In a series of raids where our guild ran progression attempts on Deathbringer Saurfang, I had the opportunity after numerous other recent trials to run the last remaining tests on my ‘work-list’ so that I could conclude how well the different Assassination (Mutilate) specs operate at the moment and with what weapon combination I could maximise my DPS. All the collected data from my recent tests is available to all via our World of Logs reports for the next calendar month or so.

The two specs being debated at the moment are the more standard 51/13/7 spec and the more haste-oriented 51/18/2 spec. In the latter, we sacrifice some of the energy regen and damage boosting talents in the first tier of the subtlety tree to gain additional crit and haste for our standard attacks in the combat tree.

The second debate being held concerns whether it is currently better (all other things being equal) to use a slow main-hand dagger and a fast off-hand dagger as normal or to use a fast dagger in each hand. Faster equals more white melee damage attacks and generally lower damage from specials like mutilate but offers an increased number of Instant Poison procs which can more than compensate potentially due to the good damage it does currently.

With these questions in mind, I have therefore now fully modelled and subsequently raid tested to satisfaction the following combinations:

1) 51/13/7 with Slow-MH and Fast-OH weapons.
2) 51/13/7 with Fast-MH and Fast-OH weapons.
3) 51/18/2 with Slow-MH and Fast-OH weapons.
4) 51/18/2 with Fast-MH and Fast-OH weapons.

Please note, ALL of these specs are using a rupture-free cycle because there are no circumstances with assassination builds now where rupture does damage worth its energy cost in normal rogue usage. There is a very slim possibility that the use of rupture could offer a DPS increase where the rogue is off-target so often that the ticking DoT of Rupture is a benefit. However, I’ve tested the rupture-inclusive builds and none of them were really even close in the DPS stakes. Instant Poison is far more potent at the moment.

Of the above specs tested, with MY gear, the best combination was…

4) 51/18/2 with Fast-MH and Fast-OH weapons.

Again, please note that this was with MY gear and the balance of which of the two specs is more powerful for you will be gear dependent. However, in both cases, I found the 51/18/2 spec was more DPS whatever weapon combination I used. But, to any rogues going down this route, once you’ve gemmed for this spec, it’s simple enough to use your Dual Talent Spec option to have each spec available in a raid, run some real world tests (the ONLY kind that really matter) and see for yourselves.

The other very important point is to attempt wherever possible to maintain the uptime on the Envenom buff. Thus, if you have Classtimer or a similar mod, I suggest adding a custom buff-timer/monitor for “Envenom” (that’s the buff’s name as well) so that you can more easily keep track of it.

I’ve also tested the CP variations and can report that the best DPS lies with the use of 4CP and 5CP envenoms and that the use of 3CP envenoms is normally a DPS loss – the only exception to this is during a Heroism if you are trying to keep/put-up the Envenom buff to take advantage of the burst period.

Rotation from the opening of a fight is roughly:

1) Begin in Stealth. Garotte.
2) Put up Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice.
3) Mutilate to 4+ CPs, Envenom. Repeat this basic cycle throughout the fight.

4) As soon as the initial Garotte is complete, work another Vanish/Garotte into the rotation.
—- Pool energy via Overkill if you have the chance, it’s 30% improved when stealthed.
—- Use Cloak of Shadows if needed (eg: You have a debuff like Mark of the Champion) to get the garotte out.

5) Hold Potion of Speed for Heroism. Keep Envenom buff up during Heroism without question.

If you can do that, you can easily run consistent high DPS on many fights that favour rogues. Now that weapon swapping is no longer needed, you have plenty of time to get every detail of your rotation correct.

-B-

First, let me start by saying that if any of you reading this have already done the Hodir rep-grind to get your revered or exalted shoulder inscription, please simply stop reading this post right now to avoid getting really annoyed. For the rest, I’ll see you in the next paragraph…

Being the type of player that does not mind the repetition of raiding (an activity of my choosing) but that hates with incredible intensity the enforced labour-mechanic of rep-grinds to get things like the Hodir shoulder inscriptions (an activity NOT of my choosing), Broliant had never pursued the Hodir rep for the new shoulders and simply “made do” with the Aldor enchants of TBC. Even when the venerable ‘Relic of Ulduar’ became BoE and purchaseable, I still could not find within myself the justification to spend around 1000g+ on the relics needed.

So, there I was on the eve of patch 3.3′s release chatting to the guys on vent and I mentioned one neat thing I’d heard that was supposedly in the patch – the fact that all top-level Arcanum (Head Enchants) and Inscriptions (Shoulder Enchants) were now BoA (Bind on Account) items, meaning that you could do the rep-grind on one char only then buy the Arcanums and Inscriptions you needed for all your characters. “Pretty sweet” I said, “I may even do the rep-grind now, it almost makes sense!”

Then one of my fellow officers said something along the lines of “you can buy rep-tokens with badges, don’t you know” and so off I went, straight to the Badge of Triumph vendor in Dalaran, to check it out. I’d already confirmed the “BoA” status of Arcanum at the Ebon Blade vendor in Icecrown. Now I was also able to confirm what my team-mate told me… and so I bought one “Sons of Hodir Commendation Badge” for a cost of one “Emblem of Triumph“. Normally it awards 520 rep with the Sons of Hodir… but I’m Human so add 10% and I got 572 rep. And went from having “no standing at all” with Hodir to being somewhat “Hated”. Ooops.

Hmm, I thought. Even though I have many Badges of Triumph which I have no other use for, this will take some doing. Maybe I should do the quests first. Off to Stormpeaks I went, spent a couple of hours doing all the quests leading up to the Hodir quest-line and eventually there I am standing in front of Thorim ready to hand in his two main quests – the main “Mending Fences” quest and “A Spark of Hope”… and hahahahahahaha… see the image below…

That’s right – each quest hand-in awarded me with 31,460 rep with the Sons of Hodir. I went directly to revered with that nice jump! I then ran back to Dalaran, bought around 35-40 more of the “Sons of Hodir Commendation Badge” and hit exalted. I then went straight back to Dun Niffelem and bought an exalted-level Arcanum for Broliant and another for Balgardner.

So, the instances might be borked entirely while we wait for the “new patch smell” to die down a litte… but there are still some nice discoveries to be made.

-B-