It isn't possible to trinket+vanish in 1 keypress given that you're affected by some kind of CC that prevents you from using vanish. The macro system executes faster than the client<->server lag, so by the time the macro reaches the "/cast vanish" part, you're still stuck in the CC, unable to vanish.

Axes? MMO-Champion - World of Warcraft Guides and Raid Strategies

So far in game the only 226 ilvl ax is Last Laugh and the only axes above 226 are Furious weapons. Seems not very viable unless they add some in 3.2. Might be good for lower levels though if people leveling are having trouble finding weapons.

Gets even stranger for Orc Rogues now.

Fist/Dagger: +superior FoK damage, +Only one more weapon for Mut spec, -MH/OH have different Expertise values
Fist/Fist: +OH gets Exp bonus, -Delirium's Touch only OH
Sword/Sword: Stays the same
Axe/*: -Horrible itemization, +Exp bonus

You've got a mismatch of racials, talents, and itemization. Fast Axe has never existed beyond PvP weapons, so you're looking at Axe/Sword. Now your two best Combat choices talent wise both have the OH ignoring your racial while the MH gets it.

I have a question about hunger for blood. This is my first post so please be kind.

I did look this up, but I couldn't find anything specific about HFB only that it "no longer stacks" and its skill description.

-I know you need a bleed to cast HFB, but after the bleed wears off or the target dies, do you still get the 15% boost? Could I get HFB up on a target, switch targets, and still have my damage increase without having to cast rupture again? Does it also increase FoK damage?

A question occurred to me during General Vezax: Assuming you do not miss the interrupt either way, is it more or less energy efficient in terms of dealing damage to Kick a single target or use Fan of Knives with Throwing Specialization to interrupt and also deal damage?

I'm already convinced of the overall usefulness of Throwing Specialization, what I don't know is whether or not it is worth using over Kick given its damage component.

How does the spell lockout mechanic work on bosses? I noticed while kicking Vezax's searing flame he has cast it almost immediately after the interrupt.

Spell lockout works as normal. If he casts Searing Flame right after the interrupt, it's because someone else with a shorter lockout - such as an Enh Shaman (2 second lockout) - interrupted it, not you. This is actually the primary reason to use rogue interrupters - Kick, with it's 10 sec cooldown and 5 sec lockout is one of the few interrupts that allow a totally safe interrupt rotation with only two participants. DPS warriors and DKs, for instance, have a 4 second lockout and a 10 second cooldown, thus require 3 participants in the rotation to be totally safe in terms of an interrupt rotation. Which is, honestly, somewhat unfortunate, because I think rogue is actually one of the harder classes to interrupt with in a raid setting.

One issue is the fact FoK seems to have a small delay before the interrupt takes place. This isn't much of a problem when you are spamming FoK and hoping to knock down multiple random casts (Razorscale, Thorim) but when you absolutely have to knock a spell down (Vezax), I wouldn't take the chance that the delay will make you a little late.

This is absolutely correct. I ran into this problem while we were attempting some hard mode Vezax last night. There were a couple points where the delay was enough that it would not catch Searing Flames.

I'd have to agree that while the FoK interrupt is quite handy in many situations, it is absolutely not worth using on those occasions when the interrupt itself is vital to raid survival.

So I asked a question earlier about when to switch from t7.5 4piece + adroit to t8/8.5 pieces and it was basically go to spreadsheet, which i was using.

But I see ALOT of rogues wearing 2pc t8 or 8.5 over their t7 even though no matter how I plug it into my spreadsheet it becomes a dps loss. Is this because of a rupture-less cycle? Is is actually better to switch to 2pc as soon as you get it? My spreadsheet says that unless I equip Shoulders+Helm at the same time, that any piece or other combonation of t8 to break my current t7 bonus is a loss. And that if I DONT equip shoulders+helm at the same time then I have to wait until acquiring 4pieces of t8 and swap 4pc to 4pc for me to gain in dps.

I can understand everyones spreadsheets saying different things depending on gear and such, but I figured someone had to be in the same boat as me, yet every rogue I see is equipping t8 the moment they get it.

That's what I was hoping for, I was worried if it would be a dps increase if there was a rotation change or something else significant that maybe me or my spreadsheet is missing that needed to be altered.

Aldriana posted a rough guide to EP values (for Mutilate) in the 3.1 changes thread, in this post. I seem to recall that there was also a combat guide, but I could be mistaken. At any rate, you could use that to judge whether or not perceived upgrades are truly worthwhile breaking sets for, if you're having trouble trusting the spreadsheets.

That being said, I appear to be in the same situation as you, Frosted Adroit, currently have 4 T7.25, but only have access to 3 pieces of T8.10 right now (Ulduar did weird things with guild dynamics), and I really need to spreadsheet my gear again to make sure that I'm not being a moron.

I have a little question here. I've always played as combat in a raid environment, but recently made the change to mutilate temporarily due to a ret paladin quitting. I got 1 question on the rotation:

I am running the +4x rotation- the question is. Does one have to pool energy at all or do I just spam envenom again whenever the envenom debuff runs out?(ofc rupture is up) Since "Find Weakness" has been passive for a while- I suppose pooling isn't rly doing as much as it used to do and that you want to end the rotation as quick as possible for the envenom buff that increases poision dmg, as well as potential ruthlessness and relentless strikes procs? Is this a correct assumption?

There is some benefit to pooling before Envenom so that you can perform Mutilate under the effect of the Envenom buff.

More important than that though is that if you are already under the effects of a previous Envenom buff you should pool energy to prevent overwriting it; this will increase your Envenom uptime and thus your DPS. (This happens when your previous finisher procs Relentless Strikes and Mutilate procs Seal Fate bringing you to 4 CPs almost immediately after finishing.)

Just remember not to pool to the point that you would cap out energy (somewhere between 60 and 70 for most people).

That is what I thought- and as you can see in my post- I never did suggest using envenom while the envenom buff was already up, actually the contrary. I have encoded it into my rogue power bars, so that's easy to track. I was just unsure on the whole pooling part as mutilate rogue.

Then let me add the following, the standard talent point allotment for maximum DPS only allows one a single talent point in throwing specialization and that is assuming you are Fist/Dagger. So in order to guarantee not missing, requires you spec out of a primary DPS gaining talent point.

This makes any determination of so-called energy efficiency much more complicated because you will be taking a percentage-based DPS loss depending on whatever talent you spec out of to take 2 points in throwing spec.

Obviously, Kick itself does very little damage. But, lets face it there are Pros and Cons.

Pros:
1) You probably do more damage with FoK head-to-head vs. Kick cause Kick cause little to no damage.

Cons:
1) FoK has a significant delay before the interrupt. This shortens the already short window.
2) It also forces you to queue up a lot more energy throughout the fight. This also means you have less ability to fit extra attacks into your cooldowns. It also makes the significant delay more significant. If you don't have the energy to FoK and need to wait for regen, the delay likely means you can't get it off in time.
3) Whichever talent point you sacrifice is an overall DPS loss.

So, I really don't see why one would risk missing from delay for a very little extra damage that probably is offset by the damage loss from the respecced talent point that you lose to gain 2 points in Throwing Spec.

You asked for informed opinions and mine says its a lose/lose for Vezax. Your assumption has consequences to gameplay and talent point considerations. As such, it is not something easily quantified, but my best guess is the lost talent point will at least outweigh any potential damaged gained and even if it doesn't, the gain is so minimal the narrow windows to interrupt are just not worth it.

To make things even more against FoK, the FoK lockout is only 3 seconds vs. 5 seconds for kick. So for 25's, you can't possibly expect to use FoK anyway.

To avoid confusion, kick does zero damage now.

Kick - Spell - World of Warcraft

I generally play mutilate, since I don't have a decent main hand for combat, but for thorim I have a dual spec with throwing spec. Since my gear is expertise capped for mutilate, I was able to drop the two points from weapon expertise in the combat tree, I still needed one point in endurance to get further down the tree, but that freed up the two points I wanted for throwing spec. I suppose my question is then, can you make up with gear choice what you lose from having to drop a dps talent point to get throwing spec? (This could apply to hit as well as expertise.)

Also a comment on the envenom buff and pooling. I often find myself in a situation where I envenom and then mutilate, get 4 combo points immediately and have to wait (pool) till the envenom buff wears off, and with envenom only costing 10 energy effectively most of the time I end up with rather more energy than I am comfortable with. Would it ever be better to mutilate again rather than capping energy? You talk about pooling to 60-70, but another mutilate would use up enough of that that you would barely have enough energy to envenom afterwards. Or is there something else that I could be doing with that energy before the envenom buff runs out (assuming rupture and hfb are still up)?

Okay, that was way too complex -- let me be more specific:

I'm ALREADY specced 14/52/5. I don't care about the one point in Lethality that costs me DPS in order to have access to a guaranteed interrupt with FoK. Also, I've got divine timing and never miss an interrupt even when I use FoK instead of Kick. Now... here I am DPSing a single target, and amidst all my Sinister Strikes and finishers, I have to interrupt on occasion. Over the course of the encounter, is it more energy efficient to spend 25 energy on an interrupt that does no damage (Kick), or 50 energy on an interrupt that hits with both my weapons and has a chance to apply both poisons (Fan of Knives)?

I know Kick is the more reliable interrupt, in part because it's cheaper, in part because it's off the GCD -- this doesn't interest me. I just want to know if it's worth spending the extra 25 energy for FoK's added damage. That's it. I would think it is. I would think 25 energy for the damage component of FoK is a good deal, even on one target. But I'm not sure. This is what I want to know.

If you are already at 4+ CPs and in danger of capping energy, it's ok to overwrite the envenom buff. Mutilating again is quite wasteful.

Hence, "Just remember not to pool to the point that you would cap out energy (somewhere between 60 and 70 for most people)." Ie, if you're going to cap energy, stop pooling and continue your rotation as you normally would.

1. Are there multiple targets that would be hit by FOK aside from the one you're trying to interrupt (or are there multiple people that need to be interrupted)?
2. Can you be assured of getting the interrupt off using FOK (that is, you have enough energy available and will be able to mash your button within the confines of the GCD)?


If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you might get a slight DPS increase by using FOK instead of kick.

You will be getting this increase at the cost of a shorter spell lockout. Which means that - on a fight where your PRIMARY role is interrupting (not DPS) - you're not doing your job properly. In other words, your insistence on using FOK, and thereby keeping the boss interrupted for less time, means your RAID will have to use MORE interrupts.

You'll also possibly be damaging your own DPS cycle (because you'll constantly have to be keeping 50+ energy around in case you need to interrupt. If you get a few (un)lucky combat potency procs, you're constantly at risk of capping out your energy, which translates to lost DPS.

I think the other guy said it best. Yes, it's possibly a small DPS increase. But no, it's probably not worth the hassle.