Assault Shadow Warrior damage output analysis - Comparison with other AOE dps classes

[live4treasure]

INTRO

Heavily inspired by leftayparxoun – Link to his post:

A bit more research into skirmish warband play would be beneficial. I am no expert in the topic, but rather than what you are suggesting the rotation is, I believe the actual way skirmish is played is through the use of Barrage and Whispering Winds.

You can also combine this with stance dancing back and forth between assault and skirmish, giving you movement speed and AP efficiency or stick with No Respite for the sweet damage bonus. And making things like the following possible:

Shadowstep - Skirmish Stance - spam Barrage with 0 cooldown for the next 10 seconds - back away as Whispering Winds falls off.

I wont lie the skirmish section was done haphazardly due to my admitted in experienced in a spec i have little interest in.
though i did not factor in outside buffs at all in the calculations as it opens an entire can of worms of whats optimal.
will i have a Zealot applying armor debuff too? why not if i can have WW? does the WL numbers have WW? does the destro mdps have WW?
also ap efficency was ignored as this post numbers is not meant to be taken as gospel. just showing the severity of how bad sweeping slash is.

The reason specifically this buff and those tactics are important is because they are mandatory for SWs warband viability. You simply DON'T PLAY an SW without them in warbands. Lefze's method does in fact include various buffs and tactics into the equation.

In any case, I get where you are coming from. The aoe slash ability essentially serves no purpose, other than to stance dance into during barrage downtime.