Legion - Assassination Discussion

[ribthanwa]

Thanks for the response RIbthanwa.

I made it home at lunch with enough time to do a little testing on the target dummy and as you stated a 1 cp finisher adds ~2% extra damage to my AP effect, a 5 CP finisher added ~10% to my AP effect for the 5 seconds.

You comment about focusing on energy efficiency vs. SOT uptime makes me wonder where the breakpoint and pay off is. I have pretty decent crit with my nightbane chest buffed EOC. I'm 41%+ all stacked up. What's more energy efficient and damage efficient when I'm critting as much as I do?

Example 1:Mutilate and get 3 combo points, do I envenom for 5 seconds of a 6% buff. Or do I mutilate again and guaranteeing me a 5 point envenom, but chance wasting 1-2 combo points?

it seems like 3+ would give you a lot more uptime on SOT with a lower % buff, and 4+ would end up being a lower SOT uptime with a bigger % buff to AP. I just would love to know which would pay off more in the end?

No matter which way a person argues is best, I still build combo points and pool energy before a kingsbane use so I can 5 CP envenom (giving me max SOT)>Kingsbane>1-2 mutilates>envenom repeat focusing on keeping envenom buff up until kingsbane falls off. I had a 2.37 million crit tick last night on heroic Xavius.

I don't know how old you are, but I'll make a cheeky comment here. To all those of you who complain in calculus as to why it is required, saying "I'm never going to use this in real life," here's an example of using calculus in real life.

We can basically figure out the 'most effective' use of SoT by integrating the %benefit by the time it is applied, for it's total effect on our damage. To simplify things a bit, I'll describe a slightly non-realistic scenario to make the math easy. Imagine a 10 second window, with two routes of attack: one route where you use a 3CP finisher and a 2CP finisher, and the other where you only use a single 5CP finisher.

Ignoring a lot of the nuance that I'll get into later in this post, we can actually simply multiply the %effectiveness times the time which it is applied to get a SoT efficiency value. This value isn't useful for anything other than comparing these two scenarios, and it doesn't relate to actual %damage increases, as, like I said, I'm simplifying things here. You probably figured it out at this point, but at 2% SoT per combo point, we have the following [ (6*5) + (4*5) vs (10*5) ], both of which equal fifty. This is what I was trying to point out by saying that SoT is linear, and that your focus should be elsewhere when deciding on rotational finisher use.

In reality, there is more nuance. In the first case, you used two envenoms, consuming more energy than the second case. Also, your mutilates to generate back up to the 2CP for the second envenom was under the effect of SoT. Comparing that to the second case, you use one less envenom (the energy of which is worth more than half of another mutilate), and, with proper energy pooling, you were likely able to mutilate twice in the 5 second window in which your AP is buffed by the full 10%.

Comparing the cases now, they don't seem quite as even. We still have roughly the same envenom damage, as the damage it deals isn't effected by SoT and scales linearly with CP, but what we do have is the following. Mutilate (+ 3 CP SoT effect) + Mutilate (+ 2 CP SoT effect) versus Mutilate x2 (+ 5 CP SoT effect) + the energy equating to more than half of another mutilate. This is why theory crafters tell you to pool energy before using finishers and this is why they tell you to only use high CP finishers. This truth would still exist even without SoT, it only accents proper play of the spec.

[Elyzibeth]

@ ribthanwa

I greatly appreciate your response. BTW, I'm 38, so I've long forgotten most the crap I learned in high school, the pointless and the important

I appreciate your simplified example and it's definitely something I'm going to have to sit down and ponder and math out a little bit for myself because my brain just keeps seeing two sides to how both ways could work out better. (part of my brain says this because a fight is long and the accumulations could be subtle at first but at up big over time, one way or the other.)

Are you 100% sure that SOT doesn't buff Envenom damage? I ask this because when you use SOT the buff for AP goes from 40% up to 50% for me, once SOT drops off it goes back down to 40%. So even though SOT's buff to poison damage does not directly effect Envenom, wouldn't the buff to AP cause envenom to be modified by 50% instead of 40%?

My brain says, I would never use a 2 point finisher (unless forced into it at a very high dps output moment that needs any buff possible). It also says if I have 3 points, and I mutilate and pop a 4 cp builder, I just threw away half or full 55 energy mutilate, which isn't exactly efficient..

So my simple brain comes up with: Mutilate: if = 2 points than mutilate again, if >3 pts, pool energy till = .5 second on SOT and envenom.

We raid tonight so I will have to try it both ways and see how it performs. Regardless I'm probably not a good enough player to actually have it make that big of a difference either way

[Deleted]

@ ribthanwa

I greatly appreciate your response. BTW, I'm 38, so I've long forgotten most the crap I learned in high school, the pointless and the important

I appreciate your simplified example and it's definitely something I'm going to have to sit down and ponder and math out a little bit for myself because my brain just keeps seeing two sides to how both ways could work out better. (part of my brain says this because a fight is long and the accumulations could be subtle at first but at up big over time, one way or the other.)

Are you 100% sure that SOT doesn't buff Envenom damage? I ask this because when you use SOT the buff for AP goes from 40% up to 50% for me, once SOT drops off it goes back down to 40%. So even though SOT's buff to poison damage does not directly effect Envenom, wouldn't the buff to AP cause envenom to be modified by 50% instead of 40%?

My brain says, I would never use a 2 point finisher (unless forced into it at a very high dps output moment that needs any buff possible). It also says if I have 3 points, and I mutilate and pop a 4 cp builder, I just threw away half or full 55 energy mutilate, which isn't exactly efficient..

So my simple brain comes up with: Mutilate: if = 2 points than mutilate again, if >3 pts, pool energy till = .5 second on SOT and envenom.

We raid tonight so I will have to try it both ways and see how it performs. Regardless I'm probably not a good enough player to actually have it make that big of a difference either way

Envenom is not affected by the double dip, only kingsbane and poison bomb are increased by SoT and SoT-buffed AP at the same time.

[VicenteRangel]

anyone got any discussion or data on the new Mantle of the master assassin shoulders?

[Won7on]

I know it's anectodal, but I've been having surprisingly good results with EP/Exsang on a dummy. This is from someone who's played AP for months now, and whose gear is very heavily Mastery-skewed now since I changed it around with the patch.

Sims show it about 20k lower than MP/AP, but I'm pretty sure the sims aren't playing the build correctly, such as clipping EP with 0.1 seconds left, or keeping EP up 100% during Vendetta/BotA. With normalized Rupture damage, you can also time it so Rupture ticks out as Vendetta is approaching, then do a 2/3CP Rupture immediately into a 5CP Rupture. This gives you a pretty good chance of proccing BotA and allows for a max-duration Exsang.

I dunno, it could be I was just getting lucky with Exsang, but considering how Nighthold has far-more target-swapping/adds/etc, a spec that's competitive with AP but doesn't have the ramp-up time of getting to 5 poison stacks seems like a good idea.

Anyone else tried Exsang at all since the patch?

[shaunika123]

so with 37% crit 110% mastery and 8% versa simraft is telling me that crit is actually below versa and mastery is way ahead

does MP AP not need crit that much or what?

edit: i literally went down to 26% crit and 156% mastery and mastery is still ahead by a big margin

dafuq

[jsz]

so with 37% crit 110% mastery and 8% versa simraft is telling me that crit is actually below versa and mastery is way ahead

does MP AP not need crit that much or what?

i have mastery > vers > crit >> haste with 29% crit 128% mastery

so maybe not

[Uni73]

Anyone else tried Exsang at all since the patch?

I've been thinking along the same lines as you, was trying different builds on dummies for a quite a while on patch day. EP/Exsang was consistently even with AP/MP builds. Looked at your armory and notice you have the boots as well, and I think that may be a large contributing factor. Having ~45 cd on Vendetta to line up with every Exsang gives you pretty big frequent burst phases as opposed to those using Vendetta every 2nd Exsang.

Did some sims to explore more. For reference I have the same agi (30.4k) in both builds, just changed neck/ring to adjust secondaries. I also have boots+cloak legendaries.

41% crit, 90% mastery, 10% vers. using EP/exsang

and

38% crit, 125% mastery, 6% vers. using MP/AP

then I ran EP/AP with both setups just because.
Results looked like this:

EP/Exsang: 563,391
MP/AP: 561,478
EP/AP Vers.: 551,417
EP/AP Mastery: 544,893

(I'd like to post an image/link for proof, but I just started posting here and can't )

Now I'd like to sim those again, but minus the boots and switch out MA relics for rupture. Unfortunately I don't know how to simulate relics in regards to the item id.

Planning on doing this week's M EN clear in EP/Exsang for every boss and seeing what the dps looks like. But just based off those sims and dummy testing I think I'll be sticking to EP/exsang for the time being. Seems far better in terms of the add heavy fights in Nighthold anyway.I'll save any heavy mastery gear, and once I see some logs/updated sims with concrete evidence that the tier bonuses shoot MP/AP ahead, I'll switch.

[Deleted]

anyone got any discussion or data on the new Mantle of the master assassin shoulders?

I have bracers cloak and shoulders as dps legendaries now.

For raiding they are stronger than belt and cloak at single target. Delaying vanish until kingsbane is ready shoulds be recommended. A ful energy pool is also recommended to get as much envenoms in the 6s time frame.

For m+ they are also quite useful. For trash i am using cloak shoulders and at bosses i am using shoulders bracers. 750 to 800k (spike 900k) overall dps through dht/cos/arcway 7-10 boosting.

[Faildevil]

Is there any "competitive" assa guide other then icy veins, which I don't realy trust?
I am interested in the latest advised opener and I am curious if the mastery enchant on the neck is now worth a try over the satyrs, which makes about 1,5-2% dps for me.

[Eazy]

Is there any "competitive" assa guide other then icy veins, which I don't realy trust?
I am interested in the latest advised opener and I am curious if the mastery enchant on the neck is now worth a try over the satyrs, which makes about 1,5-2% dps for me.

http://roguedpsguide.com/

It has anything you need.

[Faildevil]

I will give it a try, thank you very much!

[skindown]

The reason that high crit with Vigor is bad is because you are more likely to overcap combo points than anything, thus "wasting" a portion that the crit would contribute towards your DPS, being better allocated somewhere else like mastery, now that we use MP and that Kingsbane was fixed to work with Vendetta, we gud to stack it to the heavens ( while having a "minimum" crit which is still to be calculated )

[Deleted]

The reason that high crit with Vigor is bad is because you are more likely to overcap combo points than anything, thus "wasting" a portion that the crit would contribute towards your DPS, being better allocated somewhere else like mastery, now that we use MP and that Kingsbane was fixed to work with Vendetta, we gud to stack it to the heavens ( while having a "minimum" crit which is still to be calculated )

yeah thats right! Having atleast one of the two mut to crit is a realy nice damage boost! i sit around 30% crit (+6% from the trait) and 160% mastery. It works absurdly good! chance is very high i end up with 5 cps, but not overwasting too many.

[Elyzibeth]

[QUOTE=elprofessor;44159683]I have bracers cloak and shoulders as dps legendaries now.

For raiding they are stronger than belt and cloak at single target. Delaying vanish until kingsbane is ready shoulds be recommended. A ful energy pool is also recommended to get as much envenoms in the 6s time frame.

For m+ they are also quite useful. For trash i am using cloak shoulders and at bosses i am using shoulders bracers. 750 to 800k (spike 900k) overall dps through dht/cos/arcway 7

Elprofessor

Can you elaborate on your usage of vanish with kingsbane when using the shoulders? I also have shoulder/cloak/belt/bracers. I wasn't sure shoulders would be worth it, but I saw AMR suggested last night I dump my belt and go shoulders, and I log into here to see you saying they're performing well. Are you pooling up, hitting kingsbane, vanish/rupturing then spamming mut->4pt envenoms? Or delaying the vanish/rupture a little further into the kingsbane to allow it to stack to higher numbers before abusing it with crit? so kingsbane, envenom, mut, mut, vanish/rupture?

Also, did you change your opener at all for raid type bosses to maximize the crit, or just a standard opener?

[Zzaj]

I also have shoulder/cloak/belt/bracers.

I just died a little bit inside.

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=Elyzibeth;44163647]

I have bracers cloak and shoulders as dps legendaries now.

For raiding they are stronger than belt and cloak at single target. Delaying vanish until kingsbane is ready shoulds be recommended. A ful energy pool is also recommended to get as much envenoms in the 6s time frame.

For m+ they are also quite useful. For trash i am using cloak shoulders and at bosses i am using shoulders bracers. 750 to 800k (spike 900k) overall dps through dht/cos/arcway 7

Elprofessor

Can you elaborate on your usage of vanish with kingsbane when using the shoulders? I also have shoulder/cloak/belt/bracers. I wasn't sure shoulders would be worth it, but I saw AMR suggested last night I dump my belt and go shoulders, and I log into here to see you saying they're performing well. Are you pooling up, hitting kingsbane, vanish/rupturing then spamming mut->4pt envenoms? Or delaying the vanish/rupture a little further into the kingsbane to allow it to stack to higher numbers before abusing it with crit? so kingsbane, envenom, mut, mut, vanish/rupture?

Also, did you change your opener at all for raid type bosses to maximize the crit, or just a standard opener?

I am delaying the vanish until kingsbane is ready. I'm using kingsbane after the vanish-rupture. You should have enough energy to use kingsbane and 2x 4cp envenom inside the critbuff timeframe if you spam it as fast as possible.

My opener is more or less classic: garrote -> rupture -> mut -> env -> mut (maybe an additional spell to have 0 energy) -> vendetta -> vanish/rupture -> kingsbane -> mut -> env -> mut -> env. Every spell crits during this start up rotation with shoulders, except some final ticks of kingsbane. The best pull burst 1.7mil (with old war and bl on pull).

I must rewise my legendary rating. I have simmed a lot in the last 24h so I can say that boots are the strongest by far followed by all the other dps lengedaries which are more or less equal (belt > ring=bracers > shoulders | 7.5k between belt and shoulders in Full 905 NH Gear).
Bracers dont sim very high anymore, but they are very rng dependend. If you have good luck during the execute with poison bombs and high buffed kingsbane or if the execute phase takes a while they can outdps the others. The shoulders are currently not perfect simulated.

[Elyzibeth]

And here this whole time I thought bracers were hands down the clear winner behind boots?

- - - Updated - - -

Below is a guarm log from last night that shows the power you speak of, and why I thought/feel the bracers are super powerful.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1

[Strah]

[QUOTE=elprofessor;44164589]

I am delaying the vanish until kingsbane is ready. I'm using kingsbane after the vanish-rupture. You should have enough energy to use kingsbane and 2x 4cp envenom inside the critbuff timeframe if you spam it as fast as possible.

My opener is more or less classic: garrote -> rupture -> mut -> env -> mut (maybe an additional spell to have 0 energy) -> vendetta -> vanish/rupture -> kingsbane -> mut -> env -> mut -> env. Every spell crits during this start up rotation with shoulders, except some final ticks of kingsbane. The best pull burst 1.7mil (with old war and bl on pull).

I must rewise my legendary rating. I have simmed a lot in the last 24h so I can say that boots are the strongest by far followed by all the other dps lengedaries which are more or less equal (belt > ring=bracers > shoulders | 7.5k between belt and shoulders in Full 905 NH Gear).
Bracers dont sim very high anymore, but they are very rng dependend. If you have good luck during the execute with poison bombs and high buffed kingsbane or if the execute phase takes a while they can outdps the others. The shoulders are currently not perfect simulated.

Is the belt really that good?

[Elyzibeth]

Is the belt really that good?

Strah,
I think the belt really is pretty good. Its performance is also situational. If I look at my Guarm or Xavius fights, it's putting out a little over 2% of my damage, 2.3-2.5 million. Then you look at a parse like the one I linked below for Odyn, it's pulls 4% at 6.6 million damage more adds over 90% life, more uptime on the belt. The belt is pretty solid. This Odyn parse I didn't have my Bracers yet.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=4