PvE DPS / WotLK Discussion - Page 159

drumbum · 10/29/08, 3:05 PM

Originally Posted by tetracycloide

Some of both. Changing ArPen to a raiting made it less effective against low armor targets and removed ArPen scaling with itself. Previously the closer a player got to reducing a target's armor to 0 the more valuable each addition point in ArPen become. Now ArPen removes a percentage of the remaining armor, so each point is worth the same as the one before it and the stat has equal value no matter what amount of armor the target has. The new stat also applies as a percentage reduction on the targets current armor instead of max armor, so -armor debuffs like sunder armor and expose armor actually reduce ArPen's effectiveness.

Armor penetration rating still has the exact same scaling effect with itself as armor penetration had pre-3.0. Removing the first 1% of a target's armor is still a smaller net damage increase than removing the last 1% of their armor. (As an example: if a mob has 1000 armor, the reduction from 1000 to 990 is a significantly smaller damage increase than the reduction from 10 to 0 is.)

To be clear, the changes to armor penetration actually left it in essentially the same state it already was. By that I mean that its value really hasn't diminished as much as some people have suggested. The only things that behave differently now is that armor penetration rating is more effective on higher armor targets than lower armor targets, which is clearly the reverse of previous. However the repercussions of this effect are more dramatic in PVP scenarios (where armor value varies widely), whereas in raids usually most bosses have essentially the same amount of armor.

I noticed Vulajin's WOTLK spreadsheet uses a default armor value of 10900 for a raid boss at level 83. I'm not sure if this is accurate, or whether it has been increased yet to accomodate the ~10% armor increase that Blizzard announced not long ago, but I ran some numbers. 700 armor penetration (pre-3.0) would obviously have removed 700 armor from this boss. 100 armor penetration rating (which is the same item budget) at level 80 removes about 708 armor from a 10,900 armor boss. So the effect is roughly in the same ballpark in this particular example, and while it'll vary somewhat, it's not going to be HUGE swings that some people have suggested. However it would be more accurate to compare armor penetration rating against other stats, because if every other stat became stronger in WOTLK, then armor penetration would still be behind even if it didn't become worse. The spreadsheets will eventually answer this question best.

One other perhaps unfortunate side effects of the new system is that static armor reductions (things like Sunder Armor, Expose Armor, etc.) that remove non-percentage amounts of armor actually make armor penetration weaker. That is, the contribution of damage from armor penetration rating is higher when you have less static armor removal buffs and debuffs, than it is when they are present. This doesn't mean that using non-percentage based armor removal buffs is ever a damage decrease (that can't happen) but it does mean that if you combine both armor penetration rating and non-percentage based armor removal abilities at the same time, they sort of diminish the value of each other (the whole is *less* than the sum of the parts). This isn't too significant overall but it is something that I don't believe happens with any other stats.

mako · 10/29/08, 3:14 PM

Originally Posted by Ena.the.rogue

Your WWS is a little confusing. For Brutallus, it shows 55 counts of Relentless Strikes, but only 2 for Exploit Weakness. How is that possible? With Sub/HaT I find that Exploit Weakness never drops.

It means that exploit weakness only dropped once after the initial application. WWS is not able to tell when a buff/debuff is refreshed if it does not fall off prior to being reapplied.

zabuza6 · 10/29/08, 3:19 PM

Edit: Mako answered the expose weakness WWS question already.

And as far as the pet discussion, I'm not positive, but I would guess their crits on special attacks count towards HaT procs. I know Battle Shout affects hunter pets(before and after the raid wide BS change), and also that some hunter pets have buffs that affect the whole group. This would imply their crits count, though obviously it's not proof, wouldn't know until I had my hunter test it with me.

Chaboi · 10/29/08, 3:25 PM

This is something that I was hoping to get addressed. I was curious about if the % of armor pen was off the whole number the boss had before debuffs or if it scaled with it as sunders etc. were added to the boss. Another thing I was hoping you could comment on is combat maces. Is the 15% armor pen really viable? With the 10% increase in armor it would scale with that making the effect somewhat negated. As my gear currently stands with 2 pieces of tier 6 I have 30% armor ignore with maces. Is that more beneficial than combat swords since the extra swing from WF was taken away?

◊ chalon · 10/29/08, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by drumbum

I noticed Vulajin's WOTLK spreadsheet uses a default armor value of 10900 for a raid boss at level 83. I'm not sure if this is accurate, or whether it has been increased yet to accomodate the ~10% armor increase that Blizzard announced not long ago, but I ran some numbers. 700 armor penetration (pre-3.0) would obviously have removed 700 armor from this boss. 100 armor penetration rating (which is the same item budget) at level 80 removes about 708 armor from a 10,900 armor boss. So the effect is roughly in the same ballpark in this particular example, and while it'll vary somewhat, it's not going to be HUGE swings that some people have suggested. However it would be more accurate to compare armor penetration rating against other stats, because if every other stat became stronger in WOTLK, then armor penetration would still be behind even if it didn't become worse. The spreadsheets will eventually answer this question best.

One other perhaps unfortunate side effects of the new system is that static armor reductions (things like Sunder Armor, Expose Armor, etc.) that remove non-percentage amounts of armor actually make armor penetration weaker. That is, the contribution of damage from armor penetration rating is higher when you have less static armor removal buffs and debuffs, than it is when they are present. This doesn't mean that using non-percentage based armor removal buffs is ever a damage decrease (that can't happen) but it does mean that if you combine both armor penetration rating and non-percentage based armor removal abilities at the same time, they sort of diminish the value of each other (the whole is *less* than the sum of the parts). This isn't too significant overall but it is something that I don't believe happens with any other stats.

My understanding is that the armor penetration percent is applied after any armor debuffs. So for instance you can't just say 10900 * (ArPR/15.39 * 0.01) armor reduced (which would get your 708 number).

In actuality, it's 10900 - 3925 - 1260 armor on the target, so the calculation is:
5715 * (100/15.39 * 0.01) = 371 armor reduction
This is substantially less what the original 700 would've been, which is why the value has gone down significantly.

However, that 10900 number is prior to the 10% boss armor change, so in actuality it's going to be more like 11990 starting out, or:
6805 * (100/15.39 * 0.01) = 442 armor reduction

drumbum · 10/29/08, 4:13 PM

Originally Posted by chalon

My understanding is that the armor penetration percent is applied after any armor debuffs. So for instance you can't just say 10900 * (ArPR/15.39 * 0.01) armor reduced (which would get your 708 number).

In actuality, it's 10900 - 3925 - 1260 armor on the target, so the calculation is:
5715 * (ArPR/15.39 * 0.01) = 371 armor reduction
This is substantially less what the original 700 would've been, which is why the value has gone down significantly.

However, that 10900 number is prior to the 10% boss armor change, so in actuality it's going to be more like 11990 starting out, or:
6805 * (ArPR/15.39 * 0.01) = 442 armor reduction

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I hadn't realized just how drastic the effect between armor penetration rating and non-percentage based armor removal is. It is essentially the very existence of these huge armor removal abilities that hurts armor penetration rating so significantly.

This entire problem could be totally avoided if Blizzard were to apply armor penetration rating first, and then afterward subtract off non-percentage armor reductions. I'd be curious to see if Blizzard actually wants armor penetration rating to behave this way, or if they simply hadn't thought everything through. (Or even perhaps they did realize it, but implementing it would have required extensive recoding of their armor buff/debuff system.)

Originally Posted by Chaboi

This is something that I was hoping to get addressed. I was curious about if the % of armor pen was off the whole number the boss had before debuffs or if it scaled with it as sunders etc. were added to the boss. Another thing I was hoping you could comment on is combat maces. Is the 15% armor pen really viable? With the 10% increase in armor it would scale with that making the effect somewhat negated. As my gear currently stands with 2 pieces of tier 6 I have 30% armor ignore with maces. Is that more beneficial than combat swords since the extra swing from WF was taken away?

That question is better answered by a spreadsheet (there are too many variables). But, essentially Mace Specialization just gives you a static ~231 armor penetrating rating, regardless of gear level. This at the very least suggests that Mace Specialization will not scale particularly well compared to Sword Specialization, and the behavior that chalon was describing will apply with Mace Specialization as well.

Onaicul · 10/29/08, 5:11 PM

I would like to jump back a bit in terms of the current topic of discussion, as i saw yet another unanswered shard question the other day and noticed I could not find if there were any reported changes from 2.4 to 3.0.

Ok, the spreadsheets available do not model this properly and it is quite the underrated dagger since 3.0 because of the large delay. The following is the better part of two hours worth of testing trying to figure out proc rate and the relative dps of the embers.

Test 1:
Proc rate
Placed the shard in the MH and unequipped OH. This was to see solely the rate the embers were produced by the shard without confusing or needing to calculate between MH and OH hits.

Hit # Time (min)
35 1:12
49 1:32
125 3:53
154 4:05
185 5:50
228 7:07
250 7:50
177 8:41
325 10:09
347 10:50
400 12:30
418 13:04
482 15:03
484 15:05
500 15:40

**Each line recorded describes the production of an ember and the time of production

Out of 15min and 40s, there were 15 embers produced, for a total time of 258.15s. On average each ember lasted 10.54s each, did 62.9 dps and was spawned at a approximate rate of 1 per minute, with a proc rate of 3% (15 embers in 500hits). There does not seem to be any required cool down in between procs as seen by two embers being produced only two seconds apart from one another. Also in tests prior to recording, embers were produced within the first ten seconds of combat, which leads me to believe there is not a required combat time prior to procs.

Test 2:
This involved simulating a 5min (360s) fight, while maintaining a standard 4e/4r CttC cycle.
The trial was prepped by buffing with HFB while in stealth and stacking three times, the fight initiated with garrote, proceeded by a Cold Blood Mutilate and then a four point SnD. The regular 4e/4r CttC cylce was maintained hereafter.

Hit # Time (min)
93 1:00
146 1:30
178 1:54
194 2:07
208 2:12
294 3:04
296 3:07

**

From the 360s active combat test, seven embers were produced, for a total up time of 91.79s. On average each ember lasted 13s each and did 86.9dps and were spawned at a rate of 1.26 embers per minute. From other tests not represented between either SnD or HFB falling (hard to write down times of embers being produced and still keep cycles going) the embers did an average of 75dps.

I hope this can be useful to some people wondering if this dagger is still useful in PVE or not. I Realize that this most likely will not be modeled into a spreadsheet, as Wrath is only a few weeks away. None the less, i did find that several players were interested in how useful the shard is, i recently won one and had some free time.

The napkin/macaroni math can be elaborated on if needed, everything is there otherwise. Also, I am not that adept at figuring out how many times each weapon attacks while dual wielding (I have no clue how to calculate 'Lightning Speed' up time from mongoose procs) therefore i do not know the combat tests proc rate on ember production.

p.s.
Armor Pen is cool

ZLoBny · 10/29/08, 5:19 PM

Hey all, just wanted to post some wws proving that HAT can do quite awesome dps

Wow Web Stats (this week)
Wow Web Stats (the week before)
Wow Web Stats (the day 3.0.2 was released)

I've been running HAT since 3.0.2 was released, doing 3.6k dps on first week, 3676 on second one and 4003 this one after I figured out the "proper" cycle (even tho I failed this week as my first snd fell off for like 10 sec) and "proper" gear.
Every subsequent week I dimished my hit rating and stacked more agi/crit.
First week was like ~350 hit buffed, with enhance shaman and feral in raid.
Second week was 268 hit buffed, without enhance / feral / dps warrior / MM hunter.
This week was 223 hit rating buffed, with feral and MM hunter in raid,
Group setup on Brutallus was the same every time - 3 rogues + 2 hunters. (was changed for other bosses)
Also, I decided to try fast mainhand this week so I replaced my HotD with Fang of Kalecgos.

(p.s. if you look at KJ report this week, you may notice my low dps due to RL messing up with groups so we ended up with prot war who was contolling dragons and feral tank + 3 rogues. one rogue died at ~30-35% aswell)

◊ chalon · 10/29/08, 5:25 PM

It's difficult to compare those WWS because week 1, you killed Brutallus in 3:30 whereas "this week" you killed him in <3m. That 30s difference is pretty huge when you calculate the uptime of various buffs including Heroism. So it doesn't necessarily prove that you "figured it out" and thus got a DPS increase, because a non-trivial portion of that increase is from the increased raid DPS.

◊ gwystyl · 10/29/08, 5:54 PM

I think the math is there to support a fully geared rogue in a proper group that wants to run HAT, but it does bear noting that at this point, the rogues posting on the matter are at full end-game Sunwell gear and we have 2 earlier combat rogues that have posted findings even higher. Add to this the fact that your peer group members have exceptionally high crit ratings which will all go away until Icecrown level gearing and it's sadly something you can enjoy in the moment but probably isn't the way you want to raid through most of WotLK.

FredRogue · 10/29/08, 5:57 PM

I would like to know if with the new Vigor Glyph that gives +10 energy (120 total), it is worth spend one point on this talent

Kaiser Sosze · 10/29/08, 6:03 PM

Originally Posted by Onaicul

I would like to jump back a bit in terms of the current topic of discussion, as i saw yet another unanswered shard question the other day and noticed I could not find if there were any reported changes from 2.4 to 3.0.Ok, the spreadsheets available do not model this properly and it is quite the underrated dagger since 3.0 because of the large delay. The following is the better part of two hours worth of testing trying to figure out proc rate and the relative dps of the embers.
Out of 15min and 40s, there were 15 embers produced, for a total time of 258.15s. On average each ember lasted 10.54s each, did 62.9 dps and was spawned at a approximate rate of 1 per minute, with a proc rate of 3% (15 embers in 500hits). There does not seem to be any required cool down in between procs as seen by two embers being produced only two seconds apart from one another. Also in tests prior to recording, embers were produced within the first ten seconds of combat, which leads me to believe there is not a required combat time prior to procs.

Test 2:
This involved simulating a 5min (360s) fight, while maintaining a standard 4e/4r CttC cycle.
The trial was prepped by buffing with HFB while in stealth and stacking three times, the fight initiated with garrote, proceeded by a Cold Blood Mutilate and then a four point SnD. The regular 4e/4r CttC cylce was maintained hereafter.

From the 360s active combat test, seven embers were produced, for a total up time of 91.79s. On average each ember lasted 13s each and did 86.9dps and were spawned at a rate of 1.26 embers per minute. From other tests not represented between either SnD or HFB falling (hard to write down times of embers being produced and still keep cycles going) the embers did an average of 75dps.

I hope this can be useful to some people wondering if this dagger is still useful in PVE or not. I Realize that this most likely will not be modeled into a spreadsheet, as Wrath is only a few weeks away. None the less, i did find that several players were interested in how useful the shard is, i recently won one and had some free time.

The napkin/macaroni math can be elaborated on if needed, everything is there otherwise. Also, I am not that adept at figuring out how many times each weapon attacks while dual wielding (I have no clue how to calculate 'Lightning Speed' up time from mongoose procs) therefore i do not know the combat tests proc rate on ember production.

My apologies, but math was my worst subject, and a good portion of posts here I don't understand but I take in what I can. I just won this dagger the other night as well and was curious how this would perform if I went mutilate with it. I guess the best daggers I have are edge of oppression/oh badge/ trackers, does this special proc preform well in a raid ?

◊ chalon · 10/29/08, 6:16 PM

Originally Posted by FredRogue

I would like to know if with the new Vigor Glyph that gives +10 energy (120 total), it is worth spend one point on this talent

It makes Vigor a little bit nicer. But it still has the same issue that unless it's a fight that you're capping out on energy a lot, it doesn't give you very much outside of engage. At least as Mutilate, you aren't really ever in risk of capping out just from pooling, because the length of time you have to pool is typically very little, and you don't regenerate nearly as much energy as Combat. However, for Combat you have 3 glyphs you want to use (SS, SnD, and Rupture), so it makes it a bad tradeoff to use one on Vigor instead.

MasterDinadan · 10/29/08, 6:49 PM

If you have the raid-wide crit to support it, HaT can do good damage.
It's really difficult to model, but I figure if you get to the point where you can keep SnD and rupture up and essentially spam 5-pt eviscerates every time you have the energy, we basically have a good feel for the "maximum" that HaT can do. The problem is that you'd need insane amount of raid crits to spam 5-pt eviscerates, because they essentially only cost you 10 energy. You'd literally be spamming them at the rate of the global cooldown.

A more realistic model is that you'd sometimes alternate eviscerate and hemo/BS (I suspect BS would be better, but I'm not completely sure). Waiting for enough energy to hemo/BS would give the raid plenty of time to feed you the mere 4 combo points you need (plus one from your hemo/BS) to fuel the next eviscerate. Sometimes you may be able to skip the hemo/BS and just pool energy while waiting for the 5 points to evis.

I tried to model something like the second example by selecting a 1e cycle on the Roguecraft spreadsheet, and changing the 1e damage on the DPS sheet to match the damage of a 5 point eviscerate (so that the cycle is do one hemo/BS and then a 5 point finisher). Since the cycle didn't have SnD and Rupture, I just pretended both were up all the time and adjusted the DPS values accordingly. If I remember correctly, the outcome was less than muti or combat, which suggests that merely alternating a hemo/BS and a 5-pt finisher is not adequate to make this a top DPS spec. If you get to the point where you can start chaining finishers without using builders, this could change. And for the life of me I can't remember whether I was modeling with hemo or with backstab....

There could be problems with the way I modeled it, for example, I couldn't figure out how to model the energy returns from RS (in hindsight, I could have just changed eviscerate's energy cost and not put the talent points in RS). I may examine this spec more closely, but I hope this post at least gives some people IDEAS of how a HaT spec might play and how you'd go about modeling it's DPS.

Onaicul · 10/29/08, 7:28 PM

Originally Posted by Kaiser Sosze

My apologies, but math was my worst subject, and a good portion of posts here I don't understand but I take in what I can. I just won this dagger the other night as well and was curious how this would perform if I went mutilate with it. I guess the best daggers I have are edge of oppression/oh badge/ trackers, does this special proc preform well in a raid ?

I have yet to use this in a raid, though i will be testing it out tonight in SWP and ill post WWS to support how well it does.
As for an unchanging variable, prior to looting this, i used a Trackers blade MH and a Messenger of Fate OH. On the training dummies in org, i could get to 1400 dps. Using the Shard in MH and the trackers blade in OH, I generally reach 1450 dps. I'll post some recount data to support this once i log back into WoW, since i don't have these saved.

Also which numbers do you misunderstand and I'll break it down, I'd rather not run half a page doing each calculation.

ok, actual numbers are slightly different than i suggested, had some very very poor luck with ruthlessness during both 5min sessions.

Tracker's Blade DP MH Messenger of Fate IP OH

Shard of Azzinoth DP MH Tracker's Blade IP OH

The spreadsheet shows a drop in dps by 10 if i main hand the shard and remove the messenger, although the actual numbers show quite decent increase.

raid starts in 2 hours so... I'll get you WWS by morning

FredRogue · 10/29/08, 10:46 PM

What your thoughts about the upcoming change of SS Glyph to 50% chance from 20% would it make combat more viable than Mutilate in general?

• Aldriana · 10/29/08, 10:51 PM

It was 40% before, so it's actually a fairly small increase; we probably net an extra combo point once a minute from the change. Does it help? Yes. But it's not a huge difference. I think Mutilate is probably a little better at this point assuming you play it well, but I suspect many rogues will find that they can do more with combat just because it's easier.

FredRogue · 10/30/08, 1:13 AM

ah ok, I thought was 20% cool I will stay with mutilate then. I can't wait for a Mutilate Glyph hehe

Haoli · 10/30/08, 4:58 AM

I got into a bit of an argument with a rogue friend of mine recently, and can't seem to resolve it with him. Neither of us have some true hard data to backup our points, but I'm not sure how we would go about acquiring it, either.

Our discussion was on the effects of hit rating and how it affects your effective critical strike chance.

His viewpoint:

If, say, you added some hit rating to your character, then the attack(s) that previously were missing now have chance to hit OR crit, irregardless of how much crit you had or the percentage of normal hits that were previously landing.

In essence: Increasing your hit rating will always increase the number of crits that you are landing.

My viewpoint:

If, say, you added some hit rating to your character, then the attack(s) that previously were missing, but now landing, will only hit and NOT crit, unless the case is such that you had no normal hits landing, and all of those landed attacks were glances or crits (I call this situation being crit-capped: Having enough crit such that it is being wasted).

In the event that one was crit capped, then the number of crits landed of your attacks attempted would only be increased to the point such that you were over the 'crit cap' by a certain amount, assuming the hit rating added was greater than the amount by which one was over their own 'crit cap'.

PSGarak · 10/30/08, 5:05 AM

Your friend is arguing for a two-roll system, you're arguing for a one-roll system. That is to say, the game makes either on or two "die rolls" for determining the result of an attack, on a table or tables populated by hit/miss/crit chances. You can see how those systems would give rise to your two views. This stuff is pretty well covered in various threads, but I won't rag on you for not searching, since you didn't know those are the terms you should look for. You're both right: White damage is one-roll, yellow damage is two-roll. The two rolls for yellow attacks are, if I recall correctly, hit/miss/dodge/parry/block, and hit/crit, so expertise behaves the same way.

Moon · 10/30/08, 5:15 AM

Originally Posted by FredRogue

ah ok, I thought was 20% cool I will stay with mutilate then. I can't wait for a Mutilate Glyph hehe

Pure conjecture here, but considering how well mutilate is performing, don't expect a mutilate glyph.

Binya · 10/30/08, 7:23 AM

Last night was my first full swp raid since 3.0 and i found some problems for me while playing mutilate. On nearly all Bosses my dps was compareable to one of our warglaive rogues (full t6 vs t6 + badge legs+twins shoulders) but on some of our kj trys I was far (up to 800dps) behind him on the dps. While he is hit capped I regemed my gear completely to agi gems i noticed some very annoying miss chains on white attacks. My crit rate on white attacks was at 60% on that trys an as mentioned some posts above white attacks uses a one roll system so I thought is my critrate to low for mutilate?

Also i wanted to ask when the best point is for using envenom? Due to my suboptimal weapons (twins dagger on mh and bloodboil dagger on the oh) I use wound poison for more dps on the fast oh and deadly on the slow mh... sometimes it takes a while for getting a full stack of deadly poison on the target so i envenom whenever my slice is going down or I have enough combo points to finish and my rupture is allready up. Should I wait for a full dp stack and risk to reach the energy cap or just use envenom as soon as possible?

Loot · 10/30/08, 8:17 AM

Just a small note Binya, it was proved Wound is superior only for untalented poisons, i.e. combat build, with mutilate you are way better with IP on faster and DP on slower

Krollin · 10/30/08, 8:25 AM

Originally Posted by Binya

Last night was my first full swp raid since 3.0 and i found some problems for me while playing mutilate. On nearly all Bosses my dps was compareable to one of our warglaive rogues (full t6 vs t6 + badge legs+twins shoulders) but on some of our kj trys I was far (up to 800dps) behind him on the dps. While he is hit capped I regemed my gear completely to agi gems i noticed some very annoying miss chains on white attacks. My crit rate on white attacks was at 60% on that trys an as mentioned some posts above white attacks uses a one roll system so I thought is my critrate to low for mutilate?

Also i wanted to ask when the best point is for using envenom? Due to my suboptimal weapons (twins dagger on mh and bloodboil dagger on the oh) I use wound poison for more dps on the fast oh and deadly on the slow mh... sometimes it takes a while for getting a full stack of deadly poison on the target so i envenom whenever my slice is going down or I have enough combo points to finish and my rupture is allready up. Should I wait for a full dp stack and risk to reach the energy cap or just use envenom as soon as possible?

I trust you have maxed Vile and Improved Poisons for Mutilate...

You should be wielding your fastest dagger in your MH and using IP on it and not Wound Poison for the best DPS.
Obviously if the encounter (any encounter not just KJ) means you need to use another poison then you need to.

You should be using Envenom when SnD needs refreshing and anytime when Rupture is still up.
According to the spreadsheet and in my experience 4+n/4+r is the best cycle to be maintaining. If energy and rupture allows you can slip a 4+n in before your next Rupture however you should not be pushing that to the extent that SnD goes down or worse, that you lose your HfB stack. A 3+n with a full DP stack may also be worth getting in, it still increases IP DPS by a worthwhile amount.

Energy stacking before a finisher should be de rigeur (as in "always do it") as you will be getting better use of AtoL uptime if you use that trinket and because you will get more poison procs when you Mutilate after an Envenom.

Edit: you still need to approach the spell hit cap of ~16% (215 hit rating) for your poisons so your hit rating may be too low if you have gemmed +5 hit/+5 agi gems out completely. You still need 2 orange and 2 purple gems for your RED anyway so gemming some hit to get you closer to the spell hit cap is worth doing for that reason alone.

Oshar · 10/30/08, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by gwystyl

I think the math is there to support a fully geared rogue in a proper group that wants to run HAT, but it does bear noting that at this point, the rogues posting on the matter are at full end-game Sunwell gear and we have 2 earlier combat rogues that have posted findings even higher. Add to this the fact that your peer group members have exceptionally high crit ratings which will all go away until Icecrown level gearing and it's sadly something you can enjoy in the moment but probably isn't the way you want to raid through most of WotLK.

yeah, but isnt eviscerate also hugely buffed and the spec would get even more damage that way?