Off Hand Weapon Speed You Can See

It's hard for a lotta' people to visualize the importance of weapon speed. I mean shit, most people barely understand DPS. But weapon speed is important, not just in how much damage you do in the long run... but it's something you can actually see.

I'm in the process of leveling so, currently, these are the weapons I'm using right now: Wodin's Second-Best Shanker as my main hand dagger and Saronite Ambusher as my off hand dagger. Now what I really love is my Savage Cobalt Slicer sword. I had both the Savage Cobalt Slicer and the Saronite Ambusher made for me with materials I created myself (since I'm a miner). I love the Cobalt, it's such a huge, 'freakin' awesome lookin' sword. And I had it created before my Saronite Ambusher, so I was using it for about two days. Mainly just for looks.

But looks aren't important... damage is. And when talkin' about white damage (damage from your auto attacks), speed is very, very important, especially for your off hand.

I took my blades out on a training dummy, considering my Cobalt is a slow, 2.70 speed and my Ambusher is a 1.70 speed. I let myself just auto attack my target. What's interesting to watch is the speed of your off hand. With my slow, off hand sword, for every main hand dagger hit, my off hand sword would hit, but it would take two main hand dagger hits before my sword would hit again. It's clearly visible that my off hand sword was not hitting as much as my main hand dagger. But with my off hand dagger, the Ambusher, with a quick speed of 1.70, my off hand dagger hit exactly as much as my main hand dagger.

To put it into perspective, here's how many hits were made with my main hand dagger and off hand sword, in let's say 10 seconds.

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger

Here's how it went with my main hand dagger and off hand dagger, for the same amount of time, 10 seconds.

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger

Much more hits were taken place. Now the DPS of the Savage Cobalt Slicer sword is 104.2 and the DPS of the Saronite Ambusher is 106.8, so their damage per second (DPS) is the same, so all this stuff about speed shouldn't matter, right? If this was my main hand weapon, sure, but we're talking about the off hand, and weapons in your off hand do 50% less damage, so this is why you want a weapon that is faster in your off hand so it'll hit more often. "Weapons equipped in the off hand generally do 50% less damage than they would do when equipped in the main hand, and many players equip speedier weapons that hit quicker to mitigate this effect."

So, when it comes to weapon speed, this is something you can actually see for yourself in action. And don't worry, there are swords that have a fast speed for your off hand, like my PvP sword was, but they're rare to come by until you get into PvP rewards or end game type of stuff. It's much easier to just go with daggers for your off hand. (Although I like the animation of a sword in the off hand much better than a dagger in the off hand.)

This outta' clear up any confusion about weapon speed and DPS and how it all works for your character.

Jeaxx

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This Is My Dagger, This Is My Blade...

"Hooah, bitches!" What's up rogues... Time'ta talk daggers. 'Nough introductions... down to the point; my dagger is everything to me. Without it, my most damaging abilities, ambush and back stab, can't be used. The DPS of my Merciless Gladiator's Shanker is 97.5. The DPS of my offhand, Merciless Gladiator's Quickblade is 97.7. Same DPS. Being a rogue, I wouldn't choose to use a sword or mace in my main hand, no matter what spec I was, because why on Earth would I want to use a weapon that'll instantly disable two abilities to me? I wouldn't.

But, this is why so many freakin' rogues use swords and maces in their main hand; they don't understand how DPS works and simply look at damage.

Ok, we can't compare the DPS of my offhand sword to my main hand dagger as my offhand sword, the "Quickblade", is faster than my dagger (and that's how I planned it, being in my off hand) so it's damage numbers are lower than my dagger. So we'll compare the main hand sword, the Merciless Gladiator's Slicer to my dagger, the Merciless Gladiator's Shanker.

When someone looks at the Slicer sword, it's damage is 203-305. The damage of the Shanker dagger is 140-211. People will look at the Slice and think "Wow, this is more powerful than the dagger.". No, it's not. The speed of the Slicer sword is a shitty 2.60 (seconds) and the speed of the Shanker dagger is 1.80 (seconds). That's when you ignore speed and damage and look instead at DPS; Damage Per Second. They both get 97 DPS.... 97 damage per second.

Now this is important, the DPS is the same with the dagger and sword, but... the sword takes away ambush and back stab with your main hand. So being a rogue, it's not about "What's your blade preference?", it's "Well I only get these abilities with the dagger in my main hand, so the dagger it is. I'm not going to limit myself."

So what's up? Why are so many rogues usin' swords and maces in their main hands? Because either they're a skilled (or unskilled) level 70 rogue that just doesn't know how DPS works between blades... or, the most common, they didn't know about how DPS worked between blades when they were first leveling and learning to use their rogue, so back stab and ambush was never available to them (and because subtlety heavily relies on daggers, most don't spec and learn to play subtlety). So after time, when they discover how DPS between blades work, and how powerful ambush and backstab can be, they never learned how to ambush or back stab in PvE or PvP, so they stick with swords or maces (and of course, stick with combat or assassination specs). And a lotta' rogues choose swords and maces because it's what they see everyone else usin', and some use swords because they think "A dagger is a weak, small sword... I don't want a small sword, I want a big sword.".

There's the honest truth about daggers... the reason why I use one and the reasons you don't see rogues using them enough. Although I've seen a big change in rogues in the past two years that I've been playin' on and off, there are a lotta' rogues usin' daggers. In fact, when WotLK comes out, when I come across a dagger more powerful than my offhand sword (probably the level 80 PvP weapons), I'll get a dagger and go double daggers simply to show some more dagger love...

Jeaxx

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