Your original post seemed either inflammatory, shortsighted or apocryphal. On the other hand you are correct in saying that, strictly speaking, you never literally postulated anything incorrect in the same manner that I am not literally calling you an annoying little man.

In short; you weren't wrong, they weren't entirely right, everyone said mean things but now it's time to forgive one another as big happy families like ours do!

Next topic time! Or rather next topics time, got a couple quick queries that have been bugging me:

a) Sorry to bring this up again but the AssGuide currently says 1+ Ruptures is what we should be going for. Does that mean they're significantly better than 4+ or that we just shouldn't worry too much about how many points we put in (high rupture dmg lost due to high cp = envenom dmg due to higher uptime-rupture uptime lost due to more recasting)?

b) Mostly an academic question as it should never come up anyway but how big a dps loss are we talking if we accidentally drop S'n'D? Obviously I understand that this is entirely dependant on the manner in which the S'n'D would have to be re-applied but I was hoping a ballpark wouldn't be too much trouble (if it is you can consider this question unasked).

c) Is it true that it's impossible for just one Muti strike to land? I've never tested it myself (just whether only one can crit, which I can confirm) but the above post made me curious. I also pretty much assumed that you only require one of the two hits to crit for an extra cp to proc but suddenly realized that I'd never seen that written down anywhere either.

And while we're at it, how is Mutilate logged by recount? Does it count both hits as separate instances? And if so, should I divide the number of hits it logs by two to calculate number of casts?

d) How the hell does Combat surpass Assassinate for Dark Intent :S? Is there a secret conspiracy to hide the ubercombat dot from all us AssRogues? Do they have a dot that I don't know about? Or is it just the emphasis on haste?

Thanks in advance for any light you might shed upon the darkness that fills most my mind.

A) It's the latter. Treat Rupture the way Combat treats SnD - that is, refresh it when it expires with whatever CP's you have around.

b) I believe Aldriana recently ballparked SnD not being up at the start of the fight for for 1 second at somewhere in the 2-3k damage range. Add to this the damage of an Envenom and it's resultant increased poison procs, and you have an idea of how much damage you're losing by dropping it.

d) Bad SimCraft models.

Any suggestions for the following issue:

Assasination spec rogue, regulary when I spam envenom 3-4 times (to account for latency/queue it up) the relentless talent will proc & my 4-5 point envenom finisher will be overwritten by a 1 point envenom.

Set your latency correction value lower, and stop spamming the button.

If you have 4/5 cps and you're low on energy the correct action to take would be to do nothing unless/until rupture needs to be refreshed.

If you have 4/5 cps and are at high energy (with 4-5 seconds left on rupture), it would be better to envenom and then use a low cp rupture afterwards to maintain rupture uptime.

I've seen some posts that speak to pooling energy to ~ 90 prior to using envenom and have obviously missed the explanation/rational for this mechanic.

Is there some benefit derived from applying envenom from a high energy state? Some rise in crit rate of follow-on mutilate or some proc on poisons?

Some guidance to a clueless rogue would be appreciated!

Envenom has 2 effects:

1. Considerable direct nature damage. (Major source of damage)
2. Envenom buff, that increases proc rate of poisons. (Minor source of damage)

Delaying an envenom will have no effect on the direct damage, so the entire purpose to delaying is for the second effect, and improving on this will differentiate good damage, from great damage. When you arrive at the position to cast envenom, you either currently have the envenom buff, or you don't.

1. If you have the envenom buff, so long as you do not cap energy, delaying an envenom simply delays when the buff is overwritten, resulting in a larger envenom uptime and more poison procs, hence more damage.
2. If you do not have the envenom buff, the only advantage to pooling energy is to attempt to ensure extra mutilates are cast during the envenom buff and can thus higher poison procs on those mutilates. However, you need to do something with the CPs generated; this can yield a situation in which you would clip envenom, which negates the advantage gained. If however Rupture were to fall off though within ~3 seconds of when you would cast envenom, such that you are able to Mutilate up to a Rupture, Rupture, and then continue Mutilating during the envenom buff, it would be a very minor DPS gain to pool energy for envenom without the buff already running, but these situations are rare.

In short, good practice is to make sure SnD and rupture don't fall, and envenom when able, great practice extends to not overlapping envenoms when applicable. Insanity pro level is figuring out when that last factor comes into play; but you really shouldn't worry too much about that.

[e] The ~90 energy comes from Wrath, where you would regen 10 energy/sec, so that you would not cap energy in the GCD to use the ability. Currently, with haste now increasing our energy regen, and that we do not cap expertise anymore, this should be changed to something more like: Pool as high as you feel comfortable, such that you do not cap energy should there be bad RNG from boss dodging (also to not drop SnD and such).

While I don't know the answer to your question I do know that using one keystroke to automate multiple gcds is a bannable offense, and that many people have complained of being banned for it in the past.

I highly doubt it. While the SteelSeries Mouse does have it's own software to use for macros, Blizzard does keep a leash on what it can and can't do. At least once already Blizzard has put the kibosh on the 3rd party software it uses. That said, while the mouse is licensed by Blizzard, it's still your responsibility to follow the EULA/TOS. The argument that "the WoW mouse let me do it so it must be ok" holds about as much water as "the game let me exploit so it must be ok."

As assassination, I've recently started delaying my last round of CD's until the boss' health reaches sub-35%. E.G. Vanish comes off CD at 40% boss health, I wait until 34% health before using it as I'm unlikely to get another vanish before the boss dies. I'm 100% certain this is a DPS increase if I estimate it properly and don't lose another round of cooldowns.

My question is this: How much of a gain would that be and how big a DPS loss would it be if I *did* mess up and lose a chance to use them again? I would like to get a feel for the risk/reward ratio here so that, when I'm unsure of whether I'll get another round of CD's off, I'll have an idea of what I'm risking. If it's a minor dps gain to get it right and a major loss to screw it up, then I won't do this unless I'm absolutely certain whereas if it's the other way around, I'd be less risk averse.

As a side note, I've also been pooling energy when the boss starts getting close to 35%. An extra 3 backstabs might not be huge, but every little bit helps, no? I havent heard it mentioned here before, but it seems like it would be good practice in the majority of situations, shifting as much of our damage as possible to our execute range. Unless I'm missing something.

Edit: extreme word choice pickiness

I discussed this a while back here, but the short answer is: what's wrong with a slower cycle? I mean, if it does more damage (theoretically, anyway) and gives you more time to precisely manage your pooling, etc., how is that in any way bad?