9.2 Hemorrhage vs. Sinister Strike FAQ by Slant

Hemorrhage

• Instant attack that does weapon damage + debuff for 35 energy. Grants 1 combo point.
  
• Debuff lasts 30 hits or 15 seconds
  
• Debuff causes all physical damage to be increased by +7
  
• Note that hemo is one of two player abilities that has this effect. Other is fairly low level alchemist potion. Do they stack? Anyone tested this? http://www.thottbot.com/?i=14541
  
• Talent is deep in the subtlety tree.
  
• Fastest non-positional non-opener combo point generation for stunlocks
  
• Does not use up cold blood. (this is an advantage)
  
• Affected by lethality, increases crit hit damage by 30%
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a dal'rend's sacred charge mainhand: 256 damage = 7.3 damage/energy for the instant hit alone
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a high warlord's sword (best mainhand sword in the game) mainhand: 317.5 damage = 9.07 d/e for the instant hit alone
  
  Sinister Strike
  
• Instant attack that does weapon damage + 68 for 45 energy. Grants 1 combo point.
  
• 1st tier talent reduces cost to 40 energy. Almost all rogues have this.
  
• Affected by lethality, increases crit hit damage by 30%
  
• Affected by aggression. Increases added damage to 72.
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a dal'rend's sacred charge mainhand: 324 damage = 8.1 d/e with imp SS
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a dal'rend's sacred charge mainhand: 324 damage = 7.2 d/e without imp SS
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a high warlord's sword (best mainhand sword in the game) mainhand: 385.5 damage = 9.64 d/e for the instant hit alone with imp SS
  
• Average hit with 700 attack and a high warlord's sword (best mainhand sword in the game) mainhand: 385.5 damage = 8.57 d/e for the instant hit alone without imp SS
  
  Conclusions
  
• Spamming imp SS is more efficient damage/energy than spamming hemo looking at the instant strike damage alone.
  
• Spamming hemo is more efficient damage/energy than spamming non-improved SS looking at the instant strike damage alone.
  
• It takes between 3 and 5 hits with +7 damage for a single hemo to out damage imp sinister strike. The better your weapon, the less hits it takes.
  
• Since hemo doesn't stack on itself, it simply refreshes, the best possible scenario in single group or small raid play is to hemo once then follow-up with imp sinister strikes. Unfortunately hemo's location deep in the subtlety tree makes this fairly unlikely.
  
• In a large 40-man raid situation the hemo debuff's efficiency goes up dramatically. It can do up to 210dps in the best possible situation. More likely is 70-90dps. This has a secondary advantage in that this damage is spread out amongst every physical damage dealer in the raid and not on you alone.
  
• It is therefore very much worthwhile to have a single rogue spamming hemo per large raid mob, particularly with 16 debuff slots available in 1.7.
  
• Gift of arthas potion rocks. Anyone use it in raids on high HP mobs on the maintank?
  
• Hemorrhage and improved sinister strike are roughly equivalent damage dealers with blue level 60 equipment. Hemorrhage's main advantage appears when multiple people are attacking the debuffed target; when including this debuff damage, hemorrhage can significantly out damage imp SS. The main difference between the two lies in the talents chosen to go with them-- subtlety talents lend themselves to hemorrhage as the main attack, while rogues choosing a majority of combat talents will lack the subtlety points to get hemorrhage and will use SS instead..