I'm pretty sure he just forgot to mention that without weapon swapping as combat Comet's Trail should be replaced with Mjolnir.

Without weapon swapping the best gear list changes. I am explaining the changes in that post in part by saying soft armor pen cap. There are really two alternatives of top gear that I've seen: one has Beast legs offpiece with CT trinket (typical for mutilate) and the other has Calamitous Fate chestpiece as offpiece with MR trinket (typical for armor pen oriented combat setup). For soft armor pen cap, you use the chest offpiece, Mjolnir Runestone trinket and gem armor pen up to 1400 when the trinket procs. When weapon swapping is involved, combat gear list starts to look exactly like mutilate gear list by using Comet's Trail instead of Mjolnir, using the Legs offpiece, and gemming AP.

I'll try to answer your questions:
1. I favor fast offhand because for an offhand, focused attacks overpower the greater mutilate OH damage and higher IP application rate from mutilate attacks. I personally have not checked if the same is true for mainhand as well, and it's pretty easy to do using the simsheet if you want to try. However there are at least two reasons why the results could be different for the mainhand: a) MH damage from mutilate is a larger portion of total mutilate damage (as you said about 55%); b) lower IP application rate from a faster MH will apply not only to mutilate but also to IP application from rupture and envenom.
2. About the trade off between LR and RS, it's a question that is best answered via a model, such as a simulator or a calculator. As it turns out, when you engage in weapon swapping, the value of haste from LR rises and overtakes the value of relentless strikes. Without weapon swapping, 51/13/7 comes out ahead.
3. I am not sure what you mean by the "cap" in your third question, and I could not fully follow that question, sorry. But one thing you said actually reminded me about a"known issue" listed in the "How to Use Tab" of the simulator: "1. One crit roll is used for both mutilate attacks, so they either both crit or they both do not crit." This issue on average does not affect the damage of a mutilate, but it does however affect how many combo points you get from a mutilate. I am trying to work on a solution. When fixed, it will slightly increase estimated mutilate DPS.

I recently ran an Onyxia and was using Dual weapon swapping and yes, i got 4 different Berserking Procs with FoK off of the whelps. I was thinking that is a possibility for 4x any weapon Proc buff. Is this worked into the spreadsheet Mavanas? if not, could you get it to work? thanks for all the work on the Simulation spreadsheet. it has made me #1 on guild lists.

Also, this has been eluded to but not expressly stated: if you are going to use weapon swapping I believe the value of Black Magic (or some other ICD, high proc rate enchant) on a weapon goes up as it's active time goes down. That is to say, as you spend less and less time with the DP offhand equipped, the value of Black Magic on that weapon goes up in comparison to Berserking or Mongoose (and any other PPM based enchant).

Ideally though you'd have one DP OH w/ Berserking/Mongoose and another with Black Magic; using in the Black Magic DP OH every 3rd (4th?) swap.

Hey Mav, I've been messing around with Mutilate Envenom only builds and found that if I take the two points out of Quick Recovery (and put them in Vigor, for example), my dps drops about 50% (~8k to ~4k). Possible big bug?

i dont get the reason behind the proposed 3s/5r/5e rotation (standard combat spec). Wouldnt it be more efficient to use SnD at 4+ points since SnD lasts longer for the spent energy? For me it looks like that either a 4+ snd/ 4+ rupture cycle with a 4+ eviscerate here and there (depends on snd and rupture uptimes) or a 5s/5r+5evis sometimes, is the most efficient cycle, but probably i am wrong and there is a good reason behind a 3s cycle.

Professor, when you put points in vigor (you can even glyph it too), your total energy changes, so you have to adjust DPS Strat page for that. Everywhere it says 100, it should say whatever your max energy is because otherwise your are restricting yourself to not do anything above 100 energy. However, that change alone is not likely to bring your dps from 8k to 4k as long as you have overrides for what happens when you reach your energy cap. I tried taking points out of Quick Recovery and adding a point in Vigor and I only see slight changes to dps, so I am not sure what's going on.

Windwalk, the rotation is actually 3+/5/5 and changing it to 4+/5/5 last I checked does not make much difference.

Moutadentube, I believe I have answered all your questions. Question 3 has the same answer as #2, it's a complicated mechanic to compare the effect of AP and AG on final DPS because it permeates your entire damage output, that's what we have models for. If you could answer everything in your head, why would we create all these tools.


On a different topic, I discovered something that you actually gave me an idea for. Remember asking why not use a fast MH? Well indeed why not? So as we know for mutilate focused attacks mitigate the effect of higher IP application rate and higher mutilate damage from a slower weapon. It's not enough normally for your main hand, but for your offhand it's enough to make you use a fast one. However, when you are weapon swapping, fast mainhand becomes optimal at least in BiS gear for mutilate. I tested it last night, and there are at least two reasons that favor fast MH while weapon swapping:
- the effect of focused attacks is higher when weapon swapping because it allows for more mutilates and each mutilate causes more damage when weapon swapping because of IP application from your offhand
- the swing reset cost depends on weapon damage range not on its dps, so faster weapon will not cause you to lose as much damage from white MH hits when weapon swapping.
In BiS gear you gain about 40 dps when swiitching from 1.8 to 1.4 MH when weapon swapping. At the same time, without weapon swapping you lose about 30 dos by doing that, soit only makes sense when weapon swapping, and probably with enough haste/crit to make focused attacks effective enough.
Lack of focused attacks makes fast MH technique not effective for combat, so yet again weapon swapping favors mutilate more.

A pair of minor corrections; T9.245 Helm should have 90 and not 80 crit rating.
Shawl of the Shattered Giant should have 40 crit rating.

At my current gear level (2T8, 232/245 offsets), switching the main hand from Gouge of the Frigid Heart (1.8) to the equivalent traditionally off-hand Stygian Bladebreaker (1.4) gives the exact same dps figure. It is, however, a 50 dps increase to switch my current main hand from Nemesis Blade (1.8 232) to the Bladebreaker.

So, I guess this means that the crossover point is well before BiS for using a fast MH, and ilvl > speed.

Haste does not surpass attack power, so it only makes sense to gem 20ap/10haste in yellow sockets. You do not want to gem it instead of 40ap for mutilate.