Myth #1: “MOONFIRE (Sunfire?) SPAM LOL!!”

This joke has been floating around World of Warcraft since before Burning Crusade was released. However, recently I’ve seen post after post asking whether or not this could be a viable option for a PvE moonkin rotation. The rotation essentially is sitting in Solar Eclipse and spamming Sunfire while continuously refreshing Insect Swarm when necessary. This could very well seem like a viable option when looking at moonkin talents such as Lunar Shower (which requires constant movement) and considering the mana problems that people seem to be experiencing at level 85. Stacking mastery is also a suggestion when looking at this rotation as it depends on staying solely in Solar Eclipse, and Starsurge would be neglected for this same reason.

My opinion on the matter:

While this may have been super fun to play around with near the end of Wrath, actually using it in a PvE raid setting in Cataclysm is just plain silly. If you plan on using this rotation, do not be surprised when you see yourself doing only about 60-70% of the damage that you could be doing while standing still and using the normal single target rotation. The blaring problem I personally see is the neglect of Starsurge, which is a huge part of our dps rotation. For those of you not familiar with moonkin mechanics, Starsurge generates 15 Lunar or Solar energy, which will eventually push you out of Solar Eclipse. If you leave Solar Eclipse, you would then have to spend at least 45 seconds building up 300 extra solar energy in order to reach Solar Eclipse again. Sitting on Starsurge and ignoring Shooting Star procs due to the fear of leaving Solar Eclipse causes you to lose a good bit of your dps. Go ahead and spam in Solar Eclipse when you must move in an encounter (as this is how it’s meant to be used). However, don’t use this rotation when given the opportunity to stand still, as this rotation pales in comparison to the single target rotation on most boss fights.

Though this rotation may come up short for single target dps, it shines in an AoE setting. Tab dotting while sitting in Solar Eclipse does fantastic dps when used along with Hurricane and Wild Mushrooms. So lets sum this misconception up. Will spamming in Solar Eclipse out dps our single target rotation on certain fights? Sure, I’m not going to say this will never happen, however instances where this will actually occur are very VERY rare, so don’t count on it.

Myth #2: You should avoid mastery at all costs!

Now that we’re in the midst of the new expansion, everyone should have a basic knowledge on mastery and what it does for their individual specs. So therefore, this will not be a list on what mastery does for every single spec of every single class. For those non-moonkin out there, I will elaborate what mastery does for us. Mastery gives moonkins Total Eclipse, which increases the bonus damage from eclipse by 12%, and each point of mastery increases that bonus by another 1.5%. Now, most moonkins are under the impression that mastery should be avoided at all costs because it’s the lowest stat on our priority list (which looks like this incase any of you were wondering: Hit (1742:17%) > Intellect > Spell Power > Haste > Crit >/= Mastery).

My opinion on the matter:

Is mastery the worst caster stat for moonkins? Sure. Should you avoid all gear that has mastery on it? NO! Blizzard seems insistent on shoving mastery down everyone’s throat this expansion, whether it is good for your class or not. There is no way that you can feasibly avoid gear that has mastery on it, and if you are passing up gear solely because of this, then you are hurting yourself greatly. While mastery is our worst stat by far, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a dps loss. Mastery is still going to improve your dps anyway you look at it, even if it is just marginally. So when you’re pew pewing raid bosses down and that pretty caster leather piece drops that has mastery on it, don’t pass it up if you’re wearing a piece of gear with a lower ilevel. My rule of thumb is basically this: If the piece has a higher ilevel, then that generally means it has more intellect on it (which translates to dps increase). Just because that blue quality heroic gear has haste on it, doesn’t mean you should totally ignore the purple staring you in the face with mastery. Blizzard lovingly put reforging in this game for a reason, and that unwanted mastery can easily be converted into that haste you’re so fixated on. To sum things up, knowing the moonkin stat priority list is a WONDERFUL piece of knowledge to have, however, don’t be so fixated on it that you ignore upgrades that will improve your dps. A rigid moonkin is a bad moonkin.

I will write on more myths and misconceptions as I encounter them, so make sure to stay up to date with our blog! Feel free to discuss your opinions on these topics in the comment box below, or give me a few new myths to write about in the next installment.

1. Grand Vizier Ertan.

Grand Vizier Ertan will summon a few cyclones as you pull him, so make sure you move in together, as hitting any of the cyclones will instantly give you a debuff that will greatly reduce your movement, attack, and casting speed.

Damage on this first phase is not very challenging at all, and you should try to maximize your DPS, as your healer might struggle later on with his mana pool on lower gear levels.

A few seconds into the fight, he will retrieve his cyclone shield to the middle of the room, and you will need to move your group backwards away from the cyclones to avoid getting the debuff. He will then proceed to spam lightning bolt on random party members, which can be difficult to heal, so you should use any defensive cooldowns available until the phase is over.

Throughout the fight, he will also summon tempest lurkers on random locations. These will become active if nobody is close to them, and increase the group damage to some very risky levels. The best way to deal with these is to be relatively close to the middle, so they remain inactive for the entire fight.

After this he will go back to phase one. Just remember to avoid getting nearby the cyclones, as that debuff will considerably lower your group’s DPS, and as a healer you will have a very tough time sustaining your mana pool for more than a couple of cyclone phases.

2. Altairus.

When you pull Altairus, you will notice several tornados will spawn on random locations and move slowly. These will be there during the whole fight, and you want to avoid getting hit by them, as they will knock you out of the platform and get you out of combat for a while, if not killing you.
Altairus will randomly target a group member and breath on him, hitting anyone on that particular direction, so you want to spread out as much as possible to minimize the breath damage at all times.

A few seconds into the fight, he will change the direction of the wind with a big spell animation you won’t be able to miss. When this happens, you want to be standing in between the source of the wind, and the dragon, which will give you a big haste increase. If the dragon is ahead of you from that particular direction, you will have reduced movement speed, and a considerable DPS loss until you manage to move to the proper location.

To make it easier on your group, you will want to tank the boss on the middle of the room, so that moving to the right location is easier for everybody. Just remember you have to be relatively spread out, so that the breath doesn’t hit your party everytime. It can be confusing the first time, but once you grasp the concept this fight becomes very enjoyable.

3. Asaad.
As the other two bosses, tank damage is not significantly hard to heal. However he will be doing chain lightning very often, and it hits for a considerable amount of damage, even more so if it jumps to another target, so you will want to keep a safe distance between your group members at all times.

You will notice that he will also put a debuff on all your group members, called Static Cling, which will effectively root everybody in place. Any dispellers on your party should be able to help your healer out, as it can sometimes be troublesome to dispel, and heal at the same time, considering the cost of dispels is a lot higher on cataclysm.

His main ability is called Supremacy of the Storm, which he will always cast right after the Static Cling. He will draw a triangle with lightning on a random location of the platform, and after a few seconds he will channel massive damage on the entire room but that triangle, so you will need to dispel your party members as soon as possible, so they can move inside safely before it’s too late.

Right after Supremacy of the Storm is over, you will need to spread out instantly, as he will once again root all your group, and start casting chain lightning, which can be deadly if you’re not spread out enough before he roots all of you.

The fight will repeat itself after this point. If you do it properly it shouldn’t be too hard, just remember to assist your healer with dispels, specially right before the Supremacy of the Storm.

4. Other tips.

If this is your first time running Vortex Pinnacle, you should bring classes that can crowd control elementals and humanoids. There are several pulls that require a decent amount of coordination.

Generally speaking, boss mechanics are not really hard to deal with, and this instance is one of the easier heroic modes available on Cataclysm.

It’s been proven time and time again that for every PvE rogue spec (Combat and Mutilate), the rogue could get better personal DPS by using some other glyph but the Glyph of Tricks of the Trade actually results in a much higher raid DPS. A rogue that is willing to take a personal hit on the meters while at the same time pushing somebody else ahead by another couple percent or more is more likely to be the same rogue who spends energy on interrupts, defensive cooldowns and debuffing.

And if you do ever run into a rogue who doesn’t have Tricks of the Trade glyphed? Shun the nonbeliever! Shuuuunnnnnnnn!!!

Patch 3.3.3 is now on the PTR and with it come some changes to rogues. These changes are very likely to be the last we’ll see before Cataclysm. Blizzard says that they’re never truly satisfied with anything but the fact remains that rogues are in a pretty good place right now. Since the last round of nerfs, the caterwauling about our damage being OP has subsided to it’s usual low rumble and while there are a few fights that penalize us more than other classes (*cough* Sindragosa *cough*), it’s not anything we can’t learn to just deal with.

The changes are pretty interesting, let’s take a look.

• Rupture: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes.

This is the only real change for raiding rogues; it’s the 4-piece tier 8 bonus now made baseline. (For those wondering, the 4 piece tier 8 bonus is being changed to give +20% damage to Rupture.) Feral druids have had this for some time and rogues were jealous. During T8 content rogues ran with as high of a Rupture uptime as possible but as gear levels increased we all saw the writing on the wall. Once we were out of T8 content our other abilities which scaled better than a crit-less Rupture would force Rupture out of our rotation. Anyone who was reading my ranting in the LoD forums will remember me talking about how I’d be dropping Rupture from my talents/glyphs/rotation as soon as we were out of Ulduar. And I did.

Now that a crit-ing Rupture could become baseline we have to look at it again. If you’ve not been following the discussion on the web, I’ll sum it up for you.

1. Assassination builds have become far too dependent on the Envenom buff for DPS to lose any of it’s uptime to Rupture. Blizzard would have to buff the hell out of Rupture’s scaling and likewise nerf Envenom for Assassination to take the talents and use it.
2. Combat builds aren’t as cut and dry. Keeping the same strategy of gearing and gem’ing for Armor Penetration but changing talents and glyphs to support Rupture, Combat builds can get a 3% or possibly greater buff on fights where you can use Rupture, i.e. static fights with long lived mobs. On fights that aren’t as static and you can’t use the Rupture talents and glyphs it’s only about a 1% loss. Basically, giving up a small about of burst damage for some sustained damage. Is it worth it? I don’t know, but since the gearing is almost identical and each character can run two specs and glyph sets… well, you do the math.

The rest of the changes have to do with the perennially neglected Subtlety tree. Even GC himself says that no tree in all of WoW has it as bad off as Subtlety. It’s been a running joke for years and that’s sad. Subtlety is a lot of fun to play. In fact if you look at Subtlety, you can get a feel for how talent trees in Cataclysm will look. There are lots of talents in there that don’t just bump your damage by X%. A lot of the talents in Subtlety are just fun and unique.

And there-in lies the problem. The Subtlety tree is too much fun. There, I said it. If Blizzard buffed Subtlety to be even close to raid viable, every rogue without exception would flock to it, no question in my mind about that. And with all that said, they’re buffing Subtlety… slightly.

• Slaughter from the Shadows now adds 1/2/3/4/5% damage to all attacks and reduces the energy cost of Backstab and Ambush by 4/8/12/16/20, up from 3/6/9/12/15.
• Filthy Tricks now reduces the cooldown by 5/10 sec and energy cost by 5/10 of your Tricks of the Trade, Distract and Shadowstep abilities and reduces the cooldown of Preparation by 3 min.
• Waylay now affects your Ambush and Backstab hits (Old – Only Ambush critical hits). Movement speed bonus reduced from 70% to 50%.
• Hemorrhage now deals 160% of weapon damage if a dagger is equipped.
• Ghostly Strike now deals 180% of weapon damage if a dagger is equipped.

First off, the Hemorrhage and Ghostly Strike changes are long overdue. Subtlety has always had an identity crisis about what kind of weapon tree it is and this is just to make it clear. Subtlety is a dagger tree. There’s also a straight up damage increase as well as some energy cost and cooldown reduction in there.

Honestly, this looks like Blizzard’s attempt to give rogues a PvP tree again. Blizzard might love hybrid classes but they hate hybrid specs; Blizzard wants everyone to go 51 points into a tree in both PvE and PvP. Contrary to this, rogues have been running a Mutilate/Prep build for PvP since the dawn of time. Everything in rogue PvP is balanced around it and Blizzard can’t get us away from it.

Is Subtlety PvP viable with these changes? Probably. Subtlety has been on the fringe of breaking into PvP for some time and this looks like it might push it into the mainstream. I highly doubt it will de-throne Mut/Prep but stranger things have happened.

Is Subtlety PvE viable with these changes? Ask again later. Right now the general consensus is “no” but things on the PTR change all the time and there are some hidden benefits to Subtlety. First off, it has the ability to change targets as well as Combat and it’s mobility is unrivaled by any class/spec in the game. Talented with the new Filthy Tricks, Shadowstep becomes a 20 second teleport that costs no energy and give a 20% damage boost to your next attack. Right now all eyes are on 10/10/51 to be the best shot at raid viable Subtlety but for all that mobility and fun the damage is still sub-par and the rotation would make a feral druid want to tear their hair out.

Honestly though? I’d love to see Subtlety make it into raiding. That would be awesome. I’ll be on the PTR as much as I can this weekend to try it out and will report back what I find.

What separates the “hard core” gamer from the more casual one is not necessarily the amount of time devoted to playing the game, but rather the willingness to tolerate failure and try again.

On the face of it, this phrase is just a re-tooling of the “if at first you don’t succeed” motto but if we take a closer look we can see that there’s a lot more going on in here when we apply it to an MMO. Specifically, when talking about an MMO you need to be able to tolerate the failures of others as well as your own. Everyone is going to individually make mistakes or fail but when you add another 9 or 24 people into the mix it changes everything. Most notably, our relative perception of failure.

Suddenly, everyone is failing so much more than you are. In fact, I’d venture to say that in a 25man raid, “other players” are failing 24 times more often than you. And that’s where the real gamers prevail, the gamers who know that the more people you add to the mix, the more often failure will show it’s ugly head.

Raids are going to wipe – a lot – and a good portion of the time it’s going to have nothing to do with you and there’s nothing that you specifically could have done. It’s out of your hands. How you choose to deal with your own failures and more importantly the failures of others will define you as a gamer and as a person.

Everybody has alts (alternate characters). You may only have one lonely little bank alt or a server of max-level behemoths on both sides of the faction fence but if you play WoW you have alts. For a very long time, Tinwhisker was my only character. Leveling in vanilla WoW wasn’t terribly difficult (although it was more difficult than it is now) but I was busy learning one class in a new game already. The thought of another character was a bit overwhelming. Eventually though, I rolled my first bank toon.

Well, she wasn’t intentionally a bank toon. I rolled a priest because I had seen shadow priests running around and thought that Shadowform and Mind Flay were pretty awesome. I mean, even today I think that looks pretty darn cool. Unfortunately I really hadn’t gotten my head around WoW yet (I was a slow learner) and when she reached level 12 she stayed in Stormwind. Eventually I made her into a bank alt though I had never known what one was before. I had a level 12 bank alt for all of vanilla, all of Burning Crusade, and the first part of Wrath of the Lich King.

When Burning Crusade hit, I immediately got Tinwhisker to 70 and was raiding Karazhan. Besides that, I was excited about the new starting zones and started my Blood Elf Mage to try one of them out. Before I knew it, I had gotten her to 70, then the Draenei Paladin and got her to 70, then the abandoned Night Elf hunter made 70. Actually, once I started leveling, it all happened so fast I’m not really sure how long it took.

That was when I discovered what alts were for.

Having an alt makes you better on your main. No two ways about it, that is absolutely correct and I’ll tell you why. It’s because when you see a fight from a different perspective, you learn more about it than you would from a single perspective. In Burning Crusade, my paladin tank and hunter gave me insight on fight mechanics I didn’t have to think about on Tin. There are a multitude of fight mechanics that you’re never aware of if you only play a single class in a raid. Most of the time that isn’t important but there are quite a few times where something happens and you have to deviate from the plan a bit. Now you’re the melee standing at ranged and you have no idea what’s being hurled your direction.

Imagine you’re a healer on General Vezzax, standing in melee healing as you always do. BOOM! Uh-oh, there aren’t enough ranged out there anymore! Somebody needs to get out there and run with the groups. Do you run out there and save the raid like a pro or hope somebody else will do it because you have no idea how it’s done?

Matron touched on this when he was talking about reps, when you’re on your main you can often ignore lots of things without consequence when it’s all going well but when things go wrong and you’re out of your element, there’s the potential for real disaster. Going through the same (or similar) fights on alts means you’re being exposed to new mechanics and new situations. When those situations come up, you’re muich better prepared for them.

Right now I’m going through ICC on my main and also on my shadow priest alt. Her gearscore is fantastic but closer inspection reveals she’s more than 100 hit rating over the cap and suffering from other problems (gearscore is just one step above useless in my book). That is often the fate of alts but having to work a little harder on an alt is the best thing ever. You actually learn the fights from multiple perspectives; things you can faceroll on your main become nail-biters on an alt. It also doesn’t hurt that I get to see what actually happens instead of looking at some mobs but crack for five minutes.

But what if you don’t have an alt that can do the same fights?

Not everyone has alts that can raid with the mains, in fact, most people don’t. LoD is a top tier guild and part of that is that most members do. Blizzard isn’t stupid though. There isn’t a single mechanic in any raid that can’t be found in multiple heroics or elsewhere in daily quests. From boss abilities to vehicle content, it’s all there. It’s all a matter of having that alt and Blizzard has made leveling incredibly easy to do.

If you’re reading this and you have a max level alt that you play on a regular basis, good for you. I really hope you can see how knowing how to play in different roles and perspectives makes you a better player. If you don’t have an alt, go make one. I guarantee it will make you a better player. Find another class you like and play it; I can’t stress how much better you’ll be because of it.

A recurring theme on WoW forums that I’ve seen since the days of Molten Core, is uninformed raiders complaining about Damage Meter mods and how they hurt the raid.  The truth is that damage meters are a tool, much like a hammer.  When used properly, a hammer can help you build some very cool stuff that you never could’ve built with your bare hands.  Or when used irresponsibly, a hammer can smash your thumbs or poke your eye out.

The most popular damage meter addon is probably Recount.  Another option which I’m told is much less CPU intensive is Skada.  I would consider it essential to run one of these mods (or something similar) while raiding, but this is especially true if you have any hand in the raid leadership, or even if you just want to be able to discuss fight strategies and analyze what happened on the previous attempt without accidentally making a fool of yourself.  However, you will learn very little from simply looking at, say, the Damage Done meter, without analyzing the context in which those numbers were obtained.  The true usefulness of these addons is dependent on digging a little deeper than what you immediately see on the surface.  Here I’ll discuss some examples of how I use Recount for the first 7 bosses in Icecrown Citadel (i.e. Storming the Citadel and Plagueworks sections), emphasizing only DPS classes and ignoring Tanks/Healers.

Lord Marrowgar

- Marrowgar is a pretty straightforward fight, and is a decent boss for judging the strength of each DPS player based on the Damage Done meter.  However, the one extra detail you must examine a little closer is Damage Done to Bone Spikes.  Anyone who has very little damage done to Bone Spikes (or no damage whatsoever) is not pulling their weight in the raid, regardless of how much DPS they did to Marrowgar.  However, the cutoff for “very little damage” will depend on many factors.  For example, if you position your raid right behind Marrowgar then melee should have much more Bone Spike damage than casters – but if you spread out all over the room then melee/casters should all be contributing evenly to Bone Spike damage.  Also, if this fight is farm content and the spikes are blowing up in under 5 seconds then it’s acceptable for casters to not help with Bone Spikes, but if this fight is still challenging or if spikes are staying up for 10+ seconds, then you should really consider sitting any DPS out who are not pulling their weight on the spikes.

- As far as analyzing failures on this fight, Recount isn’t all that necessary since basically anything you die to on this fight as a DPS is your own fault (with the exception of dying to a 10+ second Bone Spike, but this would be so obvious that you shouldn’t need to analyze the Death meter to notice it)

Lady Deathwhisper

- Lady Deathwhisper is one of the few cases where the “Damage Meters are useless!” crowd would actually have a good point.  Anyone DPSing the boss in Phase 1 will have much higher DPS, even though P1 boss damage is probably the least important aspect of the fight.  So the total Damage Done is pretty meaningless unless you are only comparing two people who had the exact same job in phase 1.  Even comparing just the Damage Done to Cult Fanatics/Adherants isn’t necessarily useful, except for spotting people who are  ignoring their particular assignment.  Probably the only way to get any relevant information about DPS players’ performance on this fight is to reset the meter for Phase 2 only, but even then you need to also check the Interrupt meter and realize that people handling the frostbolt interrupts will be lower on the Damage Done meter thru no fault of their own.

- Other uses of Recount on this fight include a) the Dispels meter to find out which people are not decursing, and slap them on the noggin, b) Interrupts meter in Phase 2, or c) Death meter to analyze why people died (there are many possible sources of death on this fight which are completely not your fault – but if you died to Death and Decay, a Vengeful Blast from the Ghosts, or an aggro pull on the boss, then these are your own fault)

Gunship Battle

- I don’t really care what you do on this fight as long as you don’t go AFK inside the cabin where you still take damage but can’t get healed (lookin at you, Asgeroth!).  Analyzing Recount on this fight would be like analyzing the Chess Event in Karazhan, no one cares.

Deathbringer Saurfang

- Saurfang is an excellent fight for judging DPS players’ performance.  Melee classes can be judged strictly by the Damage Done meter on this fight.  For Ranged classes (including Hunters plus the Caster DPS), the relevant metric for judging their performance is mostly the Damage Done to Blood Beasts.  If you really needed to judge the strength of a particular Ranged DPS player (like say an applicant on a farm content trial run), you might consider instructing them to ignore Blood Beasts and only nuke the boss, so that you can compare apples to apples when you review the logs later.

- One of the main causes of wipes on this fight is if melee DPS or the tanks get aggro on Blood Beasts and give Saurfang a ton of energy.  In cases like this, I switch Recount to the Damage Taken meter, and start checking each melee/tank to see how much damage they took from Blood Beasts.  Then when you find out who the culprit is, you can switch back to the Damage Done meter, click on that person, and check out the breakdown of their damage done to Blood Beasts, to tell them which ability they need to make sure to not use when the adds spawn.  The most common culprits are Hammer of the Righteous from Prot Paladins, Maul from Feral Druids, Consecrate/Divine Storm from Ret Paladins while using Avenging Wrath, and Whirlwind crits from Fury Warriors leaving Deep Wounds.

Festergut

- Festergut is the best fight in ICC for judging DPS players’ performance, but like Saurfang, the fight heavily favors melee DPS.  This fight is even better than Saurfang for judging melee DPS, since there is no concern about hitting Blood Beasts with AOE moves.  It is possible to completely remove the “melee bias” on this fight by having Ranged DPS stand at melee, but most guilds prefer to stick healers at melee instead since the tanks can take some large damage spikes.

- There isn’t much need for analyzing Death meters on this fight.  If you died during Pungeant Blight then that’s your fault for not getting innoculated 3 times, and if you died to anything else then you should’ve been healed thru it (exception being death by multiple people getting Vile Gas – then it’s a question of who didn’t spread out properly, which isn’t something Recount can tell you)

Rotface

- Rotface is actually one of the better fights in WoW for judging the true skill of a DPS player, since it is a single target DPS burn with tons of movement and stuff to avoid.  This fight doesn’t particularly favor melee or range, but instead mostly favors people who never have to run out with the Mutated Infection.  Unfortunately this means that you cannot draw much conclusion from a single good or a single bad DPS score, since there is so much RNG involved.  But you can learn ALOT about the DPS in your raid while wiping on this fight several times over the course of a progression night.  Your most skilled DPS will gravitate towards the top of the meters consistently, while your lesser skilled players (including “Patchwerk Pros”) will find themselves dying too often to do well on the Damage Done meters reliably.

- This fight is also one of the best examples of where the Death meter is very helpful, since there are so many ways to get yourself killed on this fight.  Sources of Avoidable Deaths that are always your fault:  Sticky Ooze/Ooze Flood, Unstable Ooze Explosion, melee hits from Rotface (all bets off if tank dies first).  Sources of death that are not really your fault:  Mutated Infection DoT damage (needs to be cleansed), melee hits from Big Oozes (need to be kited).

- Ironically, the Damage Taken meter is arguably of little use on this fight since the main sources of avoidable damage are not ALWAYS avoidable.  For example, normally any DPS player who takes a lot of damage from Slime Spray is failing horribly – but there actually are cases where you can get caught in a Slime Spray thru no fault of your own, if you have Mutated Infection and are running to the Big Ooze, or if you get sprayed on while spread out from the Ooze Explosion.  Also, it is normally the responsibility of the raid to prevent Radiating Ooze damage by avoiding the Big Ooze if it gets kited too close to the raid – but it is not uncommon to take 1-2 ticks of this damage aura if you run out with Mutated Infection and find that your Little Ooze is being stupid and not merging quickly.  Deaths to these two sources of damage generally require a closer inspection of the Death meter to really figure out what happened.

Professor Putricide

- Putricide is a very difficult fight to analyze meters for.  On one hand, the DPS requirements are steep, and squeezing every ounce of DPS out of your raid is critical, especially on the Volatile Ooze and Gas Cloud adds.  On the other hand, there is so much target switching involved that differences in class mechanics will often play a much larger role than differences in players’ skill.  Also, it is quite possible that players outputting the most DPS on adds may be positioning themselves too aggressively – which they can get away with if they don’t get targeted by the oozes, but which can cause serious problems for your raid if they do get chosen.  In my opinion, on this fight I think for the most part you just have to stack your raid with the players who generally performed the best on earlier fights which are easier to analyze than Putricide, and trust that they’ll do their jobs correctly.

- As far as analyzing the Death or Damage Taken meters, there isn’t a whole lot to find here.  One important thing to watch for is people taking too much unnecessary damage from Malleable Goo.  But beyond that, the main causes of deaths on this fight are either extremely obvious (like if you die to Gaseous Bloat/Ooze Adhesive, or if an Expunged Gas goes off on the raid), or are difficult to analyze what exactly went wrong if people died to the Volatile Ooze Eruption (which can be due to lack of DPS, or people not stacking correctly, or both)

Finally, A Word About Blame

If you’ve read this far, then you probably noticed a recurring theme of mine is analyzing who was “at fault” when people die to various sources of damage.  This is not just so you can go around pointing figures at people for making mistakes.  The point is that if you really want to judge the performance of a DPS player, then you need to take into account both how much damage they are doing on each particular fight, and also how well they keep themselves alive and avoid taking unnecessary damage.  Both of these factors are extremely important for judging DPS, as well as execution of “the little things” like damage on adds, interrupts, dispels, etc.

Finally, it is just a good habit to get into as a raider, to always analyze how you died on every fight, and to ask yourself whether the death was your fault.  If yes, then you need to figure out how you can learn from the mistake and prevent yourself from repeating it in the future.  And if not, then you want to ask yourself if there is anything you can change (either in the fight strategy or your playstyle on that fight) to make it easier on the healers/tanks who are struggling with that particular aspect of the fight – or if your death was just due to dumb luck and no adjustments are needed by anyone.

Part II for Crimson Halls and Frostwing Halls to be continued when I have more experience on these fights…

I’m not going to debate which fight is better for melee and which is better for casters, I want to talk about what melee (and specifically rogues) can do to make the most out of a fight with heavy movement and/or target swapping.

Move Faster

First things first, either take the talents to increase your run-speed or get a boot enchant to give the same effect. Yes, something like Icewalker is modeled as a larger DPS increase and on a fight like Deathbringer Saurfang (and it is), but the reality of the situation is that there are very few fights like that. If you’re a Mutilate rogue, pick up Fleet Footed (you’ve dropped Blood Spatter anyway), retnoobs should get Pursuit of Justice, engineers should already have Nitro Boots and if your class/spec can’t pick up run-speed, there are several enchants. Pick the one that’s best for you, get it and don’t look back.

In todays Warcraft raiding environment, movement is key and being able to move to the right place a the right time is vital. It allows you to stay in just a bit longer before the boom and get back just a bit sooner after the boom. Even ranged classes are doing this. If you head over to EJ right now and ask, “What’s the best boot enchant for a Shadow Priest?” you’ll be given an infraction for not reading the guide which says to use Tuskarr’s Vitality.

I really cannot stress enough just how important this is for melee to have this. You need to move faster. Do not, however, use a meta gem with run-speed; I have never found a situation where this is better than a boot enchant.

Hit Things Sooner

There are a couple things here you can do to help you. First off, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen a rogue swap targets like they’re supposed to but just stand there like an idiot for 2 seconds looking at the new target before attacking, I’d be a very rich man. I can tell you what’s happening. That player is at his keyboard, furiously pounding on Sinister Strike or Mutilate… with no energy. As much as you mash that keybind, you won’t start attacking until you’ve reached 40 or 55 energy. The key here is the key with all classes: make a macro and bind it to your combo builder or your first attack. Here’s what yours should look like as a Mutilate rogue:

#showtooltip Mutilate
/startattack
/cast Mutilate

This leads right into my next tip.

Know Your Targets Ahead of Time

Let me tell you a little story. Back in TBC, just before I joined LoD I was in another guild which was doing quite well but by no means competing for top honors and kills on my server. Sporting my T5 and a good mix of SSC gear (Talon/PvP, lol) I got invited to run Zul’Aman with some of my friends and their friends from the top guild. It was a bear run and I was really excited to be going. It was hardly my first bear run but at the time it was pretty rare for me to run with a crew of that caliber of both skill and gear. And also to my delight I would be running side-by-side with arguably the top rogue on the server. In the end, one of my shaman friends won the bear that night but I walked away from the whole run scratching my head in disbelief.

In my SSC gear I had kept up with a T6 rogue with a Glaive in nearly every fight and in at least one fight I had even edged him out. I was a bit heartbroken to say the least. At the time I really didn’t understand why or how that could happen. Was my gear better? Certainly not. Was the other rogue not really trying? Well, maybe, but it was a timed bear run so I’d like to think he had tried to do his best. We were both fully buffed (I checked). For the longest time it was an enigma that I just couldn’t get out of my head.

That is until a while back when I updated my macros for an upcoming fight in Ulduar. Looking at those macros I got an idea just what had happened and went back at the logs from the Z’A run to see (yes, I have a log of every raid I’ve ever been in since sometime in 2006). As it turns out, I was just playing a different game. While he was likely using tab or some other method for finding his new targets when they came up, I had planned ahead and put those targets into my attack macro above and was getting to the targets a lot faster than he was. In a fight like Halazzi that can make all the difference. When the totem comes up you need to get right on it and then back on him as fast as possible. If you’re slow in switching targets or smack the Lynx a few times first you can end up with a difference in damage done to your primary targets. Over the course of a run something as small as being prepared like that can really add up.

So how do you do that? It’s actually very simple. Just add a few more lines to the macro like I’ve done below and put the highest priority targets at the bottom. When you get the warning that one of those targets is up, hit the alt key and your attack key (I have it set up so I can just tilt my hand slightly to do this).

#showtooltip Sinister Strike
/startattack
/stopmacro [nomodifier:alt]
/target Halazzi
/target Corrupted Lightning Totem

On a fight like Jaraxxus hard mode when the portals come up this isn’t a huge time-saver, after all there’s only one other target. But when you get to fights like Lady Deathwhisper where you have multiple targets all standing near each other it can make all the difference in the world. While they’re not all out yet, I guarantee that more fights in Icecrown will have high priority targets that need to be hit quickly.

Use All Your Abilities

You know all those PvP skills you have? Yeah, they work in PvE too. It really isn’t all about attacking. For instance, just like in PvP if you disarm a mob, nine times out of ten he can’t whirlwind or cleave anymore and that means you can stay in. Rogues, Feint is your best friend in ICC. Pallies, use your bubble, 50% damage is a hell of a lot better than the 0% you get when you move away. Hand of Freedom through the slows, Cloak of Shadows for debuffs that force you to move away (although you should be aware that this isn’t always the best idea). Charge, Intervene, and Ghost Wolf (especially the sexy instant kind) should be at the ready when you need to move.

The list of abilities players should be using but aren’t is just staggering. Remember, just because an ability doesn’t directly increase your DPS directly doesn’t mean it can’t be used to.

Make Sure You’re Doing the Right Job

Raid leaders aren’t perfect. They lead the raid, plan strategies, make sure all the important bases are covered, do their best to keep everyone motivated and a huge list of other tasks. I did it for a short while and at some points it was almost soul-crushing. One thing that isn’t on their list is the optimization of the way you play. If your raid leader assigns the you (a rogue) to one target and a kitty to another but you and the kitty think you could do more DPS if you swapped targets, tell him. Every class has different skills and if each of you has skills that favor the others target, then it would behoove you to bring it up. I guarantee that if you aren’t a dick about it he’ll gladly swap your jobs.

The challenge: Build a Ret DPS set using gear from Emblems of Triumph, 5 man instances, and reasonably priced BOE pieces, which would enable a skilled player to jump straight into normal mode 25 man Icecrown Citadel and contribute solid enough DPS to earn their raid spot.

The result: An epic gear set with a Rawr-estimated 7500 DPS, which would be reasonably obtainable in around a month, by only running 5 man heroics and daily quests!

Before we start, a Disclaimer!

The set I list will only be one of many possible ways that someone could gear up a new Ret Paladin.  For each gear slot I’ll list many other possibilities that could be better to use, based on whether they are realistic for you to acquire.  As always though, use Rawr to determine whether something really is an upgrade for you, and keep in mind that changing one piece can lead to many other “best items” changing, due to the hit and expertise caps.  If you aren’t familiar with using Rawr, check out my guide for using the Ret Paladin module!

A note about Set Bonuses:

• Tier 10: both set bonuses are incredible for Tier 10.  2 piece is a great DPS bonus, and adds a ton of FUN to the Ret dps rotation.  4 piece is kinda boring, but a great DPS increase nonetheless.
• Tier 9: The 2 piece bonus is extremely good.  4 piece is very weak, but slightly better than nothing
• Tier 8: Back in Ulduar, the 2 piece bonus was horrible and the 4 piece bonus was awesome.  But by this point it doesn’t matter, the low ILVL on this gear makes the set bonuses not worth worrying considering.
• Tier 7: Forget about it

Ultimately your goal will be 4 pieces of T10 plus one offset piece.  But since this will take a ton of Emblems of Frost, you’ll want to get 2 piece T9 as soon as possible.  Your gear progression should probably look like:

1. 2 piece T9 + 3 best other pieces (may include 4 piece T9 bonus, may not)
2. 2 piece T9 + 2 piece T10 + 1 other
3. 4 piece T10 + 1 other

Helmet

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 helmet (50 Emblems).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies

Other options:

• Judgement Hood (Onyxia 25), Judgement Hood (Onyxia 10), and Faceplate of Silver Champion (ToC 10) are a couple stat points above their respective versions of T9.  If people are still running Onyxia or ToC 10 man on your server, you can save yourself some Emblems if you score any of these helmets first.
• Helm of Thunderous Rampage (75 Emblems) is better than the 232 version of T9, unless you net a set bonus from your T9 helmet
• Frayed Scoundrel’s Cap (Forge of Souls) and Eyes of Bewilderment (Forge of Souls) are both better if they don’t cost you a set bonus – although you’ll have to work around the LFG loot system not allowing you to roll Need

Necklace

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Barbed Ymirheim Choker (Pit of Saron).

Other options:

• Wodin’s Lucky Necklace (BOE, ICC25) and The Executioner’s Malice (BOE, ToC25) are significantly better options, but I highly doubt you’ll find either of these BOEs at a price that I could get away with calling “reasonable”, unless money is no object for you
• I debated including Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant (Onyxia 10 or 25) on my list instead of the PoS necklace, since the quest item is a guaranteed drop for 1 person on each Onyxia kill, so it is relatively easy to get.  But I left it off since it technically requires a raid to obtain.  This is a very good option that you should look into, but keep in mind that the extra hit on this necklace will likely change your “best” items on other parts of the list.
• Favor of the Dragon Queen (Naxx25/Malygos25) and Spiked Battleguard Choker (19 Emblems) are not as good as the PoS necklace, but decent backup options if you have bad luck with your 5 man drops.

Shoulders

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Shoulders (30 Emblems).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies

Other options:

• Pauldrons of Trembling Rage (45 Emblems) is exactly the same as the 245 T9, and probably worth getting unless it costs you a set bonus
• Spaulders of the Snow Bandit (ToC 10) and Pauldrons of the Timeless Hunter (ToC 10) are both a tiny bit better, if ToC is an option for you

Cloaks

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Tapestry of the Frozen Throne (Halls of Reflection)

Other options:

• Drape of the Untamed Predator (BOE, ToC 25) is a huge upgrade, but will likely cost you a ton of money if you can find one on the AH at all
• Shawl of the Shattered Giant (BOE, Ulduar 10) is a very tiny upgrade, and probably not worth the money unless you find it cheap or just really want to avoid Halls of Reflection
• Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (25 Emblems) is a downgrade, but probably your best backup option if you can’t get the HoR cloak to drop

Chest

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T10 Chest (95 Emblems of FROST).  This one is cheating a little bit, but since you can get ~20 Emblems of Frost per week solely from heroics and the weekly raid quest, you can still get one piece of T10 in about a month, so I’m allowing myself one piece on the list

Other options:

• Breastplate of Cruel Intent (ToC 25), Cuirass of Calamitous Fate (ToC 25), and Armor of Shifting Shadows (ToC 10) are all well itemized pieces from ToC, but are tough to PUG your way to if they use standard loot rules preventing you from rolling on leather/mail
• Titanium Razorplate (BOE crafted) is actually pretty good even with Armor Penetration (the 3 sockets will do that for you), but between 10 titansteel bars and the 8 crusader orbs, it was a bit too pricy for me to include on this list.  Many people would consider it worth the money though, depends on personal preference
• Frost Wyrm Ribcage (Pit of Saron) isn’t really all that good, but if you do plan to buy the T10 chest first with your Frost Emblems, then this chest will probably be a good piece to use in the meantime

Bracers

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers (BOE crafted).  Of the three ToC craftable bracers, I’d go with the mail ones since they are better itemized and likely cheaper to craft than the plate bracers.

Other options:

• Malykriss Vambraces (Pit of Saron) is only about a 50 DPS downgrade from the crafted bracers so you may rather wait on these to drop than the spend money.  Although one benefit of getting a few crafted items right away when hitting 80 is that they’ll boost your average ILVL and help you get into the ICC 5 mans more quickly.
• Wristbands of Sentinel Huntress (BOE, 60 Emblems) is probably your best backup option if you don’t want the spend on the crafted bracers and can’t get the PoS bracers to drop, but is probably not worth the emblems unless you’re drowning in them (although note that the Emblems don’t need to be from your Paladin since the bracers are BOE)

Gloves

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Gloves (30 Emblems or VoA 10).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies or get lucky in VoA Koralon

Other options:

• Gloves of the Silver Assassin (ToC 10) are extremely well itemized but you have to fight the Rogues/Ferals for them along with Fury Warriors probably
• Gauntlets of Rising Anger (ToC 10) are almost exactly the same as the T9 gloves, might save you some emblems

Belt

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Belt of the Titans (BOE crafted).  The other Ulduar craftable belts are better itemized (WTF 126 stamina!), but one thing I’ve noticed is that expertise is tough to come by on starter gear, so I think this belt is a pretty good value for its cost.

Other options:

• Bloodbath Girdle (ToC 25) is a great direct upgrade if you can get it from a ToC PUG or something
• Flayer’s Black Belt (Pit of Saron) is almost an exact sidegrade, including the expertise.  If you don’t want to spend for the Belt of Titans, see if you can get around the LFG loot system to get this belt
• Belt of Twilight Assassin (28 Emblems) is your best backup option if you don’t want to pay for the crafted belt, and get any of the above belts

Leggings

Captain Heroic’s choice:  T9 Leggings (50 Emblems or VoA 10).  Obviously get the 245 version instead if you can get the trophies or get lucky in VoA Koralon

Other options:

• Legplates of Painful Death (BOE crafted) are obviously a big DPS upgrade, but with the price of Primordial Saronite, these are only an option if money is no object at all
• Legguards of Ascension (ToC 25) is well itemized, and a very good upgrade if you have enough expertise elsewhere.
• There isn’t really anything else I’d consider using – the T9 leggings are very well itemized and will provide much needed expertise, so I’d probably try to get them right away

Boots

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Footpads of Silence (BOE crafted).  These boots are extremely well itemized, and I used them for a long time before I upgraded them.  They’re even relatively inexpensive now that Runed Orbs sell for very little, easily the best bargain for the money of any BOE item on my list.

Other options:

• Footpads of Impending Death (BOE crafted) are incredible – I’m looking to get some crafted myself to use until ICC hardmodes come out.  They’re also incredibly expensive, but these boots will last you a long time if you’re able to drop the 10-15k gold on them (important fashion note!  these things look hideous if you don’t have T8 or T10 leggings!)
• Greaves of the 7^th Legion (ToC 25) are a very good option for boots if you drift away from the Belt/Leggings expertise scheme (like if you get Leggings of Ascension or any ICC level belt)

Rings

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Bloodshed Band (35 Emblems) and Dextrous Brightstone Ring (35 Emblems).  The Bloodshed Band is an obvious choice, and doubles as a great Protribution PVP ring if you do use that spec for PVP.  The DRB isn’t nearly as enticing, but it’s still a pretty good value at only 35 emblems.

Other options:

• I didn’t include Ashen Verdict rings (Friendly, Honored, Revered, Exalted) since they technically require a raid, but they can actually be obtained purely from farming trash mobs if you can find a group doing this.  Even if you don’t raid at all, it is well worth your time to get in a trash farming group to at least get up to Friendly – that would give you a free ILVL251 ring for a couple hours work.
• Ring of Rotten Sinew (BOE, ICC trash) is extremely good (and makes the perfect Protribution PVP ring to pair with Bloodshed Band), but will also likely be extremely expensive.
• Runed Ring of Kirin Tor and Runed Band of KT (9800 to 11750 gold each, depending on Kirin Tor rep) – ok here’s the deal with these, you’re paying 6800-8000 gold to get a 2^nd Dalaran hearthstone, and then if that’s worth it for you, go ahead and pay the last 3000-3750 gold for the upgraded DPS ring.
• The Lady’s Promise (Halls of Reflection) is approximately as good as the Dextrous Brightstone Ring, despite lower ILVL.  So you could save yourself some emblems by getting this ring instead, but it will depend on how much expertise you have elsewhere
• Band of Stained Souls (Pit of Saron) is a downgrade to DRB due to the lower ILVL, but not by all that much since it is optimized better

Trinkets

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Darkmoon Card: Greatness (BOE) and Mirror of Truth (40 Emblems).  Darkmoon Card is VERY much worth the money.  I assembled mine for a combined 14k gold back when we first started running Naxxramas, and I’m still using it 3 tiers of content later.  In order to replace DMC, you’ll need 2 of the following trinkets: Death’s Choice, Whispering Skull, Deathbringer’s Will, and Herkuml War Token.  If you’re reading this list for advice then you won’t be getting two of those four trinkets any time soon – so buy yourself a Darkmoon Card ASAP.  For Mirror of Truth, there are a few other options which are approximately as good, but MoT is arguably the easiest to obtain (especially if you have the Brewfest equivalent trinket).

Other options:

• Needle-Encrusted Scorpion (Forge of Souls) is a tiny bit better than MoT, although you should be prepared for lots of hate from random Rogues, Warriors and Hunters if you use one (doesn’t matter if no one else in the group wanted it, they’ll still hate you)
• Banner of Victory (normal mode Trial of Champion 5 man) is listed by Rawr as a tiny upgrade over MoT, which seems dubious to me – but if Rawr is correct that MoT has a longer internal CD on the AP proc, then I guess it could be true
• Bandit’s Insignia (Naxx 25) is a bit worse than Mirror, but they’re pretty close
• Finally, don’t be afraid to use hit trinkets like Mark of Supremacy (50 Emblems) or Pyrite Infuser (Ulduar 10) if you need the hit rating.  Most people never mention these since it’s generally pretty easy to get hit capped, but these options are out there if you do need the hit.

Libram

Captain Heroic’s choices:  Libram of Valiance (25 Emblems).  Don’t even think of joining a raid without this libram, it is by far the biggest upgrade you’ll get from one single Emblem of Triumph item.  I recommend buying this first out of anything, although if you’ll just be running heroics for a while then you can wait since this libram is worthless in 5 mans, for soloing, and in PVP.

Other options:

• Ultimately you want Libram of Three Truths (30 Emblems of FROST) instead, but this is only a small upgrade over Valiance in raids, so I recommend getting all your Tier 10 pieces first.  The only way I would buy this first is if you care much more about PVP than raiding, and still PVP as Ret instead of Protribution
• Until you get 3 Truths, you’ll want the best arena PVP libram that you are able to get, for those times when you can’t use Seal of Vengeance. The lowest available version doesn’t actually require a PVP team, only 15k honor points, so there’s really no excuse to not have at least this version
• Please don’t ever use the Divine Storm Libram or Crusader Strike Libram!  They are horrible under any and all circumstances – even when you do have 4 targets to hit with Divine Storm, any PVP libram is still better.  You’re better off just leaving your libram slot empty and telling people that you left it in your bank, you’ll get less /facepalms this way than if you use either of these librams

Main Hand Weapon

Captain Heroic’s choice:  Last, but certainly not least, I’ll go with Tyrannical Beheader in the all important weapon slot.  Its stats certainly aren’t itemized all that well, but high Weapon DPS and slow speed will always be the most important factors, so this weapon is a good starter weapon for sure.

Other options:

• Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter (ICC 25).  I’ve been avoiding putting ICC raid gear on this list so far, but Brynntroll is best in slot until ICC hardmodes come out, and it drops off the very first (and very puggable) boss in ICC.  It was nerfed a bit recently, but it will still be very much worth getting.
• Shadow’s Edge (ICC 25 questline) is the ultimate in extremely expensive BOEs, but technically anyone can get this weapon (which may end up better than Bryntroll after the nerf) with “only” 50k gold and a kill on Rotface/Festergut in ICC25.
• Justicebringer (ToC 25) is a solid DPS upgrade, from a quick puggable raid instance
• Sharpened Obsidian Edge Blade (Onyxia 25) and to a lesser extent the Keen OEB (Onyxia 10) can both be better weapons, although they require redoing your expertise items
• Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon (Halls of Reflection) is a sidegrade to the Tyrannical Beheader, also from an ICC 5 man
• If you’re just starting out, there are several options for ILVL219 weapons until you can get a 232 or higher weapon, including Garfrost’s Two-Ton Hammer (Pit of Saron normal mode), Mourning Malice (Halls of Reflection normal mode, Marrowstrike (ToC 5 heroic), and Edge of Ruin (ToC 5 heroic).

The Results

295 Emblems of Triumph, 95 Emblems of Frost, a few ICC 5 man drops, and around 10k gold worth of crafted items, and you should end up with unbuffed stats looking something like 4400 AP, 33% crit, 13% haste, with 8% hit and 6% expertise.  Not too bad at all, you should definitely be able to pull your weight in raids with those stats, with plenty of room for gear improvement as you start obtaining better items in ToC or Icecrown raids.  Just remember though, this list is only a fraction of the items out there, so always use Rawr on your own to determine whether something is right for you to use!

Where we came from:

First off, when WotLK was in development, rogues were buggy as hell. We finally had what looked like two viable raiding specs but there are always problems. Bugs that gave extra poison procs, talents that gave 15% crit instead of 3% (stacking 5/5 Deadly Poison for a 3% raid buff should give me 15% crit, right?), etc and a few others meant we were blowing everyone away on the 3.0 PTR. Of course these things were fixed when 3.0 went live but the problem was that several abilities were balanced on those bugged numbers. Then 3.1 and 3.2 brought PvP changes that directly affected PvE; most nerfs were compensated for by buffs but it really wasn’t as equitable as we’d like. The long and the short is that we became even more dependent on auto-attacks for damage and spending time-on-target which, as a melee class, isn’t often realistic. Many other melee classes have specials that hit hard enough that after coming back to a target they can frontload some damage to make up for at least a little time lost. Because most abilities have a fairly high energy cost we only get one or two attacks and often we have to make sure that those lead back into our “rotation.”

By mid-Ulduar and through ToC, Combat was taking a front seat in the rogue world. The two raid buffs (4% increased physical damage and an MS affect) were vital to progression and the fights were set up in such a way that short periods of DPS burst were timed very well with Combats cooldowns. Mutilate was still competitive in single target fights but there weren’t any of those to speak of in 3.1 and 3.2. Just like in TBC, Combat was King.

Where we are now:

Patch 3.3 has really shaped up to be a much better patch for rogues though. We got some much needed buffs, most of which are for Mutilate but they do bleed over into Combat as well. The first being my long-standing problem with Murder. I mentioned it in my own Q&A post back in June ’09 and Blizzard finally responded in 3.3 with, “Murder: This talent now provides a flat damage increase of 2/4% against all targets, instead of only targets which do not appear in Icecrown.” Blizzard knew the score and they knew it wasn’t fair.

The other major buff was to Deadly Poison. Deadly Poison was in danger in going the way of the dodo. Actually, that’s not quite true. Because Deadly Poison was the only pure DoT, rogues were using addons and macros to weapon swap. Invoking a forced weapon swap that denied a dual wield class the use of both weapons for one out of every six seconds was higher DPS than simply using the poison Blizzard gave us. I think Madsushi said it best with:

If you Lacerate when you already have a 5 stack on your target, they take some amount of damage instantly, in addition to refreshing the effect. If you proc Deadly Poison when you’re already at 5 stacks? Nothing but a stack refresh and a nice pat on the back for being a good rogue and remembering to use the right poisons.

Blizzard has now added a secondary effect to Deadly Poison and has also blocked/disabled the addon that allowed rogues to weapon swap. In the end, this was a big buff to Mutilate and a minor buff to Combat (which changed it’s default build to take full advantage of this buff). The buff to Mutilate through this change was actually strong enough that Blizzard nerfed Hunger For Blood by 5%. When a buff is big enough to warrant a straight-up 5% nerf on all damage in the next build, you know it was a big buff.

Mutilate vs. Combat

The question then becomes, which is better, Mutilate or Combat? The answer, to no ones surprise, is one of much heated debate.

In theory, Mutilate is estimated to be somewhere on the order of 1500-1800 DPS ahead of Combat in BiS gear. That means on stationary, single target fights, Mutilate will dominate. And I believe it! My first week in Icecrown (which wasn’t actually week 1) during the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter I played Mutilate and messed up my positioning horribly (during Heroism no-less). My DPS dropped by half for at least 30 seconds and I still came out on top and with as high or higher DPS than any class we’ve seen on non-gimmick fights. If I had had more than a single try at that fight, there’s no reason I couldn’t have broken 11K DPS in only ToC gear. No gimmicks, no weird buffs, just full-on rogue. And because there are more than five bosses in Icecrown, this is a real boon. Deathwhisper and her shield, Saurfang, and more to come will play very well to Mutilate and you can expect to see Mutilate rogues crushing many other DPS classes in single target fights.

So does that mean that Combat has been de-throned? Not at all! Combat is all about burst, cooldowns and smacking things hard and fast. Mutilates biggest weakness is target swapping. Ask a Mutilate rogue to work on adds and he’s going to fall flat when compared to any other DPS. It takes Mutilate a good 10 seconds to ramp up their DPS and in 10mans will often have to put up their own bleeds which delays things even longer. Combat, however, turns on the heat right away and can swap targets as well as any other melee class. Couple that with some very great cooldowns like Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry, and Killing Spree and you have some really good burst capabilities that Mutilate will never be able to match. ICC fights like Marrowgar, Deathwhisper’s adds and the Gunship Battle play right into Combats burst and cooldowns. Because of cooldowns and Combat Potency, Combat also has a much stronger potential for Fan of Knives (the rogue AoE).

This also brings up another big difference, both Mutilate and Combat are blended when it come to damage, some of it is physical and some of it magical (poisons/nature) but the proportions of each in both specs is quite different. Mutilate is now somewhere around 55% magical damage with the remainder being physical while Combat is only about 27% magical with the vast majority being physical damage.

Pick One Already!

I wish it were that simple. The problem comes in the fact that while both specs will use a lot of the same pieces of gear in ICC, their gemming strategies are quite different. You can try to blend your gemming for both but the end result is that you’re not going to excel in either. Couple that with the fact that rogues are a dual wield class which opens up another problem when it comes to choosing a spec and gearing. A lot of guilds run on DKP and just assign a single value to weapons and won’t let rogues get “offspec discounts” because hey, offspec’ing sounds like cheating when you have three DPS talent trees. So if weapons cost 100 DKP, the paladin gets his 2hander for 100 and can offspec that tank weapon and shield for nothing while the rogue pays 200 for his daggers and another 200 for his swords (nevermind the fact that we need two matching drops and not just one).

So, because of potential gem issues and gear issues (don’t forget that feral druids want combat’s gear!), we have to pick one. There are two schools of thought on how to pick. You can either pick the spec that is favored by the most fights in the instance or you can pick the one based on the hardest fights in the instance. But with only four fights available right now and no hard modes we have no idea what the ideal spec for either of those is.

Another idea is to say that raid buffs are going to play heavily into the answer and if we look at other classes we might be able to make some inferences. Let’s have a quick look:

Mutilate brings one raid buff in the form of 3% additional crit to your target. This buff is also most notably brought by retribution paladins (and both holy and prot can bring it as well if needed). With ret being so prevalent it’s highly unlikely that even a 10man raid won’t have a ret paladin (or an elemental shaman). In fact, earlier in WotLK it was common for Mutilate rogues to not even take the talent as it was so common and they could get better DPS elsewhere.

Combat brings two buffs in the form of a 4% increased physical damage (the default MS effect is now defunct in 3.3). The only other source for this buff is the now dwindling number of arms warriors. Arms was very powerful in early WotLK but as gear levels have increased, Fury has climbed up top in most warriors minds. That makes Combat very desirable for both it’s burst and it’s debuffs.

Honestly though, while raid buffs are important, having an off-spec with non-optimal gems and so-so weapons is usually perfectly acceptable.

Enough chatter, pick one!

So what do I say and what am I doing? Well, I’m playing Mutilate in 3.3. I’ve played Combat all through Ulduar and ToC and now I want back into Mutilate. For all the rest of you out there, pick the one you want to play. I don’t know for sure but it appears there are fights that cater to both in ICC and if a certain raid buff is really that vital to downing the boss then it should be acceptable to off-spec the other with less-than-optimal gear and gems.

In the end it isn’t a player who conquers the encounter with his leet deeps (or whatever the kids call it these days), superior burst, fantastic tanking or clutch healing. All these things are great but you can have these things and still fall flat when it comes to encounters in Warcraft. When played well, both specs are perfectly capable of putting out the necessary DPS to complete the encounters and when you play the spec you enjoy, I found it tends to do better. =D