Civilian

Remember when I brought up the question of whether hemo + serrated blades is equal to the bottom half of the combat tree?  Apparently somebody started testing 11/28/22 and the evidence so far is that it works.  Here's the thread. 

I just respecced and am trying it out tonight.  We'll see how it goes.  What I _can_ tell you is that farming mobs is a blast. 

I still don't imagine this being viable for dagger rogues.  But, i have always liked the spec for swords. 

The consensus on EJ is that it won't work for pve daggers.

However the numbers from tonight were encouraging.  On the burst dps on Shade of Akama I was slightly behind Zafo for 2nd place on the meters (Pythos had to go before we pulled).  However, that doesn't factor in the 80ish dps raid benefit from the hemo debuff.  Also, I imagine Zafo used AR, which will give a strong advantage in very short fights like that.  Stretch the fight out to 4 minutes and the advantage would diminish.

So overall I'm sold that the spec works.  I'll probably respec one more time to move a couple of points around, but no substantive changes. 

I am personally anticipating the aggression changes really.  I really do think it will make competing (read: keeping up) a little easier.  I would look into Hemo if i had swords to work with.  In the end, i doubt it will ever be viable for a PvE Dagger build.

Owch, don't hit back on the browser on these forums.  I just lost a huge post.

I'll edit this when I can, but it was a nice explaination on Hemo, pros and cons, in relation to daggers.

/cry

Anytime I write anything that's more than a paragraph, I make sure to copy it to my clipboard prior to hitting post for that exact reason. 

Aren't they buffing teh debuff in 2.3 as well? Should make your build even more viable.

Mardraum:

Aren't they buffing teh debuff in 2.3 as well? Should make your build even more viable.

Currently the hemo debuff gives +10 damage to all physical attacks for 30 charges.  In 2.3 it will be +36 for 10 charges or 15 seconds.  Overall this is definitely a buff because:

1) Total raid damage goes up by 20% (360 instead of 300, before armor mitigation and criticals)

2) Practically guarantees that all charges will be used in between hemo applications

3) Is far more useful to a rogue solo or in pvp when typically only 2-5 charges get used. 

History on Normalization:

Pre patch 2.1.0, attack power bonus damage multiplied AP with attack speed. This allowed instant attacks like hemo, sinister strike, and mortal strike to become over powered. If you recall Arcanite Reapers were all the rage back in those days. That is because of their 3.80 attack speed. Weapon speed became more important than actual weapon damage. If you based your weapon of off weapon damage, you might have gotten a increase of 10-20 damage a swing. Where as, attack speed could multiply your attack power by as much as 50% by going from 3.2 to 3.7 attack speed. Because of this focus of attack speed over actual weapon upgrades, Blizzard normalized all weapons of a type (1hand, 2hand, and dagger) to a fixed weapon speed for the attack power modifier formula when applied to Special Attacks. The numbers may not be 100% accurate (I'm at work): 2hander: 3.4 1hander: 2.6 (I know for sure is correct) dagger: 1.8

Attack Power Modifier & Basic Attack Formula:

Modifier = (Attack Power / 14) * Weapon Speed Normal Damage = Modifier + Weapon Damage

Attack Power Modifier & Special Attack Formula:

Modifier = (Attack Power / 14) * Fixed Weapon Speed (3.2, 2.6, or 1.8 depending on weapon) Normal Damage = Modifier + Weapon Damage

Attack Power Modifier & Basic Attack Formula:

Modifier = (Attack Power / 14) * Weapon Speed Normal Hemo Damage = Modifier + Weapon Damage

This means, hemo is still reliant on weapon speed, attack power, and weapon damgage; in that order of importance.  Attack power is the variable, weapon speed is the multiplier, and weapon damage gets added on after the fact.

So why does daggers fail to perform as well as a sword/mace with hemo?

Attack speed.  Simple as that.  Lets run some simple numbers using the formula

Dagger: 100 damage, 2.0 attack speed, 2000 attack power:

(2000/14)*2.0=285.7  <--- attack power modifier

285+100=385 <---------------total damage with hemo

Mace/Sword: 100 damage, 3.0 attack speed, 2000 attack power:

(2000/14)*3.0=428.5  <--- attack power modifier

428+100=528 <---------------total damage with hemo

50% damage increse! All I did was change the attack speed.  I didn't touch the actual weapon damage, which typcally goes up with slower weapons.  This is why daggers are lower in dps than mace/sword in hemo.  The actual damage of the weapon means nothing.

As far as Hemo in a raid, it will always be infirior to SS.  It would take 2500+ to cover the dps difference between the skills.  The new buff to the debuff is a posible ray of light.  It is being increased from 10 to 36.  If so, the dps will go up from 85 to around 100.

When I started to research different builds when I hit 60, i came across this rule of thumb most everywhere: Hemo is for swords, Seal Fate is for daggers.  The reason for swords on hemo was because of the weapon speed...so i guess that still applies, eh?

The damage from last night is nice, but I don't think trash mobs and a >1 minute fight on Akama is enough. Maybe another night or two on a few bosses to know for sure. I'm confident it'll hold up though. I think that as long as the theory (aka spreadsheet) puts it close (1-2 pieces of gear apart) and the meters put you at least in the top 3-4, it's a viable raid build. This might hold for a mutilate 41/20 build as well, as I'm seeing the dps gap get smaller as the gear gets better. 

I'm curious to see what numbers you are putting out.  I'll check the WWS when I get home.  Who is specced hemo?  and of those, who is using daggers, who is using sword/mace?

 it's just neckface with hemo, using swords.

Mina,

The hemo vs. ss analysis is well known, but it misses several points:

1) Hemo only uses 7/8 as much energy, so you get more of them

2) In a raid setting all the hemo charges gets used, which is like +300 damage for each hit (+360 in the patch)

3) In any event, hemo/ss accounts for only a fraction of your total damage.

So, yes, individual hemo strikes will generally land for less than a typical ss strike.*  But that's not really the issue. 

The real question is whether the the 7/8 energy, the +300 raid damage, and the 560 armor mitigation that comes with Serrated Blades (prerequisite for hemo) makes up for the loss of Combat Potency, Aggression, and Adrenaline Rush.  And the answer seems to be yes. 

*Ghostly Strike, by the way, hits harder than ss. 

Oh, based off of Casr's responce, I thought peeps were trying it with daggers.

If you have the AP, It could work.  The another disadvantage is the synergy of SnD with potency.

Warning Theory Craft! 

Given: 20% chance to do 15 energy is equal to 3 energy per attack on OH average.

Add SnD to a 1.5 speed OH dagger, is an attack per second, or an average 3 energy per second

Hemo save 5 energy every 4 seconds compared to SS.

In theory:  potency could provide on average 12 energy per 4 seconds, while hemo only saves 5 per 4 seconds.

Can a mathy type person check that?

I'm curious how serrated blades plays out.  + 30%Rupture is clearly great, but I'm curious how effective the armor reduction affects the fight.  I would assume as each new encounter come along, mob armor goes higher and higher, allowing serrated blades to always scale with it. 

At 60, I raided Hemo with my rouge and often toped meters, but I couldn't do the same in BC.  I alway attributed it to combat potency.  Energy = extra hits and combo points.  It seemed that CP gave more energy than hemo saved.  Either way, I am very interested to see how this pans out, got my hemo build cooking...