Just wanted to mention, because I recently discovered it, and hadn't read it anywhere else...

Improved Slice and Dice goes in the formula after T4 2pc's +3 seconds, meaning that 2pc T4 actually adds ~4.45 seconds, not 3.

After picking up my helm after holding gloves for weeks and weeks, I was simply amazed by how easy it is to hold a 1s/5r cycle, I won't be breaking T4 2pc for a looong time. =p

Actually, it sort of wasn't known to me, but it's a minor oversight, so I can go correct it right now. But yeah, I'm still working on the Think Tank article and therefore won't be making any changes to the post here more significant than that.

Actually in arena you cannot swap any gear except weapons once the match has begun, regardless of whether you are in or out of combat. This was implemented somewhere around the middle of season 2 to specifically prevent people from equipping shadow resist gear against warlocks and shadow priests. Either you haven't spoken to your friends in many months or they haven't noticed yet that they gear doesn't actually change after they Vanish to leave combat.

Re: Rupture / Evis

Also remember that as rupture scales more with AP, it only continues to get better than Evis. 2300 AP is exceptionally low for a riad-buffed scenerio. You should have at the VERY least, Battle Shout and Blessing of Might. Those 2 buffs alone contribute ~700 AP. You should also have SoE, a flash, etc. Obtaining 2300 AP really shouldn't be an issue in most "real" raid settings. Perhaps in ZA if you get really shafted, but still. This is offset somewhat by the fact that Evis scales with Crit %, while rupture does not. However you generally won't sway *too* far from 30% crit. Having over 40% is already getting quite high, 45% with an AToL trinket I suppose.. but that would then mean you likely have that much more AP also.

When comparing based on stats closer to that of an end-game rogue.. I generally have ~2350 AP before Brutallus is pulled. This is before Battle Shout, before totems, before Elixir of Demonslaying, Expose Weakness, etc. Mid-fight my character sheet often shows me in the 3600 range as a low, peaking around 4500 with a few procs up during a WF. This is my character sheet, meaning Expose Weakness and Elixir of Demonslaying are not factored in, both of which add another ~250+ AP. Rupture ticks of 325-350 are fairly standard. With the average easily above 2500 damage per rupture, thats over 100 dmg / energy.

I guess we're beating a dead horse by this point, but you really do need the absolute most unfavorable circumstances for Evis to pull ahead. No mangle, very low AP, very high crit, very high arm Pen. Since a 50%+ crit rate on a 0-armor boss with low AP and no mangle is a pretty rare occurrence, keep using Rupture until the boss has < 16 seconds to live.

...and at that point, you should probably use Envenom rather than Eviscerate, as the lost poison ticks hurt a lot less if the boss isn't going to survive more than a few seconds. Conventional wisdom is that Eviscerate is basically never worth it - ever - for bosses.

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me, though.

You're right: I haven't done much PvP myself, or spoken much with my old PvP friends, for some time now. That's a good change though, the ninja-resist tactic was pretty cheap (but effective!) in my opinion.

This has already been covered and the consensus was that it is still better, due to the interruption in DPS time eating up some of the internal cooldown and thus making the proc "better" than its average. I don't believe there was any hard math backing this up, as its a hard thing to model. Conventional wisdom says though that with interrupted dps time, and a fairly high proc rate (15%, I believe?) that you're going to get far more procs just as you get back into dps time versus just as you back out.

Similar results for trash, particularly if you're at/above the trash hit cap for lower level mobs.

ah ok, sorry for the repeated question and thank you for the answer.

...except during an Adrenaline rush (although that is a net energy sink if using a 5pt Evis) or at *around* 12-16 seconds of boss-life-left. Also, if the boss will only live for < 12 seconds, you could still end up using Evis if you don't have a 5pt Deadly stack.

Is there a good location to post recommendations for the think-tank article? There is some interesting discussion regarding cycles and trinkets going on over in the Mutilate thread. It's somewhat preliminary, but the general points of debate are:

1] 2-finisher (SnD/Rupt) versus 3-finisher (SnD/Rupt/Evis) cycles; which is actually more DPS? The jury is out.
2] Evis vs. Envenom for Mutilate builds (again, the jury is out)
3] Best trinkets: For a Mutilate build, Shard of Contempt and Ashtongue Talisman appear to beat out DST, and WSC is really close to DST (within a few DPS). We're still working on this, though.

When (if) we come to any conclusions over there, what's the best way to spread that information?

How does Fist/Sword do compared to Sword/Sword?

im having trouble deciding on some things and could use some help
I have both Talon of Azshara and Blade of Infamy and am unsure which to use

the DMM sheet which is the one im more familiar with had infamy better till 2 0 4 7a then it favored Azshara (+1.07 dps)
Aldriana's however, favors infamy still (+~9 dps)
I know Aldriana favors agi over hit due to its higher value when having to move alot (most fights)
is that why it likes infamy better? is that reflected in her sheet or is it just personal preferance
(Aldriana sheet also seems to favor 5agi5hit over 10 hits for me where DMM recommends 10 hit in most things)

anyhoo sorry if this is another LAWL WHICH ITAM R BETTAR post but i've been messing with the sheets a ton and still cant find an answer. All buffs should be the same I have triple checked that.

I can see both weapons being close enough to be a preference call, infamy winning out on more mobile fights and azshara winning on the stand there and beat on the boss fights.

*edit* I suck at spelling (sorry ald)
tyvm for the help and quick reply I think ill go with Infamy for now

Recently there have started to turn up some differences of this sort between the two sheets, and, as far as I know, neither DMM nor I really has a good idea as to where they're coming from. It's something I've been meaning to look at and try to resolve, but haven't had time. So, for the moment, it really comes down to which sheet you trust more. I can tell you which one *I* trust more, but I'm admittedly biased on this topic.

It might also be noted that a 1 DPS difference in either sheet is under the error of the sheets; neither sheet, despite the fact that they display your DPS to 2 decimal places, can be considered reliably accurate to within more than a couple of DPS. So what you're really seeing is that they're tied in DMM's sheet and Infamy is a bit ahead in mine.

And by the way: there's an "L" in Aldriana.

I have a question on the use of cooldowns. I've currently got a macro which triggers Bloodlust Brooch, Haste Pot and BF. If pressed again it will kick off AR. From my reading I believe that using the BB, HP and BF together is the way to go but I seem to remember reading somewhere (can't refind it) that using AR with those others is a bit of a waste and it should be used alone.

Is this correct?

Thanks

Well it's not a waste. It's just that it gives no additional benefits than using it without those CDs. Unlike haste based ones which just get better if you stack % based ones. Though AR and BF with adds do get that bit of extra big hitting aoe when you have that situation.

I have read that Dragonspine Trophy is a better trinket then Tsunami Talisman is, but I am wondering if that is for the commonly used sword spec rogues. I am a 15/41/5 combat dagger and when using the rogue gear spreadsheet from this website I noticed that TT gave me a much bigger EP then DST did.

Is itemization really that much different? If so is there information about combat dagger gear that I have missed or havent found yet?

I'd be, um, surprised if it were actually the case that Dragonspine Trophy comes in behind Tsunami Talisman for, um, anyone - it sounds like you may have found a bug in the sheet. Could you upload your copy of the sheet somewhere so I can take a look at it?

Edit: While playing around with the sheet to investigate, I did find a bug with one of the cycle sheets that will affect Aldor rogues using daggers with the SSO neck which you might be hitting. See the Gear Sheet thread for the problem and the fix to it.

Thank you Aldriana it confused me alot since Hourglass of the unravler hit a 350 rating on the sheet also.

Oh, now I took my necklace off and put on the PVP one and numbers are looking consistant. My 103 DPS badge dagger is no longer worth 170 points. ( I cried a little when I saw that )

My guess is that you have Aldriana's sheet set to "weighted" which will value agility slightly more due to it's dodge component (which likely explains why agi/hit gems are also preferred). With the default gear set on the DPS sheet, I have them as a virtual dead-heat (showing maybe a 0.66 DPS edge to the Talon. That said, there is some very solid theorycraft around the idea that hit is slightly less valuable in fights with movement and crit is more valuable (which is a component of agility). So on that basis, given the small difference displayed on the DPS sheet (which is modeling a static fight where one never moves), I'd lean toward Infamy. They are virtually even in static fights and Infamy should theoretically be stronger in fights with movement.

I'll subscribe to that thread and read it a bit more often. (I don't usually check the main forums so often these days, so threads I haven't subscribed to often get overlooked.)

I seem to recall that you (or possibly someone else) were doing some work on a Mutilate simulator which could more accurately gauge the DPS of such builds. How's that coming along -- or has my memory failed me?

Neshalin was, I believe. I did some work on Aldriana's DP simulator, adapting it for Mutilate, but that wasn't a full Mutilate simulator. Neshalin's was an actual Mutilate simulator, but I don't know how it's coming.

A note - that thread (like this one) has a lot of people asking for advice or posting WWS for illustration, but the theory posts are wedged in there as well.

For reference (for others): [Rogue] Mutilate Raid DPS Discussion

EDIT: Thanks to Hive for the correction.

*Neshalin.

From what she has been saying in our rogue channel she's making some good progress. Hopefully there will be an accurate Mutilate spreadsheet available soon if she makes a breakthrough. I know I'm bursting to try it on a BT run one day when we're not in sunwell.