OK - managed to finally do some testing with Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent.

Hyjal first tonight as we had to attune a trial for BT, and we decided to clear the whole place. Rage Winterchill, Kaz'rogal and Archimonde are all succeptible to Mana tap. I had to sit out for Anetheron, and on Azgalor we have our melee only dpsing the doomguards that spawn so I couldn't test it on him but as both of these bosses have mana/cast spells it would not surprise me in the slightest if they are succeptible to Mana Tap too. So, Hyjal gets the thumbs up.

We also cleared the first 3 bosses of BT, Naj'entus and Supremus both have no mana and thus Mana Tap does not work on those and once again I had to sit out for Akama so I unfortunately couldn't test that either - willl have to do some more testing tomorrow and see if it's useful at all in there.

However, I tried a few macro's I'd made to see if I could have a single button I could mash for SS and Mana tap, the only one that worked to any extent was a /castrandom macro and even then, with AR up I found it would "randomly" try and trigger mana tap several times in a row leading to me actually capping energy, which obviously isn't good and kind of counters the point in what I'm trying to do.

So after a while I abandoned the use of macro's and tried to just use it normally, the problem though is I was so not used to it I often forgot about the whole thing. I've played this rogue for so long now that actually playing has become some what second nature, so it's going to take some adjusting to use it effectively that's for sure. When I did remember though it definitely had its uses, particularly on Archimonde as there is always a lot of time off target due to the airbursts/fears and twice or so I was able to stop snd dropping for a second or two because of it.

My initial "conclusion" then is that using it in the way I described in my first post is definitely plausible though obviously requires further testing as well as compiling a list of bosses it works on. Not only that but a lot of readjusting is necessary, at least for me, in order to just not forget about it... An SS/Mana Tap macro that worked without the problem I described earlier would definitely help some but as both abilities trigger the GCD I'm not sure it's possible.

Last thing, the resist's seemed to be about what we expected I guess. During the entire night I only had two resisted Mana Taps out of maybe 18-20 in total. Obviously it's a tiny sample size but this would seem in line with the 17% arcane resistance bosses have by default and was posted earlier.

So all in all, needs more testing but looks some what promising.

Akama is very likely to be useful for MT/AT since you're essentially killing "trash" with mana for most of the fight and only actually attacking the boss for ~< 1 minute; it's relatively unimportant if you were able to MT the boss, but you could MT the adds in the time you're killing them and unleash on the boss.

From what you're saying it's possible all bosses with mana are susceptible to MT.

Yeah, I noticed it later, when I checked the armories. Sorry for the misinformation.

Yet, my point still holds true with regards to the yellow DPS of combat builds and 20/0/41 shadowstep builds. If you check out the damage dealt by Nessala and Hafoc throughout the full raid (which should give the best overall statistic), you can see that Nessala dealt 1878 k damage by using sinister strikes while Hafoc dealt 2225 k damage by using hemorrhage.

Edit: P.S. I have tried setup on the Hex Lord today. It works like wonders. Cloak of Shadows while soul drain provides you with enough combo points to get out 2 or 3 5cp finishers if you are lucky. I just wanted to share it

If you know the name of a mob with mana lying around somewhere you can write a macro to manatap that mob without changing your current dps target. Focus is the easiest way to do it, although if you're looking at a generic mob that gets killed and replaced frequently you can probably still do it by name. I would recomend not wiring it to your autoattack, for the reason you mentioned.

AR gives a net of five combo points if the extra finisher you gain out of it procs ruthlessness. It's more accurate to say it gives 4.6 combo points. Obviously it only gives that benefit after the finisher, but in realistic usage you can weave the extra eviscerate anywhere in your cycle you want. If you start at 2-3 points with rupture and S&D up, AR and evisc at five and proc ruthlessness, you've added four sin strikes and a 5-point evis without disrupting any cycle. You can play it conservatively and pop a 4-point evis, and stand to gain the occasional extra combo point in your cycle to make up for a previous unproc or lack of combat potency.

Just a question from an Twink-Rogue: "Wouldn't Cheat Death prevent this?"

I mean, even if you shadowstep right after shatter and get hit by one hurtfull strike, you would completely resist the damage.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If you would go to 0 health from the hurtful you will absorb it I belive, just like it says on the tooltip.

For Gruul you should be safe if you only use it after Shatter as the Shatter cooldown is over a minute, you can use cloak every time too.

Quick question in the front page it has the hemo/swords build as being 5% lower than the sword/sword build, but thats personal dps only. Does the debuff value provided by hemo to the raid more than make up for the 5% loss, or is it about even or worse?

Just curious as my guild is going to try and progress further into SSC tonight and I know I'm going to have to switch out of my ShS build in order to contribute properly, just trying to figure out if I should go back to my regular (combat) build or give the hemo build a try. I would be the only rogue with hemo.

Thanks.

Interesting...
http://elitistjerks.com/search.php?searchid=829195


Casterbridge - At your level of progression, a single Hemo rogue will likely be about equal with combat sword rogues in terms of raid contribution to dps. At a T4 level, Hemo will be slightly more than combat swords (raid dps, not personal). At a T6 level, Combat Swords for all the rogues is generally best. That is after factoring in the Hemo debuff. The math/proof/etc is scattered throughout this thread and some of the other Rogue ones.

Hi,
is cheap shot a hitting attack than can apply poisons? I just managed to cheap shot a mob, and my first attacked missed, still i did instant poison damage on the mob. As I suppose misses won't apply poison, my cheap shot must have applied.
Is that correct, incorrect? Or hasn't anyone ever noticed?

Well misses shouldn't apply poison. CShot doesn't do yellow damage and it can miss soooo it sounds like it can hit. If it can hit then I wouldn't be surprised it can proc a poison. I'm pretty sure sap used to proc mh poison. I know sap can set off the WSC proc so once again, CS proccing instant poison sounds reasonable.

Question - the first page suggested combo cycles are back up to 4 or 5s/5r from 3 or 4s/5r.. is that due to the hit cap/expertise change, or was there a nerf to combat potency that I missed? I read back a number of pages and didn't find any information.

It's answered only a few pages back, but the gist of it is that due to the way that SS scales compared to rupture, you end up with more damage by spending all your energy on SS, and less (0 in 5s/5r) on finishers.

Hmm I missed it in all the shadowstep discussion. Thank you, I'll read back again and find it.

Edit: Good to know that my eyes didn't fail me, I'll read the gear thread posts. Thanks again

I've noticed this often as well in duels where Sap->Cheap Shot->Run away to restealth and open with 2 extra CP can often not work out since Wound Poison presumably procing off Cheap Shot.
However I'm not 100% sure that it was Cheap Shot that proced the poison, but I'm quite sure that it was Wound that removed Sap.

My apologies, the discussion was in the gear sheet thread - I've found one post I made about it there, Aldriana has a more detailed post right below it. My information is more reporting, she's the one who has done more of the math to prove it.

http://elitistjerks.com/593914-post1774.html

Reading his post, I don't think he was actually asking a question specifically about his own gear, but about the information in the first post where it's asserted that 4s5r and 5s5r are probably the best options for non-2/5 T4 rogues. I'm not entirely sure why it recommended otherwise before, but I believe it to be correct now; by the Rogue Gear sheet, the theoretically minimal cycle for all but the highest hit/haste rogues is 3.X/5r, meaning 3s5r is not generally sustainable. Hence, most rogues are going to have 4s5r as their most compressed cycle, and 5s5r and their uncompressed cycle for the high crit/AP/ArPen cycle. There are a few rogues that can squeeze into 3s5r, although it seems like a risky cycle to me - a string of unluckly procs could easily cause and SnD gap. Thing is, this isn't a new thing; that's been true for as long as the Rogue Gear sheet has existed. So my best guess as to what happened is as follows: previously, the situation where 5s5r becomes optimal was not commonly known, and very few rogues were there. Hence, the most common cycles were 4s5r (for most people) and 3s5r (for those few with high hit/haste). Now, since more rogues are reaching the gear level where 5s5r takes over - and more people are aware that that's a viable option - it has been correctly marked as the 2nd most common cycle.

...or maybe it was just a mistake before. Regardless, what it says now is correct, and hasn't really changed in months.

It depends on the gear level of the rogues in question, but generally until HJ/BT+, you're total raid contribution is greater the combat swords, as hybrid pve hemo.

I can show you wws of ssc if you like, i'm actually a little bit above, or below the other sword rogue, (varies from day to day) and i'm MACES/HEMO.

SO I think in ssc, would work well. In places like BT, i'd be more likely to point you back to combat swords.

Wow Web Stats

tuesday ssc stats, keep in mind , this is post the hemo nerf.

2nd round of Mana Tap/Arcane Torrent testing is in and the results are as follows (compiled with my other post from last night):

Mana tap works on:

Mount Hyjal

Rage Winterchill
Kaz'Rogal
Archimonde

Black Temple

Teron Gorefiend
Mother Shahraz
Illidari Council (Gathios)

Mana Tap does not work on:

Black Temple

Naj'entus
Supremus
Gurtogg Bloodboil
Reliquary of Souls (though I only tested one phase, will have to check for sure)
Illidan

Still unconfirmed:

Akama (presumed yes)
Anetheron (presumed yes, almost 100%)
Azgalor (presumed yes, almost 100%)

So, at least in regards to T6 content, Mana Tap and thus Arcane Torrent works on over 50% of the encounters assuming the as of yet untested bosses turn out as expected. I guess this means that it's use is some what viable and should be looked into. Now if only I could get used to using the damn thing...

Would Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft be a viable raiding spec?

No, relentless strikes, is pretty much a must have.