Build 9014

Talents
Assassination

• Focused Attacks now gives 2 energy regardless of the rank.

Combat

• Vitality increases your Energy regeneration rate by 8/16/25%. (Up from 3/6/10%)
• Blade Twisting changed to : Increases the damage dealt by Sinister Strike and Backstab by 5/10%, and your damaging melee attacks have a 10% chance to Daze the target for 4 sec.
• Aggression has been moved from Tier 5 to Tier 4. Now increases the damage done by Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate abilities by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)

Glyphs

• Glyph of Garrote - Reduces the duration of your Garrote ability by 3 sec and increases the total damage it deals by 20%. (Old - Increases periodic damage dealt by Garrrote by 45%, but decreases the duration by 3 sec.)
• Glyph of Preparation - Decreases the cooldown of Preparation by 2 min. (Old - Your Preparation ability also instantly resets the cooldown of Blade Flurry, Dismantle, and Kick.)

Looks like they are finally giving Combat an increase in DPS compared to BC. Vitality is an attractive choice, Aggression is higher up and a bit more powerful and Blade Twisting is now a decent dagger PvP talent. Glyph-wise, eh.

I know the devs have some great theorycrafters working for the rogues but the major damage component of Combat builds is white damage. SS accounts for maybe 10% total damage output. Energy regen wasn't an issue in BC for combat and shouldn't be here either. 25% is nice but it still only comes to about 3e/s with CP. Who knows, maybe we'll see an additional item added to combat, like adding a CP after 10 crits.

Build 8982

Talents
Assassination

• Focused Attacks changed to : Your melee critical strikes have a 33/66% chance to give you 1 energy. (Old - 100%/100% , wasn't implemented) (Fixed tooltip, reads 33/1, 66/2, 100/3 as that's how it works)
  
• Find Weakness damage increased reduced to 2/4/6%. (Old - 3/6/9%) (1-2% DPS nerf for a pretty crappy talent, head scratcher)
  

Combat

• Killing Spree cannot hit invisible or stealthed targets anymore. (Nor should it. If you were opening with this instead of Garrote/CS, then shame on you)
  

Subtlety

• Opportunity now works all the time. (Old - Only increased the damage of attacks from behind) (Another tooltip fix as this has been working for some time now)

Overall, 2 tooltip fixes, a bug fix and a very very slight DPS nerf. Nothing to holler about. That being said, Combat is still in major need of some work.

Skills
Combat

• Gouge awards one combo point once again. (as it should)
  

Subtlety

• Tricks of the Trade now costs 15 energy. (for a skill with a 30s cooldown, this doesn't make sense)
  

Talent
Assassination

• Hunger for Blood now only attempt to remove a Bleed effect. (Old - any harmful physical effect) (removes pretty much all PvP use)
  
• Deadly Brew now only has a chance to apply Crippling poison (plain and simple nerf to an overpowered skill)
  
• Improved Poisons now increases the chance to apply Instant and Deadly poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% (Down from 3/6/9/12/15%) (this is taking it a bit too far)
  

Combat

• Savage Combat now also increases your total attack power by 2/4%. (good DPS builder)
  
• Vitality has been changed now increases your Energy renegeration rate by 3/6/10%. (does this synergy with Combat Potency?)
  
• Aggression has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 5 and changed to 5 points. Now Increases the damage of your Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate abilities by 2/4/6/8/10%. (I don't think they understand Combat builds with this change...)
  
• Endurance now increases your total stamina by 2/4% additionally from the Sprint / Evasion cooldown reduction (4% isn't much but it does make this filler talent better)
  

Subtlety

• Filthy Tricks now the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 secs and Preparation by 2.5/5 min. (ehh...)
  

This is a very odd push, with some significant reduction in DPS on the assassination tree, to the point where there seems to be no benefit of going Mutilate anymore. It's a real head scratcher.

Statistic in Wrath

If you're currently raiding in BC, then odds are you're sitting at about 300 To Hit and maybe 300 Haste Rating. Currently, the former is available mostly on gear and the latter, mostly through trinkets/buffs. Why are people here? Well, Combat builds offer the best sustained DPS builds and they focus on auto-attack damage, which requires To Hit due to the 28% miss chance. Haste Rating just makes you swing faster, it's a good thing but only something to focus on after you've increased your To Hit to a reasonable amount.

For example, in Tier 7 gear, the items Blizzard figures are the baseline for top end gear, have Agility, Stamina, +Hit, +Critical Chance and +Attack Power. Haste has only recently been seen as a desirable stat as it wasn't readily available before 25 man raids.

In the Expansion, things have changes somewhat. The top end gear currently available, for both PvP and PvE has Agility, Stamina, +Critical Chance, +Attack Power and +Haste/Resilience. To Hit is gone on most items. In point of fact, there are next to no items with +Hit and +Haste on them. This has to get you thinking about what Rogues should look for.

First though, let's quickly go over the stats.

To Hit - With none, you have a 28% miss chance on melee strikes and 5% miss chance on special attacks. 80 or so rating is enough to reduce the miss chance on specials to 0% and you need 400 or so to reduce the rating on melee strikes. There is a hard cap where adding more To Hit has no effect, but up until that cap, the gain is pretty linear.

Haste - Every 16 or so rating gives you a 1% boost to speed. It's also a mutiplicative stat, where you multiply your haste % sources. Most times, it's simple enough, Slice and Dice and whatever Haste Rating bonus you have. The gains are better on slower weapons and use a logarithmic curve, where the effects never cap out but reach a point of reduced effect, or what we call a "soft cap". Each weapon speed has their own "soft cap":

• 3.0 - 80%
• 2.5 - 70%
• 2.0 - 57%
• 1.8 - 50%
  
• 1.5 - 45%

With that out of the way, let's compare BC with Beta. BC builds focused on Combat, specifically with Swords with a swing speed of 2.6-2.9, where you needed a lot of Haste Rating to reach the soft cap (700+) which most people never got to. Now, in LK the optimum build seems to be Daggers, with a serious focus on the faster the better, so 1.5 speed. You only need 45% haste, which is only 200 haste rating (considering Slice and Dice). That's a very small number, easily surpassed on the raid tier gear dropping in Naxx currently.

To Hit is now going to be the same as Haste was in BC, found on enchants, gems, food and buffs. I wonder what the devs think about this?

Build - 8962

New build, new changes.
Assassination
Skills

• Ambush damage increased. (Check skill list for details) - All ranks were previously 335dmg
  
• Envenom now gives you an additional 15% chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. (Previously 25% chance)

Talents

• Focused Attacks (Tier 8 ) gives your melee critical strikes 100% chance to generate 1/2/3 Energy. (Previously 30% chance)
• Infectious Poisons removed.(Previously could not take)
  
• Improved Poisons (Tier 4) now increases the chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to your target by 3/6/9/12/15%. (Previously increased the chance to apply all poisons by 5/10/15/20/25%)

Combat
Skills

• Backstab damage increased. (Check skill list for details) Previously 225dmg
  

Talents

• Unfair Advantage (Tier 9) now states that the effect cannot occur more then once per second. (Previously 1 per Dodge)
  

Subtlety
Talents

• Enveloping Shadows (Tier 7) reduces the damage taken by area of effect attacks by 5/10/15%. (Previously increased your chance to avoid them)

Glyphs

• Glyph of Sinister Strike -- Your Sinister Strike critical strikes have a 40% chance to add an additional combo point. (Previously 101%, which was a tooltip error)

Additionally, IP was changed to 0.1AP (from 0.15AP) and DP was changed to 0.8AP (from 0.12AP).


For those keeping track, IP is down 100dmg and DP is down 80dmg. Significant yes but the problem remains where daggers (the faster the better) will be the only PvE raid choice. The decrease to Envenom and Imp Poisons also has big DPS implications but still not enough to swap to another build. That being said, Focused Attacks just got a crazy boost. Most Rogues run 40%crit or more and at 1.5SPS or more, you're looking at about 2-3E/S gained, practically on par with Combat Potency.

I would rather they tweak combat and subtlety a bit as they definitely need the most work.

Updated Numbers

Let's combine the two previous entries.

Suppose you have 1.94 SPS and want to apply poisons. Your chance to apply per second is equal to:

1.94*Application Chance*Hit Chance

Simple enough. Let's assume 100% hit chance first. Let's compare DP(30%) to IP(20%) with 2000AP, so that IP does 750damage and DP does 775/12s (64.5DPS), first with Vile Poison (20% damage)

1.94*0.2=0.38 or every 2.6s = 346DPS
1.94*0.3=0.58 or every 1.7s = 386DPS @ 5 stacks

Let's include Improved Poisons, which increases the chance by 25%.

1.94*0.45=0.87 or every 1.15s = 652DPS
1.94*0.55=1.07 or every 0.93s = 322DPS @ 5 stacks


If we look at your standard 80% hit chance....
With Vile Poisons: IP = 3.2s/281DPS DP=2.1s/386DPS
With Improved Poisons: IP = 1.4s/535DPS DP=1.16s/322DPS


With Master Poisoner, you're only using IP so that's the number we should be looking at. From numbers alone, Improved Poison is a huge improvement over Vile Poisons.


But Vile Poisons also increases Envenom. With a full stack of DP applied every 16s/7 seconds, depending on the talent, we need to look at the potential damage. Taking the former...

At 16s per 5 stacks, and running a 4+Envenom cycle (which we saw in the last post) means Envenom happens every 18.5 seconds, so you definitely have 5 stacks on, though on average you still only have 77dps after first 3.2s, and increase of 77 per 3.2s and finally 368@16s. That's an average 2.7stacks over 18s, or an average 198DPS, a significant DPS loss.

At 7s per stack, you reach 322DPS after 7s, which is twice as fast as before and you average 4.2stacks over 18s, or an average 270DPS.

Envenom itself does on average 1080dmg (with an average 4.5 CP per use). With VP, this is increased to 1296. So, with VP you have 1296/18s = 72DPS or with IP, 1080/18s=60DPS. Eviscerate does about 1500dmg so a slight increase to 86DPS. Rupture does 90DPS (and takes 14.5s to cycle) or 117DPS with the talent(this goes down when you use other finishers.... ).


The question then becomes, why use Envenom at 4+points instead of 2+ and save the extra DPS for Rupture? Envenom increases the chance to apply a poison by 25% for 1cp+1 seconds per use, so with 4+ you have an average 5.5s. With 2+, you have 3.5s. That 25% is just like Improved Poisons....

Numbers:
VP --> 1.4s application speed for duration. 5.5 will have 5 stacks after 8.8s for 294DPS. With 3.5s, it's 270DPS.
IP --> 0.93s application speed for duration. 5.5 will have 5 stacks after 4.6s for 289DPS. With 3.5s, it's 283DPS.

Both of these only account for DP and not the damage already gained from IP. The IP damage bonus from 0.93s for 5.5s is 74DPS and 47DPS at 3.5s.

So, you have Rupture at 64DPS. You have Improved Poisons which gives an inherent 535DPS with Instant Poison. You use Envenom at 2+ (21DPS), you have 283DPS + 47DPS from DP for a grand total of 950DPS.

Other Option, you have Rupture at 44.4DPS, IP = 535, Envenom 4+(27DPS), you have 289DPS + 74DPS is equal to 969DPS.

A 4+Envenom does more damage.

Let's try no Rupture at all! 4+Envenom all the time. Cycle is 15.5s.
IP=535DPS, Envenom 4+=70DPS, DP = 289DPS, bonus 74DPS on IP for a total of 968.

A 1DPS difference is a 0.1% difference.

Statistically speaking, you should always use a 4+Envenom.

That was longer than I expected!

Weapon Swing Speed

After writing the previous post, weapon swing speed came to mind. As in, how do you calculate it? Let's take a look-see.

Swings per second = (60/main hand speed/(1+haste)) + (60/off hand speed/(1+haste)) + (Special attack speed * Energy regeneration)

The first 2 parts are simple enough. Let's say you're dual wielding daggers, slow main, fast off, so something around 1.8, 1.5. Without haste, it's 33.3 swings and 40 swings respectively, for a total of 73 swings per second, or 1.2 SPS (swings per second). I round to 1 when I do a lot of calculations, that way you don't include talents or haste inherently.

As for special attacks, each "strike" requires energy and the finisher as well. Nearly all finishers hit the enemy except for Slice and Dice. Now, depending on the strike and your attack pattern, you have different speeds. Base Energy Regen is 10/s.

Mutilate --> Two mutilates followed by a Rupture --> 60+60+25 = 145energy. 3 strikes in 14.5 seconds comes to 12 strikes a minute (0.2 SPS).
Sinister Strike --> SS*5 followed by Rupture --> 40*5 + 25 = 225 energy. 6 strikes in 22.5 seconds comes to 16 strikes a minute (0.27 SPS).
Hemorrhage --> Hemo*5 followed by Rupture --> 35*5 + 25 = 200 energy. 6 strikes in 20 seconds comes to 18 strikes a minute (0.3 SPS).

Energy regeneration has a factor here where it decreases the time of your special attacks. For example, 1.5 Energy/s increase changes a Mutilate build to 0.24SPS, which is a minimal increase in regards to Swing Speed. Activating Adrenaline Rush raises the SS build to 0.53 a significant boost to swing speed. There is a near 1:1 ratio of Energy Regeneration : Special Attack speed, reduced primarily by the General Cooldown timer (1second).

So, let's look at this as a whole now. You're deep Assassination, Improved Slice and Dice, Cut to the Chase included, based Haste Rating of 200 (~12% haste). Based on the dagger information above, you have:
=((60/1.8/1.42) + (60/1.5/1.42))/60 + 0.2SPS
=(47.3+56.8)/60 + 0.2SPS
=1.74+0.2SPS
=1.94 SPS

1.94 is a pretty large number!

If you go the SS/Hemo route with a slow main, fast off (2.8/1.5) and the same stats...
=(87.2)/60 + 0.27SPS
=1.72 SPS

The build is a little slower (~22%) but still a noticeable increase over just plain attack speed.