[Rogue] ICC Guide 3.3

[jkanel]

by Aldriana Elitist Jerks.

FAQ

Mutilate

Q: What's the highest-DPS Mutilate spec?
A: In general, some close variant of 51/18/2. The only points that are really negotiable are the ones in Fleet Footed. The traditional 51/13/7 build isn't an unreasonable option, but current modeling indicates that it's at least a bit behind.

Q: Why 2/5 Relentless Strikes instead of 2/2 Opportunity?
A: Because it's better.

Q: Why Fleet Footed?
A: Run speed is handy. And since the preferred cycle is Envenom-only, you don't need Blood Spatter, so there really isn't anything in the way of DPS talents to take - Vigor isn't bad, but it isn't a clear upgrade, either. The main reason I'd consider doing otherwise is if you mostly run 10 mans and below where you don't have anyone to keep up bleeds for you for purposes of HFB. In this case, I can see sticking with Blood Spatter.

Q: Why Glyph of Tricks of the Trade?
A: Similar logic. Save the circumstances dictated above, we don't need Glyph of Rupture anymore, and there really aren't any other glyphs that boost single-target DPS. The other notable option would be Glyph of FoK.

Q: Fast weapons or slow weapons?
A: Fast OH. Totally irrelevant in the MH, as near as I can tell.

Q: Which stats are good for Mutilate?
A: AP, Hit, and Haste are the big 3; ArPen is generally to be avoided. As a general rule, your goal is to socket and enchant AP/Haste; however, as you accumulate Icecrown gear, Mutilate tends to have a *lot* of trouble with the white crit cap, so it's very common to need to stack Hit - sometimes quite severely - in order to raise your crit cap. It also tends to be quite important to make the spell hit cap (as close to half of your DPS is from poisons these days), so at the very least you probably want to socket for that. Socketing Expertise up to the cap is also generally advisable.

Q: What's the recommended cycle for Mutilate?
A: 4+ Envenom seems generally strongest. Keep HFB up, SnD at the beginning of the fight, go nuts with Envenom.

Combat

Q: What's the highest DPS Combat spec?
A: Typically, 20/51/0.

Q: What's the deal with 4/5 Improved and 1/5 Vile?
A: That's what usually comes out on top in existing modeling. Feel free to check a spreadsheet to verify that that's correct for you.

Q: Which glyph should I drop if I want GoFoK or GoTotT?
A: Eviscerate. Sinister Strike and Killing Spree are both huge DPS increases - Eviscerate is relatively minor by comparison.

Q: Which weapon spec is best?
A: As a general rule, Hack and Slash. Mace spec appears to still be lacking in viable OHs, and CQC tends to have trouble with the crit cap. This is not to say that you can't put together a viable weapon setup with Maces or Fist/Dagger; it's simply that it's harder.

Q: What should I look for in weapons?
A: For a MH, you want something slow (2.5-2.7) and as high-DPS as possible - DPS matters more than speed. For an OH, you want something as fast as possible - 1.4 is best, and failing that 1.5. Since two-weapon specs are basically dead, you thus want two weapons of the same specialization that satisfy this as well as possible. For more information, see your local friendly spreadsheet.

Q: Which stats are good for combat?
A: Combat doesn't really have any notably strong or weak stats. At high gear levels ArPen stacking towards the hardcap tends to be strong, but that doesn't appear to be true for everyone. As the crit cap tends to be an issue for combat, Hit is fairly useful and crit/agi a bit weaker than was historically true. Depending on exact gear, I've seen Hit, Haste, AP, and ArPen all be the strongest stat.

Q: What's the recommended cycle for combat?
A: SnD if it's about to drop, 5pt Eviscerates otherwise.


General
Q: Okay, which of those specs does the most damage?
A: For sustained DPS, Mutilate, by 5-10%. However, for interrupted fights and fights with target switching, Combat will be competitive if not superior. At this point both specs are pretty much viable.

Q: How good are the T9 set bonuses?
A: Given that we're dropping rupture from all our cycles, the 2/5 pretty much sucks. And the 4/5 ain't great either - it's not totally useless, but it's certainly much weaker than the T7 or T8 4/5 bonus.

Q: How good are the T10 set bonuses?
A: The 2/5 is *awesome*. It's certainly the strongest 2-piece we've had since at least T6, if not ever. Whatever else happens gearwise, there is no question that you want the 2-piece bonus, regardless of spec. The 4-piece is pretty weak as combat, and sort of middling as Mutilate; whether it's worth bothering with is going to be largely a function of what other options are out there.

Q: But I tested on a target dummy and got different answers! WTF!?
A: Was the target dummy fully raid debuffed, and you fully raid buffed? Did you perform multiple trials totaling at least an hour to reduce variance? I didn't think so. That's why you got different answers.

Q: Which poisons should I use?
A: The answer is always Instant and Deadly; as a rule of thumb, Instant should always go on the slower weapon. For combat this always means your MH weapon; for Mutilate, it will mean your MH if your weapons are of different speeds. However, if you're Mutilating with two (fast) daggers of equal speed, DP MH and IP OH is slightly superior.

Q: What's this crit cap thing you keep talking about?
A: Based on your current miss and dodged rates, there is a limit on how much your white attacks can theoretically crit. With the low amount of hit on 3.3 pieces, it turns out that this become an issue for us - particularly if you're using a trinket that gives a boost to your crit rate (Death's Verdict/Choice, Dark Matter, Darkmoon Card). The exact mechanics are complicated, but, as a general rule, if you're crit capped, the solution is to try to trade out crit and agility for hit on gear. I highly recommend consulting a spreadsheet in this case - there really *isn't* an easy way to tell whether this is an issue for you or not just by looking.

Q: Are the Onyxia weapons any good?
A: In a word? No. They're roughly comparable to more conventional stated-weapons about one tier lower. So if you have, say, an ilvl 245 weapon from ToC, and a 245 weapon from Ony, the one from ToC will be quite a bit better.

Q: Is weapon swapping any good?
A: In a word? No. There may be uses for it still, but the DP change in 3.3 kills what made it ubiquitous in 3.2.

[jkanel]

by Cally Elitist Jerks

Talent Specs

Spec Talents
Combat 20/51/0
Mutilate 51/18/2


Rotation, Weapon Speeds, and Poisons

The information posted below is just a quick and general outline of common strategies. Results
may differ for various armor and weapon combinations. Please use the spreadsheet for a more
accurate approach.


PvE Mutilate, fast and flawed advice
Generally, slow mainhand, fast offhand.
Use the highest DPS daggers possible, speed is of less importance.
Mainhand Instant Poison, Offhand Deadly Poison.

Priority:
* Ensure that there is a bleed (ie. Rupture, Deep Wounds, Rend) on the target.
* Start up Hunger for Blood.
* Start up Slice and Dice however you please, really.
* Use vanish whenever possible for Overkill buff.

1. Keep HFB up.
2. Keep SnD up (mainly via Envenom).
2. 4+ combo point Envenom.

PvE Combat, fast and flawed advice
Mainhand a sword/axe, fist or mace weapon of generally slow speed.
Offhand a sword/axe, dagger or fist weapon of generally fast speed.
Mainhand Instant Poison, Offhand Deadly Poison.

Priority:
* Start up Slice and Dice however you please, really.
* Use cooldowns whenever possible. Killing spree + blade flurry, blade flurry +
adrenaline rush can be used. Adrenaline rush + killing spree is not recommended
due to energy capping.

1. Keep SnD up, no matter what the number of combo points are.
2. 5 point Eviscerate.

Read Aldriana's post on combat cycles here.


Combat Ratings

Combat Rating Table

Rating Conversion to 1%
Expertise 32.78998947
Hit 32.78998947
Spell Hit 26.23199272
Critical Strike 45.90598679
Haste 32.78998947
Armor Penetration 13.99572719
Agi to Crit 83.33333333

Expertise Rating

For 6.5% boss dodge chance (26/26 expertise):

26 expertise (214 expertise rating) to cap.
16 expertise (132 expertise rating) to cap for rogues with 2/2 Weapon Expertise.
13 expertise (107 expertise rating) to cap for combat human rogues wielding a sword/mace.
11 expertise (91 expertise rating) to cap for combat dwarf rogues wielding a mace.
11 expertise (91 expertise rating) to cap for combat orc rogues wielding a fist/axe.

The above numbers are the expertise numbers needed from gear to cap.
The character tooltip should read 26 expertise.

Hit Rating


The following values assume that you have 5/5 Precision and that you are attacking a level 83 mob (i.e., boss level).

Extra buffs or debuffs
Specials Poisons White
None 99 315 722
Imp FF or Misery 99 237 722
Imp FF or Misery & Heroic Presence (draenei) 66 210 689

The following values assume that you have 2/5 Precision and that you are attacking a level 83 mob (i.e., boss level).

Extra buffs or debuffs
Specials Poisons White
None 197 393 820
Imp FF or Misery 197 315 820
Imp FF or Misery & Heroic Presence (draenei) 164 289 787

For PVP, assuming no Precision:

Specials Poisons White
164 105 787

Armor Penetration Rating

Armor penetration cap is not affected by target debuffs (ie. sunder/faerie fire)
so the caps are as follows:

100% armor penetration - 1400 armor pen rating
85% armor penetration (Mace spec) - 1190 armor pen rating

Mjolnir Runestone soft caps (grants 665 arp rating):

100% armor penetration - 735 armor pen rating
85% armor penetration (Mace spec) - 525 armor pen rating

Critical Strike Cap

Crit Cap = 100% - 24% glancing blows - X% dodge chance - X% miss chance

where X% dodge chance is determined by expertise rating and X% miss chance is determined by hit rating.

Note: 4.8% of critical strikes are converted to normal hits after the above cap.


Equivalence Points

Definition
Equivalence points (EP) is a way to convert various item attributes--such as
agility, crit rating, hit rating, and others--to a single attribute for comparison
purposes. For this guide, all DPS attributes will be converted to attack power (AP),
where 1 EP = 1 AP. To compare items, simply multiply the EP weight with the
desired item attribute and sum up the results.

For example, assuming Agi=2, Crit=1.5, AP=1:
Item 1 - 22 Agi, 40 Crit, 50 AP = (22*2) + (40*1.5) + 50 = 154
Item 2 - 43 Agi, 70 AP = (43*2) + 70 = 156

In this case, Item 2 is better.

Sample EP Weights
Assumes a reasonably T9 geared rogue with JC + one other 80 EP
profession. Combat/Mutilate EP values taken from Aldriana's spreadsheet.

Note: These EP weights are a SAMPLE only and gives a rough approximation
of what to look for in gear. EP weights will change with different gear sets. Also,
the sample EP weights are calculated with full 25 man raid buffs in mind.

Stat Combat EP Mut EP
Str 1.1 1.1
Agi 1.96 1.94

AP 1 1
Crit 1.74 1.72
White Hit 1.86 1.84
Spell Hit 2.65 3.09
Exp 2.15 2.31
Haste 1.81 1.9
ArPen 2.02 1.19

T8 2/5 55.3 79.5
T8 4/5 0 0
T9 2/5 0 0
T9 4/5 81.5 50.8
T10 2/5 163.2 234.6
T10 4/5 40.5 74.6

MH DPS 5.82 3.28
OH DPS 2.45 2.46


Gear

Use the spreadsheets first and foremost for a more accurate approach to
gearing.

Miltilate Spreadsheet 3.3
Combet Spreadsheet 3.3
Rogue DPS Simulation Spreadsheet 3.3c

Rankings

Combat
Mutilate

Trinkets

Trinket Combat EP Mutilate EP
Herkuml War Token 616 631
Death's Verdict (Heroic) 609 608
Death's Verdict 545 543
Comet's Trail 506 534
Dark Matter 446 445
Blood of the Old God 422 433
Mark of Supremacy 408 406
Mjolnir Runestone 492 379


Glyphs

Combat
[Glyph of Sinister Strike]
[Glyph of Killing Spree]
[Glyph of Eviscerate]
[Glyph of Tricks of the Trade]

[Glyph of Safe Fall]
[Glyph of Vanish]


Mutilate
[Glyph of Hunger for Blood]
[Glyph of Mutilate]
[Glyph of Tricks of the Trade]
[Glyph of Fan of Knives]

[Glyph of Safe Fall]
[Glyph of Vanish]

[Shaleen]

Thx a lot for putting this up. I will start the studies NOW!

[nuggles]

Still gotta say from what i read and what i have found ur best dps spec i.e either combat or mutilate depends on what you have better weapons for ^^ and imo combat still beats out mutilate in all fights bar like 10% of fights (those u can just stand and nuke)

[jkanel]

- So I heard that Black Magic works off poisons, and haste is a good stat for us, so I was wondering if its any good.
Short answer: no.
Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

[jkanel]

Update on Mutilate:

What weapons?
Fast MH / Slow OH

Always use Deadly poison on fast weapon if both are the same speed use DP on MH, IP on OH.
Why?
Deadly poison scales better when applied on MH and since DP goes always on fast weapon means: Fast MH / Slow OH.
Test it on your spreadsheet,u'll see it works.