01.14
I receive a few questions in the comments now and then and mostly I just reply inside the comments if it’s a quick question. Yesterday I received an interesting set of questions that I thought would be perfect for the start of my new Question & Answer column. Let’s not waste any (more) time.
Hey guys, love the site! Heard from a friend on some podcast actually…well I rolled sub (tri-wield with stance-set switcher) for the longest time. Dagger swap to main hand for ambushes but recently was mut for awhile…absolutely loved it.
First off, glad you like the site! Wow, I haven’t heard talk of the sub tri-wield spec in a long time. My understanding is that was a Vanilla (Pre-BC) WoW thing.
Anycase, combat was the only spec I haven’t used so I went this way and actually took some advice from a friend to use backstab. I have webbed death and titansteel shanker atm. I did descent dps 2100+ in gundrak last night but am wondering if I get instinctively good at combat will it top my mut build dps? Is backstab really not viable? When I say that…I”m not asking for opinions I’m asking for statistics…facts. Can you really not out dps a mut rogue with backstab combat?
Ahh…backstab combat, you’re really striking close to my heart with this one. Will you be able to do pretty good DPS with a backstab combat build? Yes, mostly likely. Will you be able to out dps a mutilate rogue? Well, that depends on the rogue, but given similar gear and skill levels I would say, no. As far as hard and fast numbers I can’t give you those but what I can do is highly recommend checking out some of the rogue spreadsheets where you can see how the different specs are modeled.
Is backstab really not viable as combat? It pains me, but I would say no. Correction, sure it is viable but I believe that a fist/dagger, fist/sword or sword/sword build is better. The reason for this is combo point generation. Sinister Strike costs 45 energy (40 with the talent) whereas Backstab costs 60. Without going to deep into the math of energy regeneration you’re looking at 3 Sinister Strikes per 2 Backstabs, which may not seem like a lot (just one combo point difference) but this will become 6 per 4, then 9 per 6, then 12 per 8 and so on and so forth. When you add in the Glyph of Sinister Strike, the combo point generation really begins to outpace Backstab. Higher combo point generation means more Slice and Dice uptime, more Rupture uptime and more opportunities to throw an Eviscerate into your rotation which in turn means more DPS.
All that being said, I encourage you to experiment and see for yourself, that’s half the fun!
Anycase, last thing….sub is where my heart is and would love to try out HaT again with the knowledge of doing the other specs….I feel I could either out dps my mut spec or get damn close with this….anybody have any ideas or feelings on this? Is there any *official* tests anywhere putting all three specs against each other in raiding tests…..O yea one last question =D If I do roll sub again…is backstab viable now? or stay hemo and use mace/sword in main hand or stay dagger x2 Have fun with all my questions hehe good luck all!!
Happy Killing,
Paramourn – Firetree 14/51/6
If sub is truly where your heart is than I encourage you to try the HAT build. Granted, it is said that the build is only viable because it is bugged but I’m not sure I truly believe that. Raivyne over at Rogue Chick wrote up a nice post about a HAT rotation that doesn’t rely on the exploit. She seems to favor Hemo over Backstab but it also appears that you won’t be doing either very much since, in theory, you’ll have so many combo points coming in you’ll mostly be keeping up Slice and Dice, Rupture and Eviscerating.
Also, I haven’t had a chance to play with it but you should probably check out Raivyne’s HAT spreadsheet.
So I hope I answered your questions Paramourn and remember, above all, to enjoy the game.
Have a question you’d like answered? Leave a comment or drop me a line.
Remember, follow your heart and stab your enemy in theirs.
Hey zalt, I can’t thank you enough for the long response….that meant a lot to me!! Anycase, I am going to make the titansteel mace today due to the fact that I have NOT a single wep over 2.0 speed…I have hatestrike, maxues femur (don’t remember the name) and then 2 daggers lol so I’ll will try out the HAT rotation that you linked with a mace for now…Another question also if you don’t mind….
Out of the combat wep talents…maces/swords/daggs-fists which is generally better to talent if all the weapons are hypothetically identical. This may even have been answered in your earlier posts so I apologize if it is, in advanced. But given that Ill have 2 maces now….if I had those same exact weapons in swords same speed and everything would the 15% debuff to armor be superior then the extra swing proc on swords and if it does..how does it stand up to the dagger/fist crit talent of 5%
Well, I played a little more in combat and I really think I’ll enjoy it with the proper weps (webbed death and calamity mmmm…) Until then I’ll read your suggestions on HAT….
Thank you very much again, your rogue site is among the best source of viable and detailed information I’ve found…….at least for the style of play I enjoy…No t a lot of rogues these days care about backstab as it’s what was we were infamous for….and many rogues also could care less about the intelligent deconstruction of rotations/ calculations and considering very technical fighting……I guess that’s ok though because that allows rogues like us…to rise and shine in raids/pvp/heroics…talk soon.
Paramourn – firetree 80 rogue “rogues used to do it from behind, now it doesn’t matter…you won’t know where I was.. before your running back to your corpse”
@Paramourn
Glad I was able to help. Let me know how HAT works out for you!
As far as weapon selection goes, provided all the weapons have the same weapons speed and stats (for combat):
Sword > Fist > Mace
The extra attacks from sword spec are just great and the since Armor Pen is the single worst stat for PvE rogues the crit from Fists wins out.
You’re starting to see Fist/Dagger win out for combat but I believe this is due to the lack of decent swords (especially for offhand) currently and I believe this will change when some new items are introduced.
One last question for all you guys…Do not take this as cockyness but mear confidence….In BC and into the beginning of Wrath I was hardcore pvp sub rogue….and this was my talent spec 16/0/55
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogue/talents.html?tal=30530010400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005320230030322121350135201051
Please take a look at let me know your thoughts on this spec…Most people probably don’t use it but I found it utterly satisfying and somewhat invincible….shadowdance has since fell to the wayside it seems and began collecting dust on the “pointless” shelf for most other rogues..but I found it very useful in extremely bursty massive damage pvp. With this spec I would never use crippling due to “waylay” and on anyone even plate I was able to consistently get off 3 massively damaging ambushes while they were stunlocked…or a garrote in there too…This is where my tri-wield would come in…immediately going into stealth it would swap a heavy slow high end dagger into main hand and then as soon as I’m out of stealth swap to a slow luggy fist wep…then doing shadowdance..my “ambush button” actually had a macro built into it so it would swap that same dagger back in….and then when I resumed hemo, it would put back in the fist or sword….
With all available talents specced for bein “sneegy sneegy” noone could ever see me…as I have a macro/outfitter that swaps voluntarily the good old helmet “night watchmen” while I was in stealth for finding another rogue. This spec was very much an ambush-hemo spec and in my very humble opinion the most superior spec period for arena’s/bg’s. My question I guess for this column is…..what do you guys think? Zalt? Disagree with me =D Tell me why you think I’m wrong…why you think I’m right…could I improve on something….I’d love to know if anyone else came accross this awesome build…
PS. Sorry for the novel of technicallness…..Zalt you said earlier “above all else have fun” and to me I have a ton of fun getting down to the nitty gritties of how we work…talk soon all!
Para
Very interesting stuff. I’m not a PvPer so I don’t know a lot about it. I’m going to do some research and see if I can find you an answer.
Mutilate > Bugged HAT (only if there is another HAT rogue in the party) > Combat Sword >= Combat Fist / Dagger > Combat Maces
In my opion that’s how the DPS looks. However understanding that BUGGED HAT will drop places, to combat swords if there is not another HAT rogue in the party. The HAT bug high dps, requires there to be more than one HAT rogue in the grp, which might be viable for 25man, but definately not 10, essentialy the way the bug works is, instead of getting 1 combo pnt for every party members crit hit, you get two if there is another hat rogue, so it essentially is a finishing move spaming rogue.
Mutilate is insane if you can learn the rotation well, and learn to keep Hunger For Blood up, and its definately a different way to play a rogue, no longer spamming keys, over and over again. Actaully get to watch your energy regen etc.
Zaltu- have you figured out yet what the idea amount of hit, crit, should be balenced out with agi?
I think my hit might be a little low, I am at 215, with my crit at something like 31-33% (of course all these stats are unbuffed) with like 1040 Agility… I’m wondering if I need to increase my hit?
Anyway take a look at my armory build (Im on antheron) if you would, and tell me where you think I am lacking stat wise…
From the 3.08 patch notes:
Honor Among Thieves: The bug where stacking multiple rogues with this talent caused them all to gain additional combo points has been fixed. In addition, it no longer cancels eating and drinking if a party member gains a critical strike while it is active.
Well now I have to resocket some stuff, as I got my T7 Shoulders last night, even though the ones I was wearing were better, the set bonus = win :O) So I lost alot of hit rating… Now I know I need more hit.
Hello hello all! Raided Naxx last night with pretty much a full clear and I did TERRIBAD….I’m going to respec today back to mut and keep it there until I just want to dick off…….It was utterly insane…..I HAD 3780 AP 31% CRIT 210 HIT UNBUFFED!! and I STILL managed to get in 10th -15th place…Given most of my other guildies are full t7′ed and dk/pally’s (imagine that) so aoe = fail, but my weapon was not working….1.6 speed in my mainhand =( Didn’t have time to make a mace b4 I went in….but still…I doubt 167 more high end damage with a slower wep (idk what that number is called….( ex: 253 – 467/ <<<< that high number 143.4 dps.) Would have closed me in to where I usually am in damage…which is fighting the other really good rogue in our guild for one of the top 5 spots on recount (that’s with mutilate lol). Anyways…as far as the finisher spam….doing boss fights even without another rogue I was pretty much spamming finishers….Welp…..as much as I loved sub….I will crawl back into the crowd like every other rogue right now and embrace what I’ve gotten good at…and what’s “HOT!” right now….Mutilate. Long-lived my tri-curious bout lol and hello again to comfortability…..Dose you put the nail in the coffin too….mut is superior in the vast majority of pve situations…for now. I need a different weapon… Hope everyone’s well…lata
para
solo HAT in a 10 man raid setting does very respectable DPS, 25 man is all that much better.
Zaltu (well anyone who’s curious), the biggest reason I don’t use Hemo a whole lot is as an energy saving method. You simply can’t spam any CP generating move with a HAT build… you’ve got no way to recoup the energy fast enough and you’ll end up sitting on 5 CPs for like four seconds… and probably missing out on other CPs in the process. You gotta keep 35 energy in the tank or your DPS is going to be very lackluster.
Another note is that HAT seems to scale pretty well with gear… but i haven’t looked into it really, so that could just be me being optimistic… (post idea?!?)
My problem with my mutilate right now is, I just can’t seem to get any more DPS out of it. I have resocketed reenchanted, etc.. I am capping at like 2700 dps on boss fights, and with my gear I should be well above that.
Although I think I am going back to swords tonight, untill I can get some faster daggers, I am using x2 Knife of Incisions, for my mutilate build.
Last night in 25man naxx, we had a random BOP drop on Trash which was a really nice sword, speed 2.50, but white damage in the 550+, that paired with Hatestrike as an off hand should make some pretty nice swords for now.
Unless someone can tell me what the hell is wrong with my enchants, crit/hit w/e and why I can’t seem to get more dps out of mutilate… At least with combat, I can do SOME aoe…
*crys*
As far as HAT scaling with YOUR gear? No. Hat scaleing with your GUILDS gear yes… The more your guildes get better gear, and increase THERE chance to crit hit = more combo pnts… SOLO HAT DPS, will never touch a mutilate DPS. And more importantly, after 3.08 mutiple hat DPS will not touch, mutilate dps.
While it is true that HAT will scale with your guild’s gear it will also scale with your own gear since HAT can proc off of your own special attack crits.
The tool tip for HAT doesnt say anything about your own CRIT hits, or special attacks..
“When anyone in your group critically hits with a damage or healing spell or ability, you have a 100% chance to gain a combo point on your current target. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.”
I’ve done a little google searching to confirm and I’m very positive that it does proc off of your own special attacks.
As far as the tooltip goes, think of it this way “..anyone in your group…” You’re in your group aren’t you?
Zaltu,
I am definately going to test this out see if thats the case, just because I’d like to know. Essentially, what your saying is as you crit hit, your going to gain a combo pnt for yourself? It should be easy to confirm, I suppose, just hit up a targeting dummy, although it reading through the log will be vital, because there are so many other talents/glyphs that give you an extra combo pnt, already.
I suppose by your reading of the tooltip, it could include yourself, just typicaly blizzard says something like “When you or anyone in your group”.
HAT procs off of your own hits… i get them all the time while doing daily quests.
Secondly, yeah your guild getting gear and upping their crit will give you faster CP generation… but you cap out at 5 CPs in 5 seconds. The only way to increase damage from there is through your own gear.
Also, we had another rogue spec HAT and I went on a heroic with him. I out DPS’d him by more than 500. Why? Simple, my gear is better.
If HAT didn’t scale at all with your gear, then any newb in level 70 epics could come in and pull down the same DPS as a HAT rogue epic’d out in level 80 gear.
raivyne’s last blog post..Another Spreadsheet Revision
I guess that’s probably the best way to test scaling… save your level 70 epics… once you’re fully epic’d out in the level 80 stuff run some tests and crunch the numbers. too bad I didn’t know before i sold/destroyed a bunch of stuff.
raivyne’s last blog post..Another Spreadsheet Revision
Any comment on using fist weapons for a mutilate spec?
It would be necessary to use sinister strike rather than mutilate, but do you think it would be viable?
I guess I should be clear in my post above. I’ve been a mutilate spec now for about 6 months and I recently obtained some sweet fist weapons in FoS. The ability to keep SnD up through using Evicerate which allows a rotation that focuses on rupture and evicerate (not to mention cold blood) seems to be an improvement on any combat spec that requires ongoing points be spent to keep SnD up, basically requiring a rotation that alternates between SnD and rupture.
I was thinking that an assassination build using fist weapons could get the benefit of both worlds in that you can use the sweet fist weapons but focus on damage through Envicerate and rupture (and keeping SnD up) . The only problem is that this spec could not use mutilate, so it would be necessary to sub in sinister strike, and the glyph of sinister strike would give extra points periodically to use.
I would appreicate some feedback on this idea Zaltu.
Thanks!