I get that feeling NOW at 70, but will it be that way at 80? Only thing I have heard is "go mutilate go mutilate go mutilate!"

I'm hoping what you say is true, so I can find out more about this fist mh/ sword oh spec

The thing is, HAT is more susceptible to interruption than other rogue builds. Any time you aren't DPSing the target, but your groupmates are, you are losing more DPS (than other rogue builds) because you can't pop finishers. Any time you are on the boss, but they aren't able to DPS, you are losing DPS because they aren't feeding you CPs. Any time anyone in your group dies, you are losing damage. Basically, the difference in DPS between optimal and sub-optimal is even greater for HAT compared to other rogue builds, and the value of that "extra survivability" hasn't changed - which is to say that it isn't a DPS increase unless you are playing poorly.

Aldriana's modeling of HAT more or less matches my raiding experience - even when everything goes my way, I'm getting beat by players I'm usually competitive with. Deep sub is fun, but it's going to need more oomph if it's going to be raid viable, especially early Wrath when everyone loses a significant portion of their crit.

So, the specs I'm considering are level 80 specs, not level 70 specs; the best variant I've found is 13/14/44, but I can't swear that's truly optimal. I'd also note that the efficacy of the spec is heavily based on one's group composition. I can imagine that with an optimal group, and the best-optimized gear, on a movement heavy fight, a HaT build might be competitive with combat. But there's an awful lot of conditionals in there, and it's worth noting (as I did in the linked posts) that there just aren't that many fights where the movement component of Shadowstep is really relevant. So I don't think it's an utterly ridiculous spec, and if you find it enjoyable that's fine; but from a strict optimality standpoint, I can't recommend it.

To address the other recent topic of discussion: I'm finding that Mutilate is starting to pull ever-so-slightly ahead of Combat for purposes of raid DPS in sustained fights; but the higher susceptibility towards disruption and general attention requires makes me suspect that from a functional perspective they run pretty close to even. My guess is that a truly excellent Mutilate rogue will do more DPS than a combat rogue is capable of, but that 90%+ of the raiding community will find that they can do as well with Combat as Mutilate. To say more than that will require more detailed analysis than we currently have access to, so for the moment I would plan to spec whichever of combat and Mutilate you happen to like better.

The reason one hears more about Mutilate than Combat is simple: because it's the first time in recorded history that a non-combat spec does top DPS, and people are excited about it. I mean, really: the last time there was an optimal DPS spec that didn't get the end-combat talent was prior to the rogue review at level 60 (neglecting the brief period when Hemo was overbuffed earlier this year, anyway). So yes, there's a lot of buzz around Mutilate right now, and if you're really really good with it it might even be a better spec; but if you prefer combat, there's really not much reason not to spec it - it's very nearly as good, and a lot easier to play (hence more likely to be played optimally and fully realize it's DPS potential).

Aren' t there 2 points too much in combat? You already have the optimal talents with 12 points set. I would rather drop Endurance/imp. Sinister Strike and 3 points in Precision and try to get Vile Poisons. But this depends on how much Hit you have with level 80.

Also your opinion that HaT is competetive with Combat on heavy movement based fights is not completely correct. In this term HaT may be even with combat or in worst case fall back (with DPS not with overall dmg) because you don't have combo points generated by HaT. An exception may be that you have a group of 3 Beastmaster Hunter and Tank but that is what I do not understand with an optimal group. If all conditions are fullfilled for a HaT spec (this means high AP rate for better finisher scaling and a high crit whitin the group) then you should be over combat.

In regards to HfB cycles being difficult to stay on top of:

I found I had some trouble with this as well when I started off.

First I tried using 4+r/+4e.

Then I tried simply using envenom as my only finisher. This was much easier, and I found myself doing much more damage. I regularly pump out 2300 + on bosses like Brut/bloodboil, where I was doing 2000-2100 with combat or using rupture with HfB spec.

Now there is probably a better way to work in rupture into my build and rotation, and certainly I need to tailor my gear more towards HfB (my crit is low, my hit is high), but if you are having trouble maintaining the rotations, just using envenom and refreshing hunger works relatively well. Of course this may also change quite a bit with lvl 80 talents and gear.

I agree,rupture seems like it takes a bit of finesse to make it work in with having to keep Hfb up.I noticed the first 4pt finisher after I get SnD up should always be envenom idk,If anyone as any advice with working cycles at 70 please post. 4-5e/3-4r/hfb seems to be the only one I find my self able to sustain.perhaps its a pooling issue? or my crit needs to be rasied?

Regarding the spec: I find that wielding fist/dagger and dumping a few points in CQC for extra crit tends to work out to more DPS than the other options. I mean, lets be clear: all the talents we're comparing are very very close, and it's entirely possible that under a slightly different set of assumptions something else works out to be better. But, with the estimates I've done, this is the best thing I've found.

Regarding movement fights: it depends to a large extent on the nature of the fight. For instance, on Maexxna, the ability to shadowstep back from getting webbed - and the fact that you top off combo points while being webbed - means you tend to lose less damage than a combat rogue who is out for longer and gains nothing other than energy during this time. On 4 Horsemen you can Shadowstep to start attacking before the rest of your group - it's true you're not getting many HaT procs during this time, but at least you're attacking which is more than the combat rogue can say. And so on. Again: I don't think it's a good spec, on the whole. I think it has too many weaknesses and not enough strengths. But movement fights do tend to lean towards it, since Shadowstep cuts down on runtime, and regardless of what else is going on, attacking is always better than not attacking. But those fights are rare, and, more to the point: even on those fights, which are "better" for Shadowstep builds, Shadowstep's damage isn't so much "ahead" as "less behind". So Shadowstep, much though you might like it to be otherwise, just isn't a competitive DPS spec for raiding at this time.

Just a few things I have noticed since raiding as mutilate post 3.0.2.

Since I realize that the guild name is an apt description of most of the people on this forum. I have raided as mutilate since 2.4 came out and am currently working on eredar twins. I am, with the exception of a ring and my bracers, well geared for Sunwell Plateau.

I don't like using mods. The only ones I do use are dbm and omen because I wouldn't be invited to raids if i didn't use them. I look for an interactive and challenging raid experience and mods remove that to a certain degree. So while I don't look down on people who do use mods, I will laugh at them on patch day .

However when 3.0.2 came out I found myself having trouble adjusting my playing style to accommodate it. Namely I simply kept forgetting to refresh hunger for blood. I first tried to use the mod slice commander but found it to be highly annoying and not all that helpful at keeping hunger for blood up. What I discovered that works well for me is that when ever I use a finisher I check all my timers and plan accordingly. This way I can keep up with hunger for blood, slice and dice, and rupture without the need for a mod. So if you are having problems keeping up your rotations but don't want to use a mod I would suggest using a triggered event, such as a finisher, as a reminder to check on how much time you have left.

Also envenom damage seems to have much more to do with combo points than deadly poison now. A 5pt envenom with a 2-3 stack seems to do more damage than a 4pt with a 4 stack. This in addition to the wind fury changes and the spell/melee hit fusion means that you can ignore the number of deadly poisons on the target with minimal, if any, dps loss.

This last point you made sounded fishy, so I decided to test it out. I went to a training dummy and tried 5 CP envenoms with a single dose of DP, and then tried 1 CP envenoms with a single dose of DP, and you were absolutely right. The 5-pt envenoms consistently hit for 763 and the 1-pt envenoms consistently hit for 271. I was sure to take off any gear with proc effects or enchants so that my stats didn't change at all during the test.

Additional testing indicated that you always do the damage listed in the envenom tooltip if you had no excess of combo points. In other words, if your combo points were less than or equal to the number of envenom doses, you'd consume exactly that many doses and do exactly that much damage. Only when the number of combo points exceeds the number of deadly poison charges are these numbers wrong.

Checking the formula for Envenom used on thottbot, it would appear that the base damage is based on the number of charges consumed, while the bonus damage from AP is based on the number of combo points. In other words, you if consume 1 charge of poison with 5 combo points, you do 148+AP*0.35 (the formula suggests you'd only do AP*.07).

I apologize if all of this has been explained previously, but I had no idea that envenom worked in this fashion and thought others might be interested in these results. It seems that envenom MAY be superior to eviscerate even if you only have 1 or 2 charges of DP up. Since the AP bonus is always 0.35 (while eviscerates ranges from 0.15 to 0.35) and the damage ignores armor, sufficient AP should make up for the fact that the base damage is lower. I would guess that the increased proc rate granted by envenom should make up for the stacks consumed, but maybe not.

Vulajin pretty much nailed this mechanic on beta almost 2 months ago: http://elitistjerks.com/893444-post2025.html.

Mutilate cycles at the level you're talking about are not at all crit-dependent. Even assuming no crits, no Ruthlessness procs, no Relentless procs, and no energy return from Focused Attacks, then you can maintain a 4+n cycle with 2xMutilate, 1x Envenom. Total energy cost is 60+60+35 = 15.5 seconds of energy regen. S'n'D lasts 21 seconds even with no talents, set bonuses or glyphs. Take home lesson - if you cannot maintain at least a 4+n cycle, the fault is yours. Not your build, not your gear, not a streak of non-crits, not anything other than your personal execution.

More realistically, in very rough terms you get 20 energy back on every finisher from Relentless, an extra combo point on every other finisher from Ruthlessness, and an extra combo point on every other Mutilate from Seal Fate. 4+r, 4+n is trivially maintainable even with bad gear. What improved gear does is let you weave in an extra 4+n from time to time. When you do so, you'll end up dropping Rupture uptime - this is the correct thing to do. An extra 4+n finisher is worth much more than a few seconds' Rupture.

A envenom at 5 cp scale at 35 % of AP and a rupture at 30 %. Do we know how many AP we need for envenom to do more damage than rupture. And if i understand the math right, Vile Poison should add to the envenom scaling even more.

That could help maintain the Mutilate cycle.

Blizzard has indicated that they will allow spec swapping during raids, so ShS builds may see some use during certain movement heavy fights, provided that it gets buffed to some degree. Spec swapping between pulls was allowed in TBC, provided you didn't mind spending the gold and having the raid wait until your friendly warlock summons you back. But I conjecture that this was not the common case. However, it seems that the dual spec feature of WOTLK allows you to store two specs and be able to hot swap them at any time, giving more incentive to discuss having two different raid viable specs to be used in different situations. So, it's not inconceivable that we could be talking about having a mostly stand-still and dps spec (mutilate/combat) and a movement heavy dps spec (shs).

You're ignoring the Glyph of Rupture which lets rupture scale at 37.5%. Futhermore Vile Poisons only increases Envenom damage by 20% while Blood Spatter increases Rupture damage by 30%. Even if you don't take Blood Spatter you should assume that in a 25-man raid you'll be getting the Mangle Debuff on the target, which will do the same thing.

Isn't this ignoring the crit rate and crit modifier on envenom? Even with low stats like 30% crit and a 200% modifier an untalented envenom is scaling with AP at 1.3 * .35 = .455. As far as I know rupture's primary advantage is that it costs 10 less energy to use, not scaling or DPS.

I don't think we've really done an apples-to-apples comparison to truly figure out which is better in the general sense; but I will say that the damage estimates I've done so far indicate that Envenom/Rupture cycles do more damage than cycles that use Envenom alone. So there is reason to believe than Envenom is *probably* better, but we do have a lot of theorycraft and math to do before we can draw conclusions on some of these topics with absolute certainty.

I was forgetting Blood Splatter and Mangle, thanks for the reminder. Still, if the 2 finisher could have damage close enough,i would love to put those 2 talent point in Fleet Footed.

At 5CP Envenom gets 35% Ap and Rupture gets 30% Ap.
With 2/2 Blood Spatter Rupture gets 39% Ap but Envenom with 3/3 Vile Poisons gets 42% Ap.
Ruptures advantage is the higher base damage and it´s lesser energy costs. But to make the Ap coefficient of Rupture higher than Envenom you need Mangle to push Rupture to get 507% Ap.

In fact yout need 30% crit to gets N dpE/Ap equal to R (0.0156). But to make N the winner it have to increase it´s damage at 30% crit by rough 19dpE. (without Mangle)

I'm sort of confused by the math in the previous post. Could someone clarify? It seems that he's saying that without mangle (and certainly without the rupture glyph, as at 70) there is easily an AP level once you're past 30% crit that would make using Envenom alone better than doing a weaving envenom/rupture cycle.

As a guild, we haven't run consistently with an arms warrior OR a feral druid since progression on KJ, so there is the distinct possibility that we could miss out on the bleed debuff. How likely is it that envenom could scale such that not only its damage is better than rupture for each use, but that its damage relative to its higher energy cost is better than rupture? This is also taking into account that not all finishers will be done at 5cp (in my experience, more finishers are done with 4cp than not, considering the probabilities of a ruthlessness proc + one hand critting on Mutilate).

My math:
Envenom:
(0.35*1.2*crit) /35 = (0.30*1.3) /25 -> crit = 1.3 = 30% crit are needed to compare with Ap.

DpE advantage of Rupture at 30% crit:
1300/25 - (740*1.2*1.3) /35 = ~ 19 dpE

Don't forget that you'll also get a bonus to magic damage in raids (Earth and Moon, or equivalent). And you need to factor in the difference in energy cost to get a meaningful comparison. Basically, these napkinmath comparisons are kind of interesting, but they don't really tell us anything about which is actually better.

Yes, I was just playing with numbers. Don´t rely too much in it.

But I mentioned the difference energy costs and say you have 50% crit Envenoms base damage ist 1300/25 - (740*1.2*1.5) /35 ~ 13.94 dpE lower.
To compare that you need 13.94 / ( (0.35*1.2*1.5) /35 - 0.39/25 ) ~ 5.8k Ap.

I don´t think that 50% crit and 5.8k Ap are numbers you are getting easily.

And this is without raidbuffs like Mangle, even things like Find Weakness are missed.
It should just give a short unsure look at Ap values.