shadowstep ambushFollow

To flameproof myself (errr flame ****** myself...errrr whatever..) I am well aware that shadowstep daggers SUCKS, its dead yadda yadda yadda, I have NO intention of going that way. I just wanted to start a theorycraft thread about ambush (because I was just looking at the calculator having wet day-dreams about speccing shadowstep, and I noticed multiple mentions of ambush in the sub tree).


I was thinking in theory about ambush with the new buff (275% right?). Fully talented (shadowstep), ambush has number of talents working in its favor. We have:

-Shadowstep: next ambush increased 50%

-opportunity: ambush increased 20%

-master of subtlety: stealthed attacks increased 10%

-murder (just for the fun of it) - all attacks on humans + 2%

-I cant find it now, but I'm pretty sure ambush was buffed to 275% damage + 230 bonus damage at max rank?

Now what I don't know is when do all these damage increases come in the damage calculation, after the ambush is calculated, or before. If before, we have simple addition, which gives ambush = 337% + 230. Nothing to write home about, a non-crit hit with merc. glad. shanker (for fun) would give around 900 damage (Given serrated blades to ignore 560 opponents armor, it is reasonable to assume a higher hit against a clothie). Hitting a 10k hp opponent = meh, people are critting hemo with swords for double that.

But if all those come AFTER ambush is calculated, that would be (2.75*weap damage + 230) + 0.82*(2.75*weap damage + 230) = ~ 1620 damage non-crit. Ok so against a big hp opponent, meh again. I have now proved to myself why daggers are crit dependent....

Then adding in crit talents: malice + imp. ambush = 50% crit chance increase to base crit % would give ambush crit 60% - 75%.

What is the math of the competition between crit % and resilience?

I might simply be proving to myself and anyone who bothers to slug through all this that ambush can crit for up to 4000 damage (critting on top of 1620), but resilience makes crits unlikely.

Ambush's base multiplier and damage bonus were both increased by a fair margin. Shadowstep is also only a 20% buff, not 50% (it's 50% less threat). Overall, you can expect to see 3-4k on clothies in arena gear with a shadowstep ambush. Would be good for finishing off mages with a vanish, but not much else.