World of Warcraft

[Weak With The Dawn]

The nerf looks, according to EJ claims to be about 7.5% overall for Mut and 2.5% overall for Combat. But those are early claims. Might justify swapping to the older Mut spec 51/13/7 was it, instead of 51/18/2?

The trinket is going to be a bigger immediate upgrade than getting 2pcT10, I think, so it'll come first, but either the belt or the 2pcT10 will be next I believe.

So the key with Envenom is basically to try and hit it immediately after the buff from the last one drops, rather than based on number of combo points stored up? You don't want to clip the existing Envenom buff, nor do you want to go without it if you can avoid it. Meaning that if you hit a 4-point Envenom, you've got a 5s buff, so you want to Envenom again in 5 seconds, and generate however many combo points you can afford to and still manage that.

Yeah, you want to maximize envenom up time while also maximizing the damage. Envenom if you have 4 or 5 combo points. If it drops and you have 3, mut again and envenom post haste. 3-pt envenoms (for me anyway) are usually harder to maintain.

Also after another glance at her armory, replace that Rupture glyph with a glyph of Sinister Strike. It will increase combo point regeneration while replacing a useless (as of 3.3) glyph.

I'm wondering hwo the specs will turn out myself. I really wanna get home and test out this nerf.

[PhelanArcetus]

Glyph of Sinister Strike? We were going for the Tricks glyph (she just hadn't updated glyphs since switching to the ruptureless rotation), but... how does that glyph help a Mutilate rogue? Does it also apply to Mutilate or something?

[Weak With The Dawn]

Glyph of Sinister Strike? We were going for the Tricks glyph (she just hadn't updated glyphs since switching to the ruptureless rotation), but... how does that glyph help a Mutilate rogue? Does it also apply to Mutilate or something?

<----is very tired lol.

Ignore that piece of advice I have no idea what I was thinking. Glyph of ToT definitely is worth it.

Not that I was QQing or that I wanted to see them get nerfed, but Rogue damage was getting abit out of hand compared to the rest of dps. Looking at WoW meter online rankings rogues are anywhere from 1-2k dps above any other class on all the ICC fights except putricude

Without a doubt. I was usually about 2.5 k ahead of other DPS on Saurfang, including other melee. Sure, it's a fight that favors rogues, but those types of numbers demand a nerf. Obviously I'll miss the damage done, but I certainly won't be bitching that I didn't deserve a nerf.

[Cuellar]

Two months of no WoW, still no intrawebs... verizon told me to try dial-up. : (

[Inigima]

Definitely no Glyph of Sinister Strike. ToT is the way to go, unless you have a very specialized need for FoK.

We're going to start fixing the gems primarily tonight; she was working til midnight last night, so there wasn't much opportunity to do more than just talk, and I was meaning to ask about how the 1.5 Envenoms per Mutilate worked; now I think I understand; you want to Envenom as close as possible to the Envenom buff dropping, rather than based on combo points. Is that right? My attempts to read up on Elitist Jerks tend to just say "4+Envenom", and owing to my BC-era rogue experience, I understood that to mean "get 4 or 5 combo points and hit Envenom, repeat", so I didn't do any further searching.

That used to be right. The poison changes in 3.3 (where DP procs instead insta-proc IP if DP is already fully stacked) made it advantageous to maximize envenom buff uptime. She should still be getting pretty good numbers without doing that, though.

What time did the nerf go through? I did an H CoS last night and my single target DPS was excellent, so if it was post-nerf I have no complaints. I stand by my stance that rogue DPS ought to be the best of the best given all the other disadvantages we have compared to other melee DPS.

[Inigima]

I'm curious to know what disadvantages you think rogues have compared to other melee in PvE content? WTB Cloak of Shadows! :P

Cloak is awesome, but has a multiple-minute cooldown.

Our PvE disadvantages over other melee DPS classes are our near-zero raid utility and our atrocious squishiness due to the fact that we can't wear anything tougher than leather. We also have a long ramp-up time before we can dish out maximum damage, especially as mutilate, which makes us less valuable on anything that's a heroic boss or weaker, and some of the classes we compete with -- retadins, for example -- don't have that to contend with and have a very simple rotation with very little to manage, on top of all their other advantages.

As Stego once pointed out, our damage is just about the only thing we bring to the table. There has to be a reason to roll a rogue if Blizzard wants people to play the class, and there just isn't one if you take away the only thing we can contribute uniquely.

[Weak With The Dawn]

Cloak is awesome, but has a multiple-minute cooldown.

Our PvE disadvantages over other melee DPS classes are our near-zero raid utility and our atrocious squishiness due to the fact that we can't wear anything tougher than leather. We also have a long ramp-up time before we can dish out maximum damage, especially as mutilate, which makes us less valuable on anything that's a heroic boss or weaker, and some of the classes we compete with -- retadins, for example -- don't have that to contend with and have a very simple rotation with very little to manage, on top of all their other advantages.

As Stego once pointed out, our damage is just about the only thing we bring to the table. There has to be a reason to roll a rogue if Blizzard wants people to play the class, and there just isn't one if you take away the only thing we can contribute uniquely.

This was true in vanilla. I won't get started on the rogue raid utility argument because it's been done 4 million timesbut this statement is not true.

[RaceBannon42]

Rogues could provide utility if they wanted. Most of them refuse to. God forbid they expose armour, and lose personal dps.

[Inigima]

Rogues could provide utility if they wanted. Most of them refuse to. God forbid they expose armour, and lose personal dps.

That's a good point, and it's a good thought in guilds. In pug raids, which a lot of us are stuck with, being lower on the meters makes people think you suck. I might start doing it in pugs, my DPS is good enough to take the hit and still look good.

[The Winged Shadow]

Rogues could provide utility if they wanted. Most of them refuse to. God forbid they expose armour, and lose personal dps.

They should be using it in raids if there aren't any Warriors. Maybe if the Rogue is Assassination, and the raid was low on melee, i can see how you it might not be worth it.

EDIT: oh, here is the obligatory "QQ THE SKY IS FALLING!!!11! BUFF ROGUES!" :P

[Weak With The Dawn]

They should be using it in raids if there aren't any Warriors. Maybe if the Rogue is Assassination, and the raid was low on melee, i can see how you it might not be worth it.

EDIT: oh, here is the obligatory "QQ THE SKY IS FALLING!!!11! BUFF ROGUES!" :P

Lol, after raiding the nerf isn't that bad really. Damage is less by not by a huge margin.

Went in for another shot at Festergut, got him to 8% and then our only shaman had to leave. :-(. Means we wont be clearing this week because no one else will be on till Tuesday. Oh well. We did finally hit up Trial of the Grand Crusader and killed Jar and Beats with no issue. Other then that it wasn't an overly productive night.

[Fenryng]

Rogues could provide utility if they wanted. Most of them refuse to. God forbid they expose armour, and lose personal dps.

Okay, usually I can understand a lot in this thread by context, but I cannot figure these out. What is "utility", and "personal" dps?

And a quick rant - why is it that Drillmaster Zurok, or whatever that bastard's name is over in the Hellfire Peninsula, a freaking elite? I took a look at his health, and it is something ridiculous like 21 or 22 thousand. Considering that I have less than three, I am figuring that I will be partnering up with someone, or getting my own dps significantly damn higher.

Oh, and he was the first demonstrator of just how extremely annoying that whirlwind attack can be. I wouldn't mind getting knocked so far back, because of the ranged damage that I can do. But by the time I can recover, he is right on top of me. That, and the absurd amount of damage that he can do. Charming.

[RaceBannon42]

Okay, usually I can understand a lot in this thread by context, but I cannot figure these out. What is "utility", and "personal" dps?

And a quick rant - why is it that Drillmaster Zurok, or whatever that bastard's name is over in the Hellfire Peninsula, a freaking elite? I took a look at his health, and it is something ridiculous like 21 or 22 thousand. Considering that I have less than three, I am figuring that I will be partnering up with someone, or getting my own dps significantly damn higher.

Oh, and he was the first demonstrator of just how extremely annoying that whirlwind attack can be. I wouldn't mind getting knocked so far back, because of the ranged damage that I can do. But by the time I can recover, he is right on top of me. That, and the absurd amount of damage that he can do. Charming.

You should have more health than that in Hellfire

Personal DPS is sinple the amount of damage that you do. Utility is basically anything else positive that you provide such as crowd control, Party buffs, Mob debuffs, Decurses, and the like.

As an Enhancement Shaman I provide several buffs to my party. Firstly there are totems, which provide stat boosts, healing, mana regen, or simply somthing like snare removal, or slowing mobs. Secondly I provide unleashed rage, which is a 10% ap buff to my party. Finally I bring the best buff in the raid, Bloodlust, which provides 30% haste to everything anybody does.

A Rogue on the other hand basically brings damage. The are capable of doing some other things, like expose armor, which removes some armor rating from the mob, making it take more physical damage. But most will not as in order to use the ability, they use energy and combo points, and a global cool down, which means they aren't stabbing, which means lower damage done for them. The can also provide crowd control, use differnt poisons to slow mobs, debuff healing, or other effects. These too lower their dps, so rarely get using in my experience.

[Relic]

Every class in WoW goes thru phases of OP-ness. Mutilation DPS was off the hook a few times already. It will cycle out at some point. It's part of Blizzard's strategy of keeping 10 million people playing the game.

[Poobah]

And a quick rant - why is it that Drillmaster Zurok, or whatever that bastard's name is over in the Hellfire Peninsula, a freaking elite? I took a look at his health, and it is something ridiculous like 21 or 22 thousand. Considering that I have less than three, I am figuring that I will be partnering up with someone, or getting my own dps significantly damn higher.

Oh, and he was the first demonstrator of just how extremely annoying that whirlwind attack can be. I wouldn't mind getting knocked so far back, because of the ranged damage that I can do. But by the time I can recover, he is right on top of me. That, and the absurd amount of damage that he can do. Charming.

Might be something to do with this game sometimes trying to avoid being a uniformly boring and easy grind.

[Shryke]

Every class in WoW goes thru phases of OP-ness. Mutilation DPS was off the hook a few times already. It will cycle out at some point. It's part of Blizzard's strategy of keeping 10 million people playing the game.

It's more part of their strategy of trying to balance the game, which is in no way easy, especially since whatever the current raid is will make some classes better then others. So sometimes it gets a bit off kilter.

[Fenryng]

You should have more health than that in Hellfire

Personal DPS is sinple the amount of damage that you do. Utility is basically anything else positive that you provide such as crowd control, Party buffs, Mob debuffs, Decurses, and the like.

As an Enhancement Shaman I provide several buffs to my party. Firstly there are totems, which provide stat boosts, healing, mana regen, or simply somthing like snare removal, or slowing mobs. Secondly I provide unleashed rage, which is a 10% ap buff to my party. Finally I bring the best buff in the raid, Bloodlust, which provides 30% haste to everything anybody does.

A Rogue on the other hand basically brings damage. The are capable of doing some other things, like expose armor, which removes some armor rating from the mob, making it take more physical damage. But most will not as in order to use the ability, they use energy and combo points, and a global cool down, which means they aren't stabbing, which means lower damage done for them. The can also provide crowd control, use differnt poisons to slow mobs, debuff healing, or other effects. These too lower their dps, so rarely get using in my experience.

Okay, I understand all that. I have no idea why my health is where it is; I suspect that it probably has a lot to do with not having a damn clue about what I should have and where for equipment and stuff. I make do with whatever has dropped for me over the years.

Now my question is, why do people give a damn about their dps if they are in a group that would benefit from other things being done? Or is it personal preference; ie. people not getting invited to groups without a high dps, so that is what they want, is a high stat? Kind of a catch-22, if there are occasions when doing something else would be better.

Might be something to do with this game sometimes trying to avoid being a uniformly boring and easy grind.

Oh, yes, no complaint on that score. I am not complaining about the fact that they are trying to avoid the easy grind; rather, just ranting because of the unexpectedness of it. Considering that I am on my own 99% of the time, having a different thing to concentrate on besides the grind is appreciated.

Kind of strikes me as being a higher level Hogger to deal with.

[TerraPrime]

Now my question is, why do people give a damn about their dps if they are in a group that would benefit from other things being done? Or is it personal preference; ie. people not getting invited to groups without a high dps, so that is what they want, is a high stat? Kind of a catch-22, if there are occasions when doing something else would be better.

That's part of it.

The other part is that if your role is to kill stuff, well, you'd want to know how well you're doing your job, no? As a tank, the effect is immediate: if you're a crap tank, you lose aggro and people die. If you're crap healer, your tank dies, and then you wipe. As a damage dealer, the feedback is not as immediate because there're 2 other people doing damages (assuming a 5-people dungeon). So you do have to pay attention to how well you're performing in a group so you know you are contributing to the group.

That said, the damage that you deal personally is not the whole story. There are things that you might do that does not add to the damage you do, but will enable others to do their jobs more effectively. For example, mages may need to cast counter-spells, and warlocks may need to dominate elementals, etc. These things do not add to the direct damage dealt, but can be essential, nonetheless.

The tricky situation is that for most random groups, you only see them once, and so there's no incentive to sacrifice your own dps too much to help others. If the mage doesn't counter-spell, well, the other dps people will just have to hit harder, for instance. Also, not everyone is aware of these things and there are enough douchebags out there that will say "lol you only have 2.5k dps. fail."

[The Winged Shadow]

A Rogue on the other hand basically brings damage. The are capable of doing some other things, like expose armor, which removes some armor rating from the mob, making it take more physical damage. But most will not as in order to use the ability, they use energy and combo points, and a global cool down, which means they aren't stabbing, which means lower damage done for them. The can also provide crowd control, use differnt poisons to slow mobs, debuff healing, or other effects. These too lower their dps, so rarely get using in my experience.

The shit thing about Expose Armor is that it's a huge pain in the ass to keep up, on top of personal dps loss. Maybe if it cost a flat amount of energy for x amount of time it would be less painful (but probably too op in pvp). You pretty much HAVE to glyph it if you want it to be effective. I carry 5 tricks of the trade and expose armor glyphs with me at all times, just in case we don't have warriors (usually 10 mans). And then go cry in the corner when recount shows me doing shitty dps :P

Faction champs is the only fight where i have to change poisons (thank god!). I usually get put on locking down pally or priest, then mage. So i pretty much have to put on wound and mind numbing.

Rogues have plenty of utility, if you are willing to change poisons or modify the cookie cutter build to suit the fight. It's just that the utility probably comes at a higher dps loss than other available methods. But at the end of the day, if there is no warrior in raid, a Rogue should glyph and use Expose armor. If there are no slow bots for Saurfang, an Assassination Rogue should pick up Deadly Brews and slow the blood beasts (make sure to trick the kiter first!). The idea is to get the boss down, not top the meters (though that is good too :D ).

But saying all that..... getting beaten by those filthy hybrids does slowly kill me inside <_<

[Weak With The Dawn]

Faction champs is the only fight where i have to change poisons (thank god!). I usually get put on locking down pally or priest, then mage. So i pretty much have to put on wound and mind numbing.

Rogues have plenty of utility, if you are willing to change poisons or modify the cookie cutter build to suit the fight. It's just that the utility probably comes at a higher dps loss than other available methods. But at the end of the day, if there is no warrior in raid, a Rogue should glyph and use Expose armor. If there are no slow bots for Saurfang, an Assassination Rogue should pick up Deadly Brews and slow the blood beasts (make sure to trick the kiter first!). The idea is to get the boss down, not top the meters (though that is good too :D ).

If you don't have a warrior to MS, you should change to Wound poison for Anub too, it makes the fight much easier at P3.

Personally I wish we had more excuses to keep other debuffs up. Combat gets Savage Combat, Mut gets Master Poisoner, but those aren't actively placed debuffs, they just show up as needed. Combat is two finishers :Eviscerate and SND. Mutilateis 1 finisher : Envenom (you throw SnD up the first time and thatsit, HfB is not a finisher). These are boring rotations,what's exciting about a rogue (to me) is keeping up everything you need to. Expose Armor, Rupture, Poisons, Slice and Dice. Manageing thatand doing well makes me feel like I did something.

The 2pc T10 set for Rogues goes a long way towards promoting over-all raid benifit. Sure we get extra energy, but the raid gets a 10% damage boost (which could mean a hell of a lot of DPS on Festergut) which in the end provides more for the raid then the rogue itself and I would like to see us continue in that direction. Doing damage is fun, but there are 9 other classes who can do that too.