I'd personally say that FoK would benefit more from CQC than HnS due to the small proc chance from HnS, but FoK is affected by HnS.

The really shouldn't be an issue with Blade Twisting because the rogue should be waiting until the add gets closer before applying threat.

As well, the entire time its slowed it'll be nuked by rogue for massive threat anyways.

When you do get those few adds still left with around 30k HP after AoE is done just have your tank kill them. It works for us.

After 2 years of this nonsense, have we still not learned that recount has no fucking clue how Hack and Slash (formerly sword specialization) works?

Do yourself a favor. Do a search for 'Recount' and 'Sword Specialization' and look up some of the extensive testing on the subject that's been done on the combat logs reporting of extra swing procs. While I don't know that there has been such testing re: H'n'S and FoK specifically, I can tell you that any such testing that would need to be done, would need to be done without using Recount as your tool of record for measuring it. It has no fucking clue what does and does not trigger it, unless those procs from Retribution Aura and Thorns for 90 damage are really happening.

Purely anecdotical, but yesterday I was running around in Dalaran and happily spamming FoK, when I accidently killed that little bugger on the statue pedestal before the southern bank. Poor squirrel wouldn't see it coming, but my combat log only registered one FoK hit and one Hack'n'Slash proc.
Now it is entirely possible that there did happen a melee attack that procced HnS and the combat log simply swallowed (I have /startattack macroed with FoK), but it looked quite interesting.

I think I'll maltreat some target dummies with FoK tomorrow and see what happens.

Perhaps Recount was not the best example of to find out if FoK is affected by HnS. I decided to go to orgri dummies, equip one sword in MH only (ensures that only 1 FoK hit is going to be recorded in combat log) and stand in a position that my FoK would only be hitting one target, and I would not be auto attacking.

Sometime later this appeared in combat log:



A second test shown below, Malice equipped in MH and auto attacking:



My thought is that HnS can be triggered by FoK, but the damage of FoK is not what is replicated by HnS - it just triggers another attack which I believe can be determined by this final screenshot:



Testing done with Malice equipped (2.5 speed) and 173 haste rating bringing malice speed to 2.16.

I should have phrased it differently. FoK may affect HnS, but HnS doesn't affect FoK. Whether or not that is good or bad for anub depends entirely on your guild and the priority of aoe v single target dps.

In phase 3, your health is usually going to be under 5%, so Prey on the Weak won't be triggering. If your group can get to phase 3 with your rogues as mutilate, would it be better to just be mutilate for anubarak?

Mutilate does have some structural advantages in P3, but the power of DPS cooldowns (Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry) cannot be underestimated. In practice, my experience has been that Combat tends to perform better overall, but I'm not totally convinced that Mutilate is inherently inferior, either. It sort of works out to what specific aspects your guild is (and isn't) struggling with, and your personal playstyle, I think.

Would this spec be better? Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Combat daggers/backstab, since FoK causes more damage with daggers I would assume that this spec is viable, it came out 700 DPS more than the normal 18/51/2 using axes or fist/dagger unless I'm doing something extremely wrong

I have a small question. Does anyone have the problem of the adds getting dazzed before they get to the add tank? What do you do to fix this problem? Do you spec out of it (and lose some singel target dps, which is anyway not that high) or do you shiv/use white dmg to trick the adds?
I noticed when shiving a few times, that the threat generated is not enough.

Any suggestions?

Any white dmg or shiv you do can proc the Blade Twisting daze as well.

What I do is just wait until the add gets close before I start pumping threat into it.

I think part of the choice depends on what job you are doing. I stay combat for Anub because I have the job of sticking the adds to the add tank. So, I spread my combat cool downs out, blowing tricks and BF or AD rush on each pack. I also use FoK glyph and TotT Glyph because we single tank the adds. I have more freedom with my glyphs in combat than mutilate.

In regards to slows on the adds like Blade twisting can cause a problem if you are running out to get them. If you are having problems with this and your guilds DPS is decent enough just spec out of Blade twisting. Personally I almost never run out to get adds. The back get MDed to the tank and the front head straight for the healers. We position the Ice we tank on in the middle and have the Healers standing near MT. This forces adds to kinda naturally funnel toward me and the add tank. I only move out if a add is slowed to get extra threat on it. This allows me to stay on anub and get extra threat on adds.

I would question the use of blade flurry to generate more threat on the adds, Unless you are within melee range of all of them, most of the flurries are going to be transferred to Anub, who has a much larger hit box than the adds and will almost certainly be within melee range. If you are standing off the ice and meleeing Anub, while standing about 5 yds away from the adds who are in the middle of the ice (which is how our rogues do it) then blade flurry actually produces no additional threat on the adds, although it does provide a good chunk of damage to the boss.

Another implication of this is that spreading your cool downs is not that useful since only AR actually increases threat and damage to the adds, it is probably therefore best to use them together, to get more FoK's off During Blade Flurry, which will increase your damage dealt to the boss.

If you are standing on the ice with the adds then this is moot and Blade Flurry will in fact increase threat.

I don't think the damage loss from dropping Blade Twisting is that significant for this fight. On our kill, Sinister Strike was 7.3% of my total damage (without BT). 10% added to that is less than 1% overall gain, and you have to figure on top of that that a fair percentage of those SS were on the adds when they were coming in, not on Anub. Basically, if you feel that the daze effect is becoming a problem with your particular strategy, don't hesitate to drop Blade Twisting. Obviously it would be less of an impact if you were Tricksing the near 2 adds, but if you've got the tank and a Hunter picking up the near 2 and Rogues on the back, it will be more of an issue.

Yes, I am standing on the ice. I wait till they are pretty close so I maximize the dmg from FoK & BF on the adds. If I have to be BoF to go get a loose add my CDs can get some what wasted, but in my experience getting the loose add in to the pack is much more important then my own damage or even the add threat on the adds.

Did it with 18/51/2 HnS specced 2.6/1.5 WP/WP, glyphs were FoK, SS, SnD. Popped AR + BF during first adds, 2nd AR was a bit clipped.

Either SS or SnD glyphs could be swapped out for TotT, or I suppose KS, BF, or AR.

I did not have TotT, because we ran 3 tanks who didn't have issues with threat or picking them up and for a while no other rogues, so I wasn't sure glyphed tricks on a DK would give them aggro issues (unglyphed didn't, but it was getting close). SnD & SS just made SnD uptime easier.

KS glyph would be largely wasted because of the encounter timers. I could KS at the start, then as he came up 2x, and then on CD when there we no adds up. Glyph would just make me sit on the timer during burrow phases, and give me 1 or 2 more KS in P3.

AR would give 1 extra FoK every 3 mins, BF 1 extra FoK every 4 mins. And just didn't seem to be worth it.

I used a damaging finisher about 3 times per fight, and not all of them at 5CP, so glyphing for these would seem wasted as well.


As for HnS, it does seem to proc off FoK, but only once per cast. I have no proof other than just looking at a recount I have no screenshots of.


Final tip: We had our tanks wear some NR (ebon blade head enchant, cloak enchant, resistance flask), and run NR aspect/totem to mitigate some of the damage and anub healing during phase 3.

More anecdotal evidence based on my experiences with this fight:

2pc t8 with wound/deadly is a serious damage booster. Tested with it, and with 4pc t9.25 alternatively and there was a difference of roughly 500-800 dps. I'm using a 1.8 dagger offhand with a modified 18/51/2 spec, hns main. I end up using only 1 piece of t9 which is the helm along with 2pc t8 (shoulders/gloves) and 2 offset pieces gemmed for ap. I do my best to swap in stuff gemmed with ap, but I realize that most players don't have that option available to them.

Another tip I'd give to rogues trying to maximize their damage on this fight is to allow AR/BF to sync up rather than use them separately. This requires you to let BF stay unused for a minute each cycle, but the damage boost gained from the extra foks when AR is up more than makes up for it.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

This is a parse from the best attempt I've had with this strategy. I use the snd/tott/fok glyph strategy because I am the only raiding rogue in the guild, otherwise I would probably swap out tott for ss. Contrary to what some people have been saying, I find that trying to completely maximize my aoe damage while pooling combo points/energy in between waves as best I can produces the best result. None of the adds come close to losing threat on the add tank despite me and the add tank (along with a flimsy misdirect on 2 adds) being the soul source of aggro. Damage is also maximized.

Obviously I don't pool energy past 100, but I almost never have to use finishers other than SnD (I believe I eviscerated once, and never ruptured?). I think next I will take the 2 points out of imp evis and put them into remorseless attacks assuming that it works on the scarabs/burrowers.

In case anyone actually doubts the merits of the 18/51/2 spec for Anub, I may have something that will help you out. I finally read this thread while I had some down time before my raid on monday, and seeing as we hadn't killed Anub yet, I figured any edge would be worth it. We still haven't killed him (best attempt featured 4 dps and the MT DCing at 8.6%, and reconnecting, mostly dead, at 2.x%), but the improvement that I saw from this thread was amazing.

Two sample parses from 15/51/5 (you can look at other attempts if you wish, but these were both decent attempts, and are fairly representative of the DPS I was able to sustain throughout the encounter with this spec):
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

And now my first night with the 18/51/2 spec (slow/slow weapons for FoK periods weren't ideal as I had vendored my Golden Saronite Dragon a few weeks earlier and was forced to use CG/Frostblade Hatchet(H), but they worked):
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Gear was identical (other than weapon swapping, however poisons were slightly different as I went WP/WP on my slow/slow set for FoK), and other than the tweak to spec and the aforementioned poison change, there was a net increase in DPS approaching 1k (obviously varies from attempt to attempt)


With that out of the way, I do have a question about the beginning of the fight. Out of habit I tend to use my cooldowns as early as is plausible for the fight in order to use them more. Due to the unpredictable nature of KS (jumping to burrowers and getting slowed on the ice, etc), I unload that along with blood fury at the beginning, while saving the rest for the first wave of adds. Since I am using tricks on add tanks, I am unable to tricks the MT, and often find myself pulling aggro during my opening sequence (3pt SnD, BF, KS, [pull aggro] then ss->evis). I have never died from this, and more recently have started using evasion prior to the KS, but I was just thinking that there may be a better way to do this. This is mainly regarding KS usage, and if anyone has a better way of doing things. I generally find myself popping it on the pull, at the beginning of every P1, and between add waves in P3. Obviously in my case a lot of this is a result of our group comp and specific circumstances, but if anyone raids in a similar situation I would love to hear it if you have a different (preferably better) way of using CDs.

Perusing this thread I have seen a lot of discussion on the optimal weapons for this fight, but I haven't really seen any sort of consensus on what is ideal.
I've got a few options available to me: I can use CQC with The Masticator and Twin Spike (Reg), or Steel Bladebreaker (Heroic). OR I can go HnS with Stormpike Cleaver (Reg), and Lionhead Slasher (Heroic).

I know that daggers have a better FoK damage multiplier, and slower daggers will proc poisons more often, so is it better go with a slow/slow CQC setup, or would my superior HnS weapons still outscale the CQC weps for FoK damage?

The reason no sort of consensus on what weapons are ideal for anub is that no clear winner exists. I've yet to see an example combatlog blowing all other weapon combos away. Personally I use mace spec and fast offhand with no weapon switching for FoK. I did try some 1.8 offhand switching but the lesser combat potency procs more than countered the increased FoK offhand damage. Plus, fidling with weaponswitching wasting gcds when you're supposed to Tott adds off healers isn't ideal.
I've rather consistantly broken 10k dps using mace+1.4dagger and my gear level seems on par with the other log examples given in here.

so instead of using [Mjolnir Runestone], will it be more beneficial to use [Blood of the Old God] or [Fury of the Five Flights] since poisons are modified by AP?

Poisons are modified by AP, but the scaling factor is relatively small compared to how armor penetration scales. The main issue with mjiolnir is you can't control the proc, so it may be wasted.

After messing around with my spreadsheet to compare stat weightings, I noticed armor penetration appears to scale far and away better than any other stat for aoe. For example, with my stats, 1 point of Arp is worth about 3.05 points of AP right before the arp cap, and 1 point of agi is worth about 2.17 AP.