One Rogue's Journey

Disclaimer: Although some of what is discussed here could be applied to Mutilate this article is focused on the Combat build and style of play.

So, as a rogue, our number 1 priority of our rotation is to maintain 100% Slice and Dice up-time and our number 2 priority is to maintain as high a Rupture up-time as possible. We then attempt to slip in as many Eviscerates as possible without breaking priority 1 or 2.

Hello dead horse, how nice to see you again. How have you been? Dead and stinky huh? That’s a shame.

Yeah, yeah, quiet down, I’m just reiterating some important rogue tenants that are relevant to the points I’m about to make.

Fine, fine, pad your post with repeated information. Be my guest.

Jerk.

Noob.

Right, now that that is over with, back to the topic at hand.

Today I’m going to talk about Energy Pooling, namely when you should be doing it. Energy Pooling is the tactic of waiting a few seconds for your energy to regenerate a little bit before throwing a finishing maneuver.

Why (and when) would you do this?

Let’s take a look at a real world example:

Real world?

Don’t get smart with me, you know what I mean. So, the example:

You have 5 combo points, plenty of time left on Slice and Dice, 3 seconds left on rupture and 35 energy, what do you do? Well, in this situation I feel you have 3 choices.

1. Eviscerate
   You can Eviscerate right then and there and then proceed to Sinister Strike your way back to 5 combo points for a Rupture. There is nothing particularly wrong with this choice, except that it is going to cost you some rupture up-time since rupture will for sure fall off before you can get back to 5 combo points (you should never throw a less than 5 cp rupture). Of course, this loss of up-time could be even worse if you have to refresh Slice and Dice before you can get your rupture up again.
2. Rupture
   You could just reapply rupture right away. If successful you are keeping your up-time up but you are missing out on a couple of ticks of the previous rupture’s damage, wasting them and defeating the purpose of keeping your up-time so high.

   I say “if you are successful” because it is possible that you will run into the “a more powerful spell is already active” error when trying to overwrite your previous Rupture. What is this error? Well, the damage of rupture is based on Attack Power, namely, the amount of Attack Power you have when you first apply it. Rupture will also not allow you to overwrite a stronger version with a weaker version. Therefor, if you applied the Rupture during a trinket proc or other AP buff that is no longer present when trying to apply the new Rupture you will get this message and probably end up spamming the Rupture button until the previous application drops off, which would actually unintentionally be option 3:

3. Pool your energy until Rupture drops off, reapply and then dump your energy. If you simply wait the few seconds for the previous Rupture to drop off and then immediately reapply you get the extended up-time of option 2 without the loss of Rupture ticks. The extra energy you built up can then be “dumped” with a few quick Sinister Strikes (which you would have had to wait for energy to do using method 2). You see, you only gained, you didn’t lose (as long as you didn’t let your energy cap out, more on that below).

You see, energy pooling can be very effective in helping your Rupture up-time which will give a little boost to your DPS but there is one thing you must avoid at all costs with pooling.

DO NOT LET YOUR ENERGY CAP OUT

Let’s say it one more time for good measure.

DO NOT LET YOUR ENERGY CAP OUT

If you’re energy caps out, you are losing DPS every second (that’s energy you could be spending on combo moves which would allow you to regen more energy, and so on and so on).

An important thing to remember is that Relentless Strikes will give you 25 energy for a 5 point Rupture, therefor the “cap out” level when pulling is actually 75, not 100.

So, you’re probably asking, “Zaltu, you handsome, handsome man, what are the exact conditions in which I should pool?”

That, my friend, is something you have to figure out for yourself. Meaning, there are no hard and fast rules beyond what I have mentioned previously. The only way to get a feel for it is to add the concept to your knowledge bank and practice it. It will eventually become second nature. A quick and dirty tip I can tell you now is that it is better to throw an extra Sinister Strike than let your energy cap out.

Energy Pooling is boring. Stab stab stab stab!

Yeah, but it’s a good technique.

Your face is a good technique.

Thank you?

I hate you.