The Ironsong Tribe - Rogue

Assassination Rogue talents

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 17:08:56 -0800

Hi all,

I checked on Assassination Rogue builds in December, and was startled to discover that the recommended talents have changed. Early in Legion, the recommendation was for Hemorrhage + Exsanguinate, while stacking Mastery. Now, however, Hemorrhage and Exsanguinate are no longer recommended, and if you do choose them, then it is recommended to stack Crit instead of Mastery.

Looking into the combat logs for Zlinka, I could see that very little of her damage was coming from Hemorrhage, even though I was spending a lot of effort keeping it up. The monster share of her damage was coming from Rupture. So... time for Hemorrhage to go.

The updated recommended talents are Agonizing Poison for the sixth tier, then either Elaborate Planning or Master Poisoner for the first tier. Both Elaborate Planning and Master Poisoner require a lot of Mastery (8K+), and lead to quite different play styles. Elaborate Planning means keeping a 5-second self-buff up at all times (so it's a bit "clicky"). It's refreshed by using a finisher, and it's worth it to refresh EP with 4-5 point envenoms instead of letting EP lapse while waiting for a 6-point Envenom. The EP self-buff is a really good one, though, as it increases all damage done by 15%. Master Poisoner buffs poison damage by 30% and non-damaging poison effects by 20%. It's passive, so it's a lot less clicky than Elaborate Planning.

Agonizing Poison is a new poison that doesn't do any damage itself (weird for an assassination rogue, we're supposed to be all about poisons!). Agonizing Poison applies a stacking debuff to the target that enhances damage done (+7.1% damage per stack, stacks up to 5 times).

Right now I'm running Agonizing Poison and Elaborate Planning and have been happy with them so far. Elaborate Planning is a bit clicky but I've been able to keep it up most of the time, and I've noticed the increase in Zlinka's DPS with these new talents.

Any other rogues running with Agonizing Poison, Elaborate Planning, or Master Poisoner?

Spotlight: Gems and Enchants

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:58:25 -0800

ALWAYS gem and enchant your gear, as soon as you can! Here's why:

* Gems and enchants greatly increase the DPS you can get out of a piece of gear. This increase is often greater than an entire tier of gear: a gemmed and enchanted piece of Tier 9 is better than an ungemmed, unenchanted piece of Tier 9.25. Gem and enchant!

* Gems and enchants let you balance your gear. You can make up for underrepresented stats on your character using gems.

* Gemming and enchanting your gear shows that you are putting your best game forward. By doing the best you can to prepare you are showing respect to your teammates.

The best rogue gems

The best rogue metagem is the [item]Relentless Earthsiege Diamond[/item]

When gemming your gear your priorities should be to:

(1) Activate your metagem

You'll need one yellow, one red, and one blue. The reds and yellows will come naturally, but the blue should be activated with a single [item]Nightmare Tear[/item] in your entire gearset. Stick the nightmare tear in a blue socket (pick the item with a blue socket and the best socket bonus). For all other blue sockets, ignore the socket bonus and just insert red gems.

(2) Reach the expertise cap

* Mutilate rogues: 214 Expertise rating (26 Expertise)
* Combat rogues with 2/2 Weapon Expertise: 132 Expertise rating (16 Expertise)

You can reach the expertise cap with pure Expertise gems ([item]Precise Cardinal Ruby[/item]) or with hybrids ([item]Accurate Ametrine[/item]).

Why reach the expertise cap? Because being capped for expertise means you can no longer be dodged. A blow does no good if it's dodged. One of the cheapest and easiest ways to increase your DPS is to reach the expertise cap.

(3) Reach the poison hit cap

* 315 Hit rating

I generally hover around 400 hit rating. Hit rating over 315 helps your white attacks, but is not worth a special effort to stack. I would not exceed 500 hit rating. ICC gear tends to be low in hit, so as you upgrade in ICC you may need to start using +hit gems to stay over 315.

You can reach the hit cap with [item]Rigid King's Amber[/item] or the hybrid [item]Accurate Ametrine[/item], [item]Pristine Ametrine[/item], [item]Glinting Ametrine[/item].

Why reach the poison hit cap? Because an enormous amount of a rogue's damage comes from poisons, especially for a mutilate rogue, and poisons do no good if they miss. As with expertise, one of the cheapest and easiest ways to increase your DPS is to reach the poison hit cap.

(4) Socket for DPS

Once you've activated your metagem and reached the Expertise and Hit caps, socket for DPS. For mutilate rogues, this means Attack Power and Haste (the other rogue stats -- agility, crit etc. are still very good. Armor Penetration is the weakest). For Combat rogues, all rogue stats are good: Agility, AP, haste, armor penetration.

Red sockets: Bright (AP) or Delicate (Agility)
Yellow sockets: Quick (Haste), Stark (AP and Haste), Deft (Agi and Haste), Deadly (Agi and Crit), or Wicked (AP and Crit).

Jewelcrafters should use the Dragon's Eye based gems, which are superior to regular epic gems.

Replacing gems

Gems are a great way to balance your gear so you can reach your hit and expertise caps. When you get an upgrade, be prepared to regem your other gear so that you sit at the appropriate cap. Lose 60 expertise rating by replacing a piece of expertise-heavy gear? Get back to your expertise cap by replacing three +20 Agility gems with three +20 Expertise gems. Overshoot your Expertise by 22 Expertise rating? Swap a +20 Expertise for a +20 Agility. And so forth. It is not unusual to have to replace three or four gems with each upgrade to rebalance your character.

That's expensive!

Yes, it is. But look to guild jewelcrafters and alchemists to help you. Alchemists can transmute a blue-quality gem into a epic-quality gem once a day. Supply them with the mats, and they can transmute epic-quality gems for you. Our friendly jewelcrafters have collected almost all the cuts in the game (check the Wrath Tradeskill List) and can cut the gems for you.

Enchants

Almost every piece of gear can be enchanted! Enchant every piece of gear you possibly can. The head and shoulder enchants are reputation rewards from the Knights of the Ebon Blade and the Sons of Hodir, respectively. You can get reputation with them through quests and dailies.

Here is Shadowpanther's list of all PvE rogue enchants, and here is a summary of the best ones:

Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Berserking. This is by far the best enchant. Put it on any weapon you expect to keep for a while. It's expensive, though, so if you're upgrading fast you may want to put on a less expensive enchant: Enchant Weapon - Black Magic is a good secondary enchant, followed by Enchant Weapon - Mongoose.

Head: Arcanum of Torment. This is the revered rep reward from the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Work your way to revered for this one. If you don't have the rep yet, you can use Glyph of Ferocity (Revered Cenarion Expedition reward) while you wait. Note that the Arcanum is bind-on-account now, so if you have an alt that has the rep, send it over.

Shoulder: Inscriptionists should use Master's Inscription of the Axe. Everyone else use Greater Inscription of the Axe which is the Sons of Hodir exalted reward. If you aren't exalted yet, you can use the Honored reward while you work your way up (Lesser Inscription of the Axe). The inscription is bind-on-account, so if you have an alt with the rep, send it over.

Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats is the best. It's very expensive, however, so if you are going to replace the chest soon you can use Super Stats which is almost as good and much less expensive.

Waist: All belts should have an [item]Eternal Belt Buckle[/item], which gives you a free socket.

Legs: Leatherworkers should use Nerubian Leg Reinforcements, everyone else use Icescale Leg Armor.

Feet: Engineers use Nitro Boosts, everyone else use Icewalker.

Wrists: Leatherworkers use Fur Lining - Attack Power, everyone else use Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault. In addition to the enchant, Blacksmiths should add a socket to their bracers for a free gem.

Hands: Engineers should use Hyperspeed Accelerators, everyone else use Enchant Gloves - Crusher. In addition to the enchant, Blacksmiths should add a socket to their gloves for a free gem.

Ring (enchanters only): Assault

Back: Tailors use Swordguard Embroidery, Engineers use Flexweave Underlay, Everyone else use either Greater Speed or Major Agility.

Ranged Weapon: Heartseeker Scope or Sun Scope.

Spotlight: Tricks of the Trade

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:07:46 -0800

Tricks of the Trade

Tricks: the rogue Misdirect

It gives all your threat for 6 seconds (10 if you have the TotT glyph) to a target of your choice (the tank). Make a macro that will target the current tank, cast Tricks of the Trade, and return to your original target:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/tar Name
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/targetlasttarget

Where Name = the name of the tank you want to trick. Watch threat on Omen, and use Tricks pro-socially to help the tank hold aggro on the target. Tricks is especially useful when there is a threat wipe and the tank has to regain control of a mob in the middle of a fight.

Tricks: buff your fellow rogues

Rogues can trick each other every 30 seconds to give each other a DPS boost. If the tank has solid aggro, arrange with another rogue to exchange Tricks.

To exchange tricks with another rogue, here's a macro that will select the target rogue, cast tricks, then go back to your previous target:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/tar Name
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/targetlasttarget
/w name I've [Tricked] you!

Where Name = the name of the rogue you want to trick. This macro shows the cooldown on Tricks, and sends a warning message to the target rogue to let him know he's been Tricked. The alert is helpful because (a) Tricks boosts threat so it will alert the target rogue to a possible threat increase (If you're the target, watch your threat), and (b) the alert will remind you to cast Tricks on another rogue. (I figure tanks don't need this kind of whisper cluttering up their chat channel, so I don't have an alert in my tank macros.)

In addition, you can run the "Trick or Treat" mod which will (a) wait to cast tricks until you attack, (b) alert the target, and © calculate how much bonus damage you gave to the other player and whisper it to them. I have this mod installed but so far have found all the whispers rather distracting and unhelpful, so I've turned it off for now.

On Zlinka, I have four Trick macros ready: one for each of three tanks, and one for a fellow rogue. This way I can bump up the threat of any tank if necessary, or trick my fellow rogue if the tanks are holding aggro. I just change the target names at the beginning of each raid.

Combat Rogues

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:44:18 -0800

Here is a quick summary of the basics of playing a combat raiding rogue:

* Spec

The top combat spec is currently 20/51/0

* Weapons

For a main hand, get a slow weapon (2.5-2.7) which is as high-DPS as possible. DPS matters more than speed. For the off-hand, you want something as fast as possible (1.4 - 1.5).

You want two weapons of the same type so that both use your specialization. There's currently a preference for Hack and Slash: sword/sword and axe/axe builds are currently favored due to itemization issues.

* Stats

All the rogue stats are good (Agility, Attack Power, Hit, Haste) for where we are (early ICC).

(Late in ICC, theory has it that combat rogues should look into gemming hit to reach their Crit cap, and then stacking Armor Penetration.)

* Attack rotation

(1) Get Slice and Dice up ASAP
(2) Sinister Strike to 5 combo points (Sinister strike is your main attack and combo-point generator)
(3) Eviscerate (5-point Eviscerates are your main finisher)

- Keep Slice and Dice up at all times, no matter what your combo points are at
- Blow cooldowns whenever possible. Killing Spree + Blade Flurry; Blade Flurry + Adrenaline Rush are both good. Adrenaline Rush + Killing Spree is not recommended as your energy will cap (will sit at 100).

* Poisons

Main hand: Instant Poison
Off-hand: Deadly Poison

For more general advice on playing and gearing a rogue, see my post on The Art of DPS.

Rogue Add Ons

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:17:22 -0800

So what are the "must have" add ons for Rogues?

Looking for Rogue Info

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:36:13 -0700

Hey folks, I am in the process of leveling my Rogue Krelldor to 80 (currently 77) and I was wondering a few things.

For starters, my intentions are to PvP with him mostly, but I will be hoping to drag him through some instances to gather PvE gear as well. Then, once the patch hits that allows us to gain Conquest tokens from anywhere that awards tokens (Heroics, etc) I plan to grind heroics with he and Shantow.

Questions: What kind of chants should I be getting on gear/weapons? What kind of gems should I be cutting? What are my most important stats?

Also, does anyone know of a good Rogue website?

Thanks for your help!

The Art of DPS (Mutilate DPS guide)

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:03:04 -0800

This is a rogue guide, but I'm going to start with general observations about playing a DPS class that I hope will be useful to other damage dealers as well.

What's the raid game about as DPS?

When you are raiding as DPS your most important job is to maximize your damage on the target without dying or absorbing unnecessary amounts of healing mana.

First rule: Don't die -- dying eliminates your DPS
Second rule: Don't pull aggro -- aggro drains healer mana
Third rule: Do as much damage as you can without violating rules #1 and #2. Playing DPS is about controlling your damage.

To restate: By doing more DPS we damage-dealers reduce the amount of inbound damage that the tank's mitigation and stamina and the healers' mana pools have to survive.

What can you do to increase your DPS?

Maximize your time on target

This means hitting the target as soon as it is safe to do so, as soon as the tank has a firm grip on the mob.

For rogues, one way to maximize time on target is to be in the right position in the raid: next to the tank. You want to be on the spot when it's time to attack. Don't waste time, each pull, creeping several yards up to your target. This wastes precious time. Instead, advance with the tank. Stay stealthed a step behind or even a step ahead of the tank (watch out for mobs that see through stealth or you may face-pull). This way, when the tank pulls, the mobs run *through* you. Pivot and nail the main target a fraction of a second after the tank hits it. You are guaranteed to be on the spot every time.

When you open your attack this way on a trash pull of multiple mobs, don't open with your AoE (Fan of Knives). The tank may not have aggro on all the mobs yet and you'll just pull them onto yourself and die. Open with your main single-target attack and wait a few seconds to start Fan of Knives. Fan of Knives is a new ability for rogues, and I'm still getting the hang of it... I'd say that half my deaths in the past few weeks (since the cooldown was removed) have been due to a too-soon use of Fan of Knives.

You will need to develop judgement about when "safe" is. Jump too early and you will die. However, if you wait too long to attack, you are losing valuable seconds in which to DPS the mobs. This lost damage adds up over the course of a raid.

To illustrate: If someone is doing 2000 DPS and is delaying for an unnecessary 2 seconds on each pull, over the course of forty pulls that person will have lost 80 seconds of DPS time, or 160,000 damage. How much is that? If these fights last 30 seconds on average, then 160,000 represents a loss of 7% of that character's damage. That's a big number: a 7% damage difference is far greater than most gear upgrades.

One way to measure whether you are maximizing your time on target is to look at the "activity" number in Wowwebstats or Recount. This number shows how much time you spent attacking during the raid. A rogue's number should be just under that of the tank. So, if the tank is attacking 33% of the time, a good number for a DPSer would be 32%. If the DPS's number is a lot less than that of the tank (say, in this example, 27%), that indicates a lot of lost DPS and a good area for personal improvement.

Casters are a bit handicapped in this domain, as they may need to lead with a spell that has a 2-3 second cast time. That adds a built-in delay. One way around this is to start casting before the tank pulls, and to time it exquisitely so that the spell lands just after the tank has pulled and has aggro (if casting starts too soon, it should be interrupted to avoid pulling the mob, of course). This, too, takes good judgement. Another way is to lead with an instant or a channeled spell.

Main message: Maximizing the time spent attacking the target is one of the best ways to increase your damage.

Focus your attention

This is a big one. When raiding, be on the ball. Keep your character in position, attack the instant it is safe, attack from behind, keep your Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice up at all times. Pay attention to your surroundings and get out of AoEs. If you pull aggro dump it quickly with feint, tricks, vanish, or sprint. Use healing potions (don't wait for the healers to catch you if you're in deep trouble) and bandages. Spam your attacks so they go off the instant the global cooldown is up. Blow your cooldowns when they are available and you will get the full use out of them.

If you are tired and distracted, if your HfB and SnD stacks drop off, if you are a little late in engaging the mob, if you don't hit your abilities the instant they are available, if you are slow to follow the mob or get behind it, your damage output will be significantly impaired.

As an example: in TBC I wanted to compare two similar weapons empirically. So Oryx agreed to be my Target Dummy. He cast Earth Shield on himself, let me beat away at him, and just stood there healing himself until I finally killed him. We did this six times, with me swapping weapons between each test.

The results were revealing. The weapons were so similar that it was impossible to tell which one was better in the noise of field testing. But a much more surprising and important lesson was that my DPS declined over the six tests. Upon reflection, I realized that my attention had begun to flag over the course of the experiment. I had got distracted. Oryx and I started having a conversation. I looked away from the screen a few times. I was a little late in hitting my main attack on several occasions. That loss of attention resulted in a 5% loss of DPS between the early and late tests. This loss of DPS dwarfed the difference between the weapons and, in fact, dwarfs most gear upgrades -- very few upgrades will improve your DPS by 5%.

Main Message: Focus intently on what you are doing. Engage quickly, react fast, and attack continuously. Minimize distractions. Focus will increase your DPS by the equivalent of several gear upgrades.

Use Keyboard and Mouse Efficiently

Playing Warcraft means pressing keys on the keyboard, moving the mouse around and clicking on the screen. Anything you can do to speed up this keyboarding and mousing process will increase your efficiency, your reaction time and your DPS. This is a very individual thing -- you need to find what works for you. With that in mind, here is some general advice:

Keyboard shortcuts are the fastest. Link abilities to buttons on the keyboard. Have them at your fingertips.

If you do use the mouse to click on abilities, organize your ability buttons so that the ones you use most often are clustered close together on the screen. This will minimize eye movement and wrist/mouse movement. Place less-frequently used abilities just outside that hot zone (oh-crap abilities, cooldowns).

There are mods out there that will allow you to organize your ability buttons in, say, a circle around your character.

Main message: Use keyboard shortcuts and/or arrange your buttons to minimize time spent moving your eyes or moving your pointer. This will improve your reaction time and thus your DPS and survivability.

Know your attack rotation

Every class and spec has a set of attack combinations, or rotations, that does a great deal of damage -- far more damage than a randomly chosen pattern. This is because a class's attack abilities all interact with each other, unlock each other, build on each other, and have varying cooldowns and costs. Pressing the attacks in the right order makes a big difference in your DPS.

To get the most DPS out of your character, you should know your attack rotation. Memorize it. It will probably take some time for your rotation to become second nature. When I respecced Zlinka from Combat to Mutilate, I had my new rotation on a sticky note on the monitor for about a week.

I only know the attack rotations for rogues (see below). If you are not a Mutilate rogue, I recommend going to the Elitist Jerks Class forums and visiting the section for your class. There will be a post which summarizes the current top-DPS rotation for your class and spec, as well as gear advice etc. Note that DPS rotations change from time to time as Blizzard fiddles with our abilities. Check back periodically to keep your attack rotation current.

In the reality of a raid, it is often impossible to apply a perfect attack rotation. You may need to run out of combat to avoid an AoE, you may be called on to interrupt spellcasting, or to help a comrade in some way. But when you are DPSing, it's a fun part of the game to make your attack rotation as perfect as possible. And always remember that as you do more DPS, you kill the mobs faster, and the tanks' and healers' lives are made easier.

DPS meters

I run a DPS meter (Recount), and I recommend running one, or knowing someone who does, or looking at Jaba's Webstats report so you can keep an eye on your performance and identify areas that you can improve.

There are two measures of damage: instantaneous DPS measures your average damage per second. "Damage done" measures how much damage you do over a span of time -- a boss fight, a trash pull, or during the entire raid. "Damage done" is a more useful number than DPS because it measures your actual utility to to the raid. The two measures are correlated, but it is common to see someone with high DPS do less overall damage than someone with lower DPS.

Things to look at on a DPS meter

* Look at your damage done during particular boss fights

How are you doing? Note that different fights are designed to allow different kinds of classes to shine (fights may favor ranged DPS, AoE classes, single-target DPS, or hero tactics -- the performance of a few players with special tasks) so rogue damage will vary according to the fight. Rogues do best on single-target "tank and spank" fights, and will do less well on fights requiring, say, AoE damage or lots of running around. With this in mind, how are you doing in the different fights?

* Look at your overall damage

Overall damage is a very coarse number that blurs a lot of different contexts, so you can't look at it in too much detail -- an AoE heavy dungeon will favor mages, and so forth. However, it's useful to get a general idea of your own performance. Blizzard has designed classes so that similarly geared/skilled players will have roughly similar damage outputs. How are you doing relative to other players in the raid? If your damage is significantly less than theirs, what is going on? Possibilities include:
- Did you die a lot? Dead rogues do no damage. Be a little more conservative.
- Did you disconnect?
- Do you have bad lag? Lag will reduce your efficiency.
- Are you using a track pad instead of an external mouse? The pointer is much harder to control with a track pad.
- Did you join late or leave the raid early?
- Did you have another non-DPS task to perform?
- Does your gear have lower stats? (Look at the aggregate item level -- that's a useful rough measure of gear quality).

Those are some of the non performance-related reasons DPS may vary. However, if you were in the raid, online, alive, and your gear is similar, then we're looking at a gap that can be improved by skill.

* Look at your activity numbers

Sometimes players have high DPS but do less overall damage than they could because they simply aren't in combat enough. Your activity time should be just below the tank's. If it's significantly lower than the tank's you can be more active. This is an easy one to improve -- get into combat sooner.

* Learn from others

Examine the abilities of someone of the same class who has similar gear but is out-damaging you. What abilities are they using? How much are the different abilities hitting for? How many of their attacks are crits? What is their miss rate? How much of their damage comes from which abilities, and how does this compare to yours? Learn from this. Do research on your class to figure out what you can do better -- attack rotations, gear, activity level, enchants etc. Talk to other players, ask what they're doing. If research reveals a higher-DPS build, and you are open to re-speccing, consider trying that out.

* Rogue-specific things to check

- Look at your miss rates for yellow attacks, poisons, and white damage. If missing is a problem, work on getting more +hit gear

- Look at your dodge rates. If they are too high, work on getting more +expertise gear

- Look at your parry rates. These should be almost non-existent because you should always be attacking from behind. If you get a lot of parries, watch your position and get behind the mobs more.

- Look at your energy gained. If you gain less energy than another energy-user (another rogue or cat druid) it means that your energy capped out during the raid, and you therefore had unused potential damage. Don't let that happen -- use your special attacks more. Your energy should never sit at 100% during a fight. You should, ideally, hit an attack the instant you have enough energy to do so.

But always remember...

* Don't worry about the DPS meter during a new encounter. When learning something new DPS matters far less than having the correct strategy, executing it properly and surviving the encounter.
* Be very cautious when comparing your absolute numbers with those of players in other raids, and even your own numbers between different raids. Buffs may differ from raid to raid and these have a substantial impact on your DPS (see below).
* The DPS meter is a learning tool. Don't get too obsessed about it. Friendly competition is good, but don't let the meter sour your enjoyment of the game.

Raid Buffs

Blizzard has redesigned how buffs work in raids. In Wrath, there are a few dozen buffs, each of which can be provided by two or three class/spec combinations. Only one character with each buff is necessary to buff the entire raid. Other buffs of the same type are redundant. (See the end of this post for a list of the buffs that increase rogue damage.)

Sometimes you have a choice of which buffs to receive, especially from paladins and shamans. From paladins, you should always get Blessing of Might. If you have a second Paladin, get Blessing of Kings. From a Shaman you should get Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth.

Rogues are extremely buff-sensitive. A rogue with a full complement of 25-man raid buffs can put out twice as much damage as the very same rogue in an unbuffed 5-man. Buffs in raids interact with each other mathematically, so their contribution to your DPS becomes enormous in a big raid. Lacking one buff can easily take hundreds of DPS off your absolute DPS number.

DPS enhancements -- a comparison

How much do upgrades, enchants, gems and buffs actually contribute to your DPS in a raid? It's good to have a general idea of the big contributors. Absolute numbers are impossible because real DPS is so context-dependent, but with a given set of starting conditions you can calculate the relative value of different contributors.

Oryx and I spreadsheeted a fully-geared Assassination rogue in a fully buffed 25-man raid. We removed various buffs, enchants and upgrades one at a time to see how much each one contributed to the rogue's overall DPS. After each calculation, we replaced the item and removed another. Here's what we found, in order of least to greatest contribution:

From one green-quality AP gem (+24 AP) to one blue-quality AP gem (+32 AP): 0.09% DPS
Icewalker enchant on boots: 0.5% DPS
Crusher enchant on gloves: 0.5% DPS
From no enchant on weapon to Potency on weapon: 0.6% DPS
Tier 7 to 7.5 chest: 0.6% DPS
Tier 7 to 7.5 shoulders: 0.7% DPS
Haste food: 0.7% DPS
From Greater Potency on weapon to Berserking on weapon: 0.9% DPS
Fish feast: 0.9% DPS
Mark of the Wild: 1.8% DPS
Flask of Endless Rage: 2.1% DPS
Mangle/Trauma: 2.1% DPS
Heart of the Crusader / Master Poisoner / Totem of Wrath: 2.4% DPS
Ferocious Inspiration/Sanctified Retribution: 2.9% DPS
Blessing of Kings: 3.1% DPS
Leader of the Pack / Rampage: 3.6% DPS
Titansteel Shanker to Webbed Death dagger: 3.8%
Tunic of the Dark Hour (QD badge reward from TBC) to 7.5 chest: 4.6%
Unleashed Rage / Trueshot Aura / Abomination's Might: 6.1% DPS
Horn of Winter / Strength of Earth Totem: 6.2% DPS
Battle Shout / Blessing of Might: 8% DPS
Sunder Armor / Expose Armor: 8.3% DPS
Windfury Totem / Improved Icy Touch: 10.8% DPS

The main message here:
* Stat food is equivalent to one gear upgrade. Use stat food at all times.
* Flasks and Elixirs are worth several gear upgrades. Use them.
* Know what buffs to ask for -- Windfury Totem is worth a complete Tier of gear.
* Buffs matter a lot to your absolute numbers. A single buff makes a big difference. Therefore, be cautious when comparing your performance to that of others in other raids with different buffs. Also be cautious when comparing your own performance from one raid to the next.
* Combine the above calculations with the rough estimate that being distracted costs 5% DPS and you can see how important it is to pay attention.

Assassination Build

Assassination is the new top PvE raiding build for Wrath. In Classic Warcraft, the top raiding build was Combat Daggers. In TBC, it was Combat Swords, with other Combat specs a couple percent behind. In Wrath, however, Assassination rose to become the top raiding build, a status that has been confirmed by the developers.

I specced Zlinka for Combat Daggers in Classic Warcraft and kept her that way all through TBC (I figured my familiarity with the build could overcome its slight disadvantage), but in Wrath that build became untenable -- its damage was significantly less than that of other builds and classes. Zlinka simply could not keep up as Combat Daggers. After three years in the Combat tree I respecced her to Assassination a few weeks after starting Wrath raiding.

51/18/2 is the current top Mutilate spec, instead of the older 51/13/7.

A word about Master Poisoner vs. Turn the Tables: Since patch 3.1, Master Poisoner is now superior to Turn the Tables, because Master Poisoner received a buff. It now increases the chance to apply Deadly Poison after an Envenom by an additional 45% (as well as its old function of increasing the crit chance of ALL raid members by 3% against poisoned targets.) MP's raid buff function does not stack with the similar functions of Heart of the Crusader (Retribution Paladin) and Totem of Wrath (Elemental Shaman) but its self-buff function still makes it worth it.

Best Weapons: Speed and Damage

Put the highest DPS dagger in your main hand, regardless of speed. If your two daggers are the same DPS, put the faster one in your main hand. The faster weapon gives you extra poison procs, which just slightly outweigh the loss in Mutilate damage.

Put Deadly Poison on the faster weapon (even if it's the main hand), and Instant Poison on the slower one. If both weapons are the same speed, put Deadly Poison on the main hand.

Assassination attack rotation

Brief summary of the most commonly-used abilities:

* Mutilate is the main attack and combo point generator.

* Envenom is the main finisher, once Slice and Dice is up -- Envenom renews Slice and Dice to its maximum duration.

* Hunger for Blood is a self-buff that increases damage by a flat percentage. Have this up at all times. The target needs to have a bleed debuff on it for you to be able to activate HfB. If no bleed debuff is available, use Rupture to get it up. Rupture is no longer used as part of the rogue's regular cycle, however.

* Much of an Assassination rogue's job consists of keeping two abilities up: Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice.

* Use Deadly Poison on your faster weapon (often, but not always, the off-hand), and Instant Poison on the slower weapon. A very large percentage of your damage comes from these poisons.

Tip: I found it very difficult to keep an eye on Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice. I wasted a lot of time seeking them on the screen. To solve this, I use a mod called NeedToKnow which displays an activity bar for buffs and debuffs of my choosing. I have placed these activity bars right above my "hot spot" of activity keys. I can attack, watch these abilities tick down, and renew them without moving my eyes.

The Assassination rogue attack rotation is dynamic. It is not as simple as the Combat 5s/5r rotation from TBC. Here's the basic idea against a single target:

Before combat:
(1) Apply Deadly Poison to your faster weapon and Instant Poison to your slower one. If both weapons are the same speed, put DP on the main hand.

Opening moves:
(1) Open with Mutilate
(2) Get Hunger for Blood up as soon as possible. Usually someone in the raid will apply a bleed debuff right away and you can activate HfB. If not, you'll need to get a Rupture up quickly and then HfB.
(3) Get Slice and Dice up as soon as possible. I open with Mutilate and then hit Slice and Dice.

Ideally, you can just hit HfB in the first seconds of combat and still open with Mutilate and SnD. If nobody applies a bleed, I either open with Mutilate-Rupture-HfB-Mutilate-SnD, or with the slightly longer Mutilate-SnD-Mutilate-Rupture-HfB.

Rotation:
(4) Mutilate twice, to four combo points
(5) Decision point:
* If Hunger for Blood is about to fall off, renew it (you may need to apply a Rupture first -- look ahead)
* Otherwise, Envenom. As a side benefit, Envenom renews SnD to its max duration, thanks to Cut to the Chase. SnD should always be up.
(6) Repeat steps 2-4

Using Envenom: Don't think of Envenom as a SnD 'renewer,' waiting until SnD is nearly spent to hit Envenom! Envenom is a damage finisher that also applies a useful 4-5 sec debuff which increases your chance to hit with poisons, so you should use Envenom as much as you can. Seriously, go nuts!

Cold Blood: use this on a 5-point Envenom / 5-stack of Deadly Poisons whenever CB is up.

Capping and dumping: Don't let your energy cap (sit at 100%), and don't generate more than 5 combo points if you can help it. If you are capping energy or combo points, or if the mob is almost dead and you still have combo points on it, just burn an Envenom.

AoE Fan of Knives

Many of the trash pulls in Naxx are AoE pulls. The no-cooldown Fan of Knives is a new ability that I am still figuring out how to use, but here is my current attack rotation on AoE trash:

(1) Poison up and get Hunger for Blood up
(2) Open with Mutilate against a single mob (because opening with an AoE is a death sentence).
(3) Get Slice and Dice up. (That way I get maximum white damage against a single target).
(4) Spend the rest of the fight hitting Fan of Knives, except when Hunger for Blood needs to be renewed
Few fights last long enough to warrant a second mutilate-SnD rotation.

I use Fan of Knives like this when there are three or more mobs in a trash pull. With just two mobs, I generally use single-target DPS.

Threat and Oh-Crap abilities

In Wrath, the tank's ability to generate threat has been dramatically increased, so in heroics and early raiding threat management is not the balancing act it was in TBC. Tanks routinely have twice the threat of the next DPS or healer on the threat charts.

However, as you get better and better geared, your threat will approach that of the tank, and managing your threat once again becomes one of your important jobs. Drawing aggro often means death, and a dead rogue does no damage.

I find it helpful to use a threat-tracking mod, such as Omen, to keep an eye on my threat to make sure it is always below that of the tank, or at least never exceeds the tank's by 10%. At 110% of the tank's threat you will pull aggro as melee DPS (for ranged, this number is 130%).

If your threat is getting into the dangerous range, Omen will notify you and you can Trick, Feint, or dump all aggro with a Vanish. If all these are on cooldown and you pull aggro, Sprint and kite.

If the tank dies, a boss usually turns instantly on the melee DPS and kills them. Be alert and hit Vanish the instant the tank dies.

Tricks of the Trade

Tricks is the rogue Misdirect. It gives all your threat for 6 seconds to a target of your choice (the tank). Make a macro that will target the current tank, cast Tricks of the Trade, and return to your original target:

/tar [Name]
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/targetlasttarget

Use Tricks pro-socially to help the tank hold aggro on the target. Tricks is especially useful when there is a threat wipe and the tank has to regain control of a mob in the middle of a fight. You can also use Tricks instead of Feint when you're in trouble, though Tricks takes a few seconds longer than Feint (you have to run the macro and do damage for it to work) so if you're really in trouble, Feint.

Tricks: buff your fellow rogues

Rogues can trick each other every 30 seconds to give each other a DPS boost. If the tank is solid on aggro, arrange with another rogue to exchange Tricks.

To exchange tricks with another rogue, here's a macro that will select the target rogue, cast tricks, then go back to your previous target:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/tar name
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/targetlasttarget
/w name I've [Tricked] you!

Where name = the name of the rogue you want to trick. This macro shows the cooldown on Tricks, and sends a warning message to the target rogue to let him know he's been Tricked. The alert is helpful because (a) Tricks boosts threat so it will alert the target rogue to a possible threat increase (If you're the target, watch your threat), and (b) the alert will remind you to cast Tricks yourself.

In addition, you can run the "Trick or Treat" mod which will (a) wait to cast tricks until you attack, (b) alert the target, and © calculate how much bonus damage you gave to the other player and whisper it to them. I have this mod installed but so far have found all the whispers rather distracting and unhelpful, so I've turned it off for now.

On Zlinka, I have four Trick macros ready: one for each of three tanks, and one for a fellow rogue. This way I can bump up a struggling tank if necessary, or trick my fellow rogue if the tanks are holding aggro. I just change the target names at the beginning of each raid.

Gear

Gearing a rogue means balancing between AP, agility, crit, hit, expertise, armor penetration, and haste. All of these stats have their place. The decisions are dynamic.

Making gear choices

* For a fast and dirty way to make decisions between items (say, during a roll) I use Shadowpanther's PvE gear ranking. However, a generic item ranking list will only take you so far. For example, how valuable +hit is to you depends on how much +hit you already have.

* For a more personalized and accurate method of choosing gear, use a spreadsheet. I use the Optimal Mutilate Gear Spreadsheet. Non-mutilate rogues use the Roguecraft Spreadsheet.

However, remember that all spreadsheets assume a perfect world (as I like to think of it, they are written for spherical cows). They assume conditions are perfect, players are robots, and all fights are against Patchwerk (the top DPS fight in the game). Therefore, a spreadsheet's calculation of your DPS should be considered ideal and not real. Real DPS in real raids is never perfect. A spreadsheet is best used for comparisons: comparisons between two items, gems, food buffs, etc.

On that note, a word about trinkets. In spreadsheets and ranking lists, on-use trinkets are ranked as though the trinket is used the instant the cooldown is up and that you get the full benefit of it (i.e. the mob stays alive for the entire duration of the trinket's ability). In reality, I find that I rarely use trinkets as often as their abilities are available, and sometimes a mob dies before the trinket's ability is done. Therefore, I tend to value on-use trinkets lower than their official ranking. When choosing between two similarly-ranked trinkets I prefer the one that don't require me to click on it.

Hit and Expertise rating

In TBC, +hit was the most important stat for raiding rogues. Rogues worked hard to reach the hit cap without totally unbalancing themselves. One reason for this was that most raiding rogues were Combat-specced, and more than half of a combat rogue's DPS came from white damage, so reducing white-misses was one of the most effective ways (cheapest, from an item budget standpoint) to increase DPS. A rogue could reach the +hit cap (around 330) and never miss at all.

In Wrath, +hit is no longer the end-all, be-all of stats. For one, the top raiding spec is no longer Combat, but Assassination, and only about a quarter of an Assaassination rogue's damage comes from white damage. For another, the hit cap for white damage (722) is no longer reachable in Wrath.

Currently we have three hit caps to think about. These hit caps assume you have 5/5 precision and you're attacking a boss:

* Hit cap for special attacks: 99. Every rogue should strive to be over this one.
* Hit cap for Poisons: 315. Aim for this, but balance it against other upgrades. Reaching this cap is a "nice to have" but not a "must have." Look at your miss rate for poisons and use a spreadsheet.
* Hit cap for white damage: 722. Impossible.

Expertise is just as valuable as hit, if not more so. It eliminates dodges (and parries, but you shouldn't have these because you'll be attacking from behind). The expertise cap is also a lot easier to reach than the higher hit caps.

Expertise cap: 26 (214 Expertise rating)
(With 2/2 Weapon Expertise: 16 Expertise (132 Expertise rating), but this is a deep Combat talent)

So, one good strategy is to go after the yellow hit cap first (99, this is a must) then go after the expertise cap (214), then pursue the Poison hit cap (315) and exceed it if you can. But don't unbalance yourself: don't deny yourself big upgrades just to maintain your +hit from an inferior item.

Item enhancements: gems and enchants

Make sure to enhance every item you have. Put gems in all your sockets; enchant every piece of gear that can be enchanted. Pursue the rep enchants for head and shoulder items and don't forget to put a belt buckle on your belt for the free socket. I can make buckles; ask me for one.

Gems

Metagem: [item]Relentless Earthsiege Diamond[/item]

Mutilate, below yellow hit cap
Red sockets: Glinting or Pristine
Yellow: Rigid
Blue: Use just one [item]Nightmare Tear[/item] in all your gear to activate your metagem. In other blue sockets, use red gems.

Mutilate, above yellow but below poison hit cap
Red: AP or Agi gems (you may wish to use pure or mixed expertise gems here until you hit the expertise cap)
Yellow: Glinting/Wicked
Blue: Use just one [item]Nightmare Tear[/item] in all your gear to activate your metagem. In other blue sockets, use red gems.

Mutilate, above the poison but below the white hit cap
Red: AP or Agi gems (AP has a slight edge)
Yellow: Stark/Deadly/Wicked
Blue: Use just one [item]Nightmare Tear[/item] in all your gear to activate your metagem. In other blue sockets, use red gems.

Enchants

Weapon: [item]Enchant Weapon - Berserking[/item] is the best, but very expensive. Reserve that for a weapon you'll have for a long time. For your interim weapons do something cheaper like +50 AP.
Helm: [item]Arcanum of Torment[/item]. Knights of the Ebon Blade revered.
Shoulders: [item]Greater Inscription of the Axe[/item] if exalted with Hodir. The exalted reward is only slightly better than the honored enchant: [item]Lesser Inscription of the Axe[/item]
Chest: [item]Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats[/item]. Very expensive enchant, use for a terminal upgrade. For interim chestpieces, use +8 stats.
Cloak: [item]Enchant Cloak - Major Agility[/item]
Bracers: [item]Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault[/item]
Gloves: [item]Enchant Gloves - Crusher[/item]
Legs: [item]Icescale Leg Armor[/item]
Boots: [item]Enchant Boots - Icewalker[/item]
Belt: [item]Eternal Belt Buckle[/item] with a gem in it

Check your professions to see what self-buffs you have available and apply them:
Leatherworkers only: Fur Lining - Attack Power
Inscriptionists only: Master's Inscription of the Axe
Tailors only: Swordguard Embroidery
Enchanters only: Enchant Ring - Assault
Blacksmiths only: Apply an additional socket to gloves and bracers

Glyphs

[item]Glyph of Mutilate[/item] -- cheaper Mutilate, a must-have
[item]Glyph of Hunger for Blood[/item] -- increases HfB's bonus damage by 3%, a must-have
[item]Glyph of Tricks of the Trade[/item] -- increases the duration of Tricks of the Trade.
[item]Glyph of Fan of Knives[/item]

There's also [item]Glyph of Slice and Dice[/item] -- +3 seconds to SnD. But honestly, I don't have trouble with SnD running out even though I don't have this glyph, because I'm spamming Envenom which renews it anyway. So this one isn't that useful.

Consumables

Bring potions and food and consume them at every raid. Rebuff yourself with food and elixirs after every death. Stat food and potions confer a lot of DPS (see above).

Flask: [item]Flask of Endless Rage[/item]
- or -
Battle Elixir: [item]Elixir of Mighty Agility[/item], [item]Wrath Elixir[/item]

Food: This is a good place to make up for weaknesses in your gear or for missing raid buffs. There are many excellent foods out there that buff agility, attack power, hit, crit, expertise, or haste. Spreadsheet this to figure out which one. Personally, I use +80 AP food (poached musselback sculpin or fish feast).

[item]Potion of Speed[/item] -- I use one of these during each boss fight if it looks like I won't be needing a health potion.

Good starting set of gear for entry-level Wrath raiding

These are crafted, rep and heroic items. Get as many of these together as you can before raiding. Look at the Wrath crafting thread to see who can make these and work with the crafter to get them made. For BoE drops, check the Auction House. Once you start raiding, you can continue to pursue these items while you wait for random drops from your raid:

* Dagger, main hand: [item]Titansteel Shanker[/item] -- BS recipe, [item]Librarian's Paper Cutter[/item] -- HoL Heroic trash drop, [item]Lightblade Rivener[/item] -- Kirin Tor honored.
* Dagger, offhand: [item]Librarian's Paper Cutter[/item], [item]Lightblade Rivener[/item]
* Head: [item]Mask of the Watcher[/item] -- heroic Oculus
* Neck: [item]Titanium Impact Choker[/item] -- JC crafted
* Shoulders: [item]Trollwoven Spaulders[/item] -- Leatherworking crafted
* Waist: [item]Trollwoven Girdle[/item] -- Leatherworking crafted
* Wrists: [item]Dragonfriend bracers[/item] -- Exalted Wyrmrest, [item]Drake-Champion's Bracers[/item] BoE heroic Oculus drop
* Chest: [item]Custodian's Chestpiece[/item] - Heroic ANH or [item]Darkheart Chestguard[/item] -- KEB Exalted
* Legs: [item]Mind-Expanding Leggings[/item] -- Kirin Tor Revered, or [item]Leggings of Visceral Strikes[/item] -- LW recipe, or [item]Chain Gang Legguards[/item] -- BoE heroic Violet Hold trash drop
* Feet: [item]Boots of the Whirling Mist[/item] HoS heroic, [item]Slag Footguards[/item] HoL-H, the [item]Darkspeaker's Treads[/item] IC quest reward
* Hands: [item]Gilt-Edged Leather Gauntlets[/item] UP-H, [item]Gloves of Immortal Dusk[/item] LW recipe
* Finger: [item]Titanium Impact Band[/item] -- JC crafted, [item]Stained-Glass Shard Ring[/item] BoE AnH-H trash, [item]Ring of Scarlet Shadows[/item] JC recipe
* Trinket: [item]Meteorite Whetstone[/item] UP-H, [item]Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood[/item] Heroic Nexus, [item]Incisor Fragment[/item] DTK-H. Your first 25 Badges of Heroism should go towards [item]Mirror of Truth[/item], a superb trinket. [item]Darkmoon Card: Greatness[/item] is considered best-in-slot but is insanely expensive.
* Back: [item]Ice Striker's Cloak[/item] -- LW recipe

Raid buffs that increase rogue DPS

These are all the raid buffs that enhance rogue DPS, and which class/spec combinations provide them.

Agility and Strength:
* Horn of Winter (All DK)
* Strength of Earth Totem (all Shaman)

Attack Power:
* Battle Shout (All Warriors)
* Blessing of Might (All Paladins)
* Furious Howl (Marksmanship, Survival Hunter) -- occasional

Attack Power %
* Abomination's Might (Blood DK)
* Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship Hunter)
* Unleashed Rage (Enhancement Shaman)

Bloodlust / Heroism (2/2)
* Bloodlust / Heroism (All Shaman)

Damage %
* Ferocious Inspiration (Beastmaster Hunter)
* Sanctified Retribution (Retribution Paladin)

Haste %
* Improved Moonkin Form (Balance Druid)
* Swift Retribution (Retribution Paladin)

Melee Critical Strike Chance
* Leader of the Pack (Feral Druid)
* Rampage (Fury Warrior)

Melee Haste
* Improved Icy Talons (Frost DK)
* Windfury Totem (All Shaman) -- not that a Shaman cannot cast both Windfury (melee haste) and Wrath of Air (spell haste).

Stat Add
* Mark of the Wild (all Druids)

Stat Multiplier
* Blessing of Kings (If there's just one paladin, choose Might. If there is another, get Kings too)

Debuffs on target that increase rogue DPS

Armor (major)
* Acid Spit (Beastmaster Hunter)
* Expose Armor (Rogue) -- this is rarely used because it takes precedence over the warrior's Sunder Armor, which is a high-threat tank move. However, with a non-warrior tank you can use Expose Armor to increase everyone's damage.
* Sunder Armor (Warriors)

Armor (minor)
* Curse of Recklessness (All Warlocks)
* Faerie Fire (All Druids)
* Sting (Marksmanship and Survival Hunters)

Critical Strike Chance Taken:
* Heart of the Crusader (Retribution Paladin)
* Master Poisoner (Assassination Rogue)
* Totem of Wrath (Elemental Shaman)

Buff info is from MMO-Champion RaidComp, which lets you compose a raid to see what buffs the raid will have, and who provides which buffs.

Further reading

An extremely helpful pocket guide to playing a rogue in Wrath.

Rogue Meet and greet!

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:46:21 -0800

Your Friendly RCSL here! Wait.... There we go..

Anyways, it came to me that alot of what we do might also be better off discussed in a nice little sit down meeting sometime, where we can also discuss other ways to help get the word out for us. The one thing I want to do is help all the rogues here in the tribe know they belong to a larger group! I want to try to do this Thursday the 28th, after the moot. If you are able to come, please let me know here! thanks in advance.

Rogues and their business: How to raid as a rogue

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:07:07 -0800

Good Morning folks!

Welcome to your obligitory welcome post to being a rogue! Yar, it sounds snarky, but everyone of you who have reached 70 know what a big deal it is to be us. We are the sneaks of wow, frequently villified in BGs and often times spoken of in an ill wind when it comes to raiding. What am I talking about? Well, I won't get into the arguements for or against us, but I will say one thing. It...is...all...false. Rogues can still end up on top of both realms of game, but it takes alot of hard work and determination.

In all the ramblings of this silly rogue, you will learn one of the most important things a rogue has to learn. Obssession. If you want to rise above the din, you have to obsess about what you do. Scary idea, yes, but rogues are a class where time spent outside of game can improve how you do in game. What do I mean? well, if you are reading this..you already are starting. Read everything you can! And, to help with this..I guess I should stop this silly introduction.

There are going to be three sections to this, all of which detail some of the things necessary to become a good rogue! Those sections shall be as such

The Basics-- This is going to be the hardest thing to explain. Basically it covers timing and reactions.

Talents-- Self explanitory

Gear and others-- What everyone will probably go straight to anyways, but I have to make it tertiary!

And with this post, we begin! I hope I can make some sense out of it.

Patch changes - 2.1.2

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:28:28 -0700

Rogues
- Sword Specialization: The change to Sword Specialization making its
extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will
appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer
reset the swing time of your weapon.

Rogue Talent Builds

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:19:01 -0700

I am leveling a new rogue right now and am enjoying it very much.
The talent spec I am planning on using for leveling is below, I would like any feedback you guys might have;

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/clas...0000000000

The Unspoken Science: Poisoning

Mon, 28 May 2007 03:07:51 -0700

Good mooooooooornin' tribe,

I know this lil post is a wee bit out of place, but it is something that I have come up to in very many situations (not in guild). The art of the apothecary sciences is something that all of us rogues have had since we were all of 20 ranks into our calling. Saddly, I have found it to be the least properly utilized tool in our arsenal. I will not proclaim to be the end all be all of skullduggers here, but some basic lessons and info might be helpful for all branches of our caste. We specialize in information and execution, and what better way to hone our edge by learning about both, eh?

In my first section I will go over the aspects of each poison individually. Yus, you can get a basic description from our catalog, but sometimes..its better to see it placed situationally.

Section two will be dedicated to the two new poison related skills, Shiv and envenom. We will chop down bit by bit what each skill does, and explain how best to utilize each. Here we will also touch on talents.

And finally, section three will be on specific situations (applying on the fly). This is a summation of knowing all about your poisons, and being able to make quick decisions when you see where group needs help. Here we go!

Section 1:The Bad Juju

Whether you call it bad juju, liquid doom or rogue juice, poisons are the tools we get to make our lives less hectic. Without your poisons applied correctly, your survival would be questionable. We've all had situations where we've had a runner flee uncrippled...and then dodge our kidneyshots. Or a healer starts casting a full heal and you can't stunlock or kick it...wounding would have saved you some downtime there. Or how about a mage with that big ol pyroblast charging while you were slowed...wouldn't have been nice to have a mind numbing on it to make sure you get there in time? Yes...we all have certain poisons for every situation in game, lets talk a lil bit about what each of them do, and my interpretation of their use.

Instant Poison-- The bread and butter damage poison for all rogues. It deals the highest direct of all our poisons, falling in second place for overall damage behind a fully stacked deadly. Claiming the title for the second most used poison, instant has been the gold standard of which all of us have been working since we started mixing. Its simple apply and forget style has really found alot of love in all aspects of a rogues life, but no more so then combat rogues. Straight damage with a chance to hit leads to more DPS in the long run, its as simple as that. Also, since it does not break crowd control effects (duh), it finds alot of use in solo situations and PvP.

Gholjan says: Yah! Its instant and it hurts...simple, quick. I don' use it as much as I used ta though.Ya swingy type rogues will love da damage dey give, but watch da eyes of you're enemy...

Crippling Poison-- The world would be a much more dangerous place without crippling. Sure, slowing effects are a dime a dozen, but none of them have the reliabilty of cold old crippling. Lets just explain how we come up to this. In a purely group situation, having the ability to put on a slowing effect without using rage or mana. Also since we do not have to worry about application in mose cases, if you have it placed correctly for your build, you should usually have it applied a second or two into the fight, and with application rate, you should not have to worry about it going off. Now..I should also abridge this saying that crippling is not an all the time poison either. As the world has progressed, we've started to watch more and more enemies become immune to either poison or movement slowing effects. This makes it better for generic trash clearing, soloing and PvP.

Gholjan says: If yah need tings to slow down, or if yah just need someting ta make sure da bad juju is flowin' tru its veins, cripplin' is da best choice. Just gots ta know when and whe'ah to use dis stuff. Dere are some situations whe'ah you will definately wan someting wit some damage to it.

Wounding Poison-- There is nothing more heartbreaking then fighting a priest or some other healy type person, and missing that vital kick. Wounding can make any long drawn out heal fight seem a lil shorter. For a long time, most people found only marginal use of this poison in a PvP environment. It was just not advantageous enough to place draw and apply in a PvE situation. When mutilate came out, this and crippling found alot of second thought placed on them. Experimentation led to reapplication, and now it finds a place as necessary in some fights. (IE. The Druid fight in Botanica). It is also important to know that as of 1.12, apparently no anti-healing effects stack. If you are using this as your must apply poison, then be aware of mortal strikers. The mortal strike debuff overwrites all but 5 applications of wounding.

Gholjan says: Da first ting you need to know about woundin' is yer enemy. Are dey more likely to let it stay or go? Are dey gonna stop and try ta heal t'rough it. Are dey gonna rely on a totem ta try ta cleanse it? Try ta see and learn what da peoples twitch like...learn from dat.

Mind-Numbing Poison-- This poison does not get much use now a days. The ability to slow down a persons casting is not as vital to your survival as interrupting them is. Or..in most cases, if they it is (caster boss fights), they are probably already immune to mind slowing effects OR poisoning. This poison, in my personal experience, has become a fight calling poison. If you can have control of the fight from the beginning, then you can choose to apply this to help with your interrupt timing. This type of situation most often occurs in Solo PvP.

Gholjan says: If yah are trying to figure out whats da best ting to mind-numb..think of what yah really have trouble stoppin'. Don' tink of it as a damage prevention juju, use it as a control tool. If yah can' stop da chain' healin' paladin wit kicks in time..slow him down and try again. Mebbe you see what it like den. Tricky juju ta find a use fer doh...I ain' made alotta dis fer a some time.

Anesthetic Poison-- Instant poison v2.0. This lovely purple venom is quickly becoming a favorite for its lack of threat componant. Yes, you still get threat based on weapon swing, it doesn't remove that threat (yes, i've been asked about that once or twice). What this does do though is add about 5% DPS to a standard combat rogue who dual applies these poisons. This can grow with faster combat builds (fist/daggers). Though it has a high creation cost, it pays to keep a good supply of this on you.

Gholjan says: When da Bad Juju gets good..it gets anesthetic. Dere really ain' to much extra to be said bout dis stuffs odda den it works wonders.

Deadly Poison-- The most damaging poison, and the most reviled of the poisons as well. Deadly has a love/hate relationship with most rogues Its application can be twitchy from time to time and its wanton disregard for crowd control effects often put this lovely stuff in the bag. In the hands of a rogue who knows how to control his application, this juju can become one of the most beneficial poisons in your catalog. With envenom being able to remove the applications, you can time it so that you always are apply and removing at near the same rate, without losing to much of the dot benefits of the poison. This turns poisoning off of simple debuffing to technical skill. We will discuss this later on

Gholjan says: Its deadly, to da enemy and yah both. Dis poison makes ya tink alot about how ya are gonna work around a fight, so prepare to watch what it do. If yah can't learn ta control yerself and yer weapons, den dis juju is gonna lead ta alot of hearbreak and disappointment...and da occasional convasation wit da Spirit Heala's.

Blinding Powder-- Yes, I know what you are thinking. This isn't a weapon poison, but blind another skill that I've seen start to make a steady decline its use. Its most common use is mid fight self protection IE. Blind->Bandaging. What most rogues forget is that this is still a valid form of CC in a tight pinch. What happens if your sap breaks and there are to many mobs for your tank to keep effective agro on? Blind it and wait. It may be only 10 seconds, but that is more then enough time for even a warrior to get solid lock of everything in the area.

Gholjan says: Like flash powdas, its best ta keep alot of dese on yah. I get nervous if ma stash gets below thirt'eh of dese tings...keep an eye on yer supplies.

Section 2: Skills and talents.

I'm sure every rogue has heard the whispers on the wind (or in my case, me whining and hoping it was heard somewhere) about rogues steadily losing their PvE viabilty. Our DPS was plummeting, and with the lack of suitable secondary effects that would make us more group friendly, we were doomed to being 2 shot ganksters. Many of them, myself included, had given up to the fact that this was an inevitablity. I lost hope before I even tried it, and that was my great downfall. What has changed since then, is a much higher understanding of what all of our abilities do. I watched the meters carefully, i've looked for where my damage was coming from, and I adjusted to attempt to suit the needs.

Though parts of this next section are not going to be applicable to all rogue specs, it is food for thought. Certain old terms that were used, such as Poison per Second parses are good to read up about for combat rogues. Ultimately though, when you mention improved poisons and vile poisons, mutilaters are going to be the ones who turn the eye the keenest. But i hope that this first part about Shiv and Envenom help understand the delicate balance in a poisoners situation.

Shiv: When you discuss shiv, there are two things you need to first remember about it. Firstly, its energy scaling is very dagger friendly. Even with using the slowest daggers (2.0 swing speed) you will not exceed the cost of 40. Because of this, there has been debates about this being better than Sinister Strike. In my opinion, yes it can be. Its damage->energy ratio is very decent, especially since it does gain benefits from Duel Wield specialization. Also, if you are alone in PvP or soloing, this becomes much better to get damage through certain hard to reach targets (Warriors and Feral Druids).

As many differences between everyones spec, there are differences in the benefits of shiving. As stated earlier, you can apply an direct damage poison to your offhand and use it as a new sinister strike. This method allows for more damage and more combo point generation of course. Now, while this is great, i've found that especially in the three variations of an assassination build, this does not always hold true. Most nonmutilate builds run on excepetionally fast offhand weapons. Now you don't need me to explain why this is, but suffice it benefits stack up. Lets crack it down like this:

Mr. Stabbums, our friendly neighborhood rogueling, is using a Latro's shifting sword in his offhand. He currently has ~1300AP and is using instant poison on his offhand. Now assuming he is swinging at paper, and the paper is poisonable with no sort of damage absorbing properties (we aren't using bounty or quilted soft). His damage to energy would look something similar to this
------------------
First, we have the Shiv energy formula is simple: 20 + (10xWeapon Speed)=Energy cost. This translates into 20 + (10 x 1.4)=34 energy to shiv.

Next, we need to see how much damage the AP is adding: (APxSpeed)/14=Damage/hit. Soo. (1300x1.4)/14=130.
------------------
Directly adding that to the Latro's weapon damage, we have to take into account it being an offhand weapon. As Stabbums was able to pick up duel wield spec, he is hitting for 75% of the weapons maximum damage. That would mean, including the AP gain, the weapons damage range is ~182-228 a normal hit. Now we add can the poison damage, which is 146-194 (instant 7).
------------------
What that technical mumbo jumbo means is that for 34 energy, Mr. Stabbums has the ability to do upwards of 422 damage on a noncrit shiv (Or..up to 878 crit, very unlikely this high). In comparison, lets say Stabbums has the same AP, and is using an Edge of the Cosmos for his mainhand.

Extra AP with the Mainhand is: (1300x2.6)/14=241
SS10 adds 98 damage, so Each SS would be (371-484)+98.~469-582 a hit.(if he had
Instant 7 here, he would have a 20% chance to add its damage)

So to figure out the average DPE we take the average damage (low+high/2) and then divide it by its energy cost.

Shiv: (({182+228}/2) + ({146+194}/2) )/34= or (205 + 170)/34~ 12Damage/energy
SS(((371+484)+98)/2)/40=DPE or 426/40~ 12 D/energy.

This shows us you have about the same DPE for both Shiv and SS in this weapon setup. The CP generation though is much faster. 3 shivs to 2 SS. So stabbums would be able to get to that massive 5pt Evis faster if he swings shivs than SS. This leads to more damage in the long run, and a happier rogue. The paper though, isn't very cheerful.

Now..this is if we are instant shiving to build CPs. The other side of it is beating the poison proc rate. Shiving stackable poisons like Wounding or Deadly helps stack up the benefits faster obviously. This ends up necessary for some fights (High Botanist Freywind or Terestian Illhoof with wounding). Deadly stacking fast allows you to build up envenoms. Shiv also can be used as the start of a slow Dps cycle for raiding with a mutilate build. ((IE. Shiv, SnD, Mutilate, mutilate, evis/env)) This allows you to get the benefit of a poisons target and Find weakness quickly, and starts your DPS strong and controllably. Speaking of Stacking poisons, lets move on to our next poison ability

Envenom: Envenom is a finishing move that has been jeered at by rogues the world over. Though the damage in the tooltip is comparable to eviscerate, it is all nature damage. On high AC, high AP fights this means that you can actually (gasp) Do more damage per envenom! The beauty is often loss to the fact that most rogues are not able to wait, or patient enough to wait for the poison stack. Shiv ties hand in hand with envenom, making it more predictable and controlled.

The obvious downside of envenom is the reliance on the deadly poisons, which makes it near impossible to keep a 100% stunlock (unless you kill the target in 8 seconds). There are ways to control your poison stacking to allow for the KS->gouge transition, but generally you have to make that judgement on the fly. If you are fighting a warrior who is really heavily armored and has alot of HP, this becomes evident. ((unfinished

(I would like to have more information about Envenom here, but to do so, I need to include more damage parses dependant on certain bosses. I would love to have more input from everyone. Please...it is a lil extra work for rogues, but test it and come back here with it)

Section Three:How, Where, When and Why.

Now, knowing what all your poisons do doesn't mean you've mastered the art of poisoning yet. The most important thing to learn is to learn what poison to use in what sitaution. In most cases, you will know ahead of time when to switch poisons. Here are a few poison specific fights and an explanation of why you need to use what poison on them. (more fights will be put in here as they come up.)

High Botanist Freywind (The Botanica.)- During his tranquility, it often helps to have wounding stacked up to minimize the damage healed. (it will not last the full time of his tranquilty, but its a help)

Thorngrin the Tender (The Botanica.)- Wounding helps with the damage healed back from the sacrifice

Warp Splinter (The Botanica.)- Wounding helps when he eats his saplings.

Dalliah the Doomsayer (The Arcatraz.)- Though her heals are easily interuptable, it always help to wound her to cover up a missed interrupt.

Terestian Illhoof (Karazhan)> Wounding for the sacrifice again.

-----
Grouping/raiding on a nonmutilate build: Deadly/Anes or Anes/Anes
Soloing on a nonmutilate build: Crippling/instant or Instant/Instant.
Grouping/raiding on a Mutilate build: Anes/deadly
Soloing on a mutilate build, Crippling/deadly or Instant/deadly
If you need to Wound (pre 70) double up, once you have shiv, off hand is sufficient. (this is very important if you don't have Imp Poisons.)
Mind-numbing/wounding may seem like it would make a healer nervous, but truth be told...it makes you a liabilty (duels are different)
Arguably, Crippling/wounding is the best pvp poison setup. Crippling/deadly is also generally good in PvP (as long as you don't need to gouge)

Zlinka's lockpicking guide

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:47:11 -0800

Zlinka's lockpicking guide

This guide is for young rogues interested in improving their skills at picking locks. With enough skill, a young rogue can open boxes for friends, pick doors to dungeons, or engage in... *cough*... more shady dealings.

Lockpicking skill required to open lockboxes:
(red to orange transition)

Heavy Bronze Lockbox
Ornate Bronze Lockbox
Iron Lockbox -- 75
Strong Iron Lockbox -- 125
Steel Lockbox -- 175
Reinforced Steel Lockbox -- 225
Mithril Lockbox -- 225
Thorium Lockbox -- 225
Eternium Lockbox -- 225

Lockpicking skill required to open doors:
(red to orange transition)

Gnomeregan -- 150
Scarlet Monastery -- 175
Searing Gorge Gate -- 225
BRD Shadowforge Gates -- 280
BRD Prison Cells -- 250
Scholomance -- 280

Useful tidbit from the forums: Doors outside instances are usually on some sort of timer. In other words, you can't repeatedly pick the same door for skillups. The mechanisms of the timers are poorly understood. Some people say if you pick something else (anything else) between attempts it will reset some timers. Others say if you pickpocket a mob, or kill a mob, or do something else, that this will reset the timers. It may be different for every door. For doors inside instances, an instance reset will reset any doors inside.

Opening Lockboxes

How to open other peoples' lockboxes: Have the other person place the box in the "item will not be traded" slot of the trade window. Click on your lockpicking icon from your skill book, then click on the lockbox to open it. It is possible to gain skill-up points for boxes in this slot.

Footlockers: skilling up lockpicking

A word about green footlockers: I've found that footlockers that have just turned green still provide a skill-up point 75% to 100% of the time for another ten to fifteen points. After that the boxes go through a hidden transition and their productivity drops off steeply (but they remain green). They turn grey a little later. Therefore, the colors don't map perfectly onto the boxes' ability to give you skill-up points. So don't leave an area just because the boxes have turned green. It's worthwhile to stick around and pick the locks for another 10-15 easy points.

Getting started

Pirate ship south of Ratchet

This is the first place you are sent to pick locks. By picking the chests in the stern of the boat you can skill up from zero to about 80. At lockpicking 80, you can open Polly's box in the bow of the boat.

Skill of around 100

Polly's box in the pirate ship south of Ratchet.

Once you have a skill of 80, you can complete the lockpicking quest by opening Polly's box. But don't stop there! You can pick Polly's lock again and again. Polly's box turns grey at 125.

Early to high 100s

Windshear Crag and Mines in Stonetalon Mountains.

This is where Zlinka skilled up from the early 100s to 167. The easier footlockers are scattered all around the logged area, from the lake in the west to the mine in the east, both north and south of the creek. Harder footlockers are located in the kobold mine in the east. In my experience, the footlockers scattered outdoors turned green at around 150. The footlockers in the mine turned green at 160.

Durnholde Keep in Hillsbrad Foothills

Zlinka went here at 167 and skilled up to 182. However, all the lockers were green when Zlinka arrived and overall seemed quite similar in range to the Windshear Crag Mines. Durnholde Keep would probably be most suitable for a rogue with a lockpicking skill in the mid-100s.

There are two types of Battered Footlockers in Durnholde Keep. Those in the pit and pit buildings are easier: they turn green at around 145. They were green for me when I arrived at 167, but provided skill-up points to 170. They turned grey at 175. The Battered Footlockers around the rim of the pit are harder. They were green when I arrived at 167 but continued to provide skill-up points about 75% of the time until level 182. I left Durnholde at that point so do not know when the upper Battered Footlockers turn grey.

Murloc Camps in the Wetlands.

Like Durnholde Keep, this area contains two types of Battered Footlockers. The more difficult ones are around the murloc buildings near the shore, the easier ones are a little further inland. The inland ones were grey and the shore ones were green when I arrived with Lockpicking 186. The green ones gave me no points. This area appears to be similar in difficulty to Durnholde Keep.

Zoram Strand in Ashenvale Forest.

According to the forums, there are two levels of lockboxes in this area. The easier ones are scattered among the ruins on the beach near the Outpost, and are good around lockpicking levels 120-130. The more difficult ones are underwater. I did not use this area myself.

High 100s to mid 200s

Sar'theris Strand in Desolace.

There are underwater lockboxes scattered between and around the two small islands in the far northwest coastal area of Desolace, in the naga area, slightly north of the first sunken ship.

This area has Waterlogged Footlockers and Mossy Footlockers. Waterlogged Footlockers go from red to orange at 160, turn yellow at 175, and green at 200, according to the forums. They were green when I arrived but provided me with a skill-up point 100% of the time until lockpicking 215. After 215 they provided a point about 75% of the time until 230. After 230 they became much less productive: I picked about 5 boxes in a row without getting a point, decided they were no longer worth it, and left. I do not know when they turn grey.

I found Waterlogged Footlockers in a roughly rectangular area between the two little islands and between those islands and the coast. In that area, I found them scattered out in the open, around the air fissures, and among the underwater ruins. I did not find any footlockers in the rocky chasm just to the north, though I did not look very closely. To pick Waterlogged Footlockers, I ended up swimming back and forth in this area, taking advantage of an underwater air fissure. A waterbreathing potion would be extremely useful here! Here's where I found the Waterlogged Footlockers:

Mossy Footlockers are harder: according to the forums they go from red to orange at 175 and turn green at 225. Rogues who have visited them say Mossy Footlockers are located in an underwater ruin, but I was not able to find them.

Pool of Tears in Swamp of Sorrows.

Mossy lockboxes are underwater in the Pool of Tears. You can sneak past the guards around the pool then go underwater. Mossy Footlockers are yellow at 200 and turn green at 225. I found one mention in a forum that there might be a more difficult type of lockbox here, which is yellow at 245 and turns green at 265, but I was unable to find any of these.

Zlinka arrived in this area at lockpicking 232. I found the Mossy Footlockers underwater among the ruins, on the submerged parts of the main temple building, and scattered along the bottom. These Footlockers were green at 232 but still provided several skill-up points.

Angor Fortress in the Badlands.

There are two types of lockboxes here: Battered and Dented. The Battered ones in the top floors are easier and are green in the 205-225 range. The Dented ones downstairs are harder. The downstairs boxes apparently switch from red to orange at 175 and are yellow in the 205-225 range. I visited this area at 235 and found both Battered and Dented Lockboxes to be green to me.

As Zlinka's lockpicking was already maxed for her level when she visited this area (level 47, lockpicking 235), I am unable to tell whether these boxes would have provided skill-up points above 235. However, the boxes were all green to me, so I suspect that this area is similar in level to the Pool of Tears in the Swamp of Sorrows.

Early to high 200s

Lost Rigger Cove in Tanaris Desert.

Dented Footlockers lie in and around the little tents outside the compound, inside the compound and the compound buildings, on the pier, and inside the ships. These lockboxes are reputed go from red to orange at 225. They turned yellow for Zlinka at 250, and are reputed to turn green at 285.

Zlinka arrived in this area at lockpicking 235 and all the Dented Footlockers were orange to her. They did indeed turn yellow at 250 but provided a skill-up 100% of the time until lockpicking 265, when Zlinka's skill was maxed for her level.

The Slag Pit in the Searing Gorge.

According to the forums, there are two levels of boxes here. The lower level ones turn green around 255. The harder ones, in the upper levels of the pit, are still orange at 255. Another rogue reports that the boxes here are orange at 200, turn yellow at 255, and green at 275. Zlinka took a peek at this area at lockpicking 248, and all the boxes were orange for her. She gained a few skill points but was busy questing so did not stay for long.

Bay of Storms in Azshara.

These lockboxes are difficult to find. You need to swim out from the beach and search the ruins underwater. According to the forums, lockboxes here turn green at 275. Zlinka never used this area.

High 200s

Tyr's Hand (elite) in Eastern Plaguelands.

According to the forums, these lockboxes turn yellow at 275. Zlinka's experience corroborates this: she arrived here at lockpicking 276 and found the boxes to be yellow. The boxes provided a skill-up point every time until she left the area at lockpicking 280. (Zlinka was busy fighting in a group and was not focusing on lockpicking at that time).

Zlinka found the lockboxes scattered in the central plaza area and in the chapel, the only areas she visited on that trip.

Cloudjumper adds: The Scarlet Lockboxes at Tyr's Hand (elite) in Eastern Plaguelands go yellow at 275 and change to green at 300. However they continue to give a skill up every time until at least 305.

Zlinka's Path

To skill up her lockpicking, Zlinka picked locks in the following areas:

From 1 to 80: Pirate ship south of Ratchet
From 80 to about 125: Polly's chest in pirate ship south of Ratchet
From 125 to 167: Footlockers in the logging camp and mines of Windshear Crag, Stonetalon Mountains
From 167 to 182: Battered Footlockers in Durnholde Keep
From 182 to 230: Waterlogged Footlockers in Sar'theris Strand in Desolace
From 230 to 235: Mossy Footlockers the Pool of Tears in Swamp of Sorrows
From 235 to 265: Dented Footlockers in Lost Rigger Cove in Tanaris. Brief interlude in the Slag Pit in the Searing Gorge, which has footlockers of similar difficulty to those in Lost Rigger Cove.
From 265 to 276: picking high level lockboxes for friends and strangers
From 276 to 300: Tyr's Hand in the Eastern Plaguelands + lockboxes from friends and strangers.

Rogues' room

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:07:06 -0800

Im making this post to help my fellow rogues out.

Zlinka and i where talking the other day about talent specs and such. That got me to thinking it might be a good idea to share some of what i have found with the other rogues in the tribe.

so let me start out by posting the spec i have right now;

( Ill repost specs once I get back on the game and have a chance to play around with them more )

this is the spec i have for dagger spec. I have found the extra 10 energy from vigor allows me to use ambush, and nearly imediatly fallow up with a Backstab. you also get the damage bonuses for the improved backstab talent in the combat tree. It also give you a pretty heafty boost to Ambushes. From the rogues i have talked to over the last year or so this with some minor differences is the standard "cloth killer" spec.

Now this next spec is a pretty standard combat build;

with this build you can either do sword spec or mace spec.
obviously with sword spec you will do more damage, but with mace spec you will have higher liveability. stun locks are a beautiful thing. I see a good bit of rogues using this build with some modifacations.

Next fallowing is a Subtlety spec. I dont have a ton of experiance with this I tried it once but didn't like it and quickly respeced.

the primary idea of this spec is to DoT the target to death and get back stealthed as you watch them die. you dont get the damage bonuses for SS BS Ambush, or evicerate. so dont expect to live long if you have to take something on face to face. but if you do have to you have the extra long evasion and a much shorter cooldown for it. with this spec i highly recommend useing deadly poison all the time the extra DoT will but your DPS threw the roof.

well folks that all i have for now. by all means please post your specs and any idea you might have for what i have posted.

thanks, Utsu