I know a lot of people are QQ'in about rogues being broken in pve and pvp. I dont pvp so I dont have any input on that. As far as Im concerned, I am staying Mut with 3.1 until someone proves to me that combat swords will destroy Mut DPS. I think mut is more fun anyways. I am still learning. I know not many people care about trash but answer this. If you are fighting a mob that wont stay up long, are you building as many CPs as possible and using Rupture even though you only have 1-2 DPs on the target, OR are you using evis when you dont have DP to 5 stacks? Dont know really how to word it but you guys get the jist.

with regards to combat swords vs. mut it's hard to tell yet which will dominate...i'm of the opinion that blizzard is going to do everything they can to keep the 2 as equal as possible. So I really don't think you can go bad with either build..

I'm not sure I really understand your question, I assume DPs = deadly poison...which honestly is a mute point. In any regard, you should not be rupturing on the vast majority of trash mobs...simply because your rupture will not be any where close to ending before the mob dies, in effect you're losing all kinds of DPS.

Where as even though evis might be lower DPS it's all at once, so it's guaranteed damage as opposed to the rupture dot.

Generally speaking on trash first thing I try to do is get my snd going, so long as you can keep that going just evis / envom every time you're at 5 CP or if the mob is about to die.

If I am in a raid situation, I am usually spamming fan of knives on trash unless there is only one or two left, at which point, I do what Zuggy suggested: get S&D going, and maybe eviscerate once its about to die.

And, I think that blizz is anticipating combat swords to edge out over mutilate only slightly. My guess is that if both specs are played to absolute perfection with the best gear for each spec, that combat swords might do 1-2% more damage than mutilate (not 1-2% of the raid's damage, but comparing just the two rogues.) I would say play whichever you want: there's no reason to play a spec that you don't like unless the one you do like is not viable at all, and that simply is not the case.

I guess i did kinda mess that up. What I was trying to find out is if your fighting a mob and you dont have 5 Deadly poison stacks on the target and he is about to die do you use evis or envenom with whatever CPs you have built on the target?

Be good like my rogues and go for a shiv build. 5k+ dps on patchwerk, hard to believe, huh?

Shiv won't work in 3.1, and since the OP was discussing what he should do in 3.1, I would say shiv shouldn't be something he should consider... IIRC they are nerfing it so that poisons cant crit on a shiv, and it seems like maybe changing something else with it as well (maybe you cant get energy back from combat potency?).

ATM a fully geared out mutilate, combat, HaT or shiv (I guess) rogue should be able to pull 5k dps on patchwerk. Erk is still terribly undergeared (mainly naxx 10 gear for armor, a few blues still /cry and still using LPC and titansteel shanker) and as a PVE mutilate spec he can pull more than 4k dps in naxx 25 (it seems like I was around 4700 on some fights last time, but its been 3 or 4 weeks so my memory is a little fuzzy.)

EJ suppose that even with the nice combat buffs and less nice mut changes, they will still be at about 1-2% dps difference ( the prior dealing more );... go for what you like.