Is combat/swords spec (Thrash Blade + Hanzo Sword) still completely useless compared to assassinate daggers?
Running a few sims, and combat appears to run at least 500 dps behind daggers. So frustrating to be apparently pidgeon-holed into mutilate again…
I mean with all the procs for combo points, we will be just hitting envenom every mutilate.
But I do wish saber slash was close, liked the idea of pirate rogue
I get it… but there HAS to be some kind of balancing to allow rogues (and other classes) more than one viable spec that allows for competitive damage. If there is actually a difference between 300-500 dps (a projected 25-30% difference) between a class’s specs… literally NO ONE will pick the lesser spec. Ever.
That’s a miserable state of affairs.
The only thing that could make swords viable is that saber slash and the 20% damage rune together should be fairly strong due to infinite uptime on the 20% damage buff without trying. If blizzard fixed it to be a flat 20% damage increase instead of just 20% damage from abilities then i imagine saber slash/combat builds would compete with daggers.
Combat has AR and BF, way burstier. Daggers are just really consistent ST.
I am looking at swords with the following
Blade Flurry is ‘good’ on trash, but is situational on bosses. Not many bosses where there is a second target to assess damage. Grubbis was a good one for BF, but the rest of the bosses were ST… making BF effectively useless with a 2-min CD.
I know mutilate is super strong… but its such a ‘brain-dead’ rotation…
If you run Saber you will be using the new fist set.
Also to note is Carnage is currently bugged with garrote, if you open garrote and then rupture carnage will fall off when garrote does and wont reapply until your next rupture.
You dont need to worry about that with Saber tho.
A flat 20% damage buff to EVERYTHING from carnage rather than 20% to abilities would help lots. Mutilate would probably still beat it out simply because of high crit values and high combo point generation/usage.
This might actually be viable…not because the damage will be as good as mutilate but because people would love to have the debuff.
It will be, more so on horde tho.
You think combat fists will be anywhere near mutilate? i highly doubt it…
It will be like 8% behind.
if that’s true thats really not bad. flurry+adren would be higher burst too no?
would be cool if shiv saw some play options too, only reason i made my rogue was for shiv memes and i havent logged it since the muti buff datamine which was king of cp gen and poison procs by miles.
Gotta remember tho mut is simming insane, like 1600-1800 dps in a 60s fight.
have to see it. feral was simming almost that in p2, for example.
Saber Slash has poor synergy with Adrenaline Rush and energy procs and thistle tea because it’s a weak attack that stacks a dot that can be maintained with one saber slash every twelve seconds.
Saber slash does 100% weapon damage but mutilate attacks with BOTH weapons for 100% weapon damage PLUS 75 with each weapon. Damage is increased by 20% against poisoned targets…
So, you are absolutely right… I think, in order for saber slash to anywhere near remotely competitive, the damage output here would have to be much, much higher. The bleed effect is good, but I believe combat won’t ever compete with the bursty damage found in assassination… especially with all the new runes.
Yeah I’d rather spam Backstab during AR than be pressing Saber Slash. RIP.
If you are going to go backstab, might as well go mutilate 
Yeah I was just saying Backstab because even that would be better than hitting Saber Slash during AR.
Mutilate can do that better too