#0 - Sept. 22, 2008, 4:24 p.m.
Today I'll start off with the Rogue guide, since that is the class which I will be playing during WoTLK.
This is a summarized version of http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t24301-rogue_pve_dps/, which I wrote for people who do not like to read whole walls of texts. All thanks should go to Vulajin of <Serious Casual> / Mal'Ganis (US).
------------Simple Rogue Guide to Raiding------------
!ATTENTION! All these things are based on a 20/41/0 build! Not for mutilate rogues or hemo rogues! If you don't seem to know certain skills/talents/items, please look them up at http://www.wowhead.com
I will keep things short and clear.
Best Build:
20/41/0. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ebovZMIV0bVzxMGkt will be your friend during raids. You can switch sword specialisation with any other specialisation, but don't forgot that sword specialisation does by far the most dps.
Hit rating:
Against a raid boss, your base chance to miss a special attack is 9%, and your base chance to miss a white attack is 28%. Against a level 72 mob, your chance to miss any attack is reduced by 3%, and it reduces by 0.5% per level below that. For each ~15.77 hit rating you equip, you reduce your chance to miss by 1%. Thus, we can calculate the hit caps for special and white attacks for various mob levels (assuming 5/5 Precision in all cases).
As a rogue you have two kinds of hit caps, you have a soft cap and a hard cap. Soft cap means that you've reached the point where a stat loses his value. For example when a rogue reaches the soft cap, the hit rating doesn't affect special attacks anymore since it is already maxed. Hit ratings above 64 have a reduced value. Hard cap means you've reached the point that hit rating has no value anymore. The rogue soft cap is when you have 64 hit rating. The hard cap of a rogue is 363. Never get more than 363 hit rating. You don’t need more than 347 hit rating if there’s a draenei in your group. You don’t need more than 316 hit rating if there’s improved Faerie Fire on the target and you don’t need more than 300 hit rating if you have both an draenei in your group and there is improved Faerie Fire on the target.
Expertise Rating:
Just read what Vulajin wrote about expertise rating.
"Your base chance to be dodged by a raid boss with any attack is thought to be 6.5%. For each ~3.94 expertise rating you equip, you gain 1 expertise, reducing your chance to be dodged by 0.25%. Thus, it takes ~15.77 expertise rating to reduce your chance to be dodged by 1%, the same conversion as for hit rating. Here we calculate expertise caps for various combinations of talents and racial abilities:
0/2 Weapon Expertise, non-Human (or Human wielding daggers/fists): 103
2/2 Weapon Expertise, non-Human (or Human wielding daggers/fists): 64
0/2 Weapon Expertise, Human wielding swords/maces: 83
2/2 Weapon Expertise, Human wielding swords/maces: 44"
So Human Rogues wielding swords/maces should not get more expertise than 44, and non humans shouldn't get more than 64 expertise rating.
Gems:
Meta Gem: Relentless Earthstorm Diamond
Red Gem: Glinting Noble Topaz or higher versions.
Yellow Gem: Rigid Dawnstone or higher versions.
Blue Gem: Shifting Nightseye or higher versions. Attention! Don't get more than 2 blue gems, 2 is enough to get your meta gem working. If there are more than 2 blue gem slots (probably not) you should use Rigid Dawnstone.
Enchants:
MH Weapon: Enchant Weapon – Mongoose (executioner is situationally better on some SWP bosses)
OH Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Mongoose
Head: [Glyph of Ferocity]
Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of Vengeance] (for Aldor) or [Greater Inscription of the Blade] (for Scryers)
Back: Enchant Cloak - Greater Agility
Chest: Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats
Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Assault
Hands: Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility
Legs: [Nethercobra Leg Armor]
Feet: Enchant Boots - Dexterity(recommended) or Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness if you think you are running alot between bosses. (Fleetfooted is better near the end of Sunwell).
Rings: Enchant Ring - Stats
Poisons:
If theres a shaman in your group with windfury totem, don't use a poison in main hand! (windfury and poison don't stack yet, they will in WoTLK btw)
Always use a deadly in offhand, and use a instant poison in main hand (except when there is a shaman).
Attack Cycle (important!):
(s = slice and dice r=rupture)
From elitistjerks: Rogues with T4 2piece should use 1s/5r or 2s/5r. Rogues without T4 2pc should use 3s/5r, 4s/5r, or 5s/5r. Slight differences in hit rating and off hand speed matter quite a bit for these cycles. In addition, the difference between 3s/5r and 5s/5r depends on whether you use [Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality]. Sinister Strike-based rogues are best suited for the task of keeping Improved Expose Armor up; the cycle to use for this purpose is always 5s/5ea. Expose armor is only needed in raids where there are no warriors that can keep sunder armor stacked.
Potions/scrolls:
Flask of Relentless Assault is just a bit better than Elixir of Major agility. Just use Flask for progression content and Elixir for farm content.
Use Haste Potions if you don’t need healing or absorbing pots. An extra dps boost can be thistle tea or flame cap, be warned though, they have a shared cooldown with healthstone.
If you got time to fish-grind these, you can also take Scrolls of Agility with you.
Food: Spicy Hot Talbuk
Buffs:
First off the paladin buffs; Salvation > Might > Kings.
Then I would like to talk about the ideal party setup. Imho the ideal party setup would be: a enhancement shaman (windfury totem + unleashed fury) + a warrior (w/ imp battle shout) + a feral druid (leader of the pack) + a retribution paladin (imp sanctity aura) or hunter (trueshot aura/ferocious inspiration)
Professions: For the more harder willed rogues, you can also change your professions to enchanting and leatherworking for the best dps. Enchanting will be needed for the +4 stat enchants on your rings. Leatherworking will be used to drop Drums of Battle.
Trinkets:
According to Elitistjerks:
“The [Blackened Naaru Sliver] is the best trinket in the game for all specs. For combat and Hemo builds, the next best tier of trinkets is [Dragonspine Trophy] and [Shard of Contempt] (with a few caveats), followed further behind by [Warp-Spring Coil], [Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality], and [Madness of the Betrayer].
In general, these options are followed by [Berserker's Call] and [Tsunami Talisman]. Pre-raiding trinket options include [Bloodlust Brooch], [Abacus of Violent Odds], [Romulo's Poison Vial], [Icon of Unyielding Courage], and [Hourglass of the Unraveller], ranked roughly in order of quality.
Tips
-A dead rogue does 0 dps. Keep yourself alive at all costs! This is what you have evasion and cloak of shadows for.
-Don't try and raid with outland greenies, do instances, heroics and do some effort on getting some good enchants and gems.
-Read boss tactics before each boss fight! This is one of the most important tips I can give you since ALOT of rogues don't know what to do during the encounter. Go to http://www.bosskillers.com for some good tactics, you could also take a look at http://www.wowwiki.com
-Get a slow main hand sword and an as fast as possible off hand sword.
-Always keep Slice N Dice up!
-Never let your energy cap out!
-Use your cooldowns
-Try to use haste effects all together, if combined they do more damage than one after the other.
-Try to combine your cooldowns together (Adrenaline + trinket for example)
-Try to use Haste potion and Blade Flurry at the same time.
-Read http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t24301-rogue_pve_dps/
-Read http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t24301-rogue_pve_dps/ again.
-Always use rupture not eviscerate!
Thanks for reading, feel free to post extra things you think should be included in the guide.
Specials thanks to:
Vulajin of <Serious Casual> / Mal'Ganis (US) for writing the elitistjerks post.
Assassinette of Stormrage
More to come.
