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Rogue PvE Subtlety

Zipzo

Authorized
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Yo.

First of all spare me as I'm aware of the stigma of Subtlety in vanilla raids and I'm aware that Combat is ho-ho-ho "way" better. I'm aware that 1k AP is the arbitrary number people have stated is necessary for Subtlety to be somewhat "OK" in a raid setting. I've done the google rounds too, I get it.

This is more to actually discuss and put forth information surrounding the concept of actually playing PvE Subtlety and how to maximize it (this assumes using Hemo, but nothing else specifically).

I have been testing it the last few days in 5m dungeons and in general just farming, and I plan to give it a wack in a raid just for shiggles to see how well I can try to keep up with the other rogues. I'm currently running 20/0/31 (hit capped without precision). I have a Vis'kag in the MH and a CHT in the OH, and my AP is 814 unbuffed.

At least on 5m bosses that last longer than 5 seconds, the damage seems competitive and actually quite good, but this also assumes the boss lives long enough to see the back end of my initial Garrote tick (Taking advantage of opportunity).

I pre-med > Garrote > SnD > Hemo to 5 CP > Rupture/Eviscerate > Vanish when Garrote is off and re-Garrote > repeat above > Prep > Vanish in to Premed and Garrote. I also specced Ghostly Strike (for lack of PvE centric options) and I use it on CD in place of hemo when it's up as it has higher damage than hemo for only 5 more energy (though I could test this more). Essentially this assumes I'm allowed at the very least 2 debuff slots, one of those being only occasional the other consistently applied, one for Hemo and the other for the occasional Garrote. Rupture only benefits myself so it's unlikely any raid would be accepting despite it's (very) competitive damage when specced. Obviously any Rogue bleed in a raid tends to pop eyebrows from people who are very stuck in their ways (NO DEBUFFS XEPT LOCKS AND STUFF).

So let's have a dialogue, friends. What do you think? Have you tested it in a raid setting versus your other rogue-mates playing combat (while having acceptable gear of course)? Do you feel the hemo debuff is "worth it" assuming Subtlety is significantly worse than Combat by a notable amount? Let's chat and pool the information we have because I've found that detailed information on this is growing increasingly more difficult to find.

It would seem you want as much AP as you can get and Maladath seems like a must as well, for starters. You'd have to justify the damage gained from the hemo buff to your entire raids melee over the debuff slot it would take.
 
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Well, for our raids at least debuff slots are used to the max, so it means dropping something to allow the addition of a Sub Rogue. We had one Sub rogue trial for us, from what I noticed from his one raid;

* Hemo was knocked off the debuff list very quickly, seemed to have a low priority.
* Hemo uptime 'felt' like around 70%, with it dropping off regularly.
* We 'used' the Hemo debuff faster than he could keep it applied.

The biggest issue with calculating Hemo contribution is; what is your raid make up? The amount of melee dps and tanks you use make a real difference to how long or short the debuff is up for.

We run with around 8-10 melee dps, lets factor in some slow hits from warriors and sword rogues, fast from our dagger Rogues and our one guy using Nightfall, with 4 tanks. Lets say on average we get 12 melee hits every 1.5 seconds. Max rank Hemo has 30 charges and adds 7 damage. That means we will 'use' a Hemo in 2.5 seconds, lets say 3 seconds roughly. Energy usage will be exceptionally high, due to having to constantly reapply Hemo every second GCD minimum.

Now, presuming an uptime of 100%; (7*30)*(60/3) = 4200

So, that's less damage added than what we would get from one Nightfall proc.

The question is, can your personal damage and +3-5k from hemo make up for the damage a properly specced and geared Combat Rogue could, plus the two debuff slots you take up?

Just taking another low priority debuff, like Corruption. The average corruption will do around 1000 damage over 18 seconds on a freshly geared 60 with a respectable amount of pre-raid blues geared towards spell power. With 100% uptime, you will get 3.3*1000 = 3300.

So one blue geared fresh 60 Warlock using one DoT will do a similar amount of damage as a Hemo debuff for a small melee group raid, while only using one debuff slot. Add a SP debuff and CoS, etc. and the Warlock's one DoT will probably come out on top.

Now, the math is all off the cuff since it is so hard to calculate what melee team you will have for each individual raid, it all depends on the team you bring. But personally, I wouldn't take a Sub Rogue under any circumstances that currently come to mind.
 
Just too many valuable talents in the combat tree.
> Additional offhand damage
> Expertise
> Bladeflurry
> AR
> Aggression

I just don't see Serrated Blades and the better combo point gain making up for all that.
idk why, but I would go for max poison damage instead and see how that would work out. I mean, if I tried to dps as hemo.
http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhecoEpZZircobh0o
 
http://armory.twinstar.cz/talent-ca...105040000000000000000000000005025310203012150

Premed isn't bad at all, possibly better to take it over a 2% extra poison proc chance for boss fights. I'm not that crazy of a math whiz so it may just come out on top.

I just liked messing around with alternative dps and pvp specs. I realize how old the game is, and how just about everything is tried and true, but a few of them stood out, and didn't do all that badly. Take my 2 cents as you will.

Using Maladath, Runed Blade of the Black Flight as a human rogue, this is the spec I would rock going purely pve, assuming I had hit/ap gear to make up for lack of combat talent points and a real slow fatty top end sword like Teebu's Blazing Longsword, Chromatically Tempered Sword, or Ancient Qiraji Ripper.
Or, with maces, Sand Polished Hammer and Anubisath Warhammer.

imp eviscerate beats out imp poisons as horde (duh) but not being able to max your sword skill past 305 to achieve 309/310 really ruins the viability.

About the hemo debuff consumption:
I used to try for garrote as an opener every freakin' mob I could but that required humping the tanks too much for my liking, spam hemo to build 2 or 3 points, start slice n dice (if I didnt get that 1 pt garrote snd off) and then sort of space the hemo out, nearly try to max out the charges. Just keeping up the debuff cruising with your 5 pt slice n dices, I could tell it made a difference, in a melee heavy raid the charges went quick. Definitely not 100% uptime, yeah.

I just want to iterate that this requires every world buff, paladin buffs, BiS hit & ap+agi gear/weapons, etc you can get your hands on to really make it work, so you will hit fking hard, so watch KTM. Don't waste all that prior effort getting blasted in the first few moments. No shame in a feint if it keeps you alive, imo.

When you vanish, make sure you have enough energy for another garrote, it'll be a nice little boost, especially after something like Earthstrike has been used.

Also, I have zero experience with naxx. Yet knowing some of the items in there from browsing atlasloot, I think it could very certainly become a viable, competitive dps spec for Alliance, possibly even Horde.

It's probably more of a casual guild thing to let a hemo rogue raid, but I would definately be interested in seeing a top tier, geared to the teeth, open minded rogue giving it a shot and posting the results.
 
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Like this, but I would swap cold blood and poison for precision in combat.
But I dont see it outperforming combat ever. It does actually fine in TBC, but you get to use rupture there, which is the main factor, that 30% increase in it. Also deadliness is good in late tbc, where you get 200+ ap for 5 points and dirty tricks increase damage done to targets below 35% with all abilities by 20%.
These thing just arent on this patch
 
So, friends, I bring with me actual data and other things!

The past two weeks I ran hemo in full BWL clears. It's notable that I performed much better in the 2nd week than in the first week due to a spec tweak + a general improvement on my approach to the cycle and familiarity with the spec, which I'll talk about in a moment. First let me link my competition in raid.

Barrikade (Combat Swords)
http://armory.twinstar.cz/character-sheet.xml?r=Kronos&cn=Barrikade

Farstrider (Combat Swords)
http://armory.twinstar.cz/character-sheet.xml?r=Kronos&cn=Farstrider

Spookywet (Combat Daggers)
http://armory.twinstar.cz/character-sheet.xml?r=Kronos&cn=Spookywet

Siax (Combat Daggers)
http://armory.twinstar.cz/character-sheet.xml?r=Kronos&cn=Siax

All very well geared, and (if I may) very skilled Rogues with a great understanding of their class. I'll try to focus on fights that are straight forward "DPS checks", so no Razor, Vael, and Nef.

Week #1 Talent Spec

Week #2 Talent Spec

The first week I used Rupture > Evsicerate, the second week I ignored Rupture completely in favor of Eviscerate.

Stats UNBUFFED (Please note that all Rogues in our raid are using consumables during raid, but unfortunately for some reason I'm stupid and forgot both weeks to record my fully buffed stats).

Hit - 9%
Crit - 28.17%
AP - 830

Weapons
Vis'kag - Crusader
CHT - Agility +15

Now let's get to the good stuff.

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Broodlord

First Week - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=273797#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Second Week - Died.

It was a shame that I took a death on Broodlord due to just general Blast waves with no healing in between because aggro went a little wonky, but in the first week you can see that my potential was high, and I believe I performed overall worse across the raid. I used short duration ruptures for running out of the fight for Blast waves. I'm sure I could have improved a lot on this weeks kill using only eviscerate and my more practiced rotation, but I think I did well in the first weeks kill in any case.

Firemaw

Week #1 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=273798#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Week #2 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=274860#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Simple fight, short running out windows due to flame debuff. Took advantage with garrote and short duration ruptures again. My performance here was better the 2nd week due to a better approach to my cycle, and I think it could only improve. Important to note that when specced my Ruptures and Garrotes deal more damage than a typical tick of the Warlock dots it dissipates.

Ebonroc

Week #1 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=273808#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Week #2 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=274863#bosskills_players:0+4+1

I did incredibly poorly in week #1. If I remember correctly I was not prepared for the pull (not paying attention for some reason, who knows), I was late to the opener with the rest of the melee and I believe I also did not have the ability to vanish for a re-premed.

In the 2nd week I performed noticeably better, but the power of combat cooldowns really reared its head for Siax on this fight where of course I have none. Despite that, I performed very well in this "Patchwerk" setting against my fellow Rogues, with no deaths across the raid.

Flamegore

Week #1 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=273809#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Week #2 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=274864#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Again, pretty poor performance in week #1. I was still trying to include Rupture, but it just kept getting knocked off so of course I was losing a metric ton of dmg. In week #2 I focused on eviscerate and the results were staggeringly better. You can see that without CDs I was able to better match up with Siax.

Chromaggus

Week #1 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=273813#bosskills_players:0+4+1

Week #2 - https://vanilla-twinhead.twinstar.cz/?boss-kill=274867#bosskills_players:0+4+1

In general my Chromaggus was fantastic both weeks due to using a cycle involving short ruptures and garrotes (when applicable) between breaths. Week #1 was a time lapse variant, which doesn't mean I had to do anything different but it made my down time even less (no running in and out). Interestingly you'll notice that my damage was damn near within ~500 dmg from last week. That to me is a sign of great consistency and no "luck" involved.

--------------------

My Thoughts

What I can glean for myself from this (admittedly very small amount of) data is that speccing eviscerate greatly increased my potential output on the Patchwerk-like fights (Ebonroc/Flamegore). Rupture is just unreliable on these fights in a 40m raid, and a few of my Week #1 logs show it (where I was trying to use it religiously). It gets knocked off anywhere within a couple seconds or less depending on where other classes are in their cycles. Furthermore, most raid leaders probably don't want you to put Rupture on the boss over any other DoT. It is worth noticing that a specced Rupture with good AP definitey does out-tick a Warlock dot for example, but the stigma is still there. Speccing in-to and using Eviscerate religiously seemed to show a much better overall result on fights where 5pt finishers are used often. On an off-note, I used Ghostly Strike on CD as it has a higher base dmg than Hemo, it crit harder, and it only cost 5 energy more. I'm curious how it would effect my numbers to eschew its usage altogether, but for now I think it's quite reliable as a CP builder. I was able to compromise with my raid leader over letting me at least use Garrote, because even a couple ticks is better than opening with Hemo from stealth IMO, and Garrote either lasts and gives me a good opener or it gets knocked off anyway so it's of no real disadvantage to the raid.

Being able to pre-med at the beginning of a boss fight allows you to front-load so much damage, you get a 5pt SnD right off the bat with a thistle tea to burn which gives you several 5pt eviscerates before you're next worrying about a refresh. This somewhat allows you to make up the dmg lost from not having on-demand cooldowns akin to AR and BF. In a general I believe pushing the cycle to its potential means timing pre-med and vanish (in order to premed again) to the most optimal moments of an encounter that give you the strongest benefit in that encounter.

So obviously more testing should be done, and I fully plan on continuing to investigate the potential of the spec, but for now this is what I can contribute that hopefully is better than the 10 year old regurgitated information we're used to seeing in random forum posts from random, completely unreliable posters (I mean even most of the information on all the other vanilla private server forums with topics on this, generally all the comments are just completely un-backed by any data).

Let me know what you guys think
 
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Let me know what you guys think
I think comparing yourself to other rogues is wrong. You should post data where you compare yourself to yourself with different specs and see how your performance changes.
Didn't read the whole wall of text, but what I got from it was that you compared yourself to 4 other rogues from your guild?
Spec full combat and see how far you can go with that for proper comparison.
 
I agree with Lharts here.

While your numbers are undoubtedly impressive, and frankly much higher than I thought possible, your numbers are only really favorable on bosses where all the melee run out and yours DoT's can continue to tick over. As this counts for most of the bosses in BWL, I'd consider the numbers somewhat skewed against your compatriots.

The questions for me are;

1) Are you doing more damage than you would if you were specced Combat?
2) Does the hemo buff provide more dps to the raid than is lost by you not being specced combat?

If the answer to 1 is yes, that then throws up a very interesting issue.
 
I think comparing yourself to other rogues is wrong. You should post data where you compare yourself to yourself with different specs and see how your performance changes.
Didn't read the whole wall of text, but what I got from it was that you compared yourself to 4 other rogues from your guild?
Spec full combat and see how far you can go with that for proper comparison.

I did compare myself to two separate specs of rogues and my own separate spec of Sub.

Also, doing this would defeat the underlying purpose of the thread, which is to figure out decidedly how to play Subtlety to its potential. I said this isn't about trying to argue that Subtlety is better than Combat, it's about how to play Subtlety well.

I don't think it's irrelevant to mention the specs of the other raiding rogues in my guild, as generally when I'm playing combat my damage runs very similar to theirs as our gear levels are largely very similar. I felt it was important to illustrate and demonstrate that Subtlety can at least be viable damage-wise by mentioning the other rogues, but I'm not trying (immediately for the moment) to demonstrate a calculable DPS advantage over those specs, in fact I'm largely inclined to believe I'd lose that bet.

In time I'm sure I'll get around to doing that anyway, you're right, it's not a fruitless endeavor, but in general this isn't about me seeing which spec I do more DPS with, it's about seeing how far I can push Subtlety (cuz I'm bored with combat lmao). The logs aren't just comparing myself to the other rogues, correction, it's every other damage dealer in the raid. The other Rogues just get a key mention because they are geared and playing opposite specs at an equally high level, so our performances comparisons are relevant if at least somewhat so.

I agree with Lharts here.

While your numbers are undoubtedly impressive, and frankly much higher than I thought possible, your numbers are only really favorable on bosses where all the melee run out and yours DoT's can continue to tick over. As this counts for most of the bosses in BWL, I'd consider the numbers somewhat skewed against your compatriots.

The questions for me are;

1) Are you doing more damage than you would if you were specced Combat?
2) Does the hemo buff provide more dps to the raid than is lost by you not being specced combat?

If the answer to 1 is yes, that then throws up a very interesting issue.

It's true that my damage is affected in my favor on fights that involve running out but that's why the Ebonroc and Flamegore logs are so relevant. There is zero running out in those fights, they are pure tank and spanks, where the DPS simply crams their rotation in the butt of the boss, and I performed significantly ahead of expectations (after a respec and a cycle change).

As I said above, a comparison against me actually playing combat has to wait until later (or at least until I obtain a Brutality Blade, haha). For now I consider my comparisons to fellow raider Combat Rogues to at least be somewhat valid and the closest thing I can get to a straight up spec comparison until I can do it myself. The research is on-going!

I think it's also worth mentioning that very many fights involve both down time and movement where I can take advantage of these perks. Let's make a short and brief list based on upcoming progression fights where this stuff ultimately matters the most moving forward.

Skeram - Constant downtime and swaps between merge/splits of the boss.

Bug Family - Time dots around fears, multiple bosses.

Sartura - Multiple adds, and phases where you need to move and stay out of death spin.

Fankriss - Adds you need to take out.

Twin Emps - Bug adds.

Oura - Time DoTs inbetween knockbacks.

Huhuran and Viscidus are probably fights where I can't take too much advantage of my perks.

C'thun - Tentacle swaps and lots of movement.

This was totally off-the-cuff memory of the bosses in AQ, as I haven't been there in a while.

ZG possesses a lot of downtime and swapping too. In general I think it occurs frequently in bosses enough so that I wouldn't count this so much as an "unfair" perk I get, but a general advantage of being the spec at all.

At the very least I think I'm justifying my spot in my guilds' core raid as a hemo rogue, specific to my raid only. The overall, grand scheme of what constitutes better dps is obviously still up in the air.
 
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The fact that you're spamming Ghostly Strike makes me wonder why you didn't drop points into Setup,
even a 30% chance for a free cp on trash or even a few bosses seem to be more dps worthy to me than 2/5 Master of Deception.

Seeing as how the content you're running involves only dragonkin and humanoids I can totally see murder outdoing more points in imp. poisons, and I think that since you max out with garrotes and hump your tanks, premed comes up being much more powerful than I gave notice to before. I do forget premed's cooldown though. 3 minutes?

If you timed your 'pew pew pew' trinkets/tea/whatever in coordination with your vanish/premed/garrote and a frame of time to build it, would you possibly be able to squeeze out two long 5 pt eviscerate sprees like you were saying? Or would it taper off in under 5/3.50 minutes before everything is ready again? Consistency is key
How about buffs, how many did you rock and how many were missing?
Try it with everything you can get your hands on, short of DMF 10% dmg buff (not sure it'll be up when you raid next) and update with third attempt results! We're seeking the max potential, right?

Earthstrike and/or DFT would really help you out, and I think Maladath would really improve your damage, if you could get it in a nice guy kind of way over a different race sword rogue.

I think it's a great start, we're getting a better feel for how much Subtlety can actually dish out.
Even if it just turns out to be a more intimate knowing of how much damage combat can produce, it'll be worth it.

I do agree somewhat with Lharts, comparing yourself to others isn't the answer, but it definitely is a tease to take a closer look.
You need to compare yourself, with yourself, and the more minimal changes (spec aside), the better imo.

Sorry I can't assist with actual numbers and only the feels, I rolled Warlock :biggrin:
 
The fact that you're spamming Ghostly Strike makes me wonder why you didn't drop points into Setup,
even a 30% chance for a free cp on trash or even a few bosses seem to be more dps worthy to me than 2/5 Master of Deception.
Eh. I think I can count the number of times I am ever attacked in BWL on one hand, and I've probably had runs where that number was zero. If I pull aggro it also becomes counter-productive, because more CP = more threat and if I have aggro I think I want the opposite.

I just got a crazy idea! I should pull 1 welp on me and keep it on me during fights while using ghostly strike! If it dies I go back and get another! Mostly joking but I thought it sounded funny.

Seeing as how the content you're running involves only dragonkin and humanoids I can totally see murder outdoing more points in imp. poisons, and I think that since you max out with garrotes and hump your tanks, premed comes up being much more powerful than I gave notice to before. I do forget premed's cooldown though. 3 minutes?

If you timed your 'pew pew pew' trinkets/tea/whatever in coordination with your vanish/premed/garrote and a frame of time to build it, would you possibly be able to squeeze out two long 5 pt eviscerate sprees like you were saying? Or would it taper off in under 5/3.50 minutes before everything is ready again? Consistency is key
How about buffs, how many did you rock and how many were missing?

I wasn't using AP food or DMF buff in either week (farm mode laziness/not around). Just mongoose and Jujus (green and white). This makes it easier for me to reproduce conditions when I decide to swap to combat or something without wasting my AQ40/Naxx stockpile on my experiments :p.

Try it with everything you can get your hands on, short of DMF 10% dmg buff (not sure it'll be up when you raid next) and update with third attempt results! We're seeking the max potential, right?

Darn right!

Earthstrike and/or DFT would really help you out, and I think Maladath would really improve your damage, if you could get it in a nice guy kind of way over a different race sword rogue.

Uh, well yeah obvious a DFT and a Maladath would be great, haha, even if I was going swords.

Earthstrike I tend to be leery of because in Vanilla I find passive trinkets to be superior in a lot of cases at least for Rogues. I think HoJ is probably a better option (which I still don't have yet, damnit!).

I think it's a great start, we're getting a better feel for how much Subtlety can actually dish out.
Even if it just turns out to be a more intimate knowing of how much damage combat can produce, it'll be worth it.

I do agree somewhat with Lharts, comparing yourself to others isn't the answer, but it definitely is a tease to take a closer look.
You need to compare yourself, with yourself, and the more minimal changes (spec aside), the better imo.

Sorry I can't assist with actual numbers and only the feels, I rolled Warlock :biggrin:

For sure, I didn't intent for those logs to be the end all "Hey guys, look! Subtlety is #1, everyone reroll!". Just more like a "If you have a good set of melee in the raid that will expend the debuff quickly and you get permission from your raid leader to abuse bleeds when appropriate, and a skilled/geared Rogue who is looking for a change of pace, letting him roll Hemo won't turn your raid inside-out!".

Ya feel? I still perfectly agree with comparing myself to myself, but for now these are the building blocks I have to construct a general idea around favorably playing Subtlety in progression, and I'd like to think it was a positive investigations, even if ever so slightly removed from an actual, self to self, spec vs spec, hardcore numbers comparison. More of an off-the-cuff, free observation, if you will.

I wish we had ZG and AQ20/40 :(, one raid day a week is a bit mind numbing.
 
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Earthstrike I tend to be leery of because in Vanilla I find passive trinkets to be superior in a lot of cases at least for Rogues. I think HoJ is probably a better option (which I still don't have yet, damnit!).
.
You should be using Earthstrike and vanishing to trinket swap when the duration ends - unless you are doing MC where one Earthstrike will likely last the duration of a boss kill with a few exceptions.

Also surely with this spec you are pushing more valuable debuffs off? (unless your raid doesn't prioritise debuff slots to begin with)
 
You should be using Earthstrike and vanishing to trinket swap when the duration ends - unless you are doing MC where one Earthstrike will likely last the duration of a boss kill with a few exceptions.

I recently attempted vanish/equip swapping without any success. My latency runs pretty high (280-300) so I have left it to assumption that this prevents me from being able to properly do it, but I get "in-combat" errors when attempting it. Your point about bosses that die in like 30 seconds is valid though, but as that encompasses bosses that you can mostly do with a full raid of blind and deaf monkey's it won't really be my focal point.

Also surely with this spec you are pushing more valuable debuffs off? (unless your raid doesn't prioritise debuff slots to begin with)

I'd like to talk more about this specific subject as its one of the more important elements of discussion brought up around Hemo, and if I'm mistaken I would love for someone to correct me, but I'm under the impression that Hemo is at most a low priority debuff. This means that it can overwrite basically lowest duration dots, and a handful of trashy debuffs not generally recommended (weapon procs excluding thunderfury). This is why most of the time when hemo is being discussed it's always discussed in terms of its damage benefit in relation to a corruption tick, because those are generally your lowest common denominator DoTs. Approaching Hemo, I've sort of abided by logic from a really intelligent post I found on EJ from a raid leader in regards to debuff management in progression (Naxx).

Trying to precisely control the 16 debuff slots doesn't work; there are just too many things that fight for the slots. The best you can do is to identify which things are not worth even allowing to compete for a slot, to give the most time to the important ones.

Off the top of my head, you tend to have:
1) Curse of Elements
2) Curse of Shadows
3) Curse of Recklessness
4) Sunder Armor
5) Faerie Fire
6) Winter's Chill
7) Imp. Scorch
8) Judgement of Wisdom
9) Judgement of Light
10) Hunter's Mark
11) Demoralizing Shout
12) Thunderfury
13) Thunderfury

Nightfall has low uptime, so doesn't really compete much. MS is a must on some fights; pointless on most. After all this, the plethora of Deep Wounds, Ignite, Fireball, ond others is enough that there's no point trying to squeeze in anything else of significant duration.


So given this logic, Hemo stands to have little effect on the absolute major debuffs that should need to be present, and the argument is essentially if you get more damage out of Hemo or a single final corruption or other tick you overwrite or some other "non-important" debuff. In general it can be looked at as a wash I think, where fighting for the last couple of debuff slots is ultimately a very in-effectual difference (as long as the debuff in question isn't a shit-tier one like lobotomizer or something.

EDIT : For the record we do manage debuffs in CORAL but it's under the same logic, we look for the must haves and we'll criticize the "stigma" debuffs out of habit, but in reality there isn't truly a detriment other than potentially low damage done by the actual Rogue due to being Hemo, which I postulate a little skill and finesse can solve. It comes down to raid leaders call.
 
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So I've been doing some hardcore theoretical number comparisons using the most (what I assume is) well-known passed around spread sheet for private server vanilla raiding Rogues. The one by Garona and Kelman, built on the Elitist Jerks community research. I think you'll find my numbers interesting. Anyone can get a spreadsheet and put this information in for themselves and make their own observations, I'm just the messenger :D

First and for most I want to point out that there is a button that looks like this...

Hemo button.png

Now it's possible many would dispute the nature of what this might do to the following calculations, but I think ultimately it's quite fair. Given Hemo is demonstrably always going to be 30 charges per Hemo and the amount of damage added per Hemo application is definitive, I'd say that the algorithms used to give Hemo a DPS bonus aren't likely as "shady" as you might initially think when I show you these numbers. However, it's important to note that it likely assumes that the hemo debuff is used completely and entirely to its maximum potential, which again as we all know, can depend on your raid comp. Now that I've said this, let's move on to more of the interesting stuff.

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I inputted my gear/spec in two separate gear set sheets in order to swap back and forth between them, gauging the appropriate numbers. In one set is my Subtlety spec and gear, the other is my Combat spec.

My gear is identical for both spec sheets. Hemo is the "current" sheet, and combat swords is the "dream" sheet. This means if the Hemo spec has an advantage it will show as a negative #, because it's showing the difference between my current and dream sheets. Only the specs differ. I did a separate spreadsheet for a sword in my OH (currently I only have the Dal Rend OH, no Brutality Blade yet), because obviously it wouldn't be fair to compare my spec to Combat Swords and not be dual wielding swords. Wielding Dal'Rends yielded a DPS increase over Corehound Tooth, for the record. I'm going to be posting results under the assumption that I have a Brutality Blade, simply because I think it'd be more fair considering my weapon set for Hemo is quite superior, relatively.

For these calculations I will also be noting both buffed and unbuffed DPS as per the sheet. The buffs I will be checking in the "buffed" calculations are as follows...

Elixir of the Mongoose
Blessing of Might
Blessing of Kings
Mark of the Wild
Juju Might

The reason I selected these particular buffs and not the rest of the lot is because IMO these are the buffs I most reliably have on at all times right now in farm content. Other buffs like Battle Shout and Trueshot Aura, Dragonslayer, LotP I excluded purely due to the possibility of not being grouped with such a class or you know, being on any other attempt other than the first in the case of Dragonslayer. Just for the sake of the calculations, I think the buff selection won't be hugely relevant to the interesting results posted.

Talents used are the 2nd spec I posted above used in the 2nd week of testing Hemo in BWL, however I will also post results of a 2ndary theoretical spec I've mapped out for testing in the coming weeks.

Minor note, the spreadsheet indicates that on CD usage of Ghostly Strike is a notable DPS loss, so I've unchecked its usage from the rotation and will likely experiment moving forward without it in-game. Indicating that Rupture should be used over Eviscerate resulted in a sharp drop in DPS on the sheet, which is congruous with my own experimentation, and the sheet doesn't even assume Rupture gets knocked off either so it's pretty clear how I managed to do so terribly on some fights in the first week.

Here is the first comparison, assuming Hemo raid damage is counted to the Rogue.

hemo vs combat.png

This is the comparison if the raid damage added through Hemo is discounted.

hemo vs combat no raid dmg.png

In short, if the spreadsheet is allowed to calculate a maximum output hemo debuff to the Rogues damage, there is a size-able advantage to playing a maximum theoretical output 31 Sub Rogue. However, when that debuff's raid benefit is discounted from the Rogue, a player in my exact gear wielding a Brutality Blade over a CHT and playing the cookie cutter combat sword spec, will be pushed ahead. This gap obviously changes most relative to the weapons you're wielding. The gap is actually smaller (8.95% unbuffed DPS gap as opposed to 9.96%) with both spec Rogues using CTS and Maladath and this is probably due to Hemo getting to take advantage of the weapon skill on Maladath where, in general my spec lacks any combat points, thus no Weapon Expertise.

Very important to note that these calculations are based on basically attacking a target dummy at boss level, and while the spreadsheet has input for using Adrenaline Rush and BF, it (understandably) lacks an algorithm for proper usage of Premeditation, Vanish, Garrote and Preparation, which when used properly add notable potential to your damage in any given fight as a full Subtlety specced Rogue of the Hemo variant. It also completely discounts movement and bleed advantages in downtime fights, which can actually be a big deal if you look at my Chromaggus logs above.

Things I've learned moving forward for continuing to play 20/0/31...

- Maladath is definitively the BiS off-hand in our current tier of raiding no matter what race of Rogue you play for my current spec.

- Ghostly Strike results in a net DPS loss. I'll spec it anyway just because there's not much else and it'd decent for farming.

- Eviscerate has a staggering effect on the damage, as noted by the increase in DPS when inputting more points in to imp evisc on the sheet and un-ticking the usage of rupture. I highly recommend getting as many points in to imp eviscerate as you can and using it at 5cp whenever possible and you're not due for a SnD refresh.

This build shows very similar promise due to the maxed out Eviscerate in trade-off for losing only Premed. You could also take Cold Blood instead...but spreadsheet doesnt work with Cold Blood unfortunately. You only get 2 Cold Bloods in a fight where you have Prep up which is a 10 minute cooldown so I wouldn't really expect it to out-do better eviscerates, but solid option in PvP of course.

- Even against a Combat Rogue with CTS + Maladath where I am still wielding Vis'kag + CHT, the sheet yields me a 6.34% advantage to playing my 31 Sub Hemo build if hemo raid damage is coupled in to my damage.

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Another side-note, I attempted a few variation hemo builds that are well known like Hemo/Combat and all attempts led to significant decreases in DPS according to the sheet, so I'm almost positive that assassination is the proper secondary tree to go for in this case. I did input some variations that even involved seal fate/cold blood, that still showed damage increases while coupling hemo raid damage with the rogues DPS, and the spreadsheet doesn't even have a means to calculate seal fate or the usage of Cold Blood, then of course there's the fact that Prep resets Cold Blood as well.

A great majority of the most important tools of this build aren't even calculable by the spreadsheet, and yet it's still showing a DPS advantage (with hemo coupled) although less so than the 31 Sub variant, so it could theoretically be a pretty awesome build too...! I might try it, because cold blood and seal fate sound pretty darn fun. On the flip side, you lose pre-med (So no free 5pt slice off the get-go but you do have SF) and 10% of your total AP switching from 20/0/31, but at least the spreadsheet calculates losing deadliness. The sheet also can't calculate the loss of a Garrote or two fitted in to an encounter, which is a sizeable amount of damage with opportunity, and very energy efficient with dirty deeds. Despite these drawbacks, it's nice to still see a somewhat positive result.

sealfatehemo vs combat.png

Again, that's Viskag/CHT VS CTS/Maladath and hemo coupled in to the hemo rogues DPS.

Everyone knows that Seal Fate scales with better gear too, not to mention the 2.5 set has a pretty hot bonus to eviscerate...then you add in Hemo, a cheap CP builder. I'm going to probably give it a spin, but my prediction is something like...

HOLY SHIT THE COMBO POINTS WHAT DO I EVEN DO...

I don't know guys, I think I'm gettin' pretty cozy with the idea of stayin as the token hemo rogue :).

So yeah! There's more stuff!
 
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Going to test this as well in my guilds Thursday BWL run, will provide unbuffed and buffed numbers, as well as raid stats for this and my most recent combat BWL run. At the least it will show whether this is only something to play with with similar gear to Zipzo, or if people can run it with a much lower gear level like myself.

Will be running Vis'kag/Mirahs as I have no CTS/CHT/Maladath, couple with 4piece Darkmantle. I don't have T2 3 set bonus yet either.

Also baring in mind, we've not yet progressed beyond Chromm and have generally slower kill times than you further progressed guys, I think it will provide an interesting experiment.
 
I feel I have to be a negative nancy now. It's neat reading this thread and seeing the time you've put into this, but unless you are going outright beat GOOD combat spec/seal fate rogues on damage what exactly is the goal? To prove you can raid as sub and excel in very limited circumstances? Maybe I have a different mindset when it comes to raiding.

I know you aren't foolish enough to believe you will discover some secret knowledge in this 10 year old game but I guess if you're ok with doing less damage then your competitors that's fine. (It's just a game bro, I play for fun, etc.)
 
Not firing shots, but I would try doing competitive damage with a competitive spec before doing competitive damage with an uncompetitive spec.
 
Not firing shots, but I would try doing competitive damage with a competitive spec before doing competitive damage with an uncompetitive spec.

To be fair, the results he posted were more than competitive against the other rogues in his raid. In fact, several bosses he topped out on. Raidstats.com puts him at 6th overall for that nights example raid.

@Zipzo. Armoury says you're running 6 T2. Drop 1 piece for 3 T1, 30 seconds off Vanish may let you pop one extra Garrote on longer bosses.
 
To be fair, the results he posted were more than competitive against the other rogues in his raid. In fact, several bosses he topped out on. Raidstats.com puts him at 6th overall for that nights example raid.

@Zipzo. Armoury says you're running 6 T2. Drop 1 piece for 3 T1, 30 seconds off Vanish may let you pop one extra Garrote on longer bosses.
That's my ironforge set :). I run nightslayer gloves and shoulders in raids, hit being the main reason over the vanish bonus.

Not firing shots, but I would try doing competitive damage with a competitive spec before doing competitive damage with an uncompetitive spec.

These sound like shots to me lol. I've been raiding as combat since I hit 60 back in *retail*, is that not long enough playing sinister strike spam to advance to being qualified to try Sub for fun? I posted data, at least I'm not just flailing around with hopeful speak and ass-numbers. This is exactly the sort of mentality that is challenging me to play Sub competitively...

I feel I have to be a negative nancy now. It's neat reading this thread and seeing the time you've put into this, but unless you are going outright beat GOOD combat spec/seal fate rogues on damage what exactly is the goal? To prove you can raid as sub and excel in very limited circumstances? Maybe I have a different mindset when it comes to raiding.

I know you aren't foolish enough to believe you will discover some secret knowledge in this 10 year old game but I guess if you're ok with doing less damage then your competitors that's fine. (It's just a game bro, I play for fun, etc.)

Hm, well I guess I'm under the impression at this point that I *can* be competitive assuming Hemo raid damage is counted to my contribution. When we're in Naxx and I have a Servo arm/anubisath hammer then we can shoot the beans on whether history is being changed due to my experimentation but I do think there is some validity in the idea that people simply ignore (and historically have) sub for raiding. Almost universally to the point that there's barely (no) data existing for playing it in a competitive raid setting. You might say that the reason why should be obvious, but to me it simply means nobody dug deep enough. That's *my* mentality, trying to innovate and be creative. Of course I don't want to drag my raid down, and if I had done so in the raids so far then I would have respecced back immediately, but after analyzing my performance I've been pleasantly surprised with different results than I expected, and I'm just rolling with it for now.
 
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Ah mate gotcha. Unfortunately for me my IF set IS my raiding set :p

T1 shoulders continue to elude me :crying:
 
I think the point trying to be made is you cannot compare yourself to rogues within your own guild. That is not a benchmark for good raid damage.

Look at Synced, Vanguard, Horizon, Agony and even shitty old ONSLAUGHT for numbers you need to be achieving as sub to be competitive.
 
I think the point trying to be made is you cannot compare yourself to rogues within your own guild. That is not a benchmark for good raid damage.

Look at Synced, Vanguard, Horizon, Agony and even shitty old ONSLAUGHT for numbers you need to be achieving as sub to be competitive.

Im not though, of course I'm glancing at other parses from other guilds and their rogues, but it actually gets trickier doing that as an example of anything because no 2 encounters are alike and provide the same circumstances for doing their DPS. Even something like the duration of the actual encounter can greatly affect the overall DPS of a character. Did the boss move or get aggro wonkey? Did it get an extra phase of some mechanic that creates down time (like needing to run out to drop stacks or something similar)?

In a single parse compared to same classes in the same parse you can at least presume the environment for which the damage was dealt between all sources was the same which is generally a pretty important factor in parsing and logging. Your suggestion would make more sense if there were a Sub rogue in any of the guilds you mentioned raiding for competitive numbers.

Also if what you're meaning to say is that CORAL's rogues are shitty and not a valid to compare against, well then buzz off :D. Again my damage was good not just by my rogues' standards but it was good my overall contribution to my raid standard.

There's a little bit of breathing room generally when using Hemo while looking at a parse, placement wise, it's not at all far fetched to give yourself s few thousand dmg to your damage done total in every encounter to account for Hemo raid dmg, which if I do that actually puts me at petty high placements in basically every fight the 2nd week. Not just rogue-wise, any class wise. The whole raid-wise.

Even doing rough comparisons (cherry picking bosses with similar kill times), you'll find my numbers to be quite competitive even to Synced and Vanguard Rogues (I look at their parses probably the most).

FYI Edit - It's important to note that Hemo doesn't always just add 7 damage. It is doubled on any crit (so 14 damage added on a players crit) and the extra damage also scales with talents that affect damage like lethality, or opportunity for example. This goes for your whole raid and every melee class.
 
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There's a little bit of breathing room generally when using Hemo while looking at a parse, placement wise, it's not at all far fetched to give yourself s few thousand dmg to your damage done total in every encounter to account for Hemo raid dmg, which if I do that actually puts me at petty high placements in basically every fight the 2nd week. Not just rogue-wise, any class wise. The whole raid-wise.

And you can attribute battle shout, sunder armor and blessings to the warriors/paladins and subtract that damage from your hemo-rogue again.

- - - Updated - - -

Im not though, of course I'm glancing at other parses from other guilds and their rogues, but it actually gets trickier doing that as an example of anything because no 2 encounters are alike and provide the same circumstances for doing their DPS. Even something like the duration of the actual encounter can greatly affect the overall DPS of a character. Did the boss move or get aggro wonkey? Did it get an extra phase of some mechanic that creates down time (like needing to run out to drop stacks or something similar)?

And yet the same handful of players are in the top 10 on almost every single boss. It's not luck, and it's not random elements falling in their favour, and last but not least you can't hold a fast kill timer agianst someone. Maybe 2 boss encounters aren't alike, but the same boss encounter IS alike, and you can measure damage output very, very easily. Yes, it can be altered by going for the boss instead of adds, and there are probably 1 million tricks that I won't share with you, the point is that over 50 rogues do this and you don't, yet you continue about being competitive without actually playing the game.
 
And you can attribute battle shout, sunder armor and blessings to the warriors/paladins and subtract that damage from your hemo-rogue again.
Bad comparison. The buffs you mentioned are coming from classes and speccs that you have (normally) anyways while hemo is an addition. You can indeed attribute a damage increase for all melee to hemo.

you can't hold a fast kill timer agianst someone.
And yet a faster kill time will benefit some classes way more then others.
Short fights, locks go ham. Long fights and they need to waste GCD for tapping. Obviously a short fight gives locks an advantage over others this way.

And yet the same handful of players are in the top 10 on almost every single boss.
Cause everyone plays the same spec and therefore noone can take advantage over them on certain bosses/situations?

I am currently dpsing as hemo in 5mans and can't say I do bad against others. The spec I run is not designed towards PvE and still works fairly well.
For me, raiding with Hemo would only have 1 reason. Sparing money on respec. Therefore I wouldn't craft a hemo spec for PvE as it would gimp its true purpose. PvP.
 
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