Grubba, your argument is that:

-Combat wins on short fights (btw every fight is farm mode now).
-Mutilate wins on sustained fights (compared to combat)

So... one wins on short fights, and one wins on long fights. This means that:

"You'll see that Combat beats Mutilate on many fights, and even trumps HAT in certain environments. It's a top-tier spec, and arguing otherwise is arguing against the data."

In many fights... Combat wins. Exactly what I said. In certain environments... Mutilate wins. Exactly what I said.

Let's run the numbers between Mutilate and Combat:

Anub - Combat (1)
GWF - Combat (2)
Maex - Mutilate (1)
Noth - Combat (3)
Heigan - Combat (4)
Loatheb - Combat (5)
Raz - Mutilate (2)
Gothik - Combat (6)
4H - Combat (7) - even trumps HAT
Patchwerk - Combat (8)
Grobbulus - Combat (9)
Gluth - Mutilate (3)
Thaddius - Mutilate (4)
Sapphiron - Mutilate (5)
Kel'Thuzad - Mutilate (6)
Sartharion - Tie (they're too damn close)
Malygos - Mutilate (7)

That's Combat's 9 fights to Mutilate's 7. Believe it or not, Combat outperforms Mutilate on the majority of current content. Just because Mutilate wins in some imaginary world of target dummies where sustained DPS is king does NOT mean that it wins in our very REAL world of short fight durations.




"In short-duration fights, Combat has the edge because it has much better burst tools than either of the other two trees."

-Fights are short (in current content)
-Combat wins short fights
-???
-Combat beats Mutilate


We'll see what shakes out of tonight's new PTR build and speculate from there. :)