World of Warcraft Rogue PvE Specs Part 2 - Combat

Where as the Assassination rogue strikes from the shadows the Combat rogue is better equipped to go to-to-toe with his enemies and wears thicker armor (well, if you talent for it) and wields heavier weapons. The Combat rogue is the master of relentless, heavy hitting strikes and heavy burst damage. A combat rogues Mastery Talents are Vitality, Ambidexterity and Main Gauche

Combat Spec

The current (4.0.6) recommended combat spec is 7/31/3 with the major talents in this build being:

Combat Potency - A major major boost to a combat rogues DPS, with the energy generated from this talent a combat rogue is able to use his/her other abilities to unleash more pain upon their foes.

Bandits Guile - This talent has been the boon and bane of a combat rogues existence as on fights with multiple targets the benefit granted by Bandits Guile is gained on your current target and hasn't been easily transferable to other targets with Redirect having a static 1 minute cool down. Since Patch 4.0.6 however Restless Blades also affects the cool down of Redirect which has helped in transferring Bandits Guile from target to target greatly.

Restless Blades - You're going to be using finishing moves a lot and so this talent means that you will be able to use Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree and Redirect more often per fight which increases DPS significantly.

Killing Spree - A combat rogues 'hit this button to increase DPS' talent. Best used when Bandits Guile is at max insight level

Blade Flurry - With this talent a combat rogue can deal massive amounts of damage on fights with multiple targets which makes their DPS in 5 man dungeons exceptional but unfortunately has limited use in raid environments.

Glyphs

The current recommended Prime Glyph's for a Combat rogue are:

Glyph of Adrenaline Rush - Extends Adrenaline Rush by 5 seconds, 5 extra seconds of insane energy regeneration...you'd be crazy not to get this Glyph!

Glyph of Sinister Strike - 20% may not seem like a high proc chance for just the one ability the combat rogue uses but considering the number of Sinister Strikes you will perform per fight it actually procs quite a lot and is an invaluable Glyph for increasing your DPS, a must have!

Glyph of Slice and Dice- Increases Slice and Dice's duration by 6 seconds which is in relative terms is a very long time. In 6 seconds you can build 5 combo points for a 5 point rupture or 5 point Eviscerate before needing to refresh Slice and Dice again.

The current recommended Major Glyph's that a Combat rogue should use are:

Glyph of Tricks of the Trade - Removes the energy cost of your Tricks of the Trade. Tricks of the trade is a handy ability in any environment, whether it be giving a tank an aggro boost at the start of a fight or increasing the DPS of a fellow raid member it should always be on your bar/mapped to a hotkey.

Glyph of Feint - In the current Tier of raids in Cataclysm (Tier 11) you will be amazed at how often Feint should and will be used to not only save the healers some mana but save your life. By removing the energy cost of feint this greatly improves the opportunities you get to use Feint (it's still on the global cool down) in any given situation.

Glyph of Blade Flurry -With Blade Flurry now being a toggle on, toggle off ability it's up time is going to be a lot greater than it was before Patch 4.0.6 because of it's value on multi-target fights. Blade Flurry's standard 30% energy regeneration reduction while Blade Flurry is active is quite harsh and so reducing that penalty by 50% is definitely needed and that is what makes this Glyph invaluable.

Rotation

Combat rogues do not gain any benefit from opening from stealth the way Subtlety or Assassination rogues do. However, you are able to get closer to a boss before an encounter starts if you are in stealth and ultimately reduce the time it takes for you to get into melee range once an encounter begins. Once combat starts, you want to immediately get Slice and Dice up.

The priority of finishers is as follows. 

Slice and Dice > Rupture > Eviscerate

The recommended cycle is to always keep Slice and Dice up and then always do 5 point finishers, Rupture if it's not up and Eviscerate otherwise. Slice and Dice does not need to be done with 5 combo points only and should always last long enough for you to build up the combo points for another Slice and Dice with at least a one finisher in between.

Using Revealing Strike
Revealing Strike increases the effectiveness of offensive finishers by 35% (45% glyphed). Revealing Strike should only be used when you have 4 combo points and are about to do a Rupture or Eviscerate (it has no effect on Slice and Dice). Using Revealing Strike before you have 4 combo points or not using Revealing Strike at all is a DPS loss and is not recommended.