Rogues Part III

[Roper]

wtb dual spec

Yeah seriously, give dual spec now!!

Had to spec back to shadow yesterday just because there were a load of quests I needed to do and it was peeing me off doing them as holy. With dailies and stuff it really would make life easier.

[ash]

AHHA!

I have learnt something!

They have changed the spreadsheet a bit. Now instead of telling which cycle is best to use, you have to pick it yourself. Under Subt it was picking a "bad" cycle.

Thus under Subt I can probably get 1400 dps without any assistance. Using a 2S 5R cycle. and with Muti I "should" be using 3Ev 4R as soon as SnD is active.

now....this means I am still a bit low on the mutilate dps in game, but I think I can test it properly using the cycle above

[Greentitch]

I was having a quick look at this and it seems there is a very PvE variation of the Honor spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhbbZ0gc ... cdIhzdAzVc

There's also a little buglet where you get one combo point per crit per rogue with Honor Among Thieves... That means 2 rogues in your party means 2 combo points per crit by anyone in your party (including you). 5 HaT rogues in a party would gain 5 combo points every time any one of them crit.... Ow?

[ash]

After the few talent and ability changes, PvP mutilate spec has changed:

http://www.wow-tools.org/talent-calcula ... 0000000000

The points in deadened nerves can be moved to focused attacks if you are looking for more sustained dps, or want the edge versus a similar specced rogue.

Vile poisons is now defunct unless the style of play for rogues changes to bleeds and dots

Improved Kidney shot is a waste due to diminishing returns

The way the points are spread in Subt are mostly down to your own preference...except for prep, dirty deeds and heightened senses ofc.


The 3 points needed to be spent in Ruthlessness again are just "filler" to get down to the cold blood tier. Can probably move them into blood spatter or maybe even improved expose armour (!) if you feel so inclined. An extra combo point is useful though, as you might use it to add SnD to ensure Wound is stacked on with Crippling.

In terms of the HAT changes, I dunno.

I think HAT is still very viable and probably as good (maybe better depending on group make up?) as combat. However I think the highest single point dps build will still be PvE mutilate. It just needs the right gear.

Dual Webbed death or Sinister Revenge + Webbed will be the best you can get for it, and ofc gemming gear with agility instead of AP.

I don't think PvE mutilate spec will have changed.

Something like

http://www.wow-tools.org/talent-calcula ... 0000000000

although if I'm honest I need to test it to be sure.

HAT spec hasn't changed really. Assuming you don't put masses of points into combat to get Aggression.

[Greentitch]

Dual Webbed death or Sinister Revenge + Webbed will be the best you can get for it, and ofc gemming gear with agility instead of AP.

Can you explain why this is? Does mutilate benefit from Agility in some way over other rogue specs or is it because of the crit? Or is it just that Agility is always good but AP is a lot better for other specs?

[Commando]

I suspect most rogues would be better off gemming for agility rather than attack power. Last I checked, equivalence points indicated that 1 agility was worth slightly more than 2 attack power for all specs, but the gems give you a choice between X agility and 2X attack power, making agility gems more worthwhile.

Assassination specs like agility because the extra crit improves the Seal Fate proc rate, but then again Subtlety has Sinister Calling so they'll like agility too, and of course most specs will have Lethality.

[Vincenoir]

I'd like to know why faster weapons are better for mutilate, if someone is bored at work and can explain :p

[Commando]

I'd guess they're not the best for Mutilate, but they are the best for poisons, and Assassination builds tend to make more use of poison damage than other builds. Presumably the loss in damage from Mutilate is made up for by the increase in damage from poison procs. But that's just a guess.

[Vincenoir]

That makes sense. Ty

[ash]

That is not the only reason

There "was" a bug that meant offhand procced poison twice. This also slanted mutilate towards having faster weapons, to exploit that.

However in addition to this:

Talent - "Focused Attacks"

- Your melee Critical hits have a 100% (3 points) chance to give you 2 energy.

The faster the weapon, more procs (it is not under a PPM limitation). Means more energy and more abilities!

Dual Librarian's Paper Cutter is better than quite a lot of epic daggers for this reason (welcome to Bartenders Shanker 2.0). The speed of 1.3 (I think?) increases poison procs and Focused attacks procs.

Someone on EJ worked it out saying that -0.1 speed on a dagger increases the overall DPS of a rogue by some stupid amount, compared to just getting a dagger with a high overall DPS that was at 1.8 speed. Not saying everything on EJ is perfect, but I wouldn't try arguing with them as I have 0 ability in statistical mathematics :p

Now, all that aside, for PvP slow daggers are still in. This is (as you probably realise) because of the higher top end damage allowing for higher burst.

So if you see a rogue go out into the pvp world with dual webbed death vs someone like me with dual twilight mist ... arguably I should win, due to having higher burst/damage potential on specials. The 1.3 speed doesn't help in PvP because the added damage that you see in PvE comes from Instant Poison. This is not used in PvP, unless you like tasting graveyard dust.

et voila

The Agility gem thing is as explained above. More crit, easier cycles, more 3 pt mutis hitting, more finishers.

And just to elaborate on the Sinister Revenge thing:

Its 1.8 speed (oh noes!)
Its 171 DPS.

The increase in dps between 156 to 171 almost offsets the speed increase on the weapon by more, and its a good alternative to a 2nd webbed death if not (in future) possibly better.

A rogue in PvE will always run as deadly/instant unless they are testing something or just don't care. Putting deadly on the 1.8 makes no difference to how much 5 stacks stay up whereas putting Instant on it, reduces the amount of procs you will get.

Therefore with Sinister Revenge OH (Deadly), Webbed Death MH (instant).

[ash]

With recent mutilate changes, it means we'll need to look for alternatives in PvP.

Mutilate will possibly still be viable, but will probably be dependant on gear more than usual. (In theory I might be okay with what I have, but people with blue daggers are probably about to feel pain)

Some people have been suggesting alternative builds already

One that I've found interesting is a hemo variant.

http://www.wow-tools.org/talent-calcula ... 0133000000

Relies quite heavily on stealth to provide the burst, but typically in 2v2 fights rarely last more than 45 seconds. By that stage double DPS are either about to win, or about to lose!

It exploits Overkill (-10 energy for abilities for 6 seconds after breaking stealth) and Master of Subt (+10% for 6 seconds after breaking stealth.) This takes hemo down to 25 energy.

With typical energy of 130 to start with, hemo hitting for 1.1k non-crit (possibly more depending on how much the +dmg buff works), you can get 5 hemos in 5 GCDs without any energy regen

with an opener into 5 GCDs, then eventually kidney shotting, might give us "stuff". Problem is, the stunlock we're used to can no longer be maintained in order to exploit the 6 second buff

Theoretically it might work, but needs testing.

Other people are talking Adrenaline Rush / Prep (with maces) but this is probably going to have to wait until 3.1 when(if?) Adr cooldown is reduced.

Difficult times!

[ash]

FYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY-mGwyWyxw

[balaz]

Just to add to 2 pence to the dagger speed topic above..

In Patch 3.1 (which hopefully will be with us in the next few weeks) Instant, Wound and a few other poisions are being changed to a PPM (Proc Per Minute) application mechanic.

What this means is that the application of poisons from weapons has been normalised to approximately the same as a 1.4 speed weapon. In other words faster weapons no longer have any benefit in applying poisons over slower weapons. This stops Rogues favouring faster weapons (in the main hand) to the exclusion of the actual quality of the dagger (At the moment the blue Librarian Paper Cutter (LPC) provides better DPS than quite a few epic daggers, which is just wrong). This effect has been most pronounced for assassination builds which derive a larger proportion of DPS from poisons than Combat does.

Some mutilate rogues are currently stacking dual WD (which is a whole tier below SR) and 2x Instant Poison (and using Evisc. as finisher as opposed to Envenom) to squeeze out the tiniest bit more damage.

So, until we get our hands on Daschal's Bite the best dagger setup for a Mutilate PvE build currently appears to be SR (IP) / WD (DP) with Envenom as a finisher. Also anyone just starting raiding on a rogue come 3.1 shouldn't follow the current strategy of getting 2x LPC, as their faster speed no longer offsets their poor base weapon DPS.

For PvP I’m unsure as to the impact at the moment (other than slower, heavier weapons will be even more useful), but as Ash says above things are being shook about abit (Ar. Pen rating change should help against Plate) so we'll see where Rogues fall.

[ash]

Some people are possibly interested in pvping as a rogue.

Plenty to be learnt from watching this one I reckon

http://www.noobflicks.com/watch/6113/r-1

Sometimes its down to luck, but you gotta make your own luck

[Vecko]

Quick question,

for leveling a rogue once you reach the mace/sword talents. What do most people take?

I'm thinking maces now ...