Discussion for changes posted for 4.3 go here. Please don't wishlist or baselessly speculate and stick to what they've actually announced. Thanks.

Announced Changes:

The 2P sounds like it could be really suboptimal for combat. I already have problems with energy capping if I spend a GCD on something that doesn't cost energy (like Feint or Tricks), and I imagine it's going to be even worse with an additional tier of haste to contend with.

The 4pc looks nice for combat, though; so much of our damage is already packed into AR that an extra 15% on its duration seems like it could be really nice. It's odd that Assassination gets a 30% boost, Combat gets a 15% boost, and Subtlety gets a 25%/30% boost (depending on glyph). I wonder what the impetus for that was.

Lets deal with the 4pc first, as its easier.

Assassination: The Vendetta boost is 1.5x times stronger than the Glyph, which (for me) is worth 320 DPS; hence, the set bonus is worth around 480 DPS.
Combat: 60% of Glyph of AR, which, for the Combat rogue in my guild, is showing as 897 DPS; hence, the set bonus is worth around 540 DPS.
Subtlety: Identical to the Glyph; speccing myself Sub, I show it as worth around 330 DPS.

Since 1 EP provides a bit more than 1 DPS, we're probably talking something around 400 EP for Combat and Assassination, and more like 250-300 for Subtlety. This is pretty good - similar to the T12 4/5pc.

The 2pc reduces the energy cost of abilities by 20% while active; this effectively gives us 25% more energy to spend (1 / (1-.2) = 1.25). It has 20% uptime, so thus gives us about 5% more energy to spend (more, if you pool to optimize the buff - but lets ignore that for the moment). Hence, the set bonus is equivalent to roughly a 5% energy regen increase.

Glyph of Tricks - which is conveniently scored by ShadowCraft - is .5 energy per second; 5% will be between .7 and .9 energy per second, depending on spec. Working out some napkinmath, we find that the set bonus is worth something like 700 DPS - as in, really really good. Perhaps too good. Particularly since you can improve on that with good energy management.

I also feel the need to reiterate my dislike for Tricks-linked set bonuses. I won't repeat the whole argument - you can find it here if you're curious - but I do hope they replace the 2pc with something better before the patch is released.

It might be a silly question...but 4pc set bonus will boots vendetta 9 seconds, so how about using glyph of vendetta instead of glyph of backstab for assassination?
One of the users in korea WOW forum suggested. And i also became curious about this.







Sorry for my awful english.

Actually, it makes Glyph of Vendetta even less relatively valuable. Whether you have the set bonus or not, it gives you the same amount of damage - an extra 6 seconds of Vendetta. Meanwhile, all the other Glyphs become more powerful, as a larger portion of their benefit is performed under the effect of Vendetta.

I remain skeptical about the value of the 2p bonus for Combat. At 2500 haste, which some people are already close to, Combat will be at roughly 15 energy per second from base regen alone. If Sinister Strike costs 31.2 (39 out of 2p buff), then the energy generation from CP procs could very well cause Combat to gain noticeable amounts of energy. If you assume a .75s OH swing timer then it would average out to a net drop in energy, but I none the less remain skeptical.

Mutilate could definitely be in the position to pool and spam Envenom/Mutilate(to 4+) for those 6 seconds and ignore clipping all together. Waiting for the Envenom buff would be "wasting saved energy", as one Mutilate and one Envenom would have a net cost of roughly 72 energy for significantly more damage than waiting for Envenom to end, I can see clipping potentially being reasonable. If it weren't then I don't see how any spec would need good energy management for the 2p proc as nothing really changes.

To not leave out Sub, Sub would get 3 Backstabs in, and 1 HAT proc would occur during that, then pool during the 5th HAT proc. I'm failing to see how Sub would treat their rotation any different with the 2p, as it would probably save them 31 energy every 30s, but that would be it. Maybe 39 energy.

All of this could use more than paper napkin math to determine how true it is, but I don't think 2p will have any real impact on how Sub or Combat is played, and it might only slightly impact Mutilate.

Regarding Vendetta, if the glyph is factored in after the tier bonus, then it would be 46.8s, rather than 45s of uptime per cast. I don't think that's anywhere near enough to make the Vendetta glyph a candidate for top 3 prime glyphs though.

EDIT: Multitasking makes Pathal bad at keeping numbers in his head. Numbers should be better now.

If it did, it would only increase from ~315 to ~410. Still way below Rupture, which will go higher itself as Aldriana said above.

Based on Shalcker's post here,


Without T13 2pc bonus:

To be able to pull off that last Ambush without the 2pc bonus, we would have to wait till 100 energy and to time SD perfectly so that recup ticks right as we use our first Ambush. In practice, this is difficult to do perfectly, and thus the glyph could completely go to waste.

t	Ability	-E	Base	Recup	RS	+E	Net	Energy
x								100
0	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	84
1	Evis	-35	12	0	25	37	2	86
2	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	58
3	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	42
4	Evis	-35	12	0	25	37	2	44
5	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	16
6	wait	0	12	12	0	24	24	40
7	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	22

With T13 2pc bonus:

With the T13 2pc bonus, we can start as low as 89 energy and still get in the same number of ambushes. The timing for recup is also no longer necessary, as we can perform the same number of ambushes even if recup just ticked right before we started SD.

t	Ability	-E	Base	Recup	RS	+E	Net	Energy
x								90
0	Ambush	-32	12	12	0	24	-8	82
1	Evis	-28	12	0	25	37	9	91
2	Ambush	-32	12	0	0	12	-20	71
3	Ambush	-32	12	12	0	24	-8	63
4	Evis	-28	12	0	25	37	9	72
5	Ambush	-32	12	0	0	12	-20	52
6	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	36
7	Evis	-35	12	0	25	37	2	38
8	Wait	0	12	0	0	12	12	50
9	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	34

With T13 2pc bonus, and with recup ticking right before we start SD:

t	Ability	-E	Base	Recup	RS	+E	Net	Energy
x								90
0	Ambush	-32	12	0	0	12	-20	70
1	Evis	-28	12	0	25	37	9	79
2	Ambush	-32	12	12	0	24	-8	71
3	Ambush	-32	12	0	0	12	-20	51
4	Evis	-28	12	0	25	37	9	60
5	Ambush	-32	12	12	0	24	-8	52
6	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	24
7	Wait	0	12	0	0	12	12	36
8	Evis	-35	12	12	25	49	14	50
9	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	22

So with the T13 2pc bonus, we can now safely make use of the extra seconds of SD from the 4pc, or the glyph, or both.

That will only occur when Snd and Shadowdance line up, which theoretically is every minute, but over the course of the fight they'll begin to differ, which will negate some of that value, as I can't see delaying either TotT or SD to be profitable at that point.

I do see a problem with lining up tricks and SD, but not for the reason you gave. If you performed your first trick right before the first SD, and used tricks on CD afterwards, they really shouldn't differ by any more than 1 or perhaps 2 sec. Delaying SD by 2 sec would only be a dps lost if you miss one use of the CD at the end of the fight.

If you don't line up tricks to be performed right before SD, then we already know you must wait for 100 energy and to time recup perfectly to make any use of the extra 2 sec. Imo, delaying SD by 1-2sec to line it up with tricks is easily worth it to garantee you will make ANY use of the 4pc bonus at all.

And lets see what happens if we have both the 4pc and glyph and we don't line up tricks with SD:

t	Ability	-E	Base	Recup	RS	+E	Net	Energy
x								100
0	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	84
1	Evis	-35	12	0	25	37	2	86
2	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	58
3	Ambush	-40	12	12	0	24	-16	42
4	Evis	-35	12	0	25	37	2	44
5	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	16
6	Wait	0	12	12	0	24	24	40
7	Ambush	-40	12	0	0	12	-28	12
8	Wait	0	12	0	0	12	12	24
9	Evis	-35	12	12	25	49	14	38

In this case, using the glyph when you already have the 4pc is completely useless!

However, I do see a problem with lining up the first tricks with the first SD. Seeing as Sub likes to open with Ambush, it is almost a necessity to use tricks before the opener. This means we may have to delay the first SD significantly to be able to line it up with the 2nd tricks, I'm not sure if this would be worth it.

I was talking about whether it would be worth delaying SD to wait for tricks to come off cooldown. Not whether it is worth it to delay the first tricks for the trinket procs.

Edit:
Also, as Aldriana said, there is no point delaying tricks for matrix as matrix last 30s, so one tricks will always line up with it. It is worth it for hungerer though. But again, as Sub, you open with Ambush, which could pull agro if you don't tricks the tank first.