Well, they upped the AP scaling of DP from .08 to .12, for one. And they gave us a powerful set bonus based off Deadly Poison, for two.

The Deadly Poison AP coefficient was increased in 3.1.

I've seen the Dusk Blade mentioned in a few of the Armor Pen discussions as being a helpful testing tool and I'm curious, since Wowhead comments aren't terribly helpful - is there a cooldown on the proc? What sort of buff uptime can you get with it?

Well , the 2 weapons seem to have very different levels of dps , especially for the offhand... but i think that the best combo overall of combat weapons from hc ulduar is still the dual sword , that should come forward the 2 maces. I'd personally stick with the maces if i would have them ( i have CG&WD now ) , and need the swords if they come out.

If you're concerned about FoK damage you should just pick up a slow decent quality offhand rather than dagger vs non-dagger. I wouldn't consider it a selling point in either direction other than Thorim P2, in which case you'll do more with dual 2.6+ dual wound than anything else.

Speaking of FoK, when is it typically greater than single target dps, when there's 3 or more targets? Four or more?

For what it's worth, even if one of the targets is of higher priority, it's still often worth doing when the numbers favor FoK. For instance: during the Razorscale encounter, I'll target the Watcher, get my SnD going, and then start the fan spam as long as I have energy reserved for a Kick if the Watcher starts to cast Chain Lightning. Combined with the other AoE that raid members are putting out, FoK helps everything die pretty quickly, so I see no reason to do less overall damage just so one mob dies a little faster than the rest. (And with white hits on the Watcher, he's still dying ahead of the rest.)

In fact, I would argue unless there is CC to maintain, as in the case of the tunnel to Thorim, Fan away when the numbers support doing so. Just be ready to interrupt single adds that need to be interrupted.

A good example of when not to FoK even when the numbers support it is Freya's 3 add wave. If one of the mobs is substantially higher on health, you'll want to use single-target damage on the one add to burn it lower and to avoid accidentally killing off one of the others too soon. Similarly, combo points help us in performing one of our primary utility roles at that particular moment of that fight, in the form of Kidney Shotting the water elemental or storm lasher as needed.

Kologarn would be another example - yes, you have 3 targets in range at all times, but spamming FoK for the whole fight is a minimal personal DPS gain, at a substantial loss to 'Right Arm' DPS, which is what really matters in terms of controlling the flow of the fight - though during the final burn it may be worthwhile, especially working on an achievement.


Like I said, a lot of that sort of advice is encounter specific, and a lot of it will come down to the judgement of an individual rogue, and the strategy called for by a particular fight in terms of target priority. Just because you can hit 3 mobs, does not always mean that you should hit 3 mobs, which in turn doesn't mean that you shouldn't either. But if you can, and all you care about is padding the meter, then by all means, 3 is the break point at which you're better off FoKing then you are killing them one at a time.

Good call on the counter examples. I figured it was obvious specific boss strategies overruled the standard rule of Fan on 3+ mobs -- I mean, the Rogue Commandments always apply first and foremost. = )

I was wondering what is the hitcap for the finishing movements for rogues. I tried to find but can't find.

Someone knows?

A "finishing move" is a "special move", appearing in yellow.

So I would look for the "yellow cap".

These are not misses, but dodges.
Make sure you are expertise capped too.

Hello, I have a quick weapon selection question.

I'm combat specced and have [Kel'Thuzad's Reach] and [Librarian's Paper Cutter] equipped w/ mongoose (my plan has been to save the berzerker gold sink for better weapons).

Anyhow, I got lucky in Naxx a few days ago and got [Calamity's Grasp] and [Murder]. At least, I think I got lucky- my understanding is that the speed of your OH for combat rogues is very important because of the increased proc chance for deadly poison.

So, my question is, is Murder's 1.5 speed a superior- or even viable- OH alternative to the speedy paper cutter?

I should add 3 things- I simply cannot win a roll or get [Webbed Death] to drop (though I will keep trying), I plan to put the berzerker enchant on both new weapons, and I wasn't able to select the paper cutter in the updated spreadsheet.

Thank you.

Beyond the rest of the post, where the answer essentially amounts to "check a spreadsheet", just a little clarification. Combat Rogues want fast OH more for Combat Potency than anything else. And yes, 1.5 speeds are viable if they are enough of a stat/DPS upgrade over what you had before.

With the buff to ARp is Hailstorm better tham webbed death now?

Given that they're not directly in competition for any spec (except possibly HAT), I don't see how this is a meaningful question. If you're using a MH fist, WD will be better. If you're using a MH Sword, Hailstorm will be better.

I got a question. Ok me and my rogue friend are doing tricks of trade on each other, should I blow all my cooldowns once he Tricks of trade me or just blow my Killing spree, Blade Flurry or do I wait for heroism? By the way I'am combat fist.

The ideal is to get Tricksed during heroism - for that to happen, you need to know when Heroism is planned to go off and work your cooldowns around that.

BF+KS is ridiculous inside a Heroism. I highly suggest making it happen then, if you can.

It depends on the boss, really at the percent like the gnome boss in Ulduar we pop Heroism I think at 60% in phase 2, and other bosses Im not too sure.

When BF+KS is done in heroism, I guess AR is next right with the Heroism is still up?

It's worth keeping in mind which cooldown synergize with each other, and which don't. Briefly stated:

Blade Flurry synergizes with Heroism - you want them at the same time. Killing Spree does not - it doesn't really matter whether you stack them or not. And Adrenaline Rush arguably has slight *negative* synergy with Heroism - the haste means you're slightly more likely to cap out on energy through CP. Hence, for fights where there isn't a specific "burn" phase that you're using cooldowns to get to, it generally makes sense to use Adrenaline Rush somewhat independently of Heroism. If, of course, there is a specific burn phase, you stack them to make the timer and don't worry about the fact that it might be ever-so-slightly suboptimal.

TotT, on the other hand, synergizes well with KSp (as all damage can be done during the buff), gains some benefit from AR and Heroism, but only benefits minimally from Blade Flurry - and in particular, to get any benefit at all, you need to pre-cast the Blade Flurry. That is, you want to take the energy hit to activate it and regen it back before the Tricks goes off.

That said: Tricks should be happening every 30 seconds anyway, and - other than KSp (and even that's a bit debatable) it's not generally worth waiting on your cooldowns to align with a Tricks, unless you're very confident that the fight duration is such won't cost you an extra usage as a result. So the general advice I'd give is: make sure to have BF ready during Heroism (assuming you don't have to wait too long, anyway), and aligning KSps with TotTs is not a bad idea - but, other than that, stuff should mostly be used on cooldown rather than waiting for cooldowns to align.

Okay I have a question about different combat weapons.

I've seen a lot of different ideas on these forums about whether the best swords out there, which I have, are inferior to CG/WD combo. I saw one person say that the swords are slightly better, while the resounding notion that CG/WD is better still is said most. Is CG/WD better raid buffed, or are swords better with buffs. I would think the extra crit/ap/hit from raid buffs would scale better with swords, but again i'm not sure. I'm using Murder/Remorse, although I am waiting for a Rune-etched nightblade to drop from 10 man.

I was also wondering about the dps difference between the 15/51/5 and 18/51/2 specs. I feel like with swords, since the highest dps sword i have right now is 1.6 speed, that the 15/51/5 spec would actually benefit me more, but i'm not completely sure. The 18/51/2 spec just seems to not have deadly up in full stacks when I get ready to envenom with such a slow sword. I have 370 hit as well, so I'm sure it's luck. In any case, I'm not sure if one spec favors my weapon choice over the other, or not.

Thanks for your time

All of these questions can be answered through the use of a spreadsheet.