A few questions about the new Blade Flurry.

[Aleksej89]

I have not played my rogue for quite some time, and i am a bit confused about this new Blade Flurry that hits a total of 5 targets but reduces our energy regen by 20%.

First, i am not sure should Blade Flurry be used when we are only spamming Fan of Knives and Crimson Tempest (aoe situations)?

Second, is this new Blade Flurry worth using when there are only 2 or 3 total targets (which is much less than 5)?

Third, does Blade Flurry reduce the damage we do on our main target (aside from the energy regen decrease)?

Fourth, which of our abilities/attacks/poisons will actually be cleaved by Blade Flurry, and which will not be spread?

Thank you for reading and helping me out

[Deleted]

I have not played my rogue for quite some time, and i am a bit confused about this new Blade Flurry that hits a total of 5 targets but reduces our energy regen by 20%.

First, i am not sure should Blade Flurry be used when we are only spamming Fan of Knives and Crimson Tempest (aoe situations)?
Dont think FoK and CT work with BF.
Second, is this new Blade Flurry worth using when there are only 2 or 3 total targets (which is much less than 5)?
I have no theorycrafting data but I guess 3+ sure and maybe 2.
Third, does Blade Flurry reduce the damage we do on our main target (aside from the energy regen decrease)?
No
Fourth, which of our abilities/attacks/poisons will actually be cleaved by Blade Flurry, and which will not be spread?
I recon all single target damage sources
Thank you for reading and helping me out

I am not entirely sure my answers are correct.

[Aleksej89]

I am not entirely sure my answers are correct.

Thank you for posting.

I hope more fellow rogues will post their own opinions as well

[Ryme]

Simcraft says the following about blade flurry dps in BiS T15 gear:

1 target - 190k (no flurry)
2 targets - 214k (12.6% increase)
3 targets - 254k (33.7% increase)
4 targets - 293k (54.2% increase)

[Coldkil]

1) As combat, FoK and CT related aoe are very weak, so you shouldn't use them as combat or respec Assa for a better AoE (sub AoE should be pretty good too). Also, FoK and CT are already aoe moves, so BF doesn't work with them.

2) Even with only 2 targets, BF is a dps increase even if much smaller than pre-5.2; obviously it becomes stronger and stronger the more targets you can cleave (up to 5).

3) No.

4) Only auto-attacks and non-dot single target damage abilities; also poisons are excluded. That's why you shouldn't use Rupture when BFing.

[Kael]

1) As combat, FoK and CT related aoe are very weak, so you shouldn't use them as combat or respec Assa for a better AoE (sub AoE should be pretty good too). Also, FoK and CT are already aoe moves, so BF doesn't work with them.

Just to clarify this point, since everything else has been gone over thoroughly: when using blade flurry (any combat cleave/AE situation short of "I should have specced assassination, there are like 400 mobs here"), do not use FoK and CT; just turn on blade flurry and continue your single target rotation. If you're in an AE situation where the mobs have similar health, try to pick the one that will last the longest as your primary target, unless something else needs to die as a priority. This makes maintaining RvS and combo points more plausible, until mobs just die too quickly to use finishers on.

[Aleksej89]

Thank you for your awesome answers

[Maelstrom51]

1) As combat, FoK and CT related aoe are very weak, so you shouldn't use them as combat or respec Assa for a better AoE (sub AoE should be pretty good too). Also, FoK and CT are already aoe moves, so BF doesn't work with them.

What about using FoK twice to get deadly poison up on things?

[Sesshou]

What about using FoK twice to get deadly poison up on things?

I honestly don't think it is worth it. Your proc chance isn't all that high so 2x FoK is still going to fail to poison quite a bit and it doesn't really tick that hard. Now if we're talking a ridiculously large pack or something like stone guards trash which were resistant to AE damage but DP proc'd from FoK ticked for full, thats different.

[shadowboy]

I honestly don't think it is worth it. Your proc chance isn't all that high so 2x FoK is still going to fail to poison quite a bit and it doesn't really tick that hard. Now if we're talking a ridiculously large pack or something like stone guards trash which were resistant to AE damage but DP proc'd from FoK ticked for full, thats different.

Keep in mind that with 5.2, they raised the AoE cap to 20 targets instead of 10, so once you start getting over ~10 targets, the DP on each target will start to outweigh a blade flurry rotation. Especially considering the terrible range blade flurry has.

[Sesshou]

Keep in mind that with 5.2, they raised the AoE cap to 20 targets instead of 10, so once you start getting over ~10 targets, the DP on each target will start to outweigh a blade flurry rotation. Especially considering the terrible range blade flurry has.

Yeah, but I'd say when you pass 10 you are approaching ridiculously large (assuming its not a swarm of low health things or something that will just fall over. On the more standard size 3-6 packs I don't think FoK to fish for DP procs is really going to get you more dps.

That is a good point about BF range unfortunately... its possible you are able to FoK quite a few more of the mobs in a pull than you can BF...

[Maelstrom51]

I honestly don't think it is worth it. Your proc chance isn't all that high so 2x FoK is still going to fail to poison quite a bit and it doesn't really tick that hard. Now if we're talking a ridiculously large pack or something like stone guards trash which were resistant to AE damage but DP proc'd from FoK ticked for full, thats different.

I can't be bothered to figure it out right now, but the value of using FoK x2 is approximately:
(FoK damage) + (Deady Poison dps) x .75 x (seconds adds live capped at 12) x (targets -1) + .25 x (Instant Poison damage) x (targets - 1) + .75 x (instant Poison damage)

Now in my shitty gear (493 ilvl, rogue wasn't my main this tier), this ends up being over 100k damage to each add by FoKing twice, assuming they live 12 seconds.

Now, obviously if there is few adds that you can easily just autoattack between SS's for DP, sure, don't use FoK. But if you have 4+ adds up, I would say using FoK twice every 12 seconds in order to keep DP up is likely to be a fairly substantial dps gain.

[Kael]

Keep in mind that with 5.2, they raised the AoE cap to 20 targets instead of 10, so once you start getting over ~10 targets, the DP on each target will start to outweigh a blade flurry rotation. Especially considering the terrible range blade flurry has.

I'm not done with TotTK yet, but I can't think of a fight where you go from either single target or a cleave situation (either of which might allow you to play combat reasonably or ideally) to a 10+ target scenario, and back again. I suppose possibly Tortos? But I'd think something would have to be horribly wrong, and at least in personal experience, assassination had a gargantuan lead there. Is there one or are we just discussing this for the sake of theory? Honest question.

On the above math: make sure to calculate nearly 1x instant instead of 1x deadly, .25x instant for any target you have time to manually attack between specials. This might come out ahead for multiple targets under deep insight, though.

[shadowboy]

I'm not done with TotTK yet, but I can't think of a fight where you go from either single target or a cleave situation (either of which might allow you to play combat reasonably or ideally) to a 10+ target scenario, and back again. I suppose possibly Tortos? But I'd think something would have to be horribly wrong, and at least in personal experience, assassination had a gargantuan lead there. Is there one or are we just discussing this for the sake of theory? Honest question.

On the above math: make sure to calculate nearly 1x instant instead of 1x deadly, .25x instant for any target you have time to manually attack between specials. This might come out ahead for multiple targets under deep insight, though.

sake of theory. In practice, the increased aoe cap doesn't mean a damn thing.

[Verain]

Keep in mind that with 5.2, they raised the AoE cap to 20 targets instead of 10, so once you start getting over ~10 targets, the DP on each target will start to outweigh a blade flurry rotation. Especially considering the terrible range blade flurry has.

This actually hurts combat relatively (and rogues in general). Your deadly poison damage has always ignored the AoE target cap.

[shadowboy]

This actually hurts combat relatively (and rogues in general). Your deadly poison damage has always ignored the AoE target cap.

This is true, but in general it will only slightly favor sub over combat (and only because of the additional crit sub gets). In equal gear, combat and sub should have the same attack power (sub will get more crit though), because unlike cata, there is no raw AP on gear anymore (the brewfest trinket and tailoring cloak enchant are the only procs in MoP that I've seen that proc AP), so all of your AP is sourced from agility.

The point that I was making was not that combat is at a disadvantage relative to A and S, but that with enough targets, it's better to FoK than BF. It'd be nice if combat got the +75% damage to FoK back (they can leave the ranged attacks out of it though), or leave FoK as is and allow it to proc MG and BG so combat can benefit from mastery and BG in an aoe rotation (although this is probably moot since BF will probably still be better).

[Sesshou]

They should honesty just buff FoK damage baseline.

[Verain]

They should honesty just buff FoK damage baseline.

This.

There's no reason for it to be so anemic.


To previous posters- for C and S, once you hit a certain number of targets, fan -> tempest is always the correct rotation. The 20 target thing doesn't change that, because that number was always below 10. S obviously is a lot happier with CT.

For mutilate, I have in the past wondered because envenom buff + fok is very strong as well, so I don't know when CT is actually worth pressing. I'm still wondering that, tbh.

[Maelstrom51]

For mutilate, I have in the past wondered because envenom buff + fok is very strong as well, so I don't know when CT is actually worth pressing. I'm still wondering that, tbh.

For assassination, multidot with Rupture and spam the crap out of FoK. Its pretty much the most tedious AoE rotation in the game, but it keeps up with strong AoE specs like Survival hunters.

[shadowboy]

For assassination, multidot with Rupture and spam the crap out of FoK. Its pretty much the most tedious AoE rotation in the game, but it keeps up with strong AoE specs like Survival hunters.

pre-lava lash spreads flame shock enhancement says hi :P (actually it's more or less the same, spread dots, hit aoe nuke, only for rogues it's hit aoe nuke > spread dots). Marked for death helps a bit with assassination aoe. put rup on 1 target, switch, mfd, and immediate 5-pt rup on that. Using this helps keep multiple ruptures rolling. Obviously MFD the low health ones so that you get the energy back from venomous wounds AND the cd reset on MfD.