In the earlier comparison of fast vs slow offhand, is it worth considering proc enchants? As I understand, instant attacks have a higher chance to proc mongoose on a slower weapon because of the PPM mechanic. As mutilate strikes with both hands, so both weapons have a chance to proc mongoose. How significant is the difference between a 1.8 and 1.5, significant or trivial? In general, is the modeling of mutilate factoring increase procs from offhand weapons?

This is quite true. I've edited my original post to make it clear that I'm discussing Deadly Poison.

Master Poisoner has a greater benefit as proc chance increases, thus instant poison benefits the least from it.

Edit: Removed pvp reference due to drumbum's note.

I'll trust Left's simulator for that one. Note that MP isn't worth considering until you put at least 2 points in Imp Poison. If you had 7 points, I suppose it's possible that 3/5 Vile, 3/5 Imp, 1/2 Master might be optimal. But again, it's a small difference no matter how you look at it. If you plan to PvP at all, I might go full Vile just for the resist dispel bonus.

Not so fast. In PVP, the base resist chance is just 4% (and cannot be lowered below 1%, like in PVE). The second point in Master Poisoner is useless in PVP (at least, the offensive portion of it) unless your target has an ability or talent that reduces spell hit against them, but the only one I'm personally aware of (hey -- I play a rogue) is Cloak of Shadows. I'm sure there are others but this is not my area of expertise.

Based on my math, for PVP, every point in Improved Poisons is superior to a point in Master Poisoner. Of course there are other reasons to get MP anyway (the defensive part, and also because MP improves the reliability of Shiv, unlike IP). Also Vile is usually considered superior for its dispel resistance, so it's all a moot point.

Sorry that this is offtopic, but just thought I'd clarify since you mentioned it.

Balance druids have Balance of Power (4%) and Paladins have Pursuit of Justice (3%).

This is certainly a valid point. I can't say for certain that this is considered on the spreadsheet, but it probably is (I'll leave that up for someone else to answer). However, there is certainly a noticeable difference in proc rate between the two.

I did a little napkin math and it appears that with SND active, there's approximately a 0.05 perceived PPM difference between a 1.4 and 1.8 offhand (with the 1.8 having the advantage).

I suppose you could approximate this as giving an extra Mongoose proc once per 20 minutes, or 120 agility * 0.25/20 = a whopping 1.5 average agility. Rather underwhelming when looking at it from this perspective, but considering that poison uptime and extra Mutilate damage seem to approximately cancel out, I suppose it could be enough to give a slower offhand the nudge?

I keep reading how valuable the dual wield specialization is to a mutilate rogue. It has a very clear advantage over opportunity alone, since it is very close to doing as much mutilate damage as opp and then has the added benefit of increasing white damage. However, I am not sure how to calculate the added benefit to having Opportunity with serrated blades.

Serrated blades would increase the damage of both the main hand and off hand because of the armor ignoring factor. Also, rupture would do 30% more damage, and from what I've been reading rupture seems to be common place in dps rotations. Would DW still outweigh these benefits?

DW Sped by itself? Maybe not. DW Spec and Precision? That's a harder question.

Fundamentally: DW Spec beats Opportunity straight up, and there's more DPS talents in the early parts of Combat than there are in the early parts of Subtlety.

I suspect Serrated Blades OTOH is outweighted by +5% hitchance, but gimme some time with a calculator to make sure of it.

41/20/0 vs. 43/0/18 is a question that has been around a while. The best source we have for Mutilate modeling is the DPS Spreadsheet, and the two specs are modeled as being very close in damage output (at least in 2.3). However, the combat verson pulls ahead most of the time.

An interesting exercise is to download the latest DPS spreadsheet, load a sample gearset, and run with it. I used the Sample T5. (It's interesting to note that the sample T5 gearset doesn't actually include any T5; nor does it include a DST or a WSC. "Fixing" these sample gearsets is something DMM is working on, but it's somewhat of a low priority if I understand correctly.) Note that all of the following assumes talents for 2.4.

I took the sample T5 gearset, left the buffs alone, and saved DPS using the macro. I then equipped [Blade of Serration] and [The Mutilator] MH/OH and looked at Mutilate builds:

• With 41/20/0*, I got +15.33 DPS buffed (+1.09%)**
• With 43/0/18, I got -24.69 DPS buffed (-1.80%)

*Note: Because SnD modelling is somewhat broken for Mutilate, I just disabled Improved SnD altogether. (Putting three talent points into it shows a DPS decrease, which basically means that SnD cutting isn't properly supported. Thus, I'm not using it in the analysis, although it is something to consider.)
**Note 2: The DPS increase is likely due to the increased quality of the weapons vs. what is standard for the Sample T5 gearset, as opposed to Mutilate suddenly becoming a better spec than combat.

Your results may vary. But let's just look at what we get in a general sort of case...

If we go 41/0/0 and then run the AEP macro, we can get values for hit and armor penn. Thus, starting at 41/0/0, hit rating is worth 1.99 AP, and -Armor is worth 0.29 AP. +5% hit = (15.78*5)*1.99 = 157 AP, whereas 560 Armor Penn = 560*0.29 = 162.4 AP. Thus, Serrated Blades and Precision are approximately a wash for white damage, at least starting at 41/0/0. (Of course Serrated Blades is going to scale better for low-armor bosses or with armor penn. gear.)

Adding DW spec (and only DW spec) and rerunning the macro actually lowers the value of +hit slightly while Armor Penn's value stays the same... so there isn't really the DW Spec/Precision synergy I expected to find.

So now we have to look at Yellow damage. DW Spec and Opportunity are nearly a wash in terms of Mutilate damage. (Opportunity scales slightly better, but DW spec actually offers a 10 base damage improvement because of the way the +101 gets multiplied for the offhand.) So now the question is whether +30% Rupture damage > DW Spec's increased white damage. I think this is where Combat wins out. Rupture is, generously, 15% of a Mutilate rogues damage. 0.30*0.15 = 4.5% damage increase. White damage is, at minimum, say 45% of a Mutilate rogue's damage (most likely it's 10-15% more than that). DW Spec is a (1.75-1.5)/1.5 = 16.67% increase to 45% (min) of damage. 0.45*0.1667 = 7.5% damage increase. Thus, I think where we see Combat win is in the finishers vs. white damage issue: Rupture just isn't strong enough to overcome the loss of white damage.

In other words, what the spreadsheet tells me makes sense. The two are close, but 41/20/0 is going to win. Which is a pity, in my opinion, because I really like 43/0/18 in concept. But then again, Mutilate rogues aren't usually going Mutilate to be #1 on the charts. You could probably play either and be competitive.

EDIT: I would like to clarify that all of the above is using the specific sample gearset in the DPS spreadsheet. Results will vary depending on your level of gearing and, particularly, your trinkets. This is an example analysis and shouldn't be taken as a blanket statement.

It's also worth considering how well either of the builds perform in non-ideal circumstances. My intuition would be that the Serrated Blades build doesn't suffer as much from movement and low-contact-time situations, because it is focused ever-so-slightly more on yellow damage compared to combat sub-spec.

Yes, I agree here, although for Mutilate builds Expertise isn't really just a white damage stat. Mutilate doesn't have the advantage of undodgeable finishers and a large portion of the damage comes from the Mutilate attack itself. Thus, expertise has a lot of usefulness for both white and yellow damage. I wouldn't be surprised if for Mutilate, expertise retained it's full value even in an interrupted fight.

FYI, I later did some checking of 41/20/0 vs. 43/0/18 using the "Sample T6" gearset in the DPS spreadsheet coupled with Vengeful Gladiator weapons. At that level of gearing, 43/0/18 falls more significantly behind (~4-5%), while post 2.4 41/20/0 is actually keeping up with combat builds quite well (at least in the model).

Mutilate doesn't have undodgeable finishers (Surprise Attacks), but it does have 80% energy return on finishers that fail to land (Quick Recovery), so the difference as far as finishers go is still minimal.

This is true, but 20% lost energy is still lost energy. Also, the problem with relying on QR exclusively it is that Mutilate rogues often queue energy before a finisher in order to maximize Find Weakness uptime. (At least, I do that when I'm Mutilate.) If you get a finisher dodge (or worse, two back-to-back) with a nearly full energy bar, you have a very real risk of capping out before you can get the finisher off. In the time you are re-spamming your finisher waiting for the GCD, your energy refund + a tick + Relentless proc when the finisher does finally go off could be cap your energy, wasting more than the 20%. (The spreadsheet won't model this, but the possibility exists.)

Obviously, you can avoid this scenario by not queuing your energy as high, but it's my feeling that you should play for the more common case where your finisher lands and get the extra FW uptime for poison damage and possibly an extra Mutilate. Expertise will help reduce your cycle disruption further, allowing you to queue more reliably without risking capping.

Expertise certainly contributes to yellow damage as well as white, but it's primarily a yellow damage stat. For instance, in combat builds, despite the fact that it applies to the yellow attacks that make up 25-30% of your damage, about 90% of it's damage contribution comes from it's benefit on white attacks. While for Mutilate it effects more like 40% of your damage, between finishers + mutilates, I don't see that's going to up the benefit *that* much. My guess is that even for a Mutilate rogue the benefit of Expertise is still going to be 80-85% due to white damage.

Hello all,

I've been reading the rogue forums for about a week, and I have a few questions. I recently respecced to a mutilate build over combat daggers in an effort to increase my dps. My guild is currently running Kara, but does not have enough members yet to attempt a 25-man. For the most part I've been following the suggestions set forth in the Roguecraft 101 thread, but still would ilke some additional feedback. My build and gear (a mix of pve drops, pvp and arena gear) can be found here.
I have Spiteblade equipped at the moment because I was leveling swords last night with the thought of switching to combat. Normally the Season 1 dagger is in the MH slot. When I have buffs up in Kara my dps is in the 700-800 range. Our one geared shammy is also the druid OT, so I don't have the benefit of Windfury at the moment.
Now I have been working on boosting agility, but was looking at the possiblity of regemming some items to increase Attack Power. While Agility also translates to AP, I'm wondering if I can get more bang for my buck by switching some red gems to straight AP. Should I continue focusing on Agility or does my AP need to be increased? Do I need more +Hit? Are my stats out of whack and should I be focusing more on other areas?
I'm looking for the shoulders upgrade from chess and the trinket from Julliane, but are there better alternatives out there for me? I have enough badges saved up to buy the Bloodlust Brooch, but a glance at the 2.4 gear in the PTR right now makes me want to wait. Also, I just got the S3 chest last night and have yet to get our guild enchanter to put the +6 stats on it. In short what can I do with what I have now and how far can I go before my guild has enough geared members to be running 25-mans?

Pure AP gems for PVE is just wrong, don't go there.

I got a question:
Why are you using [Darkmoon Card: Wrath] when there are things like [Ancient Draenei War Talisman] as quest rewards.
The way I see it, the darkmoon card is 17 crit rating on and off, and the Ancient Draenei War Talisman is 21 crit rating always plus AP on use.

Could someone enlighten me why the epic trinket even exists?

EDIT: Nevermind me. I just realised how it works. No need to flame.

[Darkmoon Card: Wrath] stacks, I think up to 10 times, so it's basically a rolling crit buff which gets worse as your base crit improves. WoWWiki has some math on it. Basically, the more you crit, the less the proc will be up (as it only stacks up when you DON'T crit.) At 25% base crit, the WoWWiki table puts this trinket as coming out to ~46 crit rating.

Yes at first I didn't realise it stacked, then I thought about it more and went looking around (hence post edit).

Thank you guys for your input. The Wrath card I'm looking at replacing because I don't know that I can benefit from the proc as much as I would from other trinkets with my base crit as it is now. I do have Bladefist's Breath and the Ancient Draenei War Talisman floating around in my bank somewhere. I'll probably swap out those gems as suggested. As for the rep ring, I made the stupid, stupid mistake of trying to accept all the quests when starting to run Kara and ended up with the mage ring (This is actually pretty embarassing). This means I'm going to have to wait until I hit exalted to get the ring swapped out or hope the ring drops from Curator. My AP actually does dip a bit when I swap out Spiteblade for the S1 dagger, but not a huge amount.

Consider that the majority of your near full energy queueing will be done waiting to refresh SnD which cannot be dodged.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I made exactly the same mistake concerning the KZ ring. I just saw 4 quests lined up and attempted to accept them all one by one, so I was stuck with a caster ring for a month or two. Luckily I got [Shaffar's Band of Brutality] from the extra boss in Mana Tombs. Haven't seen many people with that ring as not many bother getting the quest chain done, but it's really good.

Something I'd like to get some input on is possible gemming changes. I know crit rating gems aren't really recommended but I do have quite a few on my gear and I'm still looking for more crit. Armory Link
I have 4 blue gems (instead of just two required for meta) that I could swap out but losing the gem bonus often balances out the gain from a different gem (chest and shoulders). I believe my stats have a very good balance between them for my gear level but there might be something I'm missing.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.