Further, even if the Envenom glyph had not been removed, the HfB glyph should be one of the glyphs you are assuming is in use for a Mutilate spec.

Currently the 3 glyphs of choice would be: HFB, Mutilate, Rupture... If the rotations are as tight as they seem to be right now then dropping a point from CQC for SnD would be the best solution I would assume.

With the easy to attain poison hit cap, it's actually easier to grab SnD with a point from Precision and still have the hit needed for specials and poisons to not miss.

So what would be the best glyphs for combat atm besides SS?

The idea is that the amount of energy required for all moves between consecutive SnD refreshes may at times be larger than the baseline regen in that period of time. With the Mutilate glyph, this shouldn't be *too* much of an issue, but it's not inconceivable that situations will arise where you run out of energy to do all necessary moves before refreshing SnD, and thus have SnD drop. Now, looking at the numbers, this should be pretty rare, but whether rare means "it happens once a week" or "it happens once per year" is hard to say. And in the former case, I can see it being worth dropping a point into Imp SnD, as an SnD drop costs a *lot* of DPS, and a single point in Precision has relatively low DPS benefit (on the order of half a percent). So: it isn't *necessarily* worth doing, but the possibility does exist if we find the cycles are too unstable in practice.

Also note that this situation is vastly more common if you don't have Relentless Strikes, as is the case with the proposed 51/18/2 builds.

In reality, if you end up in a situation when you can see that you won't have enough time to put in one more mutilate and then refresh SND in time using an envenom or eviscerate, I am guessing it's better to skip an extra mutilate and use a low combo point finisher to keep SND going. Is that right?

I see this becoming the same situation that Combat currently runs into.

Energy pool is low so the rogue activates Killing Spree or Adrenaline Rush to regain the energy pool.

For Mutilate builds, if your cycle starts to run into energy problems, pop Vanish for the Overkill bonus to help regain energy for your pool. This will help to, as Aldriana stated, "help to not get in that situation in the first place." Sadly, this is less helpful than either of the options that Combat has available for stabilizing a cycle, but at least it's something.

In addition to Vanish+Overkill, another somewhat handy thing Mutilate rogues can use is Thistle Tea, obviously not what it used to be, but it still does the job for the rare occasions where "you run out of energy to do all necessary moves before refreshing SnD". Though may not be able to get away with not having your healthstone ready for fights in Ulduar.

From what I'd been reading and seeing in the few 3.1 meters I've come across, combat was looking like the strongest tree. At the same time, I can't help but notice all the talk about Mutilate in 3.1.

Has Mut been showing stronger than Combat on ptr recently?

As has been mentioned multiple times earlier, both Improved Poisons and Envenom are both still not working properly on the PTR and is the reason Mutilate is not where it should be on meters.

You have not been reading then. Mutilate for all intents and purposes is broken on the PTR. But speculation based on the patch notes of what they intend to do with it should boost it to and possibly above combat again.

Indeed - I'm quite aware of that. But conversation is so exclusively focussed on mutilate lately, that it's as if everyone has already decided that it's the only way to go once 3.1 hits live servers.

Trying to figure out if I'd missed something along the way since I thought both were being considered viable specs on ptr ...

Is anyone up for the idea of making a separate 3.1 combat thread?

The Rupture Glyph does indeed add damage. If it merely extended the duration, there would be no reason whatsoever to get the glyph for raiding as, in the end, the damage would be identical.

This is exactly right. Most rogues swear by dual WD, the spreadsheet actually shows it as a small DPS decrease when you choose WD over SR for your offhand weapon. The significantly increased damage from SR compensates for the speed loss.

The Rupture glyph means you don't need to rupture as often, hence can spend more combo points on Envenoms; thus, it is a damage increase. Now, whether or not the SnD glyph actually adds DPS or not, it can be replaced with a point in Imp SnD should it be necessary; thus, the relevant comparison is the damage gained by Glyph of Rupture versus the damage gained by a point of Precision; and current estimates shows that Glyph of Rupture is worth more damage, and, as such, the usual assumption is that Glyph of SnD would be dropped.

The Snd glyph basically just offers you more pooling time. That is the only real dps increase it offers. You could say keeping SnD up is a dps increase but it is still possible to do so without this glyph.

Since one point into imp SnD already out does the glyph and we also now get the Mutilate glyph it really should not be that big of a issue to hold a rotation with one point into imp Snd. The only thing we need to make up for now is the 32 hit rating. (Forget the exact percent of HR=1%)

I made that comment because the consequence of falling out of your cycle is not as big as dropping SND (which costs around the damage of a 5 point envenom or eviscerate which you gonna skip to put SND up), the real cost is the difference between a 3 point envenom/eviscerate and 5 point envenom/eviscerate, and a slight increase in its energy cost due to relentless strikes. Which is probably a third of a 5pt eviscerate damage.

And that cost has to be compared with what it takes to never let SND drop, which is presumably 1 point in precision. I can't say the answer to that trade off is straightforward. I know many people prefer stable cycles, but sometimes the cost of running a stable cycle becomes too high.

This is probably subjective to gear if i had to guess. I lose over 100 DPS by plugging in the SR and dropping WD. What i find interesting is the spread sheet shows a DPS GAIN if i drop Ruthlessness and having 3 talents unspent.

To talk about removing the S&D glyph and rotations seeming tight is pretty obvious that situations like that will be highly unlikely. Any decently geared mutilate rogue with standard raid buffs will often find that rupture and slice and dice is up with plenty of time and 4-5CP ready to use a finisher. Losing three seconds on S&D and also losing 5 energy costs on mutilate leads me to believe we will get CP faster to counter the 3 seconds lost. I'm not a number junkie but i see the new glyphs as an obvious choice rather than a tough decision.

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Repetitive information Sorry

Incorrect, im pretty sure its just because previously it wasn't announced. Just discovered by the community. Now they have just officially announce it.

Frequency means procs in a time frame = PPM

And this phrasing has been announced quite a bit ago.