Gear or Buffs?
While recently researching how to properly gem my mutilate rogue, since I hadn’t played it since about December or January (and even then, it was primarily for PvP), I couldn’t find a response that didn’t involve the phrase “get a spreadsheet.”
It took me about 2 hours to download, comprehend, and then get all my gear put in (since almost half of what I was wearing was not included with the gear list). I did notice, however, that there was an option to toy with raid buffs and whatnot and see how it would affect your expected DPS.
So I decided to toy around and see what would give the biggest DPS increase – better gear or raid buffs?
Now, I never took my rogue to a single raid, so just given triumph emblems and heroic farming, I’m pretty much wearing the best gear I can get. It is primarily 232 items from H ICC 5-mans with a smattering of triumph pieces and a couple PvP pieces (cloak and ring). According to the spreadsheet, the gems I’m using are in fact the ones I should be using, and according to the spreadsheet, my expected DPS is 3900 without any buffs except my own. When I wail away on a target dummy, that is in fact what I reach. I came to the conclusion that the spreadsheet seems pretty accurate so far.
To answer the question of the article, I decided to only take into account ICC 10 (non-heroic) and frost emblem loot, since that is in fact what is available to me and my current raiding situation. I also decided to include this setup for a 10-man raid group:
1 prot warrior (Buffing a 20% armor reduction from 5 sunders)
1 bear druid (Buffing a 5% armor reduction from faerie fire, as well as a 5% increased crit chance from leader of the pack)
1 resto shaman, (buffing an untalented Strength of Earth, and with no Windfury because he’s doing wrath of air)
1 holy pally (buffing an untalented blessing of might)
1 disc priest (offering nothing to a melee member)
1 demonology lock (buffing improved shadowbolt, which affects poisons)
1 arcane mage (buffing arcane empowerment for 3% more damage)
1 mutilate rogue (me, buffing master poisoner for an extra 3% crit chance against the enemy)
1 unholy DK (buffing ebon plaguebringer)
1 marksmanship hunter (buffing trueshot aura)
This means I am missing 4% more physical damage from an arms warrior/combat rogue, melee haste from icy talons or windfury, more haste from a swift retribution or improved mookin aura, blessing of kings, and a few spell buffs that could affect poisons.
Let’s assume I don’t have money for the BoE pieces. So, if I were to equip this rogue with all the frost emblem pieces and otherwise fill in with iLevel 251 drops out of ICC, and gem and enchant according to the spreadsheet, my expected DPS on a target dummy with no raid buffs goes from 3900 to 5580. This means upgrading from a mix of 226/232 to 251/264 is about a 43% increase in DPS.
So, let’s see how it looks if instead of upgrading my gear, I just apply all the necessary raid buffs. The increase goes from 3900 to 5778. This means without any gear upgrades, and with a diverse 10-man group’s worth of raid buffs, I’m getting about an extra 48% DPS.
Now let’s assume that, with the mix of 251/264 gear, I apply all the raid buffs from the aforementioned classes. This bumps it from 5580 to 8084. That means that the raid buffs from a diverse 10-man group while wearing this set of gear give about an extra 45% DPS increase.
Of course, all of this assumes a 5 minute fight, and doesn’t include bloodlust, nor does it account for movement-heavy fights or variations in mechanics. This is most accurate on a fight like Saurfang.
Anyway, the conclusion? Raid buffs are just as, if not more important than gear to increasing your DPS. Even with the buffs I’m missing in that suggested setup, they’re basically worth a full tier of gear upgrades in terms of stat boosts.
As a last note, for the curious, when I turn on every single raid buff (so I take the current gear to a 25-man environment), it goes from 3900 to 7253, which is an 86% increase in DPS. Buffs make a huge difference.
and yet mages still have to be told to turn on intel and hunters to turn off pack. *sigh*
nice read, I had no clue they made that much of a difference.