From tests on the dummy, I've found it takes nearly 2-3 times as long for Combat (often times longer than 2 sets of cooldowns) to reach 50 stacks when compared to Assassination. This leads to Assassination damage being higher early on, but I've also found that it falls off while Combat increases over the length of the fight. I'd need some time to model this, but it looks to me like Combat passes it between the 3 and 4 minute mark. I'm curious if other people are finding similar results.

Update: Yeah, it's definitely doing far less damage in both a 10 and 25-man raid setting. Back to assassination until these get fixed I guess.

So does this mean the Deathwing normal axe will also come out on top? I havnt seen any duscussion about that procrate yet but. Initially it seems to be quite good.

It feels quite hard to count on weighting it towrards the daggersetbonus and the loss of all secondarystat though. Also if the procc actually scales with debuffs etc (like 8% spelldmg and 5% critt)

Anyone got their hands on it yet for testing?

I've been able to do a little bit of testing on it. Seems from the info i gathered from 5 test dummy runs(10 min each) that its based off attacks of the axe only. Also it procs around every 13-19 MH attacks done. Don't hold me to it though as this was just quick testing on training dummy with no buffs or poisons at all. Here is the numbers i got if any1 wants to break them down/compare with their results. I had Main Gauche in there to see if changed proc at all but it didn't look like it. (Note that the axe procs from regular attacks aren't in their due to me not using SS or any other Special ability. This is just basic testing with no attacks just white hits)

Stats for first test (No gear but axe and OH first stage dagger with no enchants or poisons)
Melee- 686 attacks Damage- 366823
Shadow Blast- 5 attacks Damage- 44806
Main Gauche- 27 attacks Damage- 37206
Flame Blast- 4 Damage- 36631
Ice Blast- 2 Damage- 19831

Total axe proc: 11 procs during 10 min fight

Second Test (Full gear no poisons)
Melee- 829 Damage- 2073601
Main Gauche- 65 Damage- 287890
Shadow Blast- 7 Damage- 68805
Flame Blast- 6 Damage- 58152
Ice Blast- 6 Damage- 57804

Total axe proc: 19 procs during 10 min fight

Third Test (Only axe no poison. No gear at all)
Melee- 242 Damage- 297451
Flame Blast- 7 Damage- 66352
Shadow Blast- 6 Damage- 60712
Ice Blast- 4 Damage- 42580

Total axe proc: 17 procs during 10 min fight

Fourth Test (All Gear. No Off Hand and no poisons)
Melee- 296 Damage- 1221440
Main Gauche- 92 Damage- 373298
Flame Blast- 7 Damage- 66636
Ice Blast- 6 Damage- 57544
Shadow Blast- 4 Damage- 36226

Total axe proc: 17 procs during 10 min fight

hey

i tested that the stacking agility buff doesnt disappear when switching to other weps.

so i guess if you got the axe from madness, it would be worthwhile to switch to the axe when reaching 50 stacks, swap back to dagger when the buff is about to run of, to refresh the time, then back to axe again.

dunno if its worth the effort tho.

As near as I can tell, the EP calculation is using a 60 second cooldown for Sigil. In my rogue's gear (mostly 378, T1 daggers, 359 trinkets + chest and some new valor gear) my EP calculation came out to 1829.71 EP with a 90 second cooldown, but shadowcraft shows it as a 2330.6 EP value. I changed my calculation to a 60 second cooldown and the number I came up with was 2336 EP. With the proper 90 second CD, it is equivalent to the EP value of normal Vial of Shadows on Shadowcraft. Using Vial gives me about a 500 DPS increase over my current trinket, so this is the number I am assuming for Sigil.

Does it just calculate the average, then? I experimented with it, the trinket lines up almost perfectly with AR (if its a tank'n'spank fight, it usually ends up about 10 seconds behind, I prefer to wait for the trinket, not sure if its ideal though). Also, for some reason shadowcraft ranks 403 wrath as 2503, and 390 wrath as 1420, making it one of the worst trinkets. Surely something's wrong here..

This might be a hard to answer question, but I think it's one of my biggest flaws when playing Combat. I find that whenever Adrenaline Rush or Bloodlust is up I am completely GCD capped and I have to constantly spam abilities to dump as much energy as possible, especially if I have to use up GCDs on Tricks or Feint. The problem I run into is that trying to maximize my use of my global cooldowns I'm pressing Sinister Strike or Revealing Strike too fast before I find out what my Combo Point situation is. I'll explain with some examples.

I'll be at 2 combo points and Sinister Strike, putting me at 3. I'll Sinister Strike again. Expecting to be at 4 combo points I hit Revealing Strike, but the glyph procced and I'm actually at 5 and could have Eviscerated. I have now wasted a combo point. I just don't notice the 2 combo points in time before I press Revealing Strike because I'm watching mechanics or whatever and I'm just pressing Revealing to make sure it goes off when the GCD is up.

Similarly, I'll be at 2 combo points and Sinister Strike. It'll put me at 4, but I'm already pressing the Sinister Strike because I expected to be at 3 combo points. So I'll end up at 5 with no Revealing Strike buff that I could have had.

Basically I'm spamming abilities because I'm just so flooded with energy that I feel like I have to press them this fast to keep up with the GCD. But it's resulting in me not using combo points as efficiently as I could. It seems like if I don't do this I'll just end up wasting too much energy. It also feels like the combo point results from my abilities are showing up just a bit to late for me to make the decision on whether I should SS or RS.

So any tips on this would be great. Do any other Combat Rogues feel this way or am I just failing and need to pay closer attention? >_>

I cannot be certain, as I have not played Combat in a few months, but I think that the glyph proc for SS is subject to latency, causing it not to display your extra combo point until a fraction of a second later, much like energy gains from Murderous Intent, which may further contribute to some amount of consternation.

One suggestion would be to adjust your custom lag tolerance under Interface->Combat. If you adjust it to better approximate your latency (default is 400ms) you may find that you are much less likely to have SS queue up before you notice things, and may waste less CPs.

As a note, the problems you are describing are exactly why I switched to playing Assassination from Combat. I found it far too difficult to watch for all environmental sources of damage, watch my own CD timers, watch boss CD timers and call out CD rotations, warnings, etc for my raid with the heavy amount of ability spamming I was doing, particularly during BL and AR. Combat may have had a higher theoretical damage in FL, but I found that I could get within 95% of my theoretical damage ceiling for assassination with extreme consistency. YMMV.

So, given the following assumptions:

1. Instant Poison has a 20%*1.8/1.4=25.7% proc rate on a 1.8s dagger.
2. Deadly Poison has a flat 30% proc rate, without a PPM mechanic.
3. Every time Deadly Poison is applied beyond 5, Instant is also applied.
4. I execute more main hand attacks than off-hand, when yellows are included.

Point 3 & 4 would imply that the higher proc rate, deadly vs instant, belongs on the main hand.

Would this not mean that we should put Deadly Poison on Fear and Instant Poison on Vengeance? It seems the breakeven point for putting Instant on the main hand is a weapon of 2.1s or above.

Am I missing something? Is one of my assumptions wrong?

Your assumptions are correct. You're just missing one important detail: that Instant Poison would not proc at 25.7% if moved to the OH. The proc rate would drop to 20%, which eats into - and in most cases, overtakes - the gains from moving DP to the MH.

Briefly stated: IP is going to give you the same amount of autoattack poison procs independent of hand. So the actual comparison at play is as follows:

25.7% of "bonus" MH strikes + 30% of OH autoattacks, or
30% of "bonus" MH strikes + 30% of MH autoattacks.

Thus, provided that 30% of the difference in the number of MH autoattacks and OH autoattacks is greater than 4.3% of your "bonus" MH strikes - which is usually the case - MH IP OH DP remains better.

I'd love to know the EP value of the PvP trinkets since I already have those and they could potentially be better for PvE in the interim. Specifically Ruthless Gladiator's Badge and Insignia of Conquest.