WotLK Rogue Murder Talent Explained
A lot of players ask me about the murder talent from time time, wondering if it’s worth picking up over other talents in the assassination tree. Let’s first start out with a brief explanation of what murder is. I received the following question via email regarding murder earlier this week.
Hey there Zuggy…I wrote before about some rogue strategy advice and your reply was quite useful. Now I have one more question. My question is about the murder talent, some say that it counts in PVP, and some says it doesn’t. Well I thought I should ask you guys because I really don’t see the difference when I use it in my talent build, and still its 2 points which could be used on something more important… thank you for your answer :P
and my answer…
Murder is an excellent talent choice for any rogue build which requires you go into the assassination tree. Murder works on all humanoid, giant, beast, and dragonkin mobs, and players fall into the humanoid class (yes, even undead). So it will always work in PvP. Additionally, It’s also quite good for PvE since most mobs / bosses you kill fall into those categories.
Now that we have some of the basics down, let’s take a look at the major change coming to murder in WotLK. The talent is changing from 1/2% to 2/4% and moving to tier 6 in the assassination tree. For players going mutilate or other deep assassination builds then this talent will be an absolute must.
You may be thinking, “well Zuggy, it’s only a measly 4%…”, let me tell you why that 4% is absolutely crucial. Let’s break this down from a base line DPS standpoint.
- You do 100,000 damage without murder on a boss fight
- You do 104,000 damage with murder on the same boss fight
- We have a net gain of 4,000 additional damage on the fight
Let’s compare this to the similar talent in the combat tree, aggression. Just like murder I get lots of questions about aggression, and many people think I’m misguided for not choosing it, but I’ll tell you why I don’t.
One brief note, don’t forget that aggression was recently changed to a 5 point talent 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Most rogues average 65% white damage, 30% sinister strike damage, and 5% eviscerate damage on a PvE encounter (note: if you didn’t have aggression you’d just envenom)
- So we do 100,000 damage again on a boss fight, of which only 35,000 damage receives modification bonus from aggression
- 35,000 * 1.10 = 38,500, Net gain of 3,500
- Total net output, 103,500
So, comparatively speaking we gain 4,000 damage for 2 points in murder, or 3,500 damage for 5 points in aggression. If murder were a 10 point talent (2/4/6/8/10%) it would beat aggression 10,000 damage to 3,500. Here in lies why I never pick up aggression, and ALWAYS pick up murder.
Murder Talent Conclusions
Murder offers the biggest bang for your buck of any rogue talent. For 2 points it’s an absolute must if you are going to spec deep into assassination. In my opinion aggression is one of the worst talents in the combat tree. It pales in comparison to murder. Murder is one of the best talents availble to the rogue class today, plain and simple. If you’re going into assassination tree you need to get it.
- WotLK Rogue Talent Changes – Build 8970 Changes
- Rogue Arena Talent Specs
- More WotLK Rogue Changes
- WotLK Rogue Buffs – Insane Class Defining Changes
- Mage Arena Talent Specs
My two cents:
Even as the talent stands at 2% damage, I think that murder is a must for PVP. If you are maxing out Lethality like most rogues out there and leaving murder without any points in it, I would suggest that you rethink your position.
Each point in Lethality reads that it increases the critical strike bonus of your combo point generating attacks by 6%. However, many people misinterpret this as meaning their crits from those abilities do 6% more damage. Actually, its only 3% more damage to your overall crit. Say you main hand mutilates for 1000 base damage with one of your attacks, and it crits (also assume the target has no resil, so the crit doubles the damage.) Then your mutilate with no points in either talent hits for 2000.
If you have 2 points in lethality, you will now crit for 1000 + 1000*1.12 = 2120. Note this is only a 6% damage increase over no talents, not the 12% that some people misinterpret.)
If you have 2 points in murder, you hit for 1020 + 1020 = 2040.
Now assume you have a 33% crit rate, which seems reasonable with pretty good arena gear. Then on average, every three hits you get one crit. Assuming the same numbers as above you get:
2 Lethality: 1000 + 1000 + 2120 = 4120.
2 murder: 1020 + 1020 + 2040 = 4080.
It seems much closer now, doesn’t it? Add in to the fact the critical strike damage reduction of 400 resilience targets, and I believe that murder begins to pull away, not to mention that murder is also increasing all of your white damage attacks while lethality does not.
You make a very good point, Erk, one any rogue who is serious about his class needs to take into consideration when developing their talent build.
aight so im ryin out this spec. sofar its dps is incredible and hits very hard. as long as hunger for blood and u know how to navigate thru cc u will decimate.