Assassination rotation. Need help!

[Deleted]

Am I not making any sense?
I'm going: Garotte, Weaken, Weaken, Weaken, Mut/Blindside, Rupture: 1 tick of Garotte before 5CP Rupture
I guess you're going: Mut, Rupture, Mut, Mut, Rupture@5/Mut-Blindside@4, Rupture: 1 tick of Rupture before 5CP Rupture

I've got an extra debuff up, and wasted less energy trying to double-Rupture, for the same gains?

No, you are assuming wrong. What the other Rogues are doing is Mutilate from stealth, Rupture, Mutilate, Slice and Dice, then continue your normal rotation while maintaining Rupture, Slice and Dice and Envenom. There is no double Rupture. You apply a preferably 5 combo point Rupture the moment your initial Rupture is falling off.

You aren't even getting a free Garotte tick unless you are counting in for a possible 0.05 second server lag. We get Rupture rolling one second later compared to you rolling Garotte. And Garotte ticks every 3 seconds instead of every 2 seconds like Rupture. There is no gain anywhere. Opening with Mutilate from stealth deals more damage, generates 2 guaranteed or even 3 combo points on a crit, has a chance to proc Blindside, gives you 2 chances to apply your poison, and don't lose a single Venomous Wounds tick. We spend less energy by making better use of Shadow Focus and lose nothing for it.

This whole back and forth game is getting annoying.

EDIT:
Tiny bit of math before you bring up the pathetic Garotte damage.
Just logged in and compared Garotte's damage to Mutilate. Bear in mind this is just the pure damage from these two abilities and not the other benefits like Mutilate proccing poisons.

Without any crits from either ability:
Garotte's damage was 15525.
Mutilate mainhand and offhand combined was 31565.

Even Mutilate's mainhand strike was beating Garotte.

[Firebert]

Switched over to a different talent and glyph spec.

How about this: Subterfuge, Garotte, Ambush, Ambush, Rupture, Expose w/ Glyph, Mut, Mut, S&D, then rotate up to Envenom? Obviously double-daggers.

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 10:09 PM ----------

Just logged in and compared Garotte's damage to Mutilate.

You don't Garrotte for the damage.

Again.

[Deleted]

You don't Garrotte for the damage.

Again.

...then why would you Garrote at all? That 1-2 ticks of Garrote you fire off before you land your Rupture are worthless compared to the damage and potential of a free Mutilate. 2-3 combo points, plus a potential Blindside, are worth far more than 10-20 Energy.

Also, what is the "Weaken" you say you use? Expose Armor? If so, you shouldn't be using that in the first place. There are lots of classes better at applying that debuff, other than rogues.

[Firebert]

...then why would you Garrote at all? That 1-2 ticks of Garrote you fire off before you land your Rupture are worthless compared to the damage and potential of a free Mutilate. 2-3 combo points, plus a potential Blindside, are worth far more than 10-20 Energy.

Garotte for Energy. Obviously. I'm guessing you've gone for Shadow Focus for the "free Mutilate", but you're giving up access to some of the strongest abilities Rogues have.

Also, what is the "Weaken" you say you use? Expose Armor? If so, you shouldn't be using that in the first place. There are lots of classes better at applying that debuff, other than rogues.

I'm often the only class applying it to assist the melee my group. Even though most of my damage comes from my poisons, Tank damage is through the roof and I'd rather sacrifice a portion of mine to make theirs more effective.

The only other classes to apply the armor debuff are Guardian Druids and Warriors, the former uses it to try to reset Mangle (which is on a 6s CD anyway) and the latter either doesn't apply it (Warrior DPS uses Colossus Smash) or have to spend three globals applying it to our one (Devastate from Protection Warriors).

So, neither "lots of classes" nor "better at applying it" works.

[Deleted]

You don't Garrotte for the damage.

Again.

Read my post, again.

I've already explained that there is no benefit to opening with Garotte. And on top of that not even the damage is worthwhile. The point I was making doesn't even have anything to do with the damage, I included that simply so you wouldn't turn around and say Garotte's damage is going to push it over.

[Synexlol]

Garotte for Energy. Obviously. I'm guessing you've gone for Shadow Focus for the "free Mutilate", but you're giving up access to some of the strongest abilities Rogues have.

Can you give us some numbers to back this up?

snigger

[Firebert]

I've already explained that there is no benefit to opening with Garotte.

...with the condition that you have no latency with the server, as well as wasting CP and energy on a short-duration Rupture. Thanks for supporting my point.

I included that simply so you wouldn't turn around and say Garotte's damage is going to push it over.

I said earlier:

Garotte [is] clearly not used for the damage.

Not trying to play Devil's Advocate here.

[Deleted]

...with the condition that you have no latency with the server, as well as wasting CP and energy on a short-duration Rupture. Thanks for supporting my point.

You need to have some serious latency for that to be worthwhile. If that's your fix for your latency problem you need to stop playing WoW on an iPhone.

Again Garotte ticks every 3 seconds, Rupture every 2 seconds. A non-Garotte opening Rogue applies Rupture one second later. If your latency is so bad that it takes you 18 seconds (Garotte's duration) before you can finally generate 1+ combo point(s) and use Rupture you shouldn't be stepping into a raid.

[Firebert]

Can you give us some numbers to back this up?

Easily.

Assuming identical weapons:
Mutilate: 400% weapon damage plus 446, 55 energy, effective 7.2% WD + 8.1 per energy
Ambush: 470.275% weapon damage plus 901.481, 60 energy, effective 7.83% WD + 15.02 per energy

Both generate 2CP, and can fit the same amount of them inside a Subterfuge.

You're pretty cute.
/pet

---------- Post added 2012-10-14 at 11:41 PM ----------

You need to have some serious latency for that to be worthwhile. If that's your fix for your latency problem you need to stop playing WoW on an iPhone.

Again Garotte ticks every 3 seconds, Rupture every 2 seconds. A non-Garotte opening Rogue applies Rupture one second later. If your latency is so bad that it takes you 18 seconds (Garotte's duration) before you can finally generate 1+ combo point(s) and use Rupture you shouldn't be stepping into a raid.

And now you're playing Devil's Advocate:

You aren't even getting a free Garotte tick unless you are counting in for a possible 0.05 second server lag.

Thanks for the conversation.

[Deleted]

What I meant was, you're getting a tick 0.05 seconds sooner. It's not even an extra Garotte tick.

[Kael]

Ambush falls behind mutilate for poison/dispatch procs when it's free. Make it cost 5 more energy and mutilate is a CLEAR winner.

I fail to see how getting extra ambushes (which are weaker than mutilates for assassination) is better than saving ~43 energy (accounting for being capped for the 1st GCD) saved from Shadow Focus.

To be clear: ambush is 2.(crit chance) CP and mutilate is 2.3(crit chance) CP (dispatch proc; ignoring the damage component from dispatch, or the 1.3 extra poison chances).

[Deleted]

Posting just as I am getting asked a lot and I don't have a lot of spare time working between working on Spirit Kings and Elegon heroic.

Current opener, speced Shadow Focus and Anticipation:

----Pre-Combat
-2- Tricks to MT and Pot
-1- Stealth
-0- Shadowstep + Mutilate (Free)
-1- Mutilate
-2- Rupture
-3- Mutilate (only if no CP)
-4- SnD
-5- Mutilate + SB (to 4/5 CP)
-6- Vendetta
-7- Envenom
-8- Pool to 60 energy and Vanish
-9- Mutilate (Free)
-10 Rotation

Using blindside procs whenever recieved and second potting on heroism or when SB + Vanish combo comes up again.

[Sikzlol]

1. Stealth
2. Shadowstep
3. Mutilate
4. Slice and Dice
5. Mutilate
6. Mutilate
7. Rupture
8. Mutilate
9. Mutilate
10. Envenom (Refreshes SND BROS)

That being filled with random blindside procs should give you a 5cp Rupture, and 5cp Envenom which will refresh the 2-3cp SND you opened with. After that vanish and continue normal priority. Also pop CD's/pot with opener and GG.

[Deleted]

about energy pooling:

everytime you use Envenom you get a buff that looks like the envenom symbol, the buff lasts for as many seconds as you used combopoints (maybe even +1 sec, not sure right now). so if you use a 5cp envenom you usually wait 5 or 6 seconds until you use the next envenom so you dont overwrite the old buff. this way you have a higher uptime of the envenom buff and therefore apply more poision dmg while everything else remains the same. --> profit

[Synexlol]

Easily.

Assuming identical weapons:
Mutilate: 400% weapon damage plus 446, 55 energy, effective 7.2% WD + 8.1 per energy
Ambush: 470.275% weapon damage plus 901.481, 60 energy, effective 7.83% WD + 15.02 per energy

Both generate 2CP, and can fit the same amount of them inside a Subterfuge.

You're pretty cute.
/pet

You're doing that thing again.

Also, whoosh.

[Deleted]

Posting just as I am getting asked a lot and I don't have a lot of spare time working between working on Spirit Kings and Elegon heroic.

Current opener, speced Shadow Focus and Anticipation:

----Pre-Combat
-2- Tricks to MT and Pot
-1- Stealth
-0- Shadowstep + Mutilate (Free)
-1- Mutilate
-2- Rupture
-3- Mutilate (only if no CP)
-4- SnD
-5- Mutilate + SB (to 4/5 CP)
-6- Vendetta
-7- Envenom
-8- Pool to 60 energy and Vanish
-9- Mutilate (Free)
-10 Rotation

Using blindside procs whenever recieved and second potting on heroism or when SB + Vanish combo comes up again.

This is what I believe to be good.

[Neichus]

I'm aware this discussion is primarily centered on single-target, but how do people approach AoE?

I've opened with Garrote on the assumption that I'd be spending my combo points to AoE and having at least some energy return is better than none. I tried ignoring having a VW up anywhere and the lack of Energy was very noticeable. Opening with Mut->Rupture before AoEing felt clunky due to time constraints. That is, Crimson Tempest lasts 12 seconds so depending on how long the pack lasts taking too long to get everything up and going may cost you. There's also the practical concern that going whole-hog AoE makes transitioning back into single-target difficult, and having Garrote at least partially cover your energy return while you AoE down weaker targets then get SnD/Rupture up makes things feel more fluid in the long run.

I want to be clear I'm not trying to make a strong argument for this, but instead feeling out what other people have used in these situations.

[Deleted]

I'm aware this discussion is primarily centered on single-target, but how do people approach AoE?

This is something I'm still unsure about. What I personally do on packs above 6 is open with Garotte then spam Fan of Knives and use 5 combo point Crimson Tempests. Packs of and below 6 I open with Fan of Knives and spam Fan of Knives until 5 combo points, at that point I Rupture and tab to the next target. No Crimson tempest, just multi-dotting 5 combo point Ruptures.

I honestly have no clue whether or not this is the best way. But from all the testing I did this seemed to net me the most DPS.

[Sesshou]

Easily.

Assuming identical weapons:
Mutilate: 400% weapon damage plus 446, 55 energy, effective 7.2% WD + 8.1 per energy
Ambush: 470.275% weapon damage plus 901.481, 60 energy, effective 7.83% WD + 15.02 per energy

Both generate 2CP, and can fit the same amount of them inside a Subterfuge.

Why are you taking subterfuge at all for assassination? Thats completely retarded. And heres some things you left out of your math:
Mutilate: 2 chances to apply poisons, 30% chance for a free 400% weapon damage dispatch (expected value of 120% weapon damage bringing mut to 520% weapon damage) which can proc a 3rd poison and 1-2 more combo points. Has 2 chances to crit, thus increasingly likely to give you a 3rd combo point from mutilate with seal fate.
Ambush: Lower expected value for weapon damage (~470%), 1 chance to crit to proc a 3rd cp, 1 chance to proc a poison.

Ambush clearly loses. And if you take subterfuge you get at most 2 during your opener for 120 energy versus 2 mutilates for 55 energy with shadow focus. So what is this "one of the strongest abilities rogues have" that you are giving up with shadow focus? All I see is not being able to use a second instance of an ability (ambush) that is inferior and shouldn't be used in the first place.