need help desperately.

[Deleted]

Playing around on a test dummy doing my original rotation i was doing about 240-250k dps. About 245k sustained. Opening with Mutilate and taking shadowblades out of vendetta and applying it right after open while still vanishing on cd, was yielding me about 230k dps sustained. I know it's just a test dummy but ive already had a dps loss. This was beating on the 90 boss dummy for 3-4 minutes for each "pull".

Im about to do a gdkp run and ill test both rotations out there, but Im not holding my breath. I will, however, say that using mut to open basically gave me an insta blindside proc.

Macroing vendetta+shadowblades on the pull can't be a gain, it's not possible(if you're popping them from stealth). When you use vendetta you activate the global cooldown which means you have to wait a second before you can open with either ambush or mutilate, if you pop both vendetta and shadowblades you're wasting one second of your shadowblades buff. Vendetta-gcd ends-shadowblades+mutilate/ambush(macroing sb with your opener ambush/mutilate will be optimal here) will always be the superior option of these two.
Using a macro for sb+vendetta might lead to less human error and this can cause a dps gain, nothing practise can't fix though.

As for mutilate vs ambush, the dps difference between these two is so minor that you can't possibly tell the difference. Also the reason I advise against ambush is because for it to be worth it with the posistional requirement it would have to grant a definite dps gain. Simcraft is showing around a 200 dps loss when using ambush and shadowcraft 1k gain, so it's just really not worth using with the problems it can cause.

[Sicarius87]

Macroing vendetta+shadowblades on the pull can't be a gain, it's not possible(if you're popping them from stealth). When you use vendetta you activate the global cooldown which means you have to wait a second before you can open with either ambush or mutilate, if you pop both vendetta and shadowblades you're wasting one second of your shadowblades buff. Vendetta-gcd ends-shadowblades+mutilate/ambush(macroing sb with your opener ambush/mutilate will be optimal here) will always be the superior option of these two.
Using a macro for sb+vendetta might lead to less human error and this can cause a dps gain, nothing practise can't fix though.

As for mutilate vs ambush, the dps difference between these two is so minor that you can't possibly tell the difference. Also the reason I advise against ambush is because for it to be worth it with the posistional requirement it would have to grant a definite dps gain. Simcraft is showing around a 200 dps loss when using ambush and shadowcraft 1k gain, so it's just really not worth using with the problems it can cause.

Shadowblades istn on the GCD. I pop the macro right before reaching the boss then pop ambush. Vendetta gets activated first before sblades so there is no wasted time there.

[Kael]

Shadowblades istn on the GCD. I pop the macro right before reaching the boss then pop ambush. Vendetta gets activated first before sblades so there is no wasted time there.

You seem to be missing the second sentence of the quoted text. The first second of Sblades is spent during the GCD - by using vendetta WITH SB, you've put your actions on the GCD at the same time that you start Sblades. You necessarily do not use that 1st second to use an offensive move, and lose a combo point for it (as well as damage from autos, since your trinkets aren't up instantaneously). SB should be used at least 1s after vendetta (or later for circumstance reasons not worth going into here), to be directly followed by an attack.

Speaking of running up to the boss... shadowstep?

[Sesshou]

I dunno why you'd blow your cd's before you open, but macroing them together doesn't necessarily cost you an offensive move due to the gcd. Assassination isn't gcd limited. If he isn't capping energy, then he isn't wasting a free combo point from an offensive move. With or without that blown gcd, the amount you can spend on abilities is the amount you have when you pop SB plus marginally under 12 seconds of energy regen, and SB lasts long enough that you will be able to use your energy. Now you could argue that not wasting that gcd lets you pool to a higher energy, but an extra 10-15 tops? Considering mut is 55, odds of that amount being the tipping point to get the energy for another mut off is pretty low (a bit better during execute but still most of the time not an extra attack).

And speaking of trinkets, the sooner (but not before you at least get SnD up and trinkets should proc by then) you get SB up, the more of your shadow damage auto attacks occur during trinket procs.

Not saying that you *should* do it, but I think you guys are overselling the negatives a bit much.

[Deleted]

The reason I adviced against macroing is because he is opening from stealth, he's wasting a full 1 second of no auto attack damage with shadow blades this way. If you're macroing the cooldowns out of stealth when you are actually doing auto attacks and then it hardly matters like you mentioned but it's not really helping with the issue here which was that he was macroing vendetta+sb when he hasn't even started his auto attacking. I'm not sure if kael was speaking of always delaying sb one second, if so I agree with sesshou on this.

As for the remark about blowing cds before you open, well i'd simply say it doesnt seem ilogical to do so, atleast if you're at the gear level the op is which is 580, in lower ilvls when you're struggling for energy and you're not getting heroism on the pull I could popping cds from stealth being seemingly flawed.

You'll use more offensive abilities and finishers during your initial dual trinket procs when popping the cds from stealth and have more uptime of trinket procs together with your cooldowns, those are the gains. Wheter or not this outweighs the benefits from getting snd-rupture up before popping cds is too indepth to discuss here though, but i doubt the difference is big. I'm comparing to the standard mut-snd-mut-rupture-cds.