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Thread: The Definitive Rogue Guide[A work in Progress]

  1. The Definitive Rogue Guide[A work in Progress]

    Up to date as of: 3.2.2.
    Will be updated to 3.3.0 and beyond.

    If you're a Rogue who wants to do better in just about anything, then there's no doubt that you've gone to Elitist Jerks. EJ is a fantastic repository of information, and its well worth your time to go peruse the Rogue class mechanics forums. However, there is one problem I have with EJ: the information is all over the place. Yeah, there's a lot of info available, but its hard to find and compile it all. Therefore, I am now going to attempt to compile all the useful information you need in order to play a Rogue well, and will also include some of my personal advice as well. And yes, this guide will be applicable to both Combat and Assassination Rogues.

    Combat General Rules

    Use the following spec if you're using a Rupture build, and use this one if you're not. And yes, put talent points into whatever weapon spec you have weapons for. If you're Mace Specced, you're going to be using an offhand dagger, as there are no good offhand maces. Therefore, put one point into CQC instead of Endurance.

    Mainhand a slow sword, axe, mace or fist weapon (2.5-2.7 speed). Offhand a fast dagger, fist, sword, or axe (1.4-1.5 speed). The MH should have Wound Poison, unless you decide to get 3/3 Imp. Poisons; the OH should have Deadly. A slow MH is used to maximize Sinister Strike damage, and a fast OH is used to ensure that Deadly Poison stays at 5 stacks, and you get lots of Combat Potency procs.

    Priorities: Slice and Dice, assorted cooldowns (BF + AR and BF + KS should be used together whenever possible. However, they should still be kept off CD), Rupture (if you're using a Rupture build.) And yes, use Rupture if you have 4/5 T8.

    Rotation: Slice and Dice (any number of CP) -> (5 point Rupture) -> 5 point Eviscerate. Finishers, excluding SnD, should always be used with 5 CP.

    The Ruptureless Rotation: If you're approaching the ArPen hard cap, then you should drop Rupture from your rotation and just Eviscerate, as Eviscerate will be doing enough damage to make up for the lack of Rupture ticks. You should also get the Glyph of Eviscerate as well, should you be near the hard cap. The reasoning behind this is that Eviscerate is a physical attack, and as such it scales better with ArP than it does with AP. Rupture, on the other hand, does not scale with ArP, and once you get enough ArP, using Eviscerate only produces more DPS than putting up Rupture.

    Mutilate General Rules

    Use the following spec.

    Mainhand a slow dagger (1.8 speed). Offhand a fast dagger (1.4-1.5 speed). Mainhand Instant and offhand Deadly. While Mut previously used two fast daggers, this has changed since the introduction of PPM to Instant Poison. This means that IP will have a higher proc rate on a slower weapon than it would on a faster one; while this means that a slow and fast weapon would have the same number of procs in theory, slower weapons also do more Mutilate damage.

    Priorities: Hunger for Blood, Slice and Dice, Vanish/Overkill, Rupture, Cold Blood.

    Rotation: Get SnD (any number of CP works) and HfB up -> 4+ CP Rupture -> 4+ CP Envenom.

    The Envenom buff: To achieve maximum DPS, the Envenom buff should be up as often as possible. However, only Envenom at ~60 energy, so you can get at least one Mutilate off during the buff's uptime. Try not to clip Envenom buffs as well.

    To Rupture or Not to Rupture

    Mutilate Rogues, depending on stats, gear, and the T8 4 set bonus, may consider dropping Rupture from their rotations if you don't have a Manglebot present at your raids. While the initial Envenom hit will not outdamage Rupture (unless it crits), the extra poison procs gained from the Envenom buff will make not using Rupture viable. But, of course, if you have 4/5 T8 you should still use Rupture. If you don't have a bleed bot for HfB at your raids, you should also keep using Rupture.

    Professions

    Engineering, if you use bombs as often as possible, and Jewel Crafting are the best professions for boosting your DPS. However, its really up to you; every profession will help in some way. Some are just more help more than others.

    Stat Weights

    Combat: AGI if you don't have an ArPen trinket/mace spec > ArPen > Hit Rating until spell cap > Crit > Expertise > Haste.

    Mutilate: Ability Hit Cap > AGI > Spell Hit Cap > Expertise* > Crit > Haste > ArPen.

    *A note about Expertise: For Mutilate, its inadvisable to gem for Expertise unless you're stupidly low on it (less than 15). The only reason you need Expertise is so finishers stop missing. Once you reach an amount of Expertise you find that works well, the value of it will go down.

    Hit Caps

    With 5/5 Precision: 99 to ability cap, and 315 to spell/poison cap.

    With Misery/ Imp. Faerie Fire: 99 to ability cap, and 237 to spell/poison cap.

    With Misery/Imp. Faerie Fire and Heroic Presence: 66 to ability cap, and 210 to spell/poison cap.

    The white cap is ~700 and going for it is a huge waste of stats; the DPS gain from not missing doesn't outweigh the DPS loss you'll incur by ignoring most stats but hit rating.

    Expertise Cap

    26 expertise (214 rating) to cap.

    ArPen Cap

    1400 to hit the cap, and 1190 to cap with Mace Spec.
    With Mjolnir Runestone, its 735 to cap, and 525 with Mace Spec.

    T9 vs T8

    The EJ consensus is that T9 sucks. It would take 5 pieces of T9 to replace 4 pieces of T8. The reasoning is that, while the T9 2/5 bonus sounds good, the proc chance is abysmal. Also, the T8 4/5 bonus is really, really good.

    Glyphs

    Combat: Glyph of Sinister Strike, Glyph of Rupture/Eviscerate, Glyph of Killing Spree. Where KS is not viable, use Glyph of TotT.

    Mutilate: Glyph of Mutilate, Glyph of Hunger for Blood, Glyph of Rupture.

    Weapon Swapping

    If you follow Rogue news, chances are you've heard of weapon swapping. It is, in essence, swapping your offhand weapon for a different weapon with a different poison once you've hit 5 stacks of Deadly Poison, and then switching back to the DP offhand once the DP timer gets low. However, 3.3 will outdate weapon swapping due to DP's new effect: once DP hits 5 stacks, any more procs of DP will renew the DP timer and proc your mainhand poison.

    If you still want to weapon swap, check this addon. Keep in mind that the impact may be minimal or very large, depending on gear, and Mutilate Rogues will get a bigger benefit. You will also want two identical offhands.

    Survival Tips

    1. Download Omen, and don't surpass the tanks in Threat.
    2. Feint and/or Evasion when there's incoming (physical) AoE.
    3. Cloak of Shadows yourself out of harmful debuffs.
    4. Stay out of fire.

    How to be (More) Helpful in Raids

    1. Tricks of the Trade the highest DPS. If that's you, then Tricks the 2nd highest DPS.
    2. Disregard number 1 if tanks are low on Threat. Instead, Tricks to them.
    3. Cloak out of debuffs that harm raid members other than yourself (IE Light Bomb, Burning Bile).
    4. Stay alive.

    Weapon Enchants

    Berserking > Mongoose > Accuracy. Berserking will stack if dual wielding two Berserking enchanted weapons. The same applies to Mongoose. Also, Mongoose pulls ahead of Berserking at T9 gear levels.

    Mutilate v.s. Combat

    Mutilate: has higher single target DPS. Arguably the best single target DPS in the game. Has only two cooldowns though, and Cold Blood isn't that good.

    Combat: has very good cooldowns, allowing more damage to be done during burn phases (IE: XT heart phase, Icehowl stun phase) than Mut. Getting the right gear (ArPen trinkets) can be very difficult, however.

    Helpful Addons

    Rogue Power Bars, Procodile (and Poison Swapper) are all good to have. Be sure to add missing buffs (Berserking, Envenom) and debuffs (Deadly Poison IX) to RPB.

    Gems

    Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond.
    Yellow: Deadly Ametrine, Deft Ametrine.
    Red: Delicate Cardinal Ruby, Fractured Cardinal Ruby, Bright Cardinal Ruby.
    Blue: Nightmare Tear.

    When to use what gems: if the socket bonus outweighs another AGI/ArPen gem, then go for it. For example, say you got a Vest of Shifting Shadows, a decent piece of gear for both Rogue specs. The sockets are 1 red/1 yellow, and the socket bonus is 6 AGI. So, you socket the red gem for ArPen/AGI, but what about the second socket? Well, you could go for more AGI/ArPen, but instead, you should go for a Deadly/Deft Ametrine; the additional crit/haste and AGI is worth 4 lost points of AGI. Lastly, Bright Cardinal Rubies pull ahead of Delicate Cardinal Rubies once you've hit 1500 AGI with a Mutilate build.

    Consumables

    Food: Blackened Dragonfin, Hearty Rhino, Mega Mammoth Meal. Fish Feast is also a good standby.

    Potions: Potion of Speed. Pop one right before the pull, if you can, and one during a burn phase.

    Sources of Information

    Cally's Pocket Guide to WOTLK and Aldriana's 3.2 Rogue FAQ.

    Upcoming Changes

    Deadly Poison: In addition to its existing effects, when a rogue applies Deadly Poison to a target which has already reached the maximum number of applications, this will also trigger the poison which the rogue is using on his or her other weapon.

    Enchant Weapon - Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster’s target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.

    Regarding the DP change, it is both a significant buff and addon killer. It means you'll no longer have to poison swap, but more importantly it means that Combat is going to adopt a new spec to achieve maximum DPS if you haven't hit the Soft Armor Pen Cap (SARP, for short). HARP (High Armor Pen) is still going to top SARP and this new poison spec though.

    From Mavanas:

    "It should have been obvious to me that Instant poison will be the new MH poison of choice with the recent changes, but my previous analysis of combat in 3.3 was done with wound. So if you change the MH poisons to IP, poison-oriented setup pulls ahead of SARP. The optimal spec, as was noted before becomes 20/51/0 with 4/5 improved poisons and 1/3vile poisons.

    HARP still remains potentially highest dps combat spec depending on the proc stats of Deathbringer's Will. Also if ilvl264 maces were discovered, it would firmly make HARP the spec of choice because right now there is still room for more armor pen till the hard cap.

    In general the gap between combat and mutilate closes a little and is now of the order of 1.8k, which is still around 15% difference between the specs. I am getting around 12k dps estimate for HARP with maces and tweaked Deathbringer's Will and 13.8k estimate for 51/18/2 mutilate."

    Regarding the Black Magic change; first of all, yes it procs off of poisons. It has a very high proc chance and very low ICD, but is still inferior to Berserking or Mongoose. However, it can be put on an offhand weapon and then swapped to to activate the proc; you then swap back to your better weapon and get free Haste.

    What This Guide Cannot Cover

    As gear levels rise, certain stats become better than others. This is true of ArPen and Haste. This guide shows stat weights for a T8.5 geared Rogue; in order to find out the optimal stat weights for your gear, you should download Rawr and find out.

    tl;dr version: Haste is good at late T9 levels, and ArPen is consistently good for Combat as you get more.
    Last edited by Aifel; 12-01-2009 at 09:04 PM. Reason: Fixed the spacing and followed suggestions. Added an upcoming changes section.

  2. Join Date
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    A small suggestion that I didn't see in this post that may or may not make too much a different, but thought I'd offer it regardless.

    Once your agility pushes over 1500, Bright gems start pulling ahead of Delicate with a mutilate spec.

    One other thing, Potions of Speed are your friend.
    Quality Over Quanity.

  3. So even if I'm not near the spell hit cap, I should continue to socket entirely agility on my mutilate rogue? (meta requirements aside)

  4. Quote Originally Posted by Reev View Post
    So even if I'm not near the spell hit cap, I should continue to socket entirely agility on my mutilate rogue? (meta requirements aside)
    He doesn't have all of the numbers up there. If you're in a 25 man raid with a Boomkin/SPriest & a Draenei (for instance) the poison hit cap is 210. Elitist Jerks has a pretty informative guide. As for the specific question regarding gemming for hit over agility, I think it goes special hit cap > agi > poison hit cap (not including other stats that you didn't ask about).

  5. Quote Originally Posted by Volador View Post
    He doesn't have all of the numbers up there. If you're in a 25 man raid with a Boomkin/SPriest & a Draenei (for instance) the poison hit cap is 210. Elitist Jerks has a pretty informative guide. As for the specific question regarding gemming for hit over agility, I think it goes special hit cap > agi > poison hit cap (not including other stats that you didn't ask about).
    Thanks. I just regemmed my chest piece, the one he used in his example, actually, with the 34 hit and 20 agility gems, where before I was using the 34 agility and the Agi/Crit blue quality gems.

    My hit is now, after the regemming, somewhere in the range of 5.5% before talents. I think that's like 174? I just haven't been able to find much hit gear for some reason. Wanted to make sure I wasn't doing the wrong thing.

  6. Join Date
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    I've altered the title of this thread for now. I'll remove it, and possibly sticky it when I can get confirmation that this guide is accurate and useful. Until then, it is still a work in progress.

    READ THIS: Posting & Chat Rules
    Quote Originally Posted by Turelliax View Post
    I will never be a kaz.. no one can reach the utter awesomeness of you.

  7. A few suggestions that i would make for you.
    If you compiled this from posts on EJ, tell us who you got the info from, give credit where its due.

    also, while info that says "this is best" is good and you need it, you also need to tell us why.
    Quote Originally Posted by Turelliax
    I really dont like to be groped unless implicitly asked
    -Roll Initiative is recruiting-

  8. A note about Rupture and Mutilate: 4pcT8 props up rupture to usable levels. Without it the value of rupture drops considerably.

    With Rupture glyphed it's 5 point damage is equal to the damage of [one tick] x 10 unless you have 4pc T8 in which case it's ([one tick] x [10 x (1 + your crit chance)]) on average.

    Depending on how hard your envenom hits, if your envenom damage + the difference between your non-envenom poison damage and your envenom damage is greater than your rupture and regular poison damage, then rupture is not worth putting up except in very specific circumstances.

    T9 can easily push your envenom + buff difference damage over your rupture + regular damage because of the lack of T8 4pc bonus.

    ...I highly recommend figuring out this point. Takes around 20 mins, a dummy, and a damage meter.

  9. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've always also thought that in the occasions where you envenom, then have 4 cps within 1 mutilate after, it's good to wait until the envenom extra poison damage buff is about to fall off before using it again. Otherwise, you're wasting 2-3 seconds of extra poison damage. There are a lot of rogues out there who think that the second they get 4/5 combo points they have to use their finisher immediately, which isn't true unless you're about to be energy capped.

  10. Quote Originally Posted by Reev View Post
    Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've always also thought that in the occasions where you envenom, then have 4 cps within 1 mutilate after, it's good to wait until the envenom extra poison damage buff is about to fall off before using it again. Otherwise, you're wasting 2-3 seconds of extra poison damage. There are a lot of rogues out there who think that the second they get 4/5 combo points they have to use their finisher immediately, which isn't true unless you're about to be energy capped.
    Care to explain that a bit better? I think I get what you're saying, but I don't understand why you'd wanna wait. If that buff is up, and you finish again, it extends the buff. If you run out of buff after the second envenom before you get to 4/5 combo points, you would have run out anyway.

    OR are you saying wait until your buff is about to [run out/you get more energy] before using envenom with the hope that you can keep the buff up due to being able to mutilate quicker? It makes sense from one perspective, but I think the difference is rather minimal.

  11. Quote Originally Posted by Reev View Post
    Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've always also thought that in the occasions where you envenom, then have 4 cps within 1 mutilate after, it's good to wait until the envenom extra poison damage buff is about to fall off before using it again. Otherwise, you're wasting 2-3 seconds of extra poison damage. There are a lot of rogues out there who think that the second they get 4/5 combo points they have to use their finisher immediately, which isn't true unless you're about to be energy capped.
    Correct. It's called Energy Pooling. The idea is that so long as you don't spend time with your energy at 100 delaying your next attack that costs energy won't waste anything because it regenerates at a constant rate.

    With envenom it's best to pool to, at a minimum, 110 energy minus the energy you would build in the duration of the envenom buff minus one second. So, if I were going to hit a 5-point envenom (6 seconds) I would wait until I had 60 energy to hit it.

    That way I can get 2 mutilates in the envenom to take full advantage of the envenom buff assuming the first doesn't crit me up to 4 CPs.

    If I get 4 out of the first, I wait until the buff has less than a second (or falls off) and envenom again (assuming 60 energy). If I only get 2-3 cps out of the first mutilate, I have a second in the buff.

    When you don't have to worry about rupture, you focus on maximizing your envenom uptime and not wasting combo points.

  12. Exactly what I was going for Ollin. Energy pooling is good for having Envenom uptime. Also, in the situation where your Rupture is more damage, it's good for ensuring that you can keep Rupture up and quickly regain the combo points to envenom so that your SnD doesn't fall off.

    By the way Olin, are you factoring Mangle into your Rupture damage calculations?

    And does anyone know if Ebon Plaguebringer and similar things increases poison/envenom damage?

    I'm in this weird position of both having knowledge and not having knowledge, since my rogue was my main all the way through TBC, but I've played my warrior mostly since then, so sorry if my information disconnects at times.

  13. Yes.

    For example, with a double-trinket proc and mangle up my rupture ticks for around 1k-1100. OTOH my Envenom hits for 8-9k depending on debuffs and ups my poison proc chance.

    Without mangle my rupture only does about 750 a tick

    Without mangle rupture isn't worth using because I never managed to complete my T8. If I had it I could leverage my 50% buffed crit and it would be worth using again even without mangle. As I complete my T9 (because it's accessible and T8 isn't) rupture will become even less useful and I'll stop using it completely unless there's a really good reason (like I won't be able to hit the boss for a few seconds because of some AoE mechanic or I have to change targets).

  14. Quote Originally Posted by Ollin View Post
    Yes.

    For example, with a double-trinket proc and mangle up my rupture ticks for around 1k-1100. OTOH my Envenom hits for 8-9k depending on debuffs and ups my poison proc chance.

    Without mangle my rupture only does about 750 a tick

    Without mangle rupture isn't worth using because I never managed to complete my T8. If I had it I could leverage my 50% buffed crit and it would be worth using again even without mangle. As I complete my T9 (because it's accessible and T8 isn't) rupture will become even less useful and I'll stop using it completely unless there's a really good reason (like I won't be able to hit the boss for a few seconds because of some AoE mechanic or I have to change targets).
    Even if you can't hit the boss for a few seconds, as long as the up front damage on envenom will out-damage the rupture, envenom will still be better. 11k damage now is still more damage than 10.5k damage over time, even if you can't hit the boss for a while. Where the "can't hit the boss for a few seconds" makes a difference is in the extra poison applications on Envenom.

    While I know you probably already know this, I've met a lot of rogues who think "Hey it does damage while I'm not able to hit him!" and they ignore that direct damage, as long as it's more damage, is still better, even if you get nothing for a few seconds afterwards.

  15. Well, it's going to be hard for envenom's hits to equal or pass rupture because rupture still scales a bit better.

    The difference is in the extra poison procs offered by the envenom buff. If you pool your energy correctly you can score quite a few of them, and it's going to go up in 3.3 by a considerable number with the DP change (not enough to waste CPs on extra muts when you're at 4-5 CPs already, but still alot).

    Now, envenom crits OTOH will out damage rupture every time. If your crit chance is above 50% buffed then it can be damn well worth it to just drop rupture even if you're not going to be able to leverage the proc.

    I'm not quite there yet though

  16. Okay, thanks for the advice. The post will be edited shortly.

  17. Oh, with the recent changes to how Mut works with DP you want two slow daggers.

    A slow OH increases your Mutilate damage. You went with a fast OH before to clip as few DP ticks as possible because Envenom cleared off your stack. Now that there's no stack clearing, you should be focusing on your Mut hits in the long run.

    The only thing that a fast OH dagger will do is speed up your setup time, which is a non-issue unless you're talking about trash.

    Oh...add Need to Know to your addon list in the OP. It's a customizable duration bar timer.
    Last edited by Ollin; 11-24-2009 at 04:12 PM.

  18. Rogue Power Bars does the same thing, and the EJ consensus is that you still want a fast OH. Also, with the upcoming DP change, fast OHs will be much, much better.

  19. Join Date
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    Having played a Rogue through the entirety of my time, I find this guide lacking. It doesn't explain enough about why you do things and people still go..."er, ok, I don't know why but I'll do it the way the guy says to and see how it goes." My first gripe about this guide is that you absolutely do not explain why you do things. Why would you drop Rupture at one point? Yes you explain that Evis will do more damage at one point that you hit the ArP cap but you really don't explain the knowledge behind it. Why not explain that Evis is a physical damage dealing attack and that rupture as a bleed doesn't scale up as well? You need to approach your guide as if you are teaching a new individual the works.

    Another thing I dislike about this guide is the way it's set up. It's pretty messy and disorganized. Following the guide, I feel like I'm bouncing all over the place going different way. Why not just instead of going combat/muti/combat/muti, go and explain everything out of combat, THEN everything out of mutilate? Not only will this make your guide look better, but you will also be able to allow the user to just jump to their preferred style.

    Combat Analysis:

    The offhand mace comment was not the best comment either. Yes, there are some good maces (1.6 speed is STILL acceptable. It's when you reach 1.8 that it becomes a lil too slow.), but you never explain WHY you want to go with a fast weapon. You just state "this is this and this is this and that's it". You can't do that in a guide. You have to explain WHY you're doing it.

    The guide just feels like a rehash of stats like EJ does it. Take a second and look at the guides that are out there. We actually do go into information and explain why things are working the way they do. You're just simply rehashing everything you read from EJ for us. Some advanced users will understand exactly what it is about and agree. I know why you go and put points in CQC. The new individual at raiding has no idea why and doesn't understand why he shouldn't get another mace and just go with a 15% ArP in his OH. Take the time to explain this.

    Your poison selection is incomplete. The reason you go Deadly as Combat is only when you get 2 Piece Tier 8. The reason is that you get the tick that gives you 1 energy. Otherwise, Wound/Wound is the better combination on the sole reason that you do not have Imp Poisons from Assassination that empowers Deadly like it should. Having Wound/Wound stacks with your AP more than deadly does and you're better off just going with that.

    I already touched on the ruptureless build. It really only works with Tier 9 gear because of the fact that Eviscerate scales so well at that point that Rupture really isn't needed and mass Evis'ing is better. Again, incomplete information.

    Mutilate:

    I can't say much about Mutilate because it is common knowledge what you state however I'm confused as to why you want a fast Offhand. Mutilate not only hits with both daggers, but the OH really does nothing but stacking your Deadly Poison and worse is Envenom helps with that too. Fast speed means nothing if I can recall my information correctly (I haven't played Mutilate enough to tell you exactly what it is, but it's just simple fact that I think DPS > Speed for Mutilate right now when it comes to the OH.)

    I do like the fact you added the rupture/not rupture for Mutilate though. that was a nice addition that allows people to understand when it is good to drop it. you're a little confusing on your first line about the Tier 8 4 piece, and I'd remove that part of it. Just simply state "depending on certain situations" instead. pointing out exactly what situations you wouldn't use doesn't really look right to me and then confuses when they see the T8 line and then read later that if you do have it, keep using it.

    Professions:

    Very limited information. Why would you use bombs? When? How do they increase dps? How much? This part is very limited in information. Add more to explain why they actually help your dps because I'm actually now curious as to the bomb information because I always understood that Leatherworking can add more dps to be honest.

    Hit Cap:

    You don't explain if it's important to hit the poison hit cap or not. For Mutilate, it's better. For Combat, not so much. People will think they need ot hit the poison cap. You also didn't mention the full white hit cap and why NOT to get to that. Just because it's not information people need to know, doesn't mean not to include it. They have to understand that it does give you dps but it's ludicrous to go beyond the yellow hit mark for poisons.

    Expertise:

    Same comment. Should you cap expertise? Does poison fall under expertise? what is the expertise in the scheme of things? Which specs benefit from it.

    T9 vs T8:

    Absolutely no information whatsoever as to why the set is useless. This is pretty much information you took from EJ and posted it. Explain why it isn't good. Someone who's played and theorycrafts stuff will understand why but even the best will want the information and the method to test it to see the truth of how 'bad' T9 is.

    The poison weapon switch:

    Glad you put that this is going to be obsolete come 3.3. Good information for people who were using the mod to understand that Blizzard's fixing this. You didn't put too much information about the whole weapon swapping thing but to be honest, I wouldn't be too worried because I have a weird feeling 3.3's gonna come out soon (Which in my opinion, is absolutel stupid on Blizzard's part but whatever) and this issue will be nonexistant at that point.



    At this point I'm going to stop critiquing the guide. Yes, I was brutal. But it's my job as an author of the site to analyze and make sure that information is being given accurately and not just spat out. And that's the problem with this guide: It's essentially a regurgitation of the guide on EJ with a few changes here and there. It's not a guide per say, it's simply you having put information that you got from EJ and adding nothing new to it other than a few things here and there.

    I would sincerely ask that you review the method in which you present your information because it simply is not something I would want to sticky. Although the information itself is correct, it is simply rehash from another site and not really something that was made as an author.
    Krenian's DK DPS Compendium for Blood, Frost and Unholy:

    http://www.tankspot.com/article.php?id=146097

  20. Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    The offhand mace comment was not the best comment either. Yes, there are some good maces (1.6 speed is STILL acceptable. It's when you reach 1.8 that it becomes a lil too slow.), but you never explain WHY you want to go with a fast weapon. You just state "this is this and this is this and that's it". You can't do that in a guide. You have to explain WHY you're doing it.
    Okay, can you link me a good OH mace? The highest iLvl one I can recall, barring PVP maces, is a 1.5 speed, iLvl 219 mace from Uld. The maces of 1.6 speed or 1.8 speed are TANK maces. Also, "A slow MH is used to maximize Sinister Strike damage, and a fast OH is used to ensure that Deadly Poison stays at 5 stacks, and you get lots of Combat Potency procs." From the guide.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    The guide just feels like a rehash of stats like EJ does it. Take a second and look at the guides that are out there. We actually do go into information and explain why things are working the way they do. You're just simply rehashing everything you read from EJ for us. Some advanced users will understand exactly what it is about and agree. I know why you go and put points in CQC. The new individual at raiding has no idea why and doesn't understand why he shouldn't get another mace and just go with a 15% ArP in his OH. Take the time to explain this.
    The reason you don't go with an OH mace is because the OH maces are bad, as already stated.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    Your poison selection is incomplete. The reason you go Deadly as Combat is only when you get 2 Piece Tier 8. The reason is that you get the tick that gives you 1 energy. Otherwise, Wound/Wound is the better combination on the sole reason that you do not have Imp Poisons from Assassination that empowers Deadly like it should. Having Wound/Wound stacks with your AP more than deadly does and you're better off just going with that.
    Actually, Deadly gives more DPS simply because the OH tends to not proc poisons as often; thus, its more beneficial to use DP, since you only need a proc every ~9 seconds to keep a 5 stack of DP, which outdamages a low proc chance WP.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    I can't say much about Mutilate because it is common knowledge what you state however I'm confused as to why you want a fast Offhand. Mutilate not only hits with both daggers, but the OH really does nothing but stacking your Deadly Poison and worse is Envenom helps with that too. Fast speed means nothing if I can recall my information correctly (I haven't played Mutilate enough to tell you exactly what it is, but it's just simple fact that I think DPS > Speed for Mutilate right now when it comes to the OH.)
    Envenom was changed semi-recently so that it no longer boosts your chance to apply DP when the buff is active. You still want a fast dagger in the OH to keep DP at 5 stacks. While you can have a fast dagger in the MH, if its DPS is higher than your other available slow daggers, a fast OH is fairly important.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    I do like the fact you added the rupture/not rupture for Mutilate though. that was a nice addition that allows people to understand when it is good to drop it. you're a little confusing on your first line about the Tier 8 4 piece, and I'd remove that part of it. Just simply state "depending on certain situations" instead. pointing out exactly what situations you wouldn't use doesn't really look right to me and then confuses when they see the T8 line and then read later that if you do have it, keep using it.
    What? Putting what situations not to use it is bad? Maximizing DPS, as a DPS class, is bad? Okay.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    Very limited information. Why would you use bombs? When? How do they increase dps? How much? This part is very limited in information. Add more to explain why they actually help your dps because I'm actually now curious as to the bomb information because I always understood that Leatherworking can add more dps to be honest.
    The idea behind saying Engineering was worth more DPS was to provoke research, but that's not ideal with a guide. My mistake. To clarify, using a Saronite Bomb does 2-3k, depending on if it crits, what your crit chance is and if you're Combat or Mutilate; Combat will do more damage with bombs due to Prey on the Weak and Savage Combat, assuming a decent crit chance. 2.5k every 60 seconds amounts to adding 42 DPS every minute. However, you can also use it during a GCD, and it is an AOE as well. LW, on the other hand, gives you a net gain of 80 AP from the bracer enchant, which doesn't outweigh the damage from the bombs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    You don't explain if it's important to hit the poison hit cap or not. For Mutilate, it's better. For Combat, not so much. People will think they need ot hit the poison cap. You also didn't mention the full white hit cap and why NOT to get to that. Just because it's not information people need to know, doesn't mean not to include it. They have to understand that it does give you dps but it's ludicrous to go beyond the yellow hit mark for poisons.
    I'm sorry, I thought not getting the white cap was "common knowledge".

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    Same comment. Should you cap expertise? Does poison fall under expertise? what is the expertise in the scheme of things? Which specs benefit from it.
    I mentioned what specs benefit from Expertise, but I'll add that (obviously) poisons can't proc if your weapon swings don't connect.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    Absolutely no information whatsoever as to why the set is useless. This is pretty much information you took from EJ and posted it. Explain why it isn't good. Someone who's played and theorycrafts stuff will understand why but even the best will want the information and the method to test it to see the truth of how 'bad' T9 is.
    Proc chance sucks; will add that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Krenian View Post
    I would sincerely ask that you review the method in which you present your information because it simply is not something I would want to sticky. Although the information itself is correct, it is simply rehash from another site and not really something that was made as an author.
    Yeah, barring the fact that ALL information comes from some site or another; very few people actually compile their own data. Putting it in an easy to reach source is a bad idea why? Also, I take it you didn't read the addon section, or the part about how to be helpful in a raid, or the part about how not to die... Yeah.
    Last edited by Aifel; 12-01-2009 at 09:08 PM.

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