Disclaimer

This guide is an extended version of my previous guide and also updated for 3.3.3.
This information is based mostly on my personal experience and doesn't rely on hardcore theory crafting.
However, builds/stats/caps/gemming ("The numbers") are of course based on wisdom usually found on the leading rogue forums on the web and especially EJ.

This guide is for PvE raiding.

Overview

The goal of this guide is to give Rogues and non-Rogues the tools to understand the Rogue combat system, and better understand their strengths and weaknesses and thus improving their skill on encounters.
This guide has info that can be used by any melee dps since a lot of the stuff I will be discussing here is related to maximizing your performance as a melee first.

The Talents

Relentless Strikes, Subtlety(RS):
Make finishers somewhat "free". A 5CP Rupture / SnD / EA will always return their energy upon application, while Envenom/Eviscerate will cost you 10 energy to apply. 20% chance per CP.
This talent is critical in helping you make decisions regarding energy management.

Ruthlessness, Assassination:
Gives a 60% chance on finishers to add a CP to your target after application.
Although an RNG talent, the CP given after finishers makes it easier to keep that envenom buff up longer.

Seal Fate, Assassination:
The jewel of classic Assassination. Whenever your Mutilate crits, you will gain 3CP instead of 2CP. 3 CP for 60 energy... Goody!

Overkill, Assassination:
Used to be the most hated talent in PvP by clothies before it was revamped, and is a damage booster in PvE. Overkill has nice uses which I will get into later like using Vanish to proc Overkill (Vanish in PvE is not to save your tiny ass from a wipe).

Focused Attacks, Assassination (FA):
2 energy for every critical melee swing. Oh baby!

Cut to the chase, Assassination (CttC):
Each envenom/eviscerate refreshes the SnD duration to its 5CP duration. This is one of the best talents in Wotlk, makes keeping SnD up an easy task.

Hunger for Blood, Assassination (HfB):
A self buff of 5% (8% w Glyph) damage increase for 60 seconds. Costs 15 energy. It requires a bleed effect on your target.

Lightening Reflexes, Combat (LR):
Gives 10% more haste. A very potent choice for sustained single target builds.

Fleet Footed, Assassination (FF):
Gives 15% increase in movement speed. A great tool for add switching fights like Lady Deathwhisper.

Blood Spatter, Assassination (BS):
Increases bleed damage by 30%. This talent is effective when you have a feral around to augment your bleeds and the fight involves time off the boss but is still pretty much single target. (Professor Putricide, Rotface, Lord Marrowgar.

Opportunity, Subtlety:
Your Mutilates will hit a lot harder. This is effective for lots of add switching fights since usually on these fights it is vital to kill the adds asap in order to prevent an overrun. In such situations you want your Mutilates to have more oomph since you won't get the time for a full ramp up.
(Lady Deathwhisper, Dreamwalker)

Mutilate builds

51/18/2
Mutilate fleet footed haste based build (little movement, little to no target switching)
Rotation: Envenom +4
Strengths: Superior single target on tank spank encounters
Weaknesses: High ramp up, Energy starvation risk on target switching, less envenom uptime
Recommended fights: Saurfang, Festergut, Blood Queen, Lich king (Deadly Brew instead of FF).

51/18/2
Mutilate blood spatter haste based build (moderate movement, little target switching)
Rotation: Envenom +4; Rupture before movement or off target
Strengths: Strong single target which involves movement or time off target.
Weaknesses: High ramp up, Energy starvation risk on target switching, less envenom uptime
Recommended fights: Rotface, Putricide

51/13/7
Mutilate blood spatter/opportunity attack power based build (moderate movement, moderate target switching)
Rotation: Envenom +4; Rupture before movement or off target
Strengths: Strong single target, High envenom uptime, Strong Mutilates
Weaknesses: Medium ramp up, Inferior single target damage to 51/18/2
Recommended fights: Morrowgar (more reliable), Lady Deathwhisper, Sindragosa

51/13/7
Mutilate fleet footed/opportunity attack power based build (high movement, high target switching)
Rotation: Envenom +3;
Strengths: Movement, Energy efficient, Strong Mutilates
Weaknesses: Medium ramp up, Inferior single target damage to all previous.
Recommended fights: Dreamwalker, Gunship, Blood Princes


Stats and Damage Categories/Components

Rogues have a few damage categories that are affected by a few stats differently. It is important to know the correlation between the stats and the categories since it will make you understand what the hell you are doing, what you can expect your dps table to look like dependant on your buffs and more.

White damage (Swings): AP, Crit, Arp, Haste, Expertise (Below cap), Hit (White)
Yellow damage (Mutilate, Envenom): Expertise (Below cap), AP, Crit, Arp, Focused Attacks
Bleed damage (Rupture, Garrote): AP, Focused Attacks
Poison damage (IP, DP): Envenom uptime, AP, Haste, Focused Attacks, Spell crit, Spell damage, Hit (Spell)
Envenom Uptime: Focused Attacks
Focused Attacks: Weapon Speed(Haste), Crit, Hit

Focused Attacks

I like to look at this information by starting with Focused Attacks. FA has the most impact on the rogue damage since it affects 5/6 damage components, and acts as an overall energy booster. Because of that,
Mutilate benefits greatly from Heroism due to the immense haste buff.

It simply means more energy regeneration, with more energy you can execute more rapidly:
Mutilates, which can proc double IP, generate 2-3 CP, which means you will have more CP overall.
Envenoms, which can proc IP or DP or DP IP proc and give the Envenom buff on higher uptime.
Ruptures, which can balance your off-target dps loss on such situations.

Critical Chance

High crit is most essential for Mutilate rogue. And a high end rogue will want his crit chance close to cap varied by his hit chance. Here is the math for crit cap:

Cap = 100% - 24% (Glancing blows) - X% dodge chance - Y% miss chance

So for the average rogue it will be something around 100-24-0-10 = ~65%
So if your crit chance with full raid buffs and procs go beyond 65%, it means crit gear is very bad for you, and thus… Agility is bad for you.

Hit Chance

This is a simple one; keep it a minimum of 315 which is the spell cap with talents although a shadow priest boomkin or draenei will always make the minimum lower. But the thumb rule is the more the merrier.
More hit means more hit that can be focused attacks.

Here are the numbers assuming the obvious 5/5 Percision:

No buffs – Specials 99, Poisons (spell) 315, White 722
Misery or Imp FF – Specials 99, Poisons (spell) 237, White 722
Misery or Imp FF and Draenei – Specials 99, Poisons (spell) 210, White 689

Haste

Haste is a potent scale stat for mutilate and it is impossible to cap it with current gear.
Do know that haste is starting to kick after the ramp up is achieved which means after the first 5CP envenom buff and 5 DP stacks. This means that you will feel the dps increase from haste on static fights such as Morrowgar/Saurfang/Festergut/Rotface.
Haste will shorten your ramp up time due to more rapid attacks and more focused attacks, but in fights you have to move a lot and switch the gain is mediocre. Instead you will want to come heavy with attack power to down some nice damage in short time.

Spreadsheets and Equivalence points

A lot of rogues make a common mistake while gemming and enchanting by not using a spreadsheet.
Often I bump into low geared rogues that gem themselves just like a heroic raider rogue.
These rogues belongs to the famous group of "I saw this build somewhere on the net", "All the top rogues gem this way".

Well…
All the top rogues has BiS or near-BiS gear… they gem like they do because of various reasons and mainly because they bump into all kind of caps.

Every player has unique numbers in terms of Equivalence points. Equivalence points are simply an indication of how much a stat is weighted in terms of dps gain against your current stats.
The easiest example is expertise – While it is lower than 26, lets say… 24. It is still pretty valuable and requires you to put 1-2 expertise mixed gems; while under 20 it becomes super valuable and actually demands you to seek a major expertise source… a new gear. At or above 26, the expertise value turns to near-zero.

Another example, if your crit is hard capped (every hit which isn't glancing or miss/dodge/parry is a crit)
Your crit EP will be near-zero. If your crit is soft capped (soft means capped only with all buffs and procs) the EP will be X, while the more buffs and procs are needed for soft capping increases the value of X.
If your crit is not even soft capped, crit becomes pretty much valuable stat. My recommendation is to seek more crit via gear and not gemming.

Again, use spreadsheets. The following is my recommended one:

Aldriana's spreadsheet

Instructions for both can be found on Elitist Jerks.
Please remember that spreadsheets simulate single target theory, use the info on this guide to tweak stuff.

Enchants

Daggers – Berserking
Head – Arcanum of torment
Shoulders – Greater inscription of the axe
Chest – Powerful stats
Cloak – Greater speed / Major agility
Wrist – Greater assault
Hands – Crusher
Belt – Eternal belt buckle
Legs – Icescale leg armor
Feet – Icewalker

Professions

Here is a list of the professions EP:

Engineering – 80-90

Few words on engineering: engineering gives mutilate few enchants upgrades and a nuking cooldown in the form of the Hyperspeed Exelerators which is 340 haste for 12sec every 1 minute, but... you loose your constant Crusher enchant (50 AP).
Also engineering allows you to use Saronite Bombs every 1 minute. So basically, it gives you its EP value if you are wise to use these tools on the right time.

Jewelcrafting – 84

LW/BS/Alch/Ench/Insc – 80

Daggers and Poisons

This is an explanation about daggers theory crafting.
I've decided to write this info after being asked few times about why I use my fast dagger on my main hand.
So here is the thorough explanation.

I will not get into why these numbers are as I present them, but there are far more talented and smart people out there, that put up the hours of research to get to these numbers.
(MEP = Mutilate Equivalence Points)

0.1 Instant poison dagger speed = 5 MEP per 0.1 *faster* than 1.8

Explanation:
This is assuming same dagger ilvl.
The positive and small MEP increase is due to focused attack procs.
Know that this could be greater if it didn't reduce the white hit damage.
This also assume a static "test dummy" scenario, after all, this is theory crafting, on lots of target switching and short add lifetime I would choose the good old 1.8 as my instant poison dagger.

0.1 Deadly poison dagger speed = -50 MAEP per 0.1 *slower* than 1.4

Explanation:
This is assuming same dagger ilvl.
The huge MEP decrease is due to less DP procs that proc IP, less focused attacks and more ramp up for DP stacks.

1 MH DPS = 1.85 MEP
1 OH DPS = 1.3 MEP

Daggers equip rules:

0) Highest dps dagger on MH , DP on fast dagger, IP on slow dagger
1) If both daggers have the same dps , use fast dagger in MH*
2) If both dagger have the same dps and speed , use DP on the MH dagger*

* If the fight involves a lot of switching (Dreamwalker, Lady Deathwhisper), ignore 1 & 2 , use slower dagger in MH

Q: Wtf ? Use fast dagger with DP on MH??!
A: Yes.

Q: But whyyyy?
A: Assuming similar dagger dps and full raid buffs, putting the fast DP dagger in MH will allow using envenom to proc another DP application which procs IP.
This is correct for fights where the rogue can "sit" on the boss, since at that situation the RNG will be eliminated statistically and closer to theory.
On target switching like Dreamwalker or Lady Deathwhisper this can be proved wrong since ramp up time is involved and you want your white hits to punch the most in short time.

Rotations

Mutilate has it's usual Envenom +4 rotation that usually works fine and gives a nice dps if you have the proper gear and the target stands still the entire fight.
BUT, a skilled mutilate rogue will tweak it's rotation according to the situation and the current state of buffs uptime.

Ramp up

Ramping up means to get 3 timers up: HfB, SnD and 5 stacks of DP.
Ramping up fast is most important and divides into two situations. A situation where you start the fight on the boss, and one in which you must switch to a new add.
Another important thing is to know your guild members well and how they play. This information can cut down your ramp up nicely.

This is assuming a 2pc T10.

Situation 1: First pull no timers
Start from stealth.
If the tank is feral, you can assume the boss will get a bleed on him in around 3 seconds. After 5 seconds you can be totally sure a hunter's pet, warrior dps etc will cause a bleed on the target and thus, Garrote is not a mandatory opener. Therefore, mutilate is usually the way to go.
Garrote is 50 energy and gives 1CP, Mutilate is 60 energy and gives 2-3CP.
Then immediately SnD and HfB as soon as you detect a bleed on target and start building 5CP for a cold blood envenom (with 55 energy pooling).
After this envenom you can bump into overaggro, so according to the state of aggro on the boss you need to decide who gets your tricks (The tank or your fellow dps).
Now… the usage of tricks can be timed in 3 ways.
1) Before the cold blood envenom (If you are very very close to the tank's agro)
2) Immediately after the cold blood envenom (If you are pretty close on agro but not too close)
3) Immediately after the first mutilate after the cold blood envenom (If you are 51/13/7 and you are pretty close on agro but not too close)
Finally, vanish after 20 seconds unless you are saving vanish for some more effective time.

That’s it; you should be done with your ramp up after the first tricks and vanish.

Few words on tricks: I like to view tricks as a minor-relentless strikes proc every 30 seconds. Therefore the more efficient timing for tricks is simply when relentless strikes fails to proc (more common on 51/18/2) or right after a mutilate. The worse timing is upon a successful RS proc and the worst tricks is when you are capping your energy with it.

Situation 2: Add switch
Usually we know when adds are joining due to the lovely DBM timers, therefore we can prepare for the switch.
The idea is to come to the add with your timers up and the only thing that is left is to get 5 stacks of DP as soon as possible, and what is better to execute that than engaging the add while having your envenom buff up? You want to detach from the main target to the add by performing a 4+ envenom and immediately run to the add… if it is a bit far, you can sprint, and while off target… why not refreshing HfB on the way.

How can we make the switch even more effective? Rupture!
Before you switch, around 10 seconds build a 4+ rupture and then 4+ envenom for the detach moment, now you have the same conditions like above, only now you have 2 DoTs on the main target… and one of them can even crit.

To pool or not to pool? That is the question

The answer however is - depends on the situation, and the build.
As a thumb rule 51/18/2 does not pool and uses +4 envenom as soon as possible. This is because 51/18/2 already provides less envenom buff uptime, and the more you wait for pooling the less envenom uptime you will have during the entire encounter.
However, if you got +4CP and the envenom buff is still up for you to almost reach a mutilate, then you want to pool the energy until you clip the envenom buff by around 0-1 seconds. This is usually happen when:
1) You 5CP envenomed and got ruthlessness proc and also a RS proc and now at around 35 energy with 1CP and 6 seconds of envenom buff.
2) The next mutilate procs seal fate and you are now on 4CP and on around 20 energy
3) Now you have 4CP and energy around half way to mutilate and 2-3 seconds left on envenom buff.

If you envenom immediately, you will clip the envenom buff by around 2-3 seconds which is bad.
If you Mutilate, you will be left with no envenom buff and when you will 5CP envenom on 35 energy, you will risk being energy starving and loose lots of dps.
If you pool to 55 energy and envenom there, you will clip the envenom at around 0-1 seconds and use mutilate quite rapidly after.

With 51/13/7 this is a different story. 51/13/7 has a lot more envenom uptime but provides less auto attacks during that period, therefore we need more attacks during the envenom uptime, and nothing is better than mutilates. This is why you want to envenom near 55 energy so you can perform 2xmutilate pretty fast since you are very likely to get RS proc.

When not to pool with 51/13/7?
Simply, when your envenom buff is off and your tricks is off cooldown. Then you will envenom -> Tricks -> Mutilate.

Still to publish (Addons, Encounter tips).

Love the pic:)

Soon(tm) to be replaced with a 4.0.6 edition since this is a bunch of non-relevant stuffz.

And also, a new cool pic !