About Combat

Combat is the mainstay Rogue PVE talent tree. The spec of choice in both Classic and the Burning Crusade, Combat has spent much of WoW’s lifetime as the prominent (and dominant) spec choice for Rogues. With the advent of WotLK, Combat has seen fair competition rise up from within the Assassination tree in the form of viable Mutilate builds; still, Combat remains a strong option in PVE, offering greater or equal DPS to other specs. The greatest asset Combat holds over Mutilate is its access to on-demand burst in the form of multiple strong cooldowns, which can result in massive DPS boosts when coupled with other external buffs.

Combat sees generally less use in PVP than Mutilate or Subtlety builds due to poor sustained (PVP) damage and inferior burst in most situations (Killing Spree on even two targets dramatically cuts down the strength of the ability).

This guide focuses exclusively on PVE Combat.



The Table of Contents

I. The Spec
II. The Glyphs
III. The Weapons
IV. The Poisons
V. The Cycle
VI. The Stats
VII. The Cooldowns
VIII. The Other Abilities
IX. The Gems and Enchants
X. The Spreadsheet
XI. Frequently Asked Questions










Change Log:
9/15/09: Posted, numerous edits/fixes.
9/24/09: Adjusted Armor Penetration section for 3.2.2, added FoK to section VIII.
9/25/09: Fixed an issue with section VI cutting off due to character limit.
10/20/09: Added section on gems and enchants.
10/27/09: More fixes for a cleaner reading experience.

I. The Spec

Currently, there are TWO viable Combat specs that vary slightly and allow for a bit of personal preference:

15/51/5: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0eb0xZMgVo0cxqru0xRtx

This is the bread-and-butter, run-of-the-mill, plug-and-chug Combat spec used by a majority of Combat Rogues. This build generally allows for a consistent finisher cycle of Slice and Dice, Rupture, and Eviscerate. Pick up the weapon specialization talent appropriate to your weapon choices.

18/51/2: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0eb0eZMgVo0cxqru0xRtb

The small change here is taking Vile Poisons instead of the last three points in Relentless Strikes. This spec has [slightly] stronger AoE capability, at the cost of [slightly] weaker single target damage. This build is generally considered competitive with the standard 15/51/5.

II. The Glyphs

For sustained damage, the following Glyphs are optimal:

Glyph of Sinister Strike
Glyph of Killing Spree
Glyph of Rupture

Glyph of Tricks of the Trade can be competitive if you trade Tricks with another Rogue regularly, and you're both willing to glyph for it – the best glyph to replace in this case is Rupture.

If you drop Rupture from your cycle completely, Glyph of Adrenaline Rush is another fair alternative.

III. The Weapons

-Speeds
--Main Hand: Slow
--Off Hand: Fast

The biggest differentiation between Mutilate and Combat is the weapon choice. While Mutilate is only compatible with Daggers, Combat can make use the plethora of melee weapons Rogues have at their disposal.

The Combat trees various “weapon specialization” talents break down the available weapon choices into three groups:

Close Quarters Combat (CQC): Fist Weapons and Daggers
Hack and Slash (HnS): Swords and Axes
Mace Specialization: Maces

While which path you chose to take can be a matter of personal preference, it is generally advisable to let what weapons you have acquired dictate your choice of “weapon spec.” It’s a bad idea to stubbornly use your two Maces when you have a significantly better pair of Swords sitting in your bank, for example; such practice only hurts your DPS, and makes you less valuable to your raid. As a Combat Rogue, you should roll on every usable melee weapon that is an upgrade. Again, don’t pass on a weapon just because it doesn’t belong to the “weapon specialization” you’re using now; your spec is only as good as the gear you have to fuel it.

Let’s look at Sinister Strike, the Combat combo point builder:

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Q u o t e:
Sinister Strike Rank 12
45 Energy Melee Range
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
An instant strike that causes 180 damage in addition to your normal weapon damage. Awards 1 combo point.

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Sinister Strike is essentially a Main Hand swing that you get a combo point for, and that in turn costs Energy. Because the Energy cost is fixed, you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck by using a slow Main Hand weapon to maximize the damage done by each Sinister Strike.

The Off Hand a key part of your Combat DPS due to the talent Combat Potency, which has a chance to give you Energy every time your Off Hand auto attack hits. Faster weapons allow for more frequent auto attacks, obviously, meaning that faster Off Hand choices will generate more Energy in a given duration.

IV. The Poisons

-Poisons
--Main Hand: Wound
--Off Hand: Deadly*

Poisons are a prominent part of Rogue DPS for any spec; without them, one loses a significant amount of damage. Combat specs do not buff poison damage, which means that the baseline poisons are the ones you choose from.

Generally accepted wisdom is that you do NOT use Instant Poison unless your talent build includes the Improved Poisons talent (which your Combat spec should not). Instead, one uses Wound Poison; the lower damage (roughly half that of Instant Poison) is offset by the higher baseline proc rate (more than double that of Instant Poison). As of 3.1, both Instant and Wound Poisons scale using a Proc-Per-Minute (PPM) system, meaning slower weapons have a higher chance to proc poisons to offset the less frequent weapon hits.

Rocktopus says:

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Q u o t e:
The way it works is there are two poisons that are based on a PPM mechanic Instant Poison and Wound Poison. Instant poison has a PPM of ~8 while wound has a PPM of ~21.

Now Pre-3.1 Instant poison just had a 20% chance to proc while wound poison had a 50% for all weapons. Now its been changed so that your proc rate changes based on the weapon speed the poison is applied to and normalized to 1.4 so if you have instant poison on a 1.4 speed weapon it'll proc 20% of the time and if you have wound poison it will proc 50% of the time. This was done to make it so LPC wasn't the best Mut weapon besides WD.

Here is where it starts to get interesting. For each .1 faster your weapon gets the proc rate goes down 1.426857% for instant poison and 3.571429% for wound (these numbers have been rounded). while at the same time for each .1 slower your weapon gets it increases your proc rate by the same %.

You end up having a situation where using a 2.6 speed weapon (which is standard for a combat spec) you end up with a 92.857143% chance to proc WP on any attack using your main hand

---

Draw your own conclusions, but a near one-hundred percent (100%) chance to proc the poison seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Deadly Poison is typically the Off Hand poison of choice. The strong scaling with AP coupled with the lack of PPM mechanics (Deadly Poison has a fixed proc rate regardless of weapon speed) make it an ideal candidate for faster Off Hand weapons.

Note that for incredibly short fights (one hundred fifty (150) seconds or less), Wound can start to pull ahead of Deadly as the Off Hand poison of choice. Most fights will last significantly longer than this, however.

V. The Cycle

Combat builds generally run a tight cycle that is less based on timers (unlike Mutilate) and much more consistent.

Oftentimes, you might see a Combat cycle displayed in the format “#s/#r/#e”, where the pound (#) symbols represent a number of combo points between one (1) and five (5), and the letters correspond to a finisher: “s” for Slice and Dice, “r” for Rupture, and “e” for Eviscerate.

A suggested cycle for fresh Combat Rogues is 5s/5r/5e. It plays out something like this, starting from the beginning of a fight:

1.) Sinister Strike once;
2.) Slice and Dice;
3.) Sinister Strike to five (5) combo points;
4.) Slice and Dice;
5.) Sinister Strike to five (5) combo points;
6.) Rupture;
7.) Sinister Strike to five (5) combo points;
8.) Eviscerate;
9.) Repeat steps three (3) through eight (8) until the boss dies.

The first two steps are a suggested startup method; you can open with a Garrote and Slice and Dice using that combo point instead, if you prefer. Do note, however, that Combat Rogues gain NO benefit from stealth, and that Garrote and a single Sinister Strike do roughly the same damage; as such, it’s generally better to get into combat faster (by being out of stealth) than to get a Garrote off (which may cost you time and overall lower your DPS).

As your gear (most namely your critical strike chance) improves, and as you become more practiced, you may find it beneficial to shave off some of the combo points from Slice and Dice. 3s/5r/5e and 4s/5r/5e can be very stable and offer you higher damage output. Try them out from time to time to see if you perform better under a different setup. Also, some spreadsheets (more on this below) might suggest an optimal cycle; be sure to try that out as well.

VI. The Stats

The most fun part of character progression is making sure you’ve hit all your caps; unfortunately(?) for Combat Rogues, however, you have only one cap to focus on, and that is:

-HIT RATING

There are three categories affected by Hit Rating that pertain to the Rogue class (these numbers assume 5/5 Precision):

Yellow Hit (Abilities)
99 Hit Rating to cap
66 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
99 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
66 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

Spell Hit (Poisons)
315 Hit Rating to cap
288 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
237 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
210 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

White Hit (Auto Attack)
722 Hit Rating to cap
689 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
722 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
689 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

*Raid Debuffs affecting Hit include Improved Faerie Fire (Balance Druid) and Misery (Shadow Priest). These debuffs provide the same benefit but do not stack.

The important two are the Yellow Hit and Spell Hit caps. Beyond those two, stacking hit (that is, to the White Hit cap) is a bad idea; the DPS gained from the extra auto attack hits will be far outweighed by the DPS lost from not stacking AP or Agility. Also note that it’s fair to assume that you’ll always have at least one Boomkin or SPriest, as well as a Draenei (if you’re Alliance), in the raid; as such, it is not advised to gem for Hit above the “raid” Spell Hit cap for your faction.

-ATTACK POWER (AP)

This is the bread-and-butter stat for a Combat Rogue. Once you’ve reached your Hit cap, this is the go-to stat before you've obtained four pieces of Tier 8. Attack Power is cool! It makes you hit stuff harder, and hitting stuff harder is good. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Stacking AP over Agility is advised at lower gear levels, due to the nifty talent Savage Combat, which gives you four percent (4%) more Attack Power. As Attack Power gems give twice the amount of AP as Agility gems, AP is the advisable course to take when gemming lower-end gear to best maximize the benefit of the talent.

-AGILITY

A pretty cool stat itself, Agility (Agi) increases a whole bunch of your stats per point, including:
- 1 Attack Power
- 0.02% Critical Strike Chance
- 2 Armor
- Some Dodge Chance

The Critical Strike Chance does not initially make up for the lack a second point of AP (the exception being four-piece Tier 8) when considering DPS only; from a min-maxing perspective, two (2) AP (rather than one (1) Agility) gives a superior increase to DPS at lower gear levels, especially as Combat (due to the Savage Combat talent).

By the time you've reached four pieces of Tier 9, however, it again becomes initially unclear whether AP or Agility is better. As it turns out, however, Agiltiy remains the superior choice post-T8, as the benefit of the Critical Strike chance given by one point of Agility is increased by every point of AP you have; that is, at some point, you will have enough AP such that the crit you get from Agility will outweigh the second point of AP you've lost.

Exactly where this breaking point is unclearly, largely because the four-piece Tier 8 bonus greatly inflates the value of Agility prior to this breaking point. It is reasonably safe to say, though, that at and after four-piece Tier 8, you should gem Agility.

Also worth noting is that Agility does a fair amount to increase your survivability; at lower gear levels, you might consider gemming Agility over AP for the extra dodge chance and armor, but gemming AP will still yield (slightly) higher DPS prior to four-piece Tier 8.

-ARMOR PENETRATION

To give a fast and flawed description of its function, Armor Penetration increases the amount of enemy armor ignored by your non-Bleed attacks. Opposite of Haste, each point of Armor Penetration Rating is better than the one before it, since it increases the chance to do whatever crazy thing it does. Eviscerate Combat benefits most greatly from ArP, since the vast majority of damage you deal will be physical (poison damage isn’t mitigated by Armor to begin with).

The difference between stacking ArP and AP or Agi in Tier 7 or Tier 8 isn’t that huge; in Tier 7, it’s likely negligible, and in Tier 8, the difference is negligible. The big jump comes in Tier 9, where lots (most) of the gear you’re come across has ArP on it, making hitting the ArP cap not only possible, but easy.

ArP is capped (understandably) at one hundred percent (100%), which equates to 1400 Armor Penetration Rating. Should you choose to use the Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone trinkets (using them together is inadvisable), you should gem and gear to not exceed the ArP cap when the trinket proc is active.

Post 3.2.2, stacking Armor Penetration to reach the soft cap in Tier 9 gear is slightly less desirable than before. Setups using a Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone and pushing to the soft cap (that is, having enough Armor Penetration so that you're are just at the ArP cap when the trinket proc is active) is now much more desirable - about 20 DPS behind a full BiS setup using all Armor Penetration gems and two Death's Choices.

-CRITICAL STRIKE RATING

Critical Strikes are always fun – those big numbers light up anyone’s evening. Stacking Critical Strike (Crit) rating isn’t actually the best idea though, as the DPS it gives tends to be inferior to, say, Attack Power or Agility. Still, when you come across the odd Yellow Socket, if the socket bonus does anything to boost your DPS, the best option is almost always to socket it with an Orange gem – AP/Crit or Agi/Crit, depending on where your gear is at.

-HASTE

Haste is a very “meh” (someone else’s word) stat. The only real function it serves is to decrease the time between auto attack swings, as Rogues mostly operate on a one (1) second Global Cooldown to begin with. A fair amount of Physical DPS gear ends up with Haste on it, and it’s not something you should make a special effort to avoid.

Haste is inferior to certain stats (see Attack Power, Agility), and can be especially bad at low gear levels. As your gear improves, however, the value of the Energy provided by Haste (through Combat Potency) begins to increase, and Haste will begin to outclass Crit Rating as the secondary stat of choice.

Worth noting is that each point of Haste Rating is less valuable than the one before, as the percentage decrease in swing time per point of Haste itself decreases as you gain more Haste – if that all makes any sense.

-EXPERTISE

Expertise is far from a strong stat for Combat Rogues. The talent Surprise Attacks makes your finishing moves unmitigatable – with enough Hit Rating, they will always land. This tends to diminish severely the value of Expertise, as it only affects Sinister Strike and auto attack. It is inadvisable to go out of your way for Expertise, but it can still provide a minor DPS benefit to you (especially at higher gear levels).

At the end of the day, Expertise will do less to help your DPS than an equivalent amount of AP or Agility. You get 10 free from Weapon Expertise; you’ll be fine without more.

For reference, the dodge Expertise cap is 26 Expertise, or 214 Expertise Rating.







For quick rule-of-thumb guesstimations, use the following to determine what’s better:

AP = Agi > Yellow Hit > ArP > Spell Hit > Crit = Expertise > Haste > White Hit

The above varies greatly depending on your gear level, however; as above, Agi outclasses AP in Tier 8, and ArP outclasses them both in Tier 9. If you want a definitive answer as to what is best for you, only one (timeless) response will suffice:

“Use a spreadsheet.”

VII. The Cooldowns

What most differentiates Combat from Mutilate is access to on-demand burst in the form of multiple strong cooldowns, which can result in massive DPS boosts when coupled with other external buffs. Combats cooldowns are unique and kind of awesome; still, they all function in a very specific way, and knowing the details may prove to further increase your DPS.

For all cooldowns, using them earlier is generally better; multiple uses of CDs throughout a fight only serves to increase your DPS. Another smart rule of thumb is to use them with Bloodlust/Heroism whenever possible.

Killing Spree

A beast of a skill with all sorts of fun uses and bugs, Killing Spree is the “staple” Combat cooldown in WotLK.

How It Works: As the skill description states, Killing Spree lasts for 2.5 seconds, and will teleport you to a target within 10 yards of you and strike with both weapons every 0.5 seconds, for a total of 5 strikes. A 20% damage bonus is applied for the duration, but you cannot use any other abilities while Killing Spree-ing; thus, the only things other than Killing Spree that receives this buff are auto attack and poison procs.

Who It Targets: The targeting mechanics for Killing Spree is much more involved than simply “anything in 10 yards.” When you activate Killing Spree, the ability remembers every enemy that was within 10 yards of your position (where you were when you activated Killing Spree). Killing Spree (KSp) will only jump you to those people who were within 10 yards of your starting position, and only if they remain within 10 yards of you. This is important to note because you can control who Killing Spree targets even in situations where they are multiple targets near one another. For example, if two enemies are five yards apart, you can move yourself so that only one of the two is within 10 yards of you when you use Killing Spree; if you do this, then Killing Spree will NOT target the second enemy even when you jump to the first and are five yards away from the second.

When To Use It: First of all, make sure you're low on energy when you use Killing Spree; since you can't use abilities while Killing Spree-ing, you want to avoid energy capping during those 2.5 seconds to make sure you don't miss out on additional damage. Killing Spree benefits from anything that increases your attack damage (AP Trinkets/Racials), as well as anything to increase your auto attack speed (Haste Trinkets/Racials/Potions; Bloodlust/Heroism; Blade Flurry). Stack as much as you can to maximize the 20% damage buff for the ability’s duration. Also, Killing Spree instantly jumps you to your nearest target regardless of whether you’re on the ground or in the air; using Killing Spree as you’re knocked away from a boss (Razorscale and Icehowl come to mind), you will lose your momentum away from the boss and end up right back on top of it, giving you much more DPS uptime than your fellow raid members, in addition to the sick burst.

Adrenaline Rush

The classic thirty-one (31) point talent remains largely unchanged from its original incarnation.

How It Works: A Combat Rogue has a base Energy regeneration rate of 12.5 Energy per second (1.25 Energy per .1 second). Adrenaline Rush provides a 100% increase in Energy regeneration rate, giving the Rogue 25 Energy per second.

Who It Targets: You!

When To Use It: While Adrenaline Rush (AR) will give you stupid amounts of Energy, the buff itself does not do any damage – that much is up to you. Most Rogues will choose spam Sinister Strike, burning the Combo Points on five-point Eviscerates if Slice and Dice and Rupture don’t need to be refreshed. To this end, using anything that makes you hit stuff harder in tandem with AR is advised; haste buffs can help to make your Energy regeneration even stupider through increased numbers of Combat Potency procs.

Blade Flurry

The original Rogue AoE.

How It Works: Blade Flurry gives you a 20% Haste buff for 15 seconds, giving it a reasonable amount of utility for single target DPS. Where it shines, however, is in situations where you have two targets within melee range for the full duration. Blade Flurry performs an attack on a second target similar to one you used on your target. This attack varies from yours, however, as it critically strikes independently of your own attack (a critical Eviscerate on your target does not guarantee a critical attack on Blade Flurry’s target, for example), and Blade Flurry duplicates of auto attack do not have a chance to proc Hack and Slash.

Who It Targets: Blade Flurry targets the enemy closest to the center of your hitbox, excluding the target of any attacks it it copying.

When To Use It: Like the other cooldowns, Blade Flurry is best stacked with other buffs that make you hit harder and faster. In particular, however, Blade Flurry syncs up very nicely with either Adrenaline Rush (extra Sinister Strikes/Eviscerates on other targets) or Killing Spree (all five hits strike two targets). During encounters where you have only one target to deal damage to, Blade Flurry still remains a powerful haste buff primary to be used with Bloodlust/Heroism and/or Killing Spree.




On Stacking Cooldowns: While Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush or Blade Flurry and Killing Spree are both solid and smart combinations of cooldowns, using Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree together is a very bad idea. Since Killing Spree does not allow you to use abilities for its duration, and as Adrenaline Rush doubles your Energy regeneration rate, you are almost guaranteed to cap out on Energy during Killing Spree – meaning that some Energy you could have otherwise used will be wasted, and you will have lost potential DPS.

Accepted wisdom is that, in the event all of your cooldowns are available, the best order to use them in is

Blade Flurry > Killing Spree > Adrenaline Rush

VIII. The Other Abilities

There are a lot of other abilities available to the Rogue class that haven’t been dealt with thus far in the guide. Those discussed below have some addition merit and should be considered situationally. If it’s not listed below, it likely has no place on your bars.

Fan of Knives: Once the most overpowered AoE ever (according to everyone else), Fan of Knives (FoK) has been nerfed to the point where it is a shell of its once-mighty former self. FoK lets you hit every enemy within 8 yards of you with both weapons (105% weapon damage with daggers, 75% weapon damage with everything else). This ability costs 50 Energy to use, and in some fights where there are significant numbers of adds to be killed, you will keep up Slice and Dice and otherwise spam FoK in place of a normal rotation. It's also great for trash - most say that if there are more than two targets withing range, you should FoK in place of Sinister Strike.

Kick: This staple interrupt costs 25 Energy and has a 10 second cooldown. You should do your best to figure out what spells of each bosses’ are interruptable, and use Kick accordingly.

Vanish: Combat Rogues gain no DPS benefit from Vanish, but it has a great deal of utility as a threat wipe: using Vanish will remove all threat you currently have with the boss, affording you an easy way out in risky situations. Vanish is best used when you have 50 or more Energy so that you can immediately Garrote and continue to DPS, losing a minimum of damage output in the process.

Evasion: The oft-joked about “Evasion-tanking” really can handle a boss for a [very] brief period; if you’re close to downing the foe and you end up with aggro when the tank dies, you could carry your raid to victory. Also, Evasion is very handy when dealing with Whirlwinds of any variety.

Feint: Worthless as a threat-management tool, Rank 8 of Feint adds a very useful buff that makes it worth putting back on your bars: for 6 seconds, you take 50% less AoE damage. Since you should never have aggro on typical boss fights, most of the damage that hits you will be AoE: everything from Lightning Novas and Poison Clouds to Tympanic Tantrum and, yes, Whirlwind will be mitigated by Feint. The buff only lasts six (6) seconds while the ability is on a ten (10) second cooldown, so your Feints must be used wisely. Also note that you must be close to you target in order to use Feint; it’s not readily available when not near a foe, so be careful.

Tricks of the Trade: A better misdirect than… Misdirect, Tricks (or TotT, and even just “tot”) will provide your target with a 15% damage increase for 6 seconds while transferring all of your threat generated during that time to your target. Tricks thusly has two uses: as a buff (15% damage increase to the target) and as threat management (threat transferred to target). Because Tricks cannot be cast on yourself, the best targets for TotT are tanks (for the threat transfer) or other Rogues (who can TotT you back, canceling out the threat transfers and increasing both of your DPS). Also worth consideration is using TotT on high-DPS raid members if there’s no chance of them pulling the boss off of the tank. The damage bonus from Tricks of the Trade does not stack with other flat damage-increasing abilities (such as Hysteria) or other copies of Tricks.

Dismantle: While few bosses are capable of being disarmed, many fights with adds will allow disarms on them. In these situations, Dismantle becomes a very attractive form of CC; as there are no diminishing returns on disarms in PVE, three Rogues can chain-Dismantle susceptible targets, greatly reducing the damage dealt by the target.

Sprint: A number of encounters will require you to cross some distance to reach your target, whether because you’ve been knocked away from the boss, or you must jump off a platform to reach the next phase of a fight. In these situations, using Sprint to close the gap quickly can be a time- (and even life-) saver, increasing your total time on the boss and allowing you to deal more damage as a result.

Expose Armor: Sunder Armor (at five stacks) provides the Major Armor debuff, a nice DPS boost for any physical damage-dealers. The only other source of the Major Armor debuff is Expose Armor (EA), which, rather than having to be stacked, applies the full benefit instantly for a duration dependent on Combo Points expended. While using EA full-time is not recommended, it is advisable to use it in certain short-uptime situations (such as Yogg-Saron’s brain), or if your raid contains no Warriors.

Kidney Shot, Gouge, and Blind: A select few encounters call for CC; those that do tend to need LOTS of it. These three abilities should be nearby for such occasions.





IX. The Gems and Enchants

Some people struggle with how to gem and enchant their gear (Pro-tips: Stamina does not increase your DPS, and Berserker stacks). There are some general common-sense rules you can apply for gemming, and with two exceptions, absolute best enchants for every slot.

For Red Sockets:
-Always use a Red gem, whether you’re looking at Attack Power, Agility, or Armor Penetration.
-Never use a gem that isn’t Red. This applies to Orange, Purple, Yellow, Blue, Green, and Prismatic gems. If you find a way to stick a Meta gem in a Red Socket, go for it.

For Yellow Sockets:
-Always use an Orange gem if the Socket Bonus increases your DPS. Rarely if ever will gemming for a Socket Bonus that gives a DPS stat be not-optimal. If you refuse to use a Spreadsheet (Hint: You should use a Spreadsheet), operate under the assumption that Orange is optimal in Yellow Sockets.
-Never use a Yellow gem. An Orange gem will always yield more DPS than the equivalent Yellow gem.
NOTE: When gemming for Hit, you should only use Yellow Sockets, and you should only use Orange Hit gems. If you’re significantly below the Spell Hit cap, that’s because your gear is poor; fix that, then use Orange gems.

For Blue Sockets:
-Always use a Nightmare Tear. Since it's unique, if you have more than one Blue Socket in your gear, pick the item with the best Socket Bonus and stick the Tear in there. For all other Blue Sockets, use Red gems.
-Never use Purple gems. The equivalent Tear will yield higher DPS, and otherwise Blue Socket Bonuses are almost never a DPS increase over using a Red gem.
NOTE: The Nightmare Tear is used to activate the Meta gem, which requires one Blue Gem. As it is Prismatic, the Tear will fulfill the Blue gem requirement while providing greater DPS than any Purple gem (10 Agility and 10 Strength versus either 10 Agility or 20 Attack Power).

For Prismatic Sockets:
-Always use a Red gem.
-Never use a gem that isn’t Red. This applies to Orange, Purple, Yellow, Blue, Green, and Prismatic gems. If you find a way to stick a Meta gem in a Prismatic Socket, go for it.

For Meta Sockets:
-Always use the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (twenty-one (21) Agility and three percent (3%) increased critical strike damage).
-Never use a Meta gem that isn’t the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. It is superior to the Crit Rating Meta, and far superior to everything else.



For Enchants, there’s not a lot of flexibility – what’s best in a given slot is best, regardless of your opinion. Don’t make excuses; if you don’t have the best enchant for a slot because you’re poor, take the hour it requires to farm up enough gold to buy it.

Helm: Arcanum of Torment (Ebon Blade – Revered)
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir – Exalted)
Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Major Agility
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault
Gloves: Enchant Gloves – Crusher
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle


Weapon:
-Enchant Weapon - Berserking
The staple enchant that you should be using at most gear levels.
-Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Once you’re ArP capped in T9, Agility and Haste become extremely attractive to the point where Mongoose becomes superior to Berserking.
Boots:
-Enchant Boots – Icewalker
If you’re not Hit Capped and/or you’re not running Heroic Trial of the Crusader, Icewalker is the best choice for DPS.
-Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness
Especially in Heroic Trial of the Crusader (and as has been the case with some hard modes in Ulduar), you will be required to move around – a lot, actually. Cat’s Swiftness gives you additional mobility (8% Run Speed Increase) and 6 Agility, and while it is inferior to Icewalker in a stationary situation, it shines when encounters require a great deal of movement.

NOTE: For any profession, the profession-only enchant(s) that one can make for oneself only are usually superior to the enchants listed here. This applies to:
Inscription - Shoulder Enchant
Tailoring - Cloak Enchant
Engineering - Glove and Cloak Enchants
Leatherworking - Wrist Enchant

For Blacksmithing, the additional sockets stack with other enchants, and for Enchanting, there are no other ring enchants available.

X. The Spreadsheet

A majority of posts on the Rogue forum ask some variation on the question “What’s best for me?” There is no easy answer, as what is best for one person may not be the best for another; there are merely guidelines that alter dramatically based on an individuals gear level and available weapons.

One tool that does give definitive answers to such questions, however, is the Spreadsheet. There are a variety of spreadsheets available; a number of them can be found at the Elitist Jerks website.

Spreadsheets generally require that you plug in all of your gear in order to get a projection of your DPS. Then, you can go in and make changes to your gear and talents and see what impact the changes have on your damage output. These tools are helpful in determining what changes you can make to better your performance, and will do so honestly and reliably (much unlike the Rogue forum).


Aldriana’s Combat Spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t39136-combat_3_2_mutilate_3_1_spreadsheets/

Aldriana’s Combat Spreadsheet is easy to use, due to a very user-friendly UI. It is also up-to-date for 3.2. The sheet allows you to toggle all possible raid (de)buffs, and can even offer you a mathematically optimal cycle given your information.

He has also posted a Mutilate Spreadsheet, but his is dated (last updated shortly after 3.1) and is thus inadvisable for precise calculations (nevermind Combat DPS calculations).


Mavanas’ Simulation Spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t51449-rogue_dps_simulation_spreadsheet/

A bit of a departure from the usual “calculator” spreadsheets, Mavanas has constructed a handy tool that will run multiple simulations of a fight using your parameters, then give you the average result.

XI. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: So which is better, Combat or Mutilate?
A: It depends, both on boss and the tier of gear; for individual fights, Mutilate will be generally better if Murder is applicable (that is, if the boss is of Humanoid, Dragonkin, or Giant classification), and Combat usually comes out ahead if the boss is not affected by Murder (that is, if the boss is of Undead, Demon, or Mechanical classification). The difference in either case is minimal, however; if you have equivalent gear, play the spec you prefer.

Q: So which weapon specialization is best?
A: It depends, primarily on tier of gear. In T7 and T8, CQC ends up working out to be BiS simply because it has the best possible weapons available. In T9, it is believed that Mace Specialization will be superior, using the 25 Tribute Chest Mace and offhanding the 258 fast dagger with your filler point in CQC (that is, 5/5 Mace Specialization, 1/5 Close Quarters Combat). Until you have access to best in slot gear, however, you should always use the best pair of weapons you have available, and talent accordingly.

Q: So which Meta gem is best?
A: The Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, which provides 21 Agility and an additional 3% damage from Critical Strikes. It requires one of each Red, Yellow, and Blue gems to activate.

Q: So which Blue gem is best?
A: Only ever use one gem in blue sockets for PVE: Nightmare Tear. Since you can only use one, socket it where you get the best socket bonus with a Blue gem. Beyond that, do not socket Blue gems.

Q: How good is the Slice and Dice Glyph?
A: It isn't. Don't use it.

Q: How good is the T9 2/5 set bonus?
A: It's terribad. With a roughly two percent (~2%) proc rate, you'd be lucky to see it more than three or four times in a single fight.

Q: So should I break the T8 set bonus for T9?
A: T9 is very lame. For Rogues, T9.232 is worthless. Running VoA25 to get T8 Legs and Gloves is smarter than going for four-piece T9.232. If you're talking four pieces of T9.245, you've got a slight upgrade form T8: your DPS will go up on the order of 100. The only clear upgrade from T8 is four pieces of T9.258 - good luck getting those tokens, though.

Q: Why isn't Combat Daggers mentioned here?
A: Because Combat Daggers is dead. It has been dead, and it will be staying dead. If you don't believe me, read the Rogue Q&A.

Q: So I'm pulling [number here] DPS on a target dummy. Why am I so low?
A: Because you're attacking a target dummy. Unless you're attacking a fully raid debuffed target dummy while you yourself are fully raid buffed, you have no business using a target dummy for DPS assessment. If you are attacking a fully raid debuffed target dummy while you yourself are fully raid buffed... well, those circumstances alone are pretty crazy.

Q: So I'm pulling [number here] DPS in Heroics. Why am I so low?
A: If you're in a Heroic and not fighting a boss, you should be spamming FoK, except on single target pulls. This alone should raise your DPS in Heroics significantly.

Q: Should I be sustaining Expose Armor on targets?
A: If you have NO Warriors in your raid, you should absolutely be on full-time EA duty. If you have any Warriors in your raid, however, be they Protection or otherwise, convince them to keep it up; accepted wisdom seems to be that DPS Warriors take less of a DPS hit stacking Sunders than do Rogues sustaining EA.

Q: Recommend any UI add-ons?
A: ROGUE POWER BARS. Also, Nug ComboBar is wonderful. These are the only two Rogue-specific add-ons I use, but as with many others, I couldn't live without Bartender, PitBull Unit Frames, and Grid. Also, Parrot is a much more attractive scrolling combat text mod than those other ones, I don't care what anyone says. OmniCC is wonderful for keeping track of when cooldowns become available, assuming you're comfortable with glancing down at your bars every so often.

Q: Which spec do you prefer?
A: Honestly, I love Mutilate more than I could ever enjoy Combat. It was my first love, and remains my passion. Don’t let that dissuade you from trying both specs, though; to each his own, as they say.

Q: So how do I write a Tricks of the Trade macro?
A:

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Q u o t e:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

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A solid macro, this will cast Tricks on your focus target; I use this macro for Tricksing tanks in Heroics and raids. For situations where you'll be using Tricks on the same character often (such as in Arenas or in a guild raid), replace the "focus" part of the "[target=focus]" clause with the name of the player. For example,

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Q u o t e:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=Ippon] Tricks of the Trade

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will only ever cast Tricks on Ippon, regardless of your current target.

Q: Crit Cap? What's that?
A: While the hard Critical Strike cap (the point at which critical strike rating provides NO benefit) is obvious (100%), there exists a "soft" Critical Strike cap at which point additional crit rating provides a greatly diminished benefit. This "crit cap" varies based on your stats, and can be calculated with the formula:

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Q u o t e:
100 - 24 - ((722 - Hit Rating)/22) - ((214 - Expertise Rating)/6.5)

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The result of this formula is the Critical Strike chance percent at which you are "Crit Capped;" the "Hit Rating" is your current Hit Rating (assuming 5/5 Precision); the "Expertise Rating" is how much Expertise Rating your character sheet states you have. What this equation tells us is that, even if you reach both the White Hit cap and the Expertise cap, your "crit cap" is at 76%, due to glancing blows (hence the "-24"); as there is no mechanic in place for reducing glancing blows, you cannot push the crit cap any higher. You generally don't need to worry about surpassing this cap, however; even raid buffed, most Rogues won't get to the crit cap this tier unless they have the Dark Matter trinket.

Q: Is Throwing Specialization worth it?
A: Now that Fan of Knives no longer interrupts when you pick up this talent (post-3.2.2), it is generally considered worthless. Spend your filler point somewhere else.

Q: Good raiding professions, go!
A: Most say that Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing are the most solid combination of choices for raiding. Inscription, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Alchemy are all very competitive to the point of minute differences. Engineering can actually be the best profession given that you use bombs every cooldown in addition to the various enchants; anything less, however, renders Engineering inferior in comparison.

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combat sucks

Fantastic guide, reported for sticky.

A more comprehensive guide than the one I've got floating about; I'd rather see this stickied than mine. A few notes:

-Spell Hit: 288 with Heroic Presence and not raid-debuffed (when I did 25's we rarely seemed to have a SPriest or a Boomkin, so it's a useful number to some people)

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Q u o t e:
"Though the highest DPS Off Hand weapon choice is the best Off Hand weapon choice, a faster Off Hand will usually win out when DPS is equal. "

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-For OH's you generally don't want anything slower than 1.5, and speed is usually the primary factor assuming relatively close iLevels. There are many times when the lower DPS but faster speed OH outperforms the higher DPS and slower speed OH.

-Kick costs 25 Energy

-CooldownTimers2 is a fantastic add-on I've been using for tracking cooldowns. It not only has timer bars, but flashes the icon and name of the cooldown when it's ready in the middle of the screen.

-Consider mentioning some macro's (I see questions for how to write a TotT macro on these boards all the time)

-Depending on how much hand-holding you want to do, a list of the best enchants for each slot would also benefit some players, as improper enchants are usually flamed when people ask to be critiqued.

Those were just some things that I noticed, though I'm obviously not as knowledgeable as others on this board. Overall, like I already said a good guide, and better than the one I've got. Good luck in getting it stickied :)

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Q u o t e:
Expose Armor: Sunder Armor (at five stacks) provides the Major Armor debuff, a nice DPS boost for any physical damage-dealers. The only other source of the Major Armor debuff is Expose Armor (EA), which, rather than having to be stacked, applies the full benefit instantly for a duration dependent on Combo Points expended. While using EA full-time is not recommended, it is advisable to use it in certain short-uptime situations (such as Yogg-Saron’s brain), or if your raid contains no Warriors.

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1- EA now provides the 20% regardless of CP's, and the additional CP's just increase it's duration

2- Wasn't it determined that the brain did not have armor, thus EA/Sunder/Shattering Throw is just a waste of time (and energy (sorry for the pun))?

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Q u o t e:
Expertise Rating, as it will do virtually nothing to increase your DPS.

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This is incorrect.

Expertise up to cap is actually a decent dps stat for combat. It's not as strong as AP, Agi, Arp, or even Crit. However, for myself and probably most well geared rogues, it's actually higher dps then haste or hit above the poison cap.

In my gear expertise has an EP value of 1.66 which is pretty decent compared to agi which sits at 2.1.

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Q u o t e:
Stacking AP over Agility is advised*, due to the nifty talent Savage Combat, which gives you four percent (4%) more Attack Power. As Attack Power gems give twice the amount of AP as Agility, AP is the advisable course to take when gemming to best maximize the benefit of the talent.

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This is incorrect also.

T8 is not the only thing that makes agi superior to AP. AP is not the end all of rogues dps like you said.

Agi will continue to be better then AP beyond T8.

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Q u o t e:


This is incorrect.

Expertise up to cap is actually a decent dps stat for combat. It's not as strong as AP, Agi, Arp, or even Crit. However, for myself and probably most well geared rogues, it's actually higher dps then haste or hit above the poison cap.

In my gear expertise has an EP value of 1.66 which is pretty decent compared to agi which sits at 2.1.

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My weights are:
Agi 2.09
Crit 1.80
White hit 1.40
Exp 1.67
Haste 1.62
ArP 2.07

Agi > (arp) > crit > exp > haste.

It's virtually useless. Why waste a red slot, with a potential of 41.8 with exp (33.4)? Might as well toss in an orange agi/crit, as that gives 38.9, and we both know how retarded that sounds.

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Q u o t e:

It's virtually useless. Why waste a red slot, with a potential of 41.8 with exp (33.4)? Might as well toss in an orange agi/crit, as that gives 38.9, and we both know how retarded that sounds.

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VIrtually useless as in it's valued at 80% of our highest dps stat?

Do you know what virtually useless means? I'm not telling anyone to gem for it but to say it's "virtually useless" is flat wrong.

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Q u o t e:


VIrtually useless as in it's valued at 80% of our highest dps stat?

Do you know what virtually useless means? I'm not telling anyone to gem for it but to say it's "virtually useless" is flat wrong.

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I'd define virtually useless as something that *can* help, but is blocking you from being the best you can be. Yes, it does give some benefit, thus it shouldn't be categorized as useless, but it blocks you from socketing Agi/Ap/ArP, so it's a waste. I'm sorry I'm not as charitable to inferior stats as you are.

Few things I felt worth noting:

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Q u o t e:
The Off Hand weapon is not a focus of Combat; aside from Killing Spree, the Combat cycle does not make use of it. Though the highest DPS Off Hand weapon choice is the best Off Hand weapon choice, a faster Off Hand will usually win out when DPS is equal.

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While the Off Hand weapon isn't actively used for combat, it is arguably more important than the Main Hand(especially if specced for HnS). It provides Combat Potency procs, which gives the rotation stability(and most HnS procs are from the Off Hand). Also, more dps does not necessarily make for a better choice. It is common practice to add roughly 10 dps to an Off Hand candidate for each .1 speed that it is faster than its competition.
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A three finisher rotation isn't always going to be possible. There are times where you won't get a Ruthlessness proc, you might get an unlucky streak with Combat Potency or the Sinister Strike glyph. That said, it's much better to define the rotation as:

3-5 Slice and Dice
5 Rupture
Eviscerate when Slice and Dice reaches ~13 seconds, or when you reach 5 combo points.
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You are correct in saying Combat receives no benefit from starting a fight in stealth(barring rare situations of Sap necessity), in fact it is a dps loss to open with a Garrote. It costs almost twice as much energy and doesn't have the chance to crit or award two combo points.