pooling as assassination

[Khas]

My question is how much energy are people pooling before using envenom ? For a long time I was pooling to be able to push 2 mutilates while buff is active but lately I'm going for 3 envenoms. Somehow I think 3 is better but I'm not 100% sure if it's good to be autoattacking for ~7 secs before I get around 100 energy. Thanks

[Deleted]

Tested it out over a few weeks and I found a decrease in DPS as my pool energy amount got higher. When I went to 100 energy it seemed to produce lower DPS than when I pool to 50 energy. So now I pool to 50 energy, and I know a lot of the top rogues do too.

[Coldkil]

There is no fixed number.

You need to pool until envenom fades off OR the latest you can, even 119 is good, if you are going to clip. It all depends on situation, but also from latency, personal skill and reaction times.

Also, assuming you have Anticipation, you can continue mutilating until you have 9+ combo (at 9 start pooling, you don't want to waste possibly 2 CP).

[Deleted]

By "3 Envenoms" I assume you meant "3 Mutilates"?

I usually pool to 60~'ish energy. This allows me to use one guaranteed Mutilate, and I'm very likely to have gained enough energy to use another Mutilate while Envenom is still running. With some RNG on my side, a couple of Blindside procs, and maybe a few crits, I'll almost always have either 5 combo points for the next Envenom, or even more(with Anticipation).

However, there's no real "optimal" amount of energy to pool to. It all varies to ridiculous degrees depending on your current situation; how long you can dps for, whether Rupture is about to fall off, whether SnD might need to be refreshed, how much energy you had prior to pooling, Venomous Wound procs, whether you've got Bloodlust up, whether you need to Mutilate or Dispatch following the Envenom, ...

There's no "safe" amount of energy to pool to or a safe amount of time to pool in. The only rules I can give you to go by are:
- Do not clip Envenom buffs.
- Use as many Mutilates/Blindside procs you can, while you've got your Envenom running.
- Try to define a "maximum" of energy to pool to

That last point is somewhat important. It's also why I strongly suggest you DON'T pool to 100~ energy. By waiting that much and saving up that much energy, you run into two problems: You're very likely to energy cap if you get some Venomous Wound procs or Blindside procs, and because of the capping, you won't be able to spend energy fast enough without losing shit-loads of dps because of the Envenom clipping you'll likely have to do.

So really, the safest advice I can give you is to limit how much you want to pool to, and to make as much use of your current Envenom buff as possible, before applying a new one.

[Khas]

Also, assuming you have Anticipation, you can continue mutilating until you have 9+ combo (at 9 start pooling, you don't want to waste possibly 2 CP).

Is that a dps gain ? Cause I haven't been doing that at all

[Deleted]

Is that a dps gain ? Cause I haven't been doing that at all

As I mentioned above, it's a dps-gain as long as the Envenom buff is running! There's no limit to how much energy you can use during one buff. You should use as much energy/blindside procs as possible to gain as many combo points you can, while doing your maximum damage.

[Coldkil]

Is that a dps gain ? Cause I haven't been doing that at all

As incineration said - you want to maximize envenom uptime.

[Khas]

By "3 Envenoms" I assume you meant "3 Mutilates"?

I usually pool to 60~'ish energy. This allows me to use one guaranteed Mutilate, and I'm very likely to have gained enough energy to use another Mutilate while Envenom is still running. With some RNG on my side, a couple of Blindside procs, and maybe a few crits, I'll almost always have either 5 combo points for the next Envenom, or even more(with Anticipation).

However, there's no real "optimal" amount of energy to pool to. It all varies to ridiculous degrees depending on your current situation; how long you can dps for, whether Rupture is about to fall off, whether SnD might need to be refreshed, how much energy you had prior to pooling, Venomous Wound procs, whether you've got Bloodlust up, whether you need to Mutilate or Dispatch following the Envenom, ...

There's no "safe" amount of energy to pool to or a safe amount of time to pool in. The only rules I can give you to go by are:
- Do not clip Envenom buffs.
- Use as many Mutilates/Blindside procs you can, while you've got your Envenom running.
- Try to define a "maximum" of energy to pool to

That last point is somewhat important. It's also why I strongly suggest you DON'T pool to 100~ energy. By waiting that much and saving up that much energy, you run into two problems: You're very likely to energy cap if you get some Venomous Wound procs or Blindside procs, and because of the capping, you won't be able to spend energy fast enough without losing shit-loads of dps because of the Envenom clipping you'll likely have to do.

So really, the safest advice I can give you is to limit how much you want to pool to, and to make as much use of your current Envenom buff as possible, before applying a new one.

I was usually going for 2 mutilates during envenom buff but I have no clue why I started doing 3. Somehow it was logical that 3 is better than 2. I'm doing pretty decent dps, but I wanna pull max I can. Therefore, I will try to pool at ~50-60 energy. Yeah, I also forgot to mention there is energy capping if I pool to 100+ energy. No clue how I didn't connect the dots to figure this out myself.

Thanks for your answers guys

[Ryme]

Just to clear up a bit of misinformation that seems to circulate around the forums: there is no inherent benefit to pooling. Pooling to 85 energy (or any other amount short of cap) before you Mutilate is 100% equivalent to Mutilating the second you have enough energy for the move. There is no magic level of energy that you want to always pool to.

The advantage of pooling is and always has been that it allows you to adjust the timing on your moves to be more advantageous. The benefit is entirely in terms of increasing Envenom uptime by spacing them out more, spending more energy while you have cooldowns or other buffs up, minimizing rupture downtime, and so on.

Hence, advise like "if your previous envenom has not dropped wait until it does or until your energy is in danger of capping before casting the next one" will increase DPS. Advice like "go into Shadow Blades/Vendetta with high (but uncapped) energy" will increase your DPS. Advice like "try to have enough energy that you will be able to cast two Mutilates during the buff before casting Envenom" will increase your DPS. But any recommendation of the form "always pool to X energy before casting Y" is going to be wrong.

You can also find some nice tips on the lovely mmo-c thread Assassination: The nitty gritty.

[Khas]

You can also find some nice tips on the lovely mmo-c thread Assassination: The nitty gritty.

Thanks a bunch, gonna check it out

[Avengerx]

Hmm a question as recently I've been having a lot of bad rng with assa, at 4cp is it worth to squeeze that one more mutilate in but having around 8-10 second ish "loss" of envenom buff?

[Deleted]

Hmm a question as recently I've been having a lot of bad rng with assa and pooling to 80 ish then muti x2 made me miss out on quite a lot of uptime. At 4cp is it worth to squeeze that one more mutilate in but having around 8-10 second ish "loss" of envenom buff?

If I'm understanding this correctly, you are delaying Envenom by 8-10 seconds so you can use a 5 combo point Envenom and pool enough energy to squeeze out some extra Mutilates during the Envenom buff, correct?

Important thing to note here is that you're not losing the uptime, you are merely delaying the buff. Your goal in a fight should be to have the highest uptime on Envenom as possible while also doing as many special attacks during the Envenom. Whether you use Envenom 8-10 seconds earlier or later doesn't matter if you're not losing actual uptime, combo points or energy.

[Avengerx]

If I'm understanding this correctly, you are delaying Envenom by 8-10 seconds so you can use a 5 combo point Envenom and pool enough energy to squeeze out some extra Mutilates during the Envenom buff, correct?

Important thing to note here is that you're not losing the uptime, you are merely delaying the buff. Your goal in a fight should be to have the highest uptime on Envenom as possible while also doing as many special attacks during the Envenom. Whether you use Envenom 8-10 seconds earlier or later doesn't matter if you're not losing actual uptime, combo points or energy.

Yeah, I meant : pool to 70 ish, muti,muti (at 4 cp now), then muti again, pool, envenom.

Hmmm but wouldn't too much delaying from many situations hurt overal dps?

[Deleted]

Yeah, I meant : pool to 70 ish, muti,muti (at 4 cp now), then muti again, pool, envenom.

Hmmm but wouldn't too much delaying from many situations hurt overal dps?

Not it wouldn't, unless you delay it so far that you lose out on certain buffs. Let's take Bloodlust/Heroism as an example. If you have Bloodlust active and it will fall off within 5 seconds, then you might as well Envenom without pooling all that energy. Reason for that is that you are able to use more attacks during the Envenom buff because of the increased auto-attack speed. These cases are very rare though and if you aren't actively tracking all your trinket procs and raid buffs then don't worry about it.

Delaying is perfectly fine, heck if you have Anticipation you are free to Mutilate to 9 combo points during an Envenom buff. What you shouldn't do is Mutilate past 10 combo points regardless of having the Envenom buff. Never waste combo points or energy. Delaying is merely moving timers and combo points over to more beneficial times.

[Kael]

Yeah, I meant : pool to 70 ish, muti,muti (at 4 cp now), then muti again, pool, envenom.

Hmmm but wouldn't too much delaying from many situations hurt overal dps?

As Bovan pointed out, situations are always key, but the main thread of it over the course of a fight is that delaying an envenom for 6-8 seconds is not losing uptime in any way shape or form. The limiting factor of envenom uptime is your ability to have the combo points to use envenom, not the time it takes you to apply it (or we'd see 95%+ uptime like a dot class debuff). You can only have envenom up for (combo points used per envenom +1)x(Envenom Casts)xSeconds. Unless you're somehow losing envenom casts or combo points by pooling, you're not losing envenom uptime.

[Avengerx]

Cool thank you guys for all the info. I never let cp's nor energy cap and tho I let rupture fall off a few times for a few seconds I'm still way off from the numbers that shadowcraft shows. Or maybe I just have the worst luck with crits in the execute phase .(