The Combat Rogue in Mists of Pandaria

 Mists of Pandaria, Rogues  Comments Off
Jul 182012
 

Worgen Rogue in Tier 13 with Legendary DaggersYou’re the swashbuckling master of the flashing blades and are at or near the tops of the DPS charts. Maybe not so hot as an Arena machine, that’s Subtlety’s forte, but you can do just fine in the Battlegrounds. Leveling, of course, is quick, easy, and painless for you.

Due to the complete revamping of the talent system in Mists of Pandaria the Combat Rogue just might be interesting in PvP, as well as a DPS machine.

Rogues, all Rogues, have a pretty high skill cap. This means that it will take some work to get to the top, but you’ll rule when you do.

Contents

stats weapons poisons gems enchants
race professions raid build & glyphs

 

Stats

  • Primary: Agility, and then more Agility.
  • Secondary: 7.5% Hit > 7.5% Expertise > Haste
  • Weaker Stats: Hit over 7.5% > Mastery > Crit > Hit over 17%
  • Useless: Hit over 27%, Expertise over 7.5%, Int, Str, Spirit
Hit and Expertise now use the same progression:
  • 3% for same level enemies
  • 4.5% for +1
  • 6% for +2
  • 7.5 for +3, eg: raid bosses.
Reforge weaker stats to stronger stats.
Get that Hit and Expertise, then all else goes into Haste.

 

Weapons

Once upon a time Combat Rogues had talents giving them extra stats with particular weapon types. That is no longer the case. Use the best one-hand weapons you can find, if you have a choice between available weapons then pick the one that matches your racial (eg: Human expertise with Axe and Mace.)

  • Weapon speed is no longer a factor in Mists of Pandaria. Any one hand weapon should be fine in either hand, though you could put a dagger in the off hand if you want to experiment.

 

Poisons

Poisons are abilities and buffs, you no longer have to stock them in your bags or buy them from a vendor. You can use one lethal (eg; deadly) and one non-lethal (eg: Crippling) at a time. Each “dose” lasts for one hour and is weapon independent. You can switch weapons (and poisons) at any time and you’ll still have your poisons working, without having to re-apply them.

Lethal

  • Deadly (lev. 10, ability) does damage over time. You will use this one in all PvE content (ie: dungeons and raids.) In PvP you should only use it when the opposition is not being healed.
  • Wounding (lev 30, ability) does instant damage and suppresses enemy healing, which makes it more valuable for PvP.
  • Instant poison is dead and gone.
Non-lethal
  • Non-lethal: Crippling (lev 20, ability) slows your opponent’s movement. Nice for mobs (or players) that run away.
  • Mind Numbing (lev 28, ability) slows opponent spellcasting.
  • Leeching Poison (lev 45, talent) heals you for a percentage of the damage done. Harder hits from you = better healing.
  • Paralytic Poison (lev 75, talent) stacks up and on a 5th stack stuns your opponent for a few seconds.

 

Gems

Once you get into item level 417+ gear get into the M of P gems, even if they’re grimly expensive. They’re far superior to the Cataclysm gems.

In M of P the gems for secondary stats will have higher values than those with primary stats. For example, this quick gem vs the comparable delicate gem. In Cataclysm Rogues could stick with all Agility gems and be just fine, in M of P the gemming will be more interesting. You will probably want to match socket bonuses.

 

Enchants

As with gems, the Mists of Pandaria enchants are much better than the earlier enchants. Head enchants are gone, shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession. Go for Agility first, then Haste, then whatever looks best according to the stats above.

MoP enchants require item level 372 or better and you’ll notice that they are somewhat better than their Cataclysm counterparts. New enchants (and gems) are always very expensive when the appear, and sometimes afterwards. If you need more cash to be able to buy these things then check our Tycoon review.

 

Race Choice for Combat Rogues

Pandarens can become Rogues, Draenei and Tauren still can’t.

Blood Elf

  • Arcane torrent restores some Energy and silences opponents. Skilled with Enchanting.
Dwarf
  • Can wash away bleeds and reduce damage. Ranged expertise is mostly useless.
Gnome
  • Expertise with (small) swords is nice and their escape ability has occasional use, especially in PvP.

Goblin

  • Rocket jump is a nice leap into or out of combat (it also breaks stealth.) Vendor discounts make compulsive buying less painful. A bit of added Haste is nice.
Human
  • Diplomacy makes for easier rep grinding, Mace/Sword expertise is nice, as is their escape ability (especially in PvP.)
Night Elf
  • Shadowmeld can save your butt if things go bad, since it drops aggro and is usable in combat. S’meld to stealth to escape. Quickness makes you a bit harder to hit and you also get slightly faster movement while stealthed.

Orcs

  • Blood Fury is a great burst racial, and expertise with Axes and Fist weapons is pretty cool.

Pandaren

  • Bouncy for less falling damage, faster leveling through longer lasting Rest XP, better buffs from food, skilled with Cooking, can choose to be either Horde or Alliance.
Troll
  • Berserking is a nice racial for bursts, ranged expertise is pretty useless.
 Undead
  • Can wash away fear and such, drain life and be healed, eati dead bodies frees up a bag slot since you won’t have to carry basic food.
Worgen
  • An extra Sprint is sweet, added Crit is nice, but it’s not your best stat. Skilled with Skinning (which adds some Crit.)

 

Professions

Profession bonuses are much higher in Mists of Pandaria than previously and many crafts will requires Bind on Pickup items to create (requiring Spirit of Harmony, for example, though the finished item might well be Bind on Equip. Pretty much like the old Chaos Orbs from Cataclysm, but a lot more recipes will requires the Spirits. Maybe they’ll become BoE, like the orbs did, but they aren’t there now.

The Haste buff from Herbalism makes it worth considering.

  • Alchemy – You get better and longer effects from your own potions. For example, and extra 320 Agility and an extra hour for the best elixir.
  • Blacksmithing – Equip two more of the gems you can find.
  • Enchanting – Enchant your own rings for added agility. +40 to each ring in Cata, 160 in M of P.
  • Engineering – create useful items and equip Synapse Springs, for a big agility burst for 10 seconds. 480 in Cata and 2,940 in M of P. Beware of side-effects in PvE settings. Lots of generally useful gadgets and backfire don’t matter so much in PvP.
  • Inscription – Nice shoulder enchant. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P. In addition to making glyphs you (or some other scribe) will be making everyone’s shoulder enchants.
  • Leatherworking – The bonus is a pretty nice bracer enchant for added Agility. +130 Ag in Cata, 520 in M of P.
  • Jewelcrafting – create (and equip) better gems than otherwise available. +67 Ag in Cata, +320 in M of P.
  • Tailoring – Make your own flying carpet. Oh, you want damage. Well, you can add a nice cloak enchants that sometimes adds a nice chunk of attack power. +1000 AP in Cata, +8,000 Sp in M of P.
  • Herbalism – A small heal over time with a very nice Haste effect (+2880 Haste rating for 20 seconds at skill level 600.)
  • Mining – More stamina, 480 at max level.
  • Skinning – More crit rating, also 480 at max level.

 

Combat Rogue Raid Build

These are the abilities that you pick up from choosing Combat as your specialization (spec.)

Talents are completely revised. Take all your Cata build and throw them away. You now have six tiers of talents, gained (one tier each) at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90. Any spec can pick any one talent from each row. Any level 60 Rogue can now take Shadowstep, for example.

Talents and glyphs are swapped in the same way. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+.

Combat Rogue Talents

Combat Rogue DPS build for Mist of Pandaria

Talent Descriptions:

  1. Shadow Focus – Abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. Sap to Ambush (or any opener) at zero energy cost. Nightstalker might be better for leveling, with it’s speed and opening damage.
  2. Combat Readiness – Take less damage as fight gets longer. Not really a great tier for PvE and CR’s probably the best of the lot.
  3. Leeching Poison – your strikes heal you. Toss up between this and Elusiveness. Leeching might provide more general utility and take a bit of pressure off your healers.
  4. Preparation – Finished cooldowns. More vanishes to energy free Ambushes. Also resets defensive cooldowns for added survival.
  5. Prey on the Weak – When you disable an enemy with your stuns they suffer increased damage from all sources for the duration of the effect. If your opponent can be affected by Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot and and is being attacked by several people then it can take quite a bit more damage. Paralytic Poison might have value against trash that survives long enough. Dirty Tricks is more for PvP.
  6. Anticipation – Stores excess CPs on target and applies them after a finishing strike.No more wasted Combo Points. If you do a lot of target switching then Versatility might be a good choice.

Glyphs are a bit different from before. Primes are gone, Majors modify damage and effects, Minors make small changes to some effects, such as increrased range.  You can have three each, six total, at level 90. Tome of the Clear Mind is what you use to swap glyphs at 86+. Get supplies to changes talents and glyphs from your Inscription supplies vendor or off the Auction House.

Major Glyphs: 

  1. Deadly Momentum - Kills refresh Slice and Dice and Recuperate. Great for leveling and fighting trash. Leaves more Combo Points to spend on damage.
  2. Adrenaline Rush - Reduces important cooldowns by a small amount.
  3. Sprint - Faster sprinting, for the Usain Bolt Rogue, when you just have to be there right now.
Minor Glyphs
  1. Distract -  Increased range for this ability.
  2. Blurred Speed - Run on water while Sprint is active.
  3. Killing Spree - Returns you to the same spot which you started, for a bit more positioning predictability.

Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap!

 Blast through Mists of Pandaria to the level cap, Click Here to Start!

 

 Posted by at 1:32 pm  Tagged with:

Subtlety Rogue in Mists of Pandaria

 Rogues  Comments Off
Jul 132012
 

A Quick and Dirty Subtlety Rogue Guide

An Undead Rogue in Vengeful GearA lean, mean, backstabbing machine. Known for PvP ownage, Sub also can do very well in PvE, you just have to be good at managing your finishers and energy. Nothing wrong with Shadowdancing a boss, ya know.

 

Stats

  • Primary Stat: Agility, nothing else comes close especially with your Sinister Calling ability (+30% Agility)
  • Secondary:
    • PvP: Hit to 3% > Crit > Expertise to 3% > Haste
    • PvE: Hit to 7.5% > Crit > Expertise to 7.5% > Haste
  • Weak: anything else (Mastery, excess Hit or Expertise.)
  • Reforge to your Hit cap, then all else to Crit. If the weapon already has Crit and you’re Hit capped, then reforge to Haste.
  • Note: If you dual spec and you’re not switch gear sets, then Haste is a good stat to reforge into. It’s at least a decent stat for all Rogues.

Weapons

  • Daggers in both hands
  • Main: Wound poison in PvP, Deadly in PvE
  • Off: Leeching in PvE, Crippling in PvP.

Gems

  • Gems and enchants can be expensive. Go here if you can’t afford them.
  • Delicate Agility or Mystic Resilience gems only. Nothing else matters. MoP gems are much better than Cata counterparts.

Enchants

  • MoP enchants are much better than Cata counterparts.
  •  Enchant for Agility before Crit before Haste
  • Weapon enchants

Race

Pandarans can be Rogues, Draenei and Tauren are the only races that can’t.

MoP = Mists of Pandaria

  • Pandaren: May join either Horde or Alliance, can stun with a touch, level faster (longer lasting rest XP,) increased benefits from food buffs, less falling damage, good with cooking.
  • Alliance
    • Night Elf: Quickness helps with survival, Shadowmeld can be used in combat to drop aggro or break incoming spells. Faster stealthy movement.
    • Worgen: Sub loves Crit and Worgen  get a 1% bonus to that stat. Good with Skinning, which adds to Crit rating. Sprint ability is quite useful.
    • Gnome: Expertise with daggers is nice, small size really is useful in PvP, escape is nice. Good with Engineering and Synapse Springs is a nice Engie gadget to use.
    • Human: Diplomacy is nice if you’re rep grinding, escape ability allows you to use two DPS trinkets in PvP.
    • Dwarf: Stoneform washes away bleeds and reduces damage, Ranged expertise is next to useless.
  • Horde
    • Orc: Bloody Fury for the burst, stun resistance (reduces a 6 second stun to about 5 seconds.)
    • Undead: can remove effects, consume dead players, can drain health from enemies.
    • Troll: Berserking, damage Vs beasts (Worgen don’t count,) reduction in movement impairing effects.
    • Blood Elf: Arcane Torrent restores energy and silences opponents
    • Goblin: Rocket jump (breaks stealth) is a good escape, increased Haste, Good with Alchemy for an action bar full of potions.

Professions

Most of the professions offer a net gain of about 80 Ag. points over the regular enchants or item enhancements. In Mists of Pandaria it will be about 320 Ag.

  • Alchemy: Better effects and more duration from Chemisty. Figure an extra 320 Ag and and extra hour from your Flask of Spring Blossoms.
  • Blacksmithing: Slot two extra Agility gems.
  • Enchanting: Enchant your own rings with additional Agility (40 each in Cata, 160 in MoP)
  • Engineering: Useful gadgets, Synapse Springs adds a lot of Ag for 10 seconds on a one min cooldown.
  • Inscription: Very nice shoulder enchant.
  • Jewelcrafting: Slot better gems
  • Leatherworking: Nice bracer enchant.
  • Tailoring: Flying carpet and a cloak enchant that sometimes adds Attack Power.

Subtlety Rogue Abilities Talents in Mists of Pandaria

Any spec of Rogue can grab any one talent from each tier. This means six talents at level 90. This also means that any Rogue can take Shadowstep and that PvP Rogues cannot have both Shadowstep and Prep.

  • 10 – Hemorrhage - adds a bleed in addition to the basic damage, replaces Sinister Strike. This is your “bread and butter” attack.
  • 10 – Master of Subtlety - more damage (10% more) when attacking from stealth.
  • 10 – Sinister Calling - increases total agility by 30%. Agility is already the #1 stat for all Rogues, this makes it even more true for Subtlety.
  • 20 – Find Weakness - openers bypass 70% of opponent armor for ten seconds, giving you the chance to drop some serious damage.
  • 30 – Premeditation - adds 2 combo points to target before your attack.
  • 40 – Backstab - requires man hand dagger, must be behind target. This is great for dungeons, but is a bit tricky to use while leveling or in PvP.
  • 50 – Honor Among Thieves - Gain combo points from the crits of party members.
  • 60 – Sanguinary Vein - Improves Rupture and all bleeds.
  • 70 – Energetic Recovery - Slice and Dice for faster energy recovery and more white damage. Have S&D up at all times.
  • 80 – Mastery: Executioner - Increases damage done by finishing strikes
  • 80 – Shadow Dance – now 8 seconds (was 6, before M of P,) allows use of abilities out of stealth, such as cheap shot and extra ambushes.

Here’s a build to try out. You can switch talents anytime, as long as you’re not in combat. Bring up your talent page, pick a row with a learned talent,

Subtlety Rogue PvP Build

Subtlety Rogue PvP Build for Mists of Pandaira

  1. Shadow Focus – Abilities no longer cost Energy while you are stealthed. Sap to Cheap Shot to Vanish to Ambush to Shadowdance at zero energy cost.
  2. Nerve Strike – Opponents does less damage when coming out of Cheap Shot or Kidney Shot.
  3. Leeching Poison – your strikes heal you, but it means you won’t be using Crippling (or another) poison. Elusiveness will allow you to avoid a lot of burst damage, so might be more useful in some situations.
  4. Shadowstep – Teleport to target, friend or enemy, but no damage increase. Don’t open with it, use it to catch up with runners, disengagers, or blinkers. Prep has definite use if you use those CDs more than you need the mobility, and Burst of Speed also provides mobility and escapes and might be perfect for flag carrying.
  5. Prey on the Weak – When you disable an enemy with your stuns they suffer increased damage from all sources for the duration of the effect. This is a weak tier, but this talent can be useful with some coordination. Dirty Tricks has some definite PvP possibilities.
  6. Anticipation – Stores excess CPs on target and applies them after a finishing strike. Never again waste CPs. Versatility is great if you switch targets regularly.

 

Sub Rogue Raid Build

 

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 Posted by at 6:14 pm

Patch 4.3 Class Balance Remarks from the Devs

 Blizzard, Classes  Comments Off
Nov 112011
 

Man, it must be an interesting job to be the guy in charge of class balance…

The Devs (specifically Ghostcrawler) discuss what’s happening with the various classes in the 4.3 patch. Not all specs are covered and Rogues aren’t covered at all. I have no idea what that means. This is a clip from part 1, part two is below this:

Part 1:

Back in June, I wrote a blog explaining the context behind some of the changes in the upcoming patch that might not be intuitively obvious. That blog ended up being one of the most popular ones we’ve ever done; even players who disagreed with the specific changes appreciated our explanations for what we were trying to accomplish. Therefore, we’d like to continue in that fashion and we figured there was no reason to wait until 4.3 was “on the shelves” to get the ball rolling.

One note before I dive into things. If you haven’t read the previous blog, “Rate of Change,” now might be a good time. There are some changes that we want to make to class mechanics or balance in general that we don’t think are fair or appropriate to spring on players in the middle of an expansion. These include things like the power of interrupts or the active mitigation model we want to implement for tanks. We’ll get there, but in short term we fundamentally believe that it’s important to pick our battles.

On with the show. Note that most of these changes are mechanics changes. We have not yet finished enough testing to be confident in our benchmark damage, healing, and tanking numbers for 4.3. When we finish those, and when we see what some players are capable of doing on the PTR (or even what they theorycraft or sim based on PTR numbers) there will be additional changes. Off the top of my head, I’d say Fury warrior damage is almost certainly too high and Resto druid AE healing (ignoring the effects of Tranquility of course) is also too potent.

You’ll also notice some classes aren’t mentioned at all. It’s possible we’re just happy with them, but it’s more likely we just haven’t gotten to them yet. We don’t want to hold a PTR until every single thing is done, because that minimizes test time.

Melee DPS

Overall, we think melee DPS in dungeons and raids is still too low. We think melee DPS is fine in PvP, and we think melee DPS is competitive against ranged specs against target dummies, but in actual encounters with all of their moving pieces, melee falls behind. To attempt to adjust for this imbalance, we have improved the benefit to attack power given by the various raid buffs (Blessing of Might et al.) to melee only. Hunter DPS is fine, or even high in 4.2, so we didn’t want this buff to extend to them, which is why the AP benefit is now 20% for melee attacks but still 10% for ranged attacks.

Vengeance

As promised, we allow for this tanking mechanic to now ramp up quickly when the tank is taking damage.

The rest of the above post deals with class specific changes, see it here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3615095

Part 2 goes into more details. Again, not all specs are covered and Rogues aren’t covered at all. The changes to the Mortal Strike type of effects (reduced healing on the target) should cover Wound Poison, though.

Mortal Strike (and similar debuffs)

We dropped the healing debuff from 50% to 10% some time ago, but were convinced at 10% that it was hard to appreciate the effect at all. We want to try Mortal Strike et al. at 25% to see if it feels useful but not mandatory. If 25% is too much and 10% is too little, then it may mean the entire mechanic may not have much of a future. We decided to only change the debuff for the warrior, rogue, and hunter, restoring the original relationship between “strong” and “weak” MS that we had in Lich King.

Click through to see the class details: 4.3 class changes

There will be thousands of comments on the above posts, might as well click through and add yours. QQing doesn’t help, but if you can add some solid evidence to support your remarks, then go for it.

Click on the Lightwell

 Priests  Comments Off
Jan 142011
 

From MMO-Champion – there seems to be some concern regarding the Lightwell mechanic. So in the interest of educating myself and the one or two others who might be reading this, here’s some info.

  • It is the highest heal-per-mana (hpm) spell for priests.
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.
  • Clicking it will not change your target and does not trigger the global cooldown.
  • It heals for more per tick than Renew.
  • It can be used while stunned, disoriented, sapped, blinded or casting.

WoWhead’s description:

  • Lightwell
  • 30% of base mana
  • 40 yd range
  • 0.5 sec cast
  • 3 min cooldown
  • Creates a Holy Lightwell.  Friendly players can click the Lightwell to restore (((2878 + ($SP * .308)) * 3) * 1.25) health over 6 sec.  Attacks done to you equal to 30% of your total health will cancel the effect. Lightwell lasts for 3 min or 10 charges.
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.

From a comment on that page:

This spell is way more powerful then you all think.  This spell can be used while

  • Tanking
  • Kiting
  • Blinded
  • Stunned
  • Disoriented
  • Sapped
  • Casting another heal or spell
  • You can click it from up to 20 yards away.

You don’t even need to un-click your current target. Lets compare with a more favored heal over time, Such as Renew.

Lightwell costs 30% of base mana, and does 10charges or “casts”.
So really its 3% of your base mana for every charge.

(the following is at 290 spell power)
Each charge heals 10,000 over 6seconds.
As for renew its 6,124 over 12seconds and costing 18% more mana per cast (compared to each charge)

You can literally be in two places at once, having your light well positioned properly. Heal ranged dps, or yourself while your to busy focusing on people who are dieing rather then injured. The ticks also tick faster [down from over 6seconds] with your haste. All you have to do is, Click.. and we will be well on our way to appreciating this spell.

Lightwell

Group around the lightwell

Did you know that  You can click it from up to 20 yards away?

Cataclysm Assassination Rogue Builds

 Rogues  Comments Off
Dec 302010
 

Assassination’s looking pretty good these days, at least from my point of view. Here are a pair of builds, one for PvE and one for PvP. Naturally some talents may change depending on your exact team, raid, preferences, etc.

For both builds…

  • Daggers only
  • Slow main, fast off-hand
  • Instant poison in main, deadly in off, crippling is applied via deadly brew
  • Wpn DPS > Agility > Mastery/Haste/Expertise > Crit

Level 85 Assassination Rogue DPS Build (31/2/8)

This build is aimed at maximum DPS, not max suvivability.

Assassination (31 Points)

  • Coup de Grace – Rank 3/3
  • Lethality – Rank 3/3
  • Ruthlessness – Rank 3/3
  • Quickening – Rank 2/2
  • Puncturing Wounds – Rank 3/3
  • Deadly Brew – Rank 1/2
  • Cold Blood – Rank 1/1
  • Vile Poisons – Rank 3/3
  • Seal Fate – Rank 2/2
  • Murderous Intent – Rank 2/2
  • Overkill – Rank 1/1
  • Master Poisoner – Rank 1/1
  • Cut to the Chase – Rank 3/3
  • Venomous Wounds – Rank 2/2
  • Vendetta – Rank 1/1

Combat (2 Points)

  • Precision – Rank 2/3

Subtlety (8 Points)

  • Nightstalker – Rank 2/2 – In theory this will allow for more “attack from stealth” situations.
  • Relentless Strikes – Rank 3/3
  • Opportunity – Rank 3/3

Glyphs

  • Prime – Glyph of Mutilate
  • Prime – Glyph of Rupture
  • Prime – Glyph of Backstab
  • Major – Glyph of Tricks of the Trade
  • Major – Glyph of Feint
  • Major – Glyph of Sprint
  • Minor – Glyph of Safe Fall

Level 85 Assassination Rogue PvP build (32/2/7)

Think of this build as a starting point and adjust to fit your game. For example, if Improved Expose Armor doesn’t work for you then change it.

Assassination (32 Points)

  • Coup de Grace – Rank 3/3
  • Lethality – Rank 3/3
  • Ruthlessness – Rank 3/3
  • Quickening – Rank 2/2
  • Puncturing Wounds – Rank 3/3
  • Deadly Brew – Rank 2/2
  • Cold Blood – Rank 1/1
  • Vile Poisons – Rank 3/3
  • Seal Fate – Rank 2/2
  • Overkill – Rank 1/1
  • Master Poisoner – Rank 1/1
  • Improved Expose Armor – Rank 2/2
  • Cut to the Chase – Rank 3/3
  • Venomous Wounds – Rank 2/2
  • Vendetta – Rank 1/1

Combat (2 Points)

  • 1. Improved Recuperate – Rank 2/2

Subtlety (7 Points)

  • Nightstalker – Rank 2/2
  • Relentless Strikes – Rank 3/3
  • Opportunity – Rank 2/3

Glyphs

  • Prime – Glyph of Mutilate
  • Prime – Glyph of Rupture
  • Prime – Glyph of Vendetta
  • Major – Glyph of Blind
  • Major – Glyph of Kick
  • Major – Glyph of Garrote
  • Minor – Glyph of Distract
  • Minor – Glyph of Poisons
  • Minor – Glyph of Safe Fall

More details here: Assassination Rogue Guide

Assassination Vs Subtlety DPS in 4.0

 Rogues  Comments Off
Oct 172010
 

I ran a short test on the target dummies in Silvermoon. One build was Assassination, the other Subtlety, both 4.0. The Assassination build is ElitistJerk’s DPS build, and the Sub is more PvP oriented. Just a short test along the lines of getting the rust polished off.

Note that you need 31 points to grab talents from the other trees, but you do not need to have the top talent in whichever tree. Mastery happens at 80.

Sub. did about 24-2500 DPS on the 83 target dummy and Assassination was close to 4k.I’m not claiming to be an expert anything, but that’s a pretty big difference. I didn’t even have Vendetta up on the Assassination test, showing what a nub I am.  Before 4.0 it was about 2k DPS or so with an Assassination build and the same gear.

  • Mongoose on both daggers
  • Instant poison on the MH, Deadly on the OH
  • No other buffs
  • About 4562 Gearscore (I know, it sucks.)

Assassination build (4.0:)

  1. 3/3 Coup de Grace
  2. 3/3 Lethality
  3. 3/3 Ruthlessness
  4. 2/2 Quickening
  5. 3/3 Puncturing Wounds
  6. 1/2 Deadly Brew
  7. 1/1 Cold Blood
  8. 3/3 Vile Poisons
  9. 2/2 Seal Fate
  10. 2/2 Murderous Intent
  11. Overkill
  12. Master Poisoner
  13. 3/3 Cut to the Chase
  14. 2/2 Venomous Wounds
  15. Vendetta
  16. 2/3 Precision
  17. 3/3 Relentless Strikes

Prime glyphs: Mutilate, Backstab, Rupture

Major Glyphs: Feint, Garrote, Fan of Knives

Minor Glyphs: Whatever. I have Pick Lock, Poisons, Safe Fall

Subtlety Build for 4.0

  1. 2/2 Nightstalker
  2. 3/3 Improved Ambush
  3. 3/3 Relentless Strikes
  4. 1/3 Elusiveness
  5. 2/2 Waylay
  6. 3/3 Opportunity
  7. 2/2 Initiative
  8. 2/2 Find Weakness
  9. Hemorrhage
  10. 3/3 Honor Among Thieves (will probably lose this. Your group gets the extra crit rating, so it’s useful for group fights, but it seems to be bugged right now.)
  11. Premeditation
  12. 2/3 Cheat Death
  13. Preparation
  14. 2/2 Sanguinary Vein
  15. 3/3 Slaughter from the Shadows
  16. Shadowdance
  17. 3/3 Precision
  18. 1/3 Coup de Grace

More DPS?

  1. Drop Nightstalker and Elusiveness for 3/3 Energetic Recovery (more energy)
  2. Drop Cheat Death for 2/2 Serrated Blades

Glyphs:

  • Prime: Hemo, Evisc, Backstab
  • Major: Ambush, Garrote, Cloak of Shadows
  • Minor: Safe Fall, Blurred Speed, Poisons

Macros:

Opener macro, since I can never remember to hit that Premeditation button. The pickpocket is in there for when you’re not fighting players:

#showtooltip Ambush
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Premeditation
/cast Ambush

#showtooltip Eviscerate (or change to Envenom)
/cast  Cold Blood
/cast Eviscerate (or change to Envenom)

Ambush is looking really brutal in PvP. Glyph for Ambush (adds range) and Eviscerate (adds crit chance to Ev.) Ambush gives 5 combo points with the above build, then Evisc/Rupture

Leveling

At this moment in time all the trees are good for leveling. Combat has better consistent DPS than the others and Subtlety has the huge opener. I haven’t leveled Assassination yet, but it should be between the two, at first guess.

If you’re leveling a Rogue then take a glance at our Rogue leveling page.

4.0 & Cataclysm Mage & Druid Builds

 Druids, Mages  Comments Off
Oct 072010
 

The 4.0 patch will likely hit on or about the 12th or October and, as you probably already know, it will change a lot of things. Talents, for one.

Instead of 71 talent points at 80 you’ll have 41 at 85.

Instead of putting a few points her and a few there, you will be locked into one tree until you buy the top tier talent. Those 41 points will buy every talent in any one specialization, but you can go 31/5/5 or 31/10 or 39/2 or something like that. Obviously this means that your Pally will be Protection or Holy or Retribution.

That nice 31/20/20 build of yours? Poof! It’s gone!

Each specialization will automatically get certain abilities. For example, all Subtlety rogues will get Shadowstep. These aren’t optional abilities. The top tier ability is Mastery, which is trainable. Mastery gives a bonus to some defining characteristic of your builds. Fire mages, for example, get increased periodic damage. Mastery rating will be on gear and can be stacked.

Whether you will want to stack it depends on all the usual things. Some on the forums are saying that you do not want to stack Warrior Mastery, but on other classes it’s great.

I expect there will be a lot of tuning for awhile.

Abilities have changed, too. You no longer get them every other level and you no longer have to get levels in the ability. Instead of Shiftypoke1 through 12, you just get Shiftypoke once and it scales with your level. I’m sure there will be plenty of forum remarks regarding that change, in addition to all the others.

Glyphs? There will be a made rush for glyphs on patch day. 85s will have 9 glyphs that they can slot (prime, major, minor, 3 of each) but every class can learn all the glyphs to their class and swap them as they like. Kinda like if you have several gear sets which you swap depending on that you’re doing. If you class has 20 glyphs you just buy all of then and then figure out which is the best set. Once you’ve bought the set you’ll never have to buy them again.

Mad rush on patch day? I think so. My inscription is 450 so I’ll be ready.

Oh yeah, the builds.

I’ve taken a shot at putting up 4.0 leveling builds for Druids and mages. Check them out if you like and tell me here if they’re good, bad, or ugly. I have not leveled anything 1-85 in the beta (though Zygor has) so it’s quite possible that an “interesting” error will creep in.

 Posted by at 12:07 pm

The Gold Run and a 4.0 Rogue Guide

 Get the Gold, Rogues  Comments Off
Sep 252010
 

A few weeks ago I made about starting from scratch and trying to hit 1k gold in 30 days. I’ve been documenting this on GotWarcraft.

  • Broke 1k gold on day 7, 2k on day 13, and 3k on day 18

This is on a new server, no 80s, no rich friends, no gold buying, no transfers, and the highest character so far is a 31 Rogue. Stop scoffing, I’m slow, Ok?

So when people are yammering about their money woes in trade or guild chat, I’m scratching my head and says, “WTF???” I used to offer suggestions, but no one is interested, so I just read the stuff and smile (or sigh.) Someone’s buying those three man mounts and nice raid purples (for 6-10k) on the AH and it ain’t them (don’t have the mount, but I’ve bought some of those purples.)

In the off chance that you are interested, I’ve been doing a day by day accounting of what I’m doing, here: 1k Gold in 30 Says, from Scratch

I’ve been reading the blueprint forums where people logged their speed run results. This little pocket change stuff I’m doing is silly low. No wonder no one’s interested. Ah well, it’s fun for me.

Cataclysm

The 4.0 patch, as you all know, is bringing major changes to the talent system and a few other areas, as well. That patch will be released before Cataclysm hits. I don’t have an exact date, but I’m sure everyone’s seen the “…downloading data…” note on the launcher.

You can see the test realm patch notes here.

I’ve put up a 4.0 Rogue guide and will have the others up as soon as I can get my act in gear. The rogue guide includes remarks on Mastery, leveling builds, and a few other things. Let me know what you think.

 Posted by at 9:02 am

Rogue PvP Tips

 PvP, Rogues  1 Response »
Sep 032009
 

I’ve posted an article the the GotWarcraft blog on the Top Three Rogue PvP Tips.

1 -  Know how to re-stealth
If you can’t re-stealth in combat, you are drastically reducing your survivability. The main techniques for acheiving this are to
  1. blind and wait to leave combat
  2. gouge/kidney shot your oppenent and run out
  3. get your oppenent crippled and sprint away
  4. vanish

Here’s the rest: Top 3 Rogue PvP Tips

 Posted by at 5:50 pm
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