What would be more DPS for my rogue? Upgrading my haste item or offhand?

[cooler2442]

I currently have an RBG for my haste item(with epic of course) and a winter's fury for my offhand. Would I see more DPS from upgrading the winters fury to an Exquisite Velium Spear or upgrading my haste item for more backstabs to an RBB?

[HouseTargaryen]

Both either way will give you that extra Dps boost.
I would go RBB first then wep upgrade after that.

[Cecily]

4% haste upgrade... meh. Get the shiny 12 20 weapon imo if you can stand that spear look for probably forever. I can't.

[Lowako]

I'd go with the offhand upgrade. Your backstab refresh timer will drop by about .24s~ (7.87s vs 7.63) when you're unhasted. The benefit of upgrading your haste item is mitigated by haste, because even with celerity (shaman 50% haste) the value of that 4% haste is essentially halved (5.52s vs 5.4s).

Ideally you'd get a better haste item in a different slot so you can use a turtle belt (or dain belt) for the aura of battle.

[cooler2442]

I'd go with the offhand upgrade. Your backstab refresh timer will drop by about .24s~ (7.87s vs 7.63) when you're unhasted. The benefit of upgrading your haste item is mitigated by haste, because even with celerity (shaman 50% haste) the value of that 4% haste is essentially halved (5.52s vs 5.4s).

Ideally you'd get a better haste item in a different slot so you can use a turtle belt (or dain belt) for the aura of battle.

What about if say I skipped the RBB and kept saving for a CoF? Would I see a better DPS increase in getting the CoF vs my RBG instead of upgrading to the spear over a winters fury?

[sdp00888]

If you want to calculate how much better a CoF is going to be then take (10/1.36) which means backstab cooldown will be 7.35 seconds compared to an RBB would be 7.63 seconds. Currently with your RBG your bs cool down timer is 7.87 seconds. As you can see even a CoF isn't going to make that big of a difference. You'd be better going off for the exq. Velium spear imo

[Lowako]

What about if say I skipped the RBB and kept saving for a CoF? Would I see a better DPS increase in getting the CoF vs my RBG instead of upgrading to the spear over a winters fury?

Like sdp00888 said, upgrading your haste is minimal gain, I'd go with the offhand. The benefits of a haste upgrade get mitigated by having a buff haste (which you'll have in nearly all scenarios), whereas the benefits of a weapon upgrade are magnified by having haste buffs, as well as most likely providing more DPS in any scenario.

[HouseTargaryen]

any direction u go will work. eventually u will upgrade both. I would upgrade haste because selling your rbg for RBB will be a cheaper upgrade.
upgrading offhand will only increase your offhand dmg.
upgrading haste will increase your backstab, ragebringer and offhand dmg.

[KorafRN]

I'm pretty sure cof is better than upgrading offhand. 3.5% offhand upgrade vs 9% bs cooldown. I'd even guess than RBB is slightly better as well. Every rogues damage splits will be different, but mine is roughly 40% bs / 40% mh/ 20% oh

Upgrading his haste won't affect auto attack since he uses ragebringer

[Samoht]

9% bs cooldown.

Upgrading to CoF is not even a 9% cooldown increase unless he's unbuffed. It's only 6% with just Speed of Shissar.

[KorafRN]

VOG or gtfo :D

[Muggens]

VOG or gtfo :D

? if you're not max item hasted SoS or WR is better for BS refresh timer

[Lowako]

any direction u go will work. eventually u will upgrade both. I would upgrade haste because selling your rbg for RBB will be a cheaper upgrade.
upgrading offhand will only increase your offhand dmg.
upgrading haste will increase your backstab, ragebringer and offhand dmg.

upgrading haste won't effect ragebringer or offhand damage (unless he is upgrading to 41% haste).

vog is generally the preferred haste even if you don't hit the cap without it, the value of ATK on this server is obscene.

here is some big nerd math numbers for backstab dps. keep in mind these numbers assume 100% accuracy, a 50% chance to double backstab (this seems to be close to the actual chance based on some parsing), a patchwerk style fight, and hitting backstab exactly on cooldown. Some of the average backstab damage numbers that I plug in are on the higher end of the spectrum as well, so keep that in mind. anywhere from 170-250 damage could be reasonable for average backstab based on mob AC/luck/mainhand damage.

In practice, you aren't going to be hitting backstab perfectly on cooldown, not only because of mobs moving etc, trying to avoid that bug where it eats the cooldown but you don't actually backstab etc, the ability coming off cooldown in between keypresses (as a side note, the fastest i was able to hit the backstab key is roughly 12 times per second, but only because 1 on my hotbar is also bound to E so i can alternate slamming the keys). Fight length also has tremendous impact on the value of a haste upgrade in regards to backstab timing.

number of backstab attempts per minute, 27% haste vs 36% haste
1min - 7.62 vs 8.16
2min - 15.25 vs 16.32
5min - 38.11 vs 40.8
1 hour - 457.4 vs 489.8

some average backstab damage from various parses (note: all of mine are using a 13 damage weapon, i believe luddo, mdk, and samila all use ragebringer for theirs)
draco - tev 247
cekenar - tev 173 | mdk - 223 | luddo - 250 | samila - 196
king group (myconids and various frogs) - tev 218 vs mdk 238

total backstab damage over 1 hour rbg vs cof - dps in parentheses ***I MADE AN ERROR HERE*** I forgot to include double backstab when doing these calcs. I put the corrected dps difference in brackets. most of the other numbers can be ignored.
220 avg dmg - 100540 (27.92) vs 107580 (29.88) - 1.96 [2.94] dps difference
250 avg dmg - 114250 (31.74) vs 122250 (33.96) - 2.22 [3.33] dps difference
300 avg dmg - 137100 (38.08) vs 146700 (40.75) - 2.72 [4.08] dps difference



number of backstab attempts per minute, 85% haste (rbg with vog) vs 94% haste (cof with vog)
1 - 11.09 vs 11.65
2 - 22.18 vs 23.30
5 - 55.45 vs 58.25
1 hour - 665.43 vs 699.03

total backstab damage over 1 hour - with vog, rbg vs cof (Includes the 50% double backstab chance)
220 avg dmg - 219450 (60.96) vs 230670 (64.08) - 3.12 dps difference
250 avg dmg - 249375 (69.27) vs 262125 (72.81) - 3.54 dps difference
300 avg dmg - 299250 (83.13) vs 314550 (87.38) - 4.25 dps difference

moving onward to offhand calculations, thankfully they are quite simple. these numbers don't factor in dual wield/double attack chance unfortunately.

average hit damage = (2 * Weapon_Base) + Bonus_Modifier + STR Modifier
offhand has a bonus modifier of 0, strength modifier is thought to be a multiplicative so (2*weapon_base*STRbonus) + bonus. as it stands, im pretty clueless as to what the STR bonus is so its being left out.

winters fury average hit = 26
winters fury average dps base = 11.304
winters fury average dps worn haste only = 15.825
winters fury average dps worn haste + vog = 22.375

exquisite velium spear average hit = 24
exquisite velium spear average dps base = 12 (.696 dps increase)
exquisite velium spear average dps worn haste only = 16.795 (.97 dps increase)
exquisite velium spear average dps worn haste + vog = 23.762 (1.387 dps increase)

TLDR; I was wrong, haste item wins in theory(only tested with CoF as the haste though), whereas an offhand weapon is likely to be slightly better or even in practice. both upgrades are relatively minimal, your best bet to increase DPS is to be luckier.

[Endonde]

the value of ATK on this server is obscene

I've heard this from several rogues now but have never really seen any evidence to support it, I have seen plenty of rogues not using rage bringer pull consistently high damage. If atk is obscene I would think a +40 buff would win out.

I'd argue you aren't taking vog because the 20 Atk is obscene but because the 1-2% haste from shissar is negligible, plus for raiding you can just get a bard to haste cap you.

[Cecily]

10 atk should be +1% dps.

[Lowako]

I've heard this from several rogues now but have never really seen any evidence to support it, I have seen plenty of rogues not using rage bringer pull consistently high damage. If atk is obscene I would think a +40 buff would win out.

I'd argue you aren't taking vog because the 20 Atk is obscene but because the 1-2% haste from shissar is negligible, plus for raiding you can just get a bard to haste cap you.

taking vog is a combination of ATK being strong and the 2% weapon haste from other haste being quite minimal. An oddity with ragebringer is that although the effect is listed as being +40 atk, it seems to give +54 atk in game (that number could be off slightly, i remember it being higher than 40 though, yes i was STR capped with/without it equipped). This could just be a client display error, but other buffs seem to increase ATK on the character sheet by the correct amount.

you can still parse well with velious raid weapons equipped in offhand (claw of lightning, baton of flame, tunare whip all come to mind) but the benefit is pretty minimal. here is some more numerical vomit.

these numbers assume 36% backstab haste (which isn't accurate for claw obviously, you could add about 1 DPS to the final claw numbers if you wanted, although the benefit is probably smaller than that) as well as using a non-ragebringer primary like vyemm's fang or something.

with vog+weapon haste
rb avg dps no atk factored = 23.76
claw avg dps = 30.94

this is where things get a little abstract, if we assume that mainhand dps and backstab dps tend to be roughly equal(looking at various parses from different rogues this seems to be a realistic estimate), we could say that a dude using ragebringer (with no attack factored in) would do
64+64+23.76 dps, or 151.76 dps.

a dude using claw would do 64+64+30.94, or 158.9

obviously these numbers seem grossly inflated from reality because they don't factor in accuracy. normal hit rate seems to be between 65 and 70%, lets assume 65%.

rb(atk not factored) = 98.644 dps
claw = 103.285 dps

these numbers seem more in line with reality. because the eq client is odd and inconsistent, I included numbers for ragebringer at 40 atk and 54 atk. if cecily's 10 atk = 1% dps is correct, we end up with

rb(40 atk) = 102.590 dps
rb(54 atk) = 103.971 dps

basically the difference between the highest ratio offhand in the game and ragebringer is incredibly minimal, which is why I think baton or tunare whip would be better than claw, even though proc DPS is quite minimal as well. alternatively you could use ragebringer in offhand forever and not see any substantial loss. I could have made some errors in the math above as well as not having a perfect model, feel free to point out the flaws.

TLDR; rogue offhand upgrades provide minimal benefit to DPS, I wasted more time doing some rough and not entirely accurate math, luck makes getting fully accurate parse data nearly impossible in this game.

[Cecily]

Can you math me dragonspine rapier + Rage, Rage + Claw of Lightning, dragonspine + claw please?

I'm leaning towards Rapier + Rage as much as it'd pain me to bank Claw.

[Endonde]

taking vog is a combination of ATK being strong and the 2% weapon haste from other haste being quite minimal. An oddity with ragebringer is that although the effect is listed as being +40 atk, it seems to give +54 atk in game (that number could be off slightly, i remember it being higher than 40 though, yes i was STR capped with/without it equipped). This could just be a client display error, but other buffs seem to increase ATK on the character sheet by the correct amount.

you can still parse well with velious raid weapons equipped in offhand (claw of lightning, baton of flame, tunare whip all come to mind) but the benefit is pretty minimal. here is some more numerical vomit.

these numbers assume 36% backstab haste (which isn't accurate for claw obviously, you could add about 1 DPS to the final claw numbers if you wanted, although the benefit is probably smaller than that) as well as using a non-ragebringer primary like vyemm's fang or something.

with vog+weapon haste
rb avg dps no atk factored = 23.76
claw avg dps = 30.94

this is where things get a little abstract, if we assume that mainhand dps and backstab dps tend to be roughly equal(looking at various parses from different rogues this seems to be a realistic estimate), we could say that a dude using ragebringer (with no attack factored in) would do
64+64+23.76 dps, or 151.76 dps.

a dude using claw would do 64+64+30.94, or 158.9

obviously these numbers seem grossly inflated from reality because they don't factor in accuracy. normal hit rate seems to be between 65 and 70%, lets assume 65%.

rb(atk not factored) = 98.644 dps
claw = 103.285 dps

these numbers seem more in line with reality. because the eq client is odd and inconsistent, I included numbers for ragebringer at 40 atk and 54 atk. if cecily's 10 atk = 1% dps is correct, we end up with

rb(40 atk) = 102.590 dps
rb(54 atk) = 103.971 dps

basically the difference between the highest ratio offhand in the game and ragebringer is incredibly minimal, which is why I think baton or tunare whip would be better than claw, even though proc DPS is quite minimal as well. alternatively you could use ragebringer in offhand forever and not see any substantial loss. I could have made some errors in the math above as well as not having a perfect model, feel free to point out the flaws.

TLDR; rogue offhand upgrades provide minimal benefit to DPS, I wasted more time doing some rough and not entirely accurate math, luck makes getting fully accurate parse data nearly impossible in this game.


Could you show me a few logs showing the difference between offhand, mainhand, and Backstab dmg. I've been using double piercer for forever so I can't tell the difference between mainhand, and offhand dps, but the 40/40/20 split doesn't seem right to me looking at my parses.

[Cecily]

40 - 40 - 20 is my rule of thumb for estimating rogue damage. It varies +/- 10% or so on all of them. Here's some parses from this week. Rage + Claw on first two. Dragonspine + Claw on Velk. Claw does seems to account for 25%+ of my damage looking around at my parses. Might be something to be said for super nice offhand ratios.

http://i.imgur.com/xm956LQ.png

[cooler2442]

Well I ended up getting a Ter Dal Sai today so I won't be buying the Exquisite Velium Spear and instead saving for an RBB/CoF.

[KorafRN]

if you use similar ratio mh/oh, and RB to backstab, you should see around 40/40/20 split. Rb/claw parses is just heavily skewed because you're using a kunark ratio wep with a velious ratio wep for auto attack dmg. It's probably not the norm for your offhand to fire more often than your mainhand.

[Lowako]

Can you math me dragonspine rapier + Rage, Rage + Claw of Lightning, dragonspine + claw please?

I'm leaning towards Rapier + Rage as much as it'd pain me to bank Claw.

Personally I've never been a fan of dragonspine rapier because of the proc being really high threat, which means a bad string of failed evades plus some "lucky" procs can lead to an unpleasant situation.

Also, I'm almost 100% positive that mainhand damage bonus is unmodified by ATK or mob AC so that means my calculations for the above post are either slightly off or 10 ATK is worth a little bit more than 1% dps. Personally, I think that ATK stacks really well with itself, it seems to give more value per point the more of it you have but this is entirely speculation and I have no concrete proof.

I can't really give a fully accurate comparison for mainhand weapons as I'm not quite sure on how much weapon damage will raise your average backstab by. Estimating backstab damage in general is incredibly fickle. I'm going to make a bold assumption and say 1 point of weapon damage will increase your average backstab by about 15 damage(this is based off some parses where rogues using epic in mainhand have an average backstab of anywhere from 18-30~ damage higher than myself using a 13 damage weapon) in these calculations, and that your average backstab damage with a 14 damage weapon is 200.

If we trust the wiki and the hidden value for double attack is 400, that'd give us a double attack chance of 60%. I couldn't find anything on dual wield but im going to assume the chance for it to trigger is close enough to where it simply cancels out with double attack because I'm lazy. More numerical vomit below.


this model seems to be relatively accurate, but is obviously not perfect. feel free to pick it apart/point out flaws.

rb(15/25) vs dsr(14/21) vs claw(14/18)
assuming 41% haste + vog (i just realized i used 40% weapon haste for ragebringer and 41% for claw in my previous post, i think i rounded differently was well, oops)
avg dps forumla = [(Weapon Damage*2)/(Delay in seconds/haste as a decimal)] + 10/(Delay in Seconds/Haste as a decimal)
i leave the epic atk bonus out of this.
for dps after double attack you just multiply the above by 1.6
rb avg dps no dmg bonus = 23.89 -- DPS of damage bonus = 7.96 - DPS after mainhand double attack = 38.224 | dmg bonus after da 12.736
dsr avg dps no dmg bonus = 26.54 -- DPS of damage bonus = 9.48 - dps after mh double attack = 42.464 | dmg bonus after da 15.168
claw avg dps no dmg bonus = 30.94

proc dps for the rapier (duration is 1 minute so I'm assuming you have high dex, can maintain the dot, the mob never moves, and it never gets resisted. for a more realistic number, multiply this dps by your uptime of the dot so 65% uptime = dps*.65)
dsr avg proc dps theoretical = 7.5 (45 damage per tic, 100% uptime, so 45/6)
in reality the proc will probably be less than 1/2 as effective as this, if not worse. Im going to use 3.5 dps for calculations below, or slightly less than half value.

im using 200 and 215 for avg backstab dmg
backstab dps for dsr = 59.7 = (avg backstab dmg/backstab cooldown)*1.5
backstab dps for rb = 64.19

generic dps forumla is: [(Mainhand DPS + Backstab DPS + Offhand dps)*rbATKbonus + DamagebonusDPS]*accuracy + Proc DPS
Im using rbATKbonus as 1.054 (epic giving 54 ATK) for these
rb+claw = [(38.224 + 64.19 + 30.94)*1.054 + 12.736]*.65 = 99.64 DPS
dsr+claw = [(42.464 + 59.7 + 30.94) + 15.168]*.65 + 3.5 = 99.88 DPS
dsr+rb = [(42.464 + 59.7 + 23.76)*1.054 + 15.168]*.65 + 3.5 = 99.63 DPS

rapier + claw combo wins by a very small margin. if you get an ideal proccing situation the setups using DSR will pull ahead, as well as in situations with high AC mobs(however these mobs are
probably going to resist the proc more often as well). However, if your accuracy is above 65% because of mob level/luck or if you're fighting lower AC mobs then you'll see the rb+claw combo pull ahead.

Based on the data from using this model (i think its kinda close to reality, but still flawed so keep that in mind) i'd roll with epic+claw. you get to avoid dealing with proc luck and generating a lot more aggro that can lead to getting slam dunked because of bad evade strings. this will matter less on raids, but is still relevant. you also get the benefit of the stats on epic, scaling better with buffs/other sources of ATK, more benefit from duelist disc etc.

[Lowako]

Could you show me a few logs showing the difference between offhand, mainhand, and Backstab dmg. I've been using double piercer for forever so I can't tell the difference between mainhand, and offhand dps, but the 40/40/20 split doesn't seem right to me looking at my parses.

I had to look at parses from other rogues where I saw pierce + slash/blunt so I cant speak for specifics. This was also just the general trend, rb+claw is going to skew in favor of claw, high AC(most kael stuff, tov dragons, tunare etc) mobs when you aren't fully ATK buffed will skew in favor of the mainhand(this is incredibly prominent on bristlebane). Backstab luck plays a pretty big role in your damage splits as well. There is also going to be variance with anything involving any kind of melee in everquest because it is wildly luck dependent. Here are some parses from an awakened+CSG joint AoW on a repop.

http://i.imgur.com/yZC7EFW.png

I'm not certain what weapons most of the people are using, but I'm pretty sure samila and fuge are using RB+claw. All of those are from the same encounter, from my perspective. I didn't die and was in melee range the entire encounter so the above parses should be 99.9% accurate.

[Pezy]

Combined every boss fight over the last ~7 days I've done on my Rogue using RB/Claw, if this helps anyone.

http://i.imgur.com/WqLzFeY.png

[Jimjam]

I'm surprised at how big a proportion of damage those slash attacks are doing!

[Pezy]

I was kinda surprised too. More of a testament to how terrible the ratio on the RB is though.