I do not know if this qualifies as a simple question, but hopefully someone can work through this with me logically.

Currently I'm running Herkuml in my combat setup. As combat starts, I immediately get snd running and then pop blade flurry to decrease my dp/herkuml rampup time and increase the likelihood of potency procs while my rotation stabilizes.

Where I am torn is when to use killing spree. Do I pop it immediately to further reduce my rampup time or do I wait for full herkuml stacks before using it? In either case it will still be used during blade flurry, so that needn't be a factor. The choice seems to be whether to increase the absolute time when herkuml will be running at full stacks by popping it immediately, versus having the 20% increased damage during ks apply to ip procs instead of deadly stacking and to apply to a greater overall dps period due to herkuml.

The delta in either direction is surely inconsequential, but I still feel like it's something that should have a quantifiable answer.

When maintaining EA as Mut and sitting at 4 CPs and it's about to drop, what is the best way to get the fifth CP under normal circumstances?

A: Mutilate, wasting 1-2 CPs
B: Weapon swap/SS
C: Shiv

I've been running 10 mans with a Marks Hunter, Blood DK, Feral tank, etc.

Hit's value does fall off sharply after the poison cap. But that doesn't necessitate that it's less valuable than crit or haste. Think through the value of hit logically. Say you swing every 10 seconds, hit for 100, and hit 90% of the time. A percent of hit either direction isn't going to jump your dps by a huge margin. Adding even a relatively small amount of AP will increase your dps by a large margin, though. Now imagine you hit for 10,000 instead of 100. Adding AP is going to increase your swing size by a tiny amount, whereas adding the same item value of hit is going to be a much larger leap. This is how stats scale in relative value with each other. The harder you hit, the more valuable it is for you to crit. The more often you swing or hit (due to haste/hit), the more valuable it will be for you to hit harder. Etc. It's an interplay between linear stat gains (AP/spell power) and percentage-based gains (everything else). When the spreadsheet shows hit as more valuable than crit or haste, it simply means that you have a sufficient amount of your other stats that the best way to increase your dps is to land more of your swings rather than critting more often or swinging more frequently.


Sunder is always a dps increase. That's a dps increase, not a meters increase. It's entirely possible that you will be lower on the meters because your personal dps relative to others will suffer from losing a significant number of finishers. But everyone in the raid who does physical damage, including you, will have a higher absolute dps number - and that's really what matters at the end of the day. It's the same reason rogues should really always be using tott glyph, even if they don't have another rogue to trade with. Net raidwide dps increase trumps personal standings on the meters.

You'll need to tinker around with a spreadsheet to get good answers for your armor pen questions. There is no set point when armor pen simply trumps ap regardless of other circumstances. Well, there is, but it's not an answer that will help you. If you're able to reach 1000+, it is very likely that you will benefit from stacking as much armor pen as possible. It is also very unlikely that an armor pen proc trinket will be better than the mark of supremacy if you're so far above the soft cap. Particularly the NES which has the lowest uptime of the arpen trinkets in the first place. If you do decide to put your setup into a spreadsheet, try three setups - full arpen in every socket apart from a nightmare tear or a no-brainer socket bonus (like an 8 agi helm bonus), armor pen in every socket that the spreadsheet does not recommend gemming for the bonus, and zero armor pen past the soft cap with NES equipped. Setup one will almost definitely give you the best results, but you'll just have to see.

I've been using Aldriana's Spreadsheet for combat and as a Combat rogue, Arp its likely the best stats but on the spreadsheet, when I fill the yellow socket with 20ap/10hit to get the socket bonus I get socket bonus I get a higher dps than socketing everything Arp. So the main question is should I do what the spread sheet says or just socket everything with arp ?(ignore the wodin and Ashen band since I use for both pve and pvp).