Demi9OD

Don't forget that to drain your energy you need to use a global cooldown, meaning you start kspree with 12.5 energy at the bare minimum, and potentially more from a CP proc. AR+KS has a very good chance of capping energy.

 

Valustria

I tend to use it as often as safely possible; typically, it goes something like this:

Garrote -> SnD -> SS to 5CP -> Rupture (triggering AToL's Exploit Weakness buff) -> KSp

If it's an AoE pull and I'm not worried about the tank's threat, I might pop Blade Flurry first to spread the love. But outside of dealing semi-AoE damage with it that way, I don't think there's an ideal time to use it -- it might be worth popping after you have blown trinkets or gotten procs, but I wouldn't wait too long. Just make sure you're not gonna pull aggro with it.

Edit: Damnit, this is what happens when I get distracted and come back to an open browser... people beat me to what I was gonna say.

 

Escape Hatch

I like to pop AR and BF at the same time on a single target because the haste from BF leads to more Combat Potency procs. I find that stacking all of my haste buffs with AR helps me guarantee that I will gain enough energy to get off an additional 5-point eviscerate and still be able to reapply my 5 point SnD. I run a 5s/5r/5e cycle normally, but during BF/AR/Troll Racial I can do 5s/5r/5e/5e and still get the 5s back up to start the next cycle without letting SnD drop. Without the haste buffs, sometimes AR isn't enough to get a full extra 5-point evis and still get back to a full 5-point SnD in time.


EDIT: Forgot BF costs energy. It costs more energy than you're likely to gain from extra CP procs. My perception that it made finishers easier may have been based more on my preconceived notion than reality. It's still a good idea to pop BF and AR together anyway to take most advantage of other procs such as mongoose, with which both abilities synergize well.

 

• Aldriana

That seems to me to be fallacious reasoning. Consider: with Windfury, SnD, Haste Rating, and so on, a fast OH sword will conceivably get down to about .8 speed; hence, over the course of 15 seconds, you launch roughly 19 attacks. With Blade Flurry, you get 20% haste, hence an extra 4 attacks (on average).

Now, those 4 attacks each have a 20% chance to proc Combat Potency, hence you average about .8 * 15 = 12 extra energy from Combat Potency procs - assuming all the attacks hit, which they don't, necessarily. But lets say 12 energy is a reasonable upper bound on the energy recovery of BF.

The problem? BF costs 25 energy in the first place (assuming you haven't wasted a glyph slot on the BF glyph, anyway), so it actually costs you a net of 13 energy to pop BF. Hence, using it to squeeze extra attacks into a cycle just isn't going to work reliably.

 

• Feist-Mok

The real reason to stack BF and AR is that you want to use both cooldowns at the most optimal moment w/r/t other temporary buffs and procs - i.e. when you've got a double mongoose lighting up and a nice bucket of AP from a trinket proc. Thus, waiting for that optimal situation (within reason - obviously waiting long enough that you'll lose a usage of the cooldown within fight length is silly and counterproductive) allows you to get the most juice out of any cooldown you pop under the effect of those buffs - and stacking makes it that much easier to manage. Bladeflurry provides an easy way to absorb some of the extra energy being fed in by AR right at the start, preventing capping.

 

Chaboi

One interesting thing that I have found is that during some boss fights I can blow my CD's including the use of a haste pot, then vanish and refresh the haste potion (puts it on a 1 min cool down) to use the next time my blade flurry is up. The downside, however, is that I do have around 2 seconds of downtime with me doing no damage to the boss. Would the added bonus of the 2nd haste potion be negated because of the downtime? Or is this a good trick that I have found?

 

Law

Well, even with 12.5 energy from 1 GCD of wait, that puts you @ ~84 energy. A little high, but not "a very good chance of capping energy."

It is, admittedly, entirely moot on its own, but aside from AP increasing abilities, isn't it entirely irrelevant what you pop in conjunction with KS? Cool mechanics aside, KS merely gives you 10 extra attacks with both weapons in 2.5s that cannot proc combat potency. Increased haste is largely beneficial to your white damage and increases your yellow damage through combat potency/sword procs, but does nothing extra for AR or KS.

In a related piece, I would be interested to see some kind of information on what the max "wait time" for a buff is, before it becomes more DPS to just blow the cooldown instead of waiting for some kind of proc (mongoose, warp spring coil buff, etc).

 

• Feist-Mok

This depends entirely on the length of the fight. Looking at a fight like pre-nerf Brutallus (because it's really perfectly set up for these sorts of things), the last time you're going to be blowing cooldowns is at 5:40 seconds into the fight. Working backwards from there, you need to have cooldowns blown by 3:40, and 1:40 seconds into the fight for 2 minute, and by 40 seconds into the fight for 5 minutes, in order to have them up again by that point in time. The earlier you use them, the more slack you have to wait for a proc the second time you use them.

Being able to reliably predict encounter length goes a long way towards being able to maximize cooldown effectiveness. Essentially, the max wait time, is as long as it will take to lose a repeated use of the cooldown off of the backend of the encounter, or Estimated encounter length - cooldown duration.

 

Demi9OD

A hasted 1.3 speed weapon can swing three times in 2.5 seconds. Also consider latency. I wouldn't say it is never worth it to use KS during AR, just not recommended. AP, Crit, and ArPen all effect KSpree, so you can try to time it with those. As far as wait time that seems rather obvious, you just base it on length of fight. If you have sacrifice an extra cooldown to save it for a proc, it is never worth it.

 

Underz

Okay, sorry to go a bit off-topic but i looked a pages back and could not seem to find the answer so i kind of thought i need to ask. So ive looked over a few specs at 80 for combat and read up a fair bit so id like to confirm.
Would if be this with serrated blades etc. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Or this with malice etc. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Personally i think its the latter but i would like to confirm with the rogue community.

 

Demi9OD

They are very close, and it depends on your gear, and the armor of your enemy. The spreadsheet models right now say that 7/51/13 is the higher DPS build, but there is no reason to pick up opportunity, since garotte in most cases will lose you DPS over just running in un-stealthed and sinister striking. In a more dynamic fight where you will cap your energy, lethality would hold more value due to increased SS DPE. Higher armor makes serrated blades less useful. As always, consult the spreadsheet, you can figure all this out on your own.

 

• Aldriana

There's actually a difference of opinion on this; my current estimates shows 15/51/5 as better, while Vulajin's sheet prefers 13/51/7 7/51/13. I think all we can say at this point is "they're pretty close" - we'll have to wait for some more detailed modeling and estimates before we can reach an absolute consensus on the matter.

 

Law

My energy regen napkinmath I updated since it got quoted for 3 weapon swings and that's the number I used to arrive at my ~84 energy. But your conclusion I agree with 100%. It's not really a big deal. Probably not the smartest decision, because it can only do bad things, but in the best case, nothing negative occurs. To say "very likely will result in energy capped" is overstating the truth, though.

Also, you're right in saying crit and ArPen also matter, I forgot to say those things, but my point still stands. Haste doesn't help KS or AR, so popping BF during either of them will give you the same result as if you popped them without BF, unless you also happen to use a trinket at the same time. AHA! THERES the benefit! You can milk your trinket for double the benefit! If you use BF + KS + Trinket, both BF and KS will benefit from the trinket's buff for harder hits, and they all sit @ 2 min CDs (probably), so you can macro it! Excellent! AR + BF is in the same boat, too. To be clear, it's not BF helping KS, and it's not AR helping BF, they're definitely (mostly) independent, but the trinket gives both a boost. There's your benefit right there :-)

As for the "how long should I wait" question, what I was hoping for was some kind of, "Well, if you wait 10 seconds without blowing a buff you could use and nothing procs, it becomes equal/lower DPS to wait longer." I was just looking for a formalization of the wait period. It probably does depend on the fight length, as well as which buff, which trinket, and is likely going to vary radically between the different variables. If someone could cleverly figure it out though, that'd be nifty!

 

◊ Shaker

Do you mean 7/51/13? I'm not seeing where 7 points in Sub for a SS build is using the 6th and 7th points really well.

Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.

 

• Aldriana

Yes, sorry. That would be a typo. I'll edit.

 

Yerneh

I was under the impression white attacks are going off during KS, making haste actually increase the move’s damage slightly. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Also, while Aldriana noted that BF doesn’t *really* gain as much energy during AR as you think, I still feel that any haste during AR indirectly benefits the addition of the extra finisher (which may be unable to be sustained from AR alone).

 

Law

White attacks are going off during KS, but the MOVE isn't getting any increased damage from this. Those white attacks would go off anyway.

Why do you still feel like haste during AR helps you get an extra finisher? Are you saying that the energy gained by the 20% haste buff through combat potency is what gives you this boost? I think Aldriana covered that with her post, saying that on average you lose energy from BF.

Like I said earlier, popping them together with a trinket as well makes sense, in that you get to use the single trinket buff to benefit both white damage and yellow damage, but otherwise there's no special synergy.

 

Yerneh

What I meant was that haste (not so much BF, but mongoose, DST, etc) and AR are not mutually exclusive in the benefit they provide each other. In the discussion of synergizing cool downs I felt there may have been more subtle interactions then simply KS and AR being largely singular. I may be completely wrong of course, but being able to pop an AR when one has a large number of haste buffs would allow one a smoother extra finisher.

If indeed KS does not gain any benefit from haste then there is still no direct benefit, but as it was mentioned earlier, the timing of the ability to certain procs does increase its damage. I think with this in mind it does always matter when you use CDs, even if the move itself does not directly benefit from certain circumstances.

 

Law

It's the agility from mongoose that helps during an AR, more so than the haste buff. Haste is good because of the extra white damage + the larger chance for on hit procs. KS does benefit from procs such as mongoose, etc., but not because of the haste. Popping AR with a large number of haste buffs COULD allow for a smoother extra finisher IF your combat potency procs are favorable (enough to offset the cost of using BF and then some), but it's also likely for them to be unfavorable.

It is absolutely correct, however, to try and time as many of your cooldowns as is reasonable towards AP, crit, and ArPen procs. It does always matter when you use CDs, but some of them don't work with eachother very much, which makes sense.

 

RobertM

As someone new to Assassination, I wasn't sure whether Eviscerate or Envenom was the better finisher. Since this thread is thousands of posts long, I'm sure it's already been covered, but, FWIW, I just did a test in-game using either Envenom or Eviscerate to keep S&D up with CttC.

Here are my results (from Recount): ImageShack - Hosting :: roguelevel70cttctest200yk3.jpg

Here's my current (less than ideal) spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Hence, I saw a 2% increase in DPS using Eviscerate instead of Envenom. Not huge, but it's something. Maybe my results are... misleading though (I only did 5 Envenoms and 6 Eviscerates—too small a sample size, I assume, but I don't have unlimited patience with attacking targeting dummies ). And my spec could be affecting things negatively as well.

 

MasterDinadan

As you said, the difference is not significant in the least considering the small sample. Your tests have almost no support for the hypothesis that one finisher is better than another.

Furthermore, the fact that you did 5 envenoms in the first example and 6 eviscerates in the second example indicates an obvious difference in "luck." Both tests had EXACTLY the same number of melee swings, indicating that the tests were of the same duration. How did the second test get more finishers? And why is there so much more mutilate damage and less melee damage? Both have the same number of crits, roughly, so the obvious conclusion is that your eviscerate tests critted more on mutilate and critted less on melee swings. Crits are more valuable on mutilate, because of the extra combo point and that the multiplier is higher due to Lethality. The extra combo points are likely what allowed you to land 6 eviscerates instead of 5.

The ONLY differences between using eviscerate and using envenom as finishers are the damage from poisons (envenom will do less deadly poison and more instant poison) and the damage from the finisher itself (which envenom is clearly superior). There's no question in my mind. If your experiment had been balanced (meaning 6 envenoms vs 6 eviscerates) you likely would have found envenom on top (though still the results would not be that significant).

Furthermore, I think training dummies have less armor than most raid bosses, and that you probably aren't swinging at the dummy with full raid buffs. Envenom scales better with buffs, and eviscerate is penalized by armor, further widening the gap in a raid situation. There's no question, eviscerate shouldn't ever be used in a mutilate build.



Edit - anyway, to get back onto the topic of cooldowns and procs... The only reason to pop BF and AR at the same time is if you are under some other temporary buff that benefits both of them. Heroism does not benefit either (any more than it would normally benefit you) but agility, crit, or attack power buffs do. It is NOT the case that BF and AR have good synergy. It is that BF has good synergy with AP buffs, and that AR has good synergy with AP buffs. Both tend to get popped at the same time because the best time to pop one happens to be the best time to pop the other. It's a fallacy to think that rogues are popping BF because they popped AR, or vice versa

 

Halfdane

Suppose instead of a raid situation, I am hitting Cheapshot, (wait for deadly poison) Mutilate, Eviscerate/Envenom on non-elite mobs while soloing, running Instant/Deadly (no Cut to the Chase, no Slice and Dice, Improved Eviscerate). Should I be using Eviscerate or Envenom?

 

◊ Shaker

Emphasis mine, but you are very incorrect in the case of BF's interaction with haste buffs - BF multiplies with Heroism (since they are both percentage haste buffs, not haste rating buffs), and therefore the two of them together are stronger than each seperately.

Consistency. It's only a virtue if you're not a screwup.

 

Cottonface

Considering a damage distribution of 45% swing/25% sinister/15% poison/15% rupture + various, the question is, when is 60% more rupture damage plus ~3% more damage from ignoring 640 armor worth more than 30% more rupture damager plus 30% more critical damage from sinister strikes, and at 35% critical strike rate, it would be when rupture does more than ~6.75% of the damage that 7/51/13 is preferable over 15/51/5.

However, there is another thing one has to take into consideration, and that is duration of combat. Rupture demands more time than not only sinister strike damage, but also than eviscerate. In fights shorter than 3 minutes, even more so in fights shorter than 2 minutes or less, factors such as Heroism, Haste potion, Adrenaline Rush, and Blade Furry have such an impact on energy regeneration and combo point production, that one has to use Eviscerates as finishing moves more often than slice and dice or rupture. As such, my findings show, that it is favorable to go not only 15/51/5, but to ignore blood spatter in terms of 2/3 improved eviscerate, as that contributes to higher damage.

 

Pyriana

in a raid environment you should almost never be using eviscerate over envenom. Envenom ignores armor and the drop in DP is made up for by the envenom proc re-applying it faster. The only times I can think of using eviscerate are when the mob is unpoisonable or if the mob has 0 armor, and I'm not even sure about that.

Doing it from behind since 1999.