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SW:ToR Tanking and the Assassin

So you want to be a slayer...

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Disclaimer: Min/maxing ahead.

There has been a hot mess of a debate going on in the Rift warrior forums over here regarding post-patch 1.1 damage specs. I managed to slog through the entirety of that monster of a post and, sadly, come up with very few competitive dps specs. Even after the nerf to BM, it still looks like having a pet is mandatory for pulling the best dps, but 1 or 2 other specs may be close.
(note: BM gains a lot of buffs by itself that other specs only obtain once they join a raid which has a tendency to skew the numbers in favor of BM, but no one knows for sure how much).
I will list the specs in order from highest to lowest sustainable single target damage. Do note, however, that I have not tested these myself since the patch but I plan to do so this weekend. Several people have posted parses in the thread that I linked above if you feel like wading through half a ton of BS and slander to get to them.

29 Champion/24 Beastmaster/13 Paragon
Weapon: 2-hander
Macros:
#show rising waterfall
petcast bite
suppressmacrofailures
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Flesh Rip
cast Slashing Strike
cast Path of the Wind
cast debilitating strike
cast power strike
cast Frenzied Strike
cast Flinching strike

#show tearing slash
suppressmacrofailures
cast Proper Timing
cast Deathblow
cast Tearing Slash
cast Frenzied Strike

*note: use SLI on cooldown with 3 AP manually.

5 Champion/51 Paragon/10 Paladin
Weapon: 2x 1 handers
Macro:
#show Rising Waterfall
cast Path of the Hurricane
cast Rising Waterfall
cast Paired Strike
cast Dual Strike
cast Path of the Wind
cast Flinching Strike (add this only in a setting that doesn't energy-starve you)

#show Strike Like Iron
cast Strike Like Iron
cast Shifting Blades
cast Path of the Tempest


6 Paragon/38 Riftblade/22 Champion
Weapon: 2-hander
Macros:
#show Rift Strike
cast Rift Strike
cast Rising Waterfall
cast frost strike
cast Searing Strike
cast frenzied strike

#show strike like iron
cast strike like iron
cast deathblow
cast earth burst
cast storm burst
cast fiery burst

EDIT: I just got done testing the first two specs, and the BM spec (on a raid dummy) does outperform the Paragon spec by quite a bit, but you need to take into account the lack of buffs for Paragon. However, even with equal buffs it will parse out lower than the BM spec, but in my opinion it's a great spec for someone who hates having to deal with a pet (i.e. me!). The last spec I haven't tried and, to be honest, am quite skeptical about due to the way that our spell damage doesn't scale well.

NOTE 1: Warriors are very weapon dependent. Yes, you heard me right... not gear, just weapon. This is due to the fact that our attack power scales horribly. As such, it's actually better to take leather gear with a ton of dex and crit on it. Go figure. Hopefully they fix this.
NOTE 2: Adding flinching strike to the macros for the first 2 specs are a definite dps increase if you have the energy for it. In other words, you need to be grouped with a bard running Fervor, or a chloromancer running Living Energy. If you have one of those buffs, you are golden.
NOTE 3: The macro setups are just suggestions. You are better off using them as a starting point only and then deciding how you would like to set everything up. Everyone plays differently!

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  1. Kiylie's Avatar
    In adding to NOTE 2, a 2 hander build will always parse out ahead of a dual wield build due to the simple fact that only one of the weapons is factored in to the "X% of weapon damage + Y" abilities. I sure hope they fix this as well. Also also note that currently SLI isn't doubling its damage for follow-up attacks correctly. I can only assume that fixing this will increase the damage for both of the top two specs.
  2. Kiylie's Avatar
    I tested the paragon spec in expert IT tonight and was keeping up with the 2 blade dancers in the group on single target, and sometimes even slightly better. They wreck me on aoe damage, though. The BM spec definitely excels in that area. I will probably keep both specs since you can quasi ranged-dps with the paragon spec as well and don't have to worry about keeping a pet alive (*cough Konstantine cough*).