Like, possibly, many of you i've been going over the spreadsheets for mutilate and combat. Now i've been combat ever since I started playing rogue, but seeing as how the mutilate PVE discussion really started with WotlK raiding, I've developed a slight depression towards my combat spec when looking at the numbers.

I only raid 10-man, so I punch in my gear, my spec and the appropriate available buffs and food into the spreadsheet, and then compare my combat with mutilate using:

- The same gear (obviously)
- Same buffs (flasks, raidbuffs, food etc)

A few notes here. I use the "standard" combat rotation of 4s5r and envenom. I have 121 expertise (11 below cap) with the normal 15/51/5 spec, and 297 hit-rating (337 with food), everything is enchanted primarily with AP (except cloak ofc, and my T7.25 chest since i only got it yesterday).

The only things I change from here-on are:

- Spec (From combat to mutilate 51/13/7)
- Glyphs
- Weapons (From Torment of the Banished and Avools Sword of Jin, to Dual LPC and from 3.0.8. LPC/Fleshshaper)

According to the spreadsheet the difference between these two settings are an amazing 300dps+. I've gone over the spreadsheet numerous times and have checked everything time and time again i.e. so as mutilate i didnt use sinister strike as main CP builder etc.
I've yet to try raid-mutilate, but can it really be "right" that the current difference is THAT big?

On a completely different note (for those of you raiding 10-man with combatspec), how are you doing DPS wise on the various bosses vs. mages and hunters?

300 dps is only few percents - this is not THAT big after all. In practice the gap should be wider before 3.0.8 (due to poison bug). On the other hand - if you never played Mutilate/HfB, expect some difficulties - combat is much easier to maintain.
Also, last time I checked, poison choice for combat was WP/DP and for Mutilate you want IP/DP (DP/IP before patch) - this may affect your calculations.

Since there is still nothing new about Assassination glyphs (either Mutilate nor Envenom) I'd like to talk about third glyph for this build. Currently we have SnD and Rupture glyphs and nobody really cares about the third one.

I personally think that the best choice is Vigor glyph (+ talent, obviously), which changes energy cap to 120. This is good especially on trash mobs, allowing to spam two Mutilates soon after the pull (TotT on tank is useful here). But there are also boss situations, where energy cap > 100 is useful. Every fight, when combat may be interrupted for > 5 seconds has potential possibility to waste precious energy. Maexna, Four Horsemen, Sapphiron, Heigan, Noth, Grobbulus, Malygos and so on.

So there's my question - is there any better alternative to Vigor glyph? I know it requires to choose Vigor talent - this is drawback, but I found it more convenient than one point of Ruthlessness.

The -only- time you would use Envenom with less than 4 CPs is if SnD is about to drop and you do not have enough time to get to 4+ CPs and have enough energy for Envenom. Anything else is going to drop DPS.

If you have less than 4 CPs, plenty of time left on SnD,HfB, Rupture and have pooled energy you should use Mutilate to get to 4 or 5 CPs and then check what you need to do next.

Mutilate cycles are difficult to plan for in advance. I normally use the time spent pooling energy [before a finisher] to check what finisher I am going to go for next and whether or not I need to refresh HfB during the upcoming cycle.
I plan this assuming that I get both procs off a finisher.
Once the finisher has been done I need to check energy and CPs and amend my cycle accordingly.

Mutilate is all about split second decision making and has nothing to do with magic or lightning fast reflexes (although a little of both always helps).

The key to Mutilate is avoiding having to ramp up your cycle in mid-fight. Letting HfB or SnD drop is going to balls you up for quite a long time, quite often for the rest of the fight because you will be struggling to get back into a rhythm.

Getting it right and not falling into the temptation of early Envenoms can make as much as 1k DPS difference. I know this because when I transitioned from Combat to Mutilate I was making this mistake myself. Now I don't and am doing 1k DPS more.

Never Mutilate on 4 CPs, use a Finisher or refresh HfB if needed.

As for Shiv: remove it from your button bars.

Hello, here's quick question from me. On Maexxna as mutilate what do you do when you have same time left on snd and web spray timer and 5 cp?
Envenom just before web spray (obviously no benefit from imroved chance to apply poisons envenom gives) or let snd drop and use 5cp snd just after web spray ends?

No need to do it just before spray, as it is not like 20 seconds, just don't leave hfb or s&d with less than 10 seconds left when spray is about to come, letting s&d drop sounds like bad idea :p

Hello, I've done a lot of reading on the site and on shadow panthers site. I went with the standard raiding mutilate spec 51/13/7. I am more of a casual gamer time wise but my small group of friends and I are into min/maxing and getting the most dps/healing out of our chars with the small amount of time we do have. The question: is the standard 51/13/7 spec the best for heroic 5 mans if raiding is not in the cards at this time? Still working on gear but last night was doing 2k dps on heroic Loken in HoL, is that about where it should be?

If you're finding that Combat is higher DPS for you than Mutilate in raids then you're doing something wrong. Either your gear, spec or play is to blame. Check back with the Pocket Guide and make sure you understand the principles of the spec and then practice. Don't expect to one day grab a couple daggers, spec Mutilate, and see your DPS go up, it won't. Mine certainly didn't.

When I switched to Mutilate for raiding after the 3.0 patch, I spent a couple hours on and off the target dummies, fraps'ing my rotation, reviewing it, correcting problems, and trying again. I'm still doing things wrong, making the wrong decisions, and just plain screwing up in raids but it's a continual process and you'll see improvement just as I do.

If you can match your best DPS'ers with combat (minus DKs and Hunters), then that's a whole other can of worms and the onus is on them.

I actually prefer Combat for 5mans and heroics myself. The difference in DPS between the two is much less noticeable in small groups and for me it's mostly a quality of life issue. There's also a lot more flexibility in a Combat spec which I've found is very useful in small groups. That said, when going for timed achievements I spec Mutilate because it is higher DPS.

If you want to know about your DPS, Vulajin's sheet is really quite accurate provided you feed it all the correct data about buffs/debuffs/etc. (Use the correct sheet, the newest is for the 3.0.8 patch.)

Another rogue and I were discussing whether 2 X Webbed Death would be better for mutilate spec, or 1 Sinister Revenge and 1 Webbed Death. If I plug my current gear into the spreadsheet 2 X Webbed Death comes out ahead. He seemed to think that with enough haste buffs Webbed Death loses DPS because a weapon's speed cannot drop below 1 second. Does anyone know for certain if this is true? I have not found anything conclusive stating that weapons cannot swing faster than once per second.

Secondly, when is the appropriate time to pool energy. If HfB, Rupture, and SnD have plenty of time left, I have 4+ cp's, and there are 5 ticks of DP, I would think an Envenom would be the best choice as soon as I have the energy so the DP ticks restart. Would pooling only apply if there are less than 5 DP ticks and I am waiting for the fifth one? Or when Rupture or SnD are coming close to expiring, do I pool energy for a few seconds and wait until right before they expire instead of refreshing them early(refreshing SnD via Envenom)? I have read that appropriate pooling can greatly increase DPS. Any help would be appreciated.

About the mythical weapon speed cap: Rogue: Simple Questions/Simple Answers

This is on the page before this one so reading this Thread would have answered your first question and almost certainly your second.

There is not cap on how low weapon speed can go; the idea is patently false.

As for your second question, this page and the two before have great info on pooling and what is and isn't appropriate. The long and the short is that the situations where pooling energy can be detrimental to your DPS are very few. Capping energy is always bad, pooling is almost always good.

To back up what Tinwhisker said I have what you can call a mantra which I use to get me into the rhythm of things.

Start with HfB*3
Open with Mutilate then SnD
Envenom to refresh then Mutilate to Rupture
Never let your cycle drop, always keep your HfB up.
Pool to 60 then your next Mutilate is free.
100 is a pool size you do not want to see.

Be warned though, I do not claim the above to be anything like a description of an optimal DPS cycle however it emphasises the importance of pooling being good and capping being bad.
I say this to myself before each boss encounter, it is an enormous help getting my DPS cycle fixed before the start.

I have seen some people state that for Mutilate, dual IP will, at high end, beat out DP/IP post 3.0.8 or IP/DP currently.

The question is, where is this break. At what point of AP does IP and Evis beat out DP and Envenom?

I have run the spreadsheet and substituted the SS and AR glyphs. The differences are only within a few points of each other.

A couple of questions:

Does the spreadsheet take into account the fact that the AR glyph reduces Killing spree also?

It does not appear that the new patch has any changes to this. Is this correct?

Does anyone have any anectodial experience with the difference between the two?

I like having AR avalaible more for long boss fights. I also like having Killing Spree more often on trash. I rarely use KS on bosses, for fear of getting out of position, etc.

Do you guys use it regularly on Bosses?

Bottom line, the spreadsheet notwithstanding, I am wondering if my overall Boss damage would be greater with the SS glyph?

More importantly where are you getting your poison debuff from?
What happens when it goes away?

Yes, dual IP will beat out IP/DP at some point however without a poison debuff your Mutilates will be doing a lot less damage and with dual IP you are forced to Eviscerate which is not as effective as Envenom. You are also totally dependent on something else for the poison debuff too.

More discussion can be found here (about 12 pages back):
Rogue: Simple Questions/Simple Answers

This might not be a "simple" question but should I go 3/3 Ruthlessness with no Vigor, or 2/3 Ruthlessness with Vigor, assuming I'm only interested in Malygos?
Or is there something even better I can drop points from to get both?

I know Vigor essentially amounts to nothing if you don't plan on capping energy, but my energy will cap during the vortexes so I'm getting a decent amount from it if I glyph.

Here's what I would do.

Go back to your last WWS. Assume time in the votrex is you're only DPS down time where you could possibly cap (true enough). Count the number of vortexes (votecies, vorti, spinny-mabobs, whatever), count the number of finishers you did, then compare the two. The total extra energy you get after the votexes should be easy then to compare to the estimated benefit of the Ruthlessness procs.

[quote=Krollin;1055112]About the mythical weapon speed cap: Rogue: Simple Questions/Simple Answers

Thank you. I had seen the post(this is what started the argument originally). I just wanted to verify that the information was indeed correct as the other rogue was adamant about not being able to swing weapons faster than once per second.



Thank you. This is exactly what I was missing. I did not realize there was an envenom poison buff. Knowing this should help me alot. There are times when I have 5 CP's and my energy is pooling, but I do not have 5 ticks of deadly poison on the target yet. By pooling before I envenom I believe this problem will be fixed.
Also I want to make sure I understand this correctly. When using envenom, it is best to wait for DP to tick again because it will increase the amount of damage due to envenom using up all of the damage the DP dot would have done.

Hi all,

I have a question regarding Hit Rating and Precision. I understand that the Hit Rating on my character pane will not reflect any points I have put into Precision. My problem is that my (HaT) build currently has just 3 points in Precision. I have waded through this thread, the "free hat" thread, and the "pocket guide", but either it hasn't been covered in any of those places or I've missed it (in fairness, that was a LOT of reading, and I'm struggling to focus now...) - all I am looking for is some confirmation of the amount per point in Precision that you can 'add' to your character pane's stated "Hit Rating" in order to get your TRUE Hit Rating, and what this Hit Rating would need to be to hit the Special/Poison/White cap (for a lvl83 boss).

This Post (included in the Pocket Guide) gives the values I require but assumes 5/5 Precision.

This Post gives values for both 0/5 and 5/5, from which I guess it would be easy to extrapolate, but I'm wary of using it owing to the mod edit at the top of the post. That and my inability to do simple arithmetic.

Could somebody please take the time to break down the Hit Ratings required to cap each type of damage for 0/1/2/3/4 pts in Precision? Or failing that - and at the risk of sounding selfish - just 3...!

Hoping someone can give me a nutshell answer... TIA

According to WoWWiki, each point of hit % is worth 32.79 points of hit rating (which also means that each point in precision is worth 32.79 hit rating).

So your formula is [Stated Hit Cap] + [(5-PointsInPrecision)x32.79] = New Hit Cap

Thank you wintermuteCF for the swift, informative and lucid response. I salute you sir, and thank you for your time and effort.