I just have one question my main spec was mutilate but I switched over to the combat side because I know that a lot of the ulduar fights favor combat spec a lot more in some situations but on the new combat spreadhseet it says I can do 6983dps but I never come close to that dps is it just my gear or is it because i just cannot master my rotation? currently i am using:

calamities grasp mh- with wound poison
combatants bootblade oh-with deadly poison

Trinkets i am using DMCG with Wrathstone

First off, we can see your character. Secondly, those numbers that the spreadsheet give are theoretical values based off a static fight. There are exactly zero fights like that. Sometimes you can take advantage of RNG, procs and fight mechanics to exceed this value but on almost every fight without damage boosting mechanics (eg, XT-002's heart) you are unlikely to reach that number. On fights that are very much like the spreadsheets you could very well get close though; a good example might be Ignis if you were never "pot'd".

There is a nifty macro which makes TotT management much easier.

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [help] [target=focus, help] [target=targettarget, help] Tricks of the Trade

By far the best Tricks macro I've seen. I use Tricks on every CD on someone. Usually it's the tank, but other times you can get creative and have some fun. A lot of classes appreciate it, especially on fights where leet casters get huge buffs (Hodir, Lord Jarraxus, etc.) and love to see their DPS numbers pop.

It's essentially an in-fight buff that you get to pick and choose who gets it. When my CDs are down and I am going through the rotations until I can stir shit up again, I'll Tricks a DPSer.

As far as making sure your tanks dont miss out on Tricks, just wait until the fight is underway, get SnD up, get rupture up, then Tricks the tank using the macro above -- no other DPSer in the game comes close to what FoK and the proper use of CDs/weapons/poisons can do -- and to have that aggro-free? And provide a damage buff to the Tricksed...?

It's a good time to be a rogue! It's fun to see all those hunters, mages and ret paladins in our rear view mirrors! And the DKs, warriors and feral druids can only daydream about reaching your level on the Recount list.

I am wondering what I should do in Yogg. A few melee classes are doing better than me in damage on most of our tries -- and I think it's because the Yogg-Saron fight mechanic forces rogues to have to be consistently bursty -- and that's not easy to do when we are constantly target switching and running and AoE-spamming.

Which leads to my question:

Is it better inbetween brain phases while we're running around dealing with corrupters/constrictors, is better to just camp on one corruptor or constrictor until it dies, or should I continue running around spamming FoK and trying to AoE-interrupt the corrupters?

Thanks for any advice from any endgame rogues...

Yogg in general is pretty hard on the raw numbers, looking at the overall meters is not a good idea for the fight. Focus on your job: getting a stun as fast as possible, then doing as much damage to the brain in the short time you have. If that means not even moving up top because the corruptor's on the other side and the portal's coming soon, so be it.

Couldnt find a defined answer anywhere so thought id post up,

My rogue is now my main character, atm im using Greed/Steel Bladebreaker and specced CQC (bad luck on MH's),
My question is i just got the new MH mace from ToC HC 5 man, i equipped it and saw my crit drop 5%(on character screen), does this mean that my dagger is not benefiting from the CQC talent aswell or does in not show the 5% crit in character screen yet you still get it on the OH
As i see Aldriana new BiS gear is speccing 5/5 mace 1/5 CQC what would be the point if the OH dagger doenst get benefit from the CQC

Cheers for any help

I have a question about how important is expertise really for combat? I mean, I am 13 off exp cap since I swapped my t8.5 w/ the Thorim25h chest, and I didn't notice any difference at all. Is it worth capping it for combat? Or is it not so important? Cause armory quite a bit of rogues from top world guilds and some have exp even lower than me.

What do you want to do? What is your end goal?

If your end goal is to see none of your attacks dodged/parried, then go on and cap Expertise. If, however, your end goal is simply to deal as much damage as possible, then I highly recommend you consult a spreadsheet and see what it recommends as the most beneficial stat for you to stack to increase your damage output.

Im trying to figure out why a rogue in my raid is always 500 below me in energy gained. He keeps up Snd of course and his haste is 401 and mine is 421. Anyone have any ideas as to why hes so low? Its not just RNG cause he is always way below me.

My first guess would be to check whether he has Relentless Strikes or not. If he's specced 18/51/2, for instance, that would make quite an energy regen difference.

How's his DPS on pulls? I ask because keeping up SnD and actually attacking are two different things. If he's slow to switch targets and actually start attacking the next mob when his current target dies (say for instance, he is spamming Sinister Strike or Fan of Knives, and not using a macro that has a /startattack line in it to start attacking normally), that's going to result in way fewer combat potency procs over the course of the raid.

Okay, folks? Let me just give you a little hint here: 500 energy is not a matter of Combat Potency. A .1 speed difference is an extra attack every 10 seconds or so, and thus takes something like 25 minutes to build up a 500 energy difference. A 100 hit rating is even worse. So it's not that. So we can stop proposing it as a theory? Thanks.

If it's not Relentless Strikes, perhaps he frequently allows his energy to cap out. 500e => ~36 seconds spent capped, assuming he's combat, has all the Combat tree energy regen talents, and has a successful offhand attack rate sufficient to get at least 1.5 e/s from Combat Potency procs.

If he's missing those regen talents, that's at least 4 e/s. 500/4 = 125 seconds.

If he's Assassination, he's naturally getting less energy regen than Combat. Guesstimating 2 e/s less, that'd be 250 seconds to accumulate a 500e deficit.

Hi fellow rogues, I've looked over the forum to find out a few things about the rogue class. I still think I can improve alot in my dps/skill. I've read some things about EP also, wich stats will be the best for you at a certain point. What I'm looking for is some1 who can give me a link to some of those important posts/threads cause I can't find some of them anymore. Basicly a post so I can check what to gem/enchant for the best dps and what items I should go for. I'm combat speccced and using fist/fist. Thanks in advance if some1 could help me

All of those things are covered in the Pocket Guide to WOTLK (updated for 3.1) thread. That's a good place to start. After that, consult a spreadsheet.

Has there ever been a blue post concerning the range on Tricks of the Trade?
Twenty yards really isn't that much, and I have died a lot so far because I didn't realize that the tank I was tricksing was out of range. On some encounters (e.g. Vezax) you can't even tricks the tank without moving so far into the hitbox that you get parried, making it even more annoying.

I was assuming it was over some reasonable timespan like "a fight", but given that we've been given more or less no information about it whatsoever, its sort of hard to say for sure. Like, I'm sort of going by the fact that 500 is being presented as a fairly significant amount in the original post, and combat potency just isn't a source of appreciable differences. Having it vs not is a big deal, but the details of hit and weapon speed are relatively small in the grand scheme of things, such that if you're looking for a large difference its not the place to start.

I'm a bit annoyed with it myself sometimes but I'm fairly sure Blizzard has this in place for PvP reasons. Since TotT gives a damage buff to your target they don't want you walking into an arena and playing "divide and conquer" with the other team while still being able to buff your partner with 15% damage. If it was more like Misdirection and had no damage buff component, I'm sure Blizzard would have no issue with giving it a larger range.

That being said, I think they could extent it further than 20 yards because many other buffs have longer ranges than that. I think I understand their reasoning though and I wouldn't expect to see a change.

Ok, i never 25 man raid, life is too busy, i rarely 10man raid though wish to maintain ability to hit this with ease. So down to it, given im running 10man max, mostly heroics, how much of a bonus does it really give me to be Poison hit capped.

Now im Expertise capped as well, i have 2x +16 gems and another 2 gems with +8 hit mixed with agi. Ive used a spreadsheet but noticed no increase or decrease in my dps around 315 hit rating, (note i know i could include raid buffs but i want to maximize even for 5mans - also i have ensured that raid buff, well feed and elixir buffs on spread sheet are not enabled) So i ask the ones with greater knowledge than myself, what and how much benefit am i going to see out of PHC?

Note - i dont always log out in my pve spec, i normally quest in pvp spec and weapons, but pve gear. Ive found high burst to down mobs before cheap shot drops. My OH is Librarian's Paper Cutter with +50AP enchant.

What (if any) is the optimal rotation for Combat (swords)? I am confident that I have mastered Mutilate but I have taken Combat as an alternative spec to focus on certain Ulduar fights where burst and target switching is essential (notably Yogg who we started this week in 25 man and got to 25%). I have played Combat extensively in the past but not for some time. What I am doing now is:

SS SS SnD > Killing Spree > SS to 4/5 or 5/5 using AR+BF as required to boost energy > Rupture - then obviously maintaining SnD and Rupture and throwing in an Evis when points allow.

Admittedly this is working and I am doing good damage but i'm acutely aware of the need to have an optimal start up sequence so just checking here to see if there is an agreed view.

As far as i know, the only rotation you should be using, after the initial burst and KS, is 3s 5r 5e, its not difficult to maintain and provides the most dps on fights that allow constant melee interaction.

OK - question for you (or anyone who knows) then:

Does SnD do anything during Kiling Spree or not? If it does i'll trigger it before I KS. If it doesn't I may as well burn all initial pre KS energy on SS and NOT trigger SnD until after since it will be wasted seconds of SnD time. Basically I don't know a lot about what can be done during KS to up the damage and what is wasted effort - e.g. does your regular melee continue and get the 20% damage bonus and can you SS during it? Can KS trigger sword spec procs etc?