Rogue combat decisions analyzed!

[robgmsft]

OK, just spent the morning playing with spreadsheets (yes, I'm a giant dork, thank you) and looking at expected per round damage for a rogue who fights 10 rounds with 5 flanking.

I ignored per encounter abilities (although as you get more of them they become more relevant) and focused on Piercing Strike and Sly Flourish builds. Piercing strike tends to work better until the AC is only 1 greater than the reflex. Many monsters have +3 to +5 AC over reflex, so PS seems to be the clear winner here.

20 dex vs 18 dex was no contest - by far the biggest win of any decision.

If you assume Eladrin teleport will add one extra flanking round then you get an extra .68 average damage per round.

Elf reroll, on the other hand, only added .20 dpr and nimble layered on top of that gives you merely .22. Reroll is much better used for daily's, but for this exercise it's clearly the loser to teleport.

The dagger's extra to-hit doesn't make up for the loss in damage over the shotsword.

OK, so we've got an Eladrin Rogue using a shortsword with 20 Dex, here are the calculated deltas for each relevent damaging feat or choice:

Backstabber: +1.02
Use a Rapier: +.86
Two weapon fighting: +.81
Weapon Focus: +.81
Nimble: +.46
Press Advantage: +.34 (1 extra sneak attack 50% of the time)
Charging on your first round with power charge: +.18
Use a Katar: +.17
Power Attack: +.15
Improved initiative: +.14 (1 extra Sneak Attack 20% of the time)
Charging on your first combat round: +.13
Quickdraw: +.07 (1 extra Sneak Attack 10% of the time)
Use a Dagger: -.28

 

[Family]

The dagger's extra to-hit doesn't make up for the loss in damage over the shotsword.

I was wondering if you had any numbers on the above quote. Neato post btw.

EDIT: I'm an idiot.

 

[Blackbrrd]

PS: there is one guy who made a summary of all the monsters and the average reflex defence was just about three lower than ac. On average.

Sooo... What AC/Reflex are you comparing it to when you did this calculation?
Let us say you are using piercing strike and sneak attacking 70% of the time. Attack rating is +8 with rapier, +9 with dagger.

Weapon focus dagger 1d4+6+2d8=17.5*0,7 +1d4+6=8.5*0,3, Average:14.8
Rapier: 1d8+5+2d8=18.5*0,7 +1d8+5=9.5*0,3, Average: 15.8

VS ref 13
Dagger DPS = 14.8*0.85=12.58
Rapier DPS = 15.8*0,8 = 12.64

VS ref 17
Dagger DPS = 14.8*0.65=9.62
Rapier DPS = 15.8*0,6 = 9.48

For max damage with the rapier, you could at level 2 take weapon focus rapier as well:
VS ref 17 (not recalculating to-hit):
Rapier DPS = 16.8*0,6 = 10.02

Rapier works a lot better with encounter/daily powers because the damage gets multiplied, but with just rapier vs weapon focus dagger, its a toss-up. Until you add feat #2 to the rapier - weapon focus giving you point of damage.

If you are using a dagger you can throw it when it is suitable, then you only need to be within 5 squares of someone who is slower than you on the initiative. In other words, getting sneak attack the first round is nearly guaranteed.

 

[robgmsft]

oops, left that out - 17 AC, 14 ref
also, he's a brawny rogue, so gets +str to sneak attack

Here's the raw output from the spreadsheet on the first couple of columns comparing piercing strike and sly flourish. Both have shortswords, both have 20 DEX, SF guy uses 14 CHA, PS guy uses 14 STR

PS Guy SF guy
player dex 5 5
player str 2 0
player cha 0 2
proficiency bonus 3 3
# weapon damage dice 1 1
weapon die 6 6
# sneak attack dice 2 2
sneak die 6 6
enemy reflex 14 14
enemy AC 17 17
flank bonus 2 2
crit range 1 1
# flanks per encounter 6 6
total rounds per encounter 10 10

dex to hit 8 8
str to hit 5 3

Regular Piercing Strike
dex vs ref, % miss 0.25 0.25
dex vs ref, % regular hit 0.70 0.70
dex vs ref, % crit 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 8.50 8.50
crit damage 11.00 11.00
expected damage 6.50 6.50

PS & Flanking, Sneak Attack
dex vs ref, % miss 0.15 0.15
dex vs ref, % regular hit 0.80 0.80
dex vs ref, % crit 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 17.5 15.5
crit damage 20 18
expected damage 15.00 13.30

PS Avg damage 11.6 10.58

Regular Sly Flourish
dex vs ac, % miss 0.40 0.40
dex vs ac, % regular hit 0.55 0.55
dex vs ac, % crit 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 8.50 10.50
crit damage 11.00 13.00
expected damage 5.23 6.43

SF & Flanking, Sneak Attack
dex vs ac, % miss 0.30 0.30
dex vs ac, % regular hit 0.65 0.65
dex vs ac, % crit 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 15.5 17.5
crit damage 18 20
expected damage 10.98 12.38

SF Avg damage 8.7 10.0

 

[robgmsft]

I see, you're showing dagger+focus vs rapier. I still show rapier pulling ahead. If you just do shortsword vs dagger, dagger lags, and rapier still beats out shortsword + weapon focus vs rapier.

Here's the weapons compared (Piercing strike only, dagger and shortswd get focus to keep them on par feat-wise with the exotics)

Rapier = 12.5
Shortsword + Focus = 12.41
Dagger + Focus = 12.2
Katar = 11.8


Shortswd Dagger Katar Rapier
player dex 5 5 5 5
player str 2 2 2 2
proficiency bonus 3 3 3 3
player level 1 1 1 1
extra to hit 0 1 0 0
extra damage 1 1 0 0
# weapon damage dice 1 1 1 1
weapon die 6 4 6 8
# sneak attack dice 2 2 2 2
sneak die 6 6 6 6
enemy reflex 14 14 14 14
enemy AC 17 17 17 17
flank bonus 2 2 2 2
crit range 1 1 1 1
# flanks per encounter 6 6 6 6
total rounds per encounter 10 10 10 10

dex to hit 8 9 8 8
str to hit 5 6 5 5

Regular Piercing Strike
dex vs ref, % miss 0.25 0.20 0.25 0.25
dex vs ref, % regular hit 0.70 0.75 0.70 0.70
dex vs ref, % crit 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 9.50 8.50 8.50 9.50
crit damage 12.00 10.00 14.50 13.00
expected damage 7.25 6.88 6.68 7.30

PS & Flanking, Sneak Attack
dex vs ref, % miss 0.15 0.10 0.15 0.15
dex vs ref, % regular hit 0.80 0.85 0.80 0.80
dex vs ref, % crit 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05
regular hit damage 18.5 17.5 17.5 18.5
crit damage 21 19 23.5 22
expected damage 15.85 15.83 15.18 15.90


PS Avg damage 12.41 12.2 11.8 12.5

With less than 1 point of damage differentiating them, there's no need to avoid any of these choices if it fits your character well, however.