so I'm finding an oddity with dmm's spreadsheet regarding my gem selections
If I have read correctly, I should be socketing +8 agi gems (i don't have +10 agi gems available) in all slots that I am not concerned with meeting a socket bonus or meta requirement. However, the spreadsheet is saying that I will gain approximately 3 dps if I socket +16 attack power gems.
Currently I'm in mostly kara epics with a few pre-kara blues equipped
I'm using Malchazeen MH and Emerald Ripper OH, both with mongoose
here's my current stats unbuffed with agi gems according to the spreadsheet
1740 ap
26.83% crit
17.94% hit
and with AP gems equipped according to the spreadsheet
1796 ap
25.43% crit
17.49% hit
I'm assuming this is because of my relatively low level of gearing and low ap.
any insight would be appericated
Edit: I don't know how to use Item links... sorry for the inconvience.
I would like to propose a theory for reasoning about Mutilate ability selection, to help make decisions while playing for optimal dps, and hopefully to power my simulator as well.
A rogue's dps depends for a large part on how they spend their energy. You alternate a number of combo moves (Backstab, Hemorrhage, Mutilate, Sinister Strike) with finishing moves. Each finishing move resets combo points to zero, thus forming a sort of 'ability sequence'. A typical Combat Swords rogue infinitely repeats two sequences: SS,SS,SS,Snd(3) and SS,SS,SS,SS,SS,Rup(5) for example. The spreadsheet calculates this to be the highest dps sequence for some gear levels; others might do better with more or less Sinister Strikes before a Slice and Dice.
Mutilate is more complex, because you get a variable amount of combo points and consequently sequences of variable duration. You can do one of two things: ignore the extra combo points, using a sub-optimal fixed sequence, or vary your sequences based on available energy and combo points. To effectively do this, you need to know how each ability ranks compared to the others. Since finishing moves can never be used alone, I look at sequences of Mutilates plus a finisher.
Slice and Dice
Let's start with Slice and Dice. At my gear level, a good amount of buffs, and against 'high armor bosses', a 5-point Slice and Dice adds about 7700 damage over its entire duration of 30 seconds. Mutilate deals about 2800. I could combine this in one of the following ways:
S(1) - using only the combo point from Ruthlessness, without touching Mutilate.
MS(2) - Mutilate did not crit, and no Ruthlessness.
MS(3) - either Mutilate critted, or Ruthlessness procced.
MS(4) - Mutilate critted and Ruthlessness procced.
MMS(4) - two Mutilates did not crit, and no Ruthlessness
MMS(5) - at least one Mutilate critted, or Ruthlessness procced
MMMS(5) - for some reason we decided to Mutilate a third time to guarantee 5 cp
These sequences have the following damage per energy:
This means that -if you have something else to spend energy on- a 1-point Slice and Dice is the most efficient way to use your energy. Thus, should Slice and Dice ever drop, it's okay to refresh it with a single combo point. If you do not need to refresh Slice and Dice yet, you have the choice to use Mutilate or work toward a different finisher (see below). Without Ruthlessness, you have to Mutilate at least once. From there, you can compare with the larger sequences to see if it's worth finishing now or use another Mutilate:
MS(2) = 96.0 dpe. A second Mutilate leads to MMS(4) or MMS(5) = , both with higher damage per energy (97.6 and 110.8) . So you generally shouldn't use Slice and Dice with 2 combo points.
MS(3) and MS(4) are both higher dps than MMS(5). MMS(4) and MMS(5) are higher than MMMS(5).
Depending on luck with crits and Ruthlessness, you may end up using S(1), MS(3), MS(4), MMS(4) and MMS(5) in your 'cycles'.
Rupture
At 4000 AP and using Mangle, Rupture deals 629, 1118, 1739, 2129, or 2548 damage with 1 to 5 combo points.
Making similar comparisons as with Slice and Dice, the optimal Rupture sequences are MR(4), MMR(4) and MMR(5). Hence, only use 4+ point Ruptures.
Eviscerate
My untalented Eviscerate deals an estimated 1800 damage at 5 combo points. 1 to 4 combo points should deal around 450, 800, 1100, and 1450 damage, respectively.
Eviscerate keeps getting better with added Mutilates until you have 5 combo points. Only MME(5) and MMME(5) are useful, and only so if you cannot use Slice and Dice or Rupture. In many cases it may be a better idea to cut Slice and Dice early instead of using Eviscerate. You could calculate the value of a Slice and Dice cut by substracting the lost seconds from Snd's value. I'm not going to look into that now.
Shiv
One interesting way to use this theory is to evalutate the use of Shiv to manipulate cycles. Two particular cases might be interesting: starting a small Slice and Dice with one Shiv instead of Mutilate, and getting the fifth combo point for a Rupture. We've already seen that small Slice and Dices are more efficient than big ones, so I'm not even going to bother evaluating Shiv to get 5-point Slice and Dice. My Shiv deals around 500 damage for 35 energy (Tracker's Blade). Note that Shiv can crit and Seal Fate will provide a second combo point. Here goes:
So don't use Shiv to manipulate your cycle. Your finishers do not gain enough to offset Shiv's horrible damage per energy.
Find Weakness
Find Weakness increases the damage of the first couple abilities in each cycle by 10%. This depends on how much energy you save up - with no saved energy the first 100 energy worth of abilities in a sequence deal 10% more damage, assuming you don't miss. This slightly increases the value of short sequences. The exact numbers are beyond the scope of this post. A simulator or calculator would have to take this into account, however.
Conclusion
I hope to make this theory into a workable decision logic for my simulator and possibly a Mutilate addon. If the numbers are plausible, you can already draw some play advise from this: keep up Slice and Dice with however many combo points you have, string 4+ Ruptures together, and only use 5+ Eviscerate if you have nothing else to do. The only new thing here is that Slice and Dice could be viable below 4 combo points, and Eviscerate might only be worth it at 5 combo points. Not at 4.
My question is, would I be better off as combat swords or mutilate in the 2nd group?
The damage gap between Mutilate and Combat Swords is probably narrowed somewhat by including buffs that slightly favor Mutilate (Grace of Air and Leader of the Pack) and not including ones that would slightly favor Combat Swords (Windfury being the main one). But you can actually test this with the DPS spreadsheet, so your best bet is to see what it suggests. I'd expect Swords to still be king, although if you don't have any good swords, using Mutilate is certainly a viable option.
How does this even come close to being an answer to my question?
I know about Mutilate. I know about C Daggers. I know about C Swords. I know their strengths and weaknesses.
I was asking whether I can safely trust the DPS spreadsheet to give me a rough estimate on whether an item would be beneficial for me or not. For instance, I have 4 daggers: Bad Mojo, Heartrazor and both S2 Daggers. According to the spreadsheet the best combination is Heartrazor MH and Bad Mojo OH. I might have guessed that Bad Mojo would be worse on OH and it would be better to stick to Merc. Glad. Shanker cos it has higher peak dmg and higher DPS. I trusted the spreadsheet on this one and stuck to Bad Mojo.
AAAAAAAAAnd now my question (making it as clear as possible): Am I right in trusting the spreadsheet to give me an ACCURATE estimate on whether one piece of equipment is better than another?
Lol
Did you not see the +1 at the very top?
+1 means I totaly agree with your thought and how to use the sheets.
I use only for what you was asking and find them to be very good for that reason only
What I put after the +1 was not aimed at you at all. Hence the new paragraph, sorry for the confusion. I should have use a line= ---------
I would like to propose a theory for reasoning about Mutilate ability selection, to help make decisions while playing for optimal dps, and hopefully to power my simulator as well.
A rogue's dps depends for a large part on how they spend their energy. You alternate a number of combo moves (Backstab, Hemorrhage, Mutilate, Sinister Strike) with finishing moves. Each finishing move resets combo points to zero, thus forming a sort of 'ability sequence'. A typical Combat Swords rogue infinitely repeats two sequences: SS,SS,SS,Snd(3) and SS,SS,SS,SS,SS,Rup(5) for example. The spreadsheet calculates this to be the highest dps sequence for some gear levels; others might do better with more or less Sinister Strikes before a Slice and Dice.
Mutilate is more complex, because you get a variable amount of combo points and consequently sequences of variable duration. You can do one of two things: ignore the extra combo points, using a sub-optimal fixed sequence, or vary your sequences based on available energy and combo points. To effectively do this, you need to know how each ability ranks compared to the others. Since finishing moves can never be used alone, I look at sequences of Mutilates plus a finisher.
Slice and Dice
Let's start with Slice and Dice. At my gear level, a good amount of buffs, and against 'high armor bosses', a 5-point Slice and Dice adds about 7700 damage over its entire duration of 30 seconds. Mutilate deals about 2800. I could combine this in one of the following ways:
S(1) - using only the combo point from Ruthlessness, without touching Mutilate.
MS(2) - Mutilate did not crit, and no Ruthlessness.
MS(3) - either Mutilate critted, or Ruthlessness procced.
MS(4) - Mutilate critted and Ruthlessness procced.
MMS(4) - two Mutilates did not crit, and no Ruthlessness
MMS(5) - at least one Mutilate critted, or Ruthlessness procced
MMMS(5) - for some reason we decided to Mutilate a third time to guarantee 5 cp
These sequences have the following damage per energy:
This means that -if you have something else to spend energy on- a 1-point Slice and Dice is the most efficient way to use your energy. Thus, should Slice and Dice ever drop, it's okay to refresh it with a single combo point. If you do not need to refresh Slice and Dice yet, you have the choice to use Mutilate or work toward a different finisher (see below). Without Ruthlessness, you have to Mutilate at least once. From there, you can compare with the larger sequences to see if it's worth finishing now or use another Mutilate:
MS(2) = 96.0 dpe. A second Mutilate leads to MMS(4) or MMS(5) = , both with higher damage per energy (97.6 and 110.8) . So you generally shouldn't use Slice and Dice with 2 combo points.
MS(3) and MS(4) are both higher dps than MMS(5). MMS(4) and MMS(5) are higher than MMMS(5).
Depending on luck with crits and Ruthlessness, you may end up using S(1), MS(3), MS(4), MMS(4) and MMS(5) in your 'cycles'.
Rupture
At 4000 AP and using Mangle, Rupture deals 629, 1118, 1739, 2129, or 2548 damage with 1 to 5 combo points.
Making similar comparisons as with Slice and Dice, the optimal Rupture sequences are MR(4), MMR(4) and MMR(5). Hence, only use 4+ point Ruptures.
Eviscerate
My untalented Eviscerate deals an estimated 1800 damage at 5 combo points. 1 to 4 combo points should deal around 450, 800, 1100, and 1450 damage, respectively.
Eviscerate keeps getting better with added Mutilates until you have 5 combo points. Only MME(5) and MMME(5) are useful, and only so if you cannot use Slice and Dice or Rupture. In many cases it may be a better idea to cut Slice and Dice early instead of using Eviscerate. You could calculate the value of a Slice and Dice cut by substracting the lost seconds from Snd's value. I'm not going to look into that now.
Shiv
One interesting way to use this theory is to evalutate the use of Shiv to manipulate cycles. Two particular cases might be interesting: starting a small Slice and Dice with one Shiv instead of Mutilate, and getting the fifth combo point for a Rupture. We've already seen that small Slice and Dices are more efficient than big ones, so I'm not even going to bother evaluating Shiv to get 5-point Slice and Dice. My Shiv deals around 500 damage for 35 energy (Tracker's Blade). Note that Shiv can crit and Seal Fate will provide a second combo point. Here goes:
So don't use Shiv to manipulate your cycle. Your finishers do not gain enough to offset Shiv's horrible damage per energy.
Find Weakness
Find Weakness increases the damage of the first couple abilities in each cycle by 10%. This depends on how much energy you save up - with no saved energy the first 100 energy worth of abilities in a sequence deal 10% more damage, assuming you don't miss. This slightly increases the value of short sequences. The exact numbers are beyond the scope of this post. A simulator or calculator would have to take this into account, however.
Conclusion
I hope to make this theory into a workable decision logic for my simulator and possibly a Mutilate addon. If the numbers are plausible, you can already draw some play advise from this: keep up Slice and Dice with however many combo points you have, string 4+ Ruptures together, and only use 5+ Eviscerate if you have nothing else to do. The only new thing here is that Slice and Dice could be viable below 4 combo points, and Eviscerate might only be worth it at 5 combo points. Not at 4.
Very very interesting to read! Bravo for the work done!
May I suggest adding Relentless Strikes into the balance, maybe as mean energy reduction, ie :
It already does that. Each combo point gives another 20% chance to return 25 energy - on average, the cost of a finisher is reduced by 5 per combo point. MME(5) for example costs 60 + 60 + 35 - 25 = 130 energy.
I hope to make this theory into a workable decision logic for my simulator and possibly a Mutilate addon. If the numbers are plausible, you can already draw some play advise from this: keep up Slice and Dice with however many combo points you have, string 4+ Ruptures together, and only use 5+ Eviscerate if you have nothing else to do. The only new thing here is that Slice and Dice could be viable below 4 combo points, and Eviscerate might only be worth it at 5 combo points. Not at 4.
A sound conclusion, but I do have one question. There is a lot of discussion about the benefits of Find Weakness. Do you think eviscerating prior to 5 points a worthwhile exception to maintain this buff, or would you be losing dps? SnD and Rupt are assumed as up.
Ive recently switched over to Mutilate from CSwords (it is my favorite and msot comfortable spec, and I leveled 1-70 as Mut before switching to CSwords for raids). I purchased the two new Badge daggers. I have yet to raid as Mutilate, but I have some questions about the cycles. With CSwords, it was just keep SnD up, and minimize Rupture downtime to almost nothing. I know the rule of thumb for Mut is to keep SnD up, and keep FW up. So my question is this: If I have SnD up by a fair margin (say 15 secs) and Rupture is still ticking (say 5-8 secs left to tick), and I have 4 or 5 CPs, do I just go ahead and Eviscerate? Is uptime priority SnD>FW>Rupture? Or should I let some energy pool? Or refresh SnD after letting energy pool, and get in some FW Mutilates and get Rupture up in that timeframe?
I have 2pc T4, so this may be throwing me off more than usual, increasing SnD uptime. In that case, would it benefit me more to SND at 3CPs instead of Muting for that extra 2? Or should I mut for the extra 2 CPs and get the Relenless Strikes proc?
"Some people say I would kill them as soon as look at them... No, I would much rather kill you than look at you..." - Mr. Teatime The Hogfather
"One sees what one observes, and one observes only that which is already in the mind..." Anonymous
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust" The Gunslinger
Lol
Did you not see the +1 at the very top?
+1 means I totaly agree with your thought and how to use the sheets.
I use only for what you was asking and find them to be very good for that reason only
What I put after the +1 was not aimed at you at all. Hence the new paragraph, sorry for the confusion. I should have use a line= ---------
I honestly apologise for the way I replied to you then. I did see the "+1" at the top but, pardon my ignorance, I didn't realise what it meant and simply ignored it. Thanks for the reply.
Ive recently switched over to Mutilate from CSwords (it is my favorite and msot comfortable spec, and I leveled 1-70 as Mut before switching to CSwords for raids). I purchased the two new Badge daggers. I have yet to raid as Mutilate, but I have some questions about the cycles. With CSwords, it was just keep SnD up, and minimize Rupture downtime to almost nothing. I know the rule of thumb for Mut is to keep SnD up, and keep FW up. So my question is this: If I have SnD up by a fair margin (say 15 secs) and Rupture is still ticking (say 5-8 secs left to tick), and I have 4 or 5 CPs, do I just go ahead and Eviscerate? Is uptime priority SnD>FW>Rupture? Or should I let some energy pool? Or refresh SnD after letting energy pool, and get in some FW Mutilates and get Rupture up in that timeframe?
I have 2pc T4, so this may be throwing me off more than usual, increasing SnD uptime. In that case, would it benefit me more to SND at 3CPs instead of Muting for that extra 2? Or should I mut for the extra 2 CPs and get the Relenless Strikes proc?
I can assure you that you didn't level from 1 to 70 as Mutilate.
As for your question, when I played Mutilate, aside from keeping SnD up at all costs (be it 1CP or 5CP), my priority was always on getting as many Relentless Strikes procs as possible, as that was my only form of energy management without Combat Potency helping me. So, provided SnD was up, I built for 4-5CP finishers, and once I had them, pooled my energy to take advantage of the following Find Weakness with two Mutilates. Keeping Find Weakness up as often as possible is admirable if you are actually making use of it with hard-hitting Mutilates that fuel 4-5CP finishers that then return energy via Relentless Strikes. But if you are struggling to keep FW up, and not actually capitalizing on it fully with hard-hitting Mutilates, what's the point really?
Think about it like this...
Which is worth more: 10% more damage on one Mutilate or 25 energy? 25 energy is just over 40% of the cost of another Mutilate, so if I have to choose between a finisher NOW that makes it difficult for me to capitalize on Find Weakness afterwards, or pooling my energy so that I can get an almost guaranteed Relentless Strikes proc AND THEN Mutilate twice while the FW is up, I'd say it's much better to hold back and "bust your nut" after letting some energy pool.
Keeping Find Weakness up 100% of the time is not nearly important as keeping SnD up 100% of the time. The key to Find Weakness, in my experience, is that you want it up for your Mutilates, but you can let it drop when your cycle becomes difficult to maintain while you let your energy regen before another burst of Mutilates.
my cyclse usually goes (from scratch) mutilate, wait for 90 energy, then Mutilate x2, then rupture so i get all in the fw buff, then mutilate and wait for snd cause it usually runs out if i evis that early, since i didnt get a 5point nor 4point snd. so i wait for my energy to get 90/100, then snd and mutilatex3, rupture, then muti x2 and evis. and repeat (if i get unlucky it might differ, you have to adapt depending on SnD and rupture timers and how much energy you have.
My point is basicly that keeping fw up is only necessary when you intend to Mutilate and rupture. if you know you are going to SnD after the mutilates you can wait for the energy to go up so you can do the mutilate->rupture cycle.
and i also have a question. is it worth letting SnD drop for 3-4 sec to let an eviscrate in under FW? basicly i think that the damage from eviscrate obviously outdamages the snd during those seconds, but as the dpe from eviscrate is bad, is it better to cut the SnD 10sec before the timer run out and then muti -> rupture? or maybe snd, mutix2 eviscrate and then start with the cycle again (this ofcourse depends heavily on the rupture timer, but if i make this an example while we will be able to set a rupture with FW as we'd like.
If you have a decent crit chance, and considering the ruthlessness procs, you will most probably end up with 3+cp after applying a finishing move and a mutilate.
If you want to carry that 3 cp to 5 cp, you will need to apply another mutilate which will most probably (around 60-70% chance) make you lose the 3rd combo point provided by the mutilate.
1 combo point will at least provide a damage equal to 5 energy which should make any finishing moves with 5 cp worthless due to the already small margins between 3-4cp moves and 5 cp moves for any finisher. That is especially true if you consider that find weakness will most probably be lost if you apply 2 mutilates to get to 5 cp.
In my experience;
A cycle containing 3+finishing moves such as; 3SD -> 3+Rupture -> 3+Evis is not only sustainable, but also it can keep find weakness active for every finishing move and without losing any combo points to 5point limit. The expenditure is around 265 energy (25+60+25+60+35+60) for the full cycle and the gains is around 270 on average (220+15+15+20) which should allow you to regenerate some energy before the slice and dice wears up.
The rules of thumb are:
Be mindful of Slice and Dice timer. Allow Slice and Dice to last for its full duration and regenerate your energy if you don't think you can apply another finisher+mutilate in time. This is the only finishing move where you don't need find weakness to be up before applying it.
If you ever end up with 2 cp's after a finisher and a mutilate; then use another mutilate to build up cp's (while SnD is up).
Try to delay the application of the finishing moves somewhat so that you can get in the mutilate while find weakness up if relentless strikes does not proc.
I concur with the idea that you should look at your energy when going for finishers. Typically I aim to do a finisher with around 80 energy, never less than 60. Having the patience to let the energy tick back up takes a bit of getting used to, but also gives you a bit of thinking time to work out "what next". Doing a 3 point finisher is fairly 'risky' as it becomes quite likely that relentless won't proc (also expose weakness if you have AToL), 4+ results in more consistent cycles even if you do "waste" a combo point. Tier 4 or 5 set bonuses might change that though.
I concur with the idea that you should look at your energy when going for finishers. Typically I aim to do a finisher with around 80 energy, never less than 60. Having the patience to let the energy tick back up takes a bit of getting used to, but also gives you a bit of thinking time to work out "what next". Doing a 3 point finisher is fairly 'risky' as it becomes quite likely that relentless won't proc (also expose weakness if you have AToL), 4+ results in more consistent cycles even if you do "waste" a combo point. Tier 4 or 5 set bonuses might change that though.
My raid leader and I were discussing this with another rogue in our guild and the conclusion we came up with is that energy is inherently more valuable to a rogue than combo points, which might seem odd when you consider that you are spending all this energy building up combo points. You'd think the combo points themselves are so precious, but far more of your damage comes from what you do to build combo points than what you do with them. And energy is your fuel in dealing damage. Look at what percentage of your damage in a raid comes from Sinister Strike or Mutilate versus Rupture. Excluding Slice and Dice (because it does the same thing at 1CP as it does at 5CP, with simply a shorter duration), none of your finishers really do the kind of damage whatever attack skill you spam to build up CP does, be it Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage, Backstab, or Mutilate.
Once this fact really sinks in, it's a lot easier to waste an occasional combo point in favor of more consistent energy returns via Relentless Strikes than it is to try to maintain Find Weakness with smaller finishers that yield less energy returns.
Let me put it like this... when a friend asked me, "Why would you ever use Eviscerate?" this was my answer: "Because it only costs me 10 energy." And that's really it... the only reason I would ever use Eviscerate is that, with Relentless Strikes guaranteeing me 25 energy back on a 5CP finisher, Eviscerate only costs 10 energy. I wouldn't bother using it otherwise, unless of course I was absolutely confident a smaller Eviscerate would get the kill... but even then, it would have to be when I am on the verge of death with only 35e, because SS only costs 40 and would bring me one CP closer to a 10e Eviscerate. And, I further explained to him that this still only really ever happens when I use Adrenaline Rush and have both SnD and Rupture already up with plenty of time left on both. My point is that I don't spend energy to use finishers, I use finishers to save energy. Combo points are just tiny parts of that machine... I don't spend energy to get combo points, I get combo points to save energy. So I don't care to waste one on occasion if it means being more energy efficient overall.
Edit: Another way of considering it is that finishers are not the end result of your spent energy, but the rewarded means to spend even more on whatever is your primary source of yellow damage.
Edit #2: Of course, this entire view hinges on having Relentless Strikes, as that talent is the engine here.
Edit #3: But really now... who raids and doesn't have Relentless Strikes?
Last edited by Valustria : 04/14/08 at 10:37 AM.
Reason: Really now...?
Thanks Auturgist.
Quite obviously I didnt level with Mutilate from 1-70, I merely implied I leveled my whole way through the Assassination tree.
Mutilate is a completely different playstyle than Combat. Getting used to saving energy in prepartion is, in my opinion, paramount to the success of the build. With Combat you can spam SS and get energy back via Combat Potency. With Mutilate, our only energy returner is Relentless Strikes, and our main focus is to chain finishers to return energy and keep FW up.
Something interesting to add. I wasnt there last night for Supremus/Shade, but our Mut rogue who was there managed to beat out both the combat rogues in the Shade fight.
I honestly apologise for the way I replied to you then. I did see the "+1" at the top but, pardon my ignorance, I didn't realise what it meant and simply ignored it. Thanks for the reply.
Hello fellow rogues and roguettes! I am posting here because I know in my quest to find Relevant Mutilate Rogue information there was a lot of mis-leading and irrelevant information. So I am going to post my findings here (I also posted them as an analysis on my guilds website. So hopefully it helps some people and here is my Average Joe Test.
So after last nights raid first and foremost.... Let me say mutilate is a very fun build to play. Its not the mindless zombie DPS of swords. And by taking (My Rogue Counterpart, Swords) advice I decided to compare myself... to myself and last weeks raid in SSC.
Base Info
When I was combat I was using 2 Vengeful Swords, and speced 20/41/0
-Weapons Enchanted with Mongoose
-Always DP Offhand, When our Shammy Died IP Mainhand
*Rotation: 1S/5R, During Adrenaline Rush 1S/5R/5E
When I was mutilate I was using Heartrazor/Veng Mutilator, and speced 41/20/0 (DW Spec)
-Weapons Enchanted with Mongoose
-Always DP Offhand, When our Shammy Died IP Mainhand
*Rotation: 3-4S/4-5R/4-5E
-Note: Always Used Coldblood on Mutilates with Find Weakness Up
Additional Base Info:
-I was not gemmed 100% properly for Mutilate, I would be able to afford a loss in hit rating and gain some Agi, However I suspect this is not even a loss at all as you will see from the stats.
-My MH dagger is not yet on par with my Sword MH.
-I am not used to playing mutilate some of the stuff took me getting used too. With more practice than 20 minutes im sure you could do better. I started getting better towards the end of the raid.
-NO WF ON TIDEWALKER when I was mutilate, as CB Swords I did receive WF Totem (Some of this dps is made up by IP... but not all)
-NO Tripple Pally Buff as Mutilate. Didnt get kings in addition to salv and might. I did receive all 3 as swords.
Trash Mobs
While in the grand scheme of things trash mobs don't really matter that much but this info is worth mentioning. Mutilate is very annoying to use on trash... Especially trash that runs and is constantly being turned by tanks running to get other targets. Also you don't have enough time to get off any noteworthy cycles, usually a mutilate and a SnD, by the time you get the second mutilate up the mob is almost dead. On the bigger trash like the bog Giants its is OK because they have massive HP and your on a single target Trash mob. Multi target trash is hard.
Even with all that being said... It wasn't that bad. Dropped from 846 DPS as CB to 791 DPS as Mutilate. This is probably largely attributed to not having Blade Flurry, which essentially doubles the dps for 15 seconds every 2 minutes.
Trash DPS Conclusion:
Net Gain/Loss of DPS: Loss of 55 DPS
% Gain/Loss: Loss of 6.5% DPS
The Lurker Below Kill
This fight you would think you would lose dps by having to jump in the water and during the turn phase you cant always dps his back... However this turned out to be a null problem. Simply drain your energy before he faces you with the spout and by the time you can hit his back again you have a fresh full bar of energy. Simply pop a finisher to get expose weakness up and get 2 to 3 rapid fire 10% dmg increased mutilates.
Small Note Here: I forgot to eat +20 hit food before this fight. :X
I went from 1243 DPS as CB Swords to 1125 DPS as Mutilate. The lurker spinning might have had a bit to do with these results. Also I was making some rotation mistakes as mutilate (Accidently Mutilating when I had 4 CP's). Total Dmg as CB Swords 409k, Total DMG as Mutilate 355k
The Lurker Below DPS Conclusion:
Net Gain/Loss of DPS: Loss of 118 DPS
% Gain/Loss: Loss of 9.4% DPS
Net Gain/Loss in TotDmg: Loss of 54k
% Gain/Loss in TotDmg: Loss 13.2%
The Tidewalker Kill
This is where mutilate was fun at! Unfortunately the last attempt I was sucked into the grave alot... and last week I was barely sucked in at all. None the less its luck of the draw at that point.
As CB Swords I had 1224 DPS. As Mutilate I had 1086 DPS. However also to be noted I did almost the same DMG. 555K as CB Swords, 526K as Mutilate. Again the rogues didnt have WF this week... So we took a huge chunk of dmg loss from that.
The Tidewalker DPS Conclusion:
Net Gain/Loss of DPS: Loss of 138 DPS
% Gain/Loss: Loss of 11.27% DPS
Net Gain/Loss in TotDmg: Loss of 24k
% Gain/Loss in TotDmg: Loss 4.3%
THE BIG PICTURE
Comparing a Single Entity in 2 Seperate Raid Environments is almost impossible to interpret. From week to week a persons stats can fluctuate this much. To say it is from Mutilate alone is unfair and biased.
So the Difference of TOTAL RAID DPS is as follows:
Combat: 992 Average
Mutilate: 915 Average
Net Loss: 77 Average
% Loss: 7.7%
IN CONCLUSION:
Originally I said that this build had to perform within 3% of CB Swords to be considered acceptable. I am retracting this statement for a few reasons.
1) There are way to many variables in raids for someone to be consistently within 3% of their performance last week.
Examples:
My Rogue Counterpart: Net Loss of 65 DPS, 7.3% Loss
Our Best Warlock: Net Gain of 69 DPS, 5.7% Gain
Our Enhance Shammy: Net Gain of 89 DPS, 10.5% Gain
Our 2nd Best Warlock: Net Loss of 61 DPS, 6.0% Loss
2) The lack of a 3rd pally Buff and wind fury totem in certain situations is skewing these results currently. Also not having raided as mutilate before I most likely wasn't playing it perfectly (In most cases).
From what I am seeing from a few examples, It is OK to be within 10% of your previous performances (On average). More closely to 7% but there is a lot of luck involved and weird variables that are unable to be calculated. For Example if we have WF and mid-fight our Shammy dies, the rogues DPS drops by a lot for the rest of the fight because we lose the WF.
IN CONCLUSION: I have decided to give Mutilate a GREEN/YELLOW light for raiding in our guild.
If you are dedicated to mutilate and practice with it in my opinion, on AVERAGE (long periods of raiding) it can be on par with Combat Swords. More work in investigating needs to be done However I was still pulling top 3 on most attempts last night and Top 2 Overall. This is Relative to my previous performances. I will be bouncing between mutilate for the next few weeks, and I will provide more detailed analysis when available.
Questions, Comments, Concerns, Flaws in Logic!
-Let me know!
When I was mutilate I was using Heartrazor/Veng Mutilator, and speced 41/20/0 (DW Spec)
-Weapons Enchanted with Mongoose
-Always DP Offhand, When our Shammy Died IP Mainhand
*Rotation: 3-4S/4-5R/4-5E
-Note: Always Used Coldblood on Mutilates with Find Weakness Up
As some of you may know, I'm in the process right now of working with DMM to update the cycle calculations in the DPS Spreadsheet so that they are more universal and more Mutilate-friendly. I'm maybe 1/4 of the way done putting in cycles at this point. (I have all the basic Xs/5r, Xs/5e sorts of cycles, and a few of the Xs/Yr/Ze cycles.)
Here's something interesting that I've discovered in my work so far: at the default gear level of the sheet ("Sample T6"), no SnD/Rupt/Evis cycle has yet beat a basic SnD/Rupt cycle. IE, no matter what other cycle I introduce (among ones I've tried are 5-5s/5-5r/5-5e, 3-5s/3-5r/3-5e, 5-5s/3-5r/3-5e, 5-5s/4-5r/4-5e), a simple 3-5s/5-5r cycle is always on top.
This intrigues me, as my working hypothesis has been that the advantage of Mutilate is to get in those extra finishers. In fact, it is so counter-intuitive to me that I spent a bit this afternoon toying with different gear levels (T4, T5) and checking the top cycle in those as well... the result has still been to use 3-5s/5-5r every time.
I'll have a better handle on this once I complete all the cycles, but for now I'd say that the spreadsheet results are going against the conventional wisdom of a SnD/Rupt/Evis cycle. Up until now, there has been a "don't waste combo points" mentality for Mutilate. In other words, finish on 4 combo points b/c you don't want to waste the one you would otherwise lose. However, what the spreadsheet seems to indicate is that the energy is the more precious commodity. You don't want to waste energy on 3 or 4 point finishers, because with Relentless Strikes in operation it is much more efficient to use 5 pointers. I'm guessing that the DPE of Mutilate is high enough to make you want to use as much energy as you can on Mutilate, just using finishers when you get get them very cheap (or free!). And my next guess is that the extra 10 energy cost of Eviscerate is enough to make it just not worth using in the cycle.
Like I said, I'll know better when I get more of the cycle work done, but for now it appears that not using Evis at all is probably the better way to go. Has anyone tried a 3-5s/5-5r cycle? How did it work out? Maybe someone should test that over the SnD/Rupt/Evis cycle that is so commonly used and get back to us with the results. (I would do it, but I'm still specced swords until we down Kael for the first time. We need to trick all the DPS we can get out of that Warp Slicer/Infinity Blade combo, so swords it is for the moment.)
When you say "3-5s/5-5r" does this cycle mean "SnD if you have anywhere between 3-5 combo points, and then rupture only if you have 5 combo points" or does it mean a cycle of one SnD varying between 3-5 combo points, and two cycles of 5 combo point ruptures? I would think that the uptime you have on SnD would be high enough to get in that 5pt rupture and 5pt Eviscerate. Or does the spread sheet want us to minimize rupture downtime to nil?
Ive only done some BT trash farming, will hopefully get in some WWS this week. It just doesnt make any sense. I am /boggled. I'll try and do a run with two Mut rogues, one doing a 3-5SnD/4-5r/4-5E cycle and one doing the 3-5SnD/5-5r cycle, and we shall see what that amounts to. Cannot guarantee that it will happen this week though.
"Some people say I would kill them as soon as look at them... No, I would much rather kill you than look at you..." - Mr. Teatime The Hogfather
"One sees what one observes, and one observes only that which is already in the mind..." Anonymous
"I will show you fear in a handful of dust" The Gunslinger
Here's something interesting that I've discovered in my work so far: at the default gear level of the sheet ("Sample T6"), no SnD/Rupt/Evis cycle has yet beat a basic SnD/Rupt cycle. IE, no matter what other cycle I introduce (among ones I've tried are 5-5s/5-5r/5-5e, 3-5s/3-5r/3-5e, 5-5s/3-5r/3-5e, 5-5s/4-5r/4-5e), a simple 3-5s/5-5r cycle is always on top.
Did you also try variations of a SND/Rupture cycle (i.e., 4-5s/5r or 5s/5r)? I'm not really surprised that Eviscerate might not be worth it, but I imagine we'll want to see the conclusion of your work before we get too caught up over it.
I'm really not surprised that cycles ignoring Evis/Envenom are better than ones that use it. I'm not sure if your cycles are even looking at energy queuing to improve the value of Find Weakness, but I would think that spreading out your cycles to get in Eviscerates is a poor plan against the alternative of waiting until your energy fills up to launch a SnD, Mutilate(x2), apply Rupture under FW, then probably get another Mutilate in under FW and then queue your energy again. While you're probably heavily cutting SnD, you're not wasting energy and combo points on abilities whose efficiency is awful in comparison.
If you're going to ignore Evis, you need to make sure that absolutely everything you're doing falls within FW. Let's suppose you queue energy for a SnD but you know it's not going to proc RS because it's for 3 and you're psychic. Furthermore, you are only able to queue energy up to 95/110 without capping due to poor luck as well(as gcd(60,25) = 5, your energy can move in units of 5 over time). You hit SnD with .1 until energy tick:
If you failed to proc Ruth on SnD or crit with any mutilate, you are unable to get Rupture up during FW. Assuming a 40% crit rate, the chance of this happening is (.4*(.6)^4) ~= 5%. 60% of the time you'll get RS to proc, and half of that time you'll have queued enough energy to Mutilate again and then Rupture for 5 anyway.
The whole point of the above is that it's a really damn low chance to not be able to get in a 5 point Rupture during FW and you will know that it'll likely occur right when your second Mutilate didn't give you 5 points, so you can just get one for 4 in. I have no idea how to model that, but I would think that such a decision cycle would advocate Mutilating on 4 if you'll still get in Rupture under FW even if you sometimes wouldn't. Assuming you're queuing energy you shouldn't have to worry about Rupture still being on the mob before FW ends as long as you're always hitting a second Mutilate with that queued energy instead of wanting to always hit one for 4 when you have Ruth + crit Mut.
As to the discipline behind choosing an amount to hit SnD for, I find the 21s of 3SnD might mean SnD dropping while attempting to queue energy or the reverse of missing Rupture under FW while making sure SnD stays up. The 26s of 4SnD gives you a full 10s of Find Weakness, 6s for the energy for Mutilate after Rupture, and 10s to queue energy so it should never fall. It does mean hitting a second Mutilate a good deal more often and as such might come outside of FW if you're unlucky, but by queuing full energy for SnD you (practically) guarantee a 5Rupture under FW. Going with 4-5s also means more consistent returns on RS and thus more energy on average to hit those 2nd Mutilates inside FW.
Getting the most damage out of Mutilate is getting to use all your damaging abilities while FW is up which suggests queuing energy when refreshing SnD since it's the only ability you have that does no damage itself. In order to do so, you need to cut the fat out of your cycle and only use those abilities that are most efficient and refresh SnD with as much queued energy as possible while never letting it drop. The reason you should Mutilate to 5 if you can afford to is so you hit as many Mutilates as possible inside FW and still be able to drop Rupture in FW as well. If you Rupture at 4 you are either overwriting FW early or queuing energy to Mutilate afterwards, which is pointless compared to just Mutilating to 5 and Rupturing: the wasted combo point is irrelevant since SnD is basically always overwritten early.
Final recap:
4-5s/(4-)5r, where you Rupture for 4 only if you've hit 2 Mutilates already and can see you won't be able to Mutilate for the 5th point and Rupture within FW (this is about 3-4% of the time). If you're at 4 CP from Ruth + crit Mutilate, you Mutilate again. After hitting Rupture, you Mutilate up to 4-5 then queue as much energy as you can. You should be able to queue your full bar (95-110) of energy before SnD drops.
Now I have no idea how to implement this in the system that's currently in place for analyzing the decision tree for cycles, but it seems to be optimal from my point of view. I haven't addressed the possibility of Shivving for the 5th point but I think that's been determined to be a net loss of damage overall. I also have not proved rigorously that Mutilating from 4 to 5 for a Rupture that you can get in within FW is optimal, but I'd happily analyze it further if anyone needs more convincing.
I'm finding the same results as Left, when I try different cycles in my simulator. Using the T6 gear and full buffs I've mentioned earlier in this thread:
3-5s, 5r, 5e = 1734 dps
5s, 5r, 5e = 1761 dps
4-5s, 4-5r, 4-5e = 1789 dps
Wow, that's a bigger difference than I would have expected. Are you able to determine why Eviscerate does so poorly? It doesn't seem very intuitive. You'd think a 10 energy attack (i.e., at 5 combo points) would be energy well spent, assuming adding it in doesn't cause SND to drop.
Just to provide some more insight into what is happening, could someone see what happens if Eviscerate happened to be a 25 energy attack instead (perhaps scaling its damage down proportionally)? I'm curious to see if the loss of damage is mostly coming from the extra ~10 energy needed to get back to the next finisher, or if it's more to do with Eviscerate's poor damage scaling, or even if it's because of an increased risk in losing SND uptime or something.
This could further be applied to testing a 4-5s/5ea/4-5r type of a cycle. It seems that a Mutilate rogue could lose less DPS by being in charge of keeping Improved EA up than a combat rogue, but it'd be nice to see some proof of that.
04/10/08, 3:28 PM
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