Assassination Rogue help

[Masiker]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for taking the time to look at this and it's a bit of a weird one.

I've been playing a Rogue for a while now and I used to play Combat so I decided a when I came back to play WoD I would try learning how to Assassination... so I spoke to a few people managed to get it all sorted and all working, in most fights I was in the Top 5 on Highmual HC however recently I've had a problem.

So I've been raiding BRF HC for a while and my DPS just seems to burst nicely but then my DPS Seems to drop for some reason - let me explain:

Using Blackhand HC as an example so I'll throw on Poisons, Rune, Flask, Food (125) and PrePot.

Now my opener consist of Stealth > Mutilate > Mutilate until I hit 5CP's then I'll hit Shadow Reflection and Vendetta and then I'll Rupture (so rupture is applied twice via Shadow Reflection)... which I can sometimes push about 50k burst... however there's another rogue in our guild who plays the same spec as me who can hit 90k which is insane but I can't work out why as we're pretty much identical on gear (obviously his Trinkets are different).

So far so good - so my rotation will be Mutilate till 5CP and then Envenom whenever I have 5CP's which has been doing well for me however half way through the fight it seems to almost stop dead in its tracks and I can't understand why.

Basically there's something wrong somewhere in the rotation and I can't work out what it is... I Vanish every minute and then Mutilate to save energy but yeah my rotation is maintaining 100% Rupture and Envenom whenever possible but for some reason my DPS is low.

So recently we did mythic Gruul which was again his burst was 80k mine was about 60k then when we evened out at sustained damage I was about 32k my higher and he was pushing 45k... again normally I don't give a shit about the numbers I just can't understand why there was a 13k difference... so I asked him and he told me he does his opener as Stealth > Muti > Muti > Rupture > Shadow Reflection > Vendetta... which is a DPS loss to me due to the fact he's not taking advantage of the double Rupture... Could it be trinkets?? could it be something else?? any advice would be really appreciated also I'm around if anyone wants to log on to take a look at the rotation on a dummy.

Thanks guys - Hopefully I can sort this out cause at the moment I feel like hanging up my daggers completely.

Armoury - Masiker on Silvermoon

[PessimiStick]

Generally speaking, getting help like this is going to be nearly impossible without logs.

You say you're playing properly. The results seem to indicate otherwise. It's difficult to diagnose without objective data.

[Kaite]

Can't post links until you hit 10 posts I think. This might be him. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...7404140/latest

[Athonel]

We need logs in order to compare.

I generally mut rupture mut mut sr/vendetta envenom so that I get a guaranteed crit envenom. Rupture usually needs to be refreshed during the first 8 seconds of SR, so you still get the double rupture. But, this is not really going to help you until we can see logs.

I don't see any problems with your armory, although you could probably move your weapon enchants to mastery instead of crit if you think you have enough crit with your blackhand trinket.

[Masiker]

We need logs in order to compare.

I generally mut rupture mut mut sr/vendetta envenom so that I get a guaranteed crit envenom. Rupture usually needs to be refreshed during the first 8 seconds of SR, so you still get the double rupture. But, this is not really going to help you until we can see logs.

I don't see any problems with your armory, although you could probably move your weapon enchants to mastery instead of crit if you think you have enough crit with your blackhand trinket.

The logs that Katie linked is mine - I've been following shadowcraft for enchants/gems... problem with that BH trinket is, it's an amazing trinket but the procs don't happen often.

[Athonel]

Can't post links until you hit 10 posts I think. This might be him. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...7404140/latest

If this is indeed you (which I believe it is), then there are definitely some things we can tweak to increase your dps.

Envenom uptime is low. You can get over 90% on fights like gruul. Rupture uptime is low as well, should be very close to 100%.

Do you have tell me when or weak auras monitoring your buffs/debuffs?

On blackhand, there are lots of times where you could put a rupture up when you know you are going to disconnect from the boss. For instance, right before each phase change, you have plenty of warning, pop a rupture a couple of second before he phases, so that when you're running to the boss, you still have rupture burning on him.

Your rupture uptimes are in the low 90s and high 80s. On our blackhand work last night, I usually had 98-99.** uptime on rupture. Simultaneously you're doing about 60-65% uptime on envenom, and i'm doing 80-85% uptime.

I'm 689 ilvl with 4 piece but no blackhand trinket.

Basically, your deadly poison uptime should be very similar to your rupture uptime, and both should be very, very close to 100%.

[Masiker]

So to answer your question... I have a nice little Add-on called NeedToKnow which works good a friend of mine told me to try something which was basically spamming muti till 5 CP's and then Envenom - Now by doing this I have a nice Envenom uptime but it means I'm clipping envenom.

[Athonel]

Clipping envenom is not a bad thing when you have cds burning. When it's your normal non-buffed rotation, just pop envenom with a little under 2 seconds left (1.8 is optimal) and it refreshes to max duration. Rupture you can recast at 8 seconds remaining and not lose dps.

If you have 5 cps, more than 8 seconds on rupture, and more than 2 seconds on envenom, pool your energy until it's time to use a finisher. With the four piece, it's possible to get really high (higher than 90%) uptime on envenom on fights with very few disconnects.

Envenom uptime and rupture uptime is the key to high dps as mut rogue. You do so much passive damage just by having those buffs up and by auto attacking the boss while pooling energy to keep envenom up.

*edit*
Elaborating on clipping envenom. When you have SR and vendetta going, get as many envenoms in as possible without letting rupture drop. This has a huge effect on your opening dps. With your gear you should be able to burst to 70k+, especially if you get the BH trinket to proc during your pull.

[Masiker]

Clipping envenom is not a bad thing when you have cds burning. When it's your normal non-buffed rotation, just pop envenom with a little under 2 seconds left (1.8 is optimal) and it refreshes to max duration. Rupture you can recast at 8 seconds remaining and not lose dps.

If you have 5 cps, more than 8 seconds on rupture, and more than 2 seconds on envenom, pool your energy until it's time to use a finisher. With the four piece, it's possible to get really high (higher than 90%) uptime on envenom on fights with very few disconnects.

Envenom uptime and rupture uptime is the key to high dps as mut rogue. You do so much passive damage just by having those buffs up and by auto attacking the boss while pooling energy to keep envenom up.

So during the time when I'm pooling energy is that just a case of white damage (auto attack) - I think pooling might be an issue I'm having. Also Stone of Fire 4 of 4 or Beating heat of the Mountain?

[Kaite]

For one, you should be pooling energy before you Envenom so you can Mutilate/Dispatch in the buff uptime, not just Envenoming whenever you have 5 combo points. You can also Envenom when you have under 2 seconds of the buff left as those two seconds will roll over, as long as you're doing so when high on energy.

Yes, pooling just means letting your energy fill up and white swinging. If you take a look at the top stickied thread "Simulationcraft Results", it shows Beating Heart is better than Stone of Fire. You should be macro-ing that into Vendetta and Shadow Reflection.

[Athonel]

So during the time when I'm pooling energy is that just a case of white damage (auto attack) - I think pooling might be an issue I'm having. Also Stone of Fire 4 of 4 or Beating heat of the Mountain?

When you're pooling energy, you're getting auto attack damage, poison damage (this is greatly buffed by envenom), and your rupture and venomous wounds (also enhanced by envenom) are still ticking. You're getting a lot of extra damage just by having envenom up and stabbing the target while you afk for 4-5 seconds waiting for your energy to recover. If you're spamming your buttons as mutilate, you're doing it wrong. Play combat if you want to spam

As for trinkets, I *think* stone of fire is better (assuming you have the heroic kromog trinket), but you can check the simulation craft forum on the main rogue page for an in depth analysis of trinkets.

- - - Updated - - -

For one, you should be pooling energy before you Envenom so you can Mutilate/Dispatch in the buff uptime, not just Envenoming whenever you have 5 combo points. You can also Envenom when you have under 2 seconds of the buff left as those two seconds will roll over, as long as you're doing so when high on energy.

Absolutely correct. Remember that mutilate and dispatch are buffed by 30% when you have envenom active, so if you pool energy while envenom is ticking down, you will be able to have a little burst phase while you envenom mut mut (and hopefully dispatch).

[Masiker]

Maybe this is where I'm screwing it up - I'm gonna learn more on the pooling side and swap stone of fire for beating heart, I really need to get the Heroic BH trinket.

Do you guys recommend any UI's for monitoring energy? (sounds stupid) currently Im using the standard UI which has two issues for me, the first obviously being energy and the second is target casts (i.e. blackrock spires from Oreg).

[Athonel]

If you want a stock ui, go get ElvUI.

Mine is pretty similar to ElvUI, but I just put everything together myself.

If you just want an addon for monitoring energy, I use NugEnergy.

I also use quartz and put the target cast bar in the middle of my screen.

[Farseer]

Now my opener consist of Stealth > Mutilate > Mutilate until I hit 5CP's then I'll hit Shadow Reflection and Vendetta and then I'll Rupture (so rupture is applied twice via Shadow Reflection)... which I can sometimes push about 50k burst... however there's another rogue in our guild who plays the same spec as me who can hit 90k which is insane but I can't work out why as we're pretty much identical on gear (obviously his Trinkets are different).

The reason we need Rupture is not really the dps it does, but the energy it gives us in combination with the poison DoT. Envenom does more damage than Rupture, especially if it crits. That's why you shouldn't be casting Rupture during the first 8 seconds of SR + Vendetta. What your guildmate does is fine, I suggest you open with:
Mut > Rupture at 5cp > mut until 5 cp > maybe pool some energy for a few seconds > SR + Vendetta > Envenom > mut until 5 cp > Envenom.

The 5 cp Envenom you cast after SR+V will be a crit and you should be able to get at least one extra Envenom before the first 8 seconds are over. Depending on the amount of crits you get it might be a close call on refreshing Rupture. It usually falls off right after the first 8 seconds of of SR so you have to keep an eye on that.

For the next SR + Vendettas, try to save up 5cp + 3-5 Anticipation charges (assuming you have that talent, which I strongly suggest) so you can cast 2 Envenoms or Envenom > Mutilate > Envenom right after popping SR+V. If you're lucky with crits and have pooled energy you might even squeeze in 3 Envenoms in the first 8 seconds of SR, and this is good for your dps.

I think if you get this opening right (a lot of it is RNG unless you stacked crit like mad) it'll do wonders for your burst and consequently your overall dps. A good start burst makes all the difference. Like someone else pointed out, in your normal rotation you'll not want to Envenom immediately when you have 5 cp, but wait till you have (almost) energy to cast two mutilates. Rupture uptime HAS to be 100% on a single target fight without interruptions. If you let that fall off for 1+ seconds you'll lose a lot of energy and that will punch a hole in your rotation.

Something I personally do is, when I have 5 cp + some energy pooled, and no Envenom buff while Rupture is within 5-8 seconds of falling off, I go for Envenom to profit from the buff and then spam mutilate so I can update Rupture at the very last second. This means I can still refresh Rupture right before it falling off whilst enjoying the Envenom damage buff to the Mutilates I've cast, and if I'm lucky with crits I can even get another mutilate (so 2-3 combo points) before the Envenom buff ends. This way I usually only have to cast one Mutilate without the Envenom buff to reach 5 cp again, then pool some energy and cast Envenom again.

I think to really optimize the rotation and Envenom uptime, you'll need to stack a certain amount of crit. I'm at 28% crit unbuffed atm (669 ilevel), 1 weapon with crit enchant and 1 with mastery (though I'm thinking about switching to double crit). I assume your ilevel is higher than mine so if you go pure crit you might end up often having to clip your envenom buff because of generating too many combo points. I suggest you take a look at how your guild mate has enchanted his gear, and which stats he has, and reevaluate your own gems/enchant.

[Athonel]

The reason we need Rupture is not really the dps it does, but the energy it gives us in combination with the poison DoT. Envenom does more damage than Rupture, especially if it crits. That's why you shouldn't be casting Rupture during the first 8 seconds of SR + Vendetta. What your guildmate does is fine, I suggest you open with:
Mut > Rupture at 5cp > mut until 5 cp > maybe pool some energy for a few seconds > SR + Vendetta > Envenom > mut until 5 cp > Envenom.

The 5 cp Envenom you cast after SR+V will be a crit and you should be able to get at least one extra Envenom before the first 8 seconds are over. Depending on the amount of crits you get it might be a close call on refreshing Rupture. It usually falls off right after the first 8 seconds of of SR so you have to keep an eye on that.

For the next SR + Vendettas, try to save up 5cp + 3-5 Anticipation charges (assuming you have that talent, which I strongly suggest) so you can cast 2 Envenoms or Envenom > Mutilate > Envenom right after popping SR+V. If you're lucky with crits and have pooled energy you might even squeeze in 3 Envenoms in the first 8 seconds of SR, and this is good for your dps.

I think if you get this opening right (a lot of it is RNG unless you stacked crit like mad) it'll do wonders for your burst and consequently your overall dps. A good start burst makes all the difference. Like someone else pointed out, in your normal rotation you'll not want to Envenom immediately when you have 5 cp, but wait till you have (almost) energy to cast two mutilates. Rupture uptime HAS to be 100% on a single target fight without interruptions. If you let that fall off for 1+ seconds you'll lose a lot of energy and that will punch a hole in your rotation.

Something I personally do is, when I have 5 cp + some energy pooled, and no Envenom buff while Rupture is within 5-8 seconds of falling off, I go for Envenom to profit from the buff and then spam mutilate so I can update Rupture at the very last second. This means I can still refresh Rupture right before it falling off whilst enjoying the Envenom damage buff to the Mutilates I've cast, and if I'm lucky with crits I can even get another mutilate (so 2-3 combo points) before the Envenom buff ends. This way I usually only have to cast one Mutilate without the Envenom buff to reach 5 cp again, then pool some energy and cast Envenom again.

I think to really optimize the rotation and Envenom uptime, you'll need to stack a certain amount of crit. I'm at 28% crit unbuffed atm (669 ilevel), 1 weapon with crit enchant and 1 with mastery (though I'm thinking about switching to double crit). I assume your ilevel is higher than mine so if you go pure crit you might end up often having to clip your envenom buff because of generating too many combo points. I suggest you take a look at how your guild mate has enchanted his gear, and which stats he has, and reevaluate your own gems/enchant.

Some really good stuff here. @farseer i'm 689 ilvl, and i recently swapped to double mastery on weapons, but everything else (gem and chants) are crit. Sometimes it's not quite enough crit (27.62% according to my unbuffed armory), but I'm getting into the 120% mastery range in raids with both weapon procs, so my envenom damage is skyrocketing. My max envenom crit is around 90k right now with double mastery enchants over a 72k max with double crit enchants. Of course the feral in my guild is doing 157k FB crits at 675 ilvl lol. Oh to see 6 digit numbers pop across my screen.....

I think that the ideal crit range is going to be around 35 or 40% in raids (hopefully static instead of relying on procs) to see consistent CP generation. I can definitely tell when i get a double crit proc on weapons, and it was too much a lot of the time. Mastery seems to provide more reliable damage.

[Farseer]

Some really good stuff here. @farseer i'm 689 ilvl, and i recently swapped to double mastery on weapons, but everything else (gem and chants) are crit. Sometimes it's not quite enough crit (27.62% according to my unbuffed armory), but I'm getting into the 120% mastery range in raids with both weapon procs, so my envenom damage is skyrocketing. My max envenom crit is around 90k right now with double mastery enchants over a 72k max with double crit enchants. Of course the feral in my guild is doing 157k FB crits at 675 ilvl lol. Oh to see 6 digit numbers pop across my screen.....

I think that the ideal crit range is going to be around 35 or 40% in raids (hopefully static instead of relying on procs) to see consistent CP generation. I can definitely tell when i get a double crit proc on weapons, and it was too much a lot of the time. Mastery seems to provide more reliable damage.

Come 6.2 you probably will get your 6-figure Envenom crits ^^. Tbh I don't know what my crits are atm because I can't keep track of the amount of damage each individual spell does (too much clutter from all the melee and poison DoT hits). I'm also currently playing in an Internet cafe so I haven't been able to try any addons yet.

I think you're right though about Mastery, and it's definitely the best stat for sustained cleave fights like Maidens. Basically if you can keep 90-100% uptime of your poisons and Rupture on each target, you're going to be doing relatively more poison damage and generating a lot more energy, so you won't need as much crit for combo-point generation as you do on single target fights.

[Athonel]

You can look at warcraft logs and find out your max envenom on a given fight. We don't have internet cafe's down here in Louisiana lol.

I've been struggling to even come close to my combat dps on maidens while i am mutilate, so I've just been staying combat.

[Masiker]

The reason we need Rupture is not really the dps it does, but the energy it gives us in combination with the poison DoT. Envenom does more damage than Rupture, especially if it crits. That's why you shouldn't be casting Rupture during the first 8 seconds of SR + Vendetta. What your guildmate does is fine, I suggest you open with:
Mut > Rupture at 5cp > mut until 5 cp > maybe pool some energy for a few seconds > SR + Vendetta > Envenom > mut until 5 cp > Envenom.

The 5 cp Envenom you cast after SR+V will be a crit and you should be able to get at least one extra Envenom before the first 8 seconds are over. Depending on the amount of crits you get it might be a close call on refreshing Rupture. It usually falls off right after the first 8 seconds of of SR so you have to keep an eye on that.

For the next SR + Vendettas, try to save up 5cp + 3-5 Anticipation charges (assuming you have that talent, which I strongly suggest) so you can cast 2 Envenoms or Envenom > Mutilate > Envenom right after popping SR+V. If you're lucky with crits and have pooled energy you might even squeeze in 3 Envenoms in the first 8 seconds of SR, and this is good for your dps.

I think if you get this opening right (a lot of it is RNG unless you stacked crit like mad) it'll do wonders for your burst and consequently your overall dps. A good start burst makes all the difference. Like someone else pointed out, in your normal rotation you'll not want to Envenom immediately when you have 5 cp, but wait till you have (almost) energy to cast two mutilates. Rupture uptime HAS to be 100% on a single target fight without interruptions. If you let that fall off for 1+ seconds you'll lose a lot of energy and that will punch a hole in your rotation.

Something I personally do is, when I have 5 cp + some energy pooled, and no Envenom buff while Rupture is within 5-8 seconds of falling off, I go for Envenom to profit from the buff and then spam mutilate so I can update Rupture at the very last second. This means I can still refresh Rupture right before it falling off whilst enjoying the Envenom damage buff to the Mutilates I've cast, and if I'm lucky with crits I can even get another mutilate (so 2-3 combo points) before the Envenom buff ends. This way I usually only have to cast one Mutilate without the Envenom buff to reach 5 cp again, then pool some energy and cast Envenom again.

I think to really optimize the rotation and Envenom uptime, you'll need to stack a certain amount of crit. I'm at 28% crit unbuffed atm (669 ilevel), 1 weapon with crit enchant and 1 with mastery (though I'm thinking about switching to double crit). I assume your ilevel is higher than mine so if you go pure crit you might end up often having to clip your envenom buff because of generating too many combo points. I suggest you take a look at how your guild mate has enchanted his gear, and which stats he has, and reevaluate your own gems/enchant.

Thanks for this Farseer - very interesting and I do see where your coming from... its strange though because if you take a look at my armoury (Masiker on Silvermoon) you'll see I've been following ShadowCraft and using there advice on gemming and enchanting, however my guild mate (Zeljio on Silvermoon) is basically all CRIT and nothing but CRIT so when I throw him in ShadowCraft I can also see he's gemmed / enchated the correct way.

Now for feedback :-) - So I tried your suggestion and 2 things happened... my burst normally on training dummy can normally hit between 37 to 41k with poison only (Garrison dummy) now when I tried your suggestion I went to 30k then dropped to 26k so I was pooling energy and for some odd reason my auto attacks slowed down A LOT... to the point where I can see my toon almost in slow motion like (no lag) was a bit weird.

Could it be something to do with the fact I'm waiting for more muti's and this is causing less attacks? if that makes sense? 26k seems low... then again... doing it the way I do it drops from burst of 37k to 22k at times. (again all this is unbuffed with poisons only)

[Athonel]

Thanks for this Farseer - very interesting and I do see where your coming from... its strange though because if you take a look at my armoury (Masiker on Silvermoon) you'll see I've been following ShadowCraft and using there advice on gemming and enchanting, however my guild mate (Zeljio on Silvermoon) is basically all CRIT and nothing but CRIT so when I throw him in ShadowCraft I can also see he's gemmed / enchated the correct way.

Now for feedback :-) - So I tried your suggestion and 2 things happened... my burst normally on training dummy can normally hit between 37 to 41k with poison only (Garrison dummy) now when I tried your suggestion I went to 30k then dropped to 26k so I was pooling energy and for some odd reason my auto attacks slowed down A LOT... to the point where I can see my toon almost in slow motion like (no lag) was a bit weird.

Could it be something to do with the fact I'm waiting for more muti's and this is causing less attacks? if that makes sense? 26k seems low... then again... doing it the way I do it drops from burst of 37k to 22k at times. (again all this is unbuffed with poisons only)

First of all, dummy dps is difficult to compare, at best. Also, on such a short fight, there are a large amount of things that you have to consider that are important variables.

1. Did you wait several minutes to insure all the internal cooldowns of your procs were available (aka, did everything proc on the pull both fights?)
2. What duration are you considering burst? Or are you just looking to see what the top number you see is? Are you using recount/skada or are you logging with warcraftlogs etc.?
3. When you are pooling energy, are you pooling while envenom is active?
4. What was your precise ability usage for both attempts? (logs can answer this question exactly)
5. Did you do one trial of each different idea or several trials? (several trials will allow you to get an average instead of one trial giving you only one data point which can be highly erroneous)

[Farseer]

Thanks for this Farseer - very interesting and I do see where your coming from... its strange though because if you take a look at my armoury (Masiker on Silvermoon) you'll see I've been following ShadowCraft and using there advice on gemming and enchanting, however my guild mate (Zeljio on Silvermoon) is basically all CRIT and nothing but CRIT so when I throw him in ShadowCraft I can also see he's gemmed / enchated the correct way.

Now for feedback :-) - So I tried your suggestion and 2 things happened... my burst normally on training dummy can normally hit between 37 to 41k with poison only (Garrison dummy) now when I tried your suggestion I went to 30k then dropped to 26k so I was pooling energy and for some odd reason my auto attacks slowed down A LOT... to the point where I can see my toon almost in slow motion like (no lag) was a bit weird.

Could it be something to do with the fact I'm waiting for more muti's and this is causing less attacks? if that makes sense? 26k seems low... then again... doing it the way I do it drops from burst of 37k to 22k at times. (again all this is unbuffed with poisons only)

Well, all I can say is keep practising your opening rotation without casting Rupture during SR+V. How many envenoms did you cast in the first 8 seconds of SR? I don't know why your burst dps is decreasing this way, but I'm sure you understand why only casting Envenom during SR+V will always be the best option. Like I said before, the main reason we cast Rupture is for the energy generation it provides, and our SR's mirrored rupture doesn't give us any energy generation. That's why you'll want it to mirror our highest damage dealing ability, and that's Envenom.

I'm not sure about your auto attacks... Afaik there's nothing we can do to affect our attack speed. It might *look* a little differenct since when you're pooling you will see only autoattacks for a few seconds sometimes as you wait for energy, and the thing that makes our toon *look* like it's fighting really fast is when we have our ability animations and auto attack animation happening at the same time. So what you're seeing while pooling is just your toons melee attack animation at its normal speed without interference of your mutilate casts, which cause things to speed up visually. You don't really have to pay attention to your toons animations, your melee attack speed is always constant (unless you have a temporary haste buffs) and pooling energy won't make your auto-attack slow down. It's just a visual thing. The benefit of pooling is that you'll cast more mutilates with a 30% damage increase, so that will definitely help your dps.

Just keep using SR+V without the double rupture and you should see your burst increasing as you get used to it. Also, just to check, have you made a macro for casting Shadow Reflection and Vendetta (+ any trinket procs you might have), in that exact order (SR first, Vendetta second)?