I've read (and printed) this complete thread a couple of times and decided to return to the Mutilate build that I loved before. My guild is currently doing Kara, Hc's and ZA is the highest we aim for atm, so I'm not high-end geared.

The problem is that I'm not always at the top of the damage meters, but my guildies are currently geared at the same level as I am! Priest and Warlocks are always close damage wise, and overall they beat me from the #1 spot. Yes, on Maiden I get a really steady cycle going (5s/5-5r) and that's when I out-damage them, but we're talking a measly 850dps here and overall 650 for a half Kara run.

How is that possible? I've checked the sheets and I should be doing 1000+ dps at minimum (the sheet says 1206). I know that I don't have the best gear and all the enchants, but it feels like there really is something wrong on how I approach these calculations and gear choices. Is it the gems? The enchants? The gear? I'm clueless, and so are my guildies! I'm really not asking for a quick answer, because I've studied everything as good as I can, but I just can't figure it out anymore; TIA!

Cupa's Armory

I would take a stab in the dark and guess your problem could be Raidbuffs. Either you're not getting the best buffs out of your Raidsituation, you haven't plotted them into the sheat or your Groupbuffers just suck at keeping their Buffs up. Especially Shamans who don't twist can hurt MeleeDPS considerably.
Another thing that could go wrong is Bosstype and Armor. In Kara many things refuse to bleed, almost no Boss is murderable and armor varies hugely (BTW another thing people often suck at keeping up is armor reduction)

I believe you are correct. It seems that because of the raid composition the casters are favoured looking at the buffs and group composition. With minimal efforts I should be doing at least 1000 dps with an optimal 3-5s/5-5r cycle. It's under discussion now, but thanks for the ammunition for this discussion!

I've specced Mutilate recently, being top in heroics and ZA (just as I were as combat, didn't notice any significant dps increase/decrease since group setups were different so couldn't indicate).
I've been wanting to test the dps output tonight, on the perfect melee fight, VR, but heck remembered he is a robot immune to poisons.
Some rogue I've asked said "I believe it was changed, he's no longer immune to poisons, and niether does Hydross poison phase", is that so?
I'd love to test my dps, but cba to wait for the next MH raid .

Hydross nature phase is still immune to poisons, because he is immune to all nature damage. Hydross frost phase and Void Reaver are not immune to poisons. Both bosses can be Ruptured.

(edit) Sorry, the poster below me is probably correct about VR being poison-immune. Bleeds are definitely possible, however.

I'm pretty sure that Void Reaver is still immune to poisons (at least Deadly). He is rupturable these days, though.

It's been a couple weeks since I've killed him, but I remember checking after the patch that changed that stuff and found him still immune.

I'm not sure where you got the information that crit is better than hit. Frankly, it's not, even for mutilate. Crit is better for mutilate than for combat, but still isn't as valuable as hit is.

As for your other questions, the AEP is calculated based on your current gear and talent build. When you hit calculate, the sheet looks at both and determines the relative value of each stat.

I am sorry, i mixed crit with agility, crit were better than with combat, but not better than hit.

Thanks for answers, i stand corrected.

While Mutilate specced, 1% crit is for me a bigger dps increase than 1% hit (13dps vs 10dps for the last % of each). But that falls short of the 140% (22/15.77 = 1.395) better required for 1 crit rating to be worth more than 1 hit rating.

It is the scaling difference combined with the fact that both ratings seem to be valued the same on gear that makes Crit Rating the inferior stat, not the inherent value of Critical Strikes.

Yes, Void Reaver is still immune to poisons but susceptible to bleeds now.

Although we don't have new talents to play with yet, since they'll be coming soon I decided to sit down and take a look at what Mutilate looks like at 80 given what we've already got. Here's what I came up with:

41/25/5 Build

The biggest question to me is 5/5 Opportunity vs. 3/5 Opportunity + 2/5 Weapon Expertise

Its a question of an extra 8% damage to your mutilate vs an extra 2.5% to about 90% of your damage (white + mutilate....smaller increases to poison damage and a little more energy from saved rupture misses). At my T5-ish gear level, the Mutilate damage wins out, but white damage seems to become a larger proportion of your damage as your gear improves. As a result, in the late T6/Sunwell gear levels I've seen in some Brut parses, Mut is only 28-30% of your damage, and WE and Opportunity seem *very* close to each other damage-wise.

For completeness I took a look at going 41/0/30 for Deadliness, but as usual the raw damage bonuses gained from the combat talents (Precision/DW spec, and now Blade Flurry/Dagger spec as well) are just too significant to pass up.

In general, the extra 10 talent points open up some very nice options in our existing tree, since Mutilate is rather starved for points to spend outside of Assassination. Deep assassination is going to have to be very good to keep Mut rogues from using their extra points to grab low-hanging fruit in Combat/Sub instead.

I've been raiding with a Mutilate spec (fully cleared BT by now, moving on to Sunwell) and, depending on the fights, I can many times stay on top of Combat Rogues, albeit with a lot more effort

However, as we are moving to Sunwell and in the quality of GM, Raid Leader and Rogue Class Leader of my guild, I'm trying to understand if the spec will hold on at acceptable levels in fights such as Brutallus. I've seen the WWS logs of several rogues that show that it is possible and I've spent a bunch of hours crunshing numbers and testing buffs/party composition on the DPS Spreadsheet.

A couple of questions have raised though:

The DPS Spreadsheet shows that my optimal cycle is 3-5s/5-5r. Following this, I've been making sure I always get 5 points before I rupture unless I get really unlucky with crits/Ruthlessness procs and I end up having only 4 combo points after SnD and 2 mutilates (which happens very rarely as I have about 35% crit chance in raids not counting with mongoose procs).

My question is about when to reapply SnD...after a 5 point Rupture I usually just use one Mutilate, wait for energy queueing (and making sure SnD doesn't run out) and apply SnD at 3 points. This is a pretty easy cycle to maintain and I usually never run out of SnD and I'm always able to queue Rupture inside the FW buff. But, looking at the proposed cycle I think I should be using two Mutilates after Rupture (only way to reach the 5 in the 3-5 suggestion). So, should my cycle always aim for 5 point SnD and 5 point Rupture?

I sometimes see people referencing some tweaks to the cycle inside the DPS Spreadsheet but I must be dumb because I can't find it (meaning I can only change talents, buffs and gear).

Also, I recently power-levelled LW to be one of the drum spammers in the melee group. Some people claim that drums do not stack with Bloodlust and I've been unable to check it because I never remind myself to do it (being a melee raid leader doesn't allow for too much free time during raids). As I've read about the multiplicative nature of haste effects I assumed stacking haste pot + drums + bloodlust would be the best option, but I'm having some doubts on what is best...making a rotation with haste pot, drums and bloodlust (using one at a time) or just using it all at the same time.

Finallly (and sorry for the previous offtopic question) what is actually the best group composition for a Mutilate build?Sometimes we have some competition for the melee group and I always put myself in the hunters group. I find that having 2 BM hunters, a feral druid and a shaman with agility + strength totem, adding IP to MH due to no WF brings me almost to the same DPS level in the spreadsheet, but I often find that I lose more DPS than what I should. For comparison I'm assuming my usual melee group which is Enh Shaman, DPS warrior, Ret pala and 2 rogues (well, usually it's 3 rogues because our ret pala slacks like hell).

Thanks in advance.

P.S - I did read all the 43 pages so far but I may have missed some useful stuff because it's too much information Maybe it would be useful to either update the Rogue 101 post or make a summary of Mutilate info.

Of course alll those things can happen, but this basically gives us a baseline against which to compare the additions. Obviously the utility of figuring out the best use of 10 extra points is quite limited by the incomplete information avaialble, but if nothing else it's an interesting exercise/excuse to do a bit of theorycrafting.

No, should should not be aiming for 2 Mutilates after rupture. The 5 point SnD only comes into play when you don't get a Ruthlessness proc *and* your first Mutilate doesn't crit. In that case only you should Mutilate a second time, and if that crits you'll end up with 5 combo points. A five point SnD is kind of a waste, and you may wind up unable to fully queue your energy before hitting SnD but it's still slightly preferable to just doing SnD at 2 CPs. According to the spreadsheet, for me at least a 3-5s/5r is a little over 1 DPS more than 2-4s/5r. 5s/5r is significantly lower, about 13 DPS less than the previous options. With 5s/5r, you lose both Rupture and Find Weakness uptime.

That makes more sense, thanks for the clear explanation. By the way, how do you tweak the cycles like that in the spreadsheet?

Remember that the sheet deals in averages. When it says "3-5s", it means if you have anywhere between 3 and 5 combo points. Don't aim for 5, in other words; 3 is fine. There are several ways you can get to 3-5 combo points which the sheet looks at:

No Ruthlessness -> Non-crit Mutilate -> Non-crit Mutilate ==> 4 CP
No Ruthlessness -> Non-crit Mutilate -> Crit Mutilate ==> 5 CP
Ruthlessness -> Non-crit Mutilate -> ==> 3 CP
Ruthlessness -> Crit Mutilate -> ==> 4 CP

The sheet averages the chances of all those occuring and uses the average to do it's calculations. In practice, you know that the first two are pretty unlikely to occur, but when they do occur you have to deal with them. The difference between a "2-4s" and a "3-5s" cycle is in how those first two situations are dealt with. In "2-4s", you just refresh SnD anyway; in "3-5s" you Mutilate again before refreshing SnD. The sheet says that, on average, you are better off to Mutilate again if you find yourself with only 2 CP after the first Mutilate. (If you have 3 CP, you shouldn't Mutilate again.)

However, let me again stress that the sheet deals in averages and as such cannot predict every situation. In actual combat, you as the player need to evaluate whether or not you can fit in another Mutilate + SnD refresh (in order to get 3-5 CP) before SnD runs out. If you can, great, do it. If you can't, refresh with 2 CP in order to keep SnD up, then go back to your regular cycle.

----------------------

The same principle applies for the 5 CP Rupture. Usually, getting off a 5 CP Rupture means Mutilating twice after SnD, then using Rupture. With energy queuing, you should be able to fit this into the alloted 10 second window for FW. However, as you mentioned, occasionally you will get unlucky and not get 5 CP after two Mutilates. In such cases, you have to play it a little differently. If I find myself in such a situation, I simply Rupture on 4 CP and go back to my regular cycle. I find that doing this is better than doing a 3rd full Mutilate, b/c if I do a third Mutilate I lose FW and I risk dropping SnD. (Note that this is not the same as a "4-5r" cycle pattern, as you can often get 4 CP off of a single Mutilate. This is a "5-5r" pattern with an exception for a specific circumstance.)

In summary, just as for combat cycles, the sheet is telling you the general cycle you should follow. The cycle can, and should, be adapted based on procs and luck in specific circumstances. The sheet is not intelligent enough to account for every possible circumstance, so you must do that for yourself.

The ideal composition for a Mutilate rogue is nearly identical to that of a combat rogue. The only real difference is that crit becomes worth a little more. Thus, if Enh Shaman/DPS Warrior/Ret Pally/Rogue/Rogue is your normal, you personally will gain a little extra from swapping the Ret Pally for a Feral Druid. However, if that involves putting the Ret Pally in a non-WF group, then don't do it.

If you have both an Enh. and Elemental Shaman in the raid, don't use IP. It eats Stormstrike charges, resulting in a loss of raid DPS.

Vulajin has included Mutilate info in his new theorycraft think-tank article.

EDIT: In response to your followup question...

There isn't a way to force a cycle on the sheet as a whole, but if you unhide the "Buffed Cycles" sheet you can look at the DPS differences among various cycles that the cycle optimization table tries out. That's where people get their DPS difference numbers.

Doing Brutallus last night and thinking about it and just now I thought of something. When you go into a no ruthlessness proc and then don't crit the next mut you end up with 4cp. This makes a mut mut SnD cycle, which makes your next mut mut rupture cycle with the rupture not falling into the FW proc. At a certain point, Mutilate should end up doing more damage than a rupture. So would there be a case for a 5-5s/5-5r where the first rupture doesn't fall into the FW proc, then every other rupture there after does with energy queuing. Rupture uptime is lower, mutilate percentage damage is higher. But there should be a point where if mutilate does far more damage than rupture that it's better to increase the portion of mutilate damage in the cycle?

I think I'm trying to ask is would:

24-26s cycle (meaning less finishers)
100% Relentless/AToL proc and with energy queuing even less chance of 2 mutilates not generating 5cps
One more mutilate
~20% less rupture uptime

be better than

18-20s cycle
100% Relentless/AToL proc on a rupture finish
60%-100% Relentless/AToL proc on SnD finish (and if it's 100% proc, then rupture doesn't fall into FW window for that cycle as you've just used 2 mutilates)
Same rupture uptime
No extra mutilate

At a certain gear point? Or even all the time for cycle stability/ease.

Well, one thing that jumps out immediately is that with 5s/5r you're not going to have 100% FW uptime, because you've got 2 finishers in your cycle, but the cycle lasts more than 20 seconds. At a minimum you're probably going to have at least some of your Ruptures falling out of FW. It sounds like you're talking about a 4-5s/4-5r cycle though rather than 5s/5r, which then results in less than 100% Relentless/AToL procs. For a true 5s/5r you sometimes have to Mutilate 3 times between finishers, which I think would likely make the 3rd Mut fall outside of FW. You run the same risk in building to a 5 point Rupture with 3-5s/5r, but with 3-5s/5r you generally have more time to queue energy before refreshing SnD.

If you energy queued to 60-70 energy you can have mutilates and rupture fall into the FW window in a 5s/5r rotation. The only one that wouldn't is the very first rupture. SnD doesn't require FW so you end up catching up on FW with energy queuing thereafter.

Not if you end up with 4 combo points after 2 mutilates. What you're proposing isn't quite 5s/5r....it's MMs/MMr from what I can tell. With 5s/5r you will have do to Mut - Mut - Mut - Finish occasionally (With probability (1-(base crit rate+.15))^4*.4, to be exact), and in those cases both the third Mut and the finsher will fall outside of FW.

That's an unspoken for even 3-5s/5-5r.

Chances of it happening are low, but it can be assumed most of the time you fall into that rotation. a 3-5s/5-5 is assumed mut snd if 3-4cp and mut mut snd if no relentless and the first mut doesn't crit. The 5-5r is assumed that one of two mutilates crit if no relentless procs, or if relentless procs and at least one of the two mutilates crit.

In both cases you can have a chance of mutilating 3 times to get to 5cp, but the chance of that happening is so very low that it's assumed most of the time you don't. Generally if you have to mutilate 3 times for 5cp, then it's better to finish at 4cp and continue on to keep the rotation going.


Msnd, energy queue, MMr is the rotation you're doing pretty much most of the time with 3-5s/5-5r.

I do get what you're trying to say. But energy queued in AToL chances are low so we just assume it hits 5. There's a still a chance of rupture only hitting 4cp. It's just not very likely. Then we do things like use CB and thistle tea to cover that up to continue on.

Yeah, I just see you running into those problems twice as often when you have 2 finishers that potentially require 3 Muts instead of one.

Regardless, I decided to play around with the spreadsheet and see what I could come up with. I took the default gear set with a Shard of Azzinoth/Fang of Kalecgos, AToL/WSC for trinkets, and gemming 10 agi wherever possible. With this set up, I then looked at a 5s/5r cycle, but modified the crit rate of Mutilate to reflect 100% of Mutilates falling inside the AToL buff. I then compared this to 3-5s/5r with the usual Mut benefit of AToL being proportional to the uptime (AToL uptime is about 3% higher with 3-5s/5r at this gear level). 5s/5r gained about 4 DPS by this modeling adjustment, but it still fell behind 3-5s/5r:

3-5s/5r standard: 885.15
5s/5r standard: 873.76
5s/5r 100% Mut AToL: 877.96