Need some theorycrafting on stacking Mastery as Combat...

[solacespecs]

Today I had a fellow rogue in a pug raid with me. We began talking about our class, discussing various ways to improve dps. Then he mentioned this comment that, in theory, seems to make sense, but I don't have the knowledge or expertise to figure out how to actually test it. Maybe some of you guys who are more experienced than me can figure this out?

Basically we know that mastery isn't a great stat for combat. However, this rogue discussed the idea of using a fast one hand dagger with a high weapon damage OH (i.e. mythic bladefist) and then stack a ton of mastery.

Since mastery gives you a chance to proc an OH swing, does it make sense in practice to stack tons of mastery and use a dagger to get more attacks in per minute and thus more chances for the proc? Obviously the tradeoff is that you are using mastery over other stats as well as a dagger.

I don't know. Maybe someone can enlighten me and debunk this, or tell me if there is any credence to it.

Thanks.

[Tyrean]

Interesting idea. Disclaimer, I don't play rogue.

I looked at our rogue's damage breakdown on Gruul the other night and it was 36.59% Melee, 22.57% SS, and 12.75% Main Gauche. (plus some other stuff that is either super low or not affected by weapon)

I could not figure out how to separate the melee damage into main hand and off hand swings first of all. So I have no idea how that melee number would be affected by switching to dagger. I can make some guesses though... He is rocking a 685 MH and 680 OH. Now a 685 MH Fist weapon has 389dps a 685 Dagger has 389dps too! So it would sound like the melee part of the damage should remain about the same. SS damage is based on MH weapon, right? Fist weapon is like 1k average damage, dagger is like 700 average damage. So 30% less.

So assuming the melee damage stays the same, he would be dropping 23% of his damage by 30%. The speed difference drop from 2.6 to 1.8 is 30%.... So it would seem like if he equipped a dagger in his MH that it would even out the damage. His melee damage would be the same, his SS damage would drop by roughly 30% but his Main Gauche damage would raise by roughly 30%. Of course dropping 23% of your damage by 30% and increasing 13% of your damage by 30% does not add up.

Just guessing I would think you would end up needing so much mastery to make that work that it would be just flat better to have that much master and a normal MH.

[-Raer-]

DISCLAIMER: I barely play anymore, but try to keep up with what the latest TC is around here and RH

My understanding is it's a DPS loss on single target to use a dagger in your mainhand, but a slight gain on 2 target cleave and a pretty significant gain on more than 2.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post31870612

[KiwifruitOCE]

Interesting idea. Disclaimer, I don't play rogue.

I looked at our rogue's damage breakdown on Gruul the other night and it was 36.59% Melee, 22.57% SS, and 12.75% Main Gauche. (plus some other stuff that is either super low or not affected by weapon)

I could not figure out how to separate the melee damage into main hand and off hand swings first of all. So I have no idea how that melee number would be affected by switching to dagger. I can make some guesses though... He is rocking a 685 MH and 680 OH. Now a 685 MH Fist weapon has 389dps a 685 Dagger has 389dps too! So it would sound like the melee part of the damage should remain about the same. SS damage is based on MH weapon, right? Fist weapon is like 1k average damage, dagger is like 700 average damage. So 30% less.

So assuming the melee damage stays the same, he would be dropping 23% of his damage by 30%. The speed difference drop from 2.6 to 1.8 is 30%.... So it would seem like if he equipped a dagger in his MH that it would even out the damage. His melee damage would be the same, his SS damage would drop by roughly 30% but his Main Gauche damage would raise by roughly 30%. Of course dropping 23% of your damage by 30% and increasing 13% of your damage by 30% does not add up.

Just guessing I would think you would end up needing so much mastery to make that work that it would be just flat better to have that much master and a normal MH.

Poisons also proc far more frequently with a dagger in the mainhand.

Sims are pretty clear that mastery is a pretty bad stat with a slow mainhand and is still only 3rd when you have a dagger mainhand. I don't see any reason to think the sims are incorrect on that assessment.