No, other way is slightly better.

I was wondering about Fan of Knives. Specifically, would it benefit from ranged only stats such as the Heartseeker Scope for people using Guns/Bows? Or is it based on our normal melee stats as it uses our melee weapons.

We don't have any range only stats. The scope doesn't give your ranged more damage, it gives that specific gun/bow more damage.

For level 70 arena, is Shadowstep still the optimal build?

This question could be better answered at a site like ArenaJunkies.

Sorry if this question was asked before, but how do you find a boss' armor value?
In order to use it in the spreadsheet.

I have two quick questions that i havent' been able to find the answer to. If they are in this thread (I have searched) or on other parts of the rogue forums (I checked as well), then I am extremely sorry and will go hunt down the answers.

1) Should I be worried about a performance discrepancy of 100 DPS of Vulajin's spreadsheet vs. my personal performance? There is going to be some discrepancy always, I know, because of RNG, lag, and because I'm far from perfect, but how much should it be before I start REALLY worrying? I assumed that around 250 DPS discrepancies is where I should really freak out and shape up, but if I should be worrying more at 100, then I shall reassess!

2) In a 5s/5r/5e rotation, if I am the only person capable of providing armor debuffing, do I replace Eviscerate with Expose Armor in all situations? What if there's only one other physical DPS present? This is one part of being a rogue that I am confused about and never fully mastered or understood (when to put up expose...and not to say I'm a master at everything else, this has just been a big point of contention for me).

Thank you very much, and I apologize if I wasted someone's time because I couldn't find the answers on my own.

In all fights you'll be working against the RNG and the mechanics of the fight itself. If I get lucky on the RNG and time cooldowns accordingly, I can beat estimates on a Patchwerk fight. Then on a fight with lots of movement, kicks, etc I'll be way below estimates. Use the sheets to find upgrades and refine your cycle; don't use them as a means of measuring your performance because while they model gear and rotations well, they're not so good at the fight mechanics.

As for putting up EA, I would prioritize EA over everything and use Rupture as your secondary finisher (especially if you have Mangle from a druid). In the situation where the only physical DPS'ers are you and one other person (the tank is a paladin?), this is really up to you. No physical DPS'ers damage is purely physical; if the other person is a hunter it might be appropriate, if the other person is a paladin it probably isn't.

Thanks. For clarification above, I was specifically talking about Patchwerk-esque fights regarding DPS estimates, so the above helps, knowing that RNG and CD timing can make up for the effect (there was no coordination on heroism and I consistently use my second blade flurry late, for example).

As for EA...really? Over rupture, even? I guess it doesn't quite matter as long as you get rupture up and running and maintain it as best you can, but when experimenting, I found that maintaining 100% uptime on EA was very easy to do even when I prioritized it after rupture, without dropping SnD ever and having the same amount of Rupture downtime as when I used eviscerate.

For further clarification, when using EA, I should see a drop in personal DPS for the increase of raid DPS, correct? I want to make sure I have the theory right in my head.

If you are providing EA, you're DPS will be lower than if a warrior was Sundering but it will still be significantly higher than if there was no armor debuff present.

Eg, without Sunder or EA, you're DPS will be 600 lower than optimal and raid physical DPS will be lower than optimal; if you are providing EA then your DPS will be 250 lower than optimal and raid DPS will be the same as optimal. (These numbers are made up and are by no means real.)

Optimal meaning that a prot warrior is providing Sunders through Devestate. DPS warriors can also provide sunders but this lowers their own DPS (although not nearly as much as it lowers a rogues DPS to use EA).

Hello,

i have a simple question, what is the best in mutilate poisons :

-instant poison MH / DP OF and envenom?

-instant poison MH / WP OF and evicerate?

-Double WP ?

I use SR in MH and anarchy in OH.

I have stumbled upon forum posts in various places that aren't quite as esteemed as elitistjerks.com that suggest weapon switching to MH/OH daggers prior to FoK spamming might improve DPS. Thereto, the same school of thought suggests a second macro to switch back to a primary MH/OH configuration for SS spamming.

If I understand the mechanic of FoK correctly, equipping the highest damage weapons in the MH/OH is the best way to go. And because I carry Sinister Revenge in my bag with me at all times, I equip it prior to FoK spamming since it has much higher damage than Webbed Death (plus it receives the 50% damage bonus that FoK applies to daggers).

Therefore:

My macro-equipped configuration when I spam FoK is:

MH - Silent Crusader - 274-509 dmg
OH - Sinister Revenge - 246-370 + 50% damage buff = 369-555 dmg

vs. my regular configuration of:

MH - Silent Crusader - 274-509 dmg
OH - Webbed Death - 153-285 dmg

Here is my main question:

A self-ordained rogue expert in my guild says that weapon switching is silly because of the GCD associated with it. However, because of the standard trash pulls in Naxx25, there is plenty of time to run the macro, spam FoK until everything is dead, then switch back to my standard MH/OH setup for boss fights, etc.

Am I right, or is this guy in my guild correct?

For reference sake, here are the two macros I run:

Macro for FoK spam:

#showtooltip Fan of Knives
/equipslot 16 Silent Crusader
/equipslot 17 Sinister Revenge
/cast Fan of Knives

Macro to switch back to standard setup:

#showtooltip Sinister Strike
/equipslot 16 Silent Crusader
/equipslot 17 Webbed Death
/cast Sinister Strike

Thank you,
Campiona

If you're making the weapon swaps for trash pulls, then yes it will be slightly beneficial to do that. If you're engaged with a boss that has a add phase, its more of a coin toss. Depending on how much time you have before you start in on the adds, doing a weapon swap will be a bet increase. But, however, if the adds spawn while you can still attack the boss, doing a weapon swap will cause a GCD and a swing timer reset, resulting in potentially lost DPS.

The primary impetus behind the desire to swap weapon setups is the OS3D fight. My guild relies on my anesthetic poison to dispel the enrage on the adds during the gnarly transition between drake 1 and drake 2 -- but prior to my FoK spam, I am relied up on to zerg drake 1. Having anesthetic poison on my OH weapon while I wait for the add phase takes away damage while I zerg drake 1. So, I thought, "Hmm, maybe I'll coat Sinister Revenge with AP and leave WP/DP on my main weapons. Then, as I go into AoE add-killing mode, I'd use the macro, switch to an WP/AP setup, then switch back to WP/DP with Webbed Death back in my offhand when it comes time to beat on the drakes again..."

I guess the pain behind the pain is the fact that our guild is struggling with OS3D... I just want to do all I can to help them get over the top.

Once you have a few 3D kills under your belt, the reliance on de-enraging the elementals becomes somewhat of a non-issue. So for your situation, yes it might be more beneficial on the raid to have a weapon swap with Anesthetic for the elementals.

Depends on gear. If you find you got enough crit/hits/energy and never run low on SnD and can do multiple envenoms between each rupture with no problems, then you don't need the Imp SnD.

The 50% SnD is not needed in the standard 51/13/7 Mutilate build due to how the rotation works. Probably the only fight where you cannot predict when your snd is about to fall off would be Vault (His stun) and maybe even saph/kt (Your not hitting anything at the time). So yes you do get 3 "filler" points but the 3% crit is the way to go.

So, what are the best FoK weapons then? I currently use CG/WD. If I were just focusing on FOK, then is SR/SR the ideal due to both being daggers that have the highest damage potential?

In 3.1, what poisons would you use as a combat build for FOK Trash max damage? IP/IP since WP is being changed?

Yes SR/SR currently.

But some slow weapons in 3.1 due to PPM for more poison proc'ing power.

And WP/WP still. IP changed with PPM same with WP.

It may be worth noting (if you decide to go with the weapon swap macro) that you'd actually get slightly more DPS by swapping SR into the MH and SC into the OH.

The SR will get the dagger multiplier applied to its damage in either hand, but you'll want to ensure that you receive the OH penalty/reduction for the lower damage of the two weapons you have.

It isn't in almost any case, due to CttC, however in a case it is superior, you're better off taking points from Precision.