Glyph changes:

So, between the Combat Potency and Glyph change, I'd imagine that removes Combat Shiv entirely from the equation.

The Rupture glyph change shouldn't affect the number of ticks (it still should get two additional ticks), but it will be over a shorter duration and make clipping your Rupture slightly less of a problem.

The SS glyph is a straight buff, not much to say about that.

Rupture glyph shouldn't make any difference whatsoever, should it? I mean, it was dropping after the last tick before, and that last tick was occurring at the 20 second mark (for 5-pt), so I, at least, was working with it as though it were a 20-sec ability. I view that Rupture change as primarily just a tooltip updated to reflect what's actually happening more than an actual change - unless there's some subtlety that I'm missing here.

Hmm, well, if it already faded as soon as the last tick hit then yeah, it wouldn't make a difference. I was under the impression it would do the last tick, wait one second, and then fade? But if it already worked that way then it would just be a clarification.

Question regarding the new Combat Potency change:

How does this change effect things like bladeflurry, killing spree and sword spec procs? How much of a dps loss are we looking at due to this and does the extra 10% for an additional combo point on the SS glyph make up for that reduction?

A second question is regarding our minor glyphs. The most optimal minor glyphs that I am seeing right now for PvE is Vanish, Safe Fall and Pick Pocket. Am I mistaken on these?

Referencing: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26242-r...02/#post909256

The change to Combat Potency affects absolutely nothing except Shiv builds. Blade Flurry did not proc it, Killing Spree did not proc it, Sword Spec procs are performed by the main hand so they did not proc it either.

There is really no DPS-optimal set of minor glyphs, since none of them directly affect DPS. Vanish and Sprint will definitely have their uses, but in general it's whatever you think will be most useful in a given raid.

I just tested this and no, you hit the ground before KSpree starts up, I tested it 5 times and of those times, it went off twice, after I landed, and the other 3 it didn't even go off.

The range on kspree would make this too unreliable, even if it were possible.

I am using 6/50/5, as Killing Spree is a worthless talent imo. While it is OMG fun in battlegrounds, especially with SnD/BF, it causes you to leave position on bossfights, which means loss in dps due to reposition; and you even have the risk of wiping the raid on a boss like M'uru with it.

About rotations, I find them annoying to some degree. Procs from Glyph of SS and Combat Potency more than once gave me a wasted combo point or having me waiting at 100 energy (even doing an additional SS) to be able to reapply Rupture. While 5s/5r was easy to maintain, I have been able to run 3s/5r/5e easily aswell, even had a 5s/5r/5e/5e yesterday a few times.

I also find that Adrenaline Rush more or less is obsolete now. Im having so much energy to begin with, that all AR does it allow me to do one additional 5cp FM of some sort.

However, optimal rotation at this point is imo pointless to discuss. We basically zerged SWP down yesterday, Kalegos 2 min, Brutallus 3 min, did Twins in 2 min (1 conflag), zerged M'uru/Entrop down in about 2 minutes aswel, zerged KJ down in 4 minutes without any darkness. Dps ranged between 2500 and 3300 and everything just went too fast to really establish a concious cycle; I just followed the cp and did SnD/Rupture/Eviscerate. It really doesn't matter what spec you are now or what you do, you will most likely end up with over 2500 dps anyways, even being afk doing auto attacks, so until we actually get boss fights where which allows cycles to make a difference, any theocraft discussion is imo pointless.

So is telling us about your adventure in sunwell. Although for the theorycrafter in us cycle discussion isn't pointless. Killing Spree isn't detrimental in a raid. Granted you have to usually use up energy before using it to avoid the possibility of capping it still has a use. On KJ it wasn't very useful except on dpsing down some images before a darkness of 1,000 was cast in a clump. On M'uru I found it quite useful seeing as though you can basically send melee onto M'uru while the rest clean up human adds and make it a rotation of sorts of BF/KS when the tank had good threat(which didn't take long). Ex. 1 rogue does it to the adds, then next human the other rogue does it. We got him to entropius after 2 humanoids with optimizations like that.

Granted all of Sunwell is a joke now, luxury and conviences aren't something to completely disregard.

Honestly it's a fun ability and useful in other ways(pvp) I can see some huge benefits to using the bf/ks on a 2 min while using fan every 30 to help pick up slack on possible new AoE related encounters in WotLK.

Adrenaline rush isn't obsolete. We have retarded regen now, but we can still manage to use it all for the most part.

Since spec frankly doesn't matter for raiding, I went ahead and tried deep sub in a raid for the last couple of nights. Honor Among Thieves is still bugged to not have the 1 second CD on it (and possibly is granting CPs off of white attacks - I have gained 3 CPs at once more times than I can count). In an 88 second fight, I had 3 SnD, 3 ruptures (misconfigured NeedToKnow, so I saw other rogues' ruptures) and 13 eviscerates. Combo point generation is absolutely nuts with this build, doubly so when everyone in your group can stand and DPS. Where possible, I was grouped with classes ideal for this spec - hunters, druid/warrior tanks, DPS warriors - classes that tend towards specials as often as possible.

My damage was more or less equal to the other rogues, who were specced Mutilate, so once they fix HoT, there is no way it will be raid viable (something we expected, but I like experimenting).

Some comments:

-Playstyle with the build was to use hemo to keep energy from capping out, and keep the energy bar with plenty of slack so I could belt out finishers when my CPs filled quickly.
-In a world without HoT, Shadow Dance, might be worth it, but as it is, damage is lost to the weapon swap AND it's hard to fit in 45 energy ambushes around eviscerate spam.
-Similarly, in a world where most CP generation occurs from hemo, Slaughter from the Shadows might be worth it, but as it is now, hemo was not a big enough fraction of my damage to merit the points.
-Looking at the parses, eviscerate was enough damage to sink points into Imp Evis.
-CP gain from the talent was on the order of once per second; looking through fights, in general I did a finisher every 4-5 seconds.

I apologize. It wasn't my intention to sound condecending.

on Adrenaline Rush
In the old days, with 25 energy per 4 second (6.25 per second), the infusion of fast energy was very strong, and was in fact 100% or 25 energy per 4 seconds additional for 15 seconds, that allowed a sudden burst. As 5cp costed 176 energy (with Ruthlessness and RS), AR would bring speed down to 14 seconds from normal 28 seconds.

Today, with 14.5 energy per second (7.8125 per second from normal regen and 6.75 from Combat Potency / Relentless Strikes), energy regen is up with about 100%. As AR only affects normal regen, and not combat potency, it increases energy per seconds from 14.5 to 22.375 for 15 seconds (54% additional energy for 15 seconds), which would lower the 150 energy 5cp's 10.35 second speed to 6.7 seconds. In an enviroment, where 5s/5r is basis, and even 3s/5r/5e is easily maintainable, the strenght of AR is weakend significantly.

More so, with a 5 minute cool down within 3-5 minute boss fight enviroment, it is a one trick pony, more or less only used in moments where high burst damage is needed, or as a kick starting talent, allowing you for "instant" 5cp SnD, and a solid portion of threat with the upcoming Tricks of the Trade. But aside that, it's functionality is aged and it needs a serious make-over, for instance a 2 min cool down or entirely redesigned, for it to become "useful" again; and that is why I consider AR more or less obsolete.

on Killing Spree
The reason why I say it is a useless talent in regards to raiding is, that it is uncontrollable. Several has before me pointed out, that you end up in a different position than your initial one, which in most cases on boss fights causes a loss in dps as you have to reposition, plus that it is directly lethal, both for you and for the raid, on several bosses.

Even on trash it is questionable, due to 2.5 second uptime every 2 minutes, and inferior to Blade Furry and its 15 second per 2 minute uptime. While KS on paper increases dps, it's use in raids, in its current form and for the time being, is not worthwhile, considering alternative options, like 15% increased rupture damage.

on "Taking a break from optimizing"
The reason why I said this was, because over the last months several people here has been working tireless on doing theocraft, posting aep / combat stat / rotation data, even redoing spreadsheets over and over as changes came in. The work of the theocrafters are extremely valuable, and I still use their work every day regardless what, but now as we have "optimized" specs and rotations, we are thrown into a raiding enviroment, where we hardly have time to add one combo point on trash before its dead, and where most boss fights are over before they began.

My experience of 3.0.2 is, that on one side I have a cycle and spec on paper and try to optimize myself in anyway possible, but during raiding I often have too many combo points and too much energy. So the question I ask myself is, if squeezing in an additional 5cp FM lowers your dps, then what to do, and here theocraft is usefull and always will be, but as we at the moment are producing so much dps regardless what we do on bosses that die so fast, that some of their abilities don't even trigger, even with not optimized specs nor cycles, then what is the point of optimizing anything at the moment? Shouldn't we rather sit back and wait for WotLK, taking a well deserved break, and wait for a new raiding enviroment at level 80, where the work of the theocrafters will matter again?

I don't see why Adrenaline Rush should be weaker with the new talents.
It was 1 extra Eviscerate before 3, it is 1 extra Eviscerate now.

The relative value may have changed (1 Evis extra in a cycle without one vs. 1 Evis extra in a cycle where it's already present), but the absolute damage output of AR is just the same. 1 extra Evis every 5 minutes.

Don't forget the extra SS's you put out to get those 5 combo points, too.

It never takes a lot of time to reposition yourself and you gain some extra attacks... I can't find why you would loose DPS , the only reason you could loose DPS with Killing spree is casting it when you're not far from the energy cap.

You just have to use it when you're not using Adré rush or close to refresh your SnD. Just cast it when you have nothing else left , in the gaps from using usual CD's / attacks from your cycle , and let your energy pool while it's active.

Regarding BF and Killing spree , i'm not sure , the fact you're poping in and out from Killing spree certainly makes the BF usage not optimal on trashs (even if it's actually funny) , on boss i prefer timing my cd's more accurately depending on the boss abilities and i don't use it simultaneously.

KSpree only has a 10 yard range. There's quite a lot of fights where there is only a single target within 10 yards (the boss you want to attack). You can KSpree freely and you will be sure to end up right behind the boss (exactly where you want to be) unless for some stupid reason the boss is spinning wildly or a random mob wandered within 10 yards while your KSpree was going on.

One major problem I've noticed is that it is nearly always preferable to hit a single target with KSpree. The whole jump around and hit everything nearby may be neat, but it's really a nuisance. In PVP I usually only KSpree when I'm fighting a single enemy (it's amazing then). If there's a lot of people around it just spreads the damage too much to be of any real use.

_Unless_ the boss has a large model and the hitbox is larger than the centre area of the mob (ie Brutallus) where if you invoke Killing Spree, you are warped out of position.

If KS didn't move you _at all_ until it had to move you to a second mob, it would be wonderful. As it is, it's almost certainly a net DPS loss for me.

Thing is, moving to one place behind Brut to another doesn't really cost you DPS - yeah, you may have to reposition, but you're attacking the whole time so it's fine. The only boss where I feel like Spree doesn't give good DPS is KJ, and while it's unfortunate that it's not worth using there, there's enough places where it is a DPS boost that I think it's a good ability on the whole. It's not without issues and it does take some attention to your surrounding to use well, but on the whole I find it to be a useful talent to have.

Using Killing Spree on any mob with a large model who cleaves can get you killed easily.
I had to learn it the hard way on Malygon on the beta realm.

I really don't get it, why you can hit a large mob like Brutallus or a dragon from 10 vards away from his center, but if you use KS you get ported right into the middle.

You get moved, but you are still in the hit box and you are still facing the mob. If you don't like being that close, simply back up when KSpree ends and you can continue to attack while backing up.

The only problem is if moving around has put you into some AoE zone. In most cases it shouldn't, since you are still technically behind the mob and cleaves/cones should only hit things that are in front of the mob (which is why Netherspite's breath is so easy to dodge if you stand directly on top of him). In some cases you may end up in a non-frontal AoE that happens to be going on in the middle of the boss's hit box, but it's a rare case. Other times you may end up triggering effects that involve being too close or not close enough to other players.

At any rate, frontal AoEs and lost DPS should never a problem. Keyword here is SHOULD. If for some reason KSpree is bugged and isn't putting you behind the mob (or frontal AoE's are not exclusively frontal) then there is an issue, but this is really a bug issue and not a design issue.

Well I have a quick question for the community here. From monitoring beta forums I was under the impression that mutilate was significantly better than combat. However once 3.0 hit on live I found I was doing about 1000 more dps as combat than I was doing as mutilate. Granted this was on target dummies, but also pretty discouraging as I assumed they would be at least equal. The specs I used were Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for combat and Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for mutilate. As well my gear was gemmed for combat, but the gems shouldn't be 1k dps difference should they?

Buffs to Combat made them pretty much on par.

Also, your mutilate spec is just wrong. Combat I'd pick up Killing Spree too.

Here's a mutilate spec. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Should prob still expect it behind combat on target dummies still cause you need Murderable mobs for Mutilate to pull ahead if you're geared to maximize the current mutilate (it is kinda different from pre-3.0 mutilate).

What kind of gearing would it take? will it be as simple as swaping my hit gems to agi?

That's probably a start. Check a spreadsheet. Also check the daggers you have. If you've only been collecting 2 slow daggers for mutilate, they may not be optimal. Speed gives an advantage.