Combat Compendium

[Voij]

Hrhr, name's what you get^^
Failure, you HAVE to get Lightning Reflexes as a Combat rogue.
What you posted there is the Pre-3.1 spec, coming 3.1 you'll choose on of the following:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684
or
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684

(Of course the point in throwing specialization could be placed anywhere in that tree.)

[Divni]

Awesome guide, I was hoping for someone to write up something similar Thanks a lot

[Nemz0r]

Sword Specialization will also be triggered by off-hand swing and abilities. The effect of Sword Specialization is "An extra swing with main-hand weapon". In short: off-hand proc = main-hand extra attack.

Mm I was under the impression of this too... However, looking at Recount from last night's raid, all my sword spec procs were in the range of about 600noncrit and 1200crit. Where as my mainhand auto attacks were closing in to 3000crit. Leading me to believe offhand sword spec procs simply gave another offhand attack, not a mainhand attack.

[ulyssesric]

Mm I was under the impression of this too... However, looking at Recount from last night's raid, all my sword spec procs were in the range of about 600noncrit and 1200crit. Where as my mainhand auto attacks were closing in to 3000crit. Leading me to believe offhand sword spec procs simply gave another offhand attack, not a mainhand attack.

That's a known bug of Recount, or to be precise, a "phenomena" that will affect ANY combat log parser.

When your sword specialization procs, it will show a special message in the combat log. But the extra attacks of sword specialization effect had no significant remarks on it; it just looks like a normal attack in the combat log. The tricky part is: the extra attack of sword specialization appears BEFORE the proc message in the combat log.

And that's why some combat log parser can't handle it correctly.

[ulyssesric]

The sword specialization mechanism was fully tested by players in a Chinese forum.
AFAIK, they were testing with these two weapons:

MH: Crimson Cranium Crusher (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41824)
OH: Dalaran Sword (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44638)

You can easily distinguish attacks from each of these two weapons in the combat log. Since CCC is mace, only OH may proc sword specialization. If any proc message shown in the combat log, it's the OH.

CCC is 2.8 and Dalaran sword is 1.4, in the combat log you'll see something like this:

Attacks from MH
Attacks from OH
Attacks from OH
Attacks from MH
Attacks from OH
Attacks from OH

When sword specialization procs, the combat log may look like this:

Attacks from MH
Attacks from OH <-- This attack procs sword specialization
Attacks from MH <-- It's THE extra attack
Sword Specialization proc
Attacks from OH <-- Recount log this as extra attack
Attacks from MH
Attacks from OH
Attacks from OH

They've took a screenshot of the combat log,
and it clearly proved the mechanism of sword specialization: OH proc = MH extra attack.

[Grindfreak]

Couldnt have explained it better

[Fåilure]

Yes Voij i know what a rogue will NEED in 3.1 i don't know why that build linked

This is what i was going for.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...2&version=9684

[Shadowfade]

I'm thinking about:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...5&version=9684

[Voij]

Yes Voij i know what a rogue will NEED in 3.1 i don't know why that build linked

This is what i was going for.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...2&version=9684

interesting choice, but unless they decide to change Serrated Blades to a percentage value, and i haven't read of it yet.
PLUS: Coming 3.1 your Rupture- and White-Damage will be lower percentages of your overall damage, as poison-dmg was increased. (Wound poison will have about an 80% procchance on your Mainhand weapon as a Combat Rogue.)
Atm you can still spec 7/51/13, but with 3.1 you'd better choose 18/51/2. (Unless the T8 set bonusses will mean an incredible buff for Rupture, something like Rupture might crit or so.)

[Nemz0r]

Thanks for explaining ulyssesric . I thought something might not be right when occasionally Recount said "Sword Specialization (Wound Poison)".

The extra attack from sword spec can proc poison, correct? I'm beginning to think sword spec with equal DPS weapons is more competitive with fist spec than I originally thought. Especially since we're at ~45-50% crit chance in raids already at "tier1".

[Voij]

Thanks for explaining ulyssesric . I thought something might not be right when occasionally Recount said "Sword Specialization (Wound Poison)".

The extra attack from sword spec can proc poison, correct? I'm beginning to think sword spec with equal DPS weapons is more competitive with fist spec than I originally thought. Especially since we're at ~45-50% crit chance in raids already at "tier1".

it is rather close, but there's still quite a difference. (Most rogues didn't know that Fistspec was quite close to Swordspec in BC aswell, but Sword was still a little better.)

[Nemz0r]

Rogue

• Rogue T8 2P Bonus -- Your Deadly Poison causes you to gain 1 energy each time it deals damage.
• Rogue T8 4P Bonus -- The damage dealt by your Rupture can now be critical strikes.

So - do you reckon Wound/Deadly > Wound/Wound? And how about 7-51-13 vs. 18-51-2 now?

[ulyssesric]

The extra attack from sword spec can proc poison, correct?

That's true. The extra attack is treated like normal melee swing.
The only difference is: extra attack will not proc another sword specialization.

I'm beginning to think sword spec with equal DPS weapons is more competitive with fist spec than I originally thought. Especially since we're at ~45-50% crit chance in raids already at "tier1".

The mechanism of sword specialization had been changed for several times, and that's a long story...

In vanilla WoW, the effect of sword spec. is: "reset the delay time of next main-hand swing." Obviously, it's far from "an extra attack". At that time the top DPS spec was 15/31/5 combat dagger, and top PvP spec was 21/8/22 "Classical". The damage composition of top-geared Rogue was 60% auto-attack, 40% backstab. Poison is non-significant since many mobs/bosses immune to poison at that time, and you'll exhaust almost every combo points for keeping SnD up.

When TBC released, the newly introduced combat potency talent and easy-to-acquired fast off-hand weapon had changed everything. The mechanism of sword spec. was changed to "an extra attack (yellow damage) from main-hand" in the first two release of TBC, and that makes sword spec. OP, since a yellow damage will not suffer from duel-wielding punishment, and will never glancing-blow.

In patch 2.1, the extra attack was changed to white damage. But sword spec. was still most powerful PVE spec. For a standard MH 2.6 / OH 1.5 set, the benefit of sword spec was 7.6% increase to auto-attack damage and 3.8% to ability, while the Fist was 4.5% to auto-attack damage and 6.7% to ability. The damage composition of top-geared Rogue was 60% auto-attack, 30% ability, 10% poison damage. Sword specialization will grant an overall 5.7% increase to DPS, while Fist spec. will grant 4.7%. (Those numbers was calculated years ago, don't ask me for details...I can only remember the result)

In WotLK, the mechanism did not changed. But tons of other factors were changed:

1. Energy regeneration rate boosted (with talent)
2. AP coefficient of finishing moves boosted
3. Poison damage boosted
4. Poison can crit now
5. Crit damage now 220% (with talent)
6. Glyph of Sinister Strike
7. Ridiculous requirement for white damage hit cap.

The auto-attack damage now only 38~41% of total damage, equal to ability damage. The benefit from crit is increased, and hit-rate no longer the most important attribute. And that's why CQC out-perform Sword spec. now.

Unless the mechanism changed again in the future release, CQC will grant you more benefit than sword spec. At least until you reaches Crit cap, which is generally 60% for white damage or 85% for abilities. However, at that point you can just switch +AGI enchanting / gem to +AP ones and stay optimum.

So - do you reckon Wound/Deadly > Wound/Wound? And how about 7-51-13 vs. 18-51-2 now?

In 3.1, yes. Wound poison was changed to PPM in the PTR, and that means fast weapon will no longer grant more poison damage with IP/WP. However, DP is still fixed proc-per-hit rate, and the AP coefficient of DP increased by 50%.

[winternights]

In WotLK, the mechanism did not changed. But tons of other factors were changed:

1. Energy regeneration rate boosted (with talent)
2. AP coefficient of finishing moves boosted
3. Poison damage boosted
4. Poison can crit now
5. Crit damage now 230% (with talent)
6. Glyph of Sinister Strike
7. Ridiculous requirement for white damage hit cap.

The auto-attack damage now only 38~41% of total damage, equal to ability damage. The benefit from crit is increased, and hit-rate no longer the most important attribute. And that's why CQC out-perform Sword spec. now.

Unless the mechanism changed again in the future release, CQC will grant you more benefit than sword spec. At least until you reaches Crit cap, which is generally 60% for white damage or 85% for abilities.

I don't believe CQC surpassed sword specialization in WotLK, it's however easily thought so considering the top tier weapon is currently a fist so it's desirable. I dare to say that sword spec is still the best weapon specialization, atleast until Blizzard actually manages to pinpoint the "bug" with OH proccing MH swing, even though some of the changes in the expansion clearly favoured CQC more.

Is CQC really affecting poison crit rates?
Anyways like you said, most of the things numbered down affect CQC to a greater deal but not enough.
Swords edge out on white and poison damage, fists on specials and finishers.
While around 65% of our damage is white and poisons, 35% is from specials and finishers. In TBC we had roughly 70% white and poisons, 30% specials and finishers. By that, CQC gained some value but not enough to actually excel swords.

Quite easy to just do a sample comparison between the Gladiator weapons to roughly see

Deadly Pummeler + Bonecracker 5161 dps
Deadly Right + Left Ripper 5160 dps (KT's Reach + Murder 5260 dps)
Deadly Slicer + Quickblade 5192 dps (Silent Crusader + Hailstorm 5294 dps)
Deadly Right Ripper + Quickblade 5206 dps (KT's Reach + Hailstorm 5322 dps)

[ulyssesric]

I don't believe CQC surpassed sword specialization in WotLK, it's however easily thought so considering the top tier weapon is currently a fist so it's desirable. I dare to say that sword spec is still the best weapon specialization, atleast until Blizzard actually manages to pinpoint the "bug" with OH proccing MH swing, even though some of the changes in the expansion clearly favoured CQC more.

Sword spec. now works well with CQC (a.k.a. Fist/Sword build,) but this build will not exist in 3.1 since Lighting Reflex will absorb 3 out of 4 redundant points. You will be able to choose either CQC or Sword.

I guess that sword spec will be viable again when rogues' white damage + MH poison damage exceeds ability damage by an amount of quantities, but I don't know whether that point exists.

The benefit of sword spec isn't changed much since TBC, but it's too difficult to model the benefit of CQC right now because of Glyph of Sinister Strike. However, with Prey for the Weak, the benefit of CQC will get 5% further increase. So even with future tier of gears that would grant rogues close to white-hit-cap, the difference of CQC and sword spec will never acted like TBC.

Maybe I was wrong for under-estimating the benefits from MH poison since the WP is PPM in 3.1, just like the combat-shiv build, nobody thought it will out-perform standard combat build until we saw the facts.

I think it's worth trying.

Is CQC really affecting poison crit rates?

Apparently poison is not associated with melee attack table, but spell attack table,
and the poison crit rate is only affected by Crit-rate from gears.

[couplemate]

Or you can look at everything the first post has written and think to yourself Hmmmm is that Cut N Pasted from Elitistsjerks.......... lol

GO TO ELITISTJERKS, LIVE IT, LOVE IT.<(thats a full stop)

[Nemz0r]

Have to say, I preferred 30-8-13 .

I prefer swords for the look and extra attacks are tasty, so heres to hoping something will happen - but looking at those Gladiator weapons comparison numbers it's really not that far apart.

Also, what is with the 1.6speed offhand swords in Ulduar - they're really putting the nail in the coffin by grouping fists with daggers in CQC and then offering 1.5daggers but 1.6swords. I hope they change those.

[ant1pathy]

Or you can look at everything the first post has written and think to yourself Hmmmm is that Cut N Pasted from Elitistsjerks.......... lol

GO TO ELITISTJERKS, LIVE IT, LOVE IT.<(thats a full stop)

Yes, it's the information from EJ summarized and with a few comments here and there. Since most people here are afraid of EJ, and when they see "OMG MATHS" their brains shut down, it's nice to have it here to link to and lock threads. So if you have nothing to add, please don't post.

[Voij]

Yes, it's the information from EJ summarized and with a few comments here and there. Since most people here are afraid of EJ, and when they see "OMG MATHS" their brains shut down, it's nice to have it here to link to and lock threads. So if you have nothing to add, please don't post.

i for one am just not motivated enough to read through threads with 500-1500 replies.

[Nemz0r]

Anyone else thrilled to see http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...h/03_21_18.jpg ? A 1.4 sword, zomg! <3