Some more Advanced Questions for a combat rogue

[Deleted]

I have some questions mostly dealing with heroic raiding and the use of rupture and eviscerate and when you should be using them and when you should not.

I would like to think I'm a decent rogue and i often start off a fight very well but after the 2/3 minute mark into a fight i start dropping down the meters and i think I'm doing some things wrong so i want to ask some questions that have popped up between the other rogue and I that we simply aren't sure of.

1. I have recently transferred to horde and i have this nice new Troll racial that frankly I don't really know the ins and outs of yet.
Should i be saving my second pot for my second Berserking along with holding off using Berserking until my AR+SB is off cool down or should i be blowing it on cool down?

2. Rupture and Eviscerate usage, How does Eviscerate interact with Shadow Blades?
When i have AR+SB up should i be spamming Eviscerate or should i still be using a rupture when its dropped off here?

3. Rupture and Heroism/Bloodlust.
Should i be using rupture during the Bloodlust or again just spam eviscerate?

4. Combat points, Anticipation and insight levels
Now this question makes me feel like a real noob that i should know the answer to but frankly I don't

Should i be building up to say 7 combat points in shallow and moderate insight then 5 for deep?

At the moment I'm using them as soon as i hit 5 but this is also because i have the problem during AR+Heroism that my combat point addon/combat points in general just don't update fast enough and i end up doing some 1/2 point finishers just because everything hasn't caught up yet or i end up sitting at 10 combat points waiting for everything to catch up because I'm spamming so hard at 20500~ haste.

[Verain]

Cooldown questions are always fight dependent. On an infinite patchwerk, you should definitely hold off on your second potion until you can stack it with stuff. I'm unfortunately not sure if you should try to line up your subsequent zerkings, however- I would suspect very strongly that you should do them such that the entire zerk is spent during red insight, but I wouldn't think you would need to hold off for AR and SB. As always, the specifics of the fight matters a lot: if you are going to have one more berserk and all boss damage is just as good, then you definitely hold it for your cooldown phase. If you are going to choose between having two zerks off cooldown and having one with cooldown, take the two zerks off cooldown.

If your rupture will do more damage, it's always worth using. If a rupture will go duration, it will do more damage. In past tiers, eviscerate has been more dps and rupture more dpe, so you have changed your behavior based on whether energy is limiting or not. That is gone on live- if the rupture will tick all the way, use it. It is the highest dps.

I'm not sure about optimal anticipation play. I spent most of this tier playing combat with marked for death, which is in theory higher damage, and is in practice much more fun for me (even if I don't perform as good as the spreadsheet, at least I have damage and on-demand cooldown reduction). MfD is theoretically better on an infinite Patchwerk, and definitely better if there are adds.
I do know this: You should play at the edge of your antipation in blank, green, or yellow. Aka, if you will not have your buff stolen, you should absolutely be running into red with a nice stack of anticipation, and only be playing with less than five combo points during red. I'm pretty sure it's not worth letting slice and even rupture drop.

I don't have a good addon for your anticipation needs. The gain for playing at high Anti stacks is going to be totally blown up if you start nuking CPs, so I wouldn't sweat it too much if that was your concern.

[Deleted]

I tend to use a second potion when im around medium insight with everything up or like 20secs to go. Then pop KS+Gloves ar/sb+racial. Otherwise I would save it for specific points. Immerseus 2nd time, Sha 30%, Garrosh pushing for only 1 intermission.

Um alot of rogues tend not to use Rupture since it over complicates the rotation for them. However it is better for you to do so. Just plan for it falling off and refresh it after it does.

During AR/SB if you can wait a couple secs for deep insight with rupture down use it but with rupture up just spam evis. Rupture is like 2/3% dps increase.

Lust for us increases swing speed and energy regen you shouldnt really change your gameplay around it. Just continue spamming 5cp evis while maintaining Rupture.


I dont really bother with pooling into anticipation (tbh im not sure about it either) using 5cp finishers as they come. I might delay KS a bit for Deep insight or applying rupture till then but that is about it. Im sure someone else could give a better more insightful answer.

[Kael]

1) is answered extensively, 2/3) are just "doesn't affect the choice, keep rupture active when it drops" so 4)

If you're ever using 1-2 CP evis (or losing them on 5 anticipation points), you need to either change your behavior or your addons to something that lets you track better. Pre-deep insight, you have a slight advantage in pooling points; in deep insight, it does not matter until the last few seconds; at the end, of course, try not to miss a chance to 5 CP evis.

The only times CP/AP pooling actually matters (one way OR the other) is: A) if pooling will push your insight to a higher level before your finisher, B) deep insight will wear off before you cast a finisher because you're pooling, C) you make a mistake and cast low-CP finishers or lose points over anticipation, or the rare D) you lose most of the effect of RB by casting 1s too early. Oh, technically E) fight mechanics, but that's not worthy of a mention here.

[Sesshou]

Rupture is like 2/3% dps increase.

Yeah... if only that were true. Rupture is less than a 1% increase than a pure evis rotation.

[Deleted]

Yeah... if only that were true. Rupture is less than a 1% increase than a pure evis rotation.

Yeh sorry prob not even close to 3%. But there isnt a reason to not use rupture. It is just better. As a dps you want to min max all the time and even if that is 1% better may as well.

[Jambear]

I'm not sure about optimal anticipation play. I spent most of this tier playing combat with marked for death, which is in theory higher damage, and is in practice much more fun for me (even if I don't perform as good as the spreadsheet, at least I have damage and on-demand cooldown reduction). MfD is theoretically better on an infinite Patchwerk, and definitely better if there are adds.

Courtesy deletion - Kael

As combat, you should never, ever, EVER, use Marked for Death. The amount of combo points you will lose without Anticipation is astronomical. The 5 "free" combo points you would get every minute is absolutely minuscule compared to the combo points you'll be potentially LOSING from every revealing strike proc and every shadow blades ss (or BOTH). Even when there are multiple targets, your pace of play will still be so fast that marked for death will be a mind blowingly bad choice over anticipation. If you plan on doing even LFR... do not take Marked for Death. It is absolute trash.

To answer your questions:

1. Be a panda . Your biggest cooldown is your trinkets, and it's the most important thing to your dps (assuming AoC/Harromm's), use your potion according to their will.
2/3. To answer any and all questions about rupture: it doesn't matter. At all. If there is any chance at all that rupture will cause you to lose dps, skip it. One trinket proc will make a bigger difference than keeping up rupture the entire fight, even optimally. That said, if you are energy capping, you absolutely should not be using rupture. It is only useful because it saves you 10 energy. To put that in context, in a 10 minute fight, assuming 100% rupture uptime (which is impossible), you would save 250 energy. 250 energy = 4 sinister strikes and some change. Was that really worth it? Let's throw in the lost damage, and you could probably take away one of those sinister strikes. Now factor in that you can't possibly use rupture 25 times in 10 minutes and the fact that no fight lasts that long. The choice is yours..
4. That is optimal. I recommend using tidy plates, it's nearly perfect at tracking anticipation. It does make mistakes occasionally, but any combo point tracker should suffice. Once you hit 5 combo points, just keep track in your head what it should be at.

[Kael]

Hey, welcome to the MMO-C forums, and you're wrong about both MfD (optional, and in perfect play, optimal) and rupture (higher DPCT than evis). To other readers: I'm not saying use rupture, but if you choose to, energy capping is not a consideration.

Please avoid spreading misinformation, and also see the Read Before Posting post before you post again. Thanks.

[Jambear]

Hey, welcome to the MMO-C forums, and you're wrong about both MfD (optional, and in perfect play, optimal) and rupture . To other readers: I'm not saying use rupture, but if you choose to, energy capping is not a consideration.

Please avoid spreading misinformation, and also see the Read Before Posting post before you post again. Thanks.

Explain how Marked for Death is ever "optimal". Explain how you magically aren't losing a dozen combo points a minute without Anticipation? Link your logs please.

Edit: to be clear, there are a lot of really terrible rogues out there. I see people saying things like this all the time.

[Kael]

MfD is almost universally better. It's better than anticipation even when you screw it up and anticipation is FAR easier to scew up by virtue of the fact that the buff only lasts {15 - corrected later} seconds (example, you SnD, then start building cps for another finisher while anticipation is rolling, it's quite conceivable that you don't get a finisher before the buff falls, and you effectively lose 4 combo points).

Here are results using simc:

Anticipation (pooling AP for deep insight):
498824 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

MfD at <=1cp:
505516 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

MfD at <=2cp:
505463 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

MfD at <=3cp:
504375 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

MfD at <=4cp:
503229 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

MfD on cooldown regardless of cps:
500878 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H

Shuriken Toss (ie, no T90 talent as a control):
490824 100.0% Rogue_Combat_T16H


What can we get from this? Just by taking MfD and using it on cooldown without even considering how many cp you have is still better than anticipation because most of the time, you won't have 5 cp. Anticipation saves combo points on order of the number that MfD generates--and those cps that it saves still cost you energy. RB means that MfD's free combo points means more energy shifted into finishers which do FAR more damage per energy than builders.

Anticpation is both more challenging to get the most out of AND worse at the same time. It's just 1 less keybind to manage. The buff is more micromanagement than the cd of MfD because you have to consider not just your BG state, but also SnD state. If you're at 5cp+3ap with 12 seconds left on anticipation and you SnD without performing a finisher first, you can say goodbye to those 3ap because that buff might very well fall off before you get 5cp again, unless you're in AR/SB.

Can't follow the link back because it's a PM, but this shows that it's likely to be ahead for not particularly good use as well, which I wasn't really expecting. Props to shadowboy for the gruntwork, as it often is. I don't find the anticipation 15s rule to be an issue on a regular basis, but any loss from it negates a large portion of the gain from using anticipation at all. To follow your logic a moment, though, outside of the SimC results - to lose 12 CP a minute means that, every 5 seconds, you have an SS proc 2 CP when you're already at 4 (or 3 under AR/SB). The actual CP loss - while still real - is much lower. I also did the vast majority of my play as anticipation.

Almost all of my rogue logs have expired. That doesn't mean anything I say is wrong.

If you've got questions about acceptable posting content/style (my edit, etc.) feel free to PM me if the "read before posting" thread isn't clear.

[Jambear]

Can't follow the link back because it's a PM, but this shows that it's likely to be ahead for not particularly good use as well, which I wasn't really expecting. Props to shadowboy for the gruntwork, as it often is. I don't find the anticipation 15s rule to be an issue on a regular basis, but any loss from it negates a large portion of the gain from using anticipation at all. To follow your logic a moment, though, outside of the SimC results - to lose 12 CP a minute means that, every 5 seconds, you have an SS proc 2 CP when you're already at 4 (or 3 under AR/SB). The actual CP loss - while still real - is much lower. I also did the vast majority of my play as anticipation.

You're also forgetting that you now may have to evis at 3 or 4 combo points, which mean you're spending more energy on evis than you would otherwise. The possibility of anticipation stacks falling of is ludicrous to say the least. You also have the ability, with anticipation, to pool combo points during ar/sb or for Deep Insight. If you play a rogue even a little you'd see why anticipation is mandatory.

[Deleted]

Rupture is sometimes useful to push different levels of insight when you need them. And 1% DPS at our gear levels is 4-5k damage - you are slacking if you don't consider 5k dps a useful amount of damage to have extra. Most fights at 25hc don't last 5 minutes, so just pot 2nd or 3rd AoC proc depending how long your fights are lasting. You'll see a proc roughly every 2 minutes.

Edited to reflect correct numbers. Point still stands, people regem and reforge for less.

[Sesshou]

You're also forgetting that you now may have to evis at 3 or 4 combo points, which mean you're spending more energy on evis than you would otherwise.

Wait, why would you do that? I was pretty sure it was optimal to evis at 5 regardless for combat.

Rupture is sometimes useful to push different levels of insight when you need them. And 1% DPS at our gear levels is 45-50k damage - you are genuinely a bad DPS if you don't consider 45k dps a useful amount of damage to have extra. Most fights at 25hc don't last 5 minutes, so just pot 2nd or 3rd AoC proc depending how long your fights are lasting. You'll see a proc roughly every 2 minutes.

You're doing 5,000,000 dps? That is 5 million dps? Because if 1% of your dps, is 50k, than 100% of your dps is 100x50,000=5,000,000. It is less than 1%. Most people are doing under 600k ST, so thats less than 6k. I think for me shadowcraft had it at .7% when I checked. That is not going to be visually noticeable over the effects of rng on a single parse. Now you should use it because there isn't a reason not to, but the difference is pretty trivial.

[Kael]

You're also forgetting that you now may have to evis at 3 or 4 combo points, which mean you're spending more energy on evis than you would otherwise. The possibility of anticipation stacks falling of is ludicrous to say the least. You also have the ability, with anticipation, to pool combo points during ar/sb or for Deep Insight. If you play a rogue even a little you'd see why anticipation is mandatory.

It's almost like you ignored the entire quote I posted, which is, you know, the results of the sims of using or not using anticipation, which already include the cost of lost CP to overflow. If you look at what you quoted, though, your response is nonsensical; if you're using evis at 3-4 CP, you're not losing any CP (other than those lost through the lack of ruthlessness procs) - so if you're losing CP to overflow, you're not casting 3-4 CP evis and losing energy there. It's also easy to overhype the effect of pushing finishers up 1 anticipation level (10% of pre-guile for 3 casts per cycle), when evis and rupture total 10% of your damage (a <1% damage increase). While that is a damage difference, nearly any increase of CP/minute will dwarf it for bringing AR/SB off cooldown more quickly.

At the end of the day, though, you asked how MfD is ever "optimal", and the simple answer is that unless there's a problem with our simulations, it's direct and clear that it nets a damage increase greater than 1% because of the increased total CP. I'm not outright telling people that they should be using MfD or they are bad in all situations ever, but saying the opposite is quite obviously false. This is all, of course, referencing patchwerk-styled fights. Fights where you're actually switching to and killing adds will cause MfD to have a more profound effect.

[Deleted]

Alright Sesshou, wind your neck in - 5-6k is still enough to reforge and gem for. The main reason you don't use rupture particularly much in SoO HC is due to the amount of multi-target fights but by the arrogance displayed you should already know that.

[lifteez]

I read most of the quotes, but also remember to still pool to 9 with deep insight up, if your trinkets are down. The chances Haromms or blackfuse trinket procs and you suddenly get more dmg off that 1 eviscerate is something I enjoy seeing and I am willing to bet leads to higher dps(marginal) so keep that in mind.

Obviously make attempts to watch for when you are in deep insight and:

*Your trinkets or even potion are about to fall off, and you followed my rule of pooling even in deep insight, dump your9 stack evis combo *points (standard 4/5 evisc, 5 being better if you can) and avoid capping on energy by evis-sinister - evis

*If your deep insight is ending soon, dump your 9 stack combo, evis - sinister - evis. Avoid capping energy.

Last point, if you can double eviscerate and not cap, I guess you can wait a extra second before dumping. But staying below 5 combo in deep insight, starting at full duration, in my opinion would be to waste a eviscerate possibly without a proc. all typed on phone, so hope this is understandable

[Sesshou]

Alright Sesshou, wind your neck in - 5-6k is still enough to reforge and gem for. The main reason you don't use rupture particularly much in SoO HC is due to the amount of multi-target fights but by the arrogance displayed you should already know that.

I'll take my arrogance over your stupidity. You claimed an outlandish number that makes the difference look large enough to be important when it is in fact not really even recognizable over RNG. Gemming/enchanting/reforging is not comparable. That is something you do out of combat. The main reason anyone would want to not rupture on ST is to simplify their rotation which is actually a positive thing. There is no positive for not gemming/enchanting/reforging. Now obviously the negative of rupture just doing more damage doesn't go away, but the fact that there is a positive part of skipping rupture makes it incomparable to gems/enchants/reforges. Whether or not you or I specifically think simplifying the rotation is worth the dps loss is irrelevant because some people do, and if they think their overall performance can go up by using a more simple rotation then that is their call.

I read most of the quotes, but also remember to still pool to 9 with deep insight up, if your trinkets are down. The chances Haromms or blackfuse trinket procs and you suddenly get more dmg off that 1 eviscerate is something I enjoy seeing and I am willing to bet leads to higher dps(marginal) so keep that in mind.

Rest of the post aside, you shouldn't ever aim for 9. If you aim for 9, meaning try to SS at 8, then you can end up at 10. The issue there is that unless they fixed it without me realizing, ruthlessness will not give you an anticipation stack. So if you ever finish with 5 anticipation stacks, those will turn into 5cp and ruthlessness does nothing.

[lifteez]

Rest of the post aside, you shouldn't ever aim for 9. If you aim for 9, meaning try to SS at 8, then you can end up at 10. The issue there is that unless they fixed it without me realizing, ruthlessness will not give you an anticipation stack. So if you ever finish with 5 anticipation stacks, those will turn into 5cp and ruthlessness does nothing.

Thanks for your input, but I am dissapointed you did not engage in a discussion about the more important point I made: being over 5 combo points at deep insight if you have time and plan to save that extra evisc for procs. You are very correct that I said 9, and that it may be misleading. I ask that after reading through this post let me know how you feel about this, since I have not done any math on this, and obviously in theory it is more damage but I wonder if it's like the rupture situation, putting in more effort for little return?

For those who didn't understand the specific point, I ment the general rule combat rogues have used for a while, don't lose any combo points but aim for holding onto as much as you can until you can best use them(after pushing insight levels, etc) as you could normally. For example if I have AD/SB up, and my combo points are at 6 total, sinister strike again because the possible outcome would be either +2 or +3 (8 & 9 respectively total). At 7, you would eviscerate with shadow blades up, because you have the possibility of hitting 9, or 10 with shadow blades up, thus loosing a free combo point from previously mentioned passive. So That is why you would aim for 9, but never exceed.

[Kael]

Thanks for your input, but I am dissapointed you did not engage in a discussion about the more important point I made: being over 5 combo points at deep insight if you have time and plan to save that extra evisc for procs. You are very correct that I said 9, and that it may be misleading. I ask that after reading through this post let me know how you feel about this, since I have not done any math on this, and obviously in theory it is more damage but I wonder if it's like the rupture situation, putting in more effort for little return?

Trinkets are a greater damage increase than a change in insight level, so if you don't have a problem watching when they're up (and being aware of when they're likely to be) you can certainly game an advantage out of it. The difference in damage you'd probably have to sim to figure out, but it's not going to be all that large because of how small our evis/rupture combined are to begin with in comparison to the rest of our kit (autos). Much like rupture, it comes down to: is it effort for you to watch your CP/buffs closely enough to game for the procs? If you stand a chance of making an actual mistake (capping CP, not using your last finisher in DI), you probably shouldn't bother. If you're not going to make a mistake, and you're not going to die, it's a damage increase.

[lifteez]

@kael understandable good point. I guess it would just be another mini/max thing that may yield only .5% dps at best considering how much 1/2 evis could possibly give with a trinket proc every deep insight versus no trinket proc

On another note, I miss being able to hit for over a million