Hmm. To be honest, I sort of agreed with it without thinking through all the details - I just sort of assumed that the quoted person had made the assertion that makes sense for white damage. And as it turns out, I don't think he did - you appear to be right.

In terms of purely white-damage considerations, haste is better than hit provided that your haste multiplier (that is, the multiplier to number of attacks base on haste - if you have 5% haste, for instance, this would be 1.05) is less than your hit mulitplier (total expected damage output modifier due to misses, dodges, crits, and glancing blows), which for most of us is true. For instance, with a 30% crit rate, a 10% miss rate, and 5% dodge rate, the second multiplier is 1 + .3 - .1 - .05 - .06 = 1.09. So, yeah, haste will usually (but not always) be better for white damage than hit. Also note that this is muddled by PPM effects which benefit from hit but not haste, crit procs that benefit from haste but not hit, and so on.

In short: there's a reason I don't like coming up with rules of thumb for stat weightings. It works so much better to calculate them rather than trying to figure out what all the wierd little interactions do.

Sorry no new information but just a question... since Aldriana's list of dps/point in page 113 didn't have Imp Evis.

Is it still true that Inscripter can get 4th major glyph, so one can get Evis glyph (+10% crit) in addition to SnD/SS/Rup glyphs?

If so, for combat build doing 5s/5r/5e cycle... is Imp Evis (with glyph) still well below Ruthlessness (or Lethality) to ed safely ignored?
Or is it getting close enough so that it can be a viable choice considering its useful for trash (and solo)?

Scriveners no longer get an extra glyph slot, so it seems unlikely that the Eviscerate glyph will be worthwhile in PvE, given than most people will want to use the glyphs for SnD, Rupture, and their combo point generator. The possible exception is Mutilate rogues, as there's currently no Mutilate glyph.

As for why I didn't list Imp Evis: I've been assuming based on rough estimates so far that Envenom is better than Eviscerate in most cases, meaning that Evis has no place in cycles. Eventually I will need to explore this in more detail, but so far this have proved to be the case, hence I don't see a lot of value in Improved Eviscerate.

Do you think there will eventually be a mutilate glyph? It seems odd to me that there are glyphs for SS, BS, even hemo but not mutilate.

Maybe i missed it in the plethora of posts, but why is the rupture glyph even remotely interesting if all it does is lengthen the duration? According to the tooltip it doesn't seem to increase the damage output by continuing to tick, i read it as just having longer intervals during the normal ticks?

Just to prevent disinformation from floating around, I feel the need to point out that 3% crit to ALL attacks is superior to 6% crit to Mutilate only. So if the rogue needs to spec Master Poisoner, they remove the points from Turn the Tables and not Close Quarters Combat in order to do so.

Edit**removed exception, there really is no exception to this rule. You can't take points from Murder and put them in Master Poisoner.

It increases it's damage by adding extra ticks at the end of the normal duration. It does not alter anything during the normal duration, be it damage or increased time intervals. The only thing your version would be good for is pvp against 2 classes, rogues and kitties. Thank God they're not that mean.

Edit2** Dang you two are fast

There's no possible way for us to know. I mean, it would makes sense that there would be at some point, but then, Blizzard has there own set of priorities and may not feel it is necessary or desirable to have one for whatever reason. Any answer to this question will be pure speculation and thus not that productive.

Tests have shown that the Rupture glyph gives 2 extra ticks doing the same amount of damage as the first 8 - that is, it does 25% more damage over 25% more time. The applications of a glyph that increases the damage of a move by 25% should be pretty clear.

However good the rupture glyph may be, it's only an increase (without changing cycles) if your rupture uptime is less than 100%. Otherwise, the extra rupture ticks are gone because rupture is being overwritten. However, if you change cycles to allow for more other finishers and fewer ruptures, then you can get more damage overall. The only time I see this really mattering is for 2-finisher cycles, as without a 3rd finisher to blow CPs on, you have a hard cap for the maximum amount you can do--100% SnD uptime and 100% rupture uptime.

However, this is all somewhat of a moot point if you determine your cycle AFTER taking into account the rupture glyph.

With Aggression change (+35% total with Imp Evis) & Glyph (+10% crit), and Vile Poison being out of reach, I wasn't sure if Env is a clear winner.

Thanks for quick replay!

Since there's just a whole bunch of information all over the place, I'm going to attempt to consolidate what I think I've learned from reading 120+ pages of this thread, and my own tests on PTR. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong.

51/5/5 is the top dps spec for 3.0 at level 70. Period. It looks like this:


PTR 3.0 Raid Mutilate Spec

Get the SnD glyph. It's mandatory.

Do not get the Rupture glyph. You won't be able to reapply rupture because it will still be ticking, and it will hose your rotation.

Opener: Stealth, HfB, HfB, HfB, garrote, SnD, Envenom

Rotation: Mutilate Mutilate, Rupture, Mutilate HfB (wait for energy cap or SnD to get low) Envenom

Caveats:

1) If the mobs are murderable, points in fleet footed should be put in murder instead.
2) If you have low crit (I still have sword spec gems) you should move the 2/2 opportunity points to Relentless Strikes to max it out.
3) Occasionally you'll hit crit christmas, and be able to throw a second Mutilate before your HfB.
4) If you don't have an ele shammy or ret paladin, or you do and they aren't willing to do their crit buff, you should move the points from Turn The Tables to Master Poisoner.
5) If you simply can't get the rotation down at all, You can remove the point from HfB, put it in Opportunity with 5/5 in Relentless Strikes, and go back to boring:

Mutilate Mutilate Rupture Mutilate Mutilate Envenom

and only lose about 50ish dps, keeping you well ahead of sword spec.

Deadly Poison now goes on your slow dagger. Instant poison now goes on your fast dagger.

Fast daggers might be better in mainhand, but then they might not, but I'm really not sure because my testing with the 1.4 speed from HMGT didn't show that. Also, the PTR spreadsheet shows the Blade of Serration outdpsing the Shard of Azzinoth in mainhand with my gear, but in testing it was much lower.

Have some hit so specials miss less (200ish?) but otherwise stack agi and AP.

Use Agility food.
Stick with Relentless Assault Flasks

DST gets passed by Shard of Contempt in dps with this build which was very confusing to me.

I don't think I missed anything. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, let's see here.
1) I don't see any reason not to take the Rupture glyph. It's pretty easy to adjust your cycle to accommodate it, and will generally give a DPS increase. For that matter, even if you don't change your cycle at all and just overwrite the end of your rupture as necessary, it certainly doesn't *cost* you any DPS.
2) Your rotation is vastly oversimplified. You appear to have a 2-Mut Rupture and a 1-Mut envenom, when really what you want is a 4+CP finisher for both, which will sometimes be 1 mutilate and sometimes 2. Additionally, you should not plan to HFB every cycle - only refresh it when it's a couple seconds from dropping. Since HFB lasts 30 seconds and your SnD is only 24 seconds, you will refresh HFB far too often if you do it every cycle.

I'm also dubious about a number of your other assertions, but given that I haven't actually worked out the numbers myself I'm going to refrain from calling them out until I have a chance to do so.

You definitely should get the Rupture glyph. What you end up doing since it ticks longer is perform 2x 4+ cp Envenoms in between your ruptures. The cycle ends up being a lot more variable based on crits. Sometimes you have to compromise and hit a 3 cp Envenom if for instance you got some bad dice rolls and your SnD is about to drop. It's higher DPS than just not running the Rupture Glyph.

EDIT: FWIW the cycle I run on Boss fights is something like this:
Stack up HfB while everyone is buffing, when it's time to pull put up Tricks on the MT. Then stealth and run up with the MT. Immediately open with Mutilate, Mutilate, SnD (2x Mutilate takes the most advantage from the 6s of Tricks, as opposed to just a Garrote). Then a 4+ CP Rupture. Then depending on where my HfB timer is, I may HfB here. Otherwise I may Mutilate (and if I've got 4 CP, Envenom). Regardless of that HfB probably needs to be refreshed by then. Then I just get into a cycle of Envenom, Rupture, Envenom, Repeat. Refreshing HfB when necessary.

Thank you. No idea why I was overusing HfB like that. I guess I'm looking for a simple rotation where one isn't possible.

My brain translates that into:



Mutilate Until you have more than 3 combo points
Rupture
(check HfB to make sure it's good. If not, HfB)
Mutilate Until you have more than 3 combo points,
(check HfB to make sure it's good. If not, HfB)
(wait for Energy to approach cap or SnD is about to drop)
Envenom

I couldn't conclusively determine if Cold Blood is best used with Envenom or Mutilate. I'd assume Envenom, but I've been using it as a lazy opener with a mutilate to get SnD up, and that would fit in well with your Tricks of the Trade trick.

As people noted, you'd want to get the rupture glyph. However it wouldn't be avaialable at 70 (until WotLK launches).

Glyph of Rupture seems to require materials from Northrend

Right, as long as you have at least 4 CP you should perform the finisher in my opinion. I think the cost of it being a 4 CP finisher instead of a 5 CP one doesn't make up for the fact that you will have less finishers (and thus, less flexibility) in your cycle if you always wait to hit 5 CP.

But there aren't really any hard and fast rules on when you should check your HfB. I just run NeedToKnow [WotLK] and stare at the timers in the middle of my screen the entire time. If I see it <4s I prepare to hit HfB when possible.

Also depending on timers and crits, quite often you will have two Envenoms between each Rupture.

Cold Blood is definitely worth it for Envenom over Mutilate.

Mutilate works off anyone's poison (eg Hunter serpent sting); Master Poisoner must be applied by you.

Remember, Master Poisoner does not apply just to you. It buffs the crit chance of *everybody* who is attacking the target you have poisoned. It's not related to the is-this-poisoned check that mutilate does at all.

I think it pretty much has to be your own poisons, as how else would it be tracked? Like, you're applying a debuff to the mob so that everyone gets a crit bonus; if it were any poison, would this mean that any mob that was poisoned by someone and attacked by you? It really only makes sense if your poison additionally applies the debuff, which means it would be tracking your poison and not just any poison.

Yeah, I've read Master Poisoner 100 times now and still can't get it through my head that it's a RAID buff. Der.

For the Rupture vs Evisc glyph. The rupture one is definitely better, however..
I'm still hoping for some adjustments upwards to the deep-subtlety tree. If it turns out to make it viable for raiding, then I'd like to investigate the cycles some more, and figure out how many finishers fit into 1 SnD cycle on avarage.
If enough other finishers fit into one SnD cycle, say 4 or 5, then most of those finishers will be Eviscerates. You simply won't make stacks of 5 Deadly Poison on a target within 6 seconds to use envenom, while overwriting your rupture isn't a good plan either. So then the Eviscerate glyph might become interesting. And I stick to might, it's just as probable that the rupture glyph remains stronger.
I'm pretty sure some point can be calculated where X Evisces versus 1 rupture makes the Eviscerate glyph the better one, depending on AP and talents, of course. It's just a matter of figuring out the X.

I dpsed the dummy in orgrimmar on the PTR for quite some time (I actually broke my mainhand dagger while doing so ). I used a 51/3/7 spec. 5/5 RS seems to be a must for me as i already struggle to get a 4+ envenom on before snd falls off. But i have only arround 30% crit and two 1.8 daggers. RS generated about 20% more energy then FA. So i guesss it will come down to 2 points in DW vs Opportunity. First is about +7% to white damage and maybe +6% to mutilate, while opportunity is 20% to mutilate. Assuming Mele is 35% and Mutilate 20% of the total damage then DW turns out as +3.65% and opportunity as +4% damage. Guess it comes down to personal preference but I am sure some spreadsheet will prove me wrong