I think before we get into a full blown discussion over the topic of ruptureless cycles we wait and see what numbers Mavanas comes up with, particularily with alot of people still using 4/5 T8, this build could significantly change the ideal time to swap to two piece t9.

Ok here is my current understanding of where things are going in 3.2.2 as we start approaching BiS gear:
- mutilate is pulling firmly ahead of combat
- combat will start using double wound and double mongoose
- axes with soft armor pen cap will be the way to go with combat
- ruptureless rotation is becoming dominant not only for combat because of high levels of armor penetration, but also for mutilate as soon as you start swapping the offhand
- the benefit of swapping the offhand is much higher for mutilate, adding to the gap between the dps of the two specs
- swapping to envenom-only cycle for mutilate with offhand swapping, will mean that 1 glyph slot will change, most likely to TotT if you are actively using and trading this buff with another rogue, or to Glyph of Garrote otherwise. Of course the benefits of exchanging glyphed tott are so high that it should be used whenever possible.
- weapon swapping seems most efficient if you swap back to deadly poison with 3 seconds remaining

Here are the current numbers I am getting for BiS gear in 3.2.2. You will also notice that specs change depending on whether you do offhand swapping or not.

Mavanas did you try encoding a 51/18/2 build without weapon swapping? I'm curious as to how much dps is gained from weapon swapping with the changed build. Also did you note any changes with how early you want to change to t9, without rupture in a cycle I would imagine it would be significantly earlier than the current line of thought.

Has any thought been given to the EP values now that Lighning reflexes is taken? This would push up the value of haste for a mutilate build but I'm not sure if it would reach the value of agi.

Without weapon swapping, 51/18/2 is about 50 dps behind 51/13/7, so the value of weapon swapping for 51/18/2 is around 670 dps. I do not know the EP values yet, but I do know that agility still has a higher score than haste since I tried switching gems around.

As far as any intermediate levels of gear go, such as end of t8, first 2 pieces of t9, full t9 but non-heroic etc, while questions about these gear states are more relevant to the majority of raiders, it takes time to research each. It's not as easy as swapping gear in and checking the dps number unfortunately. I have to run the simulation for each configuration. So please be patient, I will release the latest version with mongoose and berserking changes and you can test it on your own.

Surely in a ruptureless cycle neither of these set bonuses actually have any effect, so the tipping point would be when the raw stats of the gear cause the gain from not using rupture to be higher than the gain from using rupture + the set bonus.

The TotT glyph is still a raid dps increase whether or not someone returns the favour. Personally I tend to use tricks on a DK because he is the highest dps choice in our raids.

GC replied on the Blizz forums about weapon swapping, looks like it may be short-lived if it becomes common.

Mavanas, regarding offhand swapping, would you say for a combat rogue with 5/5 hack and slash and 1/5 CQC, it is better to use a 1.50 speed sword/axe offhand (chance to proc hack and slash), or a 1.40 speed dagger (more combat potency procs/higher chance to refresh DP) -- assuming they're the same itemlevel?

Second question; if during the weapon switch the deadly poison stack is not refreshed by auto attacks, it is better to let the deadly poison stack fall off, or to throw in a Shiv just before it would run out?

I'd use the spreadsheet to look this up, but I cannot find the options to properly model this.

I'm not Mavanas, but I can tell you that, given equal offhand weapon DPS, a 1.5 speed sword/axe is going to outperform a 1.4 speed dagger given your talents.

Even with 5 points in CQC, theorycrafting generally shows that sword spec is superior to mace/dagger spec given equal weapon dps, even if your offhand sword/axe is .1 second slower than whatever dagger you would be using.

On the other hand, if the dagger in question has a significantly higher weapon dps than the sword/axe in question, then it is a closer call.

Question #1, can be easily answered using the spreadsheet.
Question #2, regarding shiv vs fall off, I did not model it in the simsheet, but my napkin approach showed a very small increase in dps from being able to shiv in DP instead of letting it fall off. Adding shiv into rotation will only make the cycle more complicated. So I will suggest not using shiv, and instead just swapping at 3 seconds to go. If you do end up not refreshing DP, do not panick, let it restack and restart the cycle. If in your rotation dp poison will ALWAYS refresh itself during the swap back, you are RNG-lucky. It's part of dps estimation that a bad outcome like dropping DP can happen. If in error, you want to avoid any chance of cycle disruption, use a higher "swap back" time. You will notice that being cautious will cost you some dps, but that's your choice.

Is it taken in to account that, using a ruptureless cycle as mutilate, you will almost always have the envenom buff up, and thus have a higher chance of applying DP in that 3 sec window?
It may only be an additional 15% come 3.2.2, but still...

Of course, all rogue combat mechanics, such as envenom buff are modeled in the spreadsheet. You can check the uptime of the envenom buff in the combat sheet if you show details.

Oh I understand what you mean now. You want to time envenoms and offhand switchback. There were three reasons why I stayed away from timing envenoms:
1. Any restriction on envenom timing may lower your dps.
2. This is an already complicated and attention-heavy procedure so adding timing of envenoms to is only going to make it more complicated.
3. Envenom buff also increases instant poison dps if used after the first swap, so my napkin math before showed that it was actually slightly better to have full duration of the envenom buff during the IP phase. Either way, the difference was not big between the two cases.

That third reason makes a whole lot of sense.

A few very fast and very inaccurate runs in your simulator (the 3.2 one) landed my envenombuff uptime, using a ruptureless cycle, at around 70% give or take a few. When I tried removing the DP tick timing, the result was pretty much the same.
I've been running with an envenom-only build for a few days now, to get the feel of it. (As I'm sure you can see from my armory). I'd say that while we still have to time it to the DP ticks, it's very clunky and bothersome to play.
I do however think that when we no longer have to bother with the DP tick timing, the buff uptime will increase alot. Perhaps with high enough crit, some lucky ruth proccs and some careful planning ahead we might come close to a 100% uptime.

This is purely shooting from the hip, and I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but my gut feeling tells me that the difference in buff uptime should be more noticable when we drop DP tick timing than your sheet tells me. (I'm not too used to it, so I might be misinterpreting the results though).

Since 3.2.2 is out, I have updated the 3.2.2 version of the spreadsheet with my latest innovations:
- slightly improved combat rotation with early SND refresh options (minor positive effect on dps)
- slightly improved mutilate rotation aimed at maximizing envenom uptime (minor positive effect on dps)
- added a couple items, including non-heroic version of DC trinket
- switched DPS rules to seconds instead of simulation ticks, so it's easier to comprehend
- changed some defaults to Hack and Slash in the Talents tab

The front page has also been updated for 3.2.2 patch. As always let me know if you see any bugs. As soon as I confirm that HaT is dead, I will work on a lite version without any HaT support to speed up the calculations.

Mavanas, in your models for weapon swapping, what speed weapon are you modelling for the swapped in OH?

Trying to figure out how to best distribute the mess of daggers I have clunking around in my bags.

I am modeling same exact one as you have with instant poison (or wound for combat). If you do not have an identical dagger, you should definitely have a 1.4 speed dagger in the offhand with deadly poison since you want the DP back up as soon as possible. If you have a different dagger with DP for swapping, the theoretical dps estimate is not going to be exactly accurate, but considering that the DP dagger stays on for about 2-3 seconds and one of its swings is reset, the difference in stats is not going to make a big difference, as long as you keep it at 1.4 speed and best quality you can get. I am not going as far as saying do not bother enchanting that dagger because it can still proc berserking in that 2 second window, but perhaps accuracy is a viable option seeing how the extra chance to hit will help your chance to proc deadly poison better. It would take some number crunching to know the difference between berserking and accuracy, but I bet you the impact on final dps is not going to be that high.

I have a question as to whether the swap dagger stats will ever be modeled for the mutilate sim. I'm playing around with 3 daggers (2 Steel bladebreakers and a Fang of Oblivion) and the DPS difference between Fang/SBB vs SBB/SBB is negligible. The dual SBBs are ahead by about 10 dps. Because of this, I'm wondering which dagger would be better to have as a swap - or if it even matters.

It's modeled for any spec in the simsheet, you just need to enable it in the DPS Strat tab.

Hmm unless I'm blind and can't see it, I don't think that's answering my question. I know how to enable it in the SS. I'm asking if the dagger being swapped has a place to put its stats in.

For example say I'm using Fang of Oblivion and Combatant's Bootblade as my default daggers for mutilate. I want to know whether perilous bite or kingsbane would make a better swap dagger. Can I safely assume that the highest value on the gear page is the ideal swap choice? It seems that some stats might be better in a 3 second window, that's why I'm asking.

I recall the key to choosing the weapon you are swapping to is speed. I encourage other people to further analyze this, but I'm under the impression that in that 3-second window (tops, provided DP doesn't fall off) other stats are somewhat negligible.

I'm assuming the negligable stats only matter on the off-hand with DP, as long as this weapon is 1.4 speed.

This brings up an issue with my current set-up. My two choices for off-hand daggers are Dirk of the Night Watch, a 1.4 speed, and the Golem-Shard Sticker, a 1.5 speed.

Obviously the Dirk has the better stats, but it also has the advantage in being a faster dagger. Just trying to think this through, I'm figuring to use the Dirk with IP, and switch to the Sticker to apply DP.

Going with the 1.5 speed DP dagger I know isn't optimal, but in a case like this, it seems unavoidable.

As a side note, is there a level of passive haste that one could acquire that would make a slower (1.5) off-hand dagger more viable?


edit: typo

It's currently not possible to input different stats for the dagger being swapped. It is assumed that stats are the same as that of a the other offhand dagger. Please be patient, I will program that in.