Subtlety Offhand

[Phonoi 0]

This is my first time posting here, so pardon me if this is considered a trivial post, but it has been bugging me for a quite awhile and I am curious if there is an answer to my question.

 

Previously while browsing these forums, I have seen a couple of statements where subtlety's offhand is called a "stat stick", or Phemos' Double Slasher is considered equivalent or better than Ko'ragh's Boot Knife. I realize this is Highmaul gear, and things have changed, but I am still left wondering whether my following assumption is correct.

 

Given that Honor Among Thieves now procs off of the rogue's auto attacks as of patch 6.0.2, wouldn't a faster weapon, i.e., a dagger, be more optimal then a slower weapon, i.e., an axe?

 

Obviously, a few other factors would come into account when determining the offhand weapon, such as the stats present on it. I would imagine the mastery/multistrike on Phemos' Double Slasher would outweigh the haste/versatility on Ko'ragh's Boot Knife, even if the dagger is able to sneak in a few more Honor Among Thieves procs. However, given an axe and a dagger of similar stats, would my assumption/question prove correct and make the dagger better then the axe?

 

Again, excuse me if this is a trivial question, but I have been rather curious about this and have just gathered the courage to post here to confirm/deny my hypothesis using a more experienced rogue's knowledge.

[Carrn 284]

HaT will be proccing on cooldown - you have an entire raid full of people who are critting all the time to provide you with the extra point. Your autos make no difference at all

 

Your Sub offhand should be picked based on 1) weapon dps and 2) stats

[gonlaz 6]

just went sub today and checked out some training dummy numbers, this is funny. I put my Hansgar's forgehammer (heroic) in my mainhand, kept my boot knife (normal warforged) in OH and did more dps, using hemo as my main cp builder, then the two daggers. I'm certain that is not as intended.

 

I was going to use the hammer in my OH because shadowcraft says to, but in the end after banging on the training dummy the two daggers (one is oregorger's normal mode 665) gave me the higher dps.

 

My first day on sub and I could just suck at it right now but I found that interesting. I do see other sub rogues using an OH fist weapon from kargath

[Carrn 284]

It's probably an anomaly due to the fact that you aren't in a group. Perhaps the faster OH swings were critting more frequently so you got more out of your HaT.

In raid that shouldn't be the case. Plus, Hemo as main cp builder doesn't Multistrike for your bleeds to tick down like BS does

[gonlaz 6]

how do you feel about a fist weapon or hammer for the OH as sub?

[Carrn 284]

Again, it's all about what gives the most dps and the best stats, in that order. So higher ilevel > better stats > type of weapon

[gonlaz 6]

I remember when I was leveling this rogue, 2008, hemo was the main cp builder if memory serves, for sub, still costs less energy so I found myself getting a ton of more hits in. I went in on the raider dummy again with the hammer in my main hand and used hemo as the builder and still ended up with higher dps and damage done over a mh dagger.

Even on the damage tab under "attack" in the character tab it showed dps numbers suggesting about 2k more each weapon that way.

Unfortunately shadowcraft will not let me sub in a hammer on my mh so I can't show it from there, but I have to admit that it's intriguing enough that I am going to go into lfr with it and check out the numbers and log it, maybe even on a normal run on gruul or something, not sure on heroic I'd risk it lol but still it does have me very curious.

[Carrn 284]

Yes it costs less energy, but:

1. Hemo only does more damage than BS when the bleed ticks very close to the full duration
2. BS does more damage any time that Find Weakness is on the target
3. When BS multistrikes, it gives one instant tick of Rupture, which triggers a high amount of damage that ignores armor instantly

Assuming that you're playing Sub properly, you will always have Rupture on the target since it's your hardest hitting skill by far, and the more times that it gets to tick during a fight will increase your dps significantly. 

 

The reason that Shadowcraft doesn't let you have anything but a dagger in your main hand is because you need one to cast BS, which is better according to every Theorycraft and Simulation out there.

 

I'm honestly not sure how many other ways it can be explained to you

[gonlaz 6]

Yes it costs less energy, but:

1. Hemo only does more damage than BS when the bleed ticks very close to the full duration
2. BS does more damage any time that Find Weakness is on the target
3. When BS multistrikes, it gives one instant tick of Rupture, which triggers a high amount of damage that ignores armor instantly

Assuming that you're playing Sub properly, you will always have Rupture on the target since it's your hardest hitting skill by far, and the more times that it gets to tick during a fight will increase your dps significantly. 

 

The reason that Shadowcraft doesn't let you have anything but a dagger in your main hand is because you need one to cast BS, which is better according to every Theorycraft and Simulation out there.

 

I'm honestly not sure how many other ways it can be explained to you

 

 

The last line there, not exactly necessary man.

 

All I know is contrary to those theorycrafting numbers, and yes I have rupture up (again with the cheap shots, I love you guys) the numbers tell a different story - and I just find it very interesting. 

Just because it goes against spreadsheet formulas doesn't mean it can't be actually working. I don't know why but really if it improves my numbers in a raid, then I don't care.

Of course if it is really just a weirdo anomaly, I am fine with that as well.

Edited March 1, 2015 by gonlaz

[Carrn 284]

They weren't intended as cheap shots, sorry if you took them that way

 

I don't know what your gear level is like, but if for some reason you have no Multstrike and very little Mastery it's possible that you don't see the same results as other people, but you really don't want to be building bad habits

[Turaton 0]

You are comparing a 680 weapon with a 665 weapon under non-raid conditions.