Main hand, off handFollow

I'm having a little trouble understanding where speed falls in the list of priorities when deciding which hand to put a weapon in. Both the sticky here and Osiris' guide (See! I can read it! My tiny brain is just incapable of understanding it!) emphasize the importance of speed in the off hand weapon, but I'm assuming that's not at the expense of putting the better overall weapon in my main hand, right?

My rogue is new (obviously) and very low level (so yeah, it doesn't matter at this point, but if I don't learn the basic principles now I will suck later), so it's not like I have a ton of weapon choices and most of what I'm picking up is one-hand so I could put it in either. So, here's what I've been doing if I have two swords:

- Put the higher average DPS weapon in my main hand, regardless of other stats, and even if that means I have a slower weapon in my off hand than my main hand.
- If average DPS is equal, put the higher DPS range/slower weapon in the main hand, regardless of other stats.

Yes? No? I've never played a dual wielding class so this is all new to me.

(Edited for typos)

Edited, Nov 20th 2007 3:39pm by teacake

Holy fast and simple answer. Thanks so much. And I'd heard you guys over here were, like, rilly mean.

Damn you MyTeddy for stealing my answer you...you answer-stealer you! and in a much more concise manner too...jerk...

Oh- and to the OP- we are mean. We just aren't mean (typically) to people who ask questions in a reasonable manner, use grammar and display even a minimal amount of intelligence.

Oooh so the key to learning some fun new flames would be to use the word "rouge." Got it.

This really clears things up for me guys, thanks for taking the time on a basic question you've no doubt answered, um, a time or two before.

And thank you, Teacake, for asking the question I was too afraid to for fear of flaming!

i'm not gonna lie you guys are pretty mean. but anyway, i thought the point of a fast offhand was interrupt casters. and if it is to apply posions, what's the purpose of shiv?

Edited, Nov 21st 2007 1:00am by pwnorama

I would like to push the OP question a bit farther:

As I understand all instant attacks were normalized some time ago. Therefore the speed of MH weapon should not matter. Nor should the top-end damage matter - only the DPS.
(there is probably the exception of sword spec extra attack and Riposte, which are not normalized?)

Is this correct?

I am actually asking because my gut feeling is that it is not really so. I have tried to use 2.0 speed mace in MH once (with combat spec), and I would swear my DPS made a big dive. I do not see any explanation why it would be like that with the normalization in place.
So I try to stick to slow MH now, but I am not exactly sure if I am deceiving myself of not.

The slow main hand concept applies because typically a slower weapon is going to hit harder. If the faster weapon has the higher top end damage than that should be the one that goes in the main hand (to my understanding) to make sure your instant attacks are hitting as hard as possible.

Two weapons of equal level are going to have the slower=harder concept. If you have a gap between item levels, it is possible that the higher level faster weapon is going to hit harder than the lower level slow weapon.

And yes, a faster weapon is going to slow casting down because it is hitting more often to knock that bar back as much as possible, but you also get more poison procs because more hits = more chances. Shiv is good for that case where they are most certainly going to run and you haven't applied crippling, or perhaps after a cheap shot that didn't apply poison in a mutilate build.

Yes we are and you know we are. We are rogues. There's a reason.

This guy asked a legit question and he/she asked it intelligently enough. For that, he/she doesn't get flamed. I will say though, as the others have, we ARE really THAT bad.

Theo, and I believe it's sig'ed somewhere, implied that subtlety was like slamming your ***** in a door (more eloquently)

Demea digs up that noob pwning sheet all the time which shuts down many an imbecile.

You, Teddy, while I can't think of a direct example, have had me roll off my chair IN THE OFFICE WHERE I "WORK" because of your flames.

We call people out on spelling, grammar, rEdiculous grasp of the English language, asking dumb questions, not reading stickies, all sorts of pointless crap.

Is it our (and I use "our" freely, despite barely posting on Alla) job to answer questions? Not at all. But, vicariously, it's also not our job to flame dumb questions, grammatical abortions of English, noobs, spelling errors or anything of the like.

We really are THAT bad and I think we should stop. I've done my small share. It's dumb- you've had a bad day at work and want to target someone to make yourself feel better. You're drunk and you deem someone unworthy of your time so you (completely rationally of course) take the time to flame them into oblivion.

People are genuinely afraid to post here and ask questions for fear of being flamed. Yes, read the stickies, but for the love of all- if you still have a question please ask it. In my limited capacity, I at least will do my best to answer it.

so i have a faster dagger and a slower sword. both do around same dps. my dagger shood be OF, and ssword in MH, so is this difference worth the loss of backstab/ambush/etc. that i cood use if i had my dagger in MH?

The rogue forums have the rep of having a bunch of jackass posters mainly because of me.

I'll take a bow and an encore, thanks.

K.

I'm rubber, you're glue.

/equipslot 16 17

It'll swap MH and OH, although obviously both have to be able to fit in either slot.