Suggestions for Improving Disocket's DPS

I'm seeing a big difference between Eien's and Disocket's DPS so I took a look at rogue talent specs.

I'm not the most qualified person to comment on rogues. At level 70 on our rogues, Auraku and I could consistently pull 800-900 DPS in pre-attunement removal Kara. We haven't played them since or researched what has changed. Those are our qualifications to comment on rogues - a lot has changed since then and anything I have to say may be completely irrelevant now. What I'm really hoping for is to lure Eien into this thread to teach us all something about rogues.

Here's Disocket's spec, Eien's spec, and Toshcka's spec (the highest DPS rogue I've seen in WOTLK):

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Feathermoon&n=Disocket
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Feathermoon&n=Eien
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Feathermoon&n=Toshcka

Dis, I'd recommend copying either Eien's or Toshcka's spec (they are almost identical) and then work with Eien to figure out a good rotation to use. Defensive talents like Ghostly Strike, Riposte, and Lightning Reflexes are probably still poor talent choices for raid DPS - if you're getting attacked, your tanks and healers should be taking care of the problem, not your talent spec.


Back in the day, the standard combat spec rotation was:
1. Sinister Strike to X combo points
2. Slice and Dice
3. Sinister Strike to Y combo points
4. Rupture

• The Rogue Spreadsheet tells you what X and Y are, but you still feel it out based on your own experience with your own energy production rate. Repeat steps 1-4. NEVER LET S&D OR RUPTURE DROP
  
• Use your cooldowns - Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush when they are up.
  
• Keep a slow weapon in your main hand since SS is based on weapon damage.
  
• Keep a fast weapon in your offhand for more combat potency procs and more poison applications.
  
• The goal was to have big ruptures and a 5-stack of deadly running at all times. Your big damage contributors were suprisingly from dots and autoattack damage
  

Spec and rotations are only part of the formula, the other is gear. I'm sure Eien could tell you what good rogue gear is and where to find it. Then just pick a heroic and and we'll get you geared up!

eien is swords and the last time i had ran or talked to tos they were the same spec granted they both know what they are doing. i tipped dis on where he should try to get gear from in normal and heroic considering that he needed to get more hit rating and i offered him to change his spec to what mine is since he is daggers as well as i am. so in hopes of him taking word to it he might be better we just have to have him change the spec first then have him get the gear. which shouldnt be hard at all

Wow, it looks like all the "Buffs Sinister Strike" talents in combat have been buffed to work with backstab as well. That's pretty exciting! How does combat daggers compare to combat swords now? I wonder how big the DPS loss from rupture and SND would be with the higher energy cost/slower CP production of backstab factored in. BS would have to hit alot harder per energy point than SS to make up for it. Though with the smoother energy production rate, seems like as long as you take imp backstab daggers would be pretty damn competitive...

Hmm....I may have to play my rogue.



















Nah.

Well, I specced my rogue into assassination some time ago to see if it does more dps (answer: it does), but I do still remember the pointers for how to optimize combat-spec dps.

-Firstly, Toshcka's spec is pretty much the cookie cutter combat spec for any combatswords rogue. I don't know about combatdaggers, but I do believe it's rather subpar (though I do know that a fist/dagger combo with points in Close Quarters Combat instead of Sword Specialization is just as effective as combat swords).
-Secondly, you want WOUND POISONS on BOTH of your weapons. Not instant, not deady. WOUND. Believe it or not, wound poisons have more damage per weapon hit than either instants or deadlies. Plus there's a cool debuff.
-Thirdly, what Dranaku says about the rotation is what you should be focusing on during bossfights (aside from the stacking deadly's). Usually, it goes 4 SS's and SnD, then 4 SS's and Rupture. If both of them are stacked and aren't going to drop anytime soon, Eviscerate.
-Fourthly, regarding gear. You want to focus on hit before you focus on anything else. The target is 315 hit rating - at this point, your poisons will stop missing. Expertise is also important, but after you hit about 26 expertise rating, looking into +crit and +AP is good.

tsu brought many of the important factors to what you need. and now that they changed poisons to do damage based on ap as well wound is pretty good i usually use deadly as well just to get an extra dot for the rest of the group not for just myself. but as for assassin rogues ive not run with one in a while so they might of boosted the dps for them greatly since the last time. but as for my spec you can look and see but for the most part i would say for a combat dagger spec its more about getting the hit rating first then finding a balance for the other stats you want. id say that my stats for my spec are well rounded. if anyone remembers Terrinoth the fury war (if anyone has ran with him before) ask Malromen as for my rogue was the only other melee class he has seen beat Ter in damage and match his dps and Terrinoth pushed out 1100 pre wrath. and for now i push out approx. 2300 in the night Naxx 10. since he is dagger i can help him with his spec and gear and give him a few tips on it. and also for rotation i just get about 2 three points (since i have imp snd) then get 3 4 points and use rupture and repeat seeing as evicerate doesnt do much damage for my spec as well as dagger use also...

While this is a month old... and i don't know if it has been fixed or not. But It took me about a week and a half in real time with 2 10 man naxx's and half of a 25 man under my rogue's belt. My gear isn't the best but i decided to try out mutilate after i got "webbed death" and bought a crappy namlak's dagger thingy for offhand even though statistically "librarian's paper cuttter" is supposed to be superior. I know patchwerk is a standstill fight and all but i was able to pull 5.1k dps on him while having to dip into the pool since the 25man raid wanted me to do that and around 4.5 - 4.7k on the other bosse's for the most part. While on our guild 10 mans i was pulling on average i beleive 3 - 3.1k on bosses the last run i was able to do before i came off of leave.

With the new 3.1 patch coming up though, combat is supposed to be getting a huge buff and not be quite so much of a difference between it and mutilate. Just maybe a couple hundred dps below mut. While from everythign i've read fist/dag is the reigning champion on combat dps with an equal or close second with fist/sword. Because of the fact our white hits are no longer able to be capped and so it reduce's the effectiveness of using swords. From everything i've read dagger combat is trash, but i say hey if your dagger is better than the other fists you can use then why the hell not right?

Since i'm the only mutilate rogue i beleive in the guild atm even though i'm still holding out on my fantasy of combat fist/dag, anyone that would like to ask me questions about my experience feel free. There is also a very nice sticky on the official wow forums about mutilate rogue's and stuff i suggest a good read for anyone looking into it!

i had went fist/dag about a month ago and am satisfied with it. but muti is still good for fights that are around the 5 minute mark. ive read multiple forums and saw different scales that people have posted about dps in the two specs with the same gear. also have to put into consideration the chance of ppm for certain enchants on items. but seeing it as 'oh this does more so let's be this spec.' i dont see it as that much... on the actual appearance, i see it as a fun way to test yourself and keep you on wits end on trying to keep up with the other players of your class regardless of gear.