To get the stalled discussion about 3/3 CdG + 3/3 Lethality + 1/3 Ruthlessnes going again: Just now when I enter this setup into shadowcraft it shows me an increase of about 200 dps, from the usual 2/3 3/3 2/3 setup. It goes as far as using rupture or not doesn't affect it, the 3/3 CdG + 3/3 Lethality gives the best values.

So my question... is this now in T13 content and average ilevels of 397+ true? I'm using 4p T13 bonus, if that matters, no longer 2p T12. Is Shadowcraft trustworthy for this at the moment?

Could this be because the autohit damage outweights the style damage now so much? Less points in ruthlessness will let you use SS/RS more often and thus going into deep insight faster.


Probably at no point, because mastery brings a huge amount of energy regen too, but doesn't push your autohit damage as much as haste.

As noted here: ShadowCraft: Rogue spreadsheet for 4.0 the legendary proc is currently modelled as static agility, rendering shadowcraft to not assign extra value to CdG. I think its a fairly safe assumption to make that the value of CdG will increase to the level where it is a dps increase to run 3/3/1 instead of 2/3/2 for any gear set with the legendaries (its within 30dps on most gearsets I've tested without legendaries)

That's an interesting point. Though, I have found that as my rogue's gear has improved, the recommendation has been to move toward the stock 2/3/2 vs the 3/3/1. Indeed as I was ending Firelands and starting DS, it was roughly a 200 dps improvement to go 3/3/1. Then, it was roughly break-even. Now, the scale has tilted significantly toward the cookie-cutter 2/3/2 (now about 100 dps in favor of the cookie cutter spec). At this point, I think I'm at mostly BiS for 10m (12/17) and starting heroic modes with my guild.

I think it could be some combination of gear that tilts the model one way or the other - or it could be updates to the model between passes. I think I ended up switching back to cookie cutter about 2 weeks ago as a result of the shift.

I have in my bags the Stage 1 daggers and the LFR axe No'Kaled, the Elements of Death. I read that the iLevel 390 axe is a better choice for Combat spec even though it is lower iLevel, you lose the 45% Sinister Strike, and the 100 agility stack from Suffering. In tests on target dummy this was confirmed.

So I started thinking what if I write a macro to swap main hand weapons so I use the Pain dagger for most attacks to benefit from the 45% Sinister Strike and Suffering stacks, and use the No’Kaled axe for special strikes that would benefit from the slower swing speed and greater damage. I tried this and gained what appears to be 5-8% more overall dps in the 5 minute test run eventhough I had no Fire, Ice, or Shadow Blasts procs from the axe.

First macro is to equip Pain whenever Sinister Strike is used, second for axe on Killing Spree:
/equipslot 16 Pain
/cast Sinister Strike

/equipslot 16 No'Kaled
/cast Killing Spree

Something interesting occurs when I use these two macros. The Sinister Strike macro works perfectly on one button press. It switches the weapon if No’Kaled is equipped and casts SS. The other macro is requiring two presses, the first changes the weapon to the axe and the second casts Killing Spree. Not a huge deal but it does cost a GCD to swap and execute. Any ideas why this is requiring two presses? May have to do with the Killing Spree mechanics but I am not sure.

I am thinking of moving the swap for the axe to a macro for Eviscerate and then making sure to use Killing Spree right after an Eviscerate while the axe is equipped before going back to Sinister Strikes.

Last question is what other special strikes besides Killing Spree would benefit from the axe being equipped instead of the dagger?

Thanks!!!

The swing timer reset certainly isn't worth it all of the time, but if timed appropriately (i.e., during downtime on specific fights) then it's a reasonable thought that it could become a slight increase.

Whether it's worth the effort of doing so for such minimal gains, given the duration of the buff and the speed at which it stacks, however, is another matter entirely. I wouldn't really advocate doing it, but there are certainly fights this tier where you have enough time to swap a weapon. Doing this every time the buff was about to fall off, though, would definitely be a decrease in most scenarios.

Thanks for the comments. I did not consider swing time. i did think through it a little more and i believe i agree the benefit would be minimal. i may play around with having two Sinister Strike macros, one for each weapon. Maybe use the Fear to get the 100 stack of agility... which takes forever as combat... and then see if using axe improves damage. Issue would be refreshing the suffering before it falls totally off.

All in all, it is frustrating to have to use a dagger in main hand for combat... it goes against everything you learn leveling a combat rogue.

On fights where you switch targets a great deal, it might be worth just simply using the axe. On fights where you are either relatively stable on a target (and have redirect available), the daggers tend to edge out. (Indeed, Shadowcraft is currently over-valuing the proc on No'Kaled at the moment - AskMrRobot, while certainly less elegant and efficient, does currently rank the axe/daggers relatively correctly. As your gear improves, you may notice, as I did, that the dagger set generally becomes slightly better than the LFR axe {but not better than the 10m axe}.)

Is there yet a final word on Sleeper+Dreamer vs No'kaled (403)+Dreamer?
I'm finding that the proc of the axe does ~2 % of my overall dmg and the slow building up stacks from the daggers make the axe the better choice... I'm not entirely sure shadowcraft simulates this things very well. Any thoughts?

The discussion was stalled a page ago and only received some vague comments.

How much DPS do you lose from clipping SnD, and accordingly how much should you be willing to clip it in order to make sure you only do Eviscerates during AR?

AR only affects attack speed and energy regen. As such, your Eviscerates will not do more damage during AR than they would normally. Ie. there's no real point to timing S'n'D around AR as recasting it during is not a dps loss.

Makes sense. It's just that when I'm using damage increasing cooldowns such as Potion of Tol'vir or Blood Fury, I'm unsure how much SnD I should be willing to clip in order to get to the burst phase faster.

On a slightly related note, do you guys see the removal of AR's GCD change anything in the opener? There's no mention of an opener sequence in the guide, but I usually do SS x2 > SnD > SS x2 > KS > SS x1-2 > AR to avoid capping before AR; do you reckon it's worth it to skip straight to AR after KS now?