envenom buff due to 5/5 RS, which emphasizes poison damage - and in a way puts you back where you started.
I've modified the sheet to account for the changes and 51 18 2 is still ahead although only by 100 dps or so.
The idear is decent enough, but there's abit more going on when speccing 51 13 7 than just more Mutilate damage. More importantly it also comes with higher uptime on the Envenom buff due to 5/5 RS, which emphasizes poison damage - and in a way puts you back where you started.
I've modified the sheet to account for the changes and 51 18 2 is still ahead although only by 100 dps or so.
Interestingly enough, while I see similar results as you in my current gear, throwing the same changes into my BIS sheet shows 51 13 7 to be superior, albeit just as marginally, by no more than about 100dps in heroic BIS gear.
Interestingly enough, while I see similar results as you in my current gear, throwing the same changes into my BIS sheet shows 51 13 7 to be superior, albeit just as marginally, by no more than about 100dps in heroic BIS gear.
with 51-18-2 I cant reach 5400 dps on heroic dummy no matter what i do, did more then 20 million dmg. with 51-13-7 I can sit pretty confy at 5300-5400 almost every try. Only one time was a bit under 51-18-2, when I had really bad rng. Also the energy regain can be felt pretty much, its much more reliable for me, I think I will keep it for a period to see hows going.
There is a reason why dummy testing is not relevant to us, and it was mentioned so many times before. Dummy is not fully debuffed, you are not fully raid buffed and you havent done hundreds of sessions to actually compare the two specs so close in damage output.
with 51-18-2 I cant reach 5400 dps on heroic dummy no matter what i do, did more then 20 million dmg. with 51-13-7 I can sit pretty confy at 5300-5400 almost every try. Only one time was a bit under 51-18-2, when I had really bad rng. Also the energy regain can be felt pretty much, its much more reliable for me, I think I will keep it for a period to see hows going.
Tbh I think you really can't make any conclusions by dummy testing due the lack of raid buffs and rng considering the differences seem to be so small.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe that using Mavanas BiS there would be a 9% DPS difference, roughly 1200 DPS between combat and mutilate prior to the nerf. Assuming that Mutilate lost on the order of 7% and Combat lost 2% it would come out to a 4% DPS difference, roughly 480 DPS. Is it going to be worth losing the utility of combat for an extra 500 dps on a theoretical standing still fight or Icecrown on the whole?
Last edited by Syleion : 01/08/10 at 9:34 AM.
Reason: changed wording slightly.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe that using Mavanas BiS there would be a 9% DPS difference, roughly 1200 DPS between combat and mutilate prior to the nerf. Assuming that Mutilate lost on the order of 7% and Combat lost 2% it would come out to a 4% DPS difference, roughly 480 DPS. Is it going to be worth losing the utility of combat for an extra 500 dps on a theoretical standing still fight or Icecrown on the whole?
Name all the encounters where the utility is more useful in Icecrown than sitting doing the highest possible DPS on a boss? Currently Gunship is about all that comes to mind and it's not like every other boss in Icecrown is heroic Anub where FoK spam is needed or used.
If you are going to use the utility vs single target DPS trade off it helps if that actually matters in the current tier of content. Fair enough Deathwhisper and Valithria have waves of adds but the former you can always leave your Mutilate Rogues on the boss during P1 to make use of their superior damage in a similar fashion to having casters sit in melee range on Festergut to reduce their DPS loss from movement.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe that using Mavanas BiS there would be a 9% DPS difference, roughly 1200 DPS between combat and mutilate prior to the nerf. Assuming that Mutilate lost on the order of 7% and Combat lost 2% it would come out to a 4% DPS difference, roughly 480 DPS. Is it going to be worth losing the utility of combat for an extra 500 dps on a theoretical standing still fight or Icecrown on the whole?
it depends on next bosses encounters mechanics, you'll have to w8 for the next wings to know
Name all the encounters where the utility is more useful in Icecrown than sitting doing the highest possible DPS on a boss? Currently Gunship is about all that comes to mind and it's not like every other boss in Icecrown is heroic Anub where FoK spam is needed or used.
FoK spam for mutilate actually had outperformed combat numerous times on heroic Anub with the poison changes, but regardless. I know that many guilds place rogues on adds for Deathwhisper for TotT to the tanks. I find that the on-demand burst from cooldowns also helps contribute to the success of the raid, an example would be bursting down the adds for Professor Putrecide's or Deathwhisper's adds. We haven't seen all the bosses in Icecrown yet so it will remain to be seen whether or not the utility is worth the loss of DPS.
And Insite, I believe AP is preferred over Agility since we are so close to the crit cap as it stands. I believe it was 10% nerf for Instant poison as well as DP and WP.
Last edited by Syleion : 01/08/10 at 10:00 AM.
Reason: Clarity
With HFB now being a 5% increase, I'm wondering if this might be a good time to ask for the bleed requirement to be removed. The bleed requirement was originally there because it was a 15% increase to all damage. As it stands now, HFB isn't the monster it was. I'm not going to advocate removing the energy cost, only removing the bleed requirement which would lift a burden off Mutilate in 5man where it really seems to under-perform for multiple reasons and in 10man where an outside bleed is often unavailable (at least for me).
FoK spam for mutilate actually had outperformed combat numerous times on heroic Anub with the poison changes
Prey on the Weak below 30% fails. And Envenom buff is adding a hefty amount of poison when it's up. But take a look at Recount or whatever addon you're using and check the damage dealt to adds relative to the boss.
However, what has kept Mutilate up on the hc Anub encounter recently is the high singletarget dps. For this fight, Mutilate seemed perfectly balanced at least before last nights hotfixes. I've only beat the DKs and the Feral (50%+ of dmg done with 1 ability) by several 100 dps. Expecting to fall down below them now.
With HFB now being a 5% increase, I'm wondering if this might be a good time to ask for the bleed requirement to be removed. The bleed requirement was originally there because it was a 15% increase to all damage. As it stands now, HFB isn't the monster it was. I'm not going to advocate removing the energy cost, only removing the bleed requirement which would lift a burden off Mutilate in 5man where it really seems to under-perform for multiple reasons and in 10man where an outside bleed is often unavailable (at least for me).
I don't believe we'll ever see the bleed requirement dropped from HfB, if not only for thematical reasons (BLOOD, BLEED, YOU SEE?) but it seems as though Blizzard's model for DPSers in Wrath has been to maintain at least one personal buff or debuff. Arms warriors keep rend up, destro locks immolate, fire mages living bomb, dks diseases, ele shamans flame shock, and so forth. While it may not be the same for every class and spec, it'll usually be made up for by reactive abilities or cooldowns.
While combat has slice and dice to keep up and mutilate technically has slice and dice AND envenom, both of those just sort of.. happen. I agree HfB is annoying in 10s and 5s, but it's only once a minute and far from the PITA it used to be. Most of us solve it with a combat offspec for less than ideal circumstances.
I really can't see how this nerf allows hybrids to take over the top of DPS meters. Taking the numbers from our raid yesterday and reducing them by 8%, I still come out way ahead of anyone who isn't a rogue. On Saurfang, I was 2600 dps ahead of our best non-rogue, which really is a ridiculously number. We didn't do Putricide, but all other fights so far are more or less pure tank&spank (if you stay on Deathwhisper as mutilate the only execption would be Gunship Battle) and even if I reduce my total damage and DPS by 8%, there is no danger whatsoever of falling behind. Hell, I'm still top DPS by a healthy amount on every fight, with our two combat rogues right behind me.
With HFB now being a 5% increase, I'm wondering if this might be a good time to ask for the bleed requirement to be removed. The bleed requirement was originally there because it was a 15% increase to all damage. As it stands now, HFB isn't the monster it was. I'm not going to advocate removing the energy cost, only removing the bleed requirement which would lift a burden off Mutilate in 5man where it really seems to under-perform for multiple reasons and in 10man where an outside bleed is often unavailable (at least for me).
It would be very good if they could do this as the current mechanic is unnecessarily punitive outside 25mans, especially since in situations where you have to put your own bleeds you also tend to have to expose, cutting down envenoming even further. The only problem I would foresee, besides that the devs may feel the bleed requirement makes current incarnation is somehow "interesting", is that it might make 51 point assassination pvp builds with massive envenoms too attractive.
Does this mean that were going back to agility/arpen gems as combat?
Deadly from: "0.12*AP" to "0.108*AP"
instant unknown?
I've never read a clear answer on this post 3.3, but I found that trusting the spreadsheet for this sort of thing works best. Looking at various world of log parses, I notice a mix of gem usage among respectable combat rogues. That being, players using AP and AP+hit or + haste in some order of priority depending on what they need most with their current gear, or ARP from the 700 to 900+ range, coupled with AP gems. I guess the best obvious advice would be to experiment on our own to really figure it out, or wait for the spreadsheet changes coming in a couple days with the updated poison values for a better idea.
With my current gear configuration in the spreadsheet iteration before the poison change, it suggests that AP and AP+hit before + haste is best. I'm pretty curious myself to see how Arp is weighted against other gemming and gear options in a couple days when Aldriana updates his spreadsheet.
01/08/10, 2:08 AM
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