So, I was playing with the latest version of my Mutilate sheet this evening, and it appears that one of our favorite inanities is back. In particular, it appears that we're back in the situation where with weapons of equal DPS but unequal speed, it is potentially worthwhile to move the fast weapon to the MH and OH the slow one, while keeping Deadly Poison on the fast weapon. If you recall, this arises when the rearrangement results in a sufficient increase in poison damage to offset the loss of Mutilate damage - and that appears to be true in this case.
To put some numbers behind the observation: let's say we're in a BIS or near-BIS setup, and using [Lungbreaker] and [Rib Spreader]. A mutilate does full damage with the MH and 3/4 damage with the OH; hence, by swapping hands, we lose base damage to our Mutilate equal to 1/4 of the difference in their damage ranges. Rib Spreader has an average damage of 450.5, while Lungbreaker has an average damage of 350.5 Thus, we lose 25 base weapon damage by making the swap. This is multiplied by 1.2 (poison), 1.06 (Find Weakness), 2.13 (80% crit rate), 1.04 (physical damage debuff), and .71 (Armor), and thus translates into a damage loss of roughly 50 damage off each Mutilate (specifically, 51.26). (I'm neglecting HFB and similar effects for the moment because they apply to both damage sources equally).
So what does this do to poison damage? Well, we get the exact same number of autoattack and mutilate-triggered poison procs; the only difference is the poison proc chance on finishers. With a 1.8 speed MH using IP, we have a 1.8/1.4 * 45 = 57.86% chance to proc poison; with a 1.4 speed MH using DP, we have a 65% chance to proc poison. Thus, we are 7.14% more likely to proc poison by swapping hands; and in BIS gear, we have something like 8600 average-case AP, meaning a poison proc does, on average, something like 1841 damage; hence, for each Envenom we perform our expected damage increases by 1841 * .0714 = 131.5 damage. So as long as we do less than 131.5/51.26 = 2.56 mutilates per envenom, we gain damage by making the switch.
In practice, of course, we do more like 1.5 Mutilates per Envenom, and thus gain something like 50 damage per Envenom on the average; factoring in the rate we perform Envenoms, HFB, and other factors, we wind up with a damage difference between the two options of... 7.6 DPS, in BIS gear. Or just a bit over .05%. But hey, every little bit counts, right?
(For those wondering, I'm coming up with 14299.6 14319.5 as the best possible number in the Mutilate sheet right now. I'm going to hold off posting exact gear lists for now, as there's at least 4 fundamentally different setups that are all within a couple of tenths of a percent of each other, such that the exact details of the unknown gear - TAiaJ and anything Lich King drops - could easily skew the balance in favor of a different one. But it gives a sense of the ballpark we're talking about.)
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