Changes... a lot has happened since my last post in RL and in-game. Who really cares about RL so lets just talk about in-game changes. Let's start off with the biggest change first. I left my long time guild... whoa! I pretty much have been there my entire WoW lifespan barring the first couple of months in some wannabe-raiding-qq-guild called Champions of Azeroth. That was really a bad experience for me. They were a joke.
Simply put, WE is one of the best guilds I could have ever have hoped to have been associated with. I left for a variety of personal reasons and 1 actual guild reason, which was we just weren't progressing fast enough. Being a casual guild it's implied that RL comes first always. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does impact progress. Personal reasons include not seeing my friends online as much as I would like, wanting to be more productive with my online time (grinding out rep on alts is just busy work), and missing the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself... a grand machine who's will to succeed is unstoppable. That being said, I don't expect to foster new friendships or to revel in the camaraderie that made WE so fucking enjoyable. It'll take forever to learn the dynamics of everyone's personality and to discover who is friends with who and probably even longer to discover who ISN'T friends with who. What I expect to do is bring all the good things that I've learned from WE and show this guild what makes WE so special.
Another big change is patch 3.3. Honestly, this has to be one of Blizz's best patches yet if not the best. The content in this patch is just awesome. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself with all the new content and UI changes. I see a lot of people posting about how blizz doesn't do this right or how blizz messes that up. What I see is a company adjusting itself to accommodate its player base. The new Looking for Group tool is simply awesome. Sure, it could be better, but for just being implemented it has far exceeded my expectations. Not enough positive things can be said about that right now. The equipment manager is pretty darn good as well. It's still behind Outfitter only because it lacks automated changes. Otherwise, it's very stable and easy to use. It really sucked when it first came out. Switching out gear, saving and updating gear sets, and changing specific gear items are all very easy to do now. Blizzard has also updated map and quest functionality making Questhelper useless. Questhelper was great because it guided you on where to go (reading the quest also does that) but it was buggy and at times cumbersome to use (having a lot of quests and looking at your in-game map could cause epilepsy). Blizz killed all that noise in this patch. Any quest mod should be promptly deleted from add-ons folder. I find myself looking to use a lot less add-ons now. Blizz has identified ways to make their game less complicated and has done a great job in bringing that to the community.
Lastly, it seems that a lot of guilds are looking for rogues these days. Who knew we would be in such demand at endgame? Having languished through most of the expansion as just another dps it's nice to feel wanted again. Rogues should return to the top dps spot very soon from what I've seen and read recently. Mut is getting a slight nerf to HfB but it was prolly well deserved considering the insane numbers they were putting out when properly geared. Combat will still be competitive but its unclear if we will compete at the very top level with Mutilate spec'd rogues. I'm very excited to be able to bring something more than just my charming personality to raids again. Also, being able to talk rogue with one of the top rogues on the server is definitely exciting too. It's not an easy class to master.... more on that later.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
New Class
I know this is a bit premature considering that LK just came out a few months ago... but I can't help wondering.
Apparently, with every new expansion (supposed to occur once per year or so) Blizz is going to incorporate a new hero class into the game. I think death knights have been a hit thus far. They are a great concept and seem to be very easy to use. I haven't leveled mine yet. I'm not sure I'm going to as I'm not very interested in another melee toon AND I don't like tanking very much. Otherwise, I love the buffs they bring, I love the disease based nature of their spells, and I love the little sublteties like the creepy laugh.
With that said, what will the new class be? I'm sure they already have a list of ideas. I'm thinking it has to be a caster type unit. Another healer would be cool, but is another hybrid class really valuable? Archdruid has been mentioned a lot in various forums/posts. I just can't see this happening. Lets go over a list of requirements:
1. The class has to be accessible by a number of races.
2. The class has to be represented in WC lore.
3. The class has to be unique.
4. The class has to be associated to the new content.
Here are some other earlier ideas that we probably won't see either... Brewmaster, Necromancer, and Runemaster. I suppose we could list the Bard in there too :). In the past Blizzard had attempted to combine spell casting and melee into one class/spec ie. shamans and druids with little success. I think these classes have been improved upon but in a direction away from what was originally intended.
Any ideas on what to expect?
Apparently, with every new expansion (supposed to occur once per year or so) Blizz is going to incorporate a new hero class into the game. I think death knights have been a hit thus far. They are a great concept and seem to be very easy to use. I haven't leveled mine yet. I'm not sure I'm going to as I'm not very interested in another melee toon AND I don't like tanking very much. Otherwise, I love the buffs they bring, I love the disease based nature of their spells, and I love the little sublteties like the creepy laugh.
With that said, what will the new class be? I'm sure they already have a list of ideas. I'm thinking it has to be a caster type unit. Another healer would be cool, but is another hybrid class really valuable? Archdruid has been mentioned a lot in various forums/posts. I just can't see this happening. Lets go over a list of requirements:
1. The class has to be accessible by a number of races.
2. The class has to be represented in WC lore.
3. The class has to be unique.
4. The class has to be associated to the new content.
Here are some other earlier ideas that we probably won't see either... Brewmaster, Necromancer, and Runemaster. I suppose we could list the Bard in there too :). In the past Blizzard had attempted to combine spell casting and melee into one class/spec ie. shamans and druids with little success. I think these classes have been improved upon but in a direction away from what was originally intended.
Any ideas on what to expect?
Sarth 3D
This muthafuckin' fight is a motherfucker!! I love it. It's the only challenging thing in the game. I really like the idea of being able to choose your own difficulty for a fight. What is a bit off is the scaling for this fight especially at 2D. Sarth by himself is a joke. Sarth plus one drake isn't much harder. Sarth plus 2 drakes can be a challenge but is also a modifiable fight depending on which drake the raid chooses to down before the boss fight. If Shadron is killed there just isn't any pressure on the healers or the tank unless the raid dps is just super horrible.
The one thing I don't like is that the 3D fight doesn't allow for a dynamic group. For example, due to the high necessity of dps it isn't viable to mix the group between caster and physical damage classes. This is disappointing cuz my rogue actually ends up nerfing the raid (or being nerfed myself by the lack of buffs). It's expected to have a fair shot of downing him that the raid put out at least 4k dps on average. I believe 3.5k dps would be the threshold.
Regardless, I've been toying with the idea of putting together a melee group to go in and hammer this SOB. Unfortunately, we just don't have the available players to make that happen. We need to recruit more!!
The one thing I don't like is that the 3D fight doesn't allow for a dynamic group. For example, due to the high necessity of dps it isn't viable to mix the group between caster and physical damage classes. This is disappointing cuz my rogue actually ends up nerfing the raid (or being nerfed myself by the lack of buffs). It's expected to have a fair shot of downing him that the raid put out at least 4k dps on average. I believe 3.5k dps would be the threshold.
Regardless, I've been toying with the idea of putting together a melee group to go in and hammer this SOB. Unfortunately, we just don't have the available players to make that happen. We need to recruit more!!
Mutilate vs. Combat specs
I recently ran did a VoA run just to pick up some pvp gear. I was invited by a former guildie that just happened to be a rogue. She's always had pretty decent gear comparable to my own. Upon inspection her gear is a bit better than mine by a few gear points AND she's specc'd mutilate. Immediately, I thought this is going to be a contest to see who does more dps. I'm not sure if she was competing, but I know I was!! I don't run into many good rogues anymore... actually, I never really did.
Her spec was pretty much cookie cutter HfB. Mine has the essential combat point allocations. The first bit of trash went down pretty fast with the two rogues topping the meter. I do want to point out one interesting thing I noticed. The first pull she was distracted and didn't start dps'ing for the first few seconds giving me a lead on overall damage done... but that frakkin' mut spec is so damn bursty that by the time the mob was down she had clearly caught up to me. I'm very annoyed at this...
Anyway, by the end of the raid we were both clearly the best geared toons there. How often does anyone see 2 rogues leading on the dps meters anymore? It was a virtual tie on both damage to Archavon and overall damage done for the raid. Her dps was a bit higher due to the burstiness of the spec. I believe with the new patch combat is going to surpass mut by a nice margin... I've noticed that as a single target dps class that my dps on single targets isn't really that great. I've seen classes catch up to me on the meters on boss fights quite often. This is the only place where I see haste actually providing a buff to me. Longer fights mean more energy procs and with the changes to mana pots I forsee a bonus to having non-mana users in raids. I'm very much looking forward to Ulduar.
I'm still not sold on the changes blizz made to haste to improve overall combat dps. I would like to see Armor Penetration get buffed a lot more. I would also like to have Blade Flurry on a shorter cooldown OR have Blade Flurry effect more mobs.
Her spec was pretty much cookie cutter HfB. Mine has the essential combat point allocations. The first bit of trash went down pretty fast with the two rogues topping the meter. I do want to point out one interesting thing I noticed. The first pull she was distracted and didn't start dps'ing for the first few seconds giving me a lead on overall damage done... but that frakkin' mut spec is so damn bursty that by the time the mob was down she had clearly caught up to me. I'm very annoyed at this...
Anyway, by the end of the raid we were both clearly the best geared toons there. How often does anyone see 2 rogues leading on the dps meters anymore? It was a virtual tie on both damage to Archavon and overall damage done for the raid. Her dps was a bit higher due to the burstiness of the spec. I believe with the new patch combat is going to surpass mut by a nice margin... I've noticed that as a single target dps class that my dps on single targets isn't really that great. I've seen classes catch up to me on the meters on boss fights quite often. This is the only place where I see haste actually providing a buff to me. Longer fights mean more energy procs and with the changes to mana pots I forsee a bonus to having non-mana users in raids. I'm very much looking forward to Ulduar.
I'm still not sold on the changes blizz made to haste to improve overall combat dps. I would like to see Armor Penetration get buffed a lot more. I would also like to have Blade Flurry on a shorter cooldown OR have Blade Flurry effect more mobs.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Rogue Vent
Ok, after a pricey respec and regear I walked into Naxx 25 last weekend. I was hoping for a lot more dps for a lot less hassle. What I discovered was the rogues are no longer PvE masters... not even close.
A guildie of mine messaged me the other day noticing that my dps was kinda low in comparison to some of the other WWS reports that he had seen. He was very delicate in addressing the matter. "Hey, HH... I've seen rogues topping the dps meters, you may want to look at your spec". Oh, he was oh so right. I saw rogues hitting between 7k - 11k dps depending on the boss. I believe Thaddius gives the best buff overall for rogues or really anyone. I'm thinking WTF!!! I'm no noob. I immediately wowarmory these rogues to see what the hell is going on. A quick comparison reveals that I have superior gear. I also see that they are mutilate spec'd. Fuck! The last thing I want to do is to go back to that fucking hassle of a spec. I'd rather watch John Goodman pole dance.
I remember looking at the WWS report for Thaddius and noticing that there were 3 rogues in the raid. Amazingly, all 3 were tops in dps. There's no way I'm that much of a noob that 3 rogues with lesser gear beat me out by freaking 5k - 9k dps. There has to be a rea.... wait. Quicky I return to the WWS report and investigate which spells were being used and sure enough... each rogue was spamming eviscerate about 60 - 70% of the time. Which could only mean that they were HaT spec'd... which could only mean they were taking full advantage of the bug by having 2 more rogues in the raid that are also HaT spec'd. Every WWS report I've seen with rogues topping the meters have been HaT spec'd AND with 2 other rouges in party. I'm usually the only rogue in our guild raids.
Unfortunately, this is the only way for rogues to top the dps meters at this point in time, even on single target mobs. I wouldn't mind so much if I could AoE more to help with trash mobs or stun-lock a mob while my raid pounds on his helpless body or maybe opening any number of blue lockboxes that always drop... but my AoE is on a 10 sec CD and costs half my energy bar, stun-locking doesn't matter cuz AoE rules, and no blue lockboxes drop. I've thought about stat reallocation to maximize my dps...
A guildie of mine messaged me the other day noticing that my dps was kinda low in comparison to some of the other WWS reports that he had seen. He was very delicate in addressing the matter. "Hey, HH... I've seen rogues topping the dps meters, you may want to look at your spec". Oh, he was oh so right. I saw rogues hitting between 7k - 11k dps depending on the boss. I believe Thaddius gives the best buff overall for rogues or really anyone. I'm thinking WTF!!! I'm no noob. I immediately wowarmory these rogues to see what the hell is going on. A quick comparison reveals that I have superior gear. I also see that they are mutilate spec'd. Fuck! The last thing I want to do is to go back to that fucking hassle of a spec. I'd rather watch John Goodman pole dance.
I remember looking at the WWS report for Thaddius and noticing that there were 3 rogues in the raid. Amazingly, all 3 were tops in dps. There's no way I'm that much of a noob that 3 rogues with lesser gear beat me out by freaking 5k - 9k dps. There has to be a rea.... wait. Quicky I return to the WWS report and investigate which spells were being used and sure enough... each rogue was spamming eviscerate about 60 - 70% of the time. Which could only mean that they were HaT spec'd... which could only mean they were taking full advantage of the bug by having 2 more rogues in the raid that are also HaT spec'd. Every WWS report I've seen with rogues topping the meters have been HaT spec'd AND with 2 other rouges in party. I'm usually the only rogue in our guild raids.
Unfortunately, this is the only way for rogues to top the dps meters at this point in time, even on single target mobs. I wouldn't mind so much if I could AoE more to help with trash mobs or stun-lock a mob while my raid pounds on his helpless body or maybe opening any number of blue lockboxes that always drop... but my AoE is on a 10 sec CD and costs half my energy bar, stun-locking doesn't matter cuz AoE rules, and no blue lockboxes drop. I've thought about stat reallocation to maximize my dps...
- Haste isn't the way to go. All of my spells are instant cast. Strike 1! Reducing the global cooldown does very little with that little finite yellow mana bar. 3 spells and I'm out of energy unlike a 15k blue mana bar. Strike 2! My attack speed is increased by a percentage but considering that my white attacks miss a lot more now (hit cap rating for white damage is over 700 now) and are deflected 30% of the time really reduces the impact of haste. Strike 3!!
- Armor Penetration isn't the way to go. Boss mobs have soooo much freaking armor in the thousands. The small amounts that gear offers doesn't begin to be the answer in raising our dps back to a respectable level.
- Other stats... well, all the other stats were introduced a long time ago and have already been used and abused. They won't offer much in the way of reclaiming those tops spots.
- Buffs: Our guild is primarily caster dps. I'm sure if we had more melee dps my overall damage would increase but no to areas that I'm accustomed to seeing.
So, what's the answer. Easy... wait for new and better gear to come out and hope that blizzard will make changes to allow rogues to compete with boomkins and ret pallies that are easily pwning my ass every raid. Hybrid classes should not be out-dps'ing pure dps classes (ie, only rogues atm) with lesser gear.
http://wowwebstats.com/q3wksruaydvqe
http://wowwebstats.com/41cc6uggtvmtc?s=300-30095
Monday, December 22, 2008
25 Naxx
Yesterday was the first 25 man raid for the expansion that are guild ran. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to finally do this. 10 man Naxx is a bit of a joke. I believe our team is still a bit undergeared and that we are actually over-performing based on our willingness to do the right things to beat bosses.
I've been terribly upset over my dps in 10 mans... well, not just my dps but the shift in the game towards AoE damage. Even on bosses, ie Patchwerk, I wasn't tops on the meter which is fine considering I'm missing a lot of enchants on my gear. All these elements are leading me to think, "What is the purpose of rogues, now?"
Anyway, the 25 man was my first real opportunity to get a clearer picture on the matter. In my 10 man group, I don't get too many buffs. Rogues really seem to be hyper-sensitive to buffs and scaling. In the 10 man I averaged around 1200-1500 dps topping out at 2k dps on boss fights. In the 25 man I topped out at 2.9k still easily behind other classes. I still had an awesome time in Naxx 25 man. This was easily the best group I've been in yet. We cleared the plague quarter. I'm not sure if having a 10 man version makes the learning curve flatter but we had very little issue with understanding the bosses. After a couple of attempts on each boss the group really seemed to sync. There are usually so many elements to consider when getting a raid group together. Each class will impact the raid in specific ways creating a synergistic effect that is rarely duplicated unless the exact same people come every time. Learning this synergy is usually just as important as learning the boss. For this group to go in and wipe a couple of times on each boss and then down them was very impressive to me. I remember wiping on High King so many fucking times. Even after downing him one week and coming back the next week with less than 10 different people still made the fight pretty fucking hard. Next up was Gruul who was equally a pain in the ass to get down consistently. It's an easier fight to manage overall but still requires execution cuz Shatter is such a motherfucking pain in the ass. I don't think Naxx is as hard as this. Factor in many more competent people and it almost becomes a joke.
My favorite moment, there were a few, but the tops for this day was the last boss Loatheb. We wiped on him about 3 or 4 times. This is a straight dps fight, the catch is that the healing is nerfed for most of the fight. I suppose you could look at it as a healing fight also. Anyway, our first 2 attempts were pretty good. We were able to get him down to about 30% at least before wiping. Our 3rd attempt was fucking amazing. My computer was acting retarded and I missed about the first 30 seconds of the fight. When I came back, I went in balls-to-the-wall and handled my bidness. I didn't get a lot of healer luv and I tapped out about halfway through. No hate, I'm just a rogue. As I'm lying there, dead, on the floor, watching the fight... you know cuz i'm dead (read: shamynowammy keep my ass alive!!) I'm watching the remaining 8 people still standing continue to will themselves not to fail. This unbelievable shit went on for about 10-15 minutes. It was like they were carved out of granite. No one was going to fall. Hit by hit and tick by tick the elemental giant was withering. You could see its resolve failing it. Raid chat started to get active. 10%, 5%, 2%... we were almost at a fever pitch. My heart was pounding in my chest. If we could just hold on. Then it happened. One dps down, then another... next a healer down... 1%. I could see the gloriousness, fuck that, I could taste it. It's sweet and syrupy and filled with bliss. It's right there in front of me. A huge handful of delicious victory was waiting for me... well, for us... cuz I'm lying there dead - but I digress. Next, a tank goes down then the other shortly after. I could see it's health in the tens of thousands now. If we can just hold on a bit longer. The last healer dropped and that was all she wrote. It made quick work of the remaining dps. Maybe the granite had cracks in it...
All full of adrenaline I was ready to get back in there to try again. I believe someone mentioned that we give up to try again next week. I remember wanting to slap the silliness out of whoever said that. You don't leave a boss at 1% or less for next week. You go back in and murder that motherfucker the way a bear murders its prey. We were hungry, son!! We regrouped and killed him and left feeling well fed. It was much easier the last time for some reason. Plague quarter down!!
I've been terribly upset over my dps in 10 mans... well, not just my dps but the shift in the game towards AoE damage. Even on bosses, ie Patchwerk, I wasn't tops on the meter which is fine considering I'm missing a lot of enchants on my gear. All these elements are leading me to think, "What is the purpose of rogues, now?"
Anyway, the 25 man was my first real opportunity to get a clearer picture on the matter. In my 10 man group, I don't get too many buffs. Rogues really seem to be hyper-sensitive to buffs and scaling. In the 10 man I averaged around 1200-1500 dps topping out at 2k dps on boss fights. In the 25 man I topped out at 2.9k still easily behind other classes. I still had an awesome time in Naxx 25 man. This was easily the best group I've been in yet. We cleared the plague quarter. I'm not sure if having a 10 man version makes the learning curve flatter but we had very little issue with understanding the bosses. After a couple of attempts on each boss the group really seemed to sync. There are usually so many elements to consider when getting a raid group together. Each class will impact the raid in specific ways creating a synergistic effect that is rarely duplicated unless the exact same people come every time. Learning this synergy is usually just as important as learning the boss. For this group to go in and wipe a couple of times on each boss and then down them was very impressive to me. I remember wiping on High King so many fucking times. Even after downing him one week and coming back the next week with less than 10 different people still made the fight pretty fucking hard. Next up was Gruul who was equally a pain in the ass to get down consistently. It's an easier fight to manage overall but still requires execution cuz Shatter is such a motherfucking pain in the ass. I don't think Naxx is as hard as this. Factor in many more competent people and it almost becomes a joke.
My favorite moment, there were a few, but the tops for this day was the last boss Loatheb. We wiped on him about 3 or 4 times. This is a straight dps fight, the catch is that the healing is nerfed for most of the fight. I suppose you could look at it as a healing fight also. Anyway, our first 2 attempts were pretty good. We were able to get him down to about 30% at least before wiping. Our 3rd attempt was fucking amazing. My computer was acting retarded and I missed about the first 30 seconds of the fight. When I came back, I went in balls-to-the-wall and handled my bidness. I didn't get a lot of healer luv and I tapped out about halfway through. No hate, I'm just a rogue. As I'm lying there, dead, on the floor, watching the fight... you know cuz i'm dead (read: shamynowammy keep my ass alive!!) I'm watching the remaining 8 people still standing continue to will themselves not to fail. This unbelievable shit went on for about 10-15 minutes. It was like they were carved out of granite. No one was going to fall. Hit by hit and tick by tick the elemental giant was withering. You could see its resolve failing it. Raid chat started to get active. 10%, 5%, 2%... we were almost at a fever pitch. My heart was pounding in my chest. If we could just hold on. Then it happened. One dps down, then another... next a healer down... 1%. I could see the gloriousness, fuck that, I could taste it. It's sweet and syrupy and filled with bliss. It's right there in front of me. A huge handful of delicious victory was waiting for me... well, for us... cuz I'm lying there dead - but I digress. Next, a tank goes down then the other shortly after. I could see it's health in the tens of thousands now. If we can just hold on a bit longer. The last healer dropped and that was all she wrote. It made quick work of the remaining dps. Maybe the granite had cracks in it...
All full of adrenaline I was ready to get back in there to try again. I believe someone mentioned that we give up to try again next week. I remember wanting to slap the silliness out of whoever said that. You don't leave a boss at 1% or less for next week. You go back in and murder that motherfucker the way a bear murders its prey. We were hungry, son!! We regrouped and killed him and left feeling well fed. It was much easier the last time for some reason. Plague quarter down!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The journey continues...
I went from a hard spec to an even harder spec for my rogue. I really haven't been satisfied with my dps so I decided to do some more research to answer a lot of questions I was having on the matter. Here's what I found out so far:
The nature of the mutilate spec is very dynamic due to crits which makes it very hard to form a standard rotation cycle. Part of the complication lies in the high cost of the Mutilate ability and the necessity of having high crit rates to build energy. This isn't much different than a combat daggers spec to start with. Factor in keeping up slice and dice and things are still pretty much the same. This was basically all I did was spam backstab and keep up SnD. I never had enough energy to get rupture going unless I got a lucky proc from ruthlessness while adrenaline rush was up. Now, for my current build I have to focus on rupture and hunger for blood. Luckily I can use eviscerate or envenom to refresh my SnD but this isn't enough. This is a very unforgiving spec. If SnD drops I have to spend a lot of energy to get it back to full duration. If HfB drops, again I'm spending a lot of energy to get it back up to 3 stacks. There are times when I don't have the ability to keep rupture in the cycle if there was an actual cycle. In a perfect world relentless strikes would proc all the time. If I build 5 combo points I am guaranteed some energy return, but the way mutilate works it is often that I build 4 combo points or 6. I end up wasting energy or missing the proc. Ruthlessness is even more random. I would love to get that extra combo point after a finishing move all the time, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about SnD.
Basically, I'm now forced to micro-manage my combo points, energy, dots, and buffs while maintaining the proper positioning to maximize my dps. This is a huge change and may make the mutilate spec very undesirable for many rogues used to the mindless combat swords spec. So far it hasn't offered the dps gains for the hassles it presents.
This poster on Elitistjerks.com says it well:
My point in this post is to give rogues who are a little bit lost with this "new" talent tree (Assasination/HfB-Mutilate) and how they should be playing it. I'm not claiming to be the best or that I can't be wrong. That said, I've kept up to date with this thread (and its predecessors) and have been playing the rogue class at the highest level of raiding for quite a while now. As always, I welcome discussion on the cycle mechanics and such, especially if you think I'm wrong or could improve upon my analysis.Basically you just need to play Mutilate as a priority system:-Never let SnD fall (via CttC Envenoms)-Never let HfB fall-Use a finisher at 4+ combo points.Basically you end up with 2 seperate but simultaneous rotations: a simple one where you refresh HfB every ~29 seconds and another for Mut/finishers.Have a timer which shows your HfB buff with time remaining very clearly. Watch it and take note when it has less than ~5 seconds left that you'll need to put some energy into that soon - plan your other moves accordingly.Have a timer that shows your SnD buff with time remaining very clearly. Also, have a debuff timer which clearly shows your Rupture and your Deadly poison stacks with time remaining. Mutilate 'till you have 4 or 5 combo points. Check your SnD timer (and HfB timer) if you think you can't fit in a finisher and get back to 4 combo points before SnD wears out, use Envenom. If for whatever reason you don't have a deadly poison stack up, wait until you are at ~80 energy and Evis if you still don't have a deadly up (is Shiv/Enven a better option at this point.. how much does Envenom beat Evis by?). If your SnD has enough time on it (generally ~10 seconds is a decent mark), check your rupture timer. If you don't have a rupture up, hit rupture. If you do but its only got 2-3 seconds left.. wait. Don't let your energy cap out - if you're nearly capped on energy and rupture is still up - hit another Envenom.In practice this generally means you end up doing 4+ Enven, 4+ Rupture when you don't get Ruthlessness or a Crit on any of the Mutilates. If you get a couple Ruthlessness procs in a row with Crit mutilates you'll often have time to fit in a second Envenom. I'd recommend also being able to clearly see your Enveom buff so that you don't Envenom while it is already up unless you would otherwise cap out on energy. As an example, this week on Brutallus I had 59 Rupture ticks and 11 Envenoms in a 2:30 kill. 59 Rupture ticks works out 79% rupture uptime and 1 envenom every 13.6 seconds. 59 Rupture ticks means I hit rupture 8 times, a majority of the time with 4 combo points.I'd further recommend that if you're new to Mutilate and want to improve - try the test dummies out for a bit. HOWEVER, keep in mind a few things. First, raid buffs will change stat weightings and even your cycles. On the test dummy you'll be roughly 10-15% crit behind what you'll get in a raid. This means fewer single-mutilate finishers via Ruthlessness + Crit-Mut. Don't do a 3 minute test with 1 set of gear then a 3 minute test with another set of gear and pronounce set A better than set B in a raid - use the dummies to get a feel for the cycles.Also, keep in mind that this is more related to lvl 70. At lvl 80 our Rupture will last longer (Glyph). This leads to a much higher chance that Rupture will still be up after an Envenom + Mutilate to 4 combo points. You will likely find at 80 that you run into a 4+Rupture, 4+Enven, 4+Enven cycle. This was mentioned a while back by Ald (I think :S). Basically, maintaining a cycle which is at most 23 seconds long (SnD length) and at least 20 seconds (rupture length) with an energy bar only 100 big, just isn't possible long-term. You'll certainly run into the scenario where it does happen that way, but fitting in multiple Envenoms between ruptures will be more even common.
A lengthy quote but appropriate nonetheless...
The nature of the mutilate spec is very dynamic due to crits which makes it very hard to form a standard rotation cycle. Part of the complication lies in the high cost of the Mutilate ability and the necessity of having high crit rates to build energy. This isn't much different than a combat daggers spec to start with. Factor in keeping up slice and dice and things are still pretty much the same. This was basically all I did was spam backstab and keep up SnD. I never had enough energy to get rupture going unless I got a lucky proc from ruthlessness while adrenaline rush was up. Now, for my current build I have to focus on rupture and hunger for blood. Luckily I can use eviscerate or envenom to refresh my SnD but this isn't enough. This is a very unforgiving spec. If SnD drops I have to spend a lot of energy to get it back to full duration. If HfB drops, again I'm spending a lot of energy to get it back up to 3 stacks. There are times when I don't have the ability to keep rupture in the cycle if there was an actual cycle. In a perfect world relentless strikes would proc all the time. If I build 5 combo points I am guaranteed some energy return, but the way mutilate works it is often that I build 4 combo points or 6. I end up wasting energy or missing the proc. Ruthlessness is even more random. I would love to get that extra combo point after a finishing move all the time, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about SnD.
Basically, I'm now forced to micro-manage my combo points, energy, dots, and buffs while maintaining the proper positioning to maximize my dps. This is a huge change and may make the mutilate spec very undesirable for many rogues used to the mindless combat swords spec. So far it hasn't offered the dps gains for the hassles it presents.
This poster on Elitistjerks.com says it well:
My point in this post is to give rogues who are a little bit lost with this "new" talent tree (Assasination/HfB-Mutilate) and how they should be playing it. I'm not claiming to be the best or that I can't be wrong. That said, I've kept up to date with this thread (and its predecessors) and have been playing the rogue class at the highest level of raiding for quite a while now. As always, I welcome discussion on the cycle mechanics and such, especially if you think I'm wrong or could improve upon my analysis.Basically you just need to play Mutilate as a priority system:-Never let SnD fall (via CttC Envenoms)-Never let HfB fall-Use a finisher at 4+ combo points.Basically you end up with 2 seperate but simultaneous rotations: a simple one where you refresh HfB every ~29 seconds and another for Mut/finishers.Have a timer which shows your HfB buff with time remaining very clearly. Watch it and take note when it has less than ~5 seconds left that you'll need to put some energy into that soon - plan your other moves accordingly.Have a timer that shows your SnD buff with time remaining very clearly. Also, have a debuff timer which clearly shows your Rupture and your Deadly poison stacks with time remaining. Mutilate 'till you have 4 or 5 combo points. Check your SnD timer (and HfB timer) if you think you can't fit in a finisher and get back to 4 combo points before SnD wears out, use Envenom. If for whatever reason you don't have a deadly poison stack up, wait until you are at ~80 energy and Evis if you still don't have a deadly up (is Shiv/Enven a better option at this point.. how much does Envenom beat Evis by?). If your SnD has enough time on it (generally ~10 seconds is a decent mark), check your rupture timer. If you don't have a rupture up, hit rupture. If you do but its only got 2-3 seconds left.. wait. Don't let your energy cap out - if you're nearly capped on energy and rupture is still up - hit another Envenom.In practice this generally means you end up doing 4+ Enven, 4+ Rupture when you don't get Ruthlessness or a Crit on any of the Mutilates. If you get a couple Ruthlessness procs in a row with Crit mutilates you'll often have time to fit in a second Envenom. I'd recommend also being able to clearly see your Enveom buff so that you don't Envenom while it is already up unless you would otherwise cap out on energy. As an example, this week on Brutallus I had 59 Rupture ticks and 11 Envenoms in a 2:30 kill. 59 Rupture ticks works out 79% rupture uptime and 1 envenom every 13.6 seconds. 59 Rupture ticks means I hit rupture 8 times, a majority of the time with 4 combo points.I'd further recommend that if you're new to Mutilate and want to improve - try the test dummies out for a bit. HOWEVER, keep in mind a few things. First, raid buffs will change stat weightings and even your cycles. On the test dummy you'll be roughly 10-15% crit behind what you'll get in a raid. This means fewer single-mutilate finishers via Ruthlessness + Crit-Mut. Don't do a 3 minute test with 1 set of gear then a 3 minute test with another set of gear and pronounce set A better than set B in a raid - use the dummies to get a feel for the cycles.Also, keep in mind that this is more related to lvl 70. At lvl 80 our Rupture will last longer (Glyph). This leads to a much higher chance that Rupture will still be up after an Envenom + Mutilate to 4 combo points. You will likely find at 80 that you run into a 4+Rupture, 4+Enven, 4+Enven cycle. This was mentioned a while back by Ald (I think :S). Basically, maintaining a cycle which is at most 23 seconds long (SnD length) and at least 20 seconds (rupture length) with an energy bar only 100 big, just isn't possible long-term. You'll certainly run into the scenario where it does happen that way, but fitting in multiple Envenoms between ruptures will be more even common.
A lengthy quote but appropriate nonetheless...
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