WOTLK Newbie Rogue Pointers
This was originally posted by Assassinette on Stormrage-EU
And i thank them for all their hard work.
First of all: This is up to date as of Patch 3.0.3. It is intended for new people & PvE, meaning (solo) levelling and your first raids.
If you've seen the TBC version, this is more of the same with up to date numbers, nothing more. I don’t believe in giving a lot of options in a guide. There’s a single best way to do stuff, and you deviate from it at your own “risk”. I will also not give reasons, math or theorycraft behind the pointers. They’re backed by Weapon, Energy, Attack and Damage theorycraft as well as experience (that means doing it wrong and knowing it better the second time around) of a lot of rogues, not only my own – if you can think of it, we’ve been there & done it wrong before you even thought of buying the game.
I posted this for reasons of my own, profit from it or not, it's your choice. If you do follow it more or less, make sure you follow the underlined parts. I still don’t care for sticky, so I won’t be ‘cleaning this up’ or making it more polite. I will however edit according to feedback if I am corrected, some important part is brought up that I forgot, and i will try to keep this up to date.
Important note: : There invariably is a point where a rogue will grow out of this guide and get a better & more concise idea of what they want to do and how to achieve it - at that point, you're past the scope of the guide. It quite clearly says "Newbie" in the title for a reason :) The guide is not a discussion of class balance, or even tree balance - it's here to give a short(ish) answer to gear/spec/stat and whatever other questions a newcomer commonly has. It's not an encyclopedia, and doesn't want to be one.
Part 0 – Rogue Rules
· Don't Stand In Green *%!*™!
This rule is also commonly known as "PvE is hard, sometimes there's a fire, and you have to move™" or "A dead rogue does 0 DPS™".
It doesn't matter whether it's green, yellow or red.
It doesn't matter whether it's a gas cloud, acid on the floor, rain of fire from the heavens, cleaves or whirlwinds.
If you can anticipate it, don't get caught in it; If you can see it, move out.
· Whatever Works Best™
Any other answer is wrong and usually given by people with either no clue, or an active interest to have you perform badly.
The best stat is the stat that gives most DPS.
The best build is the one that best fulfills what you want it to do.
If there's a stupid bug, consider it a smart use of game mechanics. If it really was a bug it would be fixed by now, wouldn't it?
· Because I Can™
This is all the reason and justification you need to do anything and everything.
_________
Edits:
*Typos, Formatting; Fixed some numbers as per Furyterras post.
*Dec. 11th 2008 - Part 7 updated with lockpicking 350+ advice
*Dec. 13th 2008 - Wyrmscale Leg Armor removed; Nerubian Leg Reinforcements added ( Anarkid, Slicey )
*Dec. 18th 2008 - Clarified HAT bug
*Dec. 25th 2008 - Added Questions Build, Stats and fake FAQ (mutilate leveling marked for review)
*Dec. 28th 2008 - SnD, Rupture, HfB add-on question added to FAQ ( Shyrouken )
*Dec. 30th 2008 - Muti Leveling Build reviewed ( Derathox ), Professions Reviewed ( Kytsla, Kyphosis ), HAT section reviewed (removed rupture suggestion in build/glyph, wording changed)
*2-do list: Part 3 formatting/wording under review; leveling poison suggestions (DBrew+IP for mutiilate leveling?), how-to for leveling
Thanks to all who ask new questions and to everyone who keeps answering questions (correctly) :P
Part I - Leveling Build and Gear
While leveling you want Agility and Stamina on your gear. That will give you Hit Points (so you don’t die), Attack Power & Critrate (So the mob dies faster). You can also get AP, Hit Rating and Crit Rating directly on gear, although such items are rather rare at low levels. Try to avoid Strength, as it's a fairly weak stat for damage compared to the others. For random “Greens of the XXX” that means “…of the Monkey”, “…of the Tiger”, "...of the Thief" or “…of the Bandit” gear.
Blue quality items are normally better than green ones, and they last some levels before becoming outdated. If you have an easy way to get Blue quality gear, do. That means for example if you can’t easily get Cruel Barb from Deadmines, take an afternoon of & sit through a couple of WSG matches to get the PvP level 18 sword. For items, search on http://www.wowhead.com on where & when to get them.
Weapons you should get:
~ 18: Cruel Barb or level 18 WSG sword
- High 20ies: The Butcher, Zealot Blade, Level 28 WSG Sword – if absolutely not doable: Jade Serpentblade in early 30ies
~ 40: Vanquisher Sword + Sword of Omen / Sword of Serenity
~ 48: Thrash Blade
~ 58: Head to Outlands and find something there, it’s better than whatever you have
- Q: Why not daggers?
A: Because daggers are annoying & slow at low level, non-daggers are better & more accessible, and the dagger playstyle is less accessible, at least for the early part of the game. Until you're in your 50ies, it's really not worth thinking about
- Q: OMG, this is hard, i keep dying all the time
A: The very first few levels, as well as Hellfire Peninsula will feel a bit harsh, with high incoming damage, reflective damage, no multi-targetting options and/or no escape options. Stick with it, it will be easy outside of that.
- Q: Questing or Grinding
A: Questing, unless you like techno music.
- Q: +10% Experience Bind-to-Account shoulders worth it?
A: Yes. BtA gear is equivalent to blues of your level up to 80 and saves you from having to replace gear - if you have the BtA weapons, you can skip getting the blues from the list above. You'll have at least 3 decently filled slots and they're bought with Stone Keepers Shards in Wintergrasp, for which there's little use otherwise (PvPish gear & Jewelcrafter patterns).
Here’s your build at level: (self-evident completion as far as I can see)
11: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fZM
13: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fMZM
21: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGZMx
29: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGZMxqb
39: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGZMxqb00xa
At 40 you respec to: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fZMxqb00xqrz
44: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fZMxib00xqru
At 50, you get to make a choice: Stay with combat/nondagger or switch over to daggers & go Mutilate.
If you stay with combat/nondagger:
50: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGoZMxib00xqru
59: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGx00xZMxib00xqru
69: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGx00xZMxAd00xqru0xR
80: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fGx00xZMxAd00xqru0xRtx
If you go daggers/mutilate:
50: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ec0egoibocz
57: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ec0egoiboczZ0xZ0b
65: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ec0egsiboczZ0xVZ0b
78: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ec0egsiboczZ0xVZxbd0h
Then get 2 more fillers wherever you like them (endurance, Camo, etc..), and we're changing topics :)
- Q: Why not imp. Slice & Dice, I heard it’s great?
- Q: Why not Focused Attacks, I heard it’s great?
A: It is, if you’re raiding - they're not that good for leveling however.
Normal mobs die too fast to get decent use out of these talents, as they require time on target to actually do anything. They're steady DPS talents good for longer fights.
- Q: Why Remorseless / imp. Evis., I heard they’re crap?
A: They are, unless you’re leveling.
Decent burst can kill normal mobs. Having a very decent crit chance on your first mutilate, or hitting a bit harder with Evis as combat will make a lot of difference in how fast mobs go down. The raiding downside of these is that you need a Killing Blow to activate Remorseless (unlikely in a raid), and that Evis is your 3rd ranked finisher (as combat) so you won't do it all that much.
- Q: Can i take MoD instead of DT and Camo?
A: Yes.
Those are fillers one takes because there aren't any damage talents around that would make a significant difference; while not being caught in stealth, moving faster, easier sapping etc.. can at least be situationally useful. Which 'fillers' you pick is up to you - i personally rank DT high because it makes sapping/blinding trivial; and Camo above MoD because it's slightly better movement speed (always nice since moving around happens a lot while leveling); and Elusiveness above all of them because having low CD on CloS/Vanish/Blind is never a bad idea.
- Q: Why not Deep Subtlety?
A: Because: Whatever Works Best™.
Obviously Because I Can™ is good enough a reason for you to still do it.
However, you could also chop wood with maces - that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
- Q: Daggers and Sinister Strike?
A: No.
Daggers <-> Backstab & Mutilate;
Sinister Strike <-> non-daggers.
Part II – Stats
Before we get into early raiding, here's what you need to know about your class: There are 6 Stats that will increase your DPS in one way or another:
# - Attack Power (AP),
- Hit Rating,
- Crit Rating,
- Expertise,
- Haste and
- Armor Penetration
Agility provides 1 AP, 0.012% Crit, some armor & dodge (irrelevant); Strength provides 1 AP per point.
For these stats "higher is better" applies at all times - there is no situation in which having a lower score is better than having a better score. 2 notes however: Hit Rating & Expertise have a cap, which means that at one point you will stop missing, rendering more Hit Rating useless; and one point at which mobs won't be able to dodge you anymore (mobs *can* dodge from behind, players can't), at which point more expertise is useless.
The second part is as important: There are no magic numbers. There is no fixed value in any stat that you have to have. Always take the item which gives you more DPS, no matter what the actual stats on it are (with the footnote that exceeding a hit/expertise cap won't provide more DPS).
Rating conversions can be found at the wowwiki.com page ( http://www.wowwiki.com/Combat_rating_system ), or you can download RatingBuster which will put them into the item tooltip in-game ( http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rating-buster.aspx ).
·Expertise
Expertise helps against parries and dodges.
Bosses are assumed to have 6.5% chance to dodge your attacks when you attack them from behind. That means you need:
# 26 expertise (214 expertise rating) to cap
16 expertise (132 expertise rating) to cap if you have 2/2 Weapon Expertise
13 expertise (107 expertise rating) to cap for a Human Rogue with 2/2 Weapon Expertise wielding sword or mace
(23 expertise (190 expertise rating) to cap for a Human Rogue wielding sword or mace but with 0/2 Weapon expertise)
·Hit Rating
Hit Rating now affects spells as well as melee, that means Hit Rating not only reduces the chances your attacks are missing, but also reduces the chance that your poisons are missing. You're assumed to miss 8% of your special attacks against bosses, 17% of your poison application, and 28% of your melee autoattack while dualwielding (this affects both mainhand and offhand attacks). A Draenei in your party reduces those numbers by 1%.
Following numbers assume 5/5 Precision:
# 755 Hit Rating to cap dual-wield melee autoattack
722 Hit Rating to cap dual-wield melee autoattack, in presence of a Dranei
# 315 Hit Rating to cap poisons application
237 Hit Rating to cap poisons application, with Improved Fairy Fire or Misery on the target
210 Hit Rating to cap poisons application, with Improved Fairy Fire or Misery on the target, and in presence of a Draenei
# 99 Hit Rating to cap Special attacks
66 Hit Rating to cap Special attacks, in presence of a Draenei
Rule of thumb:
- Don't drop below special attack hitcap.
- Beyond that stack Whatever Works Best™, which will usually be Agility or straight AP, closely follow by Expertise & Hit Rating.
- 2AP* ~ Agility > Expertise ~ Hit Rating (below poison cap) > Crit Rating ~ Haste Rating > Armor Penetration ~ Strength > 1 AP*
*) AP costs half of what the other stats do in itembudget points, so on a given item you'd either have 1 agility OR 1 crit rating OR 2 AP. No point picking the one with Crit Rating on it, if the one with AP or Agility give better DPS.
- Q: What should my Stats be while leveling?
A: Don't worry about them.
- Q: What should my Stats be for Naxx10?
A: There are no magic numbers. Higher is better, please don't show up in greens when epics are readily available before you ever set foot into a raid.
- Q: Ok, so i miss more and get dodged more by bosses... Any other stats that are adversly afffected?
A: Crit. Your Crit against bosses is 4.8% below your crit chance against level 80 targets (which is what you see on the character sheet)
- Q: Agility and AP seem to be very strong across the board.
A: Indeed, 2 AP and 1 Agi tend to be very strong stats.
- Q: In one sentence: how much hit?
A: If you're actively trying to stack Hit Rating past 99, you're an idiot.
Take obvious DPS upgrades - Your stats will be whatever they are. For things where you have the choice (enchants, gems) yet again: Find out what your best stat is, and stack that - if you find out your best stat is Hit Rating, then obviously go for it.
- Q: Is there a scenario where Hit Rating is the best Stat past 99?
A: Yes.
Part III – Instances & Early Raiding
For all builds: KEEP SLICE AND DICE UP.
It's a selfbuff that makes you do 15% more damage; there is no possible way to do decent DPS without Slice & Dice. Start it early (after the first Combo Point), and keep it going.
Your finisher priority for all builds is Slice & Dice > Rupture > Evis/Envenom. You only get to rupture if S&D is running, you only get to Evis/Envenom if Rupture & S&D are running. Obviously this priority applies to situations where Slice & Dice as well as rupture can run for the full duration - if it's a trashmob that will die in 5 seconds, there's no point using finishers that require 12+ seconds to achieve their full effect.
There are currently 3 builds you can take into raids, in order of increasing bossfight DPS they are:
· Combat 7/51/13
- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0xbZMgV0x0xaru0xRte0b0h, switch 1 point from CQB to Swordspec if you're actually using swords.
- The spec is solid on bossfights, allows you to switch between most non-dagger weapons easily (important since sword itemization is less than good). It's probably the most useful spec for heroics too, due to multitargetting abilities.
- Weapon loadout is Sword/Sword, Fist/Sword, Fist/Fist or Fist/Dagger; allocate points into weaponspec as appropriate
- Slow mainhand, Fast offhand.
- Poisons are Wound and Deadly, Wound goes to the weapon that hits most often (fast offhand vs. slow mainhand + instant attacks). That generally means with a 1.40 or faster offhand, Wound Poison goes to the offhand, otherwise Wound goes to the mainhand. [will recalcule for other weapon speeds]
- Start SnD as fast as possible (after the first 1-2 combopoints)
- Cycle is 5s/5r/5? (? =: more than ~12 seconds left on S&D use Evis, else pool energy and use S&D)
- Glyphs: Slice & Dice, Rupture, Sinister Strike or Adrenaline Rush (currently bugged to also reduce KSpree cooldown by 1m)
· Mutilate 51/13/7
- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0ef0exoVboIzAo0xV0hZxb
- Higher boss-DPS than combat but requires you to pay more attention
- Weapon loadout is dagger/dagger, if possible fast daggers to increase poison damage
- Faster dagger goes to Offhand with Instant Poison; Deadly Mainhand - due to a bug that allows for offhand poisons to proc twice
- Get 3 stacks of HfB up before combat, do not let HfBdrop during combat, start SnD Early (after your first mutilate), do not let S&D drop during combat.
- Cycle: 4+ combopoints, less than ~12 left on S&D or rupture still running? -> Envenom to refresh S&D; otherwise Rupture.
- Hit Rating & Crit Rating are slightly stronger stats for this build than for combat, at least until you reach the poison hit cap.
- Glyphs: Slice & Dice, Rupture,
· Asshat with boyfriend (Ass/HAT + BF)
- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhhZ0gc0x0xoZxbfbhGzdAzVco
- This is currently the highest potential bossfight-DPS we have (due to a bug) if circumstances are right (2+ HAT rogues in party, high crit party preferably hunters). The bug (see below) causes massive influx of CPs generation if more than one HAT rogue is in the group. This is largely what's responsible for HAT being so broken atm, as you can launch a 5-point Evis every global cooldown.
- The build is highly reliant on your party members critting often (and being alive)
- Weapon loadout is fast/fast to maximize poison procs, no matter the type (although typically daggers will be the fastest available weapons), but anything works to be honest
- Poisons are Wound for fast weapons (=< 1.40 speed), or Deadly/Wound if you have a slow one (deadly on slow)
- Cycle: Keep Slice & Dice running, spam 5pt evis
- Do not waste Energy, do not waste combopoint
- That means: Do not get so low on energy that you wouldn't be able to evis, you don't want to waste combopoints. You don't want to waste energy either, so if no CPs are being generated by your party, you can bridge that period by using Hemo. This should be rare.
- Note about Stats: Evis is your primary form of damage with this build, it *needs* to connect, which means you need to cap special attack hit rating, as well as expertise. Beyond that Agility/AP/Crit seem best.
- Note about the build: If you have low Hit Rating, you can shift points away from imp. S&D to precision, as mentioned above you want 8% to make sure Evis doesn't miss. When you have that, you can use the points on imp. S&D instead to significantly reduce how often you need to refresh it. For the non-DPS talents in Sub, you can of course pick those you want - the suggested ones are those with the best chance to increase your time on target by getting you there faster or keeping you alive.
- Glyphs: Eviscerate (!), Slice and Dice,
- Q: Cycle, 5s/? huh, wait, what???
A: A cycle is the repeating use of some skills, which is calculated to help you do more DPS than just randomly pressing skills. It indicates which finishers to use with how many combo points, so "5s" would be a 5 combo-point Slice and Dice, "5r" a 5 point Rupture. As an example: 2s/5r means "get 2 combo points, Slice and Dice, get 5 combo points, Rupture; repeat".
There are a few considerations that get worked into them, among others time & energy efficiency, DoT uptime, etc... A low point S&D gives you more S&D time/combopoint, but Relentless Strikes 5/5 gives you back 25 energy whenever you use a 5 point finishers making a 5-point S&D energy neutral; 2s/5r gives you better Rupture uptime than 5s/5r/5? but relies on having 2 Tier7, a feral druid, Blood Spatter and Serrated Blades to be competitive.
The cycles suggested here work in a majority of situations and are fairly stable - that doesn't mean that you won't have to adapt (bad luck with CP or FA not proccing...), or work around the specifics of some fights; but tbh at that point you're growing out of this guides target audience.
Captain Obvious Note: You get combo points with your builds main attack, that means Sinister strike for COmbat builds, and Mutilate for deep Assassination builds.
- Q: Where should i be standing?
A: If possible, behind the mob.
Standing in front will make you lose damage via parry & block, and kill your tank faster (a mob instantly attacks again when he parries one of your attacks).
- Q: Combat/dag...
A: No.
- Q: Envenom or Evis?
A: Combat & Asshat: Evis. Mutilate: Envenom.
- Q: That combat spec isn't the same i ended up with while following the leveling builds!
A: Leveling specs are leveling specs. These are raidspecs. They are by definition not the same.
- Q: What about 15/51/5?
A: It should outscale 7/51/13 once you've got decent gear, but at the start & with 2T7, 7/51/13 is likely to be better. They're very close to each other however, with the 15* tending more towards CQC/combat for obvious reasons.
- Q: What about x/y/ 0
A: Any build that ends in "/0" is abysmaterribad.
- Q: What is the HAT bug?
A: Hat is supposed to give you 1 CP every time someone in your group crits, although each member can only give you one CP/second at most, you can receive multiple CPs from multiple mebers in your group every second: 1 guy crits, you gain 1 CP; one guy crits twice in one second, you gain 1 CP; two guys crit, you gain 2 CPs; 3 guys crit, you gain 3 CPs and so on.
The bug is that when you have 2 or more HAT rogues in one group, everyone of them "leeches" CPs from the others when a crit happens. So if you have 2 HAT rogues, and one of them crits both gain 2 CPs; if a hunter in their group crits, both gain 2 CPs, etc.. any Crit in the group suddenly brings 2 CPs instead of one - with enough crits happening inside a group, you'll have 5 CPs available every global cooldown.
The bug is not well understood, and doesn't always work - for some, HAT is performing as expected ('unbugged') even with mutiple HAT rogues in a group, and even when it bugs out for the other rogues.
The bug is likely to be fixed soon.
- Q: Will Asshat be competitive once they fix the bug?
A: If fixing the bug is all they do, the answer is likely to be yes - modeling & tests are still being done on this however (which is made a bit harder by the presence of the bug); but Solo-HAT is pulling decent numbers in raids for now.
- Q: Do poisons scale with AP?
A: Yes.
Part IV - Early 80 Gear
· MAEP Lists such as http://shadowpanther.net need to be taken with a grain of salt, as some of his stat weights are at best debatable. Moreover, what a stat is worth depends on what your stats are at a certain point in time. You can however very well use the list to find out what gear is actually in game & what you can realistically get in first place, and then use a spreadsheet to find out which aprt is best. You can also download his list, and put in your own stat-weightings which together with the list being very up-to-date is the real strong point of shadowpanther.net.
· Vulajin's Spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t27244-roguecraft_spreadsheet/ - use it to find out if an item is an upgrade for you. While it's true that some items are simply better than other, which one exactly is best for you is something you can esily & precisely find out for yourself, instead of relying on general forum opinion which may very well be wrong.
· If you're bored, you can manually input a stats into Vulajin's spreadsheet & see how they change DPS, and use that to figure out stat-weighting for your gear; which you can then in turn use to modify the shadowpanther list. Yes, I'm bored a lot.
Personal Opinion:
- If you can get drops easily, do; meanwhile:
- I suggest you first use your Emblems to buy everything other than the T7 pieces, that means Neck ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40678 ), Trinket ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40684 ) & Belt ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40694 ).
- Use Faction rewards where possible: for chest ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44303 ), Boots ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44297 ) and Wrists ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44203 )
- Shoulders ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43481 ) & Cloak ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43566 ) are crafted and not too expensive.
- If you go Mutilate or Asshat, buy two Librarian's Paper Cutter off the AH ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37856 )
- If combat, use the swords from faction reputation until Greed ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37693 ) drops for you, then buy a Librarian's Paper Cutter as offhand
- If you're rich, Krol & "Vulajins" swords are a good combo, that being the Krol Cleaver ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43611 ) and Avool's Sword of Jin ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44311 )
Q: Why other stuff before T7 armor?
A: Because T7 Tokens drop reliably
Q: Is Item A or Item B better?
A: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t27244-roguecraft_spreadsheet/
Q: Which Weapon should I use?
A: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t27244-roguecraft_spreadsheet/
Q: What gives more DPS?
A: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t27244-roguecraft_spreadsheet/
Part V - Other stuff to know & take care of
Buffs:
- You're getting most of them, and buffs in the same category don't stack anymore - party compositon is not something you need to worry about at this point.
- A noteable exception is the draenei's Heroic Presence (1% Hit) which is limited to party only.
Need to duoble check some stuff on this
Consumables: (Use your consumables. They do nothing in your bag)
Buff Food - Whatever gives you the most DPS - Spreadsheet it.
Battle Elixir - Flask of Endless Rage OR Elixir of Might Agility
Potions - Bring enough Runic Healing Potions (and Potion of Speed - although tbh content at this time REALLY doesn't require that)
Bandages - Heavy Frostweave. Bring enough of them.
Smoke Flares - Bring smoke flares to mark a safe spot on the floor in each of the 4 zones during the Heigan the Unclean encounter. Seriously, you'll save lives.
Poisons - bring whatever Poisons you use, and bring enough of them.
Doublecheck your spreadsheet & compare enchants and gemming for your gear & weapons.
Enchants:
- Weapons: Berserking. If you're too cheap for that, Mongoose or Accuracy
- Hat: Arcanum of Torment (Ebon Blade Revered)
- Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe (Sons of Hodir Exalted), [Master's Inscription of the Axe for Inscribers]
- Cloak: Major Agility (+22 Agility), [Swordguard's Embroidery if You're a tailor]
- Chest: Powerful Stats (+10 all Stats)
- Bracers: Greater Asssault (+50 AP), [Fur Lining - Attack Power if You're a Leatherworker]
- Gloves: Crusher (44 AP) or Major Agility (+20 Agi)
- Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle, buy it off the AH or a Blacksmith - they add an aditional colorless socket
- Pants: Icescale Leg Armor (+75 AP/+22 Crit), [Nerubian Leg reinforcement if You're a Leatherworker - same stats, but cheaper to make]
- Boots: Icewalker (+12 Hit/+12 Crit)
- Rings: [Assault (+32 AP) if You're an Enchanter]
Gems:
Meta: R.E.D. - that's a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. It requires at least 1 red, 1 blue and 1 yellow gem to activate. Orange gems count as BOTH red and yellow for that, and a purple gem will count as both red and blue.
Red Socket: AP and Agi Gems
Yellow Socket: Agi/Crit or Agi/Hit orange gems; possibly yellow +Hit gems if you're under the special attack hitcap
Blue Socket: AP/Sta or Agi/Sta or Enchanted Tear (+6 all Stats)
Glyphs:
Combat: Sinister Strike, Slice and Dice, Rupture
Mutilate: Slice and Dice, Rupture
Asshat: Slice and Dice, Eviscerate
*Edit: Added Enchanted Tear to possible blue sockets (Kadavret)
Part VI - Questions Answered (with fake questions for now):
Q: Will Vanish be fixed?
A: No.
Q: Will Rogues keep getting nerfed?
A: Yes.
Q: What about my special bastard build?
A: No.
Q: Should i use keybinds?
A: Yes.
Q: How much Hit Rating do i need to be hit-capped (ie: never miss)?
A: As a non-human against skull-level bosses, with 5/5 Precision: 755
Q: How important is being hit-capped?
A: Not at all. If you’re hit-capped, you probably gimped other stats for it, which lowers your total DPS.
Additionally, if you're at 755 vs. bosses, it means you're over the cap for trash, wasting DPS there.
Q: What about expertise?
A: It's a good DPS stat, try not to go over the cap though, as that's wasting itembudget..
Q: I thought you always miss 1% of your attacks, no matter what?
A: You thought wrong. DPSers can easily eliminate misses against bosses.
Q: I thought the misschance for specials was 9%?
A: New evidence suggests it is 8% (again).
Q: Where should I be on the Damage-meter?
A: #1
Q: Seriously, what sort of DPS can i count on doing?
A: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13909383470&sid=1 has some figures
Q: Your own gear/enchants/glyphs don't follow your advice
A: I'm leveling enchanting (without tailoring) and engineering (without mining), frequently change gear due to recently hitting 80. I take whatever upgrade drops, enchant whatever gives me a skill point, and have no money to spare. It's a transitional problem. Do as i say, not as i do :P
Q: Isn't all that stuff pretty much the same as the stuff on Elitist Jerks?
A: Yes it is.
Q: There seems to be an awful lot of "consult the spreadsheet" advice, why write this in first place then
A: Because some people prefer guides to spreadsh.... ok, honestly? Because it gave me the opportunity to say "Asshat" a lot. That's why i needed this out before they nerf/fix it, and make the spec obsolete again. I'm easily amused, sue me.
Q: Seriously?!
A: Yes.
Part VII - Questions Answered (Real ones)
Q: What is a good standard cycle on a mob?
On short fights, it's hard to get into cycle, so you'll have to wing it.
- Keeping SnD running is your first consideration. If that's running, your best finisher if it can run for the full time is Rupture. However on standard mobs (short fights) that's not always possible, so Evis/Envenom might be the better answer.
- Use Stuns (CS/KS) with consideration: if your tank is rage starved to begin with, you might not want to use them - if he's not or the healer has trouble keeping him alive, CS/KS become good openers & finishers.
- My own opener of choice is "SS -> SnD" most of the time, as i have the luxury of having good tanks which enables me to engage the mob as fast as i can get to it, and sneaking in to get a garotte off takes too much time for my liking.
- On longer fights, DPS cycles change and actually become something you could call 'cycle', see above for details
Q: Real Rogues use... ?
A: Whatever Works Best™
Having the hots for 2.20 speed daggers doesn't interrest anyone if your DPS is subpar. Using swords when the maces are twice as good, just because you don't think maces are roguelike only proves you're not thinking straight. Whatever works best is the single correct answer to that question, anyone claiming something else does not have your highest DPS as top priority, and as such can safely be ignored.
Q: The absolute best thing you can invest money into when leveling is...?
A: First aid; get a higher level character to make you some normal runecloth bandages, level your first aid so you can use them (much lower skill req than making them) and laugh at your health going from 5% to 100% in four ticks. It is extremely cheap and fast, and it means when you are dying on a mob you can gouge/bandage to full and pawn it.
- credited to Mistopheles! :o)
Q: how do i best level lockpicking from 350-400?
A: The Avalanche, Sholazar basin.
Q: is there an add-on that shows hfb, snd, rupture ?
A: Lots: Discodice, Cutup, NeedToKnow and ClassTimer all do the above.
# Q: What about professions?
A: There is no easy answer to this. Every profession (other than Engineering) has certain advantages over the others, and you need to pick which one you want most.
One thing up front: don't mix up gathering & producing professions as income source. If you collect herbs & sell 5 flasks for 450g, you didn't make 450g with alchemy; you made the difference between AH herb prices & AH flask prices with Alchemy, and the rest with Herbalism.
· Gathering: Herbalism comes with a Heal over Time, Mining with improved Hit Points, and Skinning with slightly improved Crit Rate. None of those are awesome Raid-Professions, but they're decent moneymakers if used correctly (that means knowing what people want to buy and knowing where to get that).
· Alchemy: Your Pots & Flasks have better effect and longer duration. For Flask of Endless Rage this currently means 244 AP (instead of 180) and 4 hour duration; giving you +64 AP & saving ~90g/raid. Decent for convenience or if you have cash flow problems.
· Blacksmithing: 2 additional BS-only sockets (in addition to the Belt socket everyone can use); worth ~64 AP (note: look at Jewelcrafting).
· Leatherworking: LW-only wrist +114 AP enchant (64 AP more than the standard); the LW-only leg enchants are the same Stats as the BoE ones, but a lot cheaper to make. Gear you can make yourself is decent entry-raid stuff.
· Enchanting: 2*32 AP Ring Enchants (64 AP more than nothing). Disenchanting is still a decent moneymaker, so is selling enchant-scrolls - if you're smart about it.
· Inscription: 104/15 AP/Crit Shoulder enchant (64 more AP than the standard in slot). I'm told that - contrary to public opinion - you can actually make money with this profession too :p
· Jewelcrafting: You get to use 3 prismatic gems, which are better than standard ones (either 27 Agi or 54 AP epic gems); and they count as all colors, meaning you can use raw DPS gems even in blue sockets. As far as I'm aware, "normal" epic gems (20 agility) aren't in game yet, meaning jewelcrafting at this time gives you the biggest relative advantage off all professions (3*11 Agi or 3*22 AP) before counting in socket/meta requirements, or the fact that you can make a ridiculous amount of money with it.
· Engineering, Tailoring: At his time, these professions are not competitive for DPS. Engineering has fun toys, and Tailoring has a flying carpet; but in terms of what DPS advantage they provide over other professions: there isn't any.
· The Hardcore Option: At this time Jewelcrafting + Blacksmithing.
What's better than replacing 3 gems with 3 better gems? Replacing 1 gem only, keeping 2 old ones and getting 2 new better ones on top while getting rich off daily quests to buy all the enchants, patches & flasks you need.
