Sub Rogue: Talent Tier 6 (lvl 90) question

[Tay098]

I have been looking at the level 90 talent option and I was hoping someone could fill me in on what I am missing.

For single target I see the default choice is Premeditation. This affects our combo point generation which I understand is very important because we want to get off as many finishers as we can for both damage, energy gain(from Relentless Strikes), and Cooldown reduction for Shadow Dance. Needless to say combo points are very important.

With this in mind I am having trouble figuring out why we do not choose enveloping shadows at this tier. I must be missing something critical. Here is my thought process so far.

Because it is a finisher and only costs 30 energy, casting this at 5 cp is a net energy gain of 10. Also because it is a finisher, it should reduce the cooldown of shadow dance. It then gives us 10 combo points over 30 seconds. And I am assuming this has pandemic(correct me if wrong).

So the only "cost" of this ability is a GCD. We lose, assuming 4 SS during each SD, 4 combo points toward a finisher during each SD. However, it provides 10 energy and essentially 3 finishers every 30 seconds. *edit* see below

My next thought was that the combo points from SS were needed inside SD to get 4 SS and 1 finisher in the SD time frame. However, that can easily be remedied by starting SD with 3 or more CP since we run anticipation now.

Let me know what you all think or what benefit Premed has that I am missing.

Thanks!

Edit: I did forget to calculate that it costs 5 combo points every 30 seconds. So it cancels out 1 of the provided 5 CP finsher. but still extra energy and reduction of CD for SD X 3, but damage wise only 2 worth. I am guess that at some point, if you can get shadow dance CD low enough it would make sense to use Premed. But im not even sure how to math that out.

[shaunika123]

it's 1 extra evis in 30 seconds
you cast way more than 5 shadowstrikes in 30 seconds (which is where it'd break even, maybe slightly more due to it reducing dance, but that's it)

[Tay098]

Yea. I understand that from a damage output stance its only 1 more evis every 30 seconds. But its 2 extra "finishers" which is extra reduction on dance and a little energy gain.

I havent ever counted how many dances I get off in 30 seconds, and I dont have CoF so that is probably where I was missing information. Just how many dances you can maintain every 30 seconds.

[shaunika123]

Yea. I understand that from a damage output stance its only 1 more evis every 30 seconds. But its 2 extra "finishers" which is extra reduction on dance and a little energy gain.

I havent ever counted how many dances I get off in 30 seconds, and I dont have CoF so that is probably where I was missing information. Just how many dances you can maintain every 30 seconds.

except it's not 2 extra finishers

since as i said, you cast way more than 5 shadowstrikes in 30 seconds
you'll be lucky if it nets you one extra finisher, if that.

based on my sims with boots (cant check logs now cos Wlogs is down)
you cast ~11.25 shadowstrikes every 30 seconds

that's 22,5 combo points so to even it out it's 45 combo points in 60 seconds, whereas with ES i'd get 42,5 combo points (20 from ES and 22,5 from shadowstrike) and dont forget that 10 combo points out of those 42,5 go back into ES itself, which is 2 eviscs which is the ability that makes up 35-40% of your dmg

[Tay098]

That makes sense. I didnt realize we were able to average a dance every 10 seconds. I have shoulders and cloak, so I always feel energy starved.