A "/use pot /cast stealth" macro does the job.

Edit The fact is muti rogues need to open with stealth because of Overkill. On non-timed bosses you can use rocket boots or sprint tu bridge the gap, that's only a matter of timing.

And then you're outside the boss' aggro range (20+ yards?), in stealth (70% movement speed), with the 15 second pot buff timer running. Unless you're on Saurfang I can't see how it would be beneficial to open from stealth?

You can still chug a pot, stealth, then and run in with sprint or rocket boots in fights where movement speed won't be an issue.

You can do the Pot -> Stealth (-> Garrote if Mutilate) combo on Lich King, too. It also goes nicely using two pots with two Heroisms in this particular encounter. You can pull off something similar if you stealth behind Lady DW (you can stealth right up into melee range behind her).

It's an issue of how much you are willing to spend for extra dps. Even if you only use 50% of the haste pot time, it's a dps win, but yeah it costs a haste pot. Same with Overkill only that it's free, and you get another Overkill with Vanish. Imho it's worth it if you take raiding seriously.

ICC Bosses are not detectors, and most do not have additional aggro range beyond a normal 83 mob. It is safe to approach quite close to most of them in stealth (though at this point you'd break stealth with the pot, open with a generator and let the hunters apply the bleed). Also, sprint or rocketboots, if they will not be used during the fight, are more than acceptable to close the distance.

Overall, you can easily pre-pot + stealth to a number of bosses.

• LDW -> You can just normally walk up behind her on the platform, pre-pot + stealth, then sprint onto her back.
• Saurfang -> he's there. pot+stealth is easy.
• Fester + Rot -> both are easy to prepot + run in.
• Putricide -> has a very small aggro.
• BPC -> easy if you have the RP to go through, otherwise, not worth it.
• BQL -> small aggro radius, easy to sprint in since you dont need it in the fight.
• Valithria -> pointless.
• Sindragosa -> ahhahahahahaha
• LK -> theres an RP timer, AND he runs to you! How awesome is that?

That said, starting from stealth is really only important for mutilate rogues, combat can reverse the order, stealth up really close, tricks, and break stealth with a pot. If timed right, you get a free pot in there, if wrong, you pull aggro and die.

You'd get more out of it if you stealth very close to her, and open up the fight with pot -> attacking because she isn't tanked in P1 anyway. In my opinion, this is more of a mutilate rogue thing because most raid leaders would leave you on LDW. Combat rogues more readily switch to help with adds. We're usually having a damage stop at around 8% of the shield anyway because it's more likely that you need to clear up remaining adds before transition, hence, the pre-potting is somewhat wasted on her in terms of what the raid needs (so it's more of a personal raid dps statistic thing).

I also rather open up with garrote because it can take several seconds for a bleed to apply sometimes, and in my opinion, HbF should be put up first.

In regards to combat. You move at 119% speed while sprinting in stealth, regular run speed with boot enchant is 108%, 8.33 yards per second compared to 7.56 yards per second regular speed. Outside stealth you sprint at 170% speed, 11,9 yards per second. On a regular stationary boss where you start outside aggro range, say Marrowgar with a 10 yard hitbox-to-aggro range (which is what I have on my rogue after testing some pulls), you have five yards that you need to close. This will take the rogue in stealth around 0.6 seconds (my 264 geared rogue loses 13600 DPS on a target without sunder/ISB/CoE) so say 8100 damage lost compared to starting in melee range. The rogue without stealth reaches Marrowgar in 0.42 seconds and loses about 5700 damage. So not using stealth is 2400 damage better in this case. So the only place where it's better to start in stealth as combat is "possibly" at Saurfang and LK, if you even want to bother with using garrote.

Now compare this to the bosses where you don't have to run only five yards, and where you pull with shattering throw (and possibly you BL/Heroism at the start) and let the boss move towards tank+melee to maximize DPS uptime even more.
For every boss here, and add Marrowgar, aside from Saurfang and LK, you can do the same without stealth and gain more damage, or run in from the front as mentioned in the case above and it would be a even bigger difference.

I would say that starting in stealth is a DPS loss for combat most of the time. As for mutilate you also gain 60 energy, at 200 DPE (might be higher for mutilate, guesstimate form my alt combat rogue once again) that's 12000 damage. If I would run for more than 0.88 seconds I would lose damage overall. If it's a benefit to start from stealth depends on how your guild does it's pulls, I think that only on Deathwhisper, Saurfang and LK it can generally be said that it's always better to start in stealth for Mutilate, the other bosses you need to consider other factors.

Use a spreadsheet, use your brain and observe the tactics your guild employs. If you spend even one second too long in stealth, instead of just running in without stealth, you lose DPS.

The idea of using a potion before combat starts is so you can use another one later (otherwise know as the double pot trick)

Yes, you will be wasting some time on the first pot, but having the residual effects of the first pot as you enter into combat and then using a second during the heroism later will provide some extra dps.

In addition, for mutilate rogues this is pretty much as close as you can get to compensating for the time you waste applying poisons and getting your rotation up and whatnot. Quick start = win .

Well, I still disagree. How likely is it that using the pot 3 to 5 seconds earlier than when you'd normally use it is going to net you an extra use of the pot in the battle? Unlikely. If it does, it's just going to net you an extra use during the very end of the battle just as the boss is dying, and by then it really won't have served much of a purpose since the boss is almost completely dead.

Example:

You use potion at 0 sec into fight. I use potion 5 sec into fight to coordinate it with all my other cooldowns for maximum overlap.

If the fight ends at 4:15-5:00 (5:15-6:00 etc.) you've gained nothing by doing this. If the fight ends at 4:00-:4:15, you've only gained less than one full round of 500 haste, and by then the fight is already won so who cares. Why not use you're first potion along with all you're other abilities to create a super condensed wave of dps early on in the fight, when it counts the most? Not try to gain an extra wave of dps at the end of the fight.

EDIT: Oh ok, you can only use them once per combat? Yes I have been living in BC.

Erm... What? Have you just not used a potion since BC or something? The way it works is once you use a potion in combat, you can't use another until you leave combat, AND 60 seconds have passed - whichever comes later. If you use a potion BEFORE entering combat - even if only by a second - you can use another potion 60 seconds later. This is commonly referred to a prepotting and is a DPS gain on any fight over 1:10 in length, give or take.

I guess I'm a little confused on your logic here. Potions have a 1 min cooldown when used OOC. After that 1 min, I can then use another whenever I please (such as stacked on top of a heroism with other cooldowns). So if I use a pot at -1 secs (for example), I get 14 secs of potion usage, with maybe 10 seconds of more optimal use when stacked with my other cooldowns. Later in the fight, (At any time past 1 min after first usage, so 59 secs and on) I get to use another, full 15 secs of 500 haste, stacked whenever I think it will be most appropriate for a maximum amount of damage. This makes a total of 29 seconds of 500 haste, with around 24-25 seconds of that being optimal or near-optimal usage. If I'm wrong about this, please explain.

Que common sense: The only time using one pot during BL is going to beat using two pots outside BL, is when BL increases your damage by 100%; and it doesn't.

That assumes that prepotting gives the full benefit of the potion, which it doesn't - both because you lose duration, and because boss debuffs take time to go up. So it's not a completely ludicrous question. That said, prepotting probably is still a larger DPS increase than a single potion during Heroism, but not by as much as you might expect.

Does anyone open up with Ambush? or is that just a bad idea compared to pre potting

Depends on the fight. On some, you can prepot and stealth with a macro and THEN ambush (Saurfang comes to mind). I still prefer opening with garrote as mutilate whenever possible simply because I "tested" other openers and sometimes, you lose a couple of seconds of HfB because a bleed isn't up instantly.

Assuming a bleed would be up, Mutilate seems like the best choice because of the additional poison proc or did I get this wrong?

Actually, pre-potting and re-stealthing on Sindragosa is impossibly easy. You're are not put into combat and the aura doesn't start until she actually lands. Simply mount up on the stairs and ride to where your guild fights her (mine goes to the opposite side) if yours fights on the stairs simply don't mount. When you're in position, simply stealth to start the Overkill buff and open on your choice of moves when she lands. Even though we fight her on the far side, I always have several seconds where I'm standing around waiting for her to land in front of me in which I can stealth/tricks/pot/etc.

Is it ever ok to use the elixir of armor piercing (+45 armor pen) over the flask of endless rage?

Even if you were ideally geared, the EP you get with 45 ArmPen would never come close to comparing to 180 AP. I am a tiny bit conflicted though, because my guild leader seems so sure of this (and he is ideally geared and seems knowledgable on his class). Is he just plain wrong on this one, or would there be gear combinations or boss situations where this would be optimal?

EDIT: Ok, now my guildmaster says dps doesn't matter. Damage matters.

What is he talking about? What is the difference between DPS and damage?

Using Aldriana's spreadsheet; at 1382 ArP, I find that ArP has a value of 3.1193 ep, which makes elixir's ep value 45x3.1191=140.3685 ep; so it is around 40 ep below Flask of Endless Rage even near ArP cap.

So unless you want to get a benefit of a guardian elixir; flask is always better.

This is a little beside the point but you would not want to use an ArP elixir at 1382 rating since you would only benefit from 18 of the 45 ArP rating (the cap is 1400 rating). To get the maximum benefit of an elixir of armor piercing, you should have 1355 rating or less. At 1355 rating, the EP of ArP will be lower then it is at 1382 rating so regardless, a flask is always better.