There's no solid answer really. Mavanas ran both builds in BiS gear through his sim and didn't find evidence that one was conclusively better.

As to why he never modeled it, Aldriana might have answered that but I have no idea. There's a reason there's two sheets. Each author tailored it for his use and modeled it his particular way. You really can't make a guess about which is better without going through all the numbers and deciding for yourself. I also don't really think you can make a neutral call about which is better just because one spreadsheet lines up with your brand of logic. I don't know if this is what you're implying when you say "couple that w/my original post..."

Edit: Spreadsheets model single target damage for extended periods on a boss. Arguments about trash don't really apply since the original purpose of the sheet isn't about trash at all. So your question has to be, which spec do spreadsheets say are best to use against a boss for X amount of time?

Yes, my question in my op had to do with single target damage against bosses. I understand that spreadsheets model single target damage and have nothing to do with trash/add dps. I was just implying that the extra overall dps/damage you do get from trash/adds with the 18/51/5 w/AP gems in comparison to the 15/51/5 w/agi gem build was more or less icing on the cake.

Mutilate seems to be at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to multi-target fights, or fights that involve a lot of target switching (i.e. Life Sparks on XT hard). What, if anything, can be done in terms of playstyle to stay competitive with combat rogues on fights such as XT, Thorim, Freya (though for some reason this fight seems to not be as much of an issue?) and to an extent, Yogg? We seem to require more "ramp up" time to put out acceptable DPS on a mob, while Combat has it relatively easy.

The issues I can identify are those of SnD fragility (not having enough time to either build CPs for an acceptable Envenom, or in extreme cases, not having any Deadly stacks with which to Envenom) and lack of Rupture uptime, which should affect both specs equally. Beyond that, does the passive energy boost provided by Vitality really affect the frequency with which one can spam FoK to the point that we're seeing this discrepancy? Furthermore, are daggers still at a disadvantage with regards to FoK, even after the 1.5x buff? I know it seems I'm throwing darts blindly and trying to hit the board, but I'm quite curious as to whether I simply need to bite the bullet and grab dual spec, enchant my Combat mainhand and respec for these fights.

On XT, you should not be DPS'ing sparks at all. I don't think I've seen a strat yet that has melee take them down. On Thorim (normal and hard), Combat does very well in the arena but that's not where the fight is; when he comes down both specs are on as even footing as you can imagine and I've found I do better as Assassination in that phase (again, it's the phase that matters).

Freya and Yogg<4 do favor Combat; my own strategy is just to go with it and swap to Combat for those fights. If you're really concerned about min/max, 1K gold isn't a big investment.

Since it's difficult to provide math for those situations I tend to use Envenom when the Mob is extremely low on HP in order to use the Envenom buff for the next target - so I can build up DP stacks easier. Master Poisoner is very helpful in those Situations (e.g. Freya Adds).

Focused Attacks is the only non Cooldown Talent that comes to mind in Terms of FoK Energy Regeneration in a Mutilate Spec. Since a Combat Rogue with Vitality will regenerate energy 25% faster (not taking Combat Potency procs/Melee Focused Attack procs into account) you would need to refund 12.5 energy per FoK on average to make up for this. Assuming you have a 50% crit chance on FoK this would mean, you'll need 6.25 mobs on average to make up for Vitality not taking any Cooldowns into account.

Also keep in Mind that Cold Blood will not only WORK with FoK but raise your Energy Reg via Focused Attacks.

The white Damage component on FoK with 1.8 Speed Daggers is slightly higher that the damage of 2.6 Weapons (same DPS assumed). Be sure to equip weapon with Instant Poison in your Offhand for FoK and switch back to your regular DP Offhand for Mutilate). Afaik the chance to apply posion should be Higher when using 2.6 Weapons, as Combat would do, but even when using Daggers your additional Poison Damage and Chance to apply (via Vile and Improved Poisons) will make up for that.

I just recently switched servers and I am interested to see how I compare to other rogues on my new server. Does anyone know of a website which "ranks" individual players? (something similar to guild ranking sites is what i'm looking for). I have already spent considerable time using the armory, but i was interested if someone knew a faster method? Thank you in advance.

Only your MH will gain the additional crit. It's testable if you equip weapons with wildly varied damage ranges (i.e. a low level white fist weapon and your epic mace in the OH), and spend a lot of time going through the combat log isolating the high damage crits from the low damage ones.

So, my spreadsheet is telling me [Rune-Etched Nightblade] is about a 23 dps increase over [Void Sabre].

I, as well as some of the other rogues on my server, assumed this was because the spreadsheet is mis-calculating the ARP from the nightblade, putting it over. The void sabre looks, and from what I hear, is completely better. I just want to know why the spreadsheet is telling me it's better, and if it infact is, why?

It's better because it's faster. That 0.1 difference in speed makes up for about 1 tier's worth of itemization.

Combat potency procs, Sword-Spec procs, DP applications...

Also check if the spreadsheet you're using has the updated stats to Void Sphere, it was upgraded to an ilvl 232 weapon a while ago.

Ah, that seems to be it. Sorry.

Didn't think that .1 in weapon speed could make up for the great increase in stats/socket, especially since it's an OH. Thanks.

Even so, after updating the spreadsheet, it reads out as [Rune-Etched Nightblade] being -13 dps. I understand that unless it's about ~25 dps more (using the vague rule of thumb), it's better, but isn't the spreadsheet right in placing the [Void Sabre] ~13 dps ahead because of the socket, AGI and AP increases? I'm not questioning if it's better (unless it isn't, which I'm pretty sure isn't the case), just clarifying why for future reference.

Yeah, I was speed reading and misread the 2/3 to apply to speed instead of inc dps/ilvl.

I have a question too:

I was browsing the WowMeterOnline web, and on the page with the highest numbers on XT normal, 25man, i found this:

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay

The combat rogue did 15k dps total, and you can check his armory to see his not so great gear (in fact i believe i have better than him).
Whats odd about it are the times he casts AR.
Look closely, also click "browse events" and use CTRL+F for "adrenaline" and you will notice adrenaline rushes too close to be true.
Is this possible, is it a cheat or what?
He is not HAT with the glyph for reset of the AR cool down.

PS why it bothers me? Because the highest i have gotten is 9k there (i know its low) but i never run even close to perfect group (i only PUG unfortunately). Also i am bad at the timing of the combat Cool Downs...but this is a personal fail.

Not sure what to make of that...

His DPS is somewhat suspicious; considering the damage breakdown (if we approximate his regular DPS by dividing his damage to heart by half), he'd still have been doing 11.8k DPS. Far from possible with his/her gear and sloppy play (<90% SnD uptime, for instance).

I'm far more likley to believe that there's some log or parsing error (and that the fight was longer than 4:04) than anything else, though - especially considering everyone else's damage!

WoW Ranked - World of Warcraft Guild Rankings and Player Rankings

I would recommend this site for much beyond listing names of rogues on your server and seeing their gear at a glance. Its ranking is based on ilvl, and therefore very easily cheesed. I purposely logged out in my FL gear set one night and refreshed my own profile there and it said I was in the top 10 for the world. Problem there is I was wearing 5 pieces of PvP gear. Currently it has me not even in the world top 300 (or even top 60 for rogues), and I'm almost done with Ulduar loot (missing 4 pieces for combat BiS gearing, I think).

So it has its uses, but abiding by their 'rankings' is worthless, I'd say. The quality of a player is much more their ability to think quickly, run from fires, and not die than just what gear they wear or how well they did on Ignis this week. All of which cannot be distilled from Armory links.

Also note that the total damage done by the raid is about 59 million, which is a number far more appropriate for a hard mode kill than a regular mode kill. So there's clearly something very buggy about that particular parse.

Looks like that log was pulled from WMO; it doesn't exist anymore, and his records on the Scoreboard from that run are all gone.

Does Lethality work together with FoK if you're HaT specced?
FoK itself does not generate any combo points, yet if it crits, it does, due to HaT. But is that HaT generating, or FoK?

Combo Moves that do not require stealth is a generic term for SS, Backstab, Mutilate and Hemo. It's just shorter to write than listing all four abilities - it's not a mechanic tied to whether or not an ability gives you a combo point.

In the case of HAT, HAT is generating the combo points; not the abilities themselves. HAT is triggered by the ability.

How is Mutilate evolving as a spec so far in WOTLK? If things stay the same, can we expect 51/13/7 to ever catch up to combat in end-game gear? Or is combat a better scaling spec in all aspects of PvEing?

What are the best 2 DPS professions with 3.2 now? Anyone have approx AEP rankings for each profession?

Would the energy regeneration of 2pc t8 w/ 2pc t9 outweigh the 4pc bonus of t9 since it's somewhat lackluster?
yes, i know the stats are better on t9, let's say 3pc t9, 2pc t8.
would this be viable?