If you’ve been keeping an eye on the patch notes you’ll know that Blade Flurry is about to become a toggleable skill in the upcoming patch, causing Combat rogues to get a permanent cleave. While I admit that it was a notable change, what made it even more interesting was last night’s main hand axe drop, giving me a weapon that I could use for that spec.
Long-time readers of this blog know that back in WotLK I ran Combat for 5-mans and trash pulls then switched to Assassination for boss fights. That switch involved changing specs and weapons only, which isn’t something you want to do in Cata due to the implementation of Mastery. Assassination rogues prioritize hit and mastery while those who prefer Combat reforge to hit and expertise. This leads to the conclusion that if we want to swap between the two specs, we need two sets of gear.
I’ve yet to come to a decision. I could wait until the patch is implemented to see how Blade Flurry performs damage-wise before I start working on getting the gear or I could throw caution (and gold) to the wind and prepare myself beforehand. In case you’re saying that I should check the spreadsheet, I already have. I’m looking at a 3K DPS decrease given that most of the Combat items will be ilvl 333. I’m okay with that. The spreadsheets are for single-target boss fights anyway. Cleaving a second target isn’t accounted for. Not yet anyway.