Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Title sounds like a joke, I know, but bare with me.

Can somebody provide some numbers/theorycrafting, NOT ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, on the viability or more likely, lack thereof, a Hemo PvE spec?

I know in Vanilla some guilds used a single Hemo rogue in AQ so the dagger rogues + warriors would benefit from the debuff, but knowing what I know now, the majority of players in Vanilla didn't know shit about the game. Obviously the debuff is going to boost melee dps, but by how much? Is it worth a raid debuff slot? It is going to compete with Deep Wounds, which warriors will be duel wielding in AQ so is their bleed DPS all that great? Or will it knock off important debuffs from casters?

My guess is Hemo is not worth it, unless you have a very skewed raid setup to make it work, but I want to KNOW that. Can anyone provide some actual numbers to support either side of it? I've heard people say you need 2k buffed AP to make it work, but they have nothing to back up that claim. I've done some research into it and can't find anything very solid; Elitest Jerks had a little bit of information on it but with dead links to other sites.

In before "lol hemo pvp spec noob"

I know in Vanilla some guilds used a single Hemo rogue

People who didn't know what they were doing, like most vanilla guilds.

Is it worth a raid debuff slot?

In answering this question, every debuff that competes for a slot should be compared to corruption. At this gear level in the right raid setup, corruption is doing about 300/3 seconds, or 100 dps. You don't even have to crunch the numbers to the realize the hemo debuff isn't going to beat 100 dps, and because corruption scales with spell power and hemo debuff does not scale at all, you have your answer in perpetuity.

Also, your hemo will knock off corruptions, and every time that happens, it's like watching your raid DPS decrease.

Obviously the debuff is going to boost melee dps, but by how much?

Assuming the entire stack gets consumed, hemo adds 210 damage to the raid per stack. My base attack is about 240, so let's call it 450 per hemo (vs ~320 for a slightly more expensive sinister strike). That's pretty optimistic because it assumes you'll be able to get perfect hemo use, and hemo will stay applied to the boss, which it probably won't.

But hey, +130 damage over sinister strike sounds pretty good, right? Not quite! Yes, you've managed to increase your theoretical special damage by almost a third, but specials are only a third of your total damage to begin with.

Remember that you're losing adrenaline rush, improved slice/dice, finishing moves that restore energy, 2% overall damage, finishing moves that add combo points... and for all of that you really just end up with a debuff that shouldn't be applied , and serrated blades, which once again you don't even have to do the math to realize it's not going to favorably compare to losing those 5 PVE combat talents, including the 31 point talent.

Yes, this is all napkin math, but it's close enough to give you an accurate picture of what hemo looks like. Gift of Arthas adds more damage to melee than hemo does, that debuff is permanent, and even that isn't worth applying if you're going hard on min:maxing your debuff slots.

Well I guess we'd have to know if the Hemorrhage debuff is treated as +weapon damage and benefit Daggers Rogue a lot, or if it's a flat amount added at the very end of every calculations, right before armor.

Either way, it does scale with crit (unless it's added even after the crit, like +7 no matter what, not +7 to the base uncrit damage ; I have no clue how this debuff works here nor how it worked on retail).

Napkin maths :
Let's assume like 12 melees in a raid. If each of them, with auto-attacks & yellow abilities, does like 1 swing per second or something. We'd be looking at 84 DPS before armor mitigation already.

Then if the damage bonus is counted as "+weapon damage", Hunters / Dagger Rogue would benefit even more from it, it would mean 12,6 more damage (before armor) to an uncrit BS.

And then factor in crit, if applicable.

I do think that the overall DPS is a loss, the Hemo rogue would loose too much, but when comparing Hemo debuff with a 100 DPS Corruption alone (just for the sake of it lulz), well it *might* be superior or comparable.

I'm perfectly aware the maths above is far from precise / documented and shit, it was just to illustrate my point .

presuming raid average critrate of 50% and crit doing on average 2x damage (both very! optimistic) u get roughly the following before armor...
7 damage x 1.5 = 10.5 damage boost x 30 charges = 315 damage per hemo to the raid (presuming no overwrites)
with 35 energy cost and 10 energy per second you get 1 hemo every 3.5 seconds if you dont use any other ability...
315 damage / 3.5 seconds = 90 dps from the debuff...

so basically unless a) you do 10+ more dps with hemo than with a "cookie-cutter" dps spec or b) ur tanks are really awful and need any help to do more threat ... dont hemo

You could probably double the damage of hemo debuff to 14, and it still wouldn't be worth using.

Yeah, it would rise above the level of corruption, but the losses to your personal damage would be far more significant.

This is, of course, assuming that hemo works by adding +7, and not by some wacky Nostlike mechanic.

The best math I could find for Hemo was from an old Elitist Jerks forum; http://forums.elitistjerks.com/forums/t ... e-a-guide/

One of the first things it states is:
"The +7 damage debuff from Hemorrhage has limited raid utility. It helps your raid's physical DPS do 7 more damage per hit, and 14 more damage per critical hit up to 30 times before the Hemorrhage debuff wears off. Depending on talents and damage modifiers, the damage increase from Hemorrhage can be increased by that amount. Examples include Opportunity's 20%, Lethality's 30% crit addition, etc. Other classes' modifiers count as well. The rule of thumb when trying to find out if an ability affects Hemorrhage added damage is that if Weapon Damage is affected by the ability, the added damage from Hemorrhage will also be affected by that ability. It is also wise to remember that the added damage is affected by armor."

If I'm not mistaken this means the debuff is essentially the same as a +7 weapon damage enchant to any weapon equipped.

It shows a few different formulas, one for how much AP is required for Hemo to do more damage PER ENERGY SPENT than Sinister Strike would with 3/3 Aggression. The formula is: AP = ( 882.98 - 1.015 * (Minimum Weapon Damage + Maximum Weapon Damage) / 2 ) / ( Weapon Speed - 2.226 )

Using Ancient Qiraji Ripper's as the weapon, I came up with 1249.18 AP, a very easy number to hit when raid buffed.

Another formula it has shows when Deadliness will equal the damage Lethality gives to your Hemorrhage crit; AP = 20 * Weapon Damage / Weapon Speed

I'm assuming here Weapon Damage is calculated as in the previous formula: (Min + Max) / 2

Using AQR again as weapon of choice, I found 1167.85 AP, again a very easy benchmark.

So assuming a rogue can hit these benchmarks, which one entering AQ should already be hitting with a few buffs, I could imagine the core of the spec to look like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fZZVrfohGoq

Many of the Subtlety talents are useless for PvE and can be changed around quite a bit, but the important ones are there being Serrated Blades, Hemo, and Deadlines.

From here we could go into Assassination like Combat rogues typically do, giving us something like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhecoxzZZVrfohGoq

Grabbing Improved Evis and Cold Blood because of the Evis book in AQ + increased AP (Evis scales off AP not Weapon Damage) and the increase amount of CP generation Hemo will grant over Combat.

Or we could go down into Combat grabbing Precision and Duel Wield spec, giving us something like this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fZ0xqbbVzZVrfohGoq

Or we could grab Malice and Improved SnD from Assassination, Duel Wield Spec from Combat, and then sacrifice Deadlines, giving us this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#f0x ... zZVrfohh0o

All these specs give up a something in Combat and/or Assassination to grab Hemo out of Subtlety, and although I'm not trying to sell Weapon Expertise, Aggression, or Lethality short, are missing 1-2 of these going to CRIPPLE the rogue's DPS more than the increase they bring to Dagger rogues/Warriors?

Backstab rank 9 (from AQ) does 150% weapon damage plus 225. Assuming a non crit (which is generous as Backstab should have at least a 65% to crit for a rogue in AQ as well as a 30% crit damage bonus from Lethality and 20% bonus from Opportunity) using a Death's Sting main hand, a rogue attacking a boss without Hemo would see an average hit of 404.5 before modifiers (namely AP). A rogue attacking a boss WITH a Hemo debuff would see 414.75 before modifiers. Now I'm not expert in rogue math, which is why I made this post, but that is a 2.5% increase; for comparison a Perdition's Blade w/o Hemo would be 382.5 before modifiers, which is a 5.7% decrease from Death's Sting. 2.5% doesn't sound like a lot, but that essentially half the jump as a dagger from Rag VS a dagger from C'Thun, so I'd like to imagine it's not a number to scoff at.

I think given unlimited debuff slots, having one Hemo rogue would boost overall raid dps given a raid running at least 2 dagger rogues (maybe even just one), but the real question is comparing it to Corruption like others said already, because there IS NOT unlimited debuff slots. But I don't think this is fair viewpoint as no raid is going to have 16 Corruption debuffs; deep Wounds doesn't pass the 'Corruption Test' yet it is accepted as an allowed raid debuff.

I'd love to see somebody come up with an average DPS a dagger rogue with AQ gear would be putting up before and after a Hemo debuff, as well as what the Hemo rogue himself would be putting up to see if/how badly Hemo 'fails the Corruption Test'.

The only thing I'd criticize in your post is the comparison of Backstab damage with / without he Hemo debuff : you seem to use 0 AP on purpose, while it would boost incredibly the BS damage, and would cause the 2.5% & 5.7% increase from the debuff to be far lower, since the hemo debuff, just like +Weapon Damage, scales terribly bad (and not at all with AP ofc).

Anyway, still nice to know that the hemo should basically work as +Weapon Damage. I have no idea if it works properly here, but it's quite easy to test it out with a 1-2 damage weapon (Worn Dagger) I guess.

Youfie wrote:The only thing I'd criticize in your post is the comparison of Backstab damage with / without he Hemo debuff : you seem to use 0 AP on purpose, while it would boost incredibly the BS damage, and would cause the 2.5% & 5.7% increase from the debuff to be far lower, since the hemo debuff, just like +Weapon Damage, scales terribly bad (and not at all with AP ofc).

I did leave out AP on purpose because I honestly don't know the calculation for it, but my understanding is it is factored in after weapon damage, so it should only increase the 2.5% - 5.7% gap.

+ Weapon Damage is the best enchant a dagger rogue can use, and Hemo is essentially the same thing, so I can only imagine how big it is. As I said, I left out ALL damage modifiers including crit so that Backstab difference should be MUCH more than what my math showed. I just don't know the math behind the class very well, and was hoping somebody else did.

Kratic wrote:

Youfie wrote:The only thing I'd criticize in your post is the comparison of Backstab damage with / without he Hemo debuff : you seem to use 0 AP on purpose, while it would boost incredibly the BS damage, and would cause the 2.5% & 5.7% increase from the debuff to be far lower, since the hemo debuff, just like +Weapon Damage, scales terribly bad (and not at all with AP ofc).

I did leave out AP on purpose because I honestly don't know the calculation for it, but my understanding is it is factored in after weapon damage, so it should only increase the 2.5% - 5.7% gap.

+ Weapon Damage is the best enchant a dagger rogue can use, and Hemo is essentially the same thing, so I can only imagine how big it is. As I said, I left out ALL damage modifiers including crit so that Backstab difference should be MUCH more than what my math showed. I just don't know the math behind the class very well, and was hoping somebody else did.

+15 Agility scales better than +5 Damage enchant for a Dagger Rogue, and although it's debatable, it seems to be better than +5 unless you have a low gear / not many buffs. The margin is small though, but increases with gear / buff. But that's off-topic.

Back to our sheeps : weapon damage (and thus the Hemorrhage debuff too) will always be 7 * 180% = 12.6 damage to uncrit BS before armor, no matter what. AP doesn't increase static +Damage. That's why the higher your BS will get, the less these 12.6 damage will mean in percentage.

A Rogue with 1000 / 2000 AP (basically the values for a unbuffed / buffed Rogue with current content BiS, roughly) using Backstab R9 with C'Thun Dagger (119.5 average damage) would get :


1000 AP :

180% * (119.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225 = 658.67 uncrit BS before Armor without the Hemorrhage debuff.
180% * (126.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225 = 671.27 uncrit BS before Armor with Hemorhage debuff.
671.27-658.67 = 12.6 more damage, i.e. +1,91%

In a raid environment, with 2K AP, it would become 877.24 & 889.84, i.e. +1.24%.

It's stil nice in itself, I was just disagreeing with you on the fact that more AP would mean a bigger increase in favor of the +damage : the bonus is always the same, and its relative value decreases.

It does scale with crit though, so if we compared BS actual average value (after factoring crit rate), in that case more gear & buff might counterweight that a little bit, of course. Haven't done the maths but I'm pretty sure the percentage gain would still continue to decrease as the overall gear level progresses though.

Ok I see how this makes sense, but what I meant when I said AP should increase the gap was actually 'modifiers should increase the gap'. Now obviously you just proved this is not true for AP, in fact the opposite occurs, but what about crit and talents such as Opportunity? Where do these factor in the calculation?

Youfie wrote:180% * (119.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225 = 658.67 uncrit BS before Armor without the Hemorrhage debuff.
180% * (126.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225 = 671.27 uncrit BS before Armor with Hemorrhage debuff.

Can you break down this formula you used here? Where does 180% come from, Rank 9 BS should be 150%. And 1.7 I assume should've been 1.8 for the speed of the dagger, or is 1.7 the normalized speed?

Where would Opportunity fall in this calculation? Would it be added to the 180% or would the total by multiplied by 20%?

200% * (119.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225 = 706.85
OR
(180% * (119.5 + ((1000/14) * 1.7)) + 225) * 1.2 = 790.40

Obviously it matters a lot where that 20% lands, my thinking was the latter, and thus why I assumed the modifiers would only increase the gap between a hit w/o a Hemo VS one with, but now I'm thinking I may be wrong with that.