The spreadsheet shows me gaining around 20dps, or .5%, going from MoT to Grim Toll as 15/51/5. Correct me if I am wrong but it is even better if armor debuffs fall off.

edit: Sorry, it's easy to answer my own question, I gain 30dps from Grim Toll with no minor armor debuff.

So I take it your not a fan of garrote. I have been using LPC in the MH for the poison procs, thank you for the confirmation.

I agree on the 1 mut finishers but it seems that in my limited testing I end up with 4 CPs and a ton of energy due to focused attacks and relentless strikes. While it is certainly dependant on procs, having garrote up before doing (Overkill as well) a mut makes getting 3 CP's out of mut much easier. What I find is that garrote then SnD, if ruthlessness procs I have 1 cp and then mut 3 cps (crosses fingers), rupture, at that point I'll mut until I need to envenom to refresh SnD. While dependant on alot of procs, it seems to work really well.

In regard to Overkill, do you see this in your combat log? I know there is an addon for it that shows the timer but I was trying to put it into RoguePowerBars but it doesn't seem to work.

You don't gain or lose an aura for Overkill.

So if I want to see a timer on it I'd have to use a specific addon for it. Got it, thanks.

A lot of timer bars have the ability to approximate Overkill: ie, throw up a six second timer bar after you lose the "Stealth" buff.

I will try that. Its not like it is the most important thing to see. Even though it is not technically a buff it would be nice to see a timer on it like the timer after an envenom.

I agree that an Overkill timer doesn't seem particularly useful, but I can see a point in tracking Mirror/Berserking, and most particularly Envenom. Knowing when your AP procs are up can be useful in terms of timing the use of certain abilities - for instance, vanishing for Overkill will give more damage when you have more AP. And I'm reasonably convinced that, to the extent that such is possible, timing your Envenoms such that the buffs don't overlap is a DPS increase. The difference with Overkill is that you know when it starts, and knowing when it ends doesn't help that much. Basically, after unstealthing, you want to mash as many moves as possible... and that's about all there is to say. I suppose knowing when it drops so you know whether to queue the terminal envenom makes some sense, but even then you can try to use it at 25 energy and if it fails, queue it as usual.

Basically: Overkill timers don't seem that useful to me, but the other ones you mention can be used to perform some minor optimizations, hence I can see people wanting them.

So I'm not really sure what rotaiton I should be using for mutilate. I have been trying

5r/5e but i one or the other keeps falling. I think my main problem is pooling energy. I'm not sure when I should pool or how much. Right now I just spam mutilate until its time for a finisher, then i spam that button until it goes....I know this is bad .

Also, the spreadsheet tells me I should be going for a 4r/5e but i often dont ahve that many CPs...i usually have 3, then mut and have 5 lol

I actually don't track Overkill and your explanation as to why it doesn't need to be makes sense. I do however track Mirror, Greatness, etc, so that I can try and time an envenom during those buffs. I guess I don't have a problem with a cluttered screen so it doesn't take away from my ability to see fire, voids, etc.

An additional question to you Aldriana; are you opening with garrote or mut? And if not garrote could you explain why? I've gone through the forums and haven't really seen an answer as to which is the prefered opener.

Thanks

There is alot of information on this website in the pocket guide for a mut rotation. I think you would be best to read that first and then ask additional questions you might have for clarification. Here is the link http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t37183-pocket_guide_wotlk/

Yes I did that, but as he says himself that information is wrong . Also I asked about energy pooling in addition to the rotation.. the rotation he describes there is already what I'm doing. I'm only doing about 3k dps...spreadsheet tells me about 4.6k dps so...

Here is my reasoning. I open with garrote because it poisons the target prior to a mutilate. If I understand correctly, mutilate has an increased chance to crit a target that is poisoned. Anyway, I'm going to test it on Patchwerk tonight

Uhhh... bleed effects are poisons?

Some basic trouble shooting is in order here.

First off, check your buffs in the spreadsheet and then take a hard look at your raids. Just because you might have a buff available in the raid doesn't mean you're getting it all the time; believe me when I say that it makes more of a difference than you think. Players get busy and they may forget to drop a totem, let Sunder fall off, or any number of things. WWS is your friend here.

Secondly, running a Mutilate rotation in strict 4 or 5 CP increments is going to kill you and your DPS. Mutilate at 3 or less, finish at 4 or more; that's all. Getting to exactly 5 or worrying about wasting that "6th" isn't worth it and is usually a DPS loss.

Thirdly, try not to overwrite the Envenom buff. If you got lucky on procs and are sitting at 4 combo points, lots of time on Rupture and still under the previous Envenom buff, don't Envenom again unless you're going to cap energy. Fight the urge with all your will. There are times to mash buttons and time to just let autoattacks do their thing.

And lastly, the spreadsheet models ideal situations. If you spend time off target, it can't model that.

Yes, but firstly that's not a very great extent and secondly: do you require timers to do so? I suspect you can achieve much the same effect with the simple heuristic "pool energy before finishers if you're not about to drop HfB or SnD". Since you're doing that anyway in order to get an extra ability (either a second mutilate or your next finisher) in within the space of the Envenom buff, there's no point in adding the timers.

As regards tracking your AP buffs, Mutilate doesn't really have any abilities you can synchronise with your procs! The two main ones are AR and BF, which are both Combat. The only cooldown Mutilate has that applies is Cold Blood, and I'm pretty sure that correct practice there is to use it when the RNG throws a full 5-point Envenom at you, rather than trying to sync it to an AP proc. The remaining one is the interaction with Vanish/Overkill, which isn't one I'd considered. Personally, I don't want to have half a dozen timers running purely for that, particularly when I'm probably saving my Vanish/Overkill for unexpected CP droughts in order to save my cycle.

Rupture. Particularly when it's already up on the target and SnD has plenty of time left. Monitoring those AP buffs lets you know you can overwrite your Rupture without getting the "Spell more powerful already active" error. Granted it's situational and likely depends on how much time is left on the previous Rupture, but the use is there.

Even though it is a bleed effect, it procs the mainhand poison, if I understand correctly.

Which would be IP, if you are doing it right. Mutilate needs a poison debuff to be on the target to do extra damage, so you would need your offhand's DP to land or else some other poison from another rogue or hunter to be present. Unless you are speccing into Deadly Brew to raid, which would be kinda silly, I think.

Thank you that makes a sense and no I'm not spec'd into Deadly Brew and yes it would be silly.

I think I was confused with pre-patch advice which had DP on the MH and IP on the OH. If that was still the case garrote would apply DP and mutilate would benefit.

Thing to keep in mind is that while the Mutilate loses from the lack of poison being up, it's also true that Mangle and some other relevant buffs may not be up. All things considered, that first attack is going to be doing crap damage no matter what it is; hence, I'm of the opinion that getting into your stable cycle as fast as possible is desirable, and in that respect I have better luck with Mutilate.

That's really the challenge in theorycrafting this - the answer is probably going to depend greatly on the order and timing of buffs going up on the boss, which makes it hard to come up with a general answer.

To add another to the mix - if I'm doing ToTT on the pull to solidify tank aggro, I'd probably use an Ambush as it's that bit extra burst threat.

New Ambush has it's merits but keep in mind the time you lose on the way behind the target. Sometimes Mutilate might be the better choice here. In the end a fights opening depends mostly on if you can pull it off in a clean way. If it doesn't fall to you fluidly you're better off using your own opening routine.