Mutilate Vs. Combat Swords – Rogues in WotLK
Posted on November 30th, 2008 by Adamantite under Efficiency Tips, World of Warcraft, WotLK
Combat Specialization has always been a no brainer for any rogue who wanted to raid. On October 14, 2008 Patch 3.0 exploded onto Live Realms. When Blizzard finished putting the fires out on October 16th, Rogues came to find that Mutilate could be twisted into a viable raiding build. Now with 10 more talent points to spend, and a new DPS class to contend with, rogues have been forced to weigh their options to figure out how to dominate raid DPS in Wrath of the Lich King. The following is a head to head comparison between the two strongest raiding builds.
Mutilate
Sample Mutilate Rotation: Mutilate (To 5 Combo Points), Slice and Dice, Mutilate (To 5 Combo Points), Rupture, Repeat.
Pros:
9% DPS Buff – Hunger For Blood (3% per stack, 9% total)
9% Critical Hit Chance – Master Poisoner (3% on Poisoned Targets) / Turn the Tables (6% on Party/Raid Member Dodge/Parry/Block)
6% Bonus Damage (Specials Only) – Find Weakness
Improved Expose Armor – Great for groups without a warrior tank (Expose Armor prevents warriors from gaining a great deal of threat with Sunder Armor)
More Combo Points per Energy Point – (60 Energy for 2 combo points = 30 Energy per combo point)
Cons:
Energy Inefficiency – 30 Energy every 30 seconds to maintain 3 Hunger For Blood stacks, Mutilate 60 Energy (High down time between attacks)
Limited Poison Usage – Limited to Wound, Crippling, Mind Numbing and Deadly Poisons. (No Instant or Anesthetic)
Poison Immunity – Bosses that are poison immune (Such as Curator in TBC) will cause drastic drop in DPS
Lack of Glyphs – Very Few Major Glyphs to support this spec
Combat Swords
Sample Combat Swords Rotation: Sinister Strike (To 5 Combo Points), Slice and Dice, Sinister Strike (To 5 Combo Points), Rupture, (Optional: Sinister Strike to 2-5 combo points, Eviscerate) Repeat.
Pros:
20% Critical Damage – Prey on the Weak (Only when Rogue’s total health percentage is higher than Target’s)
10% Energy Regeneration – Vitality (11 Energy per Second vs. 10 Energy per Second)
Burst Damage – Blade Flurry (20% Attack Speed) and Adrenaline Rush (100% Bonus Energy Regeneration) increase DPS drastically during some boss’s vulnerable periods
5% Extra Attack Proc – Every attack has a chance to increase your DPS by striking a second time
Improved Slice and Dice – Increases Slice and Dice duration by 50% giving time for another step in DPS rotation
Cons:
Lower Critical Hit Rate – Stacking attack power over agility and the lack of some critical hit talents leads to a lower critical rate.
Less Combo Points per Energy Point – Sinister strike gives 1 combo point per 40 energy
Conclusion:
While both specializations show great promise Combat Swords has a slight edge over Mutilate. While doing less damage per point of energy, Combat Swords makes up for it with superior “White” damage from auto attacks. Superior energy regeneration and another step in rotation can really push Combat past Mutilate’s high damage and insane critical hit rate. Both tend to be very gear dependant but at a similar gear level we suggest Combat Swords to dominate the DPS charts.
Nooowwww how bout a PvP build =]]]
Mutilate can also be one of the best PvP Builds out there with a few slight modifications. I’ve been a huge PvPer since the start of Arena Season 2. I’ll be sure to work on some Builds and Tips for my next article.
what about a suptlety, honour among theves spec, was using this on my rogue last week or so WOTLK, imba DPS as combo point for the crits eaning that in a decent raid u almost never have to use none finishing moves
Does this mean combat daggers is now officially obsolete?
Yes, i tried it out and its horrrrrrrible! dropped my dps significantly
what about sub rogues?
I believe Turn the Tables only works with mutilate, not white attacks. so that 6% crit isn’t even half as good as it sounds. Also, with mutilate if you choose to you can get the talent that refreshes S&D every time you use eviscerate or envenom. Personally i go 44/17/10, to get duelwield spec. Dagger spec. and Oppertunity, along with relently strikes, and if you choose, you can get imp slice and dice.. This spec would give a great damage boost over hunter for blood, or turn the tables. I haven’t tested this spec in raids because i decided to lvl my pally once i hit lvl 75. But it is a good spec to keep in mind. Plus I’ve played a rogue for almost 3 years and personally never enjoyed combat as a DPS spec.
I must say while most this information is acurate not all of it is so. First off let me start by saying that I’m a huge mutilate fan (have been since patch 2.0.w/e). Alright now on to the actual information. First off your Mutilate Rotation is off It should read Garrote(opener) > Mutilate > Envenom > Mutilatex2 (some times one if you get a nice double crit) > Rupture > (usualy by now you have to use Hunger for blood again) and from here you continue from the Envenom on. Alright secondly in your cons section you state that you are limited to posions however this is untrue as long as one hand has the mentioned list , I personaly use Instant (MH) and deadly (OH for envenom wich I prefer over evicerate this is a prefrence thing). Finaly the last thing I noticed was that you say in your conclusion that Combat does slightly better DPS. I have to disagree with this statement, I have also found from researching forums such as Elietistjerks and Allakhazam that the numbers generaly run about 5% higher in favor of mutilate. When I’ve crunched the numbers and tested whats commonly accepted as the best for both builds (10 minute run (to elimate error) on target dummies using DPS meter to track my DPS) I have found similar results with about a 10% (Probably mostly due to the fact that I have less experiance with combat swords). If any one cares to know the build I used is http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIuVo0xV0hZxb .
P.S. Gavin I love your guides and usualy can’t wait to read them this is my first time posting just wanted to get my 2 cents in.
your rotation is fail. how are you going to make your first finisher envenom.. you need to SND first so when you envenom your SND is refreshed.
Garrote > Mutilate > SND > Mutilatex2 > Envenom > Mutilatex2 > Rupture > HFB > Mutilatex2 > Envenom
only need mutx2 if u dont get the CP’s from crits.
wire5, the talent built you have linked is pretty much the one i’m using. The problem i’m having i think is due to lack of proper gear. I also use the same poisons. So all in all it looks like i’m on the right track i just need to run heroics and get rep up and better gear. Thanks for the helpful post!
Lots of things wrong here
“Sample Mutilate Rotation: Mutilate (To 5 Combo Points), Slice and Dice, Mutilate (To 5 Combo Points), Rupture, Repeat.”
This is wrong as hell. If you open with garrote, then use SnD, you have enough time to mutilate once, then eviscerate or envenom to get a full 5 CP SnD. Then you never SnD again, you mut to 4+R/4+E/N repeat.
“9% Critical Hit Chance – Master Poisoner (3% on Poisoned Targets) / Turn the Tables (6% on Party/Raid Member Dodge/Parry/Block)”
This is over written by any ret pallies in the group; if a raid has to choose between a ret and rogue, they’d likely pick ret for the extra buff.
“Improved Expose Armor – Great for groups without a warrior tank (Expose Armor prevents warriors from gaining a great deal of threat with Sunder Armor)”
Your raid will lose more dps if you use EA then if you just continue to do your job.
“Energy Inefficiency – 30 Energy every 30 seconds to maintain 3 Hunger For Blood stacks, Mutilate 60 Energy (High down time between attacks)”
The energy you dont spend in SnD is spent here. Furthermore Focused Attacks yields more energy over a period of time than vitality
“Limited Poison Usage – Limited to Wound, Crippling, Mind Numbing and Deadly Poisons. (No Instant or Anesthetic)”
Actually, if you spec for improved poisons, WP does more damage than IP anyway. Who the hell uses Anesthetic poison when you have TotT?
“10% Energy Regeneration – Vitality (11 Energy per Second vs. 10 Energy per Second)”
When compared to Focused Attacks this is actually inferior
“Burst Damage – Blade Flurry (20% Attack Speed) and Adrenaline Rush (100% Bonus Energy Regeneration) increase DPS drastically during some boss’s vulnerable periods”
Other than C’thun, there aren’t really any “vulnerable periods” on bosses in WotLK as of 3.0
The optimal spec for mutilate is 51/13/7, I don’t recall the swords build offhand
If you spread sheet both specs you will find that mutilate does more dps than swords overall =/
“If you open with garrote, then use SnD, you have enough time to mutilate once, then eviscerate or envenom to get a full 5 CP SnD. Then you never SnD again, you mut to 4+R/4+E/N repeat.”
Unfortunately if you miss a crit here your rotation is shot, any rotation that is reliant on a critical strike can cause complications.
“Your raid will lose more dps if you use EA then if you just continue to do your job.”
This is very dependant on your raid composition, a raid heavy in physical damage will benefit more, hunters, feral druids, ret paladins, fury warriors, rogues, enhancement shamans, deathknights would all benefit from less armor on a raid boss. Effectively this should raise the whole raid’s DPS.
“Actually, if you spec for improved poisons, WP does more damage than IP anyway. Who the hell uses Anesthetic poison when you have TotT?”
You’re probably referring to vile poisons on the damage increase, which in turn would increase the damage of all poisons still leaving Instant Poison superior to Wounding. Anesthetic is a personal preference, it has a greater proc rate than that of other poisons and while does less damage causes no threat, Tricks of the Trade may be nice, but has quite a long cool down to be relied upon solely.
“The energy you dont spend in SnD is spent here. Furthermore Focused Attacks yields more energy over a period of time than vitality”
Focused Attacks does yield more energy than vitality alone, given that the rogues crit is high enough to proc more than once every 3 seconds, however Combat Potency’s 15 energy proc more than makes up for this. Focused Attacks would have to net you 15 energy (5 crits) in the time a fast offhand hits the target 5 times. Mutilate has a lot of down time and slow weapons, two mutilates (120 energy) will leave you dealing nothing but mediocre white damage for 6 seconds while you build up the energy for another mutilate. Of course this is an unlikely no crit scenario but you see my point.
“Other than C’thun, there aren’t really any “vulnerable periods” on bosses in WotLK as of 3.0″
While C’thun may be one of the more fearsome bosses in Wrath of the Lich King, many other bosses may have vulnerable periods you may not have accounted for. While on the topic of old world examples Curator in Karazahn was one of the few bosses who had both a vulerable period and was immune to poisons, making him a total nightmare for mutilate rogues.
Many other bosses exist that change forms (Nalorakk the Bear Lord in Zul’Aman) or spawn adds (Anub’Rekhan of Naxxaramas). Often DPS must be diverted from the boss. This is where burst damage can make a world of difference. When your DPS is limited to 30 – 60 seconds at a time in between adds or phases, a nice bit of burst will be very helpful.
Other than those minor discrepancies, your arguments are completely valid.
FYI, fast daggers yield more DPS than slow ones in a raid. l2spreadsheet
ok. first of all. why would anyone ever use enevonem. the poisen tick is around 800 a second now. getting rid of your deadly poisen ticks can nerf ur dps so much its ridiculous. eviscrate is a much better choice. plus i tested mutialte on my rogue and simply. it sucks. there is 2 much variable in the boss fights to keep up a good rotation. if you people have run naxx yet (not sure how long ago this was posted) the fights are not just tank and spank. same with maly ( got him down last night /cheer) there is 2 much moving and target switching.
plz reply wanna knoe what u think
You’re forgetting a few key things that tips the scales heavily in favor of Mutilate.
1 – Poisons scale with Attack Power. They scale very well. Poisons make up anywhere from 20%-30% of my damage in any given raid, depending on group buffs.
2 – Cut to the Chase ensures that you will rarely, if ever have to use Slice and Dice more than once. (Refreshes SnD on Envenom/Eviscerate)
3 – Focused Attacks, joined with fast weapons and Relentless Strikes makes for a lot of energy returns, allowing you to maintain aggressive rotations.
Instant Poison on a fast Main Hand dagger, Deadly Poison on a fast offhand makes the best combination. Thanks to the buff to envenom, I often see 3-5 stacks of Deadly up on a target after every envenom before deadly even ticks again. I’ve seen close to 2k instant poison crits, raid buffed, and 8k envenom crits.
Seal Fate and Puncturing Wounds synergize very well with one another, and you end up with 3 combo points per mutilate far more often than 2. Combined with Ruthlessness and you can use a finisher (envenom for example) Mutilate, and have a 4 point rupture on the target all in the space of a few seconds.
I’ve seen sustained 3.4k dps (raid buffed) on bosses in heroic/pre heroic/some naxx quality gear, and dps peaks with Bloodlust over 4k.
he included poisons, but there are alot of bosses who are immune to poison, especially in wotlk
Which ones? I haven’t encountered any thus far..
lol, same here. Have not run into a poison immune boss yet. Do you really think blizz would make poison even more important and effective then go make all the bosses immune. Besides he including poison but not Instant which just shows he knows nothin about the spec
I have an 80 rogue. I do some raiding, but mostly PvP. I’m really glad you made this guide considering most PvE rogue don’t know how to build their spec (myself included, especially this new patch). I have been playing rogue for about 4 years. Frankly rogue isn’t really that great for PvE, as far as PvP, rogue is dominant. However i have recently noticed Rogue class has been gimped for leveling. I can honestly say i had an extremely difficult time getting from 70 to 80. It seems like rogue has really fallen behind, i could barely 1v1 half the mobs. Idk, its been frustrating, but thanks for posting this
I leveled as combat swords and it was not that tough. I have recently switched to a mutilate build with daggers after hitting 80. The main difference I have noticed is in the ability to handle multiple mobs at one time. With combat, I could easily handle 3-4 mobs that were 2-3 levels above me. Not so with mutilate. But, with mutilate it is much easier to stun lock and the pts generated are unreal. After being combat all the way through 80 (with a brief try at subt) I am finding more pts than I can use! lol! The crits with mut are so much higher.
More importantly, where is the gold guide?
I agree with the few posters above, PvE raid dps is mutilate, combat really has no place anymore, and even then the best compat raid spec is fist/daggers.
UrBad basically stated all the things I was going to say, so I’ll leave it at that. Love the guides and advice you guys give, but perhaps you shouldn’t stray into an area that (obviously) you havn’t got experiance with.
Cheers.
Combat fist maby… daggers get less dps for attack power than other melee weps if im not mistaken.
Ive seen combat top my dps and also fail miserably… its really a question of gear, skill, and weapon preference.
Daggers – Mutalate
Swords/Fists – Combat
People generally don’t raid with maces, or anything for that matter now that it doesnt stun. Were more suited to shanking things anyway.
Sub is pvp, you dont raid as sub, thats that.
Even for pvp, ive seen some heated arguments for ful sub dagger or shadowstep/assasination swords. ATM, sub dagger hands down because no one really has any resilience to eat through your redicuouls ambush crits. Ive seen a 3 sec kill on a priest.
Prem – Ambush – Kidney Shot, you can probably take down anyone but plate before kidney ends.
One of the benefits not mentioned above to the Mutilate build is that daggers are a lot easier to come by than swords, though I’m still a big fan of Combat swords. Sword spec makes an excellent solo spec too, Adrenaline Rush and Evasion combo’s will largely see you happily through fighting elites, even ones who refuse to be stunned.
how bout a blog on all respecs. for each class since the xpac? gear it (pros /cons) along what you are doing for the rouges.
this is what i used for lvling my rogue (daggers)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogue/talents.html?tal=30530310501210252013330100000500500500050100000000000004020000000000000000000000000
Rotation: Cheap Shot, Mutilate,(if more then 1 mob)Blade Flurry Eviscerate, Mutilate x 2,Eviscerate
i can take out 5-6 mobs at a time and take them out before Blade Flurry ends
i have combat fists which is comparable to combat swords. (i cant find a sword to replace the epic fist i got yet) mutilate rogues are best for raids and here is why. the lvl 80 instant poisons do 550ish damage per proc and thats without the 20% talent buff to damage, so if you get 1.3 daggers that dont do much damage (like the librarian’s paper cutter) and use slice and dice thats a 30% boost to speed and if you have something close to 100 haste, your white hits will be right around .9 in each hand. the poisons will be proccing like mad. there are also haste trinkets and pots and heroism also that im sure would reduce the timer on the daggers to about .3 (thats more than THREE ATTACKS PER SECOND with each weapon)
…..so ya, mutilate kicks ass in raids and groups, but combat is the way to go for all around play imo
oh ya…and if your going with combat, i suggest trying maces…they are overlooked but the 15% armor ignore feature is nuts…when i was 76 i was critting SS for 3k on mobs my level and i just wasted 100g to try it at lvl 80 with 3332ap (unbuffed in any way) and i crit for 4k+ on mobs my level and 5k on caster mobs, i dont get much white damage or poisons damage but its great for farming!
where did u find decent maces to use at 80
i’m a lvl 67 mutilate rogue, and i’ve crit for 4100 so far using envenom…
My rogue is now duel weilding Webbed Death x2 (not unique) off Anub’Rekhan, They are fast epic daggers 1.50. Now I have never been a Muti rogue prior to 80 so I will gladly admit to not knowing everything about maximizing the build, but despite having my hit over 300, building fast combo points, using poisons, and critting frequently with Mutilate and mostly Eviscerate for finishing move, I find myself consistently outdamaged by Huntards, Pali’s, SK’s, Warlocks, Druids and even one Shaman in my guild on boss mobs, sometimes I finish in top 10 in a 25 man, once 4th, 7th, but do not often break into top 5. This is after testing 2 days of Naxx raids. Any suggesstions besides returning to combat and swords?
Micheal,
First off Muti. is a hard spec to maximize. I’ve been using it since it’s debute and still some times flub the rotaitons. Secondly What rotations are you using? Also What posions are you using?
I highly recomend you cheak out some forums such as Elietest Jerks and Allakhazam for good advice on the spec. (though for the love of god read the stickies first).
I just hit 80 and started raiding (I’ve done H Vault and H Obsidian so far). Throughout the raids and dungeons I have done so far my damage has been a littl elackluster I however blame this mostly on my gear. (and a few instances of not knowing the fight/being the sacrifical rogue O.o)
You don’t really know what you’re talking about do you? You completely forgot about the 5% crit. chance from mutilate. Your mutilate attack example is terrible. it should be, cheap shot, mutilate til 5 slice n dice, mutilate to five, rupture, mutilate to 5 evisc mutilate to five rupture and repeat the last 2. with cut to the chase u don’t do s n d again, giving a huge potential for more damage with imp. evisc. Plus even in combat poisons do about third highest damage after sin. strike and white damage so imp. poisons really is big. And how can you be so stupid to say limited poison usage? what the hell are you talking about that makes no sense. if nething mutilate’s better with poisons. you are just terrible.
and u talk about down time inbetween attacks? the amount of time it takes to get sinister strikes up to 5, even with the sinister strike glyph is INSANE amount of down time compared to using mutilate.
right, let me set you straight:
Some bosses remove you from stealth upon rushing in, so ill do the rotation to suit that.
-Mutilate
(im running 37% crit unbuffed+15%mut crit from talents+raid buffs gives mut nearly a 60% chance to crit, so i get 3CB from most mut’s)
-Mutilate again
(should have 5 combopoints now and 5 stacks of deadly, assuming you’ve got it on both weps)
-Envenom
-If you have the second tier talent for 60% chance after using a finisher to put 1CB on the target, then you should have 1CB, if not use shiv.
-Slice and Dice with the 1CB you have
-As SnD is a finisher, you may get another CB, if not shiv again
-Envenom again (with only 1 or 2 CB’s)
-If you have Cut To The Chase, the 1 or 2 point envenom will make your SnD go to its 5 point duration.
-Then start again with Mutx2 for 5CB’s
-Envenom
-Hunger For blood
-repeat mutx2 envenom
Im running about 2.7k DPS with only 1piece of T7(heroes) and the rest HC epics and some naxx10man epics. weps are knife of incision and titansteel shanker. using dual deadly poison. Now that fan of knives has been buffed i can run just under 4k dps on trash.
52/17/2
if any are in doubt about Sword Combat spec check out Vash on skywall server. I watched him carry 6k dps as sword combat and spike at over 12k!!
I have laso seen another Mut Rogue carry 3.8k dps on 25 man nax. Lot depends on rotation and gear. Another rogue and a friend of mine is Niteblade on skywall and he carries 4k dps and usually in 1 or 2 overall dps for our raids and he uses combat fist/dagger. Thing is mut and combat both viable specs. I myself and combat sword spec and on trash mobs spiked over 8k and carry a 3k dps for 25 man nax… is one better than another dunno but find the one that works for you… thats the key
gotta say swords for main hand suck in wotk so I use a mace sword setup until hopefully 3.1 adds some killer MH swords..
until then pick their pockets steal their goodies and laugh insanely as you walk away from the blood ridden corpse
Silkheldar
What do you think will happen in the upcoming patch? MUT’s bonus damage on poisoned targets is down to 20% from 50%, that’s a huge nerf. HfB i being buffed to 1 application for 15% dmg increase though.
Combat Rogues are getting 20% dmg increase while using killingspree.
Will MUT still be viable over combat slowfist/fastsword?
Nice discussion. The links to builds aren’t working now. Can anyone post a good mutilate build pls.
ambush, mutilate, 5pt rupture, h4b, 1pt slice and dice, mutilate x2, coldblood envonom. after that mutilate to 5pt and envenom. repeat until targets dead, if its a boss just start rotation over again once h4b is gone.
envomon refreshed my slice and dice to full 20sec. and full 5pt rupture dot’s the target down 3k or more. if you have attack power trinket and you pop it on before the rupture you’ll do even more. not to mention increased dps throughout the rotation.
idk , works for me
thanks for the help. my rogue just hit eighty and all i have is my boa daggers lol. heroic dungeon swords and axes keep dropping, which are better than my boas, but i keep thinking crap ill loose my mutilate. So i guess its time to respec
tyvm