02-24-2005, 10:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-24-2005, 10:40 PM by Concillian.)
Basically no rogue is going to be short on damage.
The primary issue is your tank. This will regulate the damage you can safely do. Frontloading damage doesn't really help in these cases, you end up sitting out a few seconds so he can build threat, so are you really frontloading then?
You definitely can't just jump in and dump all your energy at once at the start of battle. However, there is no fixed formula for figuring out how much damage to do. Luckily in the lower instances leather armor is not nearly as much of a liability as later, so you can get a feel for it before it starts really hurting your group when you pull aggro.
Generally I much prefer to meter my attacks so instead of waiting, then jumping in and frontloading all my damage, I will jump in earlier, but do my attacks more slowly. This way if a mob breaks away towards the casters I have the energy required to frontload THAT mob and potentially save the priest. If you're energy is always near zero, you can have problems assisting the squishier. After all, rogues can tank for 15 seconds with evasion.
Your proposed sequence has a 2 point eviscerate (that has chances of being 3-4 pts, 5 if you're REALLY lucky)? 2 point eviscerates are not very high damage. When using a big mace of appropriate level, my 3 point eviscerates are pretty close to the same damage as an SS. But the kicker is that if eviscerate misses you eat the full 35 energy, if SS misses you only eat 7 energy. SS is generally the better option until at least 4 combo points if you can manage a weapon swap macro.
Also, by adding combo points, Relentless strikes gains a MUCH higher chance of giving 25 energy after the eviscerate (100% at 5CPs). Between that energy and the 20 energy per tick you have enough energy to do something else right after the eviscerate or 1 second later to get the 20 energy at the tick. Because of this, the time for thistle tea is during CP generation, not after a finisher.
If you're planning on using much tea, I HIGHLY suggest being an herbalist. Swiftthistle is somewhat rare. It's primarily available on herbs in lower level areas (12-30 or so) but there are uses for thistle even for level 60s (thistle tea and swiftness pots primarily). Swiftness potions, which are quite profitable for the level that you can make them (only 60 alchemy required, and they sell for at least 1 gold per stack of 5 pots), so low level alchemists (most likely to be herbalists) will make them into swiftness pots if they have the recipe (the recipe is pretty rare). It's generally bought out on the AH very quickly. When I put 20 swiftthistle up for 1.5 gold buyout, it got bought pretty quick (less than 2 hours). most of the times I look for it on the AH there is NONE listed.
In short, do not take thistle tea for granted.
Preparation is a big chunk of points for a very nice OS talent if you get in trouble. Or you can use it for god mode against one single enemy (2xvanish, 2x cold blood, 2x evasion). It's a tradeoff of being more effective against a single very threatening target vs. being more effective against all targets.
Vanish will erase you off the hate list, as it takes you out of combat, it is the ultimate feint. You should not need to feint after you vanish, because your threat level will be way down on the list vanishing that late. Because of this, keep in mind the ramifications this has if a cloth wearer pulls aggro.
Dual weilding does not appear to have any effect on special attacks, check the 1H+unarmed vs. 2x1H post I made.
I did the math for dual weild vs. dagger spec. before. Assuming both your daggers are the same DPS:
Dual weild spec = +12.5% damage on all normal attacks and +0% damage on special attacks that use weapon damage (backstab, ambush, etc...)
dagger spec = +5% damage on normal attacks +6.5% damage on attacks that Lethality applies to. With seal fate a crit also gives 2 extra combo points (in SFs current buged form, it does, it's really only supposed to give 1 extra)
With seal fate, I think dagger spec is a no brainer. Without seal fate, it depends on how much damage you do with normal attacks and how much with specials. In my current build I only do about 40% of my damage from normal attacks when soloing. In instances I am doing a larger percentage of damage from normal attacks, as my energy regen is happening while I'm attacking instead of when a mob is gouged.
Lastly, I would probably move the 2 points from imp. sprint to imp. evasion. Sprint is nice, from time to time, but past about level 25 or so, you get dazed too much for sprint to really be a very effective escape skill (by then you have vanish, which is better most of the time.) Evasion though... evasion is god mode against mobs. 75% dodge turns you into a protection spec warrior with a shield doing the damage of a rogue for the duration of the evasion. Given that you probably will be pulling aggro from time to time, I think the extra 4 seconds of evasion is more useful.
The primary issue is your tank. This will regulate the damage you can safely do. Frontloading damage doesn't really help in these cases, you end up sitting out a few seconds so he can build threat, so are you really frontloading then?
You definitely can't just jump in and dump all your energy at once at the start of battle. However, there is no fixed formula for figuring out how much damage to do. Luckily in the lower instances leather armor is not nearly as much of a liability as later, so you can get a feel for it before it starts really hurting your group when you pull aggro.
Generally I much prefer to meter my attacks so instead of waiting, then jumping in and frontloading all my damage, I will jump in earlier, but do my attacks more slowly. This way if a mob breaks away towards the casters I have the energy required to frontload THAT mob and potentially save the priest. If you're energy is always near zero, you can have problems assisting the squishier. After all, rogues can tank for 15 seconds with evasion.
Your proposed sequence has a 2 point eviscerate (that has chances of being 3-4 pts, 5 if you're REALLY lucky)? 2 point eviscerates are not very high damage. When using a big mace of appropriate level, my 3 point eviscerates are pretty close to the same damage as an SS. But the kicker is that if eviscerate misses you eat the full 35 energy, if SS misses you only eat 7 energy. SS is generally the better option until at least 4 combo points if you can manage a weapon swap macro.
Also, by adding combo points, Relentless strikes gains a MUCH higher chance of giving 25 energy after the eviscerate (100% at 5CPs). Between that energy and the 20 energy per tick you have enough energy to do something else right after the eviscerate or 1 second later to get the 20 energy at the tick. Because of this, the time for thistle tea is during CP generation, not after a finisher.
If you're planning on using much tea, I HIGHLY suggest being an herbalist. Swiftthistle is somewhat rare. It's primarily available on herbs in lower level areas (12-30 or so) but there are uses for thistle even for level 60s (thistle tea and swiftness pots primarily). Swiftness potions, which are quite profitable for the level that you can make them (only 60 alchemy required, and they sell for at least 1 gold per stack of 5 pots), so low level alchemists (most likely to be herbalists) will make them into swiftness pots if they have the recipe (the recipe is pretty rare). It's generally bought out on the AH very quickly. When I put 20 swiftthistle up for 1.5 gold buyout, it got bought pretty quick (less than 2 hours). most of the times I look for it on the AH there is NONE listed.
In short, do not take thistle tea for granted.
Preparation is a big chunk of points for a very nice OS talent if you get in trouble. Or you can use it for god mode against one single enemy (2xvanish, 2x cold blood, 2x evasion). It's a tradeoff of being more effective against a single very threatening target vs. being more effective against all targets.
Vanish will erase you off the hate list, as it takes you out of combat, it is the ultimate feint. You should not need to feint after you vanish, because your threat level will be way down on the list vanishing that late. Because of this, keep in mind the ramifications this has if a cloth wearer pulls aggro.
Dual weilding does not appear to have any effect on special attacks, check the 1H+unarmed vs. 2x1H post I made.
I did the math for dual weild vs. dagger spec. before. Assuming both your daggers are the same DPS:
Dual weild spec = +12.5% damage on all normal attacks and +0% damage on special attacks that use weapon damage (backstab, ambush, etc...)
dagger spec = +5% damage on normal attacks +6.5% damage on attacks that Lethality applies to. With seal fate a crit also gives 2 extra combo points (in SFs current buged form, it does, it's really only supposed to give 1 extra)
With seal fate, I think dagger spec is a no brainer. Without seal fate, it depends on how much damage you do with normal attacks and how much with specials. In my current build I only do about 40% of my damage from normal attacks when soloing. In instances I am doing a larger percentage of damage from normal attacks, as my energy regen is happening while I'm attacking instead of when a mob is gouged.
Lastly, I would probably move the 2 points from imp. sprint to imp. evasion. Sprint is nice, from time to time, but past about level 25 or so, you get dazed too much for sprint to really be a very effective escape skill (by then you have vanish, which is better most of the time.) Evasion though... evasion is god mode against mobs. 75% dodge turns you into a protection spec warrior with a shield doing the damage of a rogue for the duration of the evasion. Given that you probably will be pulling aggro from time to time, I think the extra 4 seconds of evasion is more useful.
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.