[Hanto]

Alright, so I just finished ToC 10 for the first time last night and got a nice little upgrade from Edge of Ruin to the Edge of Agony. I throw zerking on it, socket a 20str gem and respec sword spec since I will no longer benefit from the axe/polearm talent; I also put 3 points in Unbridled Wrath to try and compensate for the rage I'd gain from crits with the older spec.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Ignoring the not-so-amazing gear (hit 80 like 3weeks ago and I'm on a low-pop server where hard mode ToC has never been done), that's what my spec is. When I was using Edge of Ruin, I pulled about 3200-3300dps on the dummy. When I tried the EoA, I was struggling with 2700. Now, obviously EoA is an upgrade over EoR but is the difference with the spec making the lesser of the two weapons more viable? I'm going to try it again sometime today (I was about to pass out last night when I was testing EoA) and see if I was just overtired... I'd appreciate any assistance if anyone could find another reason the deeps is lacking.

[Foolish]

How long were you hitting the dummy for? Poleaxe spec has a consistent bonus (crit & crit damage), however with Sword spec you are relying on a random chance of a proc happening for the additional damage. You need to hit the dummy for a significant period of time (> 5 minutes) for a valid comparison. Unbridled Wrath does almost nothing for Arms, you would be better off putting 2 of those points into Booming Voice and the other into Improved Execute.

The 232 dps sword "should" result in higher dps than the 212 dps axe, unless you are really low on crit to begin with.

[Scotteq]

Are you fully skilled in 2h swords? Because that would be a significant DPS loss if you're not.

[Hanto]

Source: Foolish How long were you hitting the dummy for? Poleaxe spec has a consistent bonus (crit & crit damage), however with Sword spec you are relying on a random chance of a proc happening for the additional damage. You need to hit the dummy for a significant period of time (> 5 minutes) for a valid comparison. Unbridled Wrath does almost nothing for Arms, you would be better off putting 2 of those points into Booming Voice and the other into Improved Execute. The 232 dps sword "should" result in higher dps than the 212 dps axe, unless you are really low on crit to begin with.

I was hitting the dummy for about 5minutes doing everything I could to get above 2700. I tried again this morning after being a bit more awake and pulled 2850-2900 but still nowhere near 3300. With the current spec (swords), I have only 27.01% crit, which I assume is kinda low.

[Hanto]

Source: Scotteq Are you fully skilled in 2h swords? Because that would be a significant DPS loss if you're not.

Yeah, I just skilled up my last few points in H-ToC this morning and was only pulling 3200 with kings and battle shout.

[Kazeyonoma]

1) Rage will be smoother with Swords than with Axe, so going 3/5 unbridled was the opposite of what you do, sword procs generate white swings, that's double rage, potentially 4x rage intake when crit proc crit occurs.

2) Having raid buffs will help, 27% crit is average for sword spec, but you want to get that up (with gear, not gemming) and in raid you'll probably be around 34-35% which will smooth out your overall damage. Until you get it compared in a raid it won't be conclusive because axe spec just nets higher dummy dps than sword spec because of proc inconsistencies and raid buffs.

[kwag]

With current-tier gear, you should be about 30% crit with Sword Spec. That shouldn't, however, be bottlenecking your DPS. I suspect that you may need to reevaluate your Slam and HS usage to accommodate your different (not worse) rage generation.

[Hanto]

I actually fixed the spec to get out of unbridled wrath and have been putting it to the test with 25m Ony, pullin about 4.5k dps, so I'm satisfied. =)

[Kazeyonoma]

That's good to hear. Again it's because of the nature of sword spec + raid buffs versus axe spec + raid buffs and testing on the dummy that you saw most of the fluctuation.

[Mookey]

Enter your gear into spreadsheet or Rawr, amount of dps it says without buff is amount of dps you should get (with practice) on a dummy.