Hmmm, I can't remember if Supremus is immune to poison or not. We killed him for the first time last week (not that he's hard or anything), but haven't been back to BT yet this week. Pretty sure he's immune to rupture though.

Supremus isn't poison immune.

As for Combat Mutilate, I'm usually on slightly ahead/behind two of our combat sword/fist rogues who don't have DST (like me.) The two that have it I've beaten one in recent fights but the other is on vacation and I can square off against him next week.

Also I'd say Teron is the real benchmark fight of the tbc as long as you don't lose any people from the melee group. It's a flatout tank'n'spank with the exception of some gimmicks.

One thing to remember is that mutilate doesn't gain anything from excessive hit stacking, from my personal experience with the spreadsheet "optimal" hit rating for mutilate is around 210-230, after that agility begins to surpass hit. So swapping around some gems when you spec from combat daggers to mutilate should also make some difference.

I've been a dagger pretty much nonstop since release. This post pretty much sums up why I will be switching as soon as possible to combat fists or swords. I'm mutilate spec at the moment, and I really love it, but its also a liability on certain fights. I used to think that daggers actually was better because you HAD to get in position, That extra challenge kept my attention too, but currently, its not really worth the extra effort.

Thank you! This type of summary is exactly what I was looking for, and unfortunately it confirms my fears for the future of my build. It seems that I should get in the market for swords after all. It's a shame, since I love the challenge Mutilate presents (positional, poisoned, and FW up to maximize). I suppose all good things must come to an end though.

Or maybe by the time I get to that late content, Blizz will have fixed Mutilate to be more on par. Hah, yeah...

Until we really start struggling, I think I will stick with Mutilate to see if I can't provide some worthwhile numbers for research/comparisons. Maybe there is some magical point where Mutilate scales better and no one has reached it yet :P

hmm. i 've read all what you guys wrote and hmmm. my way to play mutilate in raid is

garrote(or shiv) >snd> mutilate - at that time i usually have 4/5 deadly and 4/5 Cp- and -> envenom. with shammy in group and his stormstrike its 4.2 4.3 k crit ( 5deadly 5Cp)
i just play it that way. i keep deadlies on target i generate CP ( im not using any cycle -dunno even how and what is it) and i keep find weakness up. and thats it. i constantly top dmgmeter on bosses that arent melee unfriendly or AoEfriendly ( solarian.morogrim etc). malchazeen in Mh and gladiators shiv in OH ( season1) .we are 2/6 ssc 3/4 tk now.
where's the point? 1640 AP 27.80% crit 202 hit (unbuffed)
if i played other way (i mean other way with that same with that build -41/20/0) would there be boost for my raid dmg? would i do more dmg?
aa i have deadly on both wpns

well I've switched to swords this week, I've gone from a token 3rd (being just above the locks etc), to competing for 1st with the other 2 sword rogues, definite improvement for dps, and i still don't have the rotations as solid as i used to with muti.

As well as being an aussie, pvp has become a bit more lag friendly

I've been 41/20 Mutilate pretty much all the way from 60-70.

The guild I'm in has just started SSC and TK (as in, this week) and we've had a very quick shot at Lurker, and after crafting enough tank resist gear, we're going to be trying Hydross tonight.

I adore Mutilate, and agree with the people that have said that it takes a lot more focus to play than Combat Swords, however, I'm not saying that Combat Sword specced players aren't skilled, far from it.

I, like others, am worried that I will end up being a liabilty on raid dps if I stick with my current build, but I don't see that I can change now - about a week ago I spent a shedload of gold respeccing to Combat Maces for some PvP Arena testing, then tried Combat Swords too. In all honesty, I can't remember how I managed to level 1-60 with Combat Swords - it just seemed sluggish and boring to me.

I also see a few people saying that in order to use Envenom they are sticking DP on both hands. I'm a little confused at this, I normally use DP on OH, and Anasthetic (if it's a new fight, or we're using a tank that isn't 100% clued in on the fight) or Instant on MH.

I'm currently using Malchazeen in MH, and Gladiator's Shiv in OH - yes, I know it's 1.4 speed.

My reasoning for this is that I barely notice the Mutialte damage difference with a faster OH, my DP stacks faster, and my Shiv's are nice and cheap.

My Envenoms add a fair amount to my total damage, if they crit, I rarely get below 4k, and my highest was 4600 iirc. With the CP generation speed, and the excess energy, if I'm 1 DP short of an envenom, and 1 CP short of 5 as well (happens quite often:P) - a Shiv is perfect.

Anyway, I know I've rambled on quite a bit, but getting back to what I orginally wanted to ask (yes, there was a point somewhere back when I began, but it's 6:25am, and I'm becoming a little incoherent) - am I definitely going to have to switch to Combat Swords in order to not be a waste of a DPS spot?

you wont become a "waste", but come BT/hyjal etc, instead of competing with the locks for 4-8th, you'll be with the other rogues competing for first. and it's a noticable step between.

Our rogues are normally ~10% each, warlocks ~7-8%

mutilate dps depends a lot on the user, and +crit from buffs gives a huge boost, imho it scales better than combat dagger, and in fights where u run back and forth like a madman, i can go from nothing, to a 5cp SnD going in 2-4 secs, no other built can do that

things u have to time and check are apart from SnD, looking if mangled, amount of deadly poisons, find weakness, mongoose procs, combos energy lvl etc, very easy to lose focus and lose a lot of dps

In the time since I last posted in here, my guild has gotten significantly farther in endgame (but not quite to Hyjal and BT yet /sigh). In that experience, I have only ever felt truly gimped by my Mutilate spec against Hydross and Void Reaver, and on those fights I still manage to hold any of the top 3 positions.

The advantages to Blade Flurry on Hydross are there, but they're also minimized by stacking AoE classes (which my guild does normally for that fight). On Vashj, there's really no slacking off at all, since I'm assigned to naga duty in Phase 3, and they're fully poisonable. Kael's weapons are an issue, but again they're mostly AoE'd down... So I fail to see where exactly Mutilate's "DPS loss" really hits.

Basically, I feel that all the way through the Tier 5 instances Mutilate is a viable build. This may change in the T6 zones, and honestly it may not. Especially with the changes to haste and windfury procs coming, Mutilate may remain fully viable in the endgame. But for the guilds that have gone before, it probably wasn't strong enough.

Only time and experience can tell. For me, however, Mutilate is fine all the way through SSC and TK. On non-immune bosses and mobs no one touches my single-target DPS. Mutilate's DPE is just that amazing.

If you're beating combat sword or even combat dagger rogues in your guild, you either out-gear them or they aren't playing to their full potential. As a rogue, you SHOULD be at or near the top of damage meters. Yes, Mutilate rogues have really high dmg per energy, but you don't have nearly the amount of energy that a combat rogue has. Also, as stated above, rogue gear tends to scale best for combat rogues via haste.

Once again, I'm not saying Mutilate is a *bad* spec.. its just not the BEST spec for raiding. You'll be ahead of other classes, but shouldn't be ahead of other rogues.

No disrespect intended, but it sounds like you're just beating the other rogues, simply because they are "lesser" rogues.

But all the 2.2 nerfs may close the gap a bit more, and might consider picking up a boundless agony, and giving it a bash again

Cyn, well perhaps in Zaniel's case the skill of other rogues can be a factor, but overall mutilate does benefit much much more from the druid than any other buff imo. In Apex when I'm stuck without a druid I do comparable dps to our 3 other rogues, but with Mutilate I'm on par with Conn (best geared of our rogues I guess).
Although Void did get the 2nd t6 piece so that might bring his dps up.

Overall mutilate is a viable build even in the upper end of the content. If you find playing combat daggers as mind-numbing as me. If not then Combat Daggers > *

This, and the 2 rogues with DST in his guild are dagger rogues. (he and his GM) Theres another big DPS difference.

Zaniel,

You'll find that as you progress into BT/Hyjal that mutilate is still a good spec, but it will fall behind combat swords in the long run. I say this because I was a dagger rogue into Hyjal and the first part of BT, then I went combat maces with the KT mace and the haste trash bt drop offhand. Once we killed Illidan I grabbed the Shard of Azzinoth and tried mutilate again with it mainhand and Vash dagger offhand.

While I was still near the top of the charts I was consistently beaten by the sword rogue in our guild who was using Talon mh with the gladiator blade oh. Gear wise he has a slight edge on me, but at the time it was marginal. Since then I've swapped to swords and we now run neck and neck on the meters.

Combat sword is THE best end game raiding spec, bar none. Mutilate is close, but not quite as good. I took a glance at the other rogues in your guild and once they gear up, particularly if any of them go full combat swords (only saw one using swords (spiteblade) and he was pvp specced) I think you'll find that they will begin to consistently beat you on the meters, provided they are as conscientious on running their cycles properly as you are.

Don't get me wrong, I was a dagger rogue from MC up through BWL, Naxx, Karazhan and SSC/TK, but daggers, be it mutilate or combat, just can't keep up with the damage that swords do because of the mechanics of sword spec and the top end damage on some of the endgame swords. I'd love for mutilate to be competitive deep in the endgame, but from my personal experience, both with the specs and comparing personal damage between the two and competing with a good sword rogue, it just isn't.

huh? I can somewhat (I'll explain below)agree with the mutilate aspect, but if you're saying that combat daggers is beaten by swords your smoking something good. I specced combat daggers for a week and simply blew away our rogues by a margin of 50-150dps depending on the fight. If you're talking about trash... then...who cares about trash?

About mutilate. You really need to gear and gem for mutilate to work. I can't also keep stressing enough that a feral druid is a huge boost to your dps. Major Agility over Relentless, etc. I'm personally aiming for 35% unbuffed but with current itemization I see myself hardpressed to reach that (without tsunami/don'alejandro's money belt at least).

I've seen screenshots of Teza pushing 1500 dps on some Hyjal boss which might not be the 2000dps or whatnot that Furi can push but then again (I can't remember which) some his gearchoice is questionable to say at the least (RoTM over any of the BT rings?).

I can't wait until I can pick up more of t6 to confirm or deny the viability of Mutilate vs Swords.

Edit. Also noticed that you have most of the BT haste gear, which at the moment is borderline imbalanced and will be nerfed considerably post patch. I'm willing to bet that we'll see serious drop in the dps that Sword rogues are putting out. (Especially those who rely on Dragonspine/other haste items).

Well I'm aware of reports about daggers being inferior lower and mid tier instances, but I have heard nothing about dagger rogues complaining about their damage in high-end content. I've also haven't seen any WWS reports of dagger rogues on Teron (imo the closest we have to a TBC-Patchwerk.)
All of which in itself is probably a product of the lack of itemization as well as the lack of flexibility that daggers offer making them shunned in lower-middle tier instances and this carrying over to upper-tier instances.
I'm also aware that in theory daggers should be inferior at the moment, which is why I was expecting to be on par to our sword rogues. Yet that wasn't the case so I concluded that there simply hasn't been any significant testing of daggers at the high-end content.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I base my statements on my own experience, since there wasn't any other.

About the haste gear. Opening up the Rogue Gear spreadsheet I set "Use PTR haste nerf" to "No". Band of Devastation becomes the 2nd best ring, Shadow-walker's Cord becomes the best belt, T6 gloves are still best but only by a very small margin. Swiftstrike Bracers and Shoulders are better than Insidious or T6. Setting that option to "Yes" changes most of those items to be inferior to T6 but still decent upgrades to T5.
I agree that the haste nerf was a bit heavy handed and some of the items should be rebalanced. But I can't see how a non-set item should be better than T6. After all those items (imho) are there to fill that slot until you can pick up the tier item or to appeal to a certain spec.

Then again Blizzards itemization team is known to create very awful and insanely good loot. (Paladin libram from Mother, Heroic Badge Necklace).

As for our rogues. Perhaps they do suck. But somehow I doubt it when I look at their damage and our progress.

Lets looks at the passive haste items one by one, neglecting the 2.2 haste nerf:

1) Shadow-Walker's Cord. This is the best belt in the game. True. However, it is also the only belt that drops in Black Temple. In it's absence, the best belt in the game is a Vashj drop. So, is it good? Yes. Is it worth using? Yes. Is it unreasonably good for where it drops? I would say no.

2) Swiftstrike Bracers/Shoulders. Now, an argument could be made that these were too good, admittedly; Swiftstrike Bracers were comparable if a bit behind Insidious Bands, and the shoulders edge Slayer's. I have 3 counterpoints to this:
a) Most guilds will not be making these available until after downing Mother Shahraz; and a guild that has killed Mother Shahraz is a guild that has access to both Insidious Bands and Slayer's shoulders. Hence, progression-wise, they are available "after" the items that they are superior too - which makes sense.
b) Swiftstrike Shoulders are actually not particularly interesting with Slayer's available, as while they are slot for slot superior, they are still inferior when viewed as a whole for the simple reason that and endgame rogue is better off using 4/5 and Cursed Vision of Sargeras. So while they may yield a temporary damage boost of 5 or 10 DPS for a time in BT, ultimately no actual benefit is gained from them.
c) In order to make Swiftstrike Shoulders - the superior of the two items - one must be a LW. As such, even if you do derive 20 AP-equivalent benefit from them - that's still less than the benefit one gets from being an enchanter, and I don't think anyone has argued that the +4 stats to ring enchant is imbalanced. Nor is it significantly more than the benefit that will be gained from the JC-specific gems in next patch, which I haven't heard any complaints about from a balance perspective.

As such, while I concede that the Swiftstrike pieces are good, and that a case can even be made for them being imbalanced, I do think there are some legitimate factors that hold them in balance.

3) Band of Devastation (a BT drop) is comperable or slightly superior to Ring of Deceitful Intent (a BT drop) - as it should be. It is behind the Illidan drop. It is ahead of the SSC/TK drop. All is as it should be, so far as I can tell.

4) Grips of Damnation (BT boss 6) are comperable to Slayer's (Hyjal boss 4). Again: good, but not imbalanced.

As far as I can tell, the only legitimate case for imbalance is the assertion that no non-set piece should be better than the corresponding set piece; I can see this argument being leveled against Swiftstrike Shoulders and Grips of Damnation. I don't happen to buy this argument. If the set pieces are slot for slot better *and* give set bonuses, is there any reason, ever, to use anything other than the set? Whereas having nonset pieces that are slot-for-slot superior forces you to choose between otherwise superior stats and the set bonus, giving both a legitimate reason to be used. Hence, having a set of gloves that are 'almost as good as a set piece', a set of shoulders that are 'slightly better but still not worth using due to the set bonus', a set of bracers that are 'a viable alternative to a drop of comparable difficulty to obtain', and a ring and belt that are 'superior to the items that drop in the previous tier of instances' does not strike me as reasonable grounds for pronouncing haste rating overpowered.

Availability? While non-set items are contented for only within your own class (with exceptions of feral/retribution/leather wearing fury warriors), the tier pieces are contented within 3-4 spec's. A much larger player pool. Of course it depends if you're using a upgrade based system or not. Also with the case of Swiftstrike they are both imo available to fill those slots with t6 alternatives if you cannot for some reason obtain it's equivalent.

For rogues who've been picking up haste items within a non-upgrade system. It's a unfortunate day. Hopefully their guilds will understand how devalued the items become and will refund them.

As I said before, haste was a bit too good and then a bit overnerfed. Although that's only my personal opinion. I'd leave it at that.

Yes, set tokens are used by 3-4 times as many people. Oddly, they also drop roughly 3-4 times as often, given that 2 set tokens drop each week out of 3 possibilities, whereas most nonset pieces are more like 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 drops. So I don't buy the availability argument either.

I would have responded earlier but I've been out of town the past day.

I ran combat daggers, mutilate, and combat maces with essentially the same gear I'm using now. I was a combat dagger rogue pre-tbc where I was among the top dps'ers in my guild. I say this merely as a point of reference to illustrate that I know how to run an efficient combat dagger rotation. When mutilate first came out I was running at the top of the meters on Patchwerk in Naxx. I'll admit I'm probably not as good at mutilate as I am at combat daggers, but I was able to do comparable dps last December when it first came out.

I know I was pushing 1500dps as combat daggers on fights like Gorefiend, but since moving to swords I have run as high as 1800-2000 on that same fight. This is purely anecdotal information, and solely based on my own experience, but my results are in line with the theorycrafting, which lend me to believe that it's an accurate indication of which is the superior spec.

I routinely run in a group with an enhance shaman, fury warrior and a feral druid. If we bring a third rogue then we lose the feral, but at the time I was daggers that was a very rare occurance.

In reference to the haste gear: In order to stack the amount of STATIC haste that I have, I have sacrificed a lot of hit. I currently run only at 211 hit. The other sword rogue that I'm competitive with has 299 hit and zero static haste, yet our dps, all things being equal, is almost identical on boss fights. Again, anecdotal evidence, but this tells me that the static haste is budgeted properly right now in regards to hit, but post patch hit will be the superior stat.