http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=wh...bbV0xZxzeobh0o

That build has my interest piqued at the moment. Allocate the assasination points however you choose (imp eviscerate satiates the pvper in me, but for pve, rupture is more logical), but this seems to be the best thing I've found to a viable pvp/pve hybrid for non-dagger specs (assuming mutilate could be considered a pvp/pve hybrid). One of the main questions is whether or not hemo will yield comparable combo point generation to combat potency, and I honestly haven't done the math for it so I can't say for certain.

TBC: Combat Shiv Build?
Wodin, in post #1697 you touched briefly on a Shiv based Combat swords build, rather than a SS build. I think this idea has some merit at least for theorycraft purposes, though we would need to really double check the numbers. I played around with the build you posted, and came up with this build.

Link

Basic Tenets of the build
* Shiv is your primary attack, and generates combo points. SS is not used.
* Combat Potency increases the energy efficiency of Shiv, and Surprise attacks increases Shiv's damage.
* Because we don't use SS, we can save 5 talent points in the Combat tree, dropping improved SS and Aggresion.
* Vile Poisons should also increase the damage from Envenom, so we could possibly drop improved eviscerate as well.
* OH poison is going to make up a portion of the damage from Shiv, so the question is which is better? Deadly poison, used to fuel Envenoms or Instant poison, used to just boost DPS?
* Grabbed Relentess Strikes and murder for DPS and PvP boost respectivly.

Synergies
* By ignoring SS, we free up a number of PvP related talents in the Combat tree, including Endurance, Improved Kick, Imp Sprint, Vitality/Nerves of Steel and Blade twisting.
* Overall combo point generation will be higher than combat swords due to better combo pt/energy.
* Sword spec probably benefits more from Shiv, since it will generate more sword procs than SS will.
* Sword smiths get access to an amazing OH sword, which will continue to scale over time with upgrades. Fireguard
* Since poison and envenom damage are unmitigated by armor, this would be better than SS Swords vs. high armor targets (like warriors/paladins and bears in PvP)

Interesting in concept, but its different enough (and poisons don't scale) so further testing would be needed.

DPE Calculations
Based on Wodin's formula above, the DPE difference between a 1.6 and 1.4 sword seems really low.
Sword 1.4 2.4 6.596
Sword 1.6 2.4 6.506

Speaking of tweaks (point me if I missed it), but has there been any talk of tweaking our mace spec like warriors got?

If I understand correctly, warrior mace spec now generates 3 rage. Would be pretty sweet if our mace spec generated 1 or 2 energy (or more :p)

Now on the thottbot beta site, under mace spec there are a bunch of ranks that increase damage with 1h maces by like 16 and 21, which would seem like a nice boost for rogue mace spec, but I dont know if those have been there a long time.

I dont think Ive missed any talk on this, but if Im wrong, sorry.

The rogue version of mace spec would generate 6 energy, as 2 energy = 1 rage.

At this rate I'm not sure anyone here should be holding their breath for them to adjust mace spec for us...

I'd rather they just dump the %stun on Mace Spec and give us something like "Increases all damage done while equipping a Mace by 2.5%". It's a little different than Dagger/Sword spec, more sustained damage even if it's pretty subtle (unless you're like, SF Adren Rush), and affects Eviscerate, Garrote and Rupture at the same time.

Yeah, thats why I thought that the mace spec spells on thottbot beta that were +16 and +21 damage with 1h maces were interesting.

There were also a couple smaller ones that included the mace stun effect and like +6 damage.

I dont mind the stun effect, I like it for leveling, but to get a little pve raiding bonus like warriors got would be sweet too. I mean, stunning naxx trash and gothik adds is pro and all, but some free energy or top end bonus would make me happy and at least put mace spec in a similar pve viability to sword spec and dagger spec.

This is pretty interesting. Do we know if you can increase poison damage with +spell dmg and +spell crit gear? I've been meaning to take a heart of a hakkar at some point just to monkey around with the +spell dmg trinket. There is a lot of non-class specific leather armor on live today that had +dmg and healing and +spell crit on it.

Theoretically you could get it to scale, the question is what the opportunity cost will be to your other white/yellow dps? If you wanted 2 class sets, this could be one way to do it. One for the "poisoner" one for the physical damage guy. Even if +dmg doesn't apply to poisons, we can still get armor that adds to poison damage and/or envenom - similar to 5 piece dd with evis.

I'm fairly certain the +spell crit gives bonuses to poison crits. The Onyxia head buff gives you a non-zero spell crit for example. Not sure if +dmg would though. In any case, I'm not sure you would want to stack it just to increase the overall dps of your poison.

The most interesting aspect to me is how this might compare to Hemo for PvP. Right now, people play hemo in pvp because it is really good at stun locks, due to the energy/combo efficiency of hemo. With Shiv, you get much of the same benefit (33-36 energy/combo point) plus combat potency procs. In addition, you don't loose out on the white dps aspect that causes hemo to fall behind., since you have DW, precision, etc. You don't get prep though, but we can't have everything.

Personally, i would rather see combat potency reworked to be:

Works out the same over the long run as the current wording, but would allow for more consistancy in PvP for stun locking and other sequences of moves.

Give mace spec a 5% chance on hit to dispell a beneficial effect from the target.

Boom, non-dagger rogues just gained PVP viability, and actually become useful in various raid situations.

I've been reading this thread fairly consistently but can't do the mathwork that most of you guys can. I have also commented on other forums about the viable use of a mutilate spec pre BC, post 2.0.1.

Do you guys think that the loss of those 10 points in the combat/subtelty tree (guessing DW/Dagger spec and Opportunity) will affect the ability to use Mutilate as a sustained DPS PVE build?

Any comments on the new AQ40 Exalted ring , Prestor , Band of Reanimation ? They got buffed nicely..

"Bangs his head to walls for passing on Band of Rea. "

Also, Blizz has introduced mangle to the Druid feral spec. +25% increase bleeding effect damage. In TBC, with the rise of the hybrid class, you'll find that you may just have a feral druid tanking your 5 man instead of a warrior. From talking to some of my rogue friends in Beta, often times they prefer to have a bear tank. If you just have 1 feral in your raid make-up, the +25% increase across the board would be a HUGE benefit to rogues, specifically Deadly poison and Rupture.

I have a prestors, and the exalted ring in my pve set, so yeah, Im happy with those changes.

I know this might be a bit off the current topic at hand, but I was trying to punch out some numbers for mutilate vs backstab DPE (straight up, no combos or poison damage), and I noticed something I'd simply taken for granted before: opportunity doesn't seem to affect the damage constant added to backstab. That is, backstab without opportunity is 1.5( [AP]/14 * 1.7 + [DPS] * [Speed] ) + 225 and with opportunity is 1.5 * 1.2 * ( [AP]/14 * 1.7 + [DPS] * [Speed] ) + 225.

Does the apply to mutilate's damage constants as well?

Initially I assumed mutilate would look like this (Poisoned target, opportunity, and find weakness):
MutMH = 1.1 * 1.8 * ( ([AP]/14 * 1.7) + [MH] + 88 )
MutOH = 1.1 * 1.8 * ( 0.5( ([AP]/14 * 1.7) + [OH] ) + 88)

But if it behaves like backstab, it would be more like this:
MutMH = 1.1( 1.8 * ( ([AP]/14 * 1.7) + [MH] ) + 88 ))
MutOH = 1.1( 1.8 * ( 0.5( ([AP]/14 * 1.7) + [OH] ) + 88))

It affects the damage constants on backstab. I assume it does on mutilate.

The Mangle Bleed debuff is 30% increased Bleed damage. It should be up at all times if a cat is attacking the mob.

Deadly Poison is not a Bleed, it's a Nature DoT. That said, all poisons' utility may be improved by Enhancement Shamans' frequent application of Stormstrike +Nature damage debuffs.

It has been discussed in this thread, mainly the hunter BC thread, and I am sure others. Mixing agility/AP makes items better than before mixing, and Rogues in the expansion with weaker gear than tier 2 will quickly find upgrades.

A good side effect is Enchancement Shaman can now put hunter gear to good use.

All ranks of the AQ40 agility ring got changed.

How the 20% more nature damage debuff works is it is the next nature damage effects get buffed, and then it is gone. The utility is minimal for a Rogue since poisons don't hit for much, so the Shaman using Earthshock after SS is a better use of it.

Traditionally, DoTs don't affect things like that. Shadow Vuln from Imp. Shadow Bolt comes to mind.

Ah, agreed. I had thought that shamans would risk pulling aggro with Earth Shock; I didn't notice that the high threat effect had been moved from Earth Shock to Frost Shock.

They're trying to cut back on CC as much as possible in PvP, so I doubt a change to support stunlocking would be made, especially in the highly touted PvE tree.