When there are a lot of targets (20+ mobs), should you be using blade flurry and FoK or only FoK? Also, is FoK better than SS in this situation? If yes, when is it preferable to use SS over FoK?
Looking forward to hearing your answers.
When there are a lot of targets (20+ mobs), should you be using blade flurry and FoK or only FoK? Also, is FoK better than SS in this situation? If yes, when is it preferable to use SS over FoK?
Looking forward to hearing your answers.
Been a while since I've seen any work into it, but I believe FoK + BF works out higher at around 7+ mobs with Crimson Tempest also becoming the main finisher somewhere not far off that as well.
I am the lucid dream
Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh
CT is not good idea in Combat, BF 2 targets its slightly dps increase, 3+ more. Im not sure now is BF applying Deadly Poison, so i assume you can use FoK one ot twice to put poisons and do normal single target rotation, but someone need confirm that because i didint play combat for a while....
ps. i remember good times, before BL was nerfed by 80% or 90% (dont remember)
FoK is marginally behind SS @ 4 targets, marginally ahead @ 5 targets and solidly ahead by the sixth onwards.
Crimson tempest becomes worthwhile at 7 or more targets, but only to roll the dot.
I am the lucid dream
Uulwi ifis halahs gag erh'ongg w'ssh
Rogue Forum Moderator (formerly Mugajak)
Former Electric Sheep Recruitment Officer (They're Great!) - Kaeldraens
No, I was saying that for some # of mobs, FoK and CT will both pull ahead, but where in the world do you find enough mobs living long enough without a single target you need to focus on that would lead to you needing to sustained AoE? I can't think of a fight in this expansion where it's relevant, offhand. Straightforwardly, we're terrible AoE compared to a lot of other specs/classes, so if you need to split AoE and single target, you always put the rogue on single target (and cleave, for combat). Warlocks, shaman, hunters... the list goes on for easygoing or even single target bonus AoE'ers, which makes the question moot.
Rogue Forum Moderator (formerly Mugajak)
Former Electric Sheep Recruitment Officer (They're Great!) - Kaeldraens
The main problem with using Blade Flurry on that many enemies at once, is once a few of them have died, around 5 or 6 there is a high chance that Blade Flurry will start hitting the corpses instead of other targets. And obviously the more that die the higher that chance will go. Easy way around this is to move away from the bodies, but it's the principle of that matter.
Rogue Forum Moderator (formerly Mugajak)
Former Electric Sheep Recruitment Officer (They're Great!) - Kaeldraens
I haven't looked at simc source recently, but it wasn't modeling BF correctly (last I looked), so take those results with a shakerfull of salt.
BF's damage is actually fairly complicated. It doesn't simply copy damage over.
SimC copies BF's damage over and ignores armor and debuffs on the secondary target.
From what I can deduce from in-game testing is that it works like this:
You hit with a melee ability, then damage is calculated. This damage is fed to blade flurry. AFTER the damage is copied, debuffs on the primary target are applied (so 5% magic damage for shadow blades, sunder, encounter-specific debuffs, etc).
For Blade flurry what happens is that the original unmitigated damage is now copied over. if the source damage was physical armor is applied. If the source damage was magic (shadow blades), it is dealt as physical damage for the same amount as the original shadow blades hit. This means if the BF target is lower level than the original target (ie, less armor), blade flurry will do more than 40% of the original damage. Also sunder will increase BF's damage as well (including the flurried damage sourced from shadow blades). Master poisoner will increase shadow blades damage but not increase the copied damage. In other words, debuffs are applied AFTER the copy on both source target and BF target.
Simcraft's treating of blade flurry is probably close enough, though.
Given the mechanics of blade flurry, if your raid group does not have a hunter with a tallstrider pet, I highly recommend using glyph of sharpened knives for AoE and FoKing enough to sunder (and poison) everything to spread sunder and 5% magic damage debuffs to every target to boost raid AoE. I don't need to explain how spreading poisons and master poisoner is going to help your locks, mages, shaman, etc. Several AoEs will benefit from an AoE sunder, such as FoK, CT, BF, multi-shot, blade storm, whirlwind, meat cleaver (raging blow cleave), beast cleave, monk clones, spinning crane kick, swipe, heart strike, unholy dk ghoul cleave (yeah, there is a lot of physical aoe out there, too).
Last edited by shadowboy; 2014-02-26 at 06:26 PM.
Shadowboy, was the difference in armor increasing BF damage not resolved with the below hotfix awhile back? Or did this just have something to do with 75%+ armor (how much armor do bosses even have?) messing up physical AoE based on a single-target hit?
(Source:Jan 21)Resolved an issue for the following abilities that resulted in damage being calculated incorrectly when used against targets with a greater than 75% reduction to damage from armor.
- Guardian Druids with greater than 75% damage reduction from Armor were getting less than the intended amount of Vengeance. Now they will gain the correct amount.
- Beast Cleave (Beast Mastery Hunter)
- Storm, Earth, and Fire (Windwalker Monk)
- Blade Flurry (Combat Rogue)
- Sweeping Strikes (Arms Warrior)
- Warrior Tier-16 2 piece set bonus
I don't know. The last time I looked at simc's BF code was before jan 21 though, so maybe, maybe not. Look at the blade flurry function to see how it's handling the damage. Bosses typically have ~30% armor I think.
That had to do with PvP rather than PvE: player armor cap was updated to 85% but abilities were not updated to go with it so they were doing less damage than intended. (and in case of vengeance, giving less than intended)
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