12.04
Eviscerate vs. Envenom: The current debate to end all debates among the rogue community and it’s an interesting one.
A Little History
Back in The Burning Crusade this was a laughable debate. Which was better? Who cares? Your rotation was Slice N Dice and Rupture and you almost never (outside of during an Adrenaline Rush) had the combo points to do anything else. Eviscerate was proven to be the better choice do to the lose of DPS from dropping off all your Deadly Poison stacks but the truth was that it didn’t really matter because you never really used either of them in an raid environment.
What’s Changed?
Short answer: A Lot! Poisons now scale with attack power (which is so friggin amazing) and Envenom got a bit of a rework. Envenom ignores the extra armor of bosses for a nice little damage boost. In addition, Envenom adds a 15% chance to poison your target for 1 second + 1 second per combo point used. With the new scaling of poisons with attack power, you can see how this would be beneficial. But why does this all matter? Have our rotations changed that much? Oh you bet they have. The increased duration from the Glyph of Slice N Dice and the Glyph of Rupture give us a lot more time to play with. Combat rogues have the Glyph of Sinister Strike hooking us up with some extra combo point love and Mutilate rogues (Assassination was already a combo point generating phenom) have the wonder that is Cut to the Chase. The fact of the matter is our rotations are no longer so set in stone and we have openings to use these other attacks, it’s an exciting time and the debate is raging on which of our 2 E’s are the best choice.
So Which Is It?
Well, there just hasn’t been enough time to come up with a 100% solid answer. A lot of modeling has been done with no definitive answer and we’ve yet to see just how well these abilities are going to scale with gear. The general consensus is that Envenom is the choice for Mutilate rogues due to the bonus chance to poison. Combat rogues are a bit trickier as it is very gear dependent and only a spreadsheet could tell you for sure one way or another.
On a side note, someone said to me that rogues were the bastard child of this expansion (OK, it was me, I talk to myself, what of it?). “What do you mean?” I asked myself. “Well, self, they buffed the DPS of all the classes with more utility and now we don’t provide utility or really out damage anyone significantly. Sounds pretty bastard-childy to me,” I said. “Well, self, you make a good point and you’re quite the good looking guy I might add, but I believe you’re missing a key point, rogue damage has traditionally been amazing when it comes to scaling with gear. I’m sure we’ll see our stabby brethren pulling ahead soon enough. Just be patient,” I responded to myself. “I guess that makes sense, and you’re not too bad looking yourself there pal.”
What a nice guy I am.
Until next time
/bow
Yes, I saw your feed test through Google reader.
Yeah, Envenom is what I use because of Cut to the Chase. One point for Slice and Dice, apply poison, than next points for Envenom equals maximum Slice and Dice time, plus percentage boost to stack the rest of my poison.
[...] Does Slice and Dice have >12 seconds left? Eviscerate or Envenom. [...]
Well both envenom and eviscerate work with cut to the chase, I’m just not sure if it’s better to use envenom, applying more instant damage but then having to stack your poisons again, or using eviscerate, doing less instant damage but keeping your five stack of deadly on the boss