If Mutilate's play style is not a problem for you, should go with Mutilate as you have much better weapons for it. If you stay with combat may need to check with spreadsheet if Anarchy or Omen is the better offhand. It's possible for the faster speed on Omen to outweigh the DPS gain on Anarchy.

My understanding is that the DPE for shiv doesn't make it useful even in this situation. It's like paying full price for an envenom but only getting 1 (maybe 2) CP, then envenoming with only that extra 1~2 CP but not getting the buff for that spent energy. You would be paying double the price for only a second or two of envenom buff. You're better off saving that energy by pooling and getting a big finisher off much more quickly in the next phase of your cycle.

I need some advice since I'm not great with numbers. I recently picked up Vulmir, the Northern Tempest which is a mace. My question is it possible to get to much armor pen? I read somewhere there is a cap if so where should i stop % wise. As of now i got the 15% talent + 20% from sunder and 11.37% from gear ( I don't remember the other debuffs we can put on the boss). I also have Grim toll which according to rating buster its 39.75%. That comes out to 86.12% armor pen not counting anything else i left out. If its to much I'm guessing I should use FotFF instead of Grim toll.

As a general rule, the more ArPen you have, the better it gets (up to opponents having zero armor, which requires more than 100% Armor Penetration). And in fact, even if you go over 100% while Grim Toll is proccing, it *still* tends to be a good choice unless you're capping very very strongly. So basically: you're fine. Grim Toll is even better for you than it is for someone with less Armor Penetration.

It was my impression that you can, in fact, benefit from armor penetration until you've reduced target armor to 0. I took a gander at some of the threads here, and found that Aldriana have made some comments on the matter which pretty much sums up what current math and modelling offers. However, as far as itemization goes, I'd still suggest spreadsheeting whichever items cause you doubt. Viable spreadsheets can be found here and here.

Hi everybody,

can you confirm that statement:
"popping my Potion of Speed + Mark of Norgannon WITH Bloodlust is the best option"

I actually play mutilate, but i think it should help combats too.

Thanks.

As far as I know, they are full of it. Using a double wound mutilate build would mean two things: (1) they are not envenoming, (2) they no longer need Improved Poisons. So in order to do better than IP/DP they'd need to put those 5 talent points from Improved Poisons somewhere that gives them more DPS, the first candidate is obviously to put 3 of the points into Improved Eviscerate. The other 2 points go into ... what? Quick Recovery? Turn the Tables?

Plug a few different options into a spreadsheet and toss around a few different dagger combinations (slow/slow, slow/fast, fast/fast), and even try a straight Xe rotation where you don't Rupture, you'll see it's still nowhere close. The rogues you're speaking of probably just didn't play IP/DP very well.

Edit: I even tried the ballyhooed 51/18/2 build where you take lightning reflexes with the double wound changes and got nowhere.

would someone mind looking at my armory profile?

The World of Warcraft Armory

Im conscerned about my gemming. With the gear I currently have I had very little Expertise so I gemmed to get near the expertise cap. My dps went up from doing so but I havent been able to find another rogue that has done the same thing.

Appreciate any tips - guilds doing ulduar for the first time tonight.

Thanks

Yes that is correct. You want to maximize your DPS by stacking DPS increasing cooldowns.

The resources are around you to do your own research.

Good places to start for your specific questions are listed below.
http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t37183-p...updated_3_1_a/
http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t39136-c...updated_3_1_a/

With that said, expertise does provide cycle stability for mutilate in that a finisher not landing could ruin your cycle.

I've done the same thing and gemmed every available slot with expertise other than to fill Meta requirements. I'm also Mutilate build whereas hitting the exp cap for combat isn't as important due to Surprised Attacks preventing your finishers from being dodged. I don't know what the particular Expertise is to shoot for for combat builds though.

Why would the damage be anywhere near comparable? Your MH poison gets a ton of extra chances to proc poisons from your yellow attacks so even if you put WP on your offhand weapon you won't see twice as much WP damage.

Right, brain fart on my behalf. I was just looking over that wws again, apparently on the last 2 tries I accidentally put double WP on, and I noticed my overall poison damage clocked in a little lower. Nvm, wp/dp it is!

Out of curiosity, (and I apologise if this has been covered elsewhere but I haven't seen anything on it thus far) has anyone looked into whether mutilate with serrated blades will become a viable option post 4pc t8?

From my PoV, the question comes down to whether or not the 30% gain to rupture damage out-weights 3 points in CQC, since the ArP from serrated blades & trinkets such as Grim Toll (or equivalents) can more than cover the loss of points in precision (probably putting hit past the poison hit cap anyway)

Very simple math suggests to me that assuming rupture is about 7.5% of our damage, a 30% increase in that would equate to roughly a 2.25% increase in dps without factoring in the 4pc t8 in anyway.

I would like to put 2 points in Throwing Spec in the standard Combat 15/51/5 build. I have played with spreadsheets to see from which talent I can steal 1 point and get the least impact on DPS. It seems that the weakest talent is Precision, followed next by Weapon Exp. It's a bit surprising - any thoughts if that is really a safe place to subtract the point?
Also, out of the 2 choices, I am tempted to actually go for 1/2 in Weapon Exp. to leave myself more room under the expertise cap so I am not restricted in gear selection (currently using [Chestguard of the Recluse] which pretty much rules out any other item with expertise on it).

Edit: After Onodrim's answer I redid my tests and got the same result as he: so Lethality weakest, then Precision and Weapon Expertise. Apparently I fudged something the first time.

According to my spreadsheet, the smallest reduction in dps is achieved through 0/2 in Endurance and 4/5 in Lethality. The reduction is marginally smaller compared to 4/5 in Precision, so obviously it's safe to assume that it'd vary from spreadsheet to spreadsheet. Still, removing a point in Lethality should be viable. At any rate, applying that to a standard combat build would leave you with two points for Throwing Specialization.

Personally, since I will be primarily playing Mutilate, and only going Combat as needed, I'm inclined to keep my gear set the same with full Expertise on it, and putting 0/2 Weapon Ex into 2/2 Throwing Spec instead.

If you have 3/5 Improved Poisons then yes, you should be using Instant Poison. As for gemming, I'm pretty sure gemming for AP/Agi as Combat is still better than gemming for ArPen.

I've seen you talk about a spec involving Fist MH, Sword OH - CQC and SS. As I've been so lucky to get Remorse to replace my former Murder im really interested in this spec and would like a second opinion and a shot at what the best combat spec with these two weapons would be. Im currently using Calamity's grasp MH.

I've tried using the 3.1 spreadsheet but seeing as some of the features arent working i dont feel like solely depending on it for answers.

ALlright, moving on. One thing - has any rogue here benefitted from a sword MH and fist oH, if so, what is the recommended talent tree? Ive seen one for fist MH and sword OH, but not the other way around.

Sword MH Fist OH is almost always a bad idea. Basically, CQC and Mace spec are well balanced against each other on both hands; relatively speaking, more of the benefit from sword spec is in the OH, and less on the MH. That is, Sword Spec benefiting only the MH gives a smaller damage increase than CQC only on the MH, but Sword Spec only on the OH gives more benefit than CQC or Mace Spec would.

Thus, using Sword OH with some other weapon MH is designed to give the higher benefit of OH sword spec without having to deal with a weaker MH weapon specialization; using a sword MH would give you the weakness of sword spec on the MH without gaining the benefit of the stronger OH effect. Thus, barring really unlikely drops (i.e., the only remotely viable MH you have is a sword, and the only remotely viable OH you have is not), it's not going to be a good option in the majority of cases.

Im sorry if i didnt express myself clearly. Im currently using Calamity's Grasp in MH and Murder in OH. What i want to do is Switch my OH (Murder) to Remorse hence i need a CQC and SS.
My real problem is that i dont know which of my current standard 15/51/5 combat spec talent point i should remove and put into Sword Specialization. Could you give me some ideas?

Nevertheless, thank you for your quick response

Obviously, it may very well vary from spreadsheet to spreadsheet, but according to mine, you'd achieve the highest potential dps with this spec.