I have been running with 15/51/5 Calamity's Clasp MH / Murder OH for a long time now... I was able to pick up Anarchy in a 10man last night and am thinking of going HFB Murder MH / Anarchy OH for a while. I haven't played daggers for a long time and it would be fun to change it up a bit.

Assuming I am able to play HFB, as well as I can play combat fists, what sort of dps changes could I expect from going from Calamity's clasp / Murder to Murder / Anarchy? Should I expect similar dps, lower dps or higher dps?

I would guess lower DPS using Anarchy given its slow speed and no dps advantage ala Sinister Revenge..if you could get a Webbed Death or two and go Mutilate then, you might see an upgrade. But like I said, guessing - you could just plug it into the spreadsheet and see what comes out.

So im sorta curious. With the proof that Mutilate build is doing more damage than combat why do I see soo many people still specing combat? Is there a certain point at which being combat is better then Mut at upper gear levels?

My guild has just started doing Naxx10 finished spider wing and will be finishing plague wing this weekend we hope.
Im our top dps right now, but I wanna get back to combat spec but sacrificing the dmg and possibly my top spot worries me.

Are you sure these combat-spec rogues are well geared and able to clear Naxx ? Because honestly, a lot of it is probably dictated by what weapons they have access to. That, and for 5-mans, maybe even some 10-mans, Combat is good, if not better in some cases. A Mut build isn't really made for target-switching. Neither is Combat, but it's easier/more forgiving, and has Blade Flurry/Killing Spree for those groups of mobs that are not worth using FoK on.

Savage Combat (2% physical dmg increase debuff) is currently the best source of that debuff for a raid, so it is optimal to have a combat rogue.

Also, combat isn't really behind mutilate much at all on non-murderable mobs. They are very close, and combat has it's benefits in certain situations due to the powerful cool down abilities available.

Yes he was BM and is now survival, however the several dpsers we have are talented (although slightly out geared by him). I was putting out within 2% of the anticipated dps the spreedsheet and yet he out dps'd me by ~800 on patchwerk dispite almost equal gear levels. I think it's safe to say that if blizzards idea of equalizing the dps classes by nerfing the ones that were obviously putting out too much, they failed.

Maybe I'm the only one experiencing this but I doubt it.

WEbbed Death drops off of Maexxna in the spider wind, so GL.

Rather meaningless but it drops off Anub'rekhan, not Maexxna, and Gluth. The drop chance off Gluth is ridiculously slim, though, so Anub'rekhan is your best bet.

To answer your previous question, Combat is undoubtedly behind Mutilate for long duration, static fights. Combat has the advantage of being able to hit two targets at once for a small time frame and cooldowns, which will inflate the spec's DPS on fights of optimal durations or fights where you can hit two targets at once through Blade Flurry.

As a Mutilate Rogue I've lost my cycle more times than I care to admit, whether due to incompetence (focusing on one timer or trying to get that 5-point cold blood envenom to HIT, running for my life, etc.) and my question is twofold:

1.) What's a good mod for timers for a Mutilate Rogue? I want as little overhead as possible if I have a choice
2.) Once I've lost the rotation, say all 3 timers are off, HFB, SND and Rup, is there a particular order I should bring them back up in AND is it more efficient to bring up HFB all at once or to stagger the stacking while bringing up other items.

Thanks a lot.

1) I haven't checked it out, but I've seen Need to Know recommended by a few posters here. I think there was also some Warlock DoT timer that was recommended, but I seem to recall there was some problem with it. I use Elakno's Buff Bars and configure an additional bar for target debuffs.
2) Generally, the recommended practice is to Vanish for Overkill, get HfB up, then start your cycle over from the beginning.

ClassTimer and NeedToKnow will get you your bars although ClassTimer is a bit of overkill for what you really need.

TellMeWhen is one I'm on and off with as it's a good way to keep track of Rupture/DP/etc on your target in simple yes/no format instead of a timer bar.

I play combat for ease of mind. Running a 4 hour raid and hitting HfB every 25ish seconds gives me the creeps. For the slim DPS loss on boss fights I prefer peace.

I never considered vanishing for overkill! Thanks for the advice guys, I'll be trying NeedToKnow as well.

Night

I would recoment Slice Comander. As well as having the bars you can set it up to give you sounds as you get near the end of a buff duration. When there is alot going on I personly find i can just listen for mod instead of waching the bars.

I've got a Webbed Death, so I'd really just have to grab another fast dagger and I could switch (and when Dual Spec comes around I'll probably toggle back and forth a lot), but for me, it's a few factors:
1) I hate Hunger for Blood. Even making it 60 seconds or changing it in some other way would make quality of life way better, but I just can't stand it for some reason.
2) I prefer Combat playstyle. Talk about Mutilate being "harder" or "more interactive" all you want, but I much prefer Combat's AOE capabilities, Killing Spree, and the energy regen provided (Vitality+Combat Potency) over Mutilate spec.
3) I'm not in a top-tier 25 raid guild because I decided to play with RL friends, so I mostly do 10-mans and PUG 25 man Naxx runs. I manage to top meters as Combat on just about everything, with a few exceptions in the 25 pugs when decent Hunters have showed up, and a geared Fury warrior occasionally comes and we trade 1st/2nd. So I don't have a lot of incentive to squeeze a little extra dps playing a spec I find annoying.

Maybe I'll grab another WD, go mutilate, and never look back, but I just don't see it happening unless the gap severely widens due to Murder in Uldaman or they change how HfB works.

In regards to Savage Combat, I am lucky that the other Rogue I regularly raid with is the raid leader. He is combat so he isn't as distracted by keeping up HfB.

Our runs are typically melee and hunter heavy, running with as few as 4 casters, so this ability is vital to our success. The equation is relatively simple; does increasing (most of) Melee and Hunter's DPS by 2% justify the loss of one player losing 6-8% (whatever the difference between combat and assassination is right now)?

To my understanding, thanks largely to Titan's Grip, the DPS loss of a combat rogue is significantly less than an Arms vs. Fury Warrior. But, you need to have a critical mass of melee players before it is worth it.

This looks like a fun problem to solve, so I will attempt to figure out where this critical mass is and attempt to come up with a rough idea of where this value lies.

Just as an aside, the purpose of this board is to maximize DPS. It has been mathematically proven, and empirically accepted that Assassination is superior to Combat. To argue that it is too hard to keep HfB or it gives you the "creeps" is not really on topic in a community dedicated to maximizing DPS and appears to me to fall a little into the "LtP" category.

Thankfully, Vulajin's spreadsheet allows calculations of both.

Personally, I don't think the difference between Combat and Mutilate is nearly as large as some would have you believe. Is Mutilate better? Yeah, probably. Does it get a large advantage from Murder on those bosses? Yes. But on the majority of fights in current content - which are not Murderable - Combat is highly competitive, and quite possibly superior on a number of fights.

Note, of course, that the answer depends somewhat on available itemization. If your guild, like mine, has had daggers drop like candy (4 Webbed Deaths, 3 Sinister Revenges, at least 1 Murder), but only one Calamity's Grasp (which went to our Enh Shaman), then yes, your Mutilate rogues will outperform your combat rogues. But, conversely, if you've had good drop luck on Calamity's and bad luck on Webbed Death, the reverse might very well be true.

Basically: while Mutilate may be marginally superior to Combat, the operative word is "marginally". In optimal gear, we're talking a percent or two, if that.

In terms of assessing the value of Savage Combat, it's also worth noting that many if not most melee DPS get significant portions of their damage from elemental sources now. For instance, pulling numbers from my guild's last PW kill:

Enh Shaman: 45% elemental
DW DK: 56% elemental
Ret Pally: 62% elemental
Mut Rogues: 35% elemental

Now, of course, other "physical" DPS - Blood DKs, combat rogues, hunters, and warriors, for instance - get more - if not most - of their damage from physical sources. But it's worth noting that there's a fair number of melee classes get more like 1% DPS benefit from Savage Combat, and that affects the relative value of Savage Combat.

All that said: it wouldn't surprise me at all if a Combat Rogue with Savage Combat beats a Mutilate rogues without it straight up on nonmurderable targets - and in that case, it's hard to argue that it's not worth having a combat rogue in your raid.

Prior to the recent patch release, my poison setup for Mutilate was DP/IP due to the OH double proccing. After the recent fix on that I went back to IP/DP. I currently run MH Sinisters Revenge and OH Webbed Death. It seems that I have lost ground when that is all I have changed in relation to the combat rogue in the raids with me. Are my poison assumptions correct or is there a better poison setup at current gear levels?

I hit this situation all the time, and here is my reccomendation:

1. If your energy will not cap before Rupture runs out, then wait and Rupture.
2. If you would energy cap before Rupture runs out, then Envenom.

Remember, Envenom resets your Slice and Dice, and although combo points are built fast, it is nearly impossible to fit in 3 Envenoms before a Rupture wears off.

At least for me, my 5CP Envenoms hit for approximately the same amount of damage as a Mutilate,, and although I have no numbers to back it up, I highly suspect the 25 Energy saved makes up for the DP damage lost and the opportunity cost of wasted CPs.

What you do at a point like that depends on just how long you have left on your timers. As long as you have, as you describe, 12s left on HfB my advice would be to pool for about 3s, then envenom, and mutilate again while under the envenom buff, after the 2nd mut you should have enough to refresh/restart rupture and refresh HfB after the rupture, If you get a horrible about of bad luck with Relentless Stikes, Ruthlessness and Crits and dont have enough for a Rupture after the envenom, just pool until HfB needs refreshing and then Mut again to start your rupture.

I must be doing something wrong in the spreadsheet. Murder/Anarchy appears to do 500dps more than Clamity/Murder. I'll report back when I actually find my error.

Thanks though.

Set to humanoid and running with the Murder talent?