Table of Contents:
I. Introduction, page 1
II. New Talents, page 1
III. Builds, page 2
IV. Rotations, page 3
V. Math, page 4
VI. FAQ, page 5+

I. Introduction:
Mutilate, made somewhat viable pre Echoes of Doom but made on par with combat post 3.0.2, is a relatively new spec and, as such, many don’t know how to play it to it’s full potential.

Yes, I am running in t4 gear, having stepped into only a few t5 raids and lacking the gear to show that I have. But I’ve played mut since 50, back when you had to be behind targets and run with two 1.8 daggers. A few changes have changed many parts of this, and I’ll hopefully address any questions you may have. If you have any questions that aren’t answered, feel free to ask them.

II. New Talents:

Blood Splatter increases your bleed damage by 30%, always nice.

Vile poisons was made 3/3 instead of 5/5, letting us pick up Blood Splatter

Murder was moved from 1-2% to 2-4%, but was moved deeper in

Overkill isn’t a very good pve talent, but I’d recommend picking it up… so you can go ahead and grab mutilate.

Find Weakness was made permanent, but reduced from 4/7/10% to 2/4/6%

Focused Attacks gave us more energy regeneration, one of the weaknesses of a assassination build. Works smoothly with the new energy regeneration rate.

Master Poisoner usually isn’t picked up, as retadins will grab a talent that does the same thing but doesn’t stack. However, if your guild doesn’t have many retadins, you might consider moving Turn the Tables (TtT) to this, a loss of 3% total crit on your mutilates but a raid buff.

Turn the Tables, TtT, which basically increases your critical chance on your mutilates by 6% when it is 3/3. Technically only for a few seconds after someone in your raid blocks/parries/dodges, but your tank should be doing this fairly frequently, or he sucks, so it’ll be up near permanently in a fight.

Mutilate was changed. It’s base damage with either weapon was increased and the positional requirement was removed.

Cut to the Chase, one of the best abilities this far. It lets you turn that 4+SnD into an extra 1.5k-5k damage envenom or eviscerate.

Hunger for Blood, HfB, is also a top end talent. It lets us increase all of our damage by 9%, a large amount, for 1/10th of our energy before Focused Attacks, a smaller percentage after that. However, if you let it fall, it’ll cost you a mutilate... So don’t.

III. Builds

70 mutilate builds
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIzAo0xZhb
Currently the top dps build. Simply put, the "cookie cutter" spec. Standard rotations etc.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIzAo0gZob
Currently considered the second highest dps build. If your not running in both 2/5 t4 and the glyph of SnD, which will be discussed in more detail later, you’ll be running a 4+r, 4+e build. IF you are running both of them, it is possible to run a 4+r 4+r 4+e if you pool your energy well. Will be obsolete without the equivalent of 2/5 t4 at 80 in non glyph form.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ec0exoiboIzAo0xZhb
Currently a low dps build that focuses on only envenoms. You’ll be running double deadly for your poisons as your rotation would be a 4+e 4+e 4+e. That being said, it is the easiest build to run, quite literally using only mut, HfB, and envenom. No real reason that you would be running this is if you don't want to worry about rupture uptime. This also removes instant from your weapons, leading to a drop of damage there. Again, not recomended unless your too laggy/don't want to deal with rupure.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0tfoeMoiroIuVo0gZob
is a sort of hybrid pvp/pve build. It picks up vigor, a useless pve talent in the long run, as well as faster speed and increased healing which, though useful, sacrifice good dps talents. No TtT as well, so less crits. Overall, not recommended for serious raiding. Only useful if you don't like to respec constantly

Leveling 70-80 builds
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhxcoeMoirofzZ0hZxbcbhM
Burst damage build. Open up with an ambush, run double wound, quick mutilate then eviscerate and the mob should be almost dead if not already face down. Lacks sustained damage, as your mutilate will be hitting a touch weaker, though still harder than pre Echoes of Doom. Increased speed to help mob to mob travel, as well as a 5s cooldown on stealth, allowing quick grinding. Just a note, you probably won’t be having SnD up many fights. Also feel free to throw those last three points from DW spec to initiative, but I believe DW spec will give more damage than a 5p eviscerate will over a 4p eviscerate.

Feel free to pick up any of the 70 specs then add on with hit and crit until 80 as well.

80 builds
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIzAo0xV0hZxb
The supposed cookie cutter build, suggested by . We'll have to see how things stack up, but 5/5 relentless should beat out 5/5 crit with daggers. Obviously little can be said until ~11/17

IV. Rotations:

Opening can be done a variety of ways. If a hunter in your group poisons the target for you, feel free to open with a mutilate. A non crit mutilate will hit below a garrote, but in some decent gear and raid buffed, there is a good 70% chance or so that one will crit, putting it’s damage above a garrote. Also, you have more combo points, allowing you to hit SnD, then a 4+r before your first envenom.

However, if no hunter is throwing on a poison for whatever the reason may be, open with garrote, followed by a SnD, then a 4+e just to be safe.

Your standard rotation will be an opening as described above, then entering your main rotation, which goes as follows:

Always keep HfB up, if you don’t your rotation goes wack, as it costs you a full mutilate to get back up in terms of energy, leading to either a weak envenom, weak rupture, or no envenom, which means you’ve got to rethrow on SnD and start again.

Maximize rupture uptime, as a 5 point rupture can easily reach 2k damage as opposed to the 2/3+ chance that the envenom won’t crit, leaving your rupture above envenom as far as damage.

Hit as many 4+e as possible, as these keep your SnD up as well as dealing a fair amount of damage. If you have less than 3 stacks of deadly on a target, eviscerate. Yes, it sounds pointless, but it’ll do around the same amount of damage and leave the doses on to tick for more damage. If you have 4 doses, try and wait a few seconds before you hit envenom, but keep your SnD up at all costs, it isn’t worth the extra bit of damage. If you have 5, envenom but feel free to wait until after a tick to do so if it won’t hurt your rotation.

Edit: Adding in chances for the various ways to get 4/5 cp finishers.

A=ruthless proc on last finisher
B=no ruthlress proc on last finisher
C= Mutilate crit (raid buffed crit stat +.24 in decimals, 3% pally, 15% mut, 65 TtT)
D= Mutilate noncrit for both weapons (1- chance of C)
y=crit chance

The possible ways to finish are: AC ADD ADC BCC BDD BCD BDC, but because BCD and BDC have the same chance, im going to double teh chance of BCD and removed BDC

AC: .6*C
ADD: .6*D*D
ADC: .6*D*C
BCC: .4*C*C
BDD: .4*D*D
BCD: .4*2*C*D

Of these, AC and BCC will give you 4 cp, so your total chance to get a 4cp finisher is .6C+.4DD

Of these combinations, the following scale negativly with crit, meaning you get less of a chance of reaching this chance as your critical chance gets higher: ADD, ADC, BDD, BCD

Of these, these scale possitevly with critical chance; AC, BCC

However, because of the difference between A and B as .6 and .4, as well as chance of two criticals scales worse than the chance of one, you'll hit more 4cp finishers than 5cp finishers as your crit scales. When I get the chance, I'll graph this as well, but I dont' ahve the time at the moment.

One more note, AC scales the best of all of these, capping out .2 higher than BCC at a 100% crit mutilate chance, (I know, never happening). Overall, at a crit chance of 55%, the chance of only needing one mutilate for a finisher is one in three. This might seem to bring huge things to the 4r4r4e build, as at 55% chance to crit on a mutilate, completly reachable raid buffed, you'll only need 5 mutilates instead of 6, meaning 300 energy and 75 energy spent towards finishers in 35 seconds or so, meaning 25 energy is needed, but that can't happen because of the need to keep HfB up as well, totalling 36 energy needed or a total of 31 criticals needed every 35 seconds.

Unlikely, but if you are raiding, keep an eye out for the oppurtunity, notably when you hit two ACs in a row.

V. Math

With SnD:
1.8 weapon speed becomes:1.39
1.5 weapon speed becomes: 1.15
1.4 weapon speed becomes:1.08

Assuming SnD is always up, you’ll hit (following 4+r 4+e, HfB every 30 seconds, 35% crit rate raid buffed (paladin, feral druid, kings, motw, etc), making your mutilates a 56% chance to crit) for white hits/min. Also at a +hit totaling 11%, meaning you hit 87% of your attacks:

1.8/1.8: 60 seconds/1.39 attacks per second * 2 weapons*.87= 75.108 successful attacks= 52.576 energy gained over a 60 second period
1.8/1.5: 60/1.39 + 60/1.15*.87= 82.945 attacks= 58.061 energy gained
1.8/1.4: 60/1.39 + 60/1.08*.87=85.887 attacks= 60.121 energy gained
1.5/1.5: 60/1.15 * 2*.87= 90.783 attacks= 63.548 energy gained
1.5/1.4: 60/1.15 + 60/1.08*.87= 93.724 attacks= 65.607 energy gained
1.4/1.4: 60/1.08 *2*.87= 96.667 attacks= 67.667 energy gained

Energy attacks, assuming the above statistics:
You gain 540 energy(600-60 for HfB)+whatever is shown above
Assuming a 4+e/4+r rotation, you hit a total of 4 mutilates and 2 finishers, totaling 60*4+25*2=290 energy, draining 580 per minute. Your mutilates have a .314% chance of double critting and a .493% chance of single critting. Your rupture can’t crit, while your envenom will crit 35% of the time.

Special energy given:
.314 to give 4 energy + .493 to give 2 energy= average of 2.242 energy/mutilate. Your mutilate gives a .35 to give 2 energy=.7 energy/envenom. Added together, you get 9.668 energy given/rotation, regardless of weapon speed.

All together, that totals 540+9.668+whatever you get from white attacks:
1.8/1.8: 602.244-580 energy needed=22.244 energy pooled
1.8/1.5: 607.729-580 energy needed=27.729
1.8/1.4: 609.789-580 energy needed=29.789
1.5/1.5: 613.216-580 energy needed=33.216
1.5/1.4: 615.275-580 energy needed=35.276
1.4/1.4: 617.335-580 energy needed=37.335

This extra energy can be used for shivs, but should be pooled for an extra mutilate or restarting SnD should movement etc be recquired and your thrown out of rotation.

Possibility of a 4+r 4+r 4+e rotation
Envenoms are used to refresh SnD. That being said, is it possible to use a rotation that uses two ruptures for each envenom. Because this rotation will require two extra mutilates and one extra finisher, totaling an extra 145 energy. The two extra mutilates give you a total of 4.84 extra energy. Normally, this wouldn’t be possible.

However, if you have both 2/5 t4 and the glyph of Slice and Dice, it is. Slice and dice lasts 40 seconds, while each rupture lasts 16 seconds, totaling 32 between the two of them. Assuming only regular energy generation, this allows you to throw four mutilates, 240 energy and the two finishers, totaling 50 energy=290 energy. This leaves 30 energy and 8 seconds to be safe, a total of 110 energy allowing you to at the very least mutilate once and finish. Your left with -5 energy to refresh SnD, but if your not hitting at least 3 crits in 40 seconds… stop playing. That being said, unless t8/9 contain the extra time on SnD, this will be impossible without insanely high amounts of crit rating.

VI. Commonly Asked Questions:

1) Why run a 1.4/5 speed weapon over my 1.8 dagger?
Quick thing: I'm assuming here a 1.4/1.8 setup and a 1.4/1.4 setup. My test period will be 34.8387 hits from the 1.8 dagger, meaning a test period of 48.4258 seconds

1.39x=1.08(x+10) is the form to find out at what point the 1.4 will hit 10 times more. Solving, we see x=34.8387

The setup with the 1.8 will gain: Extra mutilate damage
The setup with dual 1.4 will gain: Extra poison damage. An increase in energy, giving you an extra 1.26 energy/10 seconds. A higher chance for dp to stay on.

1.8 daggers gain in mutilate:
.4*weapon damage, somewhere around 40 damage + .3*ap, somewhere around 45-70 damage. Overall, this is at least 85 damage flat, plus an extra 50% 20% 4% 6%, meaning per mutilate you get 168.6672. Also, since this is a combo move, it gains an extra 21% to be a critical at 2.3x damage, meaning overall, a 1.8 dagger will gain 214.7133 flat damage per mutilate. However, this is subject to armor scaling which lowers it to ~150 damage per mutilate.

1.4 daggers will gain: 10 extra hits, totalling 1143 damage over the period. Also, an approximated 1% chance extra for a dp stack to stay. The extra energy gives them an extra 10.169% of a mutilate, which scales variably.

Following a regular 4r4e rotation over 48 seconds pooled correctly, we see approx 2+2+1+2+1=8 mutilates over this period, leading to a total damaeg of 1202.

More, right? However, the envenom buff will be applied for an extra 12 seconds here, which nets the 1.4 dagger an extra 2.5 attacks, meaning .73405 procs from ip, meaning an extra 283 damage. Added in, this gives the 1.4 dagger an extra 224.2373 damage per 48.5 seconds, 4.67 dps. However, the faster dagger also increases energy regen and dp stacks.

One more note, when effected by retribution aura and heroism, the gap furthens because more attacks will fit in the envenom window.

2. Agility/ap/crit
A common question for mutilate rogues, what do I gem each slot with. In short: reds-agility. Yellows- agi/hit blues-agi/stam. Notice a trend?

I'm temporarily taking away the math here, because things have changed. Will be up again asap

Reserved

Will be reserving more, so please don't post.

Reserved

VIII. Mutilate rotation math

Hey, this particular section is to show the effect of ap and crit towards your offensive moves: Rupture, Envenom, and Mutilate, as well as regular attacks and poisons. From wowwiki.com or wowhead.com

Just so everyone knows:
y=crit chance in decimal form, (i.e. 35% chance to crit is .35) When calculating mutilate, its your mutilate crit chance which is 21% higher than your displayed chance

r=chance for your attacks to NOT be a crit. For mutilate, it is the chance for them to not be a crit, your normal r-21%. Also a decimal (i.e. a 70% chance to not crit is .7)

h=chance to hit, only value from hit gear

s=%speed from haste gear

MH/OH ad=Your main hand and offhand average damage. For my examples, I'll be using 180 on the MH and 140 on the OH, simulating a 100dps 1.8/1.4 speed weapon.

MH/OH spd=speeds of your weapons before SnD. Note for ap calculations that 1.8 will count as a 1.7 speed weapon

MH/OH snd=speeds of your weapons after SnD. Not a flat 30%, refer to the chart above.

DWs=points in dual wield spec.

Mutilate:
((MH ad + mh spd*ap/14 +121)(1.5))*((2.3*y)+(r))(1.2)(1.06)(1.04) + ((Oh ad+mh spd*ap/14 +121)(1.5))*((2.3y)+(r))*(.5 + .1 per DWs)(1.2)(1.06)(1.04)

take off multipliers if they don't apply, i.e. the 1.04 multiplier if the mob isn't effected by murder or add others that do, i.e. 4/8 t6.

Rupture:
1pt = Attack Power * 0.04 + 324
2pt = Attack Power * 0.10 + 460
3pt = Attack Power * 0.18 + 618
4pt = Attack Power * 0.21 + 798
5pt = Attack Power * 0.24 + 1000

Envenom:
1 dose: (180 + AP * 0.03)
2 doses: (360 + AP * 0.06)
3 doses: (540 + AP * 0.09)
4 doses: (720 + AP * 0.12)
5 doses: (900 + AP * 0.15)

Deadly poison:
204 + .08*ap
per stack applied
Math to see chance its % chance in 12 seconds(when it'd fall off) to reapply is:

for a 1.5 weapon, its .6047% chance to not apply every 12 seconds.
If you aren't hit capped, the chance for it to not apply is, assuming 1.5 offhand:
CFP= chance for poison to miss

.6047+(4.0311*CFP)+(12.9032*CFP*CFP)+(21.4991*CFP*CFP*CFP)

After this point, the values become infinitesimal, so I won't add them.

For a 1.4 weapon, the value falls to .3628%
As for w/o hit cap:
.3628 + (CFP*2.4186) + (CFP*CFP*8.8684) + (CFP*CFP*CFP*17.737)

Same thing for infinitsetimal values
The math for this is based off of 11 hits over the next 12 seconds for a 1.4 dagger and 10 hits over the next 12 seconds for a 1.5 dagger.

Instant Poison:
((161 + .1*ap)(2y+r))(.83+z)

White hits:
(((mh/oh ad + 14/ap)(1+s))(2y+r))(.76+z)

If you'd like to see anything else. These are all the flat damage applications. Simply get out a fancy calculator and plug in your numbers to see your average. Feel free to attack my math as well, did the mutilate math during classes today so it might be wrong.

Edit, added in hit rating.

Last reserved spot. Feel free to commnet/ask questions etc.

furst

Second

A note about mutilate from my experiences: Don't lead a raid as that spec- keeping up S&D, R, HfB while calling out for boss events / people !@!#ing up = not fun.

The build you posted seems a bit iffy to me. Not maxing out relentless strikes starves you of energy.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0gf0etoVboIzAo0hZxb

This is Build I role with. Yes took opportunity over last 2 points in duel wield. According to spreadsheet this way out did the duel wield.

... brains ...

Oh, wait.

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Q u o t e:
The build you posted seems a bit iffy to me. Not maxing out relentless strikes starves you of energy.

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=f0gf0etoVboIzAo0hZxb

This is Build I role with. Yes took opportunity over last 2 points in duel wield. According to spreadsheet this way out did the duel wield.

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I find it hard to imagine you can maintain SnD without the points in it. I suppose with both the glyph and 2/5 t4, it runs for 27 seconds, so you only need 7 crits within that period to maintain it. It's an interesting build, and I'll add it, but to be honest I doubt you could obtain this without both improvements.

Edit. Ahh, just realized you'll gain an average of some 43 energy more, allowing you to maintain it with either 15 crits/30 seconds or a ruthless proc then crit mutilate. My bad on the math, thanks for the build.

First page

Thanks, I was planning on using a Mutilate build for PvE.

One thing I've been wondering about -- are the mathcrafters suggesting that at 3CPs I should Mutilate again for 5CPs (and waste 1CP if I crit?) when they say 4+r 4+e rotation?

I've always used my finisher if I have at least 3CPs to maximize RS procs.

First Page

Gonna read this over tomorrow...

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=6104911962&sid=1&pageNo=1

Supbrah, yes you should always have 4+ combo points. Because of the way rupture and envenom scale, you not only get a larger percentage of your ap per point with envenom, but get an extra tick at more base damage with rupture each tick. If it comes down to it though, throw down a 3 point e to keep your rotation going.

Ayaka, I myself have seen that guide as well. However, though that goes over many aspects of it, it is geared far more to showing the changes and what it means for numbers. However, and not to discredit the guide in any way, numbers change as stats change. What happens for her may be with x amount of haste, or y amount of crit, that throws off everyone else with x-12 haste or y-5 crit, albeit a small amount, but still some. Though I am assuming an arbitrary crit rating and hit rating, the formulas are still shown to allow for some variance.