More than almost any other class, rogues are mathy and egg-headed. Ghostcrawler himself puts this forth and I have to agree. Now that’s not to say other classes aren’t like that at all, it’s just that because of the way rogue talents work (or don’t work) we tend to stand out in this regard. The biggest reason for this is our real “global” cooldown – energy.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, they could remove the one-second global cooldown from rogues tomorrow and our PvE DPS would not change much at all, there might be some burst problems in PvP but only slightly more than what is capable now. I would imagine that the only reason rogues actually have a GCD is because the outright removal of it would cause unimaginable QQ from classes who have no idea what’s going on.
Back to the subject at hand. Many classes use some sort of simulation to determine the ins and outs of their class. One of the most popular is RAWR which is a very good simulation tool that was originally started for Druids and later become one of the main standards for many other classes. More recently SimulationCraft has also become one of the standards for determining gear and spec choices for a multitude of classes. Both of these tools now support rogues but this is actually a very recent development when compared to what has been the longest running and most reliable form of theorycrafting available to the rogue community: spreadsheets.
Even though rogues have talents that may alter our energy regeneration (Focused Attacks and Combat Potency), our energy regeneration is basically constant. Before a fight begins we can figure out exactly how many of each move we can do in any give time period. (It’s actually a bit more complex than that but thinking of it that way is close enough.) All you need to do then is add in the gear, the buffs and debuffs that modify that gears damage, figure out what combination of those moves puts our the most damage for that gear and voilà! You know know exactly what your max DPS for that setup is and can determine what gear and/or spec changes will improve that DPS.
This sort of theorycrafting lends itself very well to spreadsheets and there have been many spreadsheet authors who have done amazing things. Such rogues as Chalon, pf, Ellos, Dontmindme, Vulajin, Aldriana, and Mavanas have done some amazing things with spreadsheets and contributed more to the community than many of us could ever hope to. (Ok, I’ll admit that Mavanas’ sheet is actually a simulation but I’ll talk about it later.)
Most of these sheets were made for personal use by their respective authors and later released to the rogue community. Let’s take a look at some of the current spreadsheets for Wrath of the Lich King.
Aldriana’s Combat Spreadsheet
Aldriana is one of the top theorycrafting rogues in WoW right now. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the rogue community that holds as much clout as he does. When Aldriana talks, rogues listen. At the start of WotLK, Aldriana made two spreadsheets for his own use; one sheet for mutilate and one sheet for combat.
Currently the Combat sheet is in version 1.4 and it is the penultimate of spreadsheets. Only one other sheet has carried more sophistication and that was Vulajin’s sheet from The Burning Crusade which would even go so far as to collect your data from the armory. Aldriana’s sheet stops short of this because he has opted to keep it compatible with OpenOffice.
You can find Aldriana’s Combat sheet here. If you’re gear isn’t in the spreadsheet, don’t ask about putting it in as you’re likely to get a ban. The top 2+ tiers of gear are already in there and there are instructions on how to put your own gear in for those that take the time to look.
Aldriana’s Mutilate Spreadsheet
The first incarnation of the original Mutilate sheet didn’t look like it bore the same sophistication of the Combat sheet. It was a bit harder to use and understand and caused more than just a few headaches on the EJ Rogue Forums.
The truth though is that the math inside the Mutilate sheet is quite a bit more complex than that found in the 1.0-1.2 Combat sheets. Early on, Aldriana decided to devote his time to the Combat sheet mainly due to the changes in WoW 3.1 and 3.2 having greater impact on Combat than on Mutilate. At his point Thaela took over upkeep of the Mutilate sheet and did an excellent job.
Near completion of the Combat sheet though, Aldriana decided to come back to the Mutilate sheet and give it the same treatment. The result should was similarly astounding. You can find it in the same thread as Aldriana’s Combat sheet.
Mavanas’ Simulation Spreadsheet
Yup, it’s actually a simulation and it’s pretty darn complex. First off you can find it here.
The way it works is that you feed in your gear and any raid buffs you do or don’t have, then enter a priority of abilities you’d like to use as well as any buffs/debuffs you need to keep up. Mash the magic button and it runs through the selected number of simulations. After that it’s just a matter of making changes, running it again and comparing the results.
Now, there are some advantages and disadvantages to Mavanas’ sheet. Firstly, it takes a long time to compare gear options but Mavanas saves everyone a lot of time by continually running various comparisons and posting the results to give you good benchmarks and places to start. The big advantage that Mavanas’ sheet gives is that he supports a lot more specs and options than Aldriana. Most notably is his past inclusion of HAT simulation and current support for weapon swapping.
A Word of Warning
All of these spreadsheets are great tools for determining what gear and what spec will give you the best bang for your buck but any good rogue will use their brain as well as these tools.
A favorite thing for new rogues to do with these sheets is to use them to determine “best in slot” gear sets. BiS gear sets have their place but many rogues often make the mistake of thinking that if it isn’t on the BiS list, it’s not worth getting. An experienced rogue knows to take upgrades when they can, even when it isn’t BiS. A better idea is to use the sheet to determine what weapons and gear are upgrades for you personally and use that as an upgrade list.
There’s also the issue that all spreadsheets and simulations assume a “Patchwerk” style fight which is the exception and not the rule. A lot of rogues really struggle with this and have trouble determining how to alter they play style, spec and other things to account for this. That’s a topic for another blog entry though.
