5.2 tuning pass

[Ryme]

So that would mean with the 30% vitality the 112,384 would go up to 116,87936?

Do these numbers include the buffs to assasination already? Or that still would have to be added to the above mentioned number?

The vitality buff only effects attack power, not damage, so the increase isn't a straight 4% increase to dps.

All numbers done here are in T14H bis under live conditions.

[pureallstar3482]

Maybe I don't get it, but the combat vs assassination discussion perplexes me. The only time, right now, that combat is better than assassination is for 2-4 adds. Single DPS and 5+ adds, assassination is far better, look at simcraft. Assassination is also getting a bigger buff than combat is, so, assuming you have 2 daggers, assassination will always be better in 5.2, especially since blade flurry is getting nerfed.

[RogueDurr]

Maybe I don't get it, but the combat vs assassination discussion perplexes me. The only time, right now, that combat is better than assassination is for 2-4 adds. Single DPS and 5+ adds, assassination is far better, look at simcraft. Assassination is also getting a bigger buff than combat is, so, assuming you have 2 daggers, assassination will always be better in 5.2, especially since blade flurry is getting nerfed.

Combat is getting a bigger Single Target buff then assassination. Combat is getting about 4% and assassination is getting somewhere in the 3-3.3% (there is some evidence is actually lower then that) range. In terms of single target in BIS, combat is currently about 3% below assassination (gap is bigger if you are in less gear, as much as 6%). Combat is scaling quicker then assassination. At some point in progression, depending if you are a normal or heroic raider, combat will surpass assassination in single target.

So When Should I Switch to Combat from Assassination for single Target?
When you get your 4-piece and your ilvl is equal to full normal modes. 4 piece is very very strong for combat. It really boasts your dps, assuming your cpu can deal with a .5 GCD and you have enough energy regen. At full going onto heroic gear, you should have enough energy regen to fit more finishers in during Deep Insight and relentless blades will have more effect on your cooldowns. (this is also assuming your a good player and manage anticipation correctly as combat)

Multi-Target:

2-5 targets combat will win. At 2 targets its close, but 3-5 its a clear win for combat. 6+ I am not 100% sure. I would say combat will still win at 6, but will begin to lose and 7 and 8.

P.S: SimC stinks use shadowcraft.

[Sesshou]

Since the new build is up, anyone actually log onto the ptr to see if the envenom "buff" is just a tooltip error? By that I mean only the flat extra damage was getting the 20% according to the tooltips and the scaling was still at 56% ap as it is on live.

[Maelstrom51]

-snip-

A few things...
1) In BiS gear, shadowcraft shows assassination to be 5.5% ahead of combat on live, not 3% as you say.
2) Shadowcraft isn't showing Combat to scale any meaningful amount better than Assassination. Its showing a 16 ilvl increase in gear to be 37% increase in dps for combat, versus a 36% dps increase in dps for Assassination (Note: the starting set I used to test this is my my gear, which is all assassination stats, then gemmed and reforged for Combat. This makes the test favor combat a little bit, since the BiS set uses more pieces with combat stats).
3) While its true the new four piece greatly favors combat, the old four piece favored combat even more. In addition, the new two piece bonus greatly favors assassination (20% more envenom uptime is huge), while the old two piece slightly favored combat.
4) A 4% increase in attack power is not a 4% damage increase for combat. C'mon now.

To sum it all up, there is little chance combat will be outscaling Assassination any time soon. At least on single target, anyway.

[Carp The Fish]

You know what'd be a good idea for Mut once they start the re-design? (if they do one)
Making Envenom into something that we don't have to worry about clipping it by making the buff stack on itself (time-wise, not power-wise). It'd make Rupture less painful to use (personally I like Envenom uptime more than Rupture uptime), the only way to quickly stack it would be to pool energy (the current status quo), and once you got a good amount fo Envenom buff you'd actually switch the rotation to the "use energy as you get it" rotation.
That might be cool.

Back on topic, I feel like Rogues are in a good place right now. All of the specs do good damage, survivability went up a little, we've got interesting talents now, and it won't be hurtful to bring melee DPS to most of the fights in Throne of Thunder.

[Khas]

You know what'd be a good idea for Mut once they start the re-design? (if they do one)
Making Envenom into something that we don't have to worry about clipping it by making the buff stack on itself (time-wise, not power-wise). It'd make Rupture less painful to use (personally I like Envenom uptime more than Rupture uptime), the only way to quickly stack it would be to pool energy (the current status quo), and once you got a good amount fo Envenom buff you'd actually switch the rotation to the "use energy as you get it" rotation.
That might be cool.

Back on topic, I feel like Rogues are in a good place right now. All of the specs do good damage, survivability went up a little, we've got interesting talents now, and it won't be hurtful to bring melee DPS to most of the fights in Throne of Thunder.

very good idea, would like to see that implemented .

[shadowboy]

I think the 4-set is just poorly designed and poorly balanced. If you're going to design a class with 1 high resource regeneration spec, you don't design a set bonus to reduce resource cost. That's conflicting design that leads to dumb shit like having to have a reduced GCD for the set bonus. If workarounds like that are needed, it's indicative of a poor design somewhere. In simc's latest build with the T15H combat profile energy overflow is over 15% during AR. In T14H on live it's only ~2% in and if you disable the 4-set for PTR T15H it's 7%. The t15 4-set DOUBLES combat's energy overflow during AR even with the reduced GCD. This means that combat is largely GCD capped still on a shorter GCD. Combat's dps increase is probably due more to the GCD reduction than the energy cost reduction. This leads to more finishers, which in turn leads to more AR/SB uptime. The snowball effect from this is huge, such that with the current PTR version of simc, combat's dps without the 0.7sec GCD on the t15 4-set is actually the same as with the 4-set disabled.

Here are my findings, all with simc's default T15H BiS profile:
T15H 4-set disabled
A: 178,673; C: 176,055; S: 182,192
T15H 4-set enabled
A: 186,361; C: 203,166; S: 186,205
T15H 4-set enabled with the 0.7sec GCD removed (I modified the source and rebuilt it)
A: 182,626; C: 176,682 (AR/SB coupled) or 179,681 (AR/SB decoupled); S: 183,885

Looking in more depth at what's going on: Without the T15 4-set, at the 14k haste that the T15H BiS profile has, combat is already overflowing 7% energy during AR (AR/SB coupled). The T15H 4-set increases this to 38% overflow (1.0s GCD, before AR glyph). This is why without the GCD reduction combat's dps does not appreciably change with the 4-set--the set bonus is literally wasted. If you decouple the two cooldowns when T15H 4-pc is added (1.0s GCD), the energy overflow is reduced to only 4% during AR.

Look at the GIGANTIC simulated dps increase combat is getting from the 4-set. The 4-set is not balanced because it clashes with combat's inefficient but abundant resource mechanic.

My personal thoughts:
In retrospect, with mists design, reducing vitality to 20% was a step in the right direction. Making AR regen stack multiplicatively with vitality made the AR situation WORSE than it was in cata (they stacked additively in cata). The problem is adrenaline rush--the cooldown needs a complete redesign. I personally love its synergy with shadow blades, but it just causes more problems than it solves. The contribution of the 4-set for assassination and subtlety is on par with what a set bonus should be IMO. With combat it's disproportionately large if you reduce the GCD, disproportionately small if you don't.

[Carp The Fish]

*snippet*

Which is why you should unlink Shadow Blades from AR.
/10chars
But serious reply, did you try "4-set enabled" without the 0.7 GCD removed and AR/SB decoupled?

From a theory-crafting standpoint, Shadow Blades was the real problem in the mix. I love Adrenaline Rush (to me, Combat is like Rufus from SFIV, the fast fat guy), but Shadow Blades doubling the CP generation speeds AR up too much for my tastes.
it is kind of moot for Mut. The only 2 things that T15 4P changes for Mut's normal rotation is that Rupture will be able to be used at 4CPs if you have to refresh it during Vendetta.
Subtlety's rotation with the T15 4P will focus around chaining 6-8CPs from Shadow Blades into a Vanish or Shadow Dance and extending your "big damage" phase for as long as possible. Cool stuff, hope that it brings back memories of Heroic Spine CD chains.

[shadowboy]

Which is why you should unlink Shadow Blades from AR.
/10chars
But serious reply, did you try "4-set enabled" without the 0.7 GCD removed and AR/SB decoupled?

No, but that's trivial (and not really relevent to the discussion at hand).

Edit: For the sake of completeness, I just ran it that way.

192,726 for combat, t15H, 4-set enabled, 0.7sec GCD, and AR/SB decoupled. Energy overflow from AR dropped from 15% to less than 1%. And yes, SB generating more finishers is part of the problem. I like shadow blades though. It's a fun cooldown. I don't find adrenaline rush fun any more--it was fun when energy regen didn't scale with haste. It's just a relic that's become outdated by changes to game mechanics.

[whathump]

snip

Is that run with the PTR buffs? If it is then... well, dang. I don't really want to feel forced into Combat because the other two specs are that far behind. =/

[Maelstrom51]

T15H 4-set enabled
A: 186,361; C: 203,166; S: 186,205

That is insane. I wasn't expecting the 4 set to be so ridiculously strong for combat.

On another note, with the 15% energy wastage, it seems that the four set will benefit lesser geared rogues more than extremely geared rogues. I guess there is a positive side to this, as it will make rogues a very strong class for progression, and an excuse to funnel us all the tier that drops...

[Kael]

That is insane. I wasn't expecting the 4 set to be so ridiculously strong for combat.

On another note, with the 15% energy wastage, it seems that the four set will benefit lesser geared rogues more than extremely geared rogues. I guess there is a positive side to this, as it will make rogues a very strong class for progression, and an excuse to funnel us all the tier that drops...

Psh, you get that by being the best player and walking into the traps back in ICC while trying to disarm them. Note: your raid will never forget it.

As for the set bonus; not the cost reduction, but the GCD reduction, assuming energy cap, is an extra 9 abilities per AR/SB (from 15 abilities at 12/.8 to 24 at 12/.5). That's huuuuge, especially as AR/SB becomes a shorter CD each tier to higher levels of haste allowing more offensive finishers between casts (and don't forget, longer SnD for yet more offensives from the 2p). If we assume you AR/SB every 100 seconds, and all of the added combo generators are SS, this is worth 7 SS damage, 2 eviscerates, and 5.4 additional CP - effectively, coming out of AR/SB, 7xSS damage and 3 eviscerates - which is 3 eviscerates of damage, and a full 30 seconds off the AR/SB cycle, which contributes hugely to auto-attack damage (although it's written as shadow blades)... per 100 (sorry, now 70) seconds. It's problematically powerful.

I'm baffled by Blizzard's decision to implement the set this way, but, well, there it is?

[shadowboy]

Mugajack: the fact that it's mostly due to the shorter GCD is pretty much exactly what I'm arguing. The simc had an average cd of 75sec (it's currently about 85sec on live) for AR/SB and an average of an eviscerate every 5.5 sec (as opposed to the ~8-8.5sec it normally is)

[Maelstrom51]

I am aware that a major part of the set bonus is the GCD reduction. I am arguing that lesser geared rogues will see a larger relative gain in dps with the four piece than BiS rogues since they will get more use of out the cost reduction, which is partially wasted at BiS levels.

[Carp The Fish]

I am aware that a major part of the set bonus is the GCD reduction. I am arguing that lesser geared rogues will see a larger relative gain in dps with the four piece than BiS rogues since they will get more use of out the cost reduction, which is partially wasted at BiS levels.

I don't see a problem with this, since the only time it's going to "matter" (e.g. the only time all the raiders are going to get angry about it) is after progression when it doesn't REALLY matter.

Honestly, I'm a little more interested in the T15 2P than the 4P. Slice and Dice only needing to be stacked to 2CPs again?! Yes please!

[Kael]

Mugajack: the fact that it's mostly due to the shorter GCD is pretty much exactly what I'm arguing. The simc had an average cd of 75sec (it's currently about 85sec on live) for AR/SB and an average of an eviscerate every 5.5 sec (as opposed to the ~8-8.5sec it normally is)

Not disagreeing at all; putting words to the logic between the lines for people who might have missed it. Seems odd that SimC only shows it pulling 10s off the average CD of AR/SB, though; I'd expect more movement.

I am aware that a major part of the set bonus is the GCD reduction. I am arguing that lesser geared rogues will see a larger relative gain in dps with the four piece than BiS rogues since they will get more use of out the cost reduction, which is partially wasted at BiS levels.

Will they see a significant relative gain in lesser gear? I'm pretty sure that the energy isn't a concern under AR/SB by 502 gear, when it's first likely to obtain the 4piece at all. If you're energy capped for AR/SB, the double reduction from time is +GCDs, not +energy; if the lesser geared rogue can't afford to use all 24 GCDs, they aren't getting a greater benefit out of it; BiS geared rogues are already taking the maximum benefit (+9 abilities under AR/SB). In order to get a greater benefit, lesser geared rogues have to gain 10+ abilities, to go from at maximum 14 before (not energy capped).

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 02:43 PM ----------

Honestly, I'm a little more interested in the T15 2P than the 4P. Slice and Dice only needing to be stacked to 2CPs again?! Yes please!

I don't see a reason why you'd intentionally use 2 CP SnD's for a 3-CP-effect SnD instead of 5 or a 6-effect. The same principals that made it a good idea should remain, just the time of effect goes through the roof.

[maxxz1]

Interesting

Infracted: spam in multiple threads

[Carp The Fish]

I don't see a reason why you'd intentionally use 2 CP SnD's for a 3-CP-effect SnD instead of 5 or a 6-effect. The same principals that made it a good idea should remain, just the time of effect goes through the roof.

A few things I kind of realized while writing this massive and long "How T15 2P will affect keeping SND up" essay (long story short, it doesn't, keep doing it how you've been doing it):

1. You can't use Eviscerate at 4CPs as Combat (which you can do with Envenom if you wanted) because the T15 2P doesn't apply to Restless Blades.
2. Imagine how powerful the T15 2P would have been if they had made it work with Restless Blades. It'd almost possibly mean another GUARANTEED use of AR and SB per fight.

[Sesshou]

Since you are saying you can envenom at 4cp with the 2pc, the 2pc works with relentless strikes? I would think it wouldn't as it is only giving you extra duration and not actually treating it as an extra cp or you would get damage from it too.