Couple of Q's (PvE Combat)

[lolbubble]

Okay so ive got a couple of questions that I would like answered by the community!

1. Tricks of the Trade - I know this should be used on cd, preferably with other rogues (unless im missing something?) Glyphed vs unglyped? Also, since 2 pc t13 gives you reduced energy costs, should you delay your killing spree on the pull until the buff wears off? Thoughts?

2. Blood lust and Adrenaline Rush - Should these be used together? I would assume that major energy capping if they are used together, and would be a dps increase if used separately? Thoughts?

3. Agility Potion - When is the best time to use potion? I know obviously you should prepot, but when during the actual fight is the biggest dps increase? I believe the answer to question 2 will help me determine this, or any other insight/personal testing would be great!

I have some more Q's but having trouble remembering them right now, will post later if I recall them.

Thanks!

[Solodrow]

Here you go:

1. Glyph it for no energy cost. Your gear will in large part determine when you use KS, but in full 397 gear Shadowcraft says I should use KS on CD, right from the start. With some sets of gear it will be better to use KS just during last stage of Bandit's Guile. Just check Shadowcraft.

2. Don't use BL and AR together if you can help it. Use AR right after your first KS, then on CD. If BL and AR happen to coincide it won't kill you, but it's not as bad as some say.

3. Besides pre-potting, use the other one during BL, it will give you the best bang for your buck there.

[KidCanuck]

At high haste levels, you'll probably be energy capping during AR or BL anyways, so the "extra" energy capping is less of an issue. The rule of thumb is do NOT wait on doing AR if doing so will likely cost you an extra use of it during the fight. Remember, the extra swing speed from AR and BL stack, so with that agil pot, it's gonna be some massive damage. Also consider that you'll be spamming finishers like whoa during an AR + BL phase, which will shave a bunch of time off AR's cooldown.

[Verain]

You should be tricksing whatever is the most damage. Feel free to trade tricks with other rogues on non progression content, of course- that way your damage is visible on recount. But a tricks on a warrior with recklessness up should likely outperform absolutely any tricks on a rogue. Tricks should be unglyphed if you can't spend your energy or if your damage done is very very small compared to others. For instance, hard mode alysrazor was a definite fight for unglyphed tricks. In this tier, you don't want to glyph it for heroic spine (you'll trigger it and cap on energy before the tendon pops), and you might not want to glyph it for heroic blackhorn, as you spend much of that fight not spending your energy optimally, but a nice spriest, mage, moonkin, or hunter could use it to great effect.

I love to have BL and AR going at the same time. AR is more than just energy, it's also haste, and that haste stacks multiplicatively with bloodlust's haste. I think you should have it up for BL, definitely.

Your second potion should be used sometime when you'll have the ability to use cooldowns. I prefer a red insight, ideally coinciding with other buffs. The only buffs you don't benefit by stacking it with are other agility buffs, as agility adds additively with itself (naturally). Your first you use right before the fight starts!

[lolbubble]

Awesome, thanks for the replies guys. I still have some questions.

4. Is there any addon out there that can actually tell me when my blade flurry is hitting a second target? I know that it makes a noise when the 2nd target is hit, however I raid with sound off. If anyone knows of an addon or anything that makes it apparent that a blade flurry target is hit (screen flash, noticeable noise) would be awesome.

5. Getting energy low then using cds: So when im about to pull, I put up tricks, then open with sinister strike, slice and dice. At this point the 2 pc t13 is activated and therefore should make full use of it by getting my energy as low as possible, then using killing spree. My questions is, is this the right way to use cooldowns? I usually do the same thing with Adrenaline Rush, get energy as low as possible, then pop it, to avoid energy capping (but thats gonna happen anyways) Would love some feedback as to my CD usage.

I may have more questions but I don't remember, ill post em up if I do, thanks again!

[Giethra]

Off topic but still on topic at the same time =P

When how do you refresh slice and dice during a fight? Do you do it with one combo point or do you aim for 5? My better judgement says 5 is a waste

[Deleted]

4. Is there any addon out there that can actually tell me when my blade flurry is hitting a second target?

Scrolling combat text addons such as MSBT can show Blade Flurry damage in pretty nice way. If thats not enough, you can configure for example Weak Auras to display model of creature that you are hitting with Blade Flurry.

5. Getting energy low then using cds: So when im about to pull, I put up tricks, then open with sinister strike, slice and dice. At this point the 2 pc t13 is activated and therefore should make full use of it by getting my energy as low as possible, then using killing spree. My questions is, is this the right way to use cooldowns? I usually do the same thing with Adrenaline Rush, get energy as low as possible, then pop it, to avoid energy capping (but thats gonna happen anyways) Would love some feedback as to my CD usage.

Thats correct. Unlike T12, T13 tricks bonus is activated on ToT "trigger", not cast. So it's perfectly safe to pre-cast it. About cooldowns, I am doing the same. Delaying them just by few seconds to not waste much energy, but still using them pretty much on cooldown.

When how do you refresh slice and dice during a fight?

When it's needed. Simply refresh it before it's about to fall off, no matter if you have one or five combo points. But in general, the more the better, of course.

[lolbubble]

Thanks FAE!

Now I still have some looming questions that I need answered because they are absolutely driving me nuts.

Tricks - A couple of questions. One, should this be used during AR? If tricks comes off cooldown while you are under AR, should you use it still? Or should you wait until AR has expired then use it? I would think that the global that tricks triggers during AR would be a dps loss. Two, because of the t13 2p, should tricks be used with with near-full energy or with depleted energy (like with AR and KS). Third, glyphing tricks, is this necessary? I would think that the minus 15 energy cost vs the extra 5% damage to the tricks target would be a dps increase for overall raid dps? Thoughts?

All these scenarios, obviously, would like to know what to do to get the biggest dps increase!

Thanks again!

[Mohammed]

Thanks FAE!

Now I still have some looming questions that I need answered because they are absolutely driving me nuts.

Tricks - A couple of questions. One, should this be used during AR? If tricks comes off cooldown while you are under AR, should you use it still? Or should you wait until AR has expired then use it? I would think that the global that tricks triggers during AR would be a dps loss. Two, because of the t13 2p, should tricks be used with with near-full energy or with depleted energy (like with AR and KS). Third, glyphing tricks, is this necessary? I would think that the minus 15 energy cost vs the extra 5% damage to the tricks target would be a dps increase for overall raid dps? Thoughts?

All these scenarios, obviously, would like to know what to do to get the biggest dps increase!

Thanks again!

Typically you won't tricks during AR. You should tricks with nearly full energy (~65), so you can fit in all your reduced cost abilities, which you won't if you don't have energy to cast them. At these gear levels there is discussion about glyph vs no glyph, simply because we are already energy capping so much. I keep mine, except for heroic spine and other special situations.

[Maelstrom51]

Don't use AR with Hero/Bloodlust if you can avoid it. At current haste levels almost the entire energy gain for AR is worthless if used during Hero. 23 seconds of 100% extra energy is about... 16 x 23 = 368 energy lost. That's a lot of skills you're losing for a mere 6% more melee damage for 23 seconds (1.2 x 1.3 = 1.56 for stacking them, vs. 1.2 + 1.3 = 1.5 for separating them).

Of course, if delaying an AR for after hero would result in losing one later in the fight, you obviously want to use it right then and pop your second potion.

[Deleted]

One, should this be used during AR? If tricks comes off cooldown while you are under AR, should you use it still? Or should you wait until AR has expired then use it? I would think that the global that tricks triggers during AR would be a dps loss.

It really depeneds. AR lasts 20 seconds (+3 with set bonus) while Tricks cooldown is 30. If you always wait with Tricks till the end of AR, you most likely reduced number of Tricks per encounter. Which is quite obviously a dps loss - if nothing else, a raid dps loss. So my recomendation is to still apply the general rule - it's okay to delay it by few seconds and find the sweet spot, but don't overdo it. So if Tricks got ready while there is still quite a lot of AR duration remaining, try to squeeze it in somewhere. If AR is about to end soon, just wait till the end. I think people tend to exaggerate the energy capping/AR issue. At least from my 10-man experience, it's usually still possible to have energy somewhat under control even during Adrenaline Rush.

Two, because of the t13 2p, should tricks be used with with near-full energy or with depleted energy (like with AR and KS).

If you deplete your energy, you are risking that you won't have energy for your following abilities so you don't use all 5-6 GCDs buffed by Tricks of Time. If you on the other hand start wit near-full energy, you are risking that due to abilities costing less energy, you'll end up being energy capped. So the answer obviously depends on your current energy-regeneration rate. If everything is okay, I agree with what Mohammed said. When things get crazy (like they usually are), just pop it on cooldown.

Third, glyphing tricks, is this necessary? I would think that the minus 15 energy cost vs the extra 5% damage to the tricks target would be a dps increase for overall raid dps? Thoughts?

We've been discussing it out there somewhere so feel free to search for it. I think that the result was that except those special situations (Spine, you need to boost someone's dps, ...), it's pretty much equal and once again related to your energy regeneration rate and personal preference.

[Stede]

fwiw-

1 - Glyphed. Use ToT when you're at 60-70 energy so that you can get the most from 2T13. I feel that stacking AR as much as possible with your prepot is superior to KS'ing during it.

2 - It depends. You will cap if you use them together, but the Attack Speed will stack. If you need to max dps over a period long enough for you to separate the two, then don't overlap. If you're up against an enrage or any dps-mechanic where you may not have enough time to stagger the two, you pop AR during BL and burn.

3 - During Heroism. It is somewhat dependent on fights, though.

[KidCanuck]

One of the other threads in here a few weeks ago did the math on glyphed vs unglyphed. On a normal fight, the glyph is still a DPS gain iirc. Obviously for something like spine, you need the extra burst, but for normal fights, keep the glyph.

[lolbubble]

Cool thanks for the responses I think they clear up a lot of the questions I had for combat.

Just a couple more.

1. How much of a dps loss (if any) would it be to use KS and AR EXACTLY on cd (regardless of how much energy you are at)?

2. Does killing spree mirror its attacks while blade flurry is active?

Thanks.

[Kael]

With respect to energy... not a terribly huge* loss (take estimated amount of energy capped -- there are addons for this -- and multiply by DPE/CP loss for SS/RvS/Evis out of your normal rotation). In the event KS and AR intersect, however, you'd be missing a more significant amount of damage to energy capping by using KS during AR.
* = still significant, and should be avoided, unless you really can't pay attention to the mechanics.

KS does trigger BF.