Sustained DPS Comparison: Popular Rogue PVP Specs

http://rogue.raidcal.com/



From AR/prep to Shadowstep, the most common misconception around the forums has been these specs have little-to-no sustained damage. It seems like a lot of rogues are very mistaken on how sustained DPS works for PVP specs. Every single DPS talent can be quantified based on your stats. This is why with the outstanding rogue DPS calculator I have calculated the effect of every single rogue DPS talent in the game in a situation you are glued to the target and pounding away.



If you haven't tried this spreadsheet check it out, not only the calculation is almost exactly what I experienced personally (I wasted 500g in specs since 2.3.2 came out alone, 1000g since the announcement of AR/prep nerf), it also allows you to import your character from armory. Your gear and talents will all be there (with minor differences, they calculate the Bloodlust Brooth as +118 AP for example which is correct from a sustained perspective) and you can start swapping things in and out right away to test the differences.



The stats I am using (before any talents) are S3 weapons, 1600 AP, 5% hit, and 26% crit. Everything is gemmed/enchanted for DPS. This is pretty much what everyone else has at the moment and 100 less AP or 50 more hit really won't swing the spreadsheet model much. There are obviously things that you need to pay attention as raid DPS is not same as PVP DPS.



For example, I am using a level 70 player with 4000 armor as the target. I wanted to take a median between cloth/leather/mail/plate. The reason 4000 is used is because talents like serrated blades works better vs cloth than it does vs plate, so a median is needed. I am using slice and dice, great finisher for both DPS and poison applications, and eviscerate as the DPS finishers. Finally, the hemo debuff is calculated as 120 DPS in a raid environment, as every hemo you toss out will be eaten right away and you can do one every 3.5 seconds. In PVP situations, due to the necessity of other finishers and utility moves such as vanish CS, blind, and the fact you almost always hemo before the previous charges are used, I am using a very conservative 40 DPS for the hemo debuff (Hid posted his math in comments which I won't go into details of), or 30DPS for the debuff, this should also cover armor which reduces the debuff's effectiveness as well.



The hemo debuff really closes the gap between hemo specs and traditional DPS specs like combat mutilate and combat maces in PVP. You don't notice this on damage meters because everyone benefits from this debuff, and 40 DPS is nothing when you are fully buffed on a sundered target doing 2000 DPS. In PVP environments, 30DPS is pretty significant for people in PVP gear. The debuff itself is as good as a lot of the DPS talents.



All Specs Took Maximum DPS Talents As Filler Choices:



19/42 Combat Sword: 847

19/42 Combat Mace: 822

41/20 Combat Mutilate: 790

0/31/30 AR/Prep Swords: 781

0/31/30 AR/Prep Maces: 755

31/0/30 Seal Fate Hemo: 750

19/0/42 Assassination Shadowstep Hemo: 747

0/20/41 Combat Shadowstep Hemo: 745

25/36 QR Combat Mace: 730

43/0/18 Subtlety Mutilate: 717

30/0/31 Seal Fate Dagger: 707

53/0/8 Heavy Poison Mutilate: 690

19/0/42 Shadowstep Dagger: 690



AR/prep does surprisingly high sustained damage of all subtlety specs, and it is the spec least affected by resilience on this list other than combat shadowstep. It still has one of the best combinations of damage, utilities and mobility. I think once the initial shock value of losing the second AR is over, you will see more people return to this spec.



I am still trying to decide whether shadowstep is better than 2.3.2 AR/prep myself. However given the huge utilities of the combat tree one can eliminate seal fate hemo (unless you have T6 trinket, and even if you do the difference is probably not that big) and QR combat from the list. I wish I had this calculator as had I realized seal fate hemo really isn't more sustained DPS than AR/prep, I wouldn't have bothered with it at all. How can 30 in combat have worse sustained power than 30 in assassination?



Backstab builds do really bad sustained damage to begin with, and they are most affected by resilience. You won't see backstab builds coming back anytime soon. Mutilate is still the only dagger option (and a very strong one for that matter with several rogues on SK100 using it).



Finally, PVP gear vs PVE gear:



A really fun thing to do is to import people's armory profiles and compare your DPS against theirs based on their current talent choices, here is a list of the popular PVP rogues and their sustained DPS based on their current gear/gem/talent choices. I made sure I caught these people in their PVP gears.



Combat Mutilate:



Isolee: 790 DPS

Seikun: 745 DPS



Subtlety Mutilate:



XOM: 698 DPS

Tosan: 632 DPS



Assassination Shadowstep:




Zerix: 829 DPS

Happyminty: 745 DPS

Ming: 724 DPS

Neilyo: 674 DPS



Combat Shadowstep:



Seijim:  835

Xecks: 667 DPS



AR/Prep:



Nitrana: 675 DPS



CB/Prep:



Loz: 753 DPS

Buddhist: 683 DPS



Combat Mace:



Arete: 998 DPS (note: he 2v2s with a druid and uses full PVE gear vs warrior/druids, only 120 resilience and he outmuscles warriors toe-to-toe)



Zerix the warglaive shadowstep rogue does more DPS than combat mutilate rogues as shadowstep. And he does 25% more damage than the golden child and Neilyo while losing just 100 resilience. It is a disgusting advantage.



I am probably going to pick-up a S3 shiv and enchant it with mongoose Minti-sama style. I will probably add ruthless back to my spec as well for better CP generation. Kind of regret that I bought the adamantite weapon chain for my S3 mace offhand. Disarms are pretty rare as it is.



Surprisingly full combat mace is extremely rare compared to shadowstep and mutilate among top rogues. I guess it lacks the game-ending burst damage of mutilate, and for doing maximum sustained damage, mobility (and vastly superior stealth and prep for smaller brackets) is just as important as raw DPS stats. In a RMP vs RMP match for example, combat mace will be outdamaged by shadowstep every single time. Combat mace will only really destroy specs like AR/prep and shadowstep in something like rogue/druid vs rogue/druid, just not a common situation nowadays.



I will try 0/20/41 next, same sustained damage as 20/0/41, gives up some rather weak burst for two improved sprints.