Assassination DPS - Vigor FTW?

[Frostglaive]

So before you all start laughing at me, listen to what I have to say. I understand Vigor is more of an ideal thing for PvP, but I believe it can be used for PvE as well. Look at it this way: 2/2 of Fleet Footed points gives you 15% more movement speed. And a glyph of FoK is really only good for aoe, and a tricks only increases the duration by 4 seconds.

Now, look at it by taking one point from Fleet Footed so now you only have a -7% movement bonus and -15% movement impairing buff from the former 2/2. Then take one of the pointless FoK or Tricks glyph and replace it with Vigor. This gives you 20 more energy that could help with faster combos. The way I see it is the bigger the energy pull, the more moves and dps you can push out.

I believe the pocket guide by Elitist Jerks also says this could be possible to use. Am I alone on this, or do other people think the same way? I myself have been doing this for a while and have beaten other rogues in dps who have better gear, the correct gemming, and the "correct" assassination spec.

[Airowird]

Vigor will allow you to cap your energy less often and start with more energy after 'breaks' (boss lore whining, fight interupts like prof etc)
The problem is that on half the boss fights it is not that useful, or atleast not useful enough (e.g. Fleet Footed will give you the same DPS increase on Sindy because you can start each phase faster rather than start with more energy). Glyph of Tricks vs Vigor is a bit harder. Mostly depends on the target and frequency of your TotT usage I guess.

[Leche]

Glyph of TotT is a way better dps increase vs vigor where you might not see the dps increase yourself it is there. with 2 piece tier 10 TotT should be used on every cooldown when you are under 50 energy to help your dps from the set bonus. Now about the actual dps increase this is a weird one because it doesnt not actually increase your dps but a raid members. If you are using it on a tank in icc lets say they pull 3000 damage per second then by using the glyph you are increasing there damage by 15% for 4 more secs which comes out to be a 1800 damage increase per cooldown. But if you want to use it to be more effective you and another rogue can use tricks on each other. So if you are both pulling 10k dps thats 6000 extra damage per cooldown or 12000 extra damage for the raid which is a bigger dps incease then glyph of vigor would give you.

[Timberton]

Assassination, pve, vigor, vigor glyph, just, say, no.

This gives you 20 more energy that could help with faster combos

Actually, no, only benefit is during opener or other sizable dps interruptions.
and remember, ENERGY REGENERATION RATE is constant, the energy to do your moves comes at a constant rate, it doesn't matter if the pool where this energy collects is large, you won't really do faster combos (i.e. more combos per minute).

As the above posters explained, moving into vigor related talents or glyph is a net dps loss. YOur choice, really.

[Frostglaive]

The way I see it is when you start out, the first move you are using actually is costing 20 energy less. Not to mention once you come out of stealth, your energy regen is much higher and can go up to that pool in the scenario your t10 4 set bonus procs and you're allowing your energy to pool before you use your next Envenom. And then later, you can use vanish to increase that regen once more to get up there again, not to mention me being a Belf allows me to get 15+ energy whenever my 2 min CD is up.

Compared to having 7% more run speed when you could use sprint to get to a boss faster, a glyph used for trash, and a 4 sec longer tricks to only increase tank damage and give him more threat for that much longer doesn't seem to cut it compared to a nice 20+ energy to start off with, and possibly to have while the fight progresses.

I would actually like a spread sheet or something to determine if I'm along the right lines here, because honestly I have beaten people arguing the same thing everyone is saying here.

[Timberton]

The way I see it is when you start out, the first move you are using actually is costing 20 energy less.

No, it still costs the same, really.

Not to mention once you come out of stealth, your energy regen is much higher and

Overkill works the same if you have 100 energy pool, 110, or 120.

can go up to that pool in the scenario your t10 4 set bonus procs and you're allowing your energy to pool before you use your next Envenom.

There are other finishers out there to use if you are in such resource overflowing situations. See rupture. It'll be a bigger dps increase than buffering energy over 100.

And then later, you can use vanish to increase that regen once more to get up there again, not to mention me being a Belf allows me to get 15+ energy whenever my 2 min CD is up.

Again, this works the same for 100 energy pool, or for 120 energy pool. If you don't cap out energy to 100 (which shouldn't be a issue) then this point is moot.

Compared to having 7% more run speed when you could use sprint to get to a boss faster

Ah, so nice if you'd only have to move in-out of boss range once per (how was it?) 3 minutes ?
And fleet footed is 15% run speed http://www.wowhead.com/spell=31209/fleet-footed

a 4 sec longer tricks to only increase tank damage and give him more threat for that much longer doesn't seem to cut it compared to a nice 20+ energy to start off with, and possibly to have while the fight progresses.

the value of the ToTT glyph has been discussed above.

I would actually like a spread sheet or something to determine if I'm along the right lines here, because honestly I have beaten people arguing the same thing everyone is saying here.

Well, assuming you have to leave boss at 20 energy or less (i do hope you throw a finisher of some sorts before running out, a'la Rupture if you have the resources available, you don't want to run out with close to full energy, that's just bad play...and yes, you can time it, you have DBM, rite?), at a energy recovery rate of 10energy/sec. Normally you have (100-20)/10= 8 seconds to start spending energy again before energy cap. In your case, vigor will give you a +2 seconds of buffer to start dps-ing again.

Is a +2 second extra energy buffer worth 2-3% of your damage? I'm quite sure Fleet Footed's run speed will counteract those +2 seconds, because you get to move in and out faster if stuff happens (and on the +side, you get to live more cuz you dodge stuff faster)

[Frostglaive]

You could be getting somewhere. I'll take it for a spin and see how it flies, but if I don't see much of a dps increase I'll probably head on back to vigor. So, would it be ToTT glyph, or FOK?

[twi]

The answer is clearly Fan of Knives. It is a static dps increase for yourself, whereas Tricks is a conditional buff that is only reliably helpful during raids. The glyph will not increase the amount of energy returned, so your overall single-target dps output will be the exact same as if you have Fan of Knives glyphed; ergo, your AoE dps will be comparable to mages as the number of mobs increase.

After all, who wouldn't want to rock 75k+ dps right before Sindragosa with their Spam o' Knives?

[Frostglaive]

Lol I figured, but I also thought of the fact that most boss fights you shouldn't be spamming FOK so ToTT could help the raid out more even if your dps doesn't increase.

[Leche]

If you run with another rogue i would high suggest TotT glyph due to the fact that you both should be exchanging TotT everytime its up after the first one on the tank of course. Its really up to you but i worry more about boss fights then trash seeing as how boss fights is the reason you are there to begin with. IMO TotT glyph is better but hey its just a opinion and TotT and FoK are both viable glyphs. Also if you do not have another rogue u can also alternate your TotT on other dps in the raid so long as u have a tank that has no threat problems. Also as said before TotT glyph will not increase your personal dps but another raid members so where as you wont see the increase under your name in a damage meter it will be a big increase to raid dps.

On a side note. Assuming you are assassination rogue which you are since you have fleet footed. I dont see any real reason to pool your energy and should be using it as you can.

[Timberton]

For raids I'd advise ToTT glyph.
Reasons:
2xT10 = 15 energy returned every 30 seconds (or abouts, you will want to use tott almost on cooldown) (i'd advise shoulder and glove pieces from T10 set for mutilate)
+%damage to a dps of your choice (or trading trix with another rogue), very powerfull. Benefits the raid as a whole (even if it doesn't show in the e-peen meter)

FoK glyph:
Trash glyph, useful for clearing packs of stuff, or in 5 man heroic randoms. Only legitimate use during raids would be in Onyxia (and who raids ony nowadays...?)


Your choice: raids: ToTT, 5 mans/onyxia = FoK (the more hardcore rogues have a stack of both glyphs and they switch them around for the different fight types)

[Zxian]

This should be your spec if you're in decent gear (Full T9 and up), glyphs included.

You can google the discussions at EJ on the vigor glyph and the potential of pooling energy for a bit longer, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how good or lucky you are, you'll never match a 2% damage boost for a fellow raid member.

FoK only matters for trash... but trash is called trash for a reason. You don't go into ICC to top the meters on trash - you go there to kill bosses.

[Timberton]

This

Erm, you misplaced the last 3 points in the combat three, they go into Lightning reflexes, not aggression :P

[Fetzie]

I have the cookie cutter 51/18/2 specc, but why do we put the points in Subt in relentless strikes and not in opportunity? is 20% damage on Mutilate really worth passing up on for a chance to regen some energy?

[Leche]

Elitist Jerks done some testing and concluded the 32%-40% chance to get 25 energy back is a dps increase over the 20% damage increase to mutilate. This is probably due to the fact that Mutilate is not a huge damage dealer for us.my thought behind that you can get your combo points up faster for envenoms which are probably one of our biggest damage dealers due to the fact that once it is used u get a buff to increase chance of poison procs which is what assination is all about.

[Zxian]

Erm, you misplaced the last 3 points in the combat three, they go into Lightning reflexes, not aggression :P

Whoops. Fixt.

[Mallekai]

So before you all start laughing at me, listen to what I have to say. I understand Vigor is more of an ideal thing for PvP, but I believe it can be used for PvE as well. Look at it this way: 2/2 of Fleet Footed points gives you 15% more movement speed. And a glyph of FoK is really only good for aoe, and a tricks only increases the duration by 4 seconds.

Now, look at it by taking one point from Fleet Footed so now you only have a -7% movement bonus and -15% movement impairing buff from the former 2/2. Then take one of the pointless FoK or Tricks glyph and replace it with Vigor. This gives you 20 more energy that could help with faster combos. The way I see it is the bigger the energy pull, the more moves and dps you can push out.

I believe the pocket guide by Elitist Jerks also says this could be possible to use. Am I alone on this, or do other people think the same way? I myself have been doing this for a while and have beaten other rogues in dps who have better gear, the correct gemming, and the "correct" assassination spec.

you cant use glyph of vigor, as tott is mandatory for a raiding rogue. so you will only gain 10 energy, which would help, but very very minimally

edit: you are 'beating' them because you are being selfish and taking a minor personal dps gain over a larger raid dps gain

[Frostglaive]

Guys allow me to bring this back into the light. One of the reasons that I actually started the whole vigor bit was a good guild member of mine who had wonderful dps did this. He and I both agreed that getting a nice burst into the rotation versus a minor speed increase on movement fights was a much better dps increase. I do agree getting quickly behind your target and dpsing right on him again is a priority, but at the same time I feel that most fights, you're going to be on the boss and wanting to get as much burst damage and poison applications down on it as possible. I mean think about it... right now the only boss fights that you ever need to quickly get back to the boss in ICC is Lady DW, Putricide, Sindragosa(These are all IMO).

So think about it.... 20 extra energy at the start. Your first move should be Garrote which is 50 energy. -20 = 30. Then by that given point in time your energy should quickly pool back up before you start bashing the brains out of the boss. I know not many people do this, but honestly I switched back to the 2 points in Fleet Footed and replaced the glyph with FOK. I don't know if it's just me or what but before I was doing around 9-10k on most fights and now it is more around 7k. Someone please, give me a reasonable answer before I decide to take my own advice and switch back to my vigor specc.

[Airowird]

Reasonable answer: You don't like the spec, so you're putting less effort in it, even if it's just subconsciously. Perception is the key here.
Also, Marrowgar(Bone Storm), Rotface (exploding slime + small slime on you), possibly Dreamwalker(moving between adds), Blood Princes(switching, flame orbs,...), even BQL(shadow flames, phase switches,links & bites,...) are all fights where you have to move regularly and on most of those the amount of time you have to move at once is not long enough to pool that 20 extra Energy.
Vigor + Glyph = 2 seconds extra of time on a target if you start with max energy. That's <1% DPS increase
GoTricks = extra DPS for a raid member, significantly more than 1%
Fleet Fooded = less time in a fight doing 0 DPS as well as less time standing in fires = less chance to die!!

Consider as well that Fleet Footed allows you to take Icewalker enchant on your boots instead of Tuskar's (which you should be using if you don't have runspeed talents)

[Frostglaive]

War, you got me to stop just before I put vigor back in. That was definitely within my mindset but a large portion of my mind was saying more energy = more burn time but thinking it over, that isn't true at all. Thanks again guys, and I hope this thread happens to bring some light on the subject for more people other than me.