Hai Gais!

[Darkstruck]

This post has been a long time coming, but hey. Just stopping by to greet you, and tell you that you guys.. you're cool.
Darkstruck, Troll Rogue from <Ferus> here. RL friend of Raia, mr. Gotta-stab-wiff-daggers-cuz-they-be-all-oldskool-n-shizz.

Raia tipped me about a post of his concerning roguecrafting, and, well, being a rogue, and taking an interest in rogue-ing, I wondered if I might get a link or a transcript or whatever?

Also, if you ever have troubles with hordies, holler. I'll go yell at them.

Peace!

[Arkanuz-geb]

Hey,

Always good to know someone on the other side, it makes the killing even more fun on the battleground :P .. But one of Ferus is excellent. Salutes to you m8.
And thank you for this post, I will point Raia on it if he hasn´t already notice.

regards,
Arkanuz,

[Raia - The Flimsy Rogue]

Hey Darkstruck! Nice to see you here!

My roguecraftpost is in the members-section, but since you ask so nicely, here comes a Copy-Paste for you only! Hehe...

------------------------------------------------------
Roguecraft

This post is ment to help other rogues get the most out of their characters. This will be roguecraft - as Raia does it, if you like. I don't claim that I am a better or anything, but hopefully some of you might get a hint or two that helps you! And maybe someone can point out things for me, so I can be better?

Our goal must either way be to help eachother perform better! This is important at the stage our guild is in now! We are about to break into new raid-content, and there isn't much room for deadweight there. We would like everybody to perform as good as possible!

Rogues role in raids
Rogues do dps! That is about it. On some fights we can help by doing interrupts and stuns, but there are other classes who can do that too.
If we take some time to think about the other dps-classes, we find that every other dps'er besides rogues bring something more to the raid then dps. Buffs, food, offtank/heal capability. You name it!
Rogues don't! We only bring our dps as our "buff". So basicly if we don't top the damagechart, there isn't much point to bring us to the raid!
This isn't the whole truth, as raid-synergy needs some heavy melee-dps'ers like rogues to benifit from certain raid-buffs, but anyway. Among equally geared dps'ers, rogues should come on top of damage done! Even if the damage done-list does not say shit about who contributes most to the raid, for a rogue it is what WE bring, so there you have it! :-)

Keybinder or Clicker?
There is no doubt! If you wanna get the most out of your rogue, you need to use keybindings! Clicking abilities with your mouse is NOT effective!
You need to find a system that works for you, but I'll give you mine as an idea, if you need somewhere to start.

I steer with "WASD" like most people do, but I combine that with mouse-steering as well.
Most of the time in combat, I run with "W", and steer with my mouse right-clicked.
At least I think I do... I have no idea how Raia ends up where she does, but the point is that I don't think about it either! Hehe..

Only combat-abilities that I click with my mouse is:
- Healthpots/stones
- Bandages
- Distract (because of the green aim-circle)
- Perception (but how often do one use it anyway in PvE?)

The rest of my abilities is keybound, and I have the most used ones around "WASD", so with one finger on "W", I know where they are.
Some abilities are clicked with my righthand even (I'll mark them with (RH)). Well here is all of it:

WASD - Standard steering
Q-E - Strafe Left/Right
Space - Jump/Up (Standard)
Z - Sheet/Unsheet weapons (Standard)
X - Sit/Dive/Down (Standard)
1 - Toggle autoattack on/off
2 - Sinister Strike
3 - Shiv (Cheap Shot in Stealth)
4 - Backstab (Garrote)
5 - Slice & Dice (Sap)
6 - Rupture (Ambush)
7 - Eviscerate - Rarely used
8 - Envenom - Never used
9 - Shoot/Throw (RH)
0 - Evasion (RH)
+ - Adrenaline Rush (RH)
\ - Sprint (RH)
R - Kidney Shot
T - Gouge
F - Target of target (standard)
G - Bladeflurry
C - Cloak of Shadows
V - Vanish
B - Blind (with a mouse-over macro that blinds whatever I point my mouse at, regardless of my current target)
< - Toggle Stealth
P - Feint (RH)
K - Kick (RH)
L - Target-macro (F.ex. /target demon chains for the Illhoof-fight) (RH)

F1 - Target myself
F2-F5 - Target other groupmembers
F6 - Mark target "Skull"
F7-F10 Those other marks (Cross, Square, Diamond, Moon)

Those abilities not listed here, I seldom use.
This is not a template! You must use whatever works for you!

UI and add-ons
I still use the standard Blizzard-UI, but I have tweaked it. No matter what UI you use, you should have it as clean as possible so you have a good view of the fight, but with the most important information easily available. Anyway, here is the add-ons I couldn't live without:

- Titanpanel. Allows me to reduce the size of the standard Blizzard-UI, so I get a better view. Also for the handy infobar on top.
- Omen. Any dps'er should have it, but rogues NEED it, as the bad guy don't have to run to kill us... Just turn and ...SPLAT, dead rogue!
- Swstats. Damagemeters and more. Not needed, but nice to have a look at anyway.
- Classtimer. A MUST!! Gives handy bars that tells duration of Slice & Dice, Stuns, buffs, debuffs, whatever. If you don't have it, get it!
- DoTimer. Originally I had this for my warlock, but replaced it with classtimer and disabled it. However, I still use the cooldown-counter from this!
- BigWigs. Very good raid add-on that gives warnings and more. (I had DeadlyBossMods before, but replaced it)
- PoisonMenu. Handy minimap menu for putting poisons on weapons. Left-click=MainHand, Right-click=Offhand.
- WowMatrix. I love this!!! Keeps all my add-ons up to date automaticly!

I have alot more add-ons, but these are the ones important for performing as a rogue!

Btw. Here is a screenshot of my old UI from another thread in this forum: Raias view
After this, Classtimer was updated, so I have re-arranged a bit on the bars. Anyway, you get an idea how I see the world! :-)

Spec and talents
After patch 2.3 there was some speculation that Subtlety would become a viable PvE-spec.
Now we know it didn't! At least not a full Shadowstep-build.

Do you disagree? Well... Subtlety performs well in Heroics, and to some extent on trashmobs in raids, but falls way behind on bossfights in raids, and those are the important fights, remember? There is only one viable Subtlety-build, and that is NOT with Shadowstep.

Lets have a look at some key talents! Raiding without at least 15 talentpoints in Assasination and 13 points in Combat is almost madness, whatever your weapons are! Here is why:

Any raiding rogue should have 5/5 Precision, regardless of build!!! To get that you need to first spend another 5 points in the Combat-tree! You should also have 3/3 Imp Slice & Dice! That is a total of 13 points. If you don't have 5/5 Precision, you raise your hitcap from 363 to 442! If you don't hit them, you don't deal damage! And Slice & Dice is your absolute best damagedealing finisher on bosses! No discussion!

In the Assa-tree you wanna have 5/5 Malice and you wanna have Relentless Strikes, so you need 10 more points at least here. You also wanna have as many points you can spare in Lethality!
If you use daggers, 3/3 Puncturing Wounds is obvious and a must, then 2/3 Ruthlessness and you get Relentless Strikes. 4/5 Lethality is not bad, but with daggers you can't afford more then 15 points total in the Assa-tree for now, as you need 5/5 Opportunity from the Sub-tree.
For those with swords, fist or maces, you don't need Puncturing Wounds, but you still wanna have Relentless Strikes and as much Lethality you can afford, so you actually need a filler with either 2 useless points in Imp Eviscerate or maybe better 2/2 Murder. For a total of 16 points here you have what you need.

If we do the math, I'd say a rogue with swords, fists or maces already have spent 29 points, and a rogue with daggers already have spent 33 points, to have those key talents for a raiding rogue. That leaves only 32/28 points left for us to play with! And anyway you intend to put them you should start with Dual Wield spec!

Combat Swords/Fist/Maces, 16/41/0. 4 points left to place where you like! And don't replace Sword-spec with whatever weapon you use! Put that in there too, and have a sword in offhand! Propably THE BEST raid-dps build there is right now!

Combat Daggers, 15/41/5. This is Raias build. I prefer Imp Gouge instead of Imp Sinister, as a Combat Dagger-specced rogue should NEVER use Sinister, and Imp Gouge gives me a bit better stunlock-capability. But some freedom of choice is allowed. Performs very good on bosses! Requires some skill and manouverability to perform well on trash!

Hemo with Swords, 11/28/22. Interesting build! Having ONE rogue specced like this in a melee-party that can consume all the Hemo-charges, can give an interesting result! :-)

Mutilate, 41/20/0. This is an old classic that performs well on both trash, bosses, and even not that bad in PvP. Also this is maybe a more "fun" spec to play then pure Combat-builds.

<Reserved space for Shalices build.> Shalice used a hybrid Assa/Combat-build that performed very well. Have to find this for you to see! I think it was something like 40/21/0 (Assa without Mutilate) Anyway I think his playstyle was based around high CP-generation and Energygain.

Any build not listed here is simply put inferior when it comes to raid-PvE!
Also, note that any points in Improved Stealth, Improved Sprint, Parry, Dodge, and so on, is a waste when it comes to raiding!

Short summary of the three possible main-ways to spec as a rogue:

Subtlety:
High burst damage, low sustained damage. Full shadowstep is not valid for raiding. Hybrid-Hemobuilds can provide very good raid-debuffs in the right raid-setup. Deep subtlety is mostly for PvP, but can perform well in heroics and on trash in raids.

Assasination
Medium burst damage, medium sustained damage. Requires a bit more skill to perform well, as there are no "fixed" cycles to follow. Keywords are high CP-generation and high Energy-gain. Will perform good in raids, if the player has the skill. Can also perform well in PvP.

Combat
Low burst damage, high sustained damage. The most used raiding-build, because it is the best! Combat daggers suffer from very low CP-generation, and will require some skill to perform well on trash. Performs bad in PvP, but is the best for PvE. End of story!

If you have read what I have written up up till now, let summarize:
"We only bring our dps as our "buff". So basicly if we don't top the damagechart, there isn't much point to bring us to the raid!" and what we have seen on builds..
Don't show up in a raid with a shadowstep-build!

Weapons
This is easy! At least as long as we don't look at what stats they bring.

Main rule is: As heavy weapon as possible in main hand, with as high damagerange as possible!
With heavy, I mean slow!
This means choose the weapon with highest dps available to you, within the speedrange 2.5-2.8 (sword/fist/mace) or 1.7-1.9 (dagger) as your mainhand!

Offhand depends on spec.
First off:
If your mainhand is a dagger, your offhand should ALWAYS be a dagger! This due to Dagger Specialization.
If you are specced combat sword, your offhand should ALWAYS be a sword! This due to Sword Specialization.
If you are specced combat fist/mace, your offhand should always be a sword, regardless if your mainhand type! You should look at the talent Sword Specialization, and think it over! Then you will spend points in sword spec too!!

If you spec Mutilate, the rule for mainhand goes for offhand too!

All combat-specs have the talent Combat Potency, that works alot better with a fast offhand.
Specs without Combat Potency (except Mutilate) should also choose as fast offhand as possible due to poison-procs, but this is not that important.
The rule will be something like this, if you have Combat Potency: 0.1s faster = 10 dps more. So then choose the weapon with most total dps as offhand (after comparing speed)

Gear
For starters, with a very, very few exceptions, there is one rule:

If you wanna do PvE, don't use PvP-gear!

If you are just about to start raiding in Kara, the blue items that drops in normal dungeons (dungeon set 3, etc) will often outperform epic PvP-items!
However, if you have PvP-gear that clearly is better for that slot, use it untill something equally good or better PvE-gear drops for you.
Anyway, you won't be taken seriously as a raider if you show up in full "epic" Whatever-Gladiator-stuff! I would rather bring a full blue PvE-geared rogue with me!

To correct myself a bit, with the release of S4, that made S2 weapons and gear available for honor, there are some juicy good pieces easily available here!

When you compare gear, the color has NOTHING to do with it. You need to look at the stats! For those who remember the release of TBC, might remember replacing old lvl60 epics with green randoms that dropped all over Hellfire! :-)

Stats
A raiding rogue will never need Resilience! It is a total waste of a stat-slot on an item!
Defensive stats like parry, dodge is useless!
Stamina is not important! You should never gear for stamina alone! You will most likely get enough anyway!

Offensive stats like agi/AP/crit/hit needs to be balanced. There is no easy-to-use rule that tells when you have enough of that or this, except one:

Hitrating!!!
There are two hitcaps of importance. The Softcap and the Hardcap. We always talk about hitcaps when we refer to a lvl 73 raidboss!
Also worth to notice is that: 1% Hit = 15.73 Hitrating

The Softcap is the amount of hit you need to never miss with your special attacks. If you have been smart and taken 5/5 Precision, this cap is 64 hitrating.
If you don't have 5/5 Precision (stupid), then you need 143 hitrating.
Any rogue should have a hitrating above the softcap! You don't wanna miss with your specials!

When you pass the softcap, hitrating is in the beginning THE stat that will give you highest dps-boost, and you should focus on getting this up, prioritizing +hit above other offensive stats. However, you need to balance it a bit, because the dps-boost you get from +hit will be diminishing as you get closer to the Hardcap.

The Hardcap is the amount of hit you need to never miss with your white attacks (autoattacks). With 5/5 Precision this cap is 363 hitrating. Without Precision, the cap is 442 hitrating, and you must be stupid if you ever think you will be able to get that much +hit!

Remember that roughly 50% of a rogues damage is white damage! This differs alot from other melee-classes, so coming as close as possible to the hardcap is important! If you don't belive me, try inspecting some rogues from f.ex. Closed Circle! You will find almost exclusivly yellow +hit gems in their gear!

In the old days, there was a "rule" that you was not ready to start raiding Kara before you had at least 150-180 in hitrating! Even this is low!
Unbuffed now, Raia has 295 hitrating. With the right food and raidbuffs, I will reach the hardcap!

Agility vs AP
In general you might have heard that 1 agi = 2 AP. This is almost true! But remember, AP is not a "pure" stat, but a result of stats!
This is important because when you are buffed with Blessing of Kings or Mark of the Wild, or other buffs that increase your stats by XX %, AP will not be increased, but agi will! In other words, agi scales better! So the conclusion is: 1 agi >= 2AP. See further down also!

Comparing stats
When you look at two pieces of gear, they often give different types of stats, and it can be hard to decide wich is better.
To help with that, I have made use of something called Equivalence Points.
(Not my invention! Thanks to Elitist Jerks and Shadowpanther for this!)

Numbers here are multipliers. If you multiply the numbers given on your piece with these, add them up, the piece with a biggest total is better. If they come close, you need to look at what piece gives most of the stats YOU think you lack the most! :-)
(This table is for Combat Builds, but you will come close if your build is another) (And no, I can't find out how to make proper tables in this forum!)

Stats EP: Swords / Daggers

Agility: 2.17 / 2.11
Strength: 1.10 / 1.10
Attackpower: 1.41 / 1.37
Hitrating: 2.36 / 2.24
Critrating: 1.69 / 1.60
Expertise: 2.55 / 2.49
Haste: 2.07 / 2.14
Armor Penetration: 0.29 / 0.31
Meta Gemslot: 64.73 / 89.87
Red/yellow gemslot: 19.53 / 18.99
Blue gemslot: 8.68 / 8.44

Stamina: 0.022
Defense: 0.0033
Resilience: 0.002
Dodge: 0.002
Parry: 0.002
Resist: 0.002
Armor: 0.002

Don't be fooled by the high number on the gemslots. It is not that important! You simply multiply the number of gemslots of that color with the given multiplier. It will not be that big compared to the other numbers you get.

DPS Spreadsheet
Another approach is to use a dps-spreadsheet. There are some good ones provided by Elitist Jerks. The one I use is this: Rogue DPS Spreadsheet

The good thing about this is that once you have managed to fill your character in to this, you can easily compare one item against another, or decide what gems are better, or what food you should eat.

Gem selection
When you gem up your gear, there are two things to remember:
- Metagems, and their requirements.
- Socketbonuses.

(You should have a headitem with a metagem-slot! Metagems are in fact so good that items with metagem-slot compares to gear one tier above without metagem-slot!)

To meet the requirements for the metagem, have a look at the rest of your gear. The place to put the blue gems, is where you will get an offensive socketbonus!

- All defensive socketbonuses (like +stamina), you will do better to give a crap about!
- In general, there are only two stats to look for. That is +hit and +agi. This means your gems should in general be yellow, orange or maybe red!
- If you're not close to the hitcap, you should use almost only yellow +hit gems, with exception for those red and blue you need for your metagem!
- If you're not close to the hitcap, you should never use pure red gems for your meta! Find an orange with +agi and +hit!
- You should NEVER use pure blue gems! Purple gems will also meet your metagem-requirements!
- For offensive socketbonuses, like +hit/+agi/+crit, do the math to find if it really is worth meeting this socketbonus requirement!

You should avoid pure AP-gems, as they don't scale with raidbuffs. If you have some good ones in the bank, ofc, use them, but remember that they are inferior to pure agi!

Important gems:

Relentless Earthstorm Diamond is the only Metagem you should look for! All other metagems are inferior to this!

Yellow slots:
Rigid Lionseye / Rigid Dawnstone

Red slots:
Glinting Fire Opal / Glinting Noble Topaz
Delicate Crimson Spinel / Delicate Living Ruby

Blue slots:
Shifting Tanzanite / Shifting Nightseye

Enchants
We all wanna come prepared to a raid, and perform as good as possible. What gear we have is a bit dependant on what have dropped, how many badges we have to spend, and so on. But there are two parts of our gear we can affect ourselves. These are gems and enchants!
So we actually excpect that you enchant your gear! :-)
However, enchants are expencive as hell, and some requires alot of grinding of both rep, mats and gold to get!
I'll list here the best enchants for each gear-slot. On a budget, or when you know you will replace this item soon, cheaper enchants is ofc ok. However, if you don't find "your" enchant in this list, then it is because it is not as good as the one I have listed!

Mainhand: Mongoose (At our level. When we see Sunwell, Executioner might be an alternative.)
Offhand: Mongoose
Head: Glyph of Ferocity - Requires Cenarion Expedition (Revered). Buy at Cenarion Refuge in Z-marsh.
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Blade - Scryers (Exalted) / Greater Inscription of Vengeance - Aldor (Exalted)
Back: Greater Agility
Chest: Exceptional Stats
Bracers: Assault
Gloves: Superior Agility
Legs: Nethercobra Leg Armor - Leatherworking
Boots: Dexterity or, if low on hit: Surefooted
Rings: Striking or Stats - Note: Only enchanters can have this!

Buffs
In general you will be given whatever buffs that are available in the raid, but there are some group-specific buffs that require you to be in the right group to benefit from, and also when you're in a 10-man raid, you will propably have to choose between some of the paladins blessings.

The best 3 buffs you as a rogue can get is:
Windfury Totem and Unleashed Rage from Enhancement Shamans, and Battle Shout from a warrior.
All three of these buffs require you to be grouped with the shaman/warrior. Also remember that for Windfury to work for you, you need to NOT have poison on your mainhand!

Dependent on the number of paladins in the raid, you will have access to a number of blessings. The order you should choose is this:
Blessing of Salvation > Blessing of Might > Blessing of Kings > All the rest

The rest of the raidbuffs you get will ofcourse depend on who you raid with. You will not perform worse if you don't get Fortitude from a priest, but remember to get Mark of the Wild from a druid!

Selfbuffs:
Flask of Relentless Assault is the best flask/elixir you can use!
Elixir of Major Agility come as a close second. However its effect does NOT persist through death.
You have to choose when to use what. On raids we farm and we don't expect to wipe much, the Elixir can be good for your budget. On all other raids, the Flask should be your choice!

Spicy Hot Talbuk will give you the best dps-boost if you're low on hitrating!
Warp Burger / Grilled Mudfish is better IF you're not hitcapped!
A good approach can be to use burgers/mudfish on trash, and switch to Hot Talbuk on bosses. Trash is normally lvl70-72, so the hitcap for these is lower.
Consult the Rogue DPS Spreadsheet for what food gives you best boost!

Scroll of Agility V is also another important selfbuff. There is no excuse for not using the scroll-slot!

On every raid Raia goes to, she is selfbuffed with these items, and she supply them herself without asking the guildbank for it! Was there someone who wondered why Raia does not have an epic flying mount? Well, this shit costs!! But if you wanna play with the best.... An epic flying mount does not help in raids!! Hehe!

Poisons:
This is easy! For raids you only need two poisons!

Mainhand:
"Shaman that drops Windfury in my group?" ---> NO POISON!!!
"No shaman in my group!! WTF??" ---> Instant Poison VII

Offhand:
Always ---> Deadly Poison VII

All other poisons, or sharpening stones, or whatever is inferior to this!

Enough with the theorycrap! How to play then?
When playing your rogue, the first thing to remember is this:

A dead rogue deals NO damage!
This means that you should use care when engaging combat.
- First make sure you are about to attack the correct target in killorder!
- Allow the tank some head start on threat before you lay your opener. After some time with the tank, you learn to know how fast they build threat in the beginning. Normally I don't touch the target untill the tank has at least 3k-5k threat built up.
- Stay below the tank in threat! This is YOUR job to take care off! The tank should not have to use taunts because of triggerhappy dps'ers!

Remember the old saying:

"If the tank dies, it's the healers fault! If the healer dies, it's the tanks fault! If a dps'er dies, it's the dps'ers own fault!!"

Make sure you always have healthpots, healthstones and bandages! Use them when needed! Don't rely on that the healer have you covered 100%! If you get a heal, consider it a bonus!

However, if you see the tank getting pummeled, don't be afraid to sacrifice yourself to save the healer! As a rogue, you should be able to offtank a short while. A fast Shiv and a Kidneyshot can make the difference! Popping Evasion and dodgetank the SOB till the tank can pick him up, even if you die, is alot better then that a healer dies! Dead healers often leads to a wipe! Healers who are alive and happy can often res a dead rogue!

And ofcourse:
- Stay out of red shit , green shit, black shit, all kind of crap that hurts!
- If stones fall in your head, run away!
- Even if you have stealth, don't fool around in front of the tank! Let the tank go first!!

Rogues do it from behind!
This is the rule! You should always attack your target from behind, as then you don't risk your attacks to be parried!
Attacking from the front will not also set you in risk of cleaves or whatever other shit the boss have up their sleeve, but it will also reduce your damage-output drasticly!

Using your abilities
First of all you need to know if your target is bleed-immune or not!
Most targets can bleed, so base your playstyle around a "bleed-tactic"!
This because of two things:
- Bleeds ignore armor, and will most of the time give more damage pr CP/Energy!
- Bleeds are not that aggressive in threat as the alternative!
Also if there are any feral druids in the raid, their Mangle boost your bleeds!

Openers (from stealth):
This should be most of the time Garrote!
Some times on trash, Cheap Shot makes more sense, but save it for spellcasters! Melee-trash who don't hit the tank, might rage-cap the tank, leading to poor threat-buildup!
Ambush should almost never be used! The only times you should use ambush is when the target is bleed-immune. If so, you need to let the tank get even more head start then before!

Special attacks:
You should use only one special attack, and this is decided from your build!
- Combatbuilds who don't use daggers, use Sinister Strike!
- Combat Daggers, use Backstab!
- Hemobuilds, use Hemorrhage!
- Mutilatebuilds, use Mutilate!

All other special attacks will be a waste of energy compared to the damage it deals!!
The only exception is Shiv, who can be used to get some fast CP's if you need to stun a target.

As I am playing Combat Daggers, this means I need to be behind the target to Backstab. On those fights where the boss suddenly turns, and it is not advisable for me to get behind him again (Shade of Aran during Flame Wreath, Akil'zon the Eagleboss in ZA during storm, and so on), I pump him with Shiv, and make him bleed! I almost never use Sinister strikes! Sinister strikes with daggers is like poking the bad guy with a toothpick!

Finishers:
Your absolute best damagedealing finisher is without doubt Slice & Dice! Roughly 50% of a rogues damage comes from white attacks, and S&D is an important factor in this. You should aim to have as close to 100% uptime on your S&D, and this is highest priority!

You need an add-on that gives you a good statusupdate on your S&D. I use Classtimer, and this provides a bar I have placed under my character that shows all effects on me like S&D, Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush etc.

Your second best damagedealing finisher is Rupture! The beauty with this bleed is that it ignores armor. You should aim to have Rupture running as much as possible on the target. But don't be bothered with 1-2 CP Ruptures. The damage pr CP or energy from 3-4-5 CP Ruptures are very, very close, so it does not matter much if you use 3 or 5 CP's in your Rupture. The extra time you would need to build CP's from 3 to 5, and the boss is not bleeding, makes up for the lesser damage the 3-point does compared to the 5-point Rupture.

Other finishers like Eviscerate and Envenom are inferior and deals less damage pr CP/energy, and should therefor never be used!
The only time you should use Eviscerate is if the target is bleed-immune. Then Eviscerate replaces Rupture in your cycle.
Also you can make use of Eviscerate/Envenom on trash, if the target is close to death, and a Rupture would not run it's time.
Worth to notice is that Eviscerate does not ignore armor.
Also remember that if you use Envenom, it consumes all stacks of Deadly Poison on the target.
That was two other reasons why you should almost never use these finishers!

Cycles:
Dependant on your build, there are some different cycles you can use. Remember that your main priority is to keep Slice & Dice up all the time! This is why 2 pieces of T4 is so good! The extra time this gives on Slice & Dice allows you to use more CP's on Rupture!
Second Priority is to have Rupture running as much as possible.

Note: Mutilate/deep Assa-builds does not have any fixed cycles, as the CP-generation varies too much. The player needs to make best judgement how to use their CP's. This is why Muti/Assa-builds are rather skill-dependant to perform well in a raid!

Whatever build you have, your first CP is immidietly used to start Slice & Dice! Then follow the below cycles: (S = S&D, R = Rupture)

Combat Swords/Fists/Maces: 4S/5R. Or with 2xT4: 1S/5R
Combat Daggers: Due to poor CP-generation, you will need to build up like this 1S --> 3S --> 5s/4-5R. With 2xT4: 1S/3R. (I love my 2xT4!!)
Hemo: 5S/5R. Or with 2xT4: 2S/5R

These cycles can only be maintained 100% if the boss stands perfectly still, and you don't have to switch targets in the middle of the fight.
If you have to switch targets, f.ex. to nuke down a totem, it is often best to use whatever CP's you have built up on a Rupture before switching.
On encounters where you have to run, you will need to decide if it is best to start a Rupture before you run, or save the CP's to start Slice&Dice when you come back. If Slice&Dice (that should be active on you all the time you're on the boss) will stop while you are running, I would save my CP's to be able to start S&D as soon as I can start stabbing again.

Also remember that Slice & Dice is THE MAIN PRIORITY, so anything that f*** up your cycle, should go on behalf of the number of CP's you use for Rupture. As already said, the damage from a 3-CP to a 5-CP Rupture is almost identical, when we take CP-cost into account.

Energy
We need energy to use our abilities. The rate our energy regenerates is fixed, with the exception of extra energy gained from Combat Potency and Relentless Strikes. This indicates that you will NOT be able to do more of your special attacks if you spam your button! This is actually rather stupid! The reason for this is that you should make sure you always have energy to start Slice & Dice or Rupture, or perform a Kick, after Global Cooldown!
The approach I use for this is to try to stay on approx 80% energy. My Backstab uses 60 energy, so I have 20 energy "in the bank", and after Global Cooldown, I have even more. This is enough so I never need to wait for energy to regenerate before I use a finisher or perform a Kick.
Short rule: Never allow your energybar to be empty or full!

Cooldowns
There is no excuse for saving your Cooldowns! Maximizing dps is to make the best use of them!
Most of our cooldowns are also of such character that they boost eachother, so actually you should do just that if possible, pop all at once!

When you engange a boss, allow the tank to build approx. 5-10k of threat before you do anything (learn to know your tanks threat-buildup!). Then open with Garrote (if you are in stealth), and start Slice&Dice.
Activate Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, and enjoy the effect of Adrenaline Rush! Warning: Doing this will risk you passing the tank in threat! Be ready to Vanish!!
During AR, you will have more CP's then you need to keep S&D and Rupture up, so use those extras for some Eviscerates. Keep going untill AR runs out. Hopefully you haven't passed the tank in threat yet! If you did, you started to soon!
Now Vanish, if you already haven't!! This dumps your threat to zero! What a wonderful world! :-)

Now continue with normal cycles and pop Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush as soon as their cooldown has run out. Vanish again if needed.

Vanish and Feint
These two abilities are important in our threat-management! However I seldom use Feint! I find it a waste of Energy and Global Cooldown to use it. I rather rely on dumping my threat completly with Vanish, like I describe above. The only times I use Feint is when suddenly I find myself closing dangerously to the tanks threat, and Vanish still is on cooldown. It is not worth it to steal aggro and die, compared to the damage-output you loose when you use Feint.

Trinkets
If you have trinkets with "Use"-abilities, there is no excuse for not using it as often as possible! :-)
I make use of a macro that pops my trinket(s) every time the cooldown expires automaticly. This macro is also genious in the matter that it eliminates the error-messages and sounds you otherwise would get if you tried to activate your trinket when still on cooldown.

Here it is:

Code: Select all

/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Spellname
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1


If you don't know how to make a macro, here is a short explanation:

- Press Esc to bring up your Options-meny.
- Click "Macros"
- I prefer to make this a "Charactername" Specific Macros, so select that.
- Click "New", and give this macro the same name as the spell you wanna use to trigger you trinkets.
- Select the Icon you would like to have on this. and click "Ok".
- Write EXCACTLY what I have written over here where it says "Enter Macro Commands".
- Only replace "Spellname" with the excact name of what spell you would like to trigger the trinket(s).
- Now you're done, and only need to drag this new icon to the place you like on your actionbar. For me, I have my Backstab on "4".
- Enjoy!

Useful links
Below you'll find some sites I have made extensive use of, and learned alot from.
Actually, you will find alot of what I claim to be facts in this post on these sites.

Shadowpanther - A very, very good site for comparing gear and weapons!

Roguecraft 101 - As it says. Those guys at Elitist Jerks know what they are talking about!

Rogue: PvE DPS - More from Elitist Jerks!

Rogue DPS Spreadsheet - Very good spreadsheet for theorycrafting! Requires Excel or OpenOffice.

Formulas and game mechanics - As it says, from Wowwiki.


Here is a challenge
Ok, so maybe you have bothered reading through this post?
Now I challenge you to discuss it! If you disagree on anything, a good discussion can be very useful! We can all learn alot from such!

Anyway, remember the most important thing about playing your rogue:

It have to be fun! Stay pink!

[GreenUndo]

I'm leveling a rogue atm and this post has helped me immense Raia! Thanks