How do offhand weapons work?

I'm learning more about melee in WoW, and can't find any good info about the role of offhand weapons for rogues, shamans, etc. I'm focusing on those two classes since druids and monks work differently with their abilities (we can save that for a different thread).

To what do I pay attention for offhand weapons, what do I ignore, and why?

I appreciate your insights!
 
To what do I pay attention for offhand weapons, what do I ignore, and why?
This extremely helpful spreadsheet from resident math nerd @mirrorbender breaks down the best weapon combos in terms of adjusted dps and ability damage. Basically, For enhance and outlaw its gonna be hard to argue with Cudgel MH and Truncheon OH, unless you have Hellscream heirlooms. Worth rerolling for at least a blue cudgel or faction swapping for Moks (the easy way)

Since your OH is mostly a stat stick (dmg is calculated as a % of your MH in pvp) the two sockets from the truncheon just... reign supreme. The haste proc is a sexy bonus.
 
The only downside for enhance on the horde is that if you use the headcracker and the truncheon you do lose 80stam comparatively to using 2 i28s/other classes not having to sacrifice stam on their weapons, which does not seem like a lot... it is a lot. A green i28 off hand with a socket does keep the HP up.

Not directly related to the topic, but of note if you picking an OH weapon.
 
This extremely helpful spreadsheet from resident math nerd @mirrorbender breaks down the best weapon combos in terms of adjusted dps and ability damage.

Thank you for the reminder! From that spreadsheet, I got these formulas:

Mainhand or offhand abilities: 6*(weapon DPS)+AP+(3*Gems)
combined hand abilities: (MH Abiility+(OH Ability/2))*(2/3)

Are these the weapons' damage contributions to abilities?

The 3*gems addition threw me, especially since it doesn't appear in the combined ability formula. What is that?

Since your OH is mostly a stat stick (dmg is calculated as a % of your MH in pvp) the two sockets from the truncheon just... reign supreme. The haste proc is a sexy bonus.

To be clear, you're saying OH damage ignores the weapon damage of that weapon in PvP, and instead uses a % of your main hand weapon damage?

Just open askmrrobot and see the dmg formulas of dw spells

I went through the site, but couldn't find that resource. Point me in the right direction?
 
Thank you for the reminder! From that spreadsheet, I got these formulas:

Mainhand or offhand abilities: 6*(weapon DPS)+AP+(3*Gems)
combined hand abilities: (MH Abiility+(OH Ability/2))*(2/3)

Are these the weapons' damage contributions to abilities?

The 3*gems addition threw me, especially since it doesn't appear in the combined ability formula. What is that?



To be clear, you're saying OH damage ignores the weapon damage of that weapon in PvP, and instead uses a % of your main hand weapon damage?



I went through the site, but couldn't find that resource. Point me in the right direction?
which spec?
 
wait so offhand damage is ignored in pvp for abilities that actually sue oh damage? ( mutilate lavalash stormstrike) ? then yeah truncheon is probably best for shaman then and a socket ilvl 28 dagger for rogues. Special shout out to vibroblade for its armour pen though.
 
To address a few points that have been brought up here:
dmg is calculated as a % of your MH in pvp
This is not true. It may have been true at some point, but I just logged in, queued into a BG to do a quick test. As of right now (9.2.0), off hand weapon damage does indeed affect damage on applicable abilities (or at least the tooltips). Test case was fury warrior, swapping ilvl26 cudgel vs ilvl 24 heirloom in the off hand with Blackout truncheon as a control in the main hand. That said, it isn't a huge difference we're taling about.
Just open askmrrobot and see the dmg formulas of dw spells
This is basically the best resource there is for checking to see if an ability scales with MH WDPS, OH WDPS, or both. You don't actually need to decipher the whole functional damage formula, you just need to see if it is using AbilityDamage(true), which means MH, or AbilityDamage(false), which means off hand. Some abilities use both, whether it be by actually having two hits (i.e. Stormstrike) or by using CompositeAbilityDamage (i.e. Pistol Shot). In either of these cases, basically 2/3 of the damage is calculated using the MH WDPS value, and 1/3 with the OH.

Abilities that scale off of TotalSpellPower for non-caster specs use main hand only.
Thank you for the reminder! From that spreadsheet, I got these formulas:

Mainhand or offhand abilities: 6*(weapon DPS)+AP+(3*Gems)
combined hand abilities: (MH Abiility+(OH Ability/2))*(2/3)

Are these the weapons' damage contributions to abilities?

The 3*gems addition threw me, especially since it doesn't appear in the combined ability formula. What is that?
The formulas are to put a value analogous to attack power on the total ability damage contribution from the weapons, so that they can be compared to other weapons in the same category. So that means adding the attack power contribution from the weapon(s) stats and the gems in the sockets to the WDPS contribution (where 1 WDPS = 6 AP). Then for combined abilities, I weight the average of the two numbers 2:1 in favor of the main hand.

The 3*gems is in there to account for having a +3 main stat gem in each gem socket. I chose this as a baseline assumption because it presents socketed items in the best light on the spreadsheet (which doesn't care about secondary stats or stamina). If you are using different gems, that does change things, but presumably you are using different gems because you think that they are better than +3 primary, which means you think they should perform better than (or at least as well as) the number on the spreadsheet.
You could do worse, but I wouldn't recommend the bladefist. The version that drops for 20s has no stats, and obviously no socket so all you have is the WDPS (which is the same as every other ilvl 25 1H) and the haste proc. By comparison https://www.wowhead.com/item=27901/blackout-truncheon?bonus=6710&ilvl=25 has the same DPS, 3str/agi, a +1 AP socket bonus, 2 sockets, and a (smaller, but still substantial) haste proc with no ICD.

TL;DR: https://www.wowhead.com/item=27901/blackout-truncheon?bonus=6710&ilvl=25 is basically the best available OH option. Next best would be https://www.wowhead.com/item=27846/claw-of-the-watcher?bonus=6710&ilvl=25 if you cant use truncheon. For dagger rogues, get an ilvl 25 with a socket. WDPS does have an effect for off hand, but it's not all that significant. Gems too stronk.
 
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Think I've done some math in the past and the atal daggers(as well as 25 greens ofc) seemed to be best for assassination due to the socket. Widowmaker/Ced's Carver were giving less total dmg as far as I remember.
 
This is not true. It may have been true at some point, but I just logged in, queued into a BG to do a quick test. As of right now (9.2.0), off hand weapon damage does indeed affect damage on applicable abilities (or at least the tooltips).
I think it may just be autoswings but I had also assumed it affected everything, so thats a reasonably good thing to know. Thanks for testing and correcting!
 

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