Is combat a serious spec right now?

[pkm]

50 energy for a sinister strike? That is half the energy bar... Is this for real?? Does combat do anything outside CDs now?

[Warstar]

Combat is awesome single and multi target and best cleaving spec we have (which SoO is full of cleave situations).

[Linneth]

I would actually ask if there's a time when combat is outside CDs.

[Deleted]

the energy regen is a bit changed since before, now you have alot of energy thrown on you most of the time, so i dont see it as a huge problem with Combat, but perhaps other specs can make higher total damage.. i dont have any daggers so my option is not so much other then combat.

[Venant]

Combat is awesome single and multi target and best cleaving spec we have (which SoO is full of cleave situations).

Even though we can cleave, our cleave is pathetic compared to many other classes. Rogues have almost no representation in top dps parses on every fight in SoO. If you are doing a single target heavy fight, you should go sub if you are competing with equally skilled dps in your raid.

[Senftw]

Yes combat is best. Assassination is dead

[Deleted]

I guess top single target spec ingame is enough to call it serious.

Even though we can cleave, our cleave is pathetic compared to many other classes. Rogues have almost no representation in top dps parses on every fight in SoO. If you are doing a single target heavy fight, you should go sub if you are competing with equally skilled dps in your raid.

Not sure why ppl post here if they dont play the game.

[Hellhammer]

yeah combat is fine, but don't even consider it with low gear levels...
it requires lots of haste to work
efficiency of the spec goes up exponentially when you stack enough haste, but before that you will just suck
entry spec should be assassination, it is the easiest to play and delivers nice results even with lowgear

[pkm]

yeah combat is fine, but don't even consider it with low gear levels...
it requires lots of haste to work
efficiency of the spec goes up exponentially when you stack enough haste, but before that you will just suck
entry spec should be assassination, it is the easiest to play and delivers nice results even with lowgear

Seriously you need a metric fuck ton of haste or something. And this is me using it in my pvp gear with the extra energy bonus. I'm switching to pve but combat is the only spec i would consider doing pve...

[Sesshou]

Its good, but as you would expect, its incredibly slow outside of cooldowns... and I have like 18k haste. Sub actually has a far quicker pace since the SS change imo.

Though, the real reason to play combat is that it is the only spec where we aren't forced to use a damn dagger.

[shadowboy]

50 energy for a sinister strike? That is half the energy bar... Is this for real?? Does combat do anything outside CDs now?

The damage buff to sinister strike was FAR greater than the energy cost nerf (in other words, while it costs a little more, it does a lot more damage). Combo point generation is pretty much the same due to ruthlessness, the only things really adversely affected by the increased cost are the number of MG procs (fewer SS casts), the number of DP-I procs (fewer SS casts), and BG ramp up (fewer SS casts).

Sinister strike's direct dps contribution increases in spite of the cost, though. It's generally top damage for a non-gimmick patchwerk fight.

[Squirl]

I would actually ask if there's a time when combat is outside CDs.

This.

You shouldn't really play Combat without AoC. Once you have it, your CDs come back very quickly. You spend loads of time in AR/SB.

[Sesshou]

Sinister strike's direct dps contribution increases in spite of the cost, though. It's generally top damage for a non-gimmick patchwerk fight.

I dunno, my MG usually edges out SS on jug and malk and shamans (granted jug is the only one close to a true patchwerk). If you are reforged more into crit though, SS should probably beat it out.

[shadowboy]

I dunno, my MG usually edges out SS on jug and malk and shamans (granted jug is the only one close to a true patchwerk). If you are reforged more into crit though, SS should probably beat it out.

You must have a LOT more mastery than I do. I'm at 54% mastery raid buffed and it's usually SS > melee > MG or SS > MG > melee on something like iron jug or malkorok.

[-Raer-]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=7514&e=7828

This is typically how it goes for me. When SS is > MG I usually figure I had crap RNG on procs >.>

[shadowboy]

The only way I can see that MG would be ahead of SS (in the absence of a gimmick) is if you have a lot of mastery, or don't have T16 2-set (which allows for more sinister strikes).

[Firatha]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=7514&e=7828

This is typically how it goes for me. When SS is > MG I usually figure I had crap RNG on procs >.>

Thats what mine looks like alot with MG just edging ahead I didnt rreally notice till last week and I was like what the hell so I went and looked back at some of my logs and noticed it creeping up on SS and now its back and fourth.

The only way I can see that MG would be ahead of SS (in the absence of a gimmick) is if you have a lot of mastery, or don't have T16 2-set (which allows for more sinister strikes).

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ratha/advanced Have 2p and I have seen people with alot more mastery then me in full heroic gear.

[shadowboy]

Could be haste too. I'm stuck in a lot of haste-absent off-set pieces (since Vanquisher tokens almost never drop for us), so my haste is low-ish at 13k for my ilevel 563 gear set (ordos legs, ordos shoulders, galakras boots, crafted belt, and both rings are all missing native haste).

If haste is the case then my point stands. 17-18k haste is VERY unusual (since heroic raiders are the only people getting that much haste and that's a very small percentage of the population. For most combat rogues, SS is going to be your top damaging ability.

[Sesshou]

How high is your crit compared to your mastery? If you don't have much haste, I'm guessing you have loads of crit. Another thing in common between the 3 of us is that we all are reforging out of all of our crit and putting mastery clearly higher. If you're keeping them more even like SC suggests under the default conditions, you could be reforging out of mastery and not crit. The one week I tried reforging according to SC's normal ep values, I ended up with the two being closer and SS did beat out MG.

[shadowboy]

Crit doesn't favor SS over MG damage, so it's agnostic in regards to the damage sources. Increasing haste will increase MG's damage contribution more than SS, T16 2-set will increase SS's, etc.

Crit's EP is very close to mastery for me so in a couple previous iterations of my gear set I had to balance the stats (reforging into mastery on some pieces, crit on others). They're close enough that I reforge out of crit on the ordos legs (because the amount of crit and mastery is similar, but mastery has a slightly higher EP in my current gear), but I reforge out of mastery on the ordos shoulders (since there is significantly more mastery than crit on them and the extra haste from reforging out of mastery outweighs the EP difference between crit and mastery).

That said, my current EP values by shadowcraft are 1.278 for mastery and 1.254 for crit (at one point they have been within 0.002 of each other).

The fact is that I've been plagued with unluck regarding tier pieces so my best pieces in some slots happen to not have haste on them (I have the normal nazgrim shoulders, but the ordos ones edge them out just by item level, same with my 553 tier legs vs ordos 559 legs). Once I get my 4th normal tier token, my haste should increase substantially. I'm not worried about it though. I'm not feeling wanting of energy at 13k haste unless blade flurry is up. Even then it isn't bad.