SimCraft's EP's are Agi based, not AP based.

That's under the 7.5% cap, once you hit 7.5%, exp drops to zero, but hit only drops down to 3.27, even when 300 rating above the cap, which still puts it higher than any other reforgeable stat.

This is also still a beta version of SimCraft, so it's very possible it's still way off.

I don't think this opener is optimal, for 2 reasons. One, you are opening with a KS at 100% energy and you are completely negating the best thing about KS; it allows you to do damage while you regenerate energy. Not only is it a damage cooldown, it is also an energy cooldown, and should be used when you have low energy to get the most benefit from. Secondly, if you will perform your first KS as you enter the green phase you will still be using it very early on (often before the first finisher gets used), so you lose no cooldown reduction, and your second KS will line up almost every time perfectly in red phase.

I can't think of any reason you want extra stealth speed in any scenario outside of pvp, so I also disagree with your choice in Tier 1 and Nightstalker. I find that a much better and more practical choice for pve would be Shadowfocus. Combine this with Shadowstep on fights that don't require Preparation and you have a much quicker (instant) path to the boss and a free opener of your choosing.

With that being said, what you are doing isn't something I would consider terrible, it just isn't optimal.

Edit to reflect that I did mean Shadowfocus and not Subterfuge, apologies.

I realise that it is an Energy CD, its bad practice to use it at 100% energy during combat but I'd be interested to know how it measured up against a fight with 6 KS your way and a fight with 7, my way, considering the substantial buff it received recently.

I think you probably mean Shadow Focus, rather than Subterfuge.

On a Patchwerk style fight I can't see how Shadow Focus is better than Nightstalker, even if you don't open with Killing Spree (e.g doing it your way), spending all your energy, using Vanish and then Killing Spree out of stealth must be a DPS increase.

I'm curious about whether the whole Killing Spree would have increased damage from Nightstalker or just the first attack out of the seven that Killing Spree gives. Have you checked? I'm just basing this thought on how I'm reading the tooltips. Nightstalker buffs attacks made while stealthed, and Killing Spree says attacking an enemy every 0.5 sec with both weapons until 7 assaults are made. If it buffs the entire KS, I think you've got a valid argument, but if it only buffs the first assault then I don't think it would be worth it.

I tested this mechanic myself at the test dummies in Org and did about 10 of each. I noticed no difference in overall damage that would indicate 25% damage increase on all 7 hits, nor did I see any increase or decrease in Maximum Hit or Minimum Hit. This is not confirmed and by no means am I closing the case on this one, but at a GLANCE, it appears the 25% damage increase is not transferring through the entire KS.

Am still testing as we speak. Will post more information as I learn more.

I can't currently test this in-game so take this as a theory. It might be becase stealth is not broken by dealing damage from Killing Spree but is rather broken immediately just by activating the cooldown. Just like Blade Flurry cast used to break stealth.

This is relatively easy to test so I did.

Talented Nightstalker in a Combat spec, equipped 2x Dirk to tighten the weapon damage ranges, and removed both trinkets. No other procs or anything present. Attacking the level 85 training dummy.

Confirmed Nightstalker boosted Sinister Strike by 25% when used in Stealth (2839 / 2273).

Stealthed, moved out of melee range of the dummy, hit Killing Spree. What actually wound up happening-
All at the same timestamp: Stealth faded, I gained the "Killing Spree" aura (teleported here), white swing hit the dummy, Killing Spree MH crit for 5508, and OH hit for 2341.
Following that, subsequent KS numbers: MH hits for 2139, MH crit for 4406, OH hits for 1871, OH crits for 3855.

Conclusion? The initial KS assault of MH+OH does get the Nightstalker +25% buff (5508/4406, 2341/1871, both 1.25). All the others do not receive the buff.

It's not that this is a super-serious thread -- at least, any more so than any other EJ thread. It's that there's a difference between posing a question (as you initially did) and posting idle conjecture about what a conclusion "must" be without doing any of the relatively simple testing or mathyness that would be required to actually find out the answer.

It's the difference between making a useful post, as the OP urges us to do in this thread, and making a post that doesn't really offer any benefit. If we don't know the answer and aren't going to help get the rest of us closer to finding that answer, we shouldn't be posting about it, regardless of the "seriousness" of the thread.

Viper's reaponse was actually super-polite.

It seems that for Subtlety (and I see no reason to assume also combat), CT will have a higher priority than Eviscerate, at least at the end of Cata (I don't know how these scale). With no stacking buffs or procs, using H Feeding Frenzy in my MH (with +50 AP) I got the following after using 19 Ruptures, 19 CTs, and 19 Eviscerates, making sure to use them in that order so both CT and Eviscerate are used in the SV window Rupture provides.

The results:

Rupture (27.6% cri) -> 1106265
CT (DoT) (0% cri) -> 730838
Evisc (31.6% cri) -> 697702
CT (26.3% cri) -> 168963

Note that CT crit less than Eviscerate and still did more damage. I checked earlier and Eviscerate was winning slightly over the DoT, but when adding CT initial damage Evisc still lost. I did not check the crit %s for that instant but I assume Evisc had more crits.

Edit:
The ramifications are that we will only be using eviscerate when both the Rupture and CT buffs are up and at least one has a fairly high duration. We could potentially let CT's DoT or Rupture fade, as long as we can get it up again before the second DoT expires.

You don't mention it, so I'll ask. Is that on a single target? My assumption is that it is, but assuming gets me in trouble.

I'm getting similar results over a longer duration of testing. I'm getting CT DoT only slightly above Evisc, but with the initial damage from the CT application it's beating by a wide margin. Comparing the CT DoT damage with other specs, it's looking like the CT DoT is also affected by Sub mastery. Until they fix this double dip looks like CT is going to be part of the ideal sub rotation.