Capping combo points during dance?

[Crunge]

I've pretty much only been playing combat, so I thought I'd switch it up and go subtlety since its better. But I've noticed I've been capping combo points and anticipation during dance. Should I also be eviscerating/rupturing/slice n dice during dance to solve this, or do I just keep ambushing even though I'm capped?

[Deleted]

Slice and Dice and Rupture should be refreshed before you start dancing so you do not need to refresh during the dance. Multistrike "luck" can result in Rupture running out, don't let it drop!
While dancing you get Find Weakness which empowers your Eviscerate quite a bit, so you should also Eviscerate during dance. Don't cap CP and use Ambush just before dance runs out to maximise Find Weakness uptime

[B L A D E]

My rotation for Shadow Dance is:

Ahead of time, make sure that both Rupture and Slice n Dice has been refreshed before hand.
If so, then pop Shadow Dance, spam Ambush up till 5 CP then Eviscerate.
Continue this rotation until you about 3 seconds left of Shadow Dance.
When about 3 seconds left, you wanna just spam Ambush, to make sure that you get as much CP as possible and make sure you just manage to get a last one in the end to keep FW refreshed at full duration.
When you get out of Shadow Dance and if you got 4p (and Rupture is still at a good duration) then you should be capable of using 3x Eviscerates.

For me, I sometimes I have Rupture running out aswell during SD but it seems to be always around that 3 second mark left. Basically, if your Rupture is running out during SD, you just wanna get 5 CPs and apply Rupture.

The main part to remember during SD is always to manage to get a last ambush in the end to get out with full FW duration and if you got 4p, you wanna try and cap your CPs and anticipation, so you can get away with those 3x Eviscerates.

You can use your 4p proc to refresh Rupture and SnD, if really needed. Rupture is alright but never SnD tbh, only if it's in the opener. That's also something you wanna consider, never use SnD during Dance, you wanna get as many Eviscerates off while you got FW going. You should always make sure that SnD isn't running out before SD.

[Crunge]

Thanks for the advice. I usually don't have an issue with SnD or rupture running out, just capping CPs, so I wasn't sure if I should also add in an eviscerate during dance or just let them cap.

Also I'm looking at shadowcraft and noticing its ranking offhand daggers pretty high up, is that real? I've got heroic Molten Edge Eviscerator, Warforged Oregorger, and a mythic Bladefist and its saying the warforged Oregorger dagger in my offhand is only a 5 dps loss over mythic Bladefist. Would I be good to just use the oregorger over the bladefist if I use frostwolf on it? That way I can keep warsong on the bladefist for combat?

[Athonel]

Eviscerate? You should have to eviscerate a couple of times (it's pretty much energy neutral, and it's more damage because eviscerate does more damage than ambush)

[B L A D E]

Thanks for the advice. I usually don't have an issue with SnD or rupture running out, just capping CPs, so I wasn't sure if I should also add in an eviscerate during dance or just let them cap.

Also I'm looking at shadowcraft and noticing its ranking offhand daggers pretty high up, is that real? I've got heroic Molten Edge Eviscerator, Warforged Oregorger, and a mythic Bladefist and its saying the warforged Oregorger dagger in my offhand is only a 5 dps loss over mythic Bladefist. Would I be good to just use the oregorger over the bladefist if I use frostwolf on it? That way I can keep warsong on the bladefist for combat?

Yeah it's actually better for you to run the double daggers with 2x frostwolf enchants since you will have higher uptime on it. Except if you are getting over 100% multistrike with procs/buffs/enchants etc. then bleedinghollow+frostwolf is better.

[shaithis]

OP, I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding - Shadow Dance does not mean "tunnel ambush dance," you always want to use finishing moves (esp. Evis) whenever possible, just try to get a final ambush in as close to Shadow Dance expiration for Find Weakness refresh.

[Crunge]

Yeah it's actually better for you to run the double daggers with 2x frostwolf enchants since you will have higher uptime on it. Except if you are getting over 100% multistrike with procs/buffs/enchants etc. then bleedinghollow+frostwolf is better.

That makes sense, I'll go ahead and switch to double dagger then.

OP, I think that you have a fundamental misunderstanding - Shadow Dance does not mean "tunnel ambush dance," you always want to use finishing moves (esp. Evis) whenever possible, just try to get a final ambush in as close to Shadow Dance expiration for Find Weakness refresh.

I get that now. I guess I was reading the guides wrong, they usually just mention ambushing during dance and leave out any kind of finishers.

[eathax]

during shadow dance you want to evis as much as possible. the dance allows you to replace backstab with ambush, allowing you a 2 cp generator and evis is the highest dpe skill you have outside of rupture. you always want to end dance with a ambush though just to keep up fw for longer

[Crunge]

Here's a quick log from Brackenspore normal, can anyone take a look and see if theres anything I could improve on here? Ignore garrote, I fatfingered it once.

warcraftlogs.com/reports/7BW29GZfRmq4PvTj/#type=damage-done&source=10

[Oggiva]

KISS. Just follow your normal rotation, with backstab swapped out for ambush. If you want to maximize it make sure you ambush during the last second of Shadow Dance. That's all you need to know.

[Sicarius87]

I take anticipation as sub for that sole purpose. Nothing like having 10 cp's with back to back eviscerates. It's like having mini legendary daggers back in cata.

[B L A D E]

Here's a quick log from Brackenspore normal, can anyone take a look and see if theres anything I could improve on here? Ignore garrote, I fatfingered it once.

warcraftlogs.com/reports/7BW29GZfRmq4PvTj/#type=damage-done&source=10

The only problem I notice is that you didn't keep as high uptime with Rupture on the Flesh-Eater like on the boss. On dual target fights like Brackenspore, it's important that you keep as high Rupture uptime on the second target like with your main target.

[Dustbowl]

I use anticipation - If SnD and rupture have already been refreshed should I be trying to enter shadow dance with 5 to 7 combo points already to get an extra find weakness eviscerate in?

[Sicariius]

I thought shattered hand with a slow offhand (Phemos slasher) was better?

[Oggiva]

Shattered hand is nerfed. Fast offhand is better in a vacuum.

[shaithis]

SH on mainhand / FW on offhand is fine.

[Rankith]

People say to "refresh SnD and rupture before dance". But that requires 1 of 3 things.
1) Luck, with how they line up with your SD cooldown so that they ARE refreshed right before, otherwise you just do it in dance.
2) Delaying your SD, so that you refresh them first
3) Refreshing SnD and Rupture REGARDLESS of their current length before your SD comes up.

Which of those 3 is the correct thing to do? Is it #3? Say Dance has 8 seconds on CD, and SnD has a nice 20 seconds, while rupture has 18. Should I go ahead and rupture again while it has more then 8 seconds and SnD while it still has alot up so that I Don't have to during SD->FW? Or is the loss from overwriting one of those less then the gain of the extra 1-2 FW Evis?

[Oggiva]

People say to "refresh SnD and rupture before dance". But that requires 1 of 3 things.
1) Luck, with how they line up with your SD cooldown so that they ARE refreshed right before, otherwise you just do it in dance.
2) Delaying your SD, so that you refresh them first
3) Refreshing SnD and Rupture REGARDLESS of their current length before your SD comes up.

Which of those 3 is the correct thing to do? Is it #3? Say Dance has 8 seconds on CD, and SnD has a nice 20 seconds, while rupture has 18. Should I go ahead and rupture again while it has more then 8 seconds and SnD while it still has alot up so that I Don't have to during SD->FW? Or is the loss from overwriting one of those less then the gain of the extra 1-2 FW Evis?

Option 1. Option 2 can be used on certain fights where you know how many dances you are going to get off, and delaying a few seconds isn't going to change that (Butcher mythic). It can also be used against the end of a fight when you know you've only got time for one more dance. I would recommend against it unless you are progressing on a boss and have pulled it so many times that you know every timing by heart (hello 300 pulls on Garrosh). The problem is that next week you generally have enough gear to mess up with all the timings from last week, so what worked last week isn't going to work this one.

I argued against option 3 in SoO, and I'll do it again. Say SnD is looking fine with plenty of time left, but rupture is at 15 sec with just a couple seconds til Dance comes off cd. Now you got two options: Rupture straight away, or wait til it's below 7.2 seconds duration. My argument is that if you rupture right before a dance you are spending combo points that you could save til find weakness is up, so you are not gaining any extra eviscerates during find weakness. The only result of rupturing right before dance is that you waste some of the rupture you already had up. The same logic extends to slice and dice.

I'd love to see one of the people saying that snd and rupture must be at a high duration before shadow dance show some logic/math/simcraft to support it, but until that happens I'll just keep ignoring the bunch. It's not like you can realistically get a rupture to last through a 20s find weakness anyway.

[Deleted]

During openers Im having trouble keeping rupture up. When i pop cd's and frostwolf and SoD procs i have like 100% multistrike. It ticks down way to fast to keep it up 100%. Well it's possible but it's honestly pretty hard. Is it worth to pop it at like 10s instead of 7s? Cause sometimes if i accidently hit an extra ambush @ the pull it drops for atleast 1.5s or more.