Heart of the Crusader specifically says +3% crit for melee attacks, however, Master Poisoner specifically says +3% crit chance on ALL attacks. We'll obviously have to test it to make sure. However, Imp Scorch specifically states "Spell Critical Strike chance", and even if MP did both, +10% spell crit from Imp Scorch/Winter's Chill is better than +3%, and they certainly wouldn't stack.
I have been puzzling over a PvE Mutilate build (for level 70) since the beta Talents became somewhat fixed recently.
As the new Talents will be available in Patch 3.x I hope that this post is as relevant for WotLK as it (hopefully) is for the upcoming patch.
I had been looking to see if it is possible to include Master Poisoner and Turn the Tables in a 51/5/5 build. A naive exersize as I am sure most of you will agree.
However it did make me look a lot closer at each Assassination Talent in turn, so the effort was not entirely wasted.
Thanks to Aldriana's succinct analysis on the relative merits of Seal Fate vs Ruthlessness and basing Talent selection on sustained DPS over burst I have come up with hopefully is an optimal 51/5/5 Mutilate build.
As things stand the level 80 build would naturally extend to 51/13/7.
Here it is: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft . Please excuse the out of date calculator, however I have not included Infectious Poisons which would have been a major problem.
Regarding the choice of Ruthlessness over Cold Blood + Seal Fate.
For me the choice was a no brainer, a CP as a result of a finisher is more efficient, and flexible, than having to wait for the energy to use a CP generator. However the choice causes fundamental changes in which talents we choose as fillers and whether we take Turn the Tables or Master Poisoner.
Turn the Tables vs Master Poisoner.
Here the choice was less clear.
Once the decision to ditch Seal Fate was made things became a lot clearer.
The difference between TtT and MP is that TtT leads to a 6% crit increase for CP generators.
Master Poisoner on the other hand leads to an increase of 3% crit for all attacks made on the target you have poisoned.
CP generators no longer having the benefit of Seal Fate and the inclusion of Focussed Attacks (buffed to 100% chance for melee attacks) means that we not only increase the crit rate for the entire Raid (assuming I provide the buff over a Paladin, I do not lose out when a Paladin is providing the buff though) but that we also benefit from an increased energy regeneration from FA.
With the restriction that only 51 points from Assassination are to be taken it makes sense to take Master Poisoner over Turn the Tables.
A natural effect of the choice of Ruthlessness is that I have 3 Talent points to spend on fillers.
Murder and Fleet Footed can be fully talented to soak the 3 points up. I don't consider either of these Talents to be a waste, even in PvE.
The reason for the post is that I have, as yet, seen no PvE Mutilate build that does not include Cold Blood and Seal Fate and am interested to know what the experts have to say. I would also be grateful if anyone took the time to run the build through a spreadsheet to give a comparison between the more "traditional" Seal Fate build and this one.
I must apologise for not presenting any results from the Spreadsheets available, I am unable to run them for a variety of reasons.
There are a number of talents that I have been thinking through to determine whether they're worth it or not worth it, and considering the trade offs. I'm not sure I agree with all of your assessments above. It seems like the comparisons are:
Energy Generation - Quick Recovery vs Focused Attacks
*Quick Recovery. With Shard of Contempt as my only buff to Expertise, Quick Recovery would save 20 energy (for rupture) or 28 energy (for envenom) in 3.75% of ruptures/envenoms. So approximately once in every 5 min boss fight, I would gain 20-28 energy, which is approximately 1 Shiv. With the new elixirs and trinkets and food, and the value of expertise (more than hit), it seems like it may be reasonably possible to max expertise, making this talent pretty lackluster by only affecting times you miss a finishing move. There are around 3-4 finishing moves per minute.
*Focused attacks. About 30-35% of the time one of your other attacks will crit. With daggers and a normal cycle (SnD up), this talent should net about 1-1.5 energy per second (quick and dirty analysis here using one of my spreadsheets), or about 330 over the course of a boss fight.
Combo Point Generation - Ruthlessness vs Seal Fate
In a mutilate build where you pretty much only need to use a 4 or 5 combo point finisher about every 15 seconds with about 2 mutilates (+possible shiv) in the middle. Ruthlessness will give 1 combo point about every 25 seconds or so (for 3 points). Seal fate will give 1 combo point every 15 seconds or so (for 5 points). So in 75 seconds, I would get 3 combo points from Ruthlessness or 5 combo points from Seal fate, which appears to make them exactly equal, point for point. In a raid situations, where 75% of the time you're killing trash mobs that often die before you can get a finishing move off, I'd say Seal Fate is more value, point for point. They're both pretty nice though. Effectively, each combo point generated saves you a Shiv. Prior to the advent of Puncturing Wounds, when mutilate crit less often, Ruthlessness was clearly better than Seal Fate. I just don't think that's true now.
My guess is that the quick estimate Aldriana did on the DPS value of Seal Fate vs Ruthlessness may not consider its synergy with Turn the Tables and does not consider the pratical component that there will be more mutilates/combo moves than finishing moves during the majority of a raid. Even in Aldriana's calculations, the two were quite close.
Cold Blood
It's a guaranteed crit, basically 70% increased chance to crit twice every boss fight (more if they're long). Envenom crits for a LOT more than Rupture ticks through. Even if Rupture was the finishing move of choice (which I question due to Envenom's + poison application and that proccing applying other poinsions with Deadly Brew), I would still kinda want those 2 definite crit envenoms to increase DPS.
Master Poisoner vs Turn the Tables
Master poisoner will not stack with either Totem of Wrath or Heart of the Crusader. I know our raid will have both of these, so these look like worthless points to me. Amazing for solo. Useless for groups. There are going to be billions of ret paladins. In a raid, turn the tables will be up most of the time I think, so pretty much a flat 6% increased chance to crit, synergizing with both seal fate and focused attacks.
Blood Spatter vs Murder vs Fleet Footed
Murder is questionable, depending on where you're going. If you knew a lot of the mobs would not be human, giant, beast or dragonkin targets, you could pass on it. Adds 4% flat damage to those mob types. Blood Spatter adds about 52 DPS (could be more actually, I'm not sure my estimate of cycle time is good), which is about 2.5% damage, though I would personally use a Cold Blood Envenom every 2 minutes at least, lowering that slightly. Like I said earlier, I still question whether with the poison application bit of Envenom, it's synergy with Deadly Brew and Mutilate damage, whether using Rupture is the best choice. Following the Envenom attack you have an additional 15% chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. Rupture is clearly is the best choice for combat, just not sure it's worth it for Mutilate.
As for Fleet Footed, it again is situational. I know I read an analysis of why Cat's Swiftness was the best boot enchant (please hide your eyes against my Surefooted). If you're doing a lot of running or if your Main Tank thinks it's funny to kite mobs around a room to see how long it takes to die when melee can't catch up, then fleet footed is amazing. Otherwise, it's not an obvious damage improvement. For me, these three talents are where all my decisions are tied up.
I strongly, strongly disagree with the idea of not taking Seal Fate. You lose a lot of flexibility in what cycle you run if you don't have SF IMO. The two points you then spend in Blood Splatter are pointless because there's no way you will be able to run both Envenom and Rupture finishers unless you go for unoptimal smaller ones.
If we were talking about PvP I would agree with you completely.
It is my contention that the kind of flexibilty you get with Seal Fate comes with too high a cost in terms of Talent Points. You need to spend 6 to get it.
Losing Seal Fate means you are no longer tied to crit rate to help generate CP's. This makes Master Poisoner a much more attractive Talent because Turn the Tables is restricted to an increased crit rate for CP generators and MP is giving the entire raid a buff as well.
I can spend 3 of those 6 points in Ruthlessness, this gives me guaranteed 4 CP and a 60% chance of a 5 CP finisher every cycle. My cycle is then 2*Mutilate - 4/5 CP finisher.
With Seal Fate I run the risk of generating 6 CPs every cycle and have no chance of a CP after using a finisher either.
Because my energy regeneration is improved I will be able to use Rupture as and when my energy budget allows. Refreshing SnD with CttC and uptime with DP are the criteria for optimum DPS.
The use of a 3 CP Rupture is also not the end of the world, Relentless Strikes and Ruthlessness can trigger on those it too.
Unlike Combat and Subtlety where you can pick up all your dps talents as well as some filler to differentiate your playstyle/likes, Assassination is still forced to pick the same talents and has ZERO room for filler.
With Assassination, below T6 you have 3 talent points where you have to pick which DPS talent points to spend them on (Blood Spatter + Vigor, or Ruthlessness, or Imp Evisc). From T6 down you are forced to take every dps talent and then at Tier 10 have to choose between spending 3 points so you can provide group/raid utility or 3 pts on having the group/raid benefit you.
There is just very little room for choice, if any at all. And there is no room to take fun stuff like Fleet Footed, Imp EA, Quick Recovery, or Deadened Nerves.
To futher confound things is that you have to decide on whether to spend your remaining 20 pts by putting 15 in combat and 5 in Sub, or going 7 in combat and 13 in Sub. All due to the change in Relenetless.
One big factor in the SF vs Ruthlessness debate is that you will never waste a Ruthlessness proc. In a Mutilate build SF procs a wasted 6th CP all the time, so you cannot count total CPs generated. It really comes down to 3 talent pointss for a 60% chance to hit 5 CP's or 5 talent points (arguably 6) to get a chance based on your crit rate. With current level 70 end game gear you can get this chance over 90% (point for point slightly less effective than ruthlessness), but in level 80 greens the chance to proc on two mutilates is going to be less than 50% (much less valuable than ruthlessness).
Overall SF works better with abilities that generate only 1 CP such as BS. Fewer CPs are wasted.
Edit
My math was bad on the 50%. The number should be closer to 75% assuming a 15% base crit rate.
Miscellaneous thoughts on the past 2 pages of discussion:
On Professions:
As things stand, LW seems to be the runaway favorite for a top rogue profession. That we know of, it grants an extra 82 AP to bracers due to Fur Linings; an extra 30 AP and 18 crit from Wyrmscale Leg Armor, plus drums, plus any BoP items made from patterns down the road. The first two by themselves puts it ahead of everything else; the fact that you get the second two makes it, at the moment, the obvious favorite.
Inscription gives you 64 AP from the shoulder enchant, plus an extra Inscription slot. Now, we'll have to wait till we have final builds before I can say anything with certainty here, but my instinct is to say that the DPS benefit from the extra Inscription will not be particularly large. With 3 inscriptions you can already get your primary attack plus 2 finishing moves; a 4th will usually be boosting a cooldown or some such (the typical Combat rogue, for instance, would take SS or Shiv as appropriate, plus Rupture, SnD for the first 3, meaning the 4th is, like, Blade Flurry. Not negligible, but definitely not the largest DPS boost out there.
Enchanting gives a straight-up 80 AP or 40 haste from ring enchants. This puts it clearly behind LW, but probably about the same as Inscription - maybe a bit behind, again, depending on the viability of the 4th Inscription.
All I've seen from JC so far is the slightly-improved gems, which I suspect will not be enough to pull ahead of Inscription/Enchanting. So as things stand, I think LW/Enchanting or LW/Inscription will be the way to go.
I do think a concern with the professions as they stand is that some of them are sort of asking to be splashed. In the current expansion you already saw people of other classes leveling enchanting, enchanting their rings, and then dropping the profession for something else for another bonus. With the increased value of the profession-specific enchants, I can see this becoming more common, which will be rather annoying, I have to say.
On Trinkets:
Fury of the Five Flights will presumably just stack up to 20 stacks and say there all fight, at least for sustained fights. And even on fights where you have to run out, I suspect you can use your throwing weapon to keep it up. So in practice I imagine it'll be almost as good as a flat 320 AP trinket, at least for PvE.
Grim Toll and Mirror of Truth are going to be heavily dependent on the proc rate - once people get them we'll be able to estimate them a little more accurately. Assuming the wind up with the 45sec internal cooldown + high proc rate favored in late-TBC, they'd have about 20% uptime which would make Grim Toll somewhat mediocre but Mirror of Truth competitive with FotFF.
Loatheb's Shadow works out to 84 crit plus 112 average AP, which leaves it pretty far behind FotFF and (most likely) MoT. In fact, with the increased value of AP, I'm not sure this even beats Sliver, although the fact that it's a little more controllable (being activated rather than proc) might give it the edge.
On Enchants: With the current importance of AP, Massacre is probably marginally better than Mongoose for MH use, though it's close; on the OH, it's clearly superior. As gear scales, I would expect Mongoose to retake the lead on the MH - unless, of course, if Mongoose gets throttled, Massacre will be clearly superior on both hands. The value of Berserking, of course, depends on the size of the bonus and the proc rate - testing will be needed.
On Cycles: It's not at all clear to me that this Rupture change is enough to bring it into the regular Mutilate cycle - it might be, but if so, only barely. Regardless, CttC still has it's place, as it lets you use a DPS finisher in place of burning combo points on SnD. When you factor in all the damage bonuses of Envenom, CttC gains you at least 40 DPS per point (never mind the bonuses of not needing Imp SnD, and, depending on cycle, possibly not the SnD Glyph either), which, while not as good as some talents, is wholly tolerable.
On Seal Fate: I'd still like to see it as a one point talent in place of Overkill, with something else moved down to take it's place (five-point versions of Find Weakness or Deadened Nerves being the obvious choices). Overkill is just not useful, and while SF isn't bad in it's current form, the high talent point cost does cost a lot of flexibility in the tree. If 5-point Deadened Nerves was there instead, with SF being a 1-pointer, there'd be a lot more flexibility to choose between the various utility talents in the tree, which strikes me as all for the good; and it wouldn't increase the overall power of the tree by any significant amount.
Ariashley - I think you have pasted the incorrect build links.
On the point of seal fate and ruthlessness, you neglect to mention the value of having both: that it enables Finisher - 1x Mut - 4CP Finisher. Fun, certainly. Interesting to figure whether that capability is worth the investment of 9 talent points (including CB). Before cut to the chase, it wasn't, but I think part of the reason was one of practical cycles... doing finisher-mut-finisher would very likely result in dropping snd later on. Now, with those finishers likely to refresh SnD duration, perhaps no longer an issue.
There is just very little room for choice, if any at all. And there is no room to take fun stuff like Fleet Footed, Imp EA, Quick Recovery, or Deadened Nerves.
Players will always choose the spec with the most 'bang for the buck'. You've never been able to grab all the great DPS talents and the 'fun' ones as well. That's true for every class and build. I don't see it ever changing, nor would I want to. When spec'ing, you have to decide on goals and how to get there and that means giving up at least something in return.
I do agree with nosille, in a choice between Seal Fate and Ruthlessness for a Mutilate build, Ruthlessness creates no wasted CPs and that's very attractive.
After reading the past dozen pages or so, and viewing the beta forums on WOW --> In which there is no blue posting "combat tree suggestions" like there is for the other trees ---> Is the combat tree, other than the bottom grabbag stuff a dead tree now, as the premier raiding spec for rogues? I have seen nothing to indicate that is being worked on or even thought of anymore as something viable. Perhaps I am mistaken and they are finalizing each tree in an order.
All I've seen from JC so far is the slightly-improved gems, which I suspect will not be enough to pull ahead of Inscription/Enchanting. So as things stand, I think LW/Enchanting or LW/Inscription will be the way to go.
Jewelcrafting perks are pretty much the "better" gems (+7 agi, +14 ap, +7 hit rating for example), but ALSO that those gems are prismatic, so it's not that a 27 agi gem is better than a 20 agi gem, it's that a 27 agi gem is better than a 10 agi 15 sta gem, while still matching socket bonuses and activating meta gems. You can have up to 3 of those prismatic gems, giving you a few extra socket bonuses, and bonus stats while hitting them. This probably still doesn't add up to the EP value of other professions, and it'll always be a moving target, but we could probably come up with a best/worst case scenario for the EP values in specific gear sets.
Unlike Combat and Subtlety where you can pick up all your dps talents as well as some filler to differentiate your playstyle/likes, Assassination is still forced to pick the same talents and has ZERO room for filler.
This is an interesting way of thinking, since Combat and Subtlety rogues see it exactly the other way around:
They're slightly envious of Assassination rogues, since those have DPS fillers everywhere, while Combat and Subtlety rogues are forced to place 2 to 9 or 3 to 8 points respectively into talents that add zilch to their DPS. It adds some interresting tricks, yes, but not DPS.
If an extra talent was added for 2 points on the second or third tier of Combat, adding a meagre 0.4% DPS per talentpoint, then you'll probably find most combat rogues taking that one, while skipping for example Imp Sprint.
Miscellaneous thoughts on the past 2 pages of discussion:
On Professions:
...
I do think a concern with the professions as they stand is that some of them are sort of asking to be splashed. In the current expansion you already saw people of other classes leveling enchanting, enchanting their rings, and then dropping the profession for something else for another bonus. With the increased value of the profession-specific enchants, I can see this becoming more common, which will be rather annoying, I have to say.
This was reported as fixed in the WotLK Profession thread by requiring Enchanting X for the given ring enchants.
Last edited by Pharmacon : 09/18/08 at 4:35 PM.
Reason: Grammar
'Wasted' CPs from Seal Fate are completely irrelevant - you're not paying energy to get Seal Fate procs, any CPs that you do or don't use are completely free. The only thing that matters is which talent increases your DPS more. Three points in Ruthlessness gives you a 60% chance to end up with five CPs after finisher-Mutilate-Mutilate. Three points in Seal Fate will give you the same chance for five CPs if you have at least 19.1% base crit. As long as you don't need the Ruthlessness points to move down the tree, Seal Fate is better.
Jewelcrafting perks are pretty much the "better" gems (+7 agi, +14 ap, +7 hit rating for example), but ALSO that those gems are prismatic, so it's not that a 27 agi gem is better than a 20 agi gem, it's that a 27 agi gem is better than a 10 agi 15 sta gem, while still matching socket bonuses and activating meta gems. You can have up to 3 of those prismatic gems, giving you a few extra socket bonuses, and bonus stats while hitting them. This probably still doesn't add up to the EP value of other professions, and it'll always be a moving target, but we could probably come up with a best/worst case scenario for the EP values in specific gear sets.
Hmm. So lets see, you'll definitely be replacing 2 blue gems with prismatics, plus one red/yellow but getting a set bonus to compensate. If we do this via stat budget, you thus replace 2 gems of value 10 plus one of value 20 with 3 of value 27, and pick up a set bonus of value, say, 6, in the process; that's a net increase of 47, which, assuming you could realize it all in AP, would be 94 AP, solidly ahead of enchanting. Of course, you can't realize it all in AP, and you'll probably end up replacing AP/Sta and AP/crit or AP/hit gems with agi and crit or hit prismatic gems; given that non-AP stats are actually only worth 1.5 EP or so in my estimates to date, this means your advantage will be closer to (54+40+40+9)-(20+20+35)=68 EP, which puts is a bit behind Inscription and Enchanting... although it may give you access to some new items (such as the Sunwell necks).
Basically, it's too early to tell exactly how things are going to stack up; but it does appear that LW is going to be king, with one of Enchanting, Inscription, and Jewelcrafting as the second profession.
I do agree with nosille, in a choice between Seal Fate and Ruthlessness for a Mutilate build, Ruthlessness creates no wasted CPs and that's very attractive.
I find the continued mention of "wasted combo points" to be a bit strange. True, sometimes you'll get 2 crits in a row and "waste" a combo point, but that's kind of a tangential issue. The real question when comparing Seal Fate and Ruthlessness is "how often do I get a 5 combo point finisher instead of a 4 point one?"
Ruthlessness gives you a 5 pt. finisher 60% of the time. Seal Fate gets you a 5 pt. finisher 1-(1-crit chance)^4 percent of the time (apologies if my understanding is wrong, but each mutilate has a separate chance for each dagger to crit, but an individual mutilate can only generate 1 combo point from Seal Fate even if both daggers crit, right?). But in order for Seal Fate to be equivalent to Ruthlessness it has to give you 100% chance of a combo point (since it costs 5 points), and that can never happen.
However, I think this is because the last points in Seal Fate are less valuable. Assume you only put 3 points into it (same as Ruthlessness), so get an extra combo point 60% of the time when you crit. Now the formula looks like:
1-(1-(crit chance*0.6))^4 chance for a 5th combo point. If you have say 40% chance to crit, that's 66.6% chance of a 5 point finisher, slightly better than what you get from Ruthlessness.
In short, the possible wasted combo points are meaningless, all that's important is the chance of 5 pt. finishers. And it looks like you get diminishing returns from additional points in Seal Fate, and fewer than 5 points in it can give better benefits than 3 points in ruthlessness, in terms of what you get per point spent. Unless my math is wrong somewhere, which is always possible...
In the current build Deadly Brew is not working. Instant Poison seems to proc Crippling Poison, Wound and Mind-numbing seems to proc nothing.
It sounds like it works on and off, but either way it makes me really sad until the next patch. Having to run IP/DP is likely a more significant DPS decrease than the amount they reduced Poison damage by!
Hmm. So lets see, you'll definitely be replacing 2 blue gems with prismatics, plus one red/yellow but getting a set bonus to compensate. If we do this via stat budget, you thus replace 2 gems of value 10 plus one of value 20 with 3 of value 27, and pick up a set bonus of value, say, 6, in the process; that's a net increase of 47, which, assuming you could realize it all in AP, would be 94 AP, solidly ahead of enchanting. Of course, you can't realize it all in AP, and you'll probably end up replacing AP/Sta and AP/crit or AP/hit gems with agi and crit or hit prismatic gems; given that non-AP stats are actually only worth 1.5 EP or so in my estimates to date, this means your advantage will be closer to (54+40+40+9)-(20+20+35)=68 EP, which puts is a bit behind Inscription and Enchanting... although it may give you access to some new items (such as the Sunwell necks).
Basically, it's too early to tell exactly how things are going to stack up; but it does appear that LW is going to be king, with one of Enchanting, Inscription, and Jewelcrafting as the second profession.
'Wasted' CPs from Seal Fate are completely irrelevant - you're not paying energy to get Seal Fate procs, any CPs that you do or don't use are completely free. The only thing that matters is which talent increases your DPS more. Three points in Ruthlessness gives you a 60% chance to end up with five CPs after finisher-Mutilate-Mutilate. Three points in Seal Fate will give you the same chance for five CPs if you have at least 19.1% base crit. As long as you don't need the Ruthlessness points to move down the tree, Seal Fate is better.
Don't forget that Seal Fate require Cold Blood, which has extremely low value in raiding. As such, it's four talent points against three. Not necessarily enough to tip the balance, but it should be taken into account.
If violence doesn't solve your problem...
... you simply haven't been violent enough !
Ruthlessness gives you a 5 pt. finisher 60% of the time. Seal Fate gets you a 5 pt. finisher 1-(1-crit chance)^4 percent of the time (apologies if my understanding is wrong, but each mutilate has a separate chance for each dagger to crit, but an individual mutilate can only generate 1 combo point from Seal Fate even if both daggers crit, right?). But in order for Seal Fate to be equivalent to Ruthlessness it has to give you 100% chance of a combo point (since it costs 5 points), and that can never happen.
However, I think this is because the last points in Seal Fate are less valuable. Assume you only put 3 points into it (same as Ruthlessness), so get an extra combo point 60% of the time when you crit. Now the formula looks like:
1-(1-(crit chance*0.6))^4 chance for a 5th combo point. If you have say 40% chance to crit, that's 66.6% chance of a 5 point finisher, slightly better than what you get from Ruthlessness.
You're correct that if you have to pick between one and the other, Ruthless tends to give more bang for the buck; however, what you omit in your analysis is the fact that having both SF and Ruthlessness allows 1-Mutilate->4pt Finisher cycle components if both proc, which turns out to be a fairly significant DPS increase. I still think SF is a bit underwhelming for it's place in the tree, but it isn't directly replaced by Ruthlessness - having both has definite benefits.
Ah, interesting. Well, then JC is even relatively weaker. So unless JC has some nice BoP crafted items, we're probably looking at Enchanting or Inscription for the second profession.
In the current build Deadly Brew is not working. Instant Poison seems to proc Crippling Poison, Wound and Mind-numbing seems to proc nothing.
Energy Regeneration of FOcused Attacks _feels_ immense.
I'm just here to confirm this. Before the last build, it seemed to be working fine. FA seemed to have good synergy with MP and I had several +3 energy procs in a row (4 or 5). I, for one, am glad to the change to FA. Still debating between 3 points in MP or TtT.
Has anyone thought of going 54/10/7? Not necessarily that exact build - I was just throwing points wherever - but picking up both crit talents furthering the usefulness of FA?
One last question: Will MP stack with other crit increasing talents like something like imp sanctity aura?
Yup, Deadly Brew is indeed bugged.
The new FA is incredibly sweet though. No troubles keeping 2.1k dps at lvl70 with 2 1.8s weapons on blasted lands mobs with 2muti-rupture/2muti-evisc rotation as I couldn't envenom. Rupture didn't seem worth it by the way even with 2/2 Blood Spatter.
Mechanics and DPS output aside, I only meant to say that spending upwards of 5 points (actually 6 with Cold Blood) on Seal Fate only to see some benefit of it wasted doesn't sit well with me. The fact that you can get similar benefit through Ruthlessness which is several tiers displaced is just plain ugly.
If Katria's math is correct, 3+1 points in SF/CB gives only slightly more benefit than 3 points in Ruthlessness and the 4th and 5th points offer diminishing returns. In my mind SF should offer more benefit for spending 5+1 points in a tier past 20 points (where the other two trees can't reach it with 51 points in their own).
At the end of the day when final DPS builds are calculated, we all may be putting 3 in Ruthlessness and 3 in SF (+1 CB) for all I know but SF right now just seems too weak to justify it's placement in the tree.
09/18/08, 2:19 PM
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