About ShivFollow

Okay, so I've been lvl 70 for a short while now. Since I got a fairly quick off-hand sword (the Revenger, I'm still aiming for Latro's but no luck yet) I've begun using Shiv. Now, I'm not certain but I think I may have buffed my DPS a decent amount since using the skill with instant or Anesthetic poison on the off-hand weapon.

I've been needing to ask a few questions about shiv, just to clear up a few suspicions and maybe get behind my slight DPS bonus.

1. Does Shiv proc the bonus energy from Combat Potency? More energy would be helping me dish out more damage from my skills and such.
2. How exactly does shiv crit? Is it simply weapon damagex2 + Poison dmg or does the poison also crit (if it can)
3. Obviously since shiv costs less for faster off-hand weapons, I can use the skill more often for better CP generation. But is the damage and CP generation preferable over Improved SS?

I'm not sure if I'm getting more DPS out of the skill, I do feel that I'm getting more attacks out of it though (from the CPs and Energy). Does anyone here have similar experience with the skill? Would Shiv excel over Sinister Strike in a raid environment?

I thank you all in advance for your information.

1) yes it will proc Combat Potency
2) crit is simply damx2.3(5/5 lethality) + poison dam(which can't crit and does not scale with buffs), is however effected by vile poisons(increases poison dam by up to 20%)
3) The only thing worse than shiv was using hemo with a dagger(which may not be true anymore with the buff to hemo).

Shiv is primarily a pvp tool, but is also used by combat daggers when positioning becomes a problem/or you've gotten out of your cycle and need to build a quick couple of cps for SnD.

Try rolling with Might instead of Salvation, you'll need Anesthetic, esp if you're without a hunter misdirect for your tank.

Because I have good tanks and Anesthetic poison:)

Poisons can crit, although the chance is really really low. I have noticed my Wound poison crits every now and then. I think the chance to crit with poisons relies on your intelligence stat. Seeing as rogues and having no +int gear leads this to being very very unlikely.

I used to have screenshots of my poisons critting but deleted them all a while ago. It does happen but since I have been playing wow (over like 2/3 years) I have only seen my poisons crit... less than 5 times perhaps.

But as otherwise stated, shiv is primarily there to simply apply offhand poisons rather than generate damage. The only exception to this is that shiv can't be dodged so it can be used against rogues using evasion. As an offhand attack you can also shiv whilst disarmed.

I'll see if I can dig up a screeny of my poisons critting but I doubt they exist on my pc anymore.

The application of wound poison also comprises of a damage component, not just a healing debuff. Even if you have a 5/5 stack of wound, you need to keep proccing to refresh the dubuff (only lasts 15 seconds) & the poisons will do damage each time they proc.