Assassination: The nitty gritty

[Squirl]

As I now state in most opener discussions: remember that openers have very, very little impact on your overall DPS.

That said, I'm still doing Mut > SnD > Mut > Rupt > Vendetta > global > SB > regular rotation. I'm pretty sure that simmed out to be the best by a very small margin some time last tier. I haven't seen any opener sims since that one. If someone could run some more, that would be cool. I don't know how to do that.

Putting actual numbers in the conversation will be good to show just how little a difference the opener makes too. New/underperforming rogues tend to but too much emphasis on the opener when looking for places to improve. I do think that it should still be done optimally, however, it will likely change depending on gear and it's a lot of work just to find something that might increase your DPS by .01%.

[ltabdiel]

Agreed, maximizing passive damage>energy regen which is why Mastery>Haste in our stat priority. So SND>Rupture in our opening sequence.

I don't necessarily agree with most of this post. I have gained the most benefit by doing a mut>rupt>mut>SnD>CDs+Rotation opener, as Macor posted above, than anything. Also, I am not sure what your gear is like, but ShC still has me at Haste>Mastery>Crit at 548 iLevel. Also if you look at any of the BiS Normal or Heroic ShC builds they all have Haste about 2-3k higher than Mastery/Crit.

- - - Updated - - -

As I now state in most opener discussions: remember that openers have very, very little impact on your overall DPS.

...

Putting actual numbers in the conversation will be good to show just how little a difference the opener makes too. New/underperforming rogues tend to but too much emphasis on the opener when looking for places to improve. I do think that it should still be done optimally, however, it will likely change depending on gear and it's a lot of work just to find something that might increase your DPS by .01%.

True enough, assuming you are performing a good opener, and performing your rotation correctly, RNG of mechanics and RNG of the RPPM trinket proc timing is going to have a lot more of an influence on your dps.

[OneSent]

I use the same opener as Xquizite and the reason for casting Mut > Mut > Rupt, is because of Shadow Focus.

Casting Mut > SnD would cause you to energy cap, thus wasting energy (the same can be said for Mut > Rupt). And of course, you wouldn't want to Mut > Mut > SnD since you never really want to waste more than 1 GCD getting SnD up. That leaves Mut > Mut > Rupt > Mut/Dispatch > SnD.

I've tried many different openers and at the end of the fight, I really doesn't matter which one you use. But I feel that Mut > Mut > Rupt > Mut/Dispatch > SnD is the smoothest and easiest to replicate. Also, take into consideration that by getting a 4+ Rupture up in the opener means that you can spam more Envenoms during Shadow Blades.

The only issue I've had with this opener is that it does take a few more globals to get things going. And with the change to the 5.3 RPPM trink procs only lasting 10 secs (instead of the old 20 secs), the procs are halfway over by the time I start Envenom spam.

[Kael]

What "feels" right really doesn't have anything to do with what performs best. You don't want to energy cap, you don't want rupture down, you don't want SnD down, and you want to be using envenoms as early as possible.

The following are worth consideration for following this, as regards changes from where we started:

-Auto attacks are increasingly potent, by nature of high mastery and increasing weapon damage.
-Rupture's VW energy return is muted by higher haste-energy values, making it less of a priority than in the past.
-Energy capping is ONLY a DPS loss if you are not using the highest DPET for continuing the fight. Only DPE becomes meaningless.

You're welcome to go back and sim expected openers again, but unless you see differing values, the ones posted from the simulations of openers for 5.2/5.3 should remain accurate. See information HERE. The results were primarily close together, but as of last tier, having buffs > not having buffs, and SnD > rup. If you want to check, I recommend re-running those possible openers at 100k iterations; the results are likely to be close.

[Ryme]

I use the same opener as Xquizite and the reason for casting Mut > Mut > Rupt, is because of Shadow Focus.

Casting Mut > SnD would cause you to energy cap, thus wasting energy (the same can be said for Mut > Rupt). And of course, you wouldn't want to Mut > Mut > SnD since you never really want to waste more than 1 GCD getting SnD up. That leaves Mut > Mut > Rupt > Mut/Dispatch > SnD.

I've tried many different openers and at the end of the fight, I really doesn't matter which one you use. But I feel that Mut > Mut > Rupt > Mut/Dispatch > SnD is the smoothest and easiest to replicate. Also, take into consideration that by getting a 4+ Rupture up in the opener means that you can spam more Envenoms during Shadow Blades.

The only issue I've had with this opener is that it does take a few more globals to get things going. And with the change to the 5.3 RPPM trink procs only lasting 10 secs (instead of the old 20 secs), the procs are halfway over by the time I start Envenom spam.

I haven't run opener sims in a long time, but SnD is more important that rupture in the outset, delaying it for that long would seem to be inefficient. As said before, the dps difference in these openers tiny, so don't fret too much over it.

[Tigerlily89]

Tnx, nice post

[Deleted]

Crit best 2ndary stat with 2set, hands down.

[Macor]

hmm strange ShC forces crit>haste>mastery dont like it but need to try it out and see actuall raid results.

[intrinsc]

Depending on your gear it will value crit until it hits a certain point then haste crit and mastery are, tbh, very similar in value. Crit is raised very high as soon as you get 2pc T16, I noticed.

[Macor]

2t16/2t15hc according to ShC yellds in (auto reforge) 10488crit/9152haste/7810 mastery but from smashing dummie for about 10 mins (unbuffed not even alch flask) 30%haste/30%crit yellds more than full crit reforges by about 1-2% overall.
As personal checker i disable execute phase and buffs/debuffs from dummie so patchwerk fight with only rogues debuffs active sitting average 210k on dummie durring ~10min fight.
Ofc any tips are welcomed http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Tlr/advanced

Just a note was playing with reforges last night so not perfectly tuned but raid buffed +flask/food crit is around 38%.

And 1 question is 2t16 nerfed or tooltips are bugged? In skada tooltip says 15 energy reduction but on mutilate tooltip and set bonus tooltip says 6energy/stack and blindstrike proc crit doesnt consume stack of set bonus.

[-Raer-]

Shadowcraft is probably set to full raid buffs. Dummy tests aren't that great because you can have SUPEROMG rng and have 50-60% uptime on RPPM trinkets, or the complete opposite. You'd need to do several thousand dummy tests to see what is better over the average, which is what Shadowcraft and Simcraft do.

[uctar]

hey guys,
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Uctar/advanced

Thats what im running atm. Mastery>Crit>Haste reforged as i am not a big fan of haste RPPM rng.
Sadly our maintank rerolled Paladin from Warrior and our Resto and Moonkin Druids refuses to debuff Weakened Armor on the target(or when they do its only 70% uptime).
Considering im wasting energy and gcds on Expose Armor, i have lower envenom uptime and less Mutilates.

I was asking myslef if this favors a Haste build sololy argued by Expose Armor?

[Kael]

Replacing the occasional half a mutilate with expose armor should not have a meaningful impact on your stat priorities.

[Fluorescent0]

Shadowcraft is probably set to full raid buffs. Dummy tests aren't that great because you can have SUPEROMG rng and have 50-60% uptime on RPPM trinkets, or the complete opposite. You'd need to do several thousand dummy tests to see what is better over the average, which is what Shadowcraft and Simcraft do.

Nope, that's what Simcraft does. Shadowcraft doesn't do several thousand dummy tests, it makes calculations based on models which only rely on your stats.

[Gnu]

Hey guys,

I'm back after a 5 months break and was wondering about stats priority with the new patch. I've seen people gemming/reforging to haste. Is that better than crit? I'm guessing mastery is still the best thing to go to after agility, right?

Thanks in advance!


EDIT: nevermind just saw the posts above, sorry about that...

[Khetagurov]

so i was running mastery>haste>crit, shadowcraft told me to go crit>haste>mastery, i did that and updated it out of curiosity, without any gear change, gem change or anything else, and it's changed the stat weights to haste>mastery>crit.

am i missing something here?

[Maelstrom51]

so i was running mastery>haste>crit, shadowcraft told me to go crit>haste>mastery, i did that and updated it out of curiosity, without any gear change, gem change or anything else, and it's changed the stat weights to haste>mastery>crit.

am i missing something here?

Assassination stat weights are so close together that the priority shifts depending on how much you have of each stat. The more mastery you have, the less valuable mastery will be comparatively. The same happens with the other stats.

Shadowcraft does not reforge dynamically with shifting wights. It looks at the weights when you press the button, then reforges accordingly. If you want the highest potential dps, you will likely have to do some manual shifting around of your reforges and gems. What you want to do, is after you hit optimize, one item at a time, take from the stat that is now listed as the lowest value, and reforge it or regem it to the highest priority.

Of course, this all comes with the caveat that for single target, RNG and player skill will likely make a bigger difference in dps than this manual tuning, and for multi target a stat priority of mastery > crit > haste will win out.

[Deleted]

Argh, I cant get my reforges to be optimal, something always seems to be messed up! Shadowcraft is putting me in a spot where it has no idea wether I should go for haste, mastery or crit.
I have 2p T16, ToT trinkets (juju HC TF and rentaki HC), meta and cloak. For it to settle down and actually not give me different reforges every time I push the button I had to lock it at Haste>Crit>Mastery, but I have no idea if this actually is the one I should go for! Normally Id just go to elitistjerks and check, but that thread have not been updated since June -.-

EDIT: seems to be giving me the best dps when I lock it at Ha>Ma>Cr

[straws]

If shadowcraft is shuffling between different stat weights that means all your secondary stats are close in value ,and you can reforge to all secondaries having similar values , something like 8k, 8k,9k (mastery,crit ,haste) . I have similar gear as you and same thing happens to shadowcraft when i try to reforge, i have gone for a mastery heavy reforge because it is ahead when there are multiple targets or significant movement/going off target.

[Deleted]

If shadowcraft is shuffling between different stat weights that means all your secondary stats are close in value ,and you can reforge to all secondaries having similar values , something like 8k, 8k,9k (mastery,crit ,haste) . I have similar gear as you and same thing happens to shadowcraft when i try to reforge, i have gone for a mastery heavy reforge because it is ahead when there are multiple targets or significant movement/going off target.

Right, thanks! Is there any point where X becomes very much stronger than Z&Y, like Haste was in ToT with 2x trinkets and meta?