Cycle rotations and poisons at 70 (Patch 3.0)

[Punkrocker]

I've been trying to keep up with the discussion on EJ about the best rotations. So far this is what I've learned and tried to condense down into a single post.

At our gear level (assuming mostly Sunwell), Wound poison is actually higher dps than instant poison. It's also higher than Deadly, but if you are using Envenom (which you should be) then it seems that the best poison combo is as follows:

Wound Poison MH
Deadly Poison OH

For a more complete discussion of the math behind this you can check out this post:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26242-rogue_pve_dps_wotlk_discussion/p135/

This is true for both Mutilate and Combat. There's a reported 100dps increase in using Wound Poison over Instant. In a nutshell, the reason Wound > Instant is due to the higher % of Wound application vs. Instant (50% to 20%). Wound's initial application damage is lower, but happens more often.

Quoted below is the math from a post on EJ (it LOOKS correct, but grab a salt shaker just in case):

At 2500 Attack Power, 30 Attack per minute MH, 60 Attack per minute OH, no hit/mitigation discrimination

Wound Poison V
Each strike has a 50% chance of poisoning the enemy, causing [112 + 0.04 * AP] Nature damage and reducing all healing effects used on them by 50% for 15 sec.

WP: [112 + 0.04*2500]*0.5 = 107 dmg --- MH (3210) / OH (6420)

Instant Poison VII
Each strike has a 20% chance of poisoning the enemy which instantly inflicts [161 + 0.10 * AP] Nature damage.

IP: [161 + 0.1*2500]*0.2 = 82.2 dmg --- MH (2466) / OH (4932)
IP 5/5 imp: [161 + 0.1*2500]*0.3 = 123.3 dmg --- MH (3699) / OH (7398)
IP 2/2 vile 5/5 imp: [161 + 0.1*2500]*0.3*1.2 = 221.94 dmg --- MH (4438.8) / OH (8877.6)

Deadly Poison VII
Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy for [204 + 0.08 * AP] Nature damage over 12 sec. Stacks up to 5 times on a single target.

DP: [204 + 0.08*2500]*0.3*5*(60/12) = 3030
DP 2/2 vile: [204 + 0.08*2500]*0.4*5*(60/12)*1.2 = 3636

As such, it does look like Wound Poison is better than both IP and DP, and IP will at 36 attack per minute become better than DP. But this is purely napkin math, so it should be verified.

EDIT: Improved poison @ 10% instead of false patch note 25%



As far as cycles are concerned, Aldriana's rules still apply:

1) Never ever EVER let SnD drop.
2) Primary finisher is rupture
3) Envenom if rupture and SnD are up
4) 4+ cp finishers only

With the SnD glyph and a fully talented SnD, plus the SS glyph, a three finisher cycle is easily possible for Mutilate, less so for Combat, but two is easily accomplished.

Proposed Mutilate cycle:

Mut to 4+ cp, SnD, Mut to 4+ cp, rupture, Mut to 4+cp, envenom, Mut to 4+cp (envenom or SnD), repeat.

TLR, you'll have to confirm if the above is easily repeatable since I haven't played around with Mutilate yet. There is some discussion as to whether you'd continue to envenom if rupture was about to drop, and what rupture uptime you should be pushing for...with the practice dummies in place that should be easy to figure out.

Proposed Combat cycle:

SS to 4+, SnD, SS to 4+, Rupture, SS to 4+, Envenom, repeat.

This is doable, though Rupture WILL drop for a bit when you refresh SnD. Pushing an extra Envenom is hard without losing SnD, a cardinal sin. I'll play around with this some more and see if it's just my timing that's off.

[Punkrocker]

Also including a quote with the tabular listing of the talents and their relative values, as compiled by Adriana:

So, first off, the usual comparison of talent DPS for a Combat-SS build:


Talent DPS per Point
Malice 41
Ruthlessness 29
Blood Spatter 35
Lethality 30
Vile Poisons 63
Imp Poisons 35
Imp SS 120
DW Spec 65
Imp SnD 104
Precision 32
Aggression 29
Blade Flurry 49
Blade Twisting 48
Vitality 120
AR 66
Combat Potency 83
Surprise Attacks 101
Savage Combat 62
Prey on the Week 107
Killing Spree 145
Relentless Strikes 73
Serrated Blades 63


You'll note that I omit weapon specializations. This is done with reason - how valuable the weapon specs are depends on what weapons you happen to be using. Suffice it to say that they are generally worth it if you're using a weapon of the relevant type. More on this in a minute.

So, notes: first, the top end of combat actually does quite respectable damage (assuming reasonable PotW uptime - these calculations assume it's up 90% of the time, which is probably not at all unreasonable in a raid situation), hence my impression is that 5/51/5+10 builds are going to trump any attempt to go for poison talents pretty handily. It's also worth noting that the 8 points in Lethality + Ruthlessness work out to a total of 240 DPS, while Serrated Blades is only 190; hence, it appears that 15/51/5 beats 7/51/13.

In terms of weapon specs: it appears that Mace Spec and Sword Spec do rather comparable damage on the MH weapon, but Fist Spec does quite a bit more. It's also interesting to note that assuming weapons of equal speed, Sword Spec is the strongest of the 3 weapon specs for the OH. However, picking up both CQC and Sword Spec in addition to all other DPS talents requires 52 talent points; hence, one needs to be dropped. And it so turns out that using a sword only in the OH, Sword Spec only provides 21 DPS per point, the lowest of any talent. So to go this route, one takes 5/5 CQC, 4/5 Sword Spec, and wields fist/sword. Note that this gives you absolutely no room for filler any tree - all you're taking is DPS talents.

Note, however, that this assumes weapons of equal speed. If you can get a Fist or Dagger that's .1 faster than that sword, it turns out to be basically comparable on DPS to wield that in the OH instead. And given the fastest known daggers are .1 faster than the fastest known swords, it probably works out better to just get a fast OH dagger and go Fist/Dagger, as it does roughly equal DPS and lets you take some useful filler talents - like Improved Sprint, for instance.

The bad news in all this, of course, is that it means both Combat and Mutilate want fast daggers, and there still aren't that many of them. Hopefully they'll update itemization to give more options, or else there will be quite the waiting list for Webbed Death.

The other interesting note in all this is the combination of the SS Glyph, Prey on the Weak, Lethality, etc. means you're getting an awful lot of benefit out of critical strikes - I'm finding Agility to be the most valuable stat right now, followed closely by AP, with everything else (even hit) being a fair bit behind.

Edit: Updating value for Relentless Strikes.

[Punkrocker]

More info condensation:

Special cap is 9% (same 63 hit rating after precision).
Poison cap is 17% (190 hit rating after precision)
White hit cap is 363, again, including precision.

190 hit MINUMUM...maximum will once again be a matter of much debate.

Hit isn't as important a stat with the windfury changes. Some people are recommending that people who have 300+ hit rating should convert all their yellow +10 hit gems in yellow sockets to 5hit/5agi gems, and all their 5hit/5agi orange gems in red sockets to 10agi gems.

I'll probably be converting all my gems to 10agi, except where it makes sense to go with 5hit/5agi for socket bonuses/meta considerations.

[Fox]

If we don't have the three points into vile poisons in a combat build, would envenom really be the best third finisher over eviscerate? Eviscerate is affected by boss armor and has a lot more variance. A 20% bonus to attack power range is pretty significant and not very reliable. However, Eviscerate still seems to be a better finisher regardless of the giant range. Boss armor variation may skew my numbers since Envenom ignores armor, but a five point Envenom is still weaker than the minimum value of a five point Eviscerate. As you gain higher attack power, Envenom comes closer to the minimum value of Eviscerate, but doesn't overtake the minimum value until you get over 6500 attack power.

Based on 4000 unbuffed attack power
w/o vile poisons or imp eviscerate:
5 point Eviscerate 2577-2277 damage
5 point Envenom 2140 damage

Based on 4000 unbuffed attack power
w/ vile poisons or imp eviscerate (20% bonus damage):
5 point Eviscerate 3092-4052 damage
5 point Envenom 2568 damage

Based on 6000 unbuffed attack power
w/o vile poisons or imp eviscerate:
5 point Eviscerate 2877-4077 damage
5 point Envenom 2840 damage

Based on 6000 unbuffed attack power
w/ vile poisons or imp eviscerate (20% bonus damage):
5 point Eviscerate 3452-4892 damage
5 point Envenom 3408 damage

Here are the max ranks of each finisher:

max rank 12 Eviscerate (gained at 79)
Finishing move that causes damage per combo point:
1 point : [ 3% of AP + 497 ] - [ 7% of AP + 497 ] damage
2 points: [ 6% of AP + 867 ] - [ 14% of AP + 867 ] damage
3 points: [ 9% of AP + 1237 ] - [ 21% of AP + 1237 ] damage
4 points: [ 12% of AP + 1607 ] - [ 28% of AP + 1607 ] damage
5 points: [ 15% of AP + 1977 ] - [ 35% of AP + 1977 ] damage
35 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant

max rank 4 Envenom (gained at 80)
Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage. Following the Envenom attack you have an additional 15% chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. One dose is consumed for each combo point:
1 dose: [ 7% of AP + 148 ] damage
2 doses: [ 14% of AP + 296 ] damage
3 doses: [ 21% of AP + 444 ] damage
4 doses: [ 28% of AP + 592 ] damage
5 doses: [ 35% of AP + 740 ] damage
35 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant

Conclusion:

I'm pretty sure the 20% damage bonus to each finisher is still weaker than Relentless Strikes point for point, but I'd like to hear some debate as to which finisher we should choose. I'm interested to find out if the supplemental damage bonus to regular poisons with Vile Poisons would make Envenom better than Eviscerate if you spend three talent points there instead of in the subtelty tree. Unless Eviscerate has significant reduction against higher armored boss mobs, it looks like a much better third finisher (after SnD and Rupture) than Envenom in a combat build.

[Punkrocker]

If we don't have the three points into vile poisons in a combat build, would envenom really be the best third finisher over eviscerate? Eviscerate is affected by boss armor and has a lot more variance. A 20% bonus to attack power range is pretty significant and not very reliable. However, Eviscerate still seems to be a better finisher regardless of the giant range. Boss armor variation may skew my numbers since Envenom ignores armor, but a five point Envenom is still weaker than the minimum value of a five point Eviscerate. As you gain higher attack power, Envenom comes closer to the minimum value of Eviscerate, but doesn't overtake the minimum value until you get over 6500 attack power.

Based on 4000 unbuffed attack power
w/o vile poisons or imp eviscerate:
5 point Eviscerate 2577-2277 damage
5 point Envenom 2140 damage

Based on 4000 unbuffed attack power
w/ vile poisons or imp eviscerate (20% bonus damage):
5 point Eviscerate 3092-4052 damage
5 point Envenom 2568 damage

Based on 6000 unbuffed attack power
w/o vile poisons or imp eviscerate:
5 point Eviscerate 2877-4077 damage
5 point Envenom 2840 damage

Based on 6000 unbuffed attack power
w/ vile poisons or imp eviscerate (20% bonus damage):
5 point Eviscerate 3452-4892 damage
5 point Envenom 3408 damage

Here are the max ranks of each finisher:

max rank 12 Eviscerate (gained at 79)
Finishing move that causes damage per combo point:
1 point : [ 3% of AP + 497 ] - [ 7% of AP + 497 ] damage
2 points: [ 6% of AP + 867 ] - [ 14% of AP + 867 ] damage
3 points: [ 9% of AP + 1237 ] - [ 21% of AP + 1237 ] damage
4 points: [ 12% of AP + 1607 ] - [ 28% of AP + 1607 ] damage
5 points: [ 15% of AP + 1977 ] - [ 35% of AP + 1977 ] damage
35 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant

max rank 4 Envenom (gained at 80)
Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage. Following the Envenom attack you have an additional 15% chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. One dose is consumed for each combo point:
1 dose: [ 7% of AP + 148 ] damage
2 doses: [ 14% of AP + 296 ] damage
3 doses: [ 21% of AP + 444 ] damage
4 doses: [ 28% of AP + 592 ] damage
5 doses: [ 35% of AP + 740 ] damage
35 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant

Conclusion:

I'm pretty sure the 20% damage bonus to each finisher is still weaker than Relentless Strikes point for point, but I'd like to hear some debate as to which finisher we should choose. I'm interested to find out if the supplemental damage bonus to regular poisons with Vile Poisons would make Envenom better than Eviscerate if you spend three talent points there instead of in the subtelty tree. Unless Eviscerate has significant reduction against higher armored boss mobs, it looks like a much better third finisher (after SnD and Rupture) than Envenom in a combat build.

A couple of things:

1) WoWhead doesn't have the numbers for Envenom rank4, they only have up through rank2, even though they list all 4. Check out the individual ranks, you'll see that 3 and 4 are the same as 2. So you are essentially comparing rank 12 evisc with rank 2 envenom, not exactly a fair comparison.
2) IF envenom scales somewhat similarly, then it should out perform eviscerate at 80, as it currently does.

Comparing rank 10 evisc with rank 2 envenom, we get the following (assuming 5 pt combos with both, and 5 doses of DP):

Eviscerate rank 10: [ 15% of AP + 985] - [ 35% of AP + 1105 ] damage
At 4000ap that comes to 1585 - 2505. The median of the damage range is 2045 (which should be your average eviscerate).

Envenom rank 2: [ 35% of AP + 740 ] damage
Envenom at 4000ap comes to 2140.

Since Envenom's damage is higher than your average eviscerate and ignores armor, it's clearly the better choice at 70, and likely will be at 80 as well, we'll have to see how ranks 3 and 4 scale.

Also, you get other benefits from Envenom.

Copied from WoWhead:
Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage. Following the Envenom attack you have an additional 15% chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point.

So you get up to 5 additional seconds of an increased 15% chance to apply IP or DP, regardless of your build.

[Fox]

Right on

[Thelastrace]

I'll test it tonight.

[Punkrocker]

After some testing on the level 70 dummies in Org, this is what I found:

AToL > Shard of Contempt by about 140dps.

DP MH, WP OH > WP MH, DP OH by about 30 dps.

Combat build, 5/51/5, dual glaives, yadda yadda.

[Punkrocker]

Further information from Aldriana regarding the poison hit cap:

The reason why you hear so many numbers is because it depends on so many factors. Here's the way to figure it out:

The base miss rate is 17%. Precision reduces this by 1% per point. Misery/Faerie Fire Reduces this by 3%. A Draenei will reduce this by a further 1%. Based on this, you should be able to figure out how much miss rate you need to make up with hit rating.

So, for instance, if you're a Mutilate rogue, you probably don't have precision, but in raids you usually do have Misery; and as a NE rogue, it's likely that there will be a Draenei around. So that's 17-3-1 = 13% miss rate to cover with hit rating.

Then, it takes 12.62 hit rating to give 1% spell hit; hence, multiply your remaining miss rate by 12.62. So, continuing our above example, you need 12.62 * 13 = 164 hit rating to cap. Note that this depends on your faction, your raid composition, your talents, and so on - which is why it's so hard to find a standard number.

So, for us, we'd take the original 17% and subtract 3% (for Faerie Fire). You're sitting at 14% (9% with 5/5 precision).

14 * 12.62 = 176.68 hit rating needed
9 * 12.62 = 113.58 hit rating needed with 5/5 precision

Without Faerie Fire those numbers rise to 214.54 and 176.68, respectively.

And more discussion on the relative value of stats post 3.0:


I believe the ranking is closer to Agi >= AP > Expertise > Hit (below poison hit cap) > Crit > Haste > Hit (above poison hit cap) > ArPen. But don't quote me on that - use the spreadsheet.