Well I'm clearly not in the most amazing raiding guild around. Currently we are only 3 bosses into SSC and 2 in TK, but I've always based my rogue's gearing around what information i can find from the more experienced, and the socket/enchant choices of some of the best guilds in the world.

As long as I've been watching rogues in those guilds armory pages get updated, they've always seemed to prefer surefooted to any other enchant.

Just to reference you to where I'm looking:

The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm not going to go specifically into the math on run speed, but if you just think logically about it and compare the amount of time you spend moving to your target, to the amount of time you spend dpsing, you can then calculate exactly (theoretically of course) how much dps you gain from the movement speed. Take the total amount of time spent running x.08% to find out how much time that movement speed enchant saves you, and then multiply that by your personal DPS achieved that fight will give you how much more damage you could have done. In most fights it seems incredibly miniscule to me. Although in specific fights like Al'ar the number might be a lot higher, personally I just don't see an incredibly significant value in the runspeed to justify taking the enchant.

edit: also, sorry my mistake about the 6 agility on the enchant

Might be a small number, but you're comparing it to the opportunity cost of 6 agility (going from Dex (12agi) to Cat's (6agi + runspeed). I'm pretty sure that in any fight involving movement (as noted above), you can make up 6 agi's worth of damage by getting just a few more autoattacks off.

Here's the latest post in the shaman thread on cat's swiftness.

http://elitistjerks.com/470765-post2228.html

Rough numbers on run speed:

With my current gear, according to the rogue gear sheet, I do 1486.91 DPS. The loss of 6 agility reduces this to 1482.92.

Lets assume that without Cat's Swiftness, I spend X seconds out of every minute moving; thus, my damage per minute is (60-X)*1486.91. With Cat's Swiftness, it would instead be (60-x/1.08)*1482.92. Equating these and solving for X, we find that the break-even point is at X = 2.1. So, by this estimate, if you're spending more than 2.1 seconds out of every minute moving, Cat's Swiftness is better.

In practice, this isn't *quite* a fair estimate, since movement time generally doesn't diminish your yellow DPS, only your white DPS; hence, this calculation should be redone considering only white damage loss. But this is probably a reasonable estimate to start from.

So, any fight in which you spend more than 2.1 seconds out of every minute moving favors Cat's Swiftness. So, for instance, in T5 instances, this would be everything except Tidewalker and, depending on your guild's strategy, Void Reaver; for these instances, Cat's Swiftness is thus fairly clearly superior. However, the situation is a bit less clear in the T6 instances; I would argue that for Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Naj'entus, Teron, Gurtogg, and Reliquary there is insufficient running to warrant using Cat's Speed, and there are a few others where it is questionable (Rage Winterchill and Anetheron, for instance) where it doesn't make sense to use Cat's Swiftness from a DPS perspective but one could argue that there's reason to do so from a survival perspective, given that there is AoE to run out of. Also note that one one of the remaining fights (Shahraz) you will not be wearing your regular boots anyway, so Cat's Swiftness is only the superior choice for your day-to-day boots on 5 out of 13 fights.

My current solution to this problem is to maintain 2 sets of boots, one with Cat's Swiftness on for movement fights, and one with 12 agi on them for more sustained fights. This does require one to have access to two reasonably comparable sets of boots, of course, but I do believe it's the right decision in general.

Regarding Surefooted: the snare break is only useful from a PvE perspective on Vashj, and, in practice, using Vanish/Cloak/Imp Sprint is usually sufficient to stay clear on her. As such, the only motivation for Surefooted (from a purely PvE standpoint) would be if 10 hit is superior DPS to 12 agi, which is not true for the majority of raid-buffed PvE rogues.

In brief: 12 agi and Cat's Swiftness are competitive enchants, with each being superior on some fights. Surefooted is generally inferior from a PvE perspective.

Just to chipping in on combat mutilate builds:

OH weapon speed: sorta a toss up as mentioned. However, with a fast OH weapon and the poison talents, using Instant Poison OH becomes a better option.

Fleet Footed: marginal for PvE right now, but it'll be very good in 2.3.

Mutilate cycle: although it was shown in the talent tree, I think special emphasis needs to be put on Ruthlessness. That extra combo point makes it viable to use a finisher after a single Mutilate, and that's what you want to be doing. That improves your chance at Relentless Strikes working: your only energy since you don't have Combat Potency.

If you're doing 2 Mutilates before a finisher (ex: Ruth didn't proc & Mutilate didn't crit), then you're suddenly in the hole energy-wise, and hurting your dps.


Edit:

Dual Deadly is good in two cases. One - if the mob has high enough armor that Eviscerates are wasteful. Two - if the mob can strip poisons. Good example here is Tidalvess on the Fathom Lord fight. He can drop Greater Poison Cleansing totems which can mess up your Deadly stacks, and worst case, cause you to briefly lose the Mutilate bonus damage. Deadly on both weapons keeps it stacked, even though Envenom is not so hot on him.

You'll always be doing at least some Evisc / Envenom because you generate combo points faster than SnD and Rupture wear off.

Alright well reguardless, i just thought that if dexterity was worth mentioning for boot enchant, surefooted would be as well. currently i'm sitting at 276 hit rating, so i personally don't think i can give up that 10 hit rating.

I don't have to agree with everything posted on these forums right?

On the contrary, I wish more people would contradict me and get some discussion going so that this thread stays up and so that I get ideas for ways to improve it.

I don't know. I mean, I understand exactly what your saying in your example, however, I just have it drilled into my brain that every single swing I miss is a huge potential amount of increased damage dealt. I know it's argued all the time that there is no magic hit number, but I still put more value on closing the +hit rating cap with my gear, and THEN focusing on the other stats.

This may not be the most ideal way to gear yourself theoretically, but it's what I do, and I absolutely dominate the dps boards in our raids, so I must be doing something right.

I see rogues around all the time with gear that looks almost identical to my own except the cram in 8 agility gems, wicked noble topaz etc etc, and they sit around 225 hit rating. They have much more attack power and much more crit than myself, but I believe I would destroy their dps.

I set this magic *never go below this number* for myself at 252 (+16 % hit since we regularly do raid with a moonkin) although i try to shoot higher since imp FF isn't always going to be there for me. (actually clearing up to alar right now with no moonkin)

As soon as i get my tunic of assassination upgraded to bloodsail brigand's vest (hopefully this week!), i'll switch to cat's swiftness k?

Well, Ald, there is ONE magic number for hit rating - I mean, if you're missing Sinister Strikes... I mean, that's not a huge concern for combat rogues - though, I suppose at REALLY low gear levels it might be once we're switched to Expertise .. but that would be ~60 hit rating. However, for a Mutilate spec that doesn't pick up precision, that "magic hit number" is going to be a little more important, and it is at 142. (ceil(9 x 15.769))

Edit to add: I'm not trying to be a devil's advocate - for any raiding situation, which Ald's normal stuff is applied to, she is 100% correct. I think this post caters to a slightly broader crowd, including people who might be raiding in pvp specs. It's the only reason I posted that.. I swear.

So, a couple of points here:

Yes, it's true, every attack that doesn't hit is DPS loss. But, by the same token, every hit that doesn't crit is damage lost as well. As is every attack that is made with the opponent being at full mitigation due to lack of armor pen. As is every attack that doesn't get made due to not stacking haste rating.

I mean, I see where you're coming from, and it's a totally valid way to look at things... but what's important to remember is that *all* stats increase your DPS, so the relevant question is not *if* you're gaining DPS from stacking that stat, but *how much* DPS you're gaining, and, in turn, *how much* DPS you're losing by not stacking the other available stats.

As a general rule of thumb you want to be socketing with either agi or hit. There are exceptions, to be sure; but it's a good starting point. So socketing with Delicate is perfectly valid; socketing with Wicked, less so.

So, to be perfectly technical: 60 hit (or whatever it is) is not a "you must not drop below this line", but a "below this line hit is worth more than it was before, so it takes *even more* other assorted stats in order to make it worth it".

And to be even more perfectly technical: the amount of difference it makes is actually surprisingly small. Hit below the yellow hit cap is only worth about 10-15% more than hit above the yellow hit cap.

Of course, while we're on the topic: it's pretty much impossible to wind up with that little hit without actively trying to, so the distinction is not necessarily relevant.

I did some calculations here: [Rogue] Haste rating info - skills

This was before the haste nerf, but the base thesis is still valid.