Hi,

First I wanted to thank you for a great guide. I had only recently hit 80 before cataclysm came out so I had not had an opportunity to do any raiding. Not knowing any better, I was playing a subtlety spec. in PvE. I read the guide, re-specced, and followed the recommended rotation – bang! an immediate 60% increase in DPS.
I have some suggestions and questions relating to the guide. I don’t know whether you desire the guide to be easily accessible to less experienced players such as myself, but if nothing else doing so will likely reduce the number of dumb questions you receive.

First, I would suggest you add an “overview” section to the start of the guide. I found the below information in the body of the guide, but found it to be scattered throughout it. At least for me, some of these points were real “ah ha” moments that I think should be called out:

1. Equipment. Assassination rogues should use a dagger in each hand. Using daggers will best take advantage of our talents and will maximize DPS.
2. Agility yes, crit no. Agility is our most important stat and is almost 50% more valuable point-for-point then our next stat. The importance goes as follows: agility / yellow hit / spell hit /mastery / etc. and an increased chance to crit is near the bottom. An assassination rogue will do much of his damage through his poisons. As such, being able to hit with poisons (spell to hit value) is important as is mastery which will provide a scaling increase to poison damage.

3. Forget ambush. We will do the best damage striking out of stealth with mutilation. Not having to be as picky with positioning will decrease our movement time and let us get to the attack earlier. A simple rotation of mutilate / slice & dice / followed by first rupture and then envenom will maximize our damage. Once the target drops to 35% switch out back stabbing for mutilate and maintain the same rotation. Forget about ambush and eviscerate.

4. Don’t forget to vanish. Using vanish will re-trigger overkill and give a nice damage buff. Use the ability offensively rather than hording it for defensive use which (hopefully) won’t come.

5. Fan of knives is surprisingly effective. With the powerful poison buffs available to assassination rogues and the extra range provided by the fan of knives glyph, the ability will really put out some area of effect damage. If all the mobs are unlikely to die through your first applications of fan, don’t forget to cast tricks of the trade on the tank so he can enjoy the immediate aggro you cause.
The above are some of the high points I gleaned from the guide. Having it in an overview at the top of the document would make the content more accessible for the less experienced.

Beyond the proposed overview, I also had a few questions. I found the “to hit” description to be confusing. I realize that in game damage will come up as white or yellow, but I don’t understand how that corresponds to the information available in the armory or on my paper doll page. For example, I went out to the author’s armory page, and it states that Ieatpaperbag has a melee hit chance of 11.31% and the mouse over states that a hit rating of 1359 adds 11.31% Hit chance. How do these numbers correspond to the numbers in the guide? The guide says that with two points in precision (which is what Ieatpaperbag is showing), maximum to hit should be: 481 (yellow); 1332 (spell) and 2763 (white). Does this mean that Ieatpaperbag has capped out his to hit for yellow and spell, but is only ~ ½ way to capping out white?

Second, Ieatpaperbag’s expertise is shown as 4/4, and the mouseover says: “expertise rating of 149 adds 4.96 expertise. The guide says that non-gnomes cap expertise at 781 (26). Does this mean that Ieatpaperbag is currently at 149 (4) and therefore has a way to go to get to the cap?

Third, I have not done programming language macros before (only auto say macros and similar ones). The macro section of the guide requires a more advanced skill in macros then I currently have. Is there a “beginner’s guide to macros” that you all used when you got started that you could link to in the guide? If not, then no problem, I have not yet taken the time to track it down. I can look for one and post a proposed link to add. I guess my real question is just what appears to be the first line of the macro: #showtooltip Do I really just type that as written or do I replace the # with a number? In any event, I can figure this out with some due diligence on my part, but thought that if there is some great treatise on WoW macros linking to it would make things easier.
Thanks again for the great guide. Hopefully I am not violating banhammers 5, 6 and/or 7. (Incidentally “banhammer” would be a good band name).

Actually, garrote serves as our optimal opener, followed by an SnD - this utilises the venomous wounds talent, and allows you to get SnD up relatively cheaply, and can be extended with a 4+ envenom.

I was wondering the best feral tank enchant? Is it 130 agility or Windwalk?

On Reforging -

If you have a single-stat item, say a trinket that gives mastery, I assume it's worth reforging this into haste - would that be correct?

Also, for longer fights, searing totem is likely to expire. Would it be correct to assume that replanting this totem is a top priority? Or where would it work into the rotation?

Thanks!