Rotations Out, Time To Get Your Priorities Straight
The days of set rotations are pretty much gone. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to get in a “groove” and know what buttons to push and when. But it does mean you’re going to need to adjust the way you look at using your spells and abilities. And your priorities will change based on spec and the natural progression of any given fight. Let’s look at the difference with a mutilation rogue rotation vs. priority list.
Rotations Look Like This:
- Stealth > Garrote > Mutilate once > Slice n Dice > Mutilate twice > Rupture > Envenom
Priorities Work Differently:
- flask,type=endless_rage
- food,type=mega_mammoth_meal
- apply_poison,main_hand=instant,off_hand=deadly
- speed_potion,if=!in_combat|buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<20
- stealth
- kick
- pool_energy,for_next=1
- hunger_for_blood,if=buff.hunger_for_blood.remains<2
- slice_and_dice,if=buff.slice_and_dice.remains<1
- rupture,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&target.time_to_die>15&time>10&buff.slice_and_dice.remains>11
- cold_blood,sync=envenom
- envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&buff.envenom.down
- envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&energy>90
- envenom,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=2&buff.slice_and_dice.remains<2
- tricks_of_the_trade
- mutilate,if=buff.combo_points.stack<4
- vanish,if=time>30&energy>50
There’s a LOT more information in the priority list. And even though it may look like greek at first, anyone can learn to decipher all those conditionals; so let’s do that.
Lets’ start with line 4:
- speed_potion,if=!in_combat|buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<20
The “!” means “not.” So you want to use your speed potion only when not under bloodlust and you don’t want to waste it when there is less than 20 seconds before the mob dies. The first bit is a bit of a double negative. You might think it means “NOT”"in combat.” But really it means don’t use it unless you are in combat. The pipes, the vertical lines in the formula (looks like this, | ) mean that the ! applies to all of the variables in the string.
react is another thing you’ll want to look for in these lists. Many times you’ll actually want to save a buff until you’re also under the Bloodlust/heroism buff to get max effect, other times, such as with speed buffs, you’ll want to take advantage of that buff all by itself and then get another boost from B-lust later. SO what this line tells you is that you want to use your speed potion as soon as you can – before anything else, in fact – but only if you are already in combat, not under heroism buff and not unless there are more than 20 seconds left before the mob/boss dies.
Next let’s look at line 8:
- hunger_for_blood,if=buff.hunger_for_blood.remains<2
Command lines like this will tell you precisely when to use certain abilities and buffs. In this case it tells you to wait to refresh Hunger for Blood when you see that you have 2 seconds or less on the buff.
Sometimes you’ll get multiple variables such as line 10:
- rupture,if=buff.combo_points.stack>=4&target.time_to_die>15&time>10&buff.slice_and_dice.remains>11
Which means you only want to use rupture if you have at least 4 combo points, there are more than 15 seconds before the mob dies, you’ve been in combat more than 10 seconds and your slice and dice has more than 11 seconds remaining.
Finally, we have the Sync variable as in line 11:
This tells you to use Cold Blood just before envenom when possible.
Once you’ve sorted all that out you can read it to mean that you open with stealth >Hunger for Blood > mutilate > mutilate to get your 4 combo points. Notice that we’re already way different than the rotation we showed first. Then you’ll Slice and Dice to get the buff up and follow with stacking combo points to 4+. Then it’s Rupture > Cold Blood > Envenom (only with 4 combo points).
After that it’s just back to stacking 4 points and timing rupture when your Slice and Dice falls to 12 seconds left and more points from Mutilate and the conditionals on envenom, which may mean pooling energy from time to time to make sure you are above 90 energy. Of course, you’ll notice that you also will go ahead and use envenom even if you DON’T have 90 energy if the debuff isn’t there since that command takes priority over the energy requirement of the next line.
Plus, if you follow these priorities you never have to worry about losing the SnD buff because you’ll be refreshing it more often with envenom. However, you want to use envenom if your SnD buff drops to 2 seconds or below.
All this means that it’s virtually impossible to build a standard “rotation” any more when you take into account all the variables that go into generating maximum DPS. The great thing is that you can use the Simulationcraft engine to get a priority list built for you along with about a hundred other good bits of info. We talk about using the engine in the post Making Gear Choices For Your Character. We don’t talk about priorities there, but how the engine can help you make gear choices. Every time you get a new piece of gear you can just rerun the engine to generate new Pawn scales.
Of course, you can just get all that information from our class build pages as well. We’re in the process of updating all of the builds for each spec and class for patch 4.0 and cataclysm, so if you’re not an uber theorycrafting geek you can just get the distilled Simulationcraft engine from DYS. We also try to take some of the technical goop out of the lists and put it in a little plainer verbiage.
Oh, and keep in mind that Lawbringer is not a rogue expert by any means. I know you Rogues are super picky, and I do have to admit that the priority list above is going to get some flaming and it’s actually based on a T10 simulation since there aren’t any new ones for 4.0 as of yet. But I do know this: every time I’ve used the priorities from Simcraft to help me figure out how to squeeze more DPS out of my toons – it always works.
So no matter what you’ve been doing, or what you’ve read at elitist jerks, give the priority lists a shot. We can virtually guarantee you’ll learn more about where your DPS really comes from and when to pop your abilities to get the absolute maximum DPS out of any toon or build you ever play.
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