Simple questions. Simple answers. Complex questions. Flow charts.

[Rendakor]

Not sure about the Offerings, but I know the Vrykul Bones are vendorable.

[Nevermore]

Offerings can be vendored as well.

[Dren]

I've skipped nothing on any of my 8, lvl 80's.  The money is too good.  I always do Dragonblight before Grizzly because Grizzly is so much better with a fast flying mount.  I tended to always have enough cash saved up from my main and other alts by that point to get it.  Dragonblight has little in the way of riding a fast ground mount so I knock that out right away. 

Scholozar isn't bad either since all the quests are very close together.  Short slow flying hops back and forth are not too bad.  Zul'Drak has so much MOB density a fast flyer is really necessary.  Storm Peaks and Ice Crown require it really.

Howling Fjord > Borean Tundra > Dragonblight > Sholazar > Zul'Drak > Grizzly  > (usually hit 80 about here) Storm Peaks > Icecrown

[K9]

Not sure about the Offerings, but I know the Vrykul Bones are vendorable.

Offerings can be vendored as well.

Oh really? Now I feel a little dumb. Thanks!

[Kail]

So, a while ago I shelved my Rogue because I thought grinding was too much of a pain considering how much damage he takes.  Decided to give him a spin now that I can do some dungeons, and damn, I have no idea how to play this guy.  Used to be combat, but respecced assassination after I found some decent blue daggers, but I cannot get him to do any damage.

Armory here, level 74 character for those wondering  He's pulling around 650-700 DPS right now.  His DPS wasn't awesome as a combat rogue, but it was generally a few hundred higher than this was, anyway, so I must be doing something wrong.  A few specific questions:

-Hunger for Blood won't activate unless the enemy is bleeding, which means rupture.  Do I have to keep him bleeding, or do I just ambush>rupture>H4B at the beginning of every fight before going into a more DPS-y rotation?  Because trying to keep rupture and slice/dice both up all the time is driving me crazy.  For that matter, what should my rotation look like?  All I found on EJ after a cursory search was something like "get slice/dice up quick then spam envenom" but the mob's usually dead before I can ambush>rupture>H4B>mutilate x 4>slice/dice>mutilate x 4>envenom, so I assume that's not what I should be using.

-I don't seem to have any AoE, like, at all.  I guess later I get Fan of Knives, but right now, how am I supposed to compete on the meters when every other class can hit four guys every time I hit one?

[Evildrider]

-I don't seem to have any AoE, like, at all.  I guess later I get Fan of Knives, but right now, how am I supposed to compete on the meters when every other class can hit four guys every time I hit one?

You don't.  Even when you do get FoK it's not going to be anything that competes with really with AoE classes.  Rogues are single target primary dps.

[Ingmar]

-I don't seem to have any AoE, like, at all.  I guess later I get Fan of Knives, but right now, how am I supposed to compete on the meters when every other class can hit four guys every time I hit one?

You don't.  Even when you do get FoK it's not going to be anything that competes with really with AoE classes.  Rogues are single target primary dps.

Ummmmm... rogues tend to blow everyone away on the super AE dps charts (Ony whelps, Anub'arak hard mode adds) actually. Even after the fan of knives nerf I've seen rogues do 9k+ on 25 Ony PUG runs.

Re: the leveling mutilate rogue, your dps will be kind of sucky on trash and be awesome on bosses pre-80. More or less as designed I think.

[Evildrider]

-I don't seem to have any AoE, like, at all.  I guess later I get Fan of Knives, but right now, how am I supposed to compete on the meters when every other class can hit four guys every time I hit one?

You don't.  Even when you do get FoK it's not going to be anything that competes with really with AoE classes.  Rogues are single target primary dps.

 

Ummmmm... rogues tend to blow everyone away on the super AE dps charts (Ony whelps, Anub'arak hard mode adds) actually. Even after the fan of knives nerf I've seen rogues do 9k+ on 25 Ony PUG runs.

Re: the leveling mutilate rogue, your dps will be kind of sucky on trash and be awesome on bosses pre-80. More or less as designed I think.

That's really only in a couple of situations.  When doing most of the everyday heroics and stuff I manage to pull out more dps if I just single target the mobs down then spam FoK really.  I've heard of all these huge numbers that we are supposed to be able to do, but I've never seen it.  However I've only been 80 since the 3.3 patch. 

[K9]

FoK can do some really silly damage in raids. Not so sure about heroics.

[Nevermore]

Re: the leveling mutilate rogue, your dps will be kind of sucky on trash and be awesome on bosses pre-80. More or less as designed I think.

It sounds very similar to the Feral 'rotation'.  On easy trash it's usually not worth using Rip (Rupture) and sometimes not even worth bothering with Savage Roar (Slice n Dice) because stuff tends to die so fast you never really get any return out of using the combo points that way.  I usually try to at least get off a 1 or 2 point SR though.  DPS is just going to naturally be lower in those kinds of fights regardless.  Feral doesn't even get a Hunger for Blood equivalent so I imagine it's even worse for a Mutilate Rogue.  It's boss fights that Feral/Mutilate tends to shine because you can really ramp up the damage over time.

[Sheepherder]

Stealth -> Mutilate x 1 -> Slice & Dice -> Mutilate (until 4+ CP) -> Envenom

Take Ambush off of your bars, you open with Mutilate.

You must never let S&D drop.  This is not hard.  Once you have S&D up you will not need to use it again that fight.

You can use Cold Blood after the Slice and Dice to ensure faster combo point accumulation for the first Envenom.

Use other people's bleeds (Warrior, Druid, Hunter, Combat Rogue) to proc Hunger For Blood.  Otherwise you can generally ignore it for heroics because it's exceedingly hard to work into a cycle.

Poisons are Deadly/Instant.

[Ingmar]

Stealth -> Mutilate x 1 -> Slice & Dice -> Mutilate (until 4+ CP) -> Envenom

Take Ambush off of your bars, you open with Mutilate.

You must never let S&D drop.  This is not hard.  Once you have S&D up you will not need to use it again that fight.

You can use Cold Blood after the Slice and Dice to ensure faster combo point accumulation for the first Envenom.

Use other people's bleeds (Warrior, Druid, Hunter, Combat Rogue) to proc Hunger For Blood.  Otherwise you can generally ignore it for heroics because it's exceedingly hard to work into a cycle.

Poisons are Deadly/Instant.

The 'ideal' combat rogue rotation no longer includes rupture apparently, so depending on lineup mut rogues might have to provide their own bleed.

[Nevermore]

I guess Rogues don't have an equivalent to Rake?  Is Garrote that bad of an opening for a Mutilation Rogue?

[Evildrider]

Stealth -> Mutilate x 1 -> Slice & Dice -> Mutilate (until 4+ CP) -> Envenom

Take Ambush off of your bars, you open with Mutilate.

You must never let S&D drop.  This is not hard.  Once you have S&D up you will not need to use it again that fight.

You can use Cold Blood after the Slice and Dice to ensure faster combo point accumulation for the first Envenom.

Use other people's bleeds (Warrior, Druid, Hunter, Combat Rogue) to proc Hunger For Blood.  Otherwise you can generally ignore it for heroics because it's exceedingly hard to work into a cycle.

Poisons are Deadly/Instant.

The 'ideal' combat rogue rotation no longer includes rupture apparently, so depending on lineup mut rogues might have to provide their own bleed.

Ya seems rupture has gone away.  I pretty much use SS to 2-3 -> SnD -> SS to 4+ ->Eviscerate.  On boss fights I'll throw in Envenom's since I'm on the 20/51/0 build.  My top 3 damage is always Melee, Sinister Strike, Instant Poison.

[Sheepherder]

Ya seems rupture has gone away.

When did this happen for combat, and why?

[proudft]

3.3, because of the poison changes.

[Rendakor]

I've heard we're not supposed to be rupturing as Assassination anymore either, but I still use it in my rotation and I'm winning parses vs other rogues who aren't. YMMV.

[Rasix]

Handy rogue FAQ.  Updated for 3.3.

[Rendakor]

Nothing in that thread explains WHY they aren't using Rupture anymore, just that they aren't.

[Evildrider]

Nothing in that thread explains WHY they aren't using Rupture anymore, just that they aren't.

The only reason I think they were using rupture in the first place was because of the set bonus from T9, since everyone is moving up its gone out of the rotation.  Plus the extra damage from poisons makes it lack in dps.  I never even used it before, I don't need a bleed for anything and Eviscerate just does more damage.

[Ingmar]

This of course does highlight one potential pitfall in using EJ as your sole source for theorycrafting: they always assume the very highest end stuff, so for example they're leaving the T9 set bonus behind just as the vast majority of players are actually picking it up.

Their better guides deal with set bonuses from every tier, but sometimes things aren't that codified.

[Rendakor]

Nothing in that thread explains WHY they aren't using Rupture anymore, just that they aren't.

The only reason I think they were using rupture in the first place was because of the set bonus from T9, since everyone is moving up its gone out of the rotation.  Plus the extra damage from poisons makes it lack in dps.  I never even used it before, I don't need a bleed for anything and Eviscerate just does more damage.

The extra damage from poisons comes from what, exactly? Extra uses of Envenom?

[Evildrider]

Nothing in that thread explains WHY they aren't using Rupture anymore, just that they aren't.

The only reason I think they were using rupture in the first place was because of the set bonus from T9, since everyone is moving up its gone out of the rotation.  Plus the extra damage from poisons makes it lack in dps.  I never even used it before, I don't need a bleed for anything and Eviscerate just does more damage.

The extra damage from poisons comes from what, exactly? Extra uses of Envenom?

They changed the poison mechanic in the last patch I believe.  I believe basically is that if you have 5 stacks of deadly poison it will allow for more procs of instant poison.

I'm not sure exactly what changed.  I have played on and off since launch and only just made level 80 on my character about a month ago.  Hell I was looking for poison mats to make poisons when i came back  .

[Rendakor]

See, I know that's changed, but what does that have to do with not using Rupture? 

[Selby]

See, I know that's changed, but what does that have to do with not using Rupture?

The l33t rogue I asked said it's because you can skip it and get more melee haste elsewhere, and therefore more DPS (better usage of combo points he mentioned).  I do not play an end-game rogue, so I do not know exactly how true that is.

[Ingmar]

Your combo points turn into more damage by using Envenom instead of Rupture if you're Mutilate (assuming someone is giving you the bleed elsewhere.) You may have to use a 1 point rupture to provide your own bleed.

For combat, it appears that it is just because gear is good enough now that rupture is not keeping up, mostly because eviscerate scales so well with armor penetration. Losing a rupture set bonus when you move to t10 is just the nail in the coffin, its nothing to do with poison damage for combat rogues.

This means if you're still mostly in 219ish stuff as combat you probably want to keep using rupture, especially if you have the T8 4 piece. The T9 2 piece is not necessarily going to be good enough to keep it in your rotation.

EDIT: fixed stupid mistake

[Sheepherder]

Ingmar manages to actually answer the question about combat with a response that makes sense.  Do you even play a rogue?

[Rendakor]

Thanks Ingmar, that makes sense.

[Ingmar]

My rogue is level 26! 

[Rasix]

Ingmar, it's much easier to just say "because the spreadsheet said so".  But that does seem to be where they get some of the decisions they make in standard builds.  Modeling shows X ahead of Y, so use X. 

Blessing in disguise. You don't have to tell me twice to make my rotation simpler. Although, none of this really applies to a shmoe like myself that will be staying in the 5mans until Cat.

[Sheepherder]

Ingmar, it's much easier to just say "because the spreadsheet said so".  But that does seem to be where they get some of the decisions they make in standard builds.  Modeling shows X ahead of Y, so use X.

Except it's easily possible for a spreadsheet to be wrong in its assumptions.  Or for the variables in the spreadsheet to give a different answer than what the player has.  Especially since EJ seems to always sim stuff assuming BiS gear.

[Rasix]

They're modeling everything with BiS or near BiS.  They don't even model rupture anymore because it's not worth it apparently with the new level of gear.  It won't overtake envenom or evisc unless they change it significantly.  It still can be situationally useful.  People can always run tests themselves, but for now the top end raiding rogues have given up on rupture.  If this spreadsheet is wrong, then a lot of rogues have simply gone along and drank the Kool Aid.

Unfortunately the EJ crowd doesn't apply to my future gear level.  I can start with what they have, but what I eventually settle on will work for my level of gear.   Like crit cap.. I don't think I'll ever have to worry about the math relating to that.

[Sheepherder]

Which is why their FAQ pisses me off.  They have gotten consistently more useless for providing rationale and roughing out breaking points where priorities change.  It's not even easy to find the shit in the ongoing posts anymore because all the threads are fucking huge 100+ page monsters.

[Jayce]

I think I knew this at some point, but how do you allow the camera to pull further back? I'm tired of proto-drake wings in my face.

[Evildrider]

I think I knew this at some point, but how do you allow the camera to pull further back? I'm tired of proto-drake wings in my face.

It's mouse wheel for me.