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  1. #1

    Combat with daggers

    I am not very knowledgeable about rogues and was wondering if there was a downside of using daggers in Combat spec.

  2. #2
    Not sure what you're asking, but you'll have significantly reduced damage if you use a dagger in your MH. You're supposed to go dagger in OH though.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by yurano View Post
    Not sure what you're asking, but you'll have significantly reduced damage if you use a dagger in your MH. You're supposed to go dagger in OH though.
    That's not true, 2.8 offhand is a little bit more ahead than a dagger.

  4. #4
    I see. So any sword/axe/mace is fine then?

    What causes a dagger to be that much weaker? Is it weapon speed?

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by iscalio View Post
    I see. So any sword/axe/mace is fine then?

    What causes a dagger to be that much weaker? Is it weapon speed?

    It's not that much weaker. Its like 1% or 2% lower. and its due to killing spree

  6. #6
    Deleted
    Daggers aren't weaker per say, Killing Spree was just buffed, and because Killing Spree deals more damage now, with heavier weapons, it should perform equally or outright outperform slow/fast weapon sets.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Enhshamanlol View Post
    It's not that much weaker. Its like 1% or 2% lower. and its due to killing spree
    I see. In that case I will just stick with my daggers I think.

    Thanks for all the replies.

  8. #8
    He specifically said daggerS. Why the talk of only his off hand? You're missing out on a ton of SS damage along with the lower KS damage. It's a larger number than just 1% or 2% loss.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by iscalio View Post
    I see. In that case I will just stick with my daggers I think.

    Thanks for all the replies.
    Whoa, hold on! ONE dagger is fine! In the off-hand, that is. Not two. Your main-hand absolutely MUST be a slow one.

  10. #10
    Ah, I misunderstood then. Thanks for the clarification! So I will find me a main hand slow weapon then.

  11. #11
    For offhands, I believe its actually fist weapons are .5% better, assuming the fist and dagger have the same stats. This is from EJs and taken from the Shadowcraft back end a few months ago. However with my gear in shadowcraft, Heroic Spiritsever out-preforms heroic Claws of Shek'zeer in offhand by something like 80 dps, likely because it is better itemized, which lends weight to the theory that whatever is higher iLvl/better itemized is better in your offhand.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Enhshamanlol View Post
    That's not true, 2.8 offhand is a little bit more ahead than a dagger.
    How often do you find a one-handed melee weapon faster than 2.6? According to WoWhead, not often: http://www.wowhead.com/items=2?filte...;crs=1;crv=2.6

    Quote Originally Posted by Enhshamanlol View Post
    It's not that much weaker. Its like 1% or 2% lower. and its due to killing spree
    Its due to Killing Spree, Revealing Strike and Sinister Strike. These spells scale based on MH weapon damage and are not normalized to weapon speed. When you use a MH dagger, the damage of these abilities suffer.

    Quote Originally Posted by burnout View Post
    which lends weight to the theory that whatever is higher iLvl/better itemized is better in your offhand.
    Its because Combat potency is normalized for weapon speed.
    Last edited by yurano; 2013-01-15 at 05:43 AM.

  13. #13
    @Yurano, I was talking about offhand, I didn't seriously think he was talking about mainhand....

  14. #14
    Blademaster postpunk27's Avatar
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    For combat, I personally use slow / slow. Weapon speeds are normalized now, at 2.6 (sword, axe, fist) and 1.8 (daggers), respectively. I guess you could keep a dagger around for your off-hand slot if you really wanted to, but they have made it now so that slow / slow is viable, if not optimal, and being a combat "swashbuckler" style rogue, it seems kinda silly to me to carry around a fist / dagger when I could just be using two fist weapons. Plus, it obviously looks a lot better aesthetically, using two similar weapons versus two completely different weapons.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Enhshamanlol View Post
    @Yurano, I was talking about offhand, I didn't seriously think he was talking about mainhand....
    It's not something you want to do, but I personally have never seen a fist weapon drop that wasn't blue. Meanwhile, I have a decent ugraged 497 dagger. There seems to be enough of a level difference that the only way I would get more damage out of a blue fist is if I went enchantin' dancin'. Which I'm not prepared to do, it just seem silly, and surely being 0-more than 50 on potential drops means I'll get a mainhand "soon".

  16. #16
    Blademaster postpunk27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Demeia View Post
    It's not something you want to do, but I personally have never seen a fist weapon drop that wasn't blue. Meanwhile, I have a decent ugraged 497 dagger. There seems to be enough of a level difference that the only way I would get more damage out of a blue fist is if I went enchantin' dancin'. Which I'm not prepared to do, it just seem silly, and surely being 0-more than 50 on potential drops means I'll get a mainhand "soon".
    I got the 476 fist from the shado-pan 5 man heroic shortly after MoP came out. It sat in my bank until I finally received the Claws of Shek'zeer. I use the CoS in the main hand spot, and the other fist as my off-hand. I've also upgraded the CoS fully. I recently bit the bullet and put Dancing Steel on both of them. My overall iLv is 483. I'm very happy with this set up. I wish we had other options for our sha-touched weapons, but we got stuck with fists and daggers. They should have made a weapon of every variety for the whole legendary thing, instead of just pigeonholing us with fists if we chose to play as a combat rogue. I'd certainly like to be able to dual-wield two 1H axes or swords. Sadly, that is not the case.

  17. #17
    OP, I'll give you bit of mechanics behind why you need a slow mainhand.


    In general, an instant attack, such as mortal strike, sinister strike, or backstab, uses a formula that is basically this:

    (weapon damage) + AP/14 * WeaponType

    Weapon Damage is the damage listed on the weapon. You'll notice this value is a lot smaller for a faster weapon- that's because if a weapon does 100 dps and swings once a second, it needs to hit for 100- but if it does 100 dps and swings once every 3 seconds, it needs to deal 300 damage. So that part will be BIGGER for a slower weapon.

    To this is added your AP divided by 14, times a value that varies with weapon speed. This used to BE weapon speed, but it made the days of the Barman Shanker way too good. Now, all daggers use 1.7 for this spot. All one handed weapons that aren't daggers use 2.4. Two handers use something like... 3.4? I kinda forget.

    The net effect is, your sinister strike would do the most damage with like a 4.0 speed two handed weapon, but not only is that not available, you can't use it. The slowest weapons you can use for it are swords, axes, maces, and fists. In this expansion and the last couple, these are almost ALL speed 2.6, so you can't cheese the "weapon damage" part by using a lower item level sword with a slower speed. The 2.4 is used to multiply your AP, and all is happy.

    If you use a dagger, then all those numbers are way smaller. Your weapon damage is lower, and you are using 1.7 instead of 2.4. In fact, you should NEVER use a dagger....

    Unless the move mandates you use one, or gives you an extra reward. We have examples of both of those in the rogue class: mutilate demands daggers. If you COULD mutilate with two swords, it would be a lot more powerful (like 40% more powerful). Backstab shares this restriction. Ambush, you will note, has a lower multiplier if you ambush with a sword/mace/fist/axe, and a higher one with a dagger- this is to make the net damage about the same.

    Mortal Strike has no such restriction or bonus. A warrior can mortal strike with his powerful two hander, an average one hander, or a tiny dagger- and his mortal strike will be at normal strength, weak strength, or super crazy weak strength, with each of those three options respectively. Backstab gives you no such choice. Sinister strike does, so you use the biggest you can.



    The rest of this talk is about offhand daggers, which everyone assumed you were asking about. In the past, we always wanted the fastest offhand possible for combat- the faster weapon procs more deadly poison, and in the past the "combat potency" talent (which we still have as an inbuilt part of combat) had a flat 20% chance of proccing. With a flat proc chance, of course a faster weapon will give you more procs. The only downside to it was that when you killing spree, your offhand attacks with a dagger are much weaker (see the above formula). Until MoP, this meant that you really just wanted the fast offhand.

    Nowadays, it's about the same. While the deadly poison procs are a bit different, the fastest you can get is 1.8 (instead of 1.4 or 1.5, the older values), so the number of procs relatively isn't AS different. Meanwhile, combat potency was changed to PPM- you'll get about the same no matter whether you have a slow offhand or a fast one. Finally, killing spree is a bit more powerful. Double slow sims slightly above slow/fast, but note that you won't see this gain (and will even see an equivalently small loss) if you can't run spree on cooldown (Garalon, for instance, may force you into that).


    Mainhand slow: very important
    Offhand whatever, but extra credit for slow if you can use all your sprees and fast if you can't. The different is very small, GC delivered on this promise 100%.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by postpunk27 View Post
    I got the 476 fist from the shado-pan 5 man heroic shortly after MoP came out. It sat in my bank until I finally received the Claws of Shek'zeer. I use the CoS in the main hand spot, and the other fist as my off-hand. I've also upgraded the CoS fully. I recently bit the bullet and put Dancing Steel on both of them.
    I'm assuming you never got a 489 or better dagger right? Because you should never go 2.6/2.6 unless your offhand 2.6 is equal or greater ilvl than your best dagger.

    Quote Originally Posted by Demeia View Post
    It's not something you want to do, but I personally have never seen a fist weapon drop that wasn't blue. Meanwhile, I have a decent ugraged 497 dagger. There seems to be enough of a level difference that the only way I would get more damage out of a blue fist is if I went enchantin' dancin'. Which I'm not prepared to do, it just seem silly, and surely being 0-more than 50 on potential drops means I'll get a mainhand "soon".
    I'm honestly not sure that the 497 dagger is better even with the enchant difference. Also no, having not gotten an item 50 times in this case does not mean you are any more likely to get it next time. These are independent events so probability doesn't work that way (knowing the outcome of a previous independent event provides no new information that can be used to predict a subsequent independent event).

  19. #19
    Deleted
    ...is like women with too much clothes on. Not ideal.

  20. #20
    Blademaster postpunk27's Avatar
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    Sesshou, you would be assuming correctly. I only have those two epic fists. Hope that clears it up

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