Rogue Talent Build – Shadowstep and Shadow Dance

 Rogues  4 Responses »
Dec 312008
 

Currently my Rogue is level 78.5 and is helping the Argent Crusade to kill Alliance the scourge. I’ve respected into a shadowstep dagger build and grabbed the Shadowdance talent.

The daggers I’m using (which dropped off the AH at a decent price) are:

  1. Saronite Ambusher
  2. Saronite Shiv

To make the best use of that talent you might want to have some Thistle Tea on hand, a Glyph of Vigor, and gear that adds energy, such as the Gladiator set.

Ok, here’s the (dagger) build and I’m using it to level. Feel free to comment. I don’t claim to be any great shakes at PvP, the 3.0 patch killed any thoughts of competence that I might have been having. I’m sure that experienced PvPers will roll their eyes at some of my choices here:

  • 5 points Malice: Gotta love the crits.
  • 5 points Dual Weild
  • 5 points Precision: More hits = more DPS
  • 5 points Relentless Strikes
  • 3 points Master of Deception: Great for PvP
  • 2 points Opportunity
  • 2 in Dirty Tricks: The extra range is surprisingly useful, especially since you can now sap almost anything living.
  • Ghostly Strike: Instant strike, more damage, more dodge, and a combo point to bot. What more could you want?
  • 3 pts in Serrated Blades: Lead-in to Hemorrhage
  • 3 pts in Setup: If you have a decent dodge skill this will add a useful number of combo points.
  • 3 pts in Initiative: More combo points.
  • 2 in Improved Ambush: +50% to crit. ’nuff said.
  • Preparation: Kindof the “Get out of Jail Free” card.
  • 2 in Dirty Deeds
  • Hemorrhage
  • 3 pts in Master of Subtlety: More damage attacking from stealth.
  • 5 pts in Deadliness
  • Premeditation: I stick this in a macro with my openers, so I get those 2 points a lot.
  • 5 points in Sinister Calling:+15% Agility, yummy.
  • 2 pts in Waylay: More for PvP
  • 5 points in Slaughter from the Shadows: I Ambush and Hemo alot, so this is good.
  • Shadowdance
  • 2 pts to spend elsewhere (at lev 79 & 80,) which I may stick into Improved Eviscerate.

Here’s the full level 80 build on WoWhead.

If you open with Ambush (or Cheap Shot or Garrote) you will,much more often than not, see an immediate 5 combo points ready to go. So you do Opener and Finisher, bang bang, such as Ambush + Eviscerate. Get a couple of crits there and you open with some nice damage.

If you use Eviscerate then check out a Glyph of Eviscerate.

Here’s what I’ve been experimenting with:

  1. Ambush + Eviscerate
  2. Shadow Dance
  3. Cheap Shot and move behind
  4. Ambush
  5. Eviscerate
  6. gouge and move behind…

Fighting more than one mob?

  1. Sap one
  2. Cheap Shot another
  3. Blind the 3rd
  4. Shadowdance
  5. Gouge one and move behind
  6. Ambush
  7. etc.

Here’s the opener macro that I use, which I found on Arena Junkies (lotta macros there.)

#show premeditation
/cast Premeditation
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Cheap Shot

Swap Cheap Shot for Ambush or whichever opener that you use. The Pick Pocket will keep you in healing potions and lockboxes as you level.

It might be a good idea to put your Shadow Dance hotkeys on a second action bar, and swap it in when you do the dance. Here’s a macro to switch action bars when you do just that, also taken from Arena Junkies.

Set up bar 2 to be your main bar with Sap on it, Ambush instead of Backstab, Cheap Shot instead of Kidney Shot, and Garrote over Rupture. Hit the Shadow Dance macro once to activate, and a second time to swap your bar back to normal.

#showtooltip
/cast Shadow Dance
/swapactionbar 1 2

Comments? Besides the obvious ones about my newbishness.

 Posted by at 4:00 pm

Rogue Talents and Glyphs – WotLK News

 Rogues, wrath of the lich king  1 Response »
Aug 282008
 

Parry! Dodge! Spin! has a post covering the various Glyphs that the new Inscriptions will add to the [tag-tec]Rogue talents[/tag-tec] and abilities:

First of all, I think every other class needs to send Blizzard a thank you card for the following change to Mace Specialization. As a Combat Swords Rogue (and as a Resto Druid), I’m pretty excited to see it myself. This should make Mace Specialization a bit more attractive for raiding as well.

Mace Specialization (Combat) no longer stuns enemies, and instead increases critical damage bonus by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Here’s the rest: WotLK Beta 8820 Rogue News

You’ll want to look at the comments, too. As usual with something like this there’s a wide differing of opinion.

One of the comments points out that resilience pretty much negates the crit bonus. Still, not everyone in PvP is running around with 400+ resilience or s4 gear. For leveling the damage bonus might be better than the rare stun proc.

Keep in mind that this is still in beta test and the final numbers may well be somewhat different. I’m sure that no matter what change Bliz make there will be whoops of praise and howls of outrage.

I think a lot of the Glyphs look pretty nice. What do you think?

Edit: Azande, in the comment, has some interesting stuff for the rading Rogue and more remarks on the raiding potential of Glyphs.

The Ultimate Level 19 Rogue Twinking Guide?

 Rogues  4 Responses »
Aug 172008
 

Twinking is the fine art of taking your character to levels far beyond what he/she should be able to do at any given level. For example, a Rogue twink, at 19, with 2,000 HP? It’s been done.

The [tag-tec]Warsong Gulch[/tag-tec] Battleground (Capture the Flag) has a level 10-19 bracket. Naturally one wants to be level 19, otherwise rapid doom will happen. Then one needs that little edge over the other 19s…

AzerothNow.com has a killer twinking guide for those level 19 Rogues bent on mayhem and slaughter in Warrsong Gulch (and maybe a duel or three.)

So you’ve done your dailies - everyday, you’ve cleared Heroics and Karazhan for Badges until your eyes bleed, maybe you’re even utterly tired of farming Illidan every week or wiping on Kil’Jaeden. But what now? Level another character? Cancel your subscription until Wrath?

Well, I have your solution: why not create a lvl 19 Twink Rogue? But what is a lvl 19 twink Rogue, you may ask. The simple explanation is that they are characters with the best possible gear for their level (including enchants), whose purpose is PvP, and their playground is the 10-19 bracket of Warsong Gulch Battlegrounds.

Here’s the rest: The Ultimate Guide to Lvl 19 Rogue Twinking

edit: A commenter points us to his twinking guides and I may just make use of his level 39 Warlock guide. Very cool. WoW Twink Guide: 39 Affliction Warlock

I Have a Cunning Plan…

 Rogues  Comments Off on I Have a Cunning Plan…
Jul 292008
 

Actually, it’s a Cunning Blade and I’ll skip further Black Adder references.

[tag-tec]Rogues[/tag-tec] at level 10 can do a quest chain to get this Cunning Blade as a quest reward. This quest chain is entirely optional and if you browse the Auction House regularly you’re likely to find better weapons for not much gold. (And you twinks can stop laughing now.) 🙂

Still, it’s a fun little quest chain and it can be quite challenging for your average level 10 Rogue. Each race has a different quest, in its own area, but the quest rewards are the same.

Gwynne’s done a complete walk-thorugh of all of these level 10 quest chains. So if you have an up and coming Rogue, here you go:

  1. Level 10 Rogue Quests for Horde
  2. Level 10 Rogue Quests for Alliance

WoW Rogue Macros

 Rogues, WoW Mechanics  8 Responses »
Jul 022008
 

I’ve been fussing around with macros for my Rogues and have come up with a couple of useful ones. Now, I’m more the “copy and paste” type than any kind of macro programmer, but the macro system is worth learning and will save you a lot of clicks and keymashes.

Basically a good macro set will make you a leaner meaner killing machine.

By the way, this naturally applies to classes other than Rogues, it’s just that I’m working with [tag-tec]Rogue macros[/tag-tec] at the moment. There are a variety of other sources for WoW Rogue Macros and I list a couple at the end.

So here are the macro basics to start:

  1. Type /macro to open the macro interface
  2. Hit “new”
  3. Pick an icon
  4. And then you’ll enter your code.

For my Shadowstep (Swords) Rogue I use this:

/cast Premeditation
/cast Cheap Shot

Replace Cheap Shot with the opener of your choice, eg: Ambush. Premeditation adds 2 combo points right before the attack (with a 2 min cooldown.) So with this build I Cheap Shot and can frequently add an immediate 5 pt combo finisher. If the cooldown hasn’t finished then just the Cheap Shot will fire.

This one makes sure you bandage yourself and not the other guy. 😉 Replace the bandage with whatever bandage you’re using at the moment.
/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

This next one allows me to strike with Ambush and immediately switch to swords or maces or whatever. Probably not the most efficient thing to do, but it’s fun. Slot 16 is your main hand, 17 is your off hand. Just swap in whatever weapons you’re using.

If Ambush doesn’t fire for whatever reason then the weapons still swap. If you’re one of those people who likes to spam the Ambush key as you approach then this won’t work so well, because the weapons will swap before you get the ambush off.

/cast Ambush(Rank 2)
/equipslot 16 Diamond Hammer
/equipslot 17 Ironpatch Blade

Here’s a quick swap macro. Make a couple of these and switch back and forth as the situation dictates.
/equipslot 16 Mainhand weapon
/equipslot 17 Off hand weapon

Macros can get far more advanced than these, allowing you to simplify many different actions.

Killer Guides’ Rogue Guide has a bunch of other macros and a ton of great Rogue info. Get your’s here.

Arena Junkies has a page with macros for all classes that’s worth checking out, especially if you do PvP.

The Rogue Poison Quest – A Walkthrough

 Rogues  Comments Off on The Rogue Poison Quest – A Walkthrough
Jun 222008
 

In order to apply poisons to their weapons Rogues have to undergo a little test. Alliance Rogues have to sneak into a tower, open a lock, steal something, and get back. Horde Rogues have to kill a few things.

Here are all the details, whether you’re Alliance or Horde.

  1. Rogue Poison Quest Walkthrough

Edit: Added pics to the guide.

 Posted by at 6:56 am  Tagged with:
 Newer Entries