Guide to Mutilate/Prep 3.0.9

[brynz0rz]

Posted in the PvP forums but reposting here because nobody seems to visit those forums. :-)

Alright so I see nothing but idiots with no clue how to play the rogue class so I thought i'd post a couple I use to help people with whatever aspect of the game they play.

Not only will this guide show you the right specs, but unlike most other guides I will actually tell you -why- you should be taking these talents over the others, instead of just expecting you to know, this is what makes this thread better than the rest (I hope). I will also include a few things probably posted elsewhere to help you.

Changes to mutilate/prep worth noting.
# Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
# Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.

Muti/Prep Build

You can swap 3/3 in Focused Attacks and just put 2/3 in, putting the spare point in Find Weakness. I take Focused Attacks because I play disc/rogue, and my games tend to last longer, hence taking 3/3, so I get more energy to help keep pressure up on their team.

Questions a bad rogue is going to ask about this spec.

Question: Why take Setup? It's shit compared to Initiative? You barely ever dodge and CLOS is on a one minute cooldown?

Answer: Assuming you've taken my spec correctly and not changed anything, when you open you should be using two mutilates after your opener, which will take you to 5 combo points, if you take Initiative you should -still- be using two mutilates after your opener, because Seal Fate - Spell - World of Warcraft doesn't proc if you don't crit, so you might be left up with 4 combo points after the first mutilate, meaning you will need to mutilate again after to get 5 combo points.

Another reason is that when opening, Overkill is up, meaning that this is the time to use your highest energy abilities (Mutilate), plus if you open with cheap shot, you get enough time to get two mutilates down, plus regenerate some energy for when you put Kidney shot up (Assuming you're attacking a target that is going to be stunlocked.)

The last reason I'm going to include is what's so beneficial about Setup, and why people never think about taking it. Setup is great, it really is, you wouldn't believe how useful it is in arena, duels, group PvP, battlegrounds and just plain ganking.

Let me give you a situation.

You're fighting a mage, he has just frost nova'd you, you have no combo points on him and if you don't use cloak of shadows, you're going to either eat a deep freeze or an ice lance or two. So you pop cloak of shadows as soon as you do he casts an icelance, expecting it to hit you, fortunately you have recieved a combo point from setup. He now blinks, he has no poisons on him, no crippling, no wound, no nothing. You have no sprint or vanish and he can just keep kiting you endlessly from now on, but thanks to Setup you can deadly throw! A chance to catch up before cloak of shadows goes and you eat a cone of cold. You work the rest out.

Another great thing about Setup is that it works with evasion, which is awesome, pop it and just watch your combo points begin to fly up, helping you easily achieve 5 combo points from scratch without having to use 2 or even 3 mutilates, meaning you can kidney and still have the energy to burst him in kidney, especially useful if you play double dps. (Rogue/Ret, Rogue/Mage etc)

Question: What poisons should I be using in my main hand and offhand?

Answer: I'm assuming most people think they already know this and will be yelling at their monitor ''WOUND OFFHAND, MIND NUMBING MAINHAND!'' And my answer to this is. ''WRONG.'' They should be switched, wound should be in your main hand and mind numbing in your offhand. Why you ask? Because since you now have Deadly Brew you no longer need to have crippling in your offhand, yes I know you already know this, but I'm about to explain why you should use Wound in your main.

Wound causes damage right? And Mind Numbing doesn't, assuming you're using 1.8 speed daggers. (Which you should be if possible, there's plenty around.) Then each dagger will be hitting at the same speed even with haste in your gear, the only thing that makes Wound in your main hand beneficial is that it procs from abilities like, Eviscerate, Exp armor etc, meaning that you have a better chance to apply it than before. (In 3.0.8, mutilate was bugged so that your offhand had a chance to proc the poison twice when you use it, this is why it isn't worth using wound in your offhand anymore, you use mutilate more than any other ability and that's why it was popular in the first few patches, many of you didn't know this.)

Question: So alright, how come I ain't picking up Serrated Blades? Isn't it a massive dps increase?

Answer: It is a decent increase, but at the end of the day, if you choose 3/3 in it then you're going to miss out on something vital, which will cost you tons of games and fights. Not alot of rogue armor has armor ignore on it unlike the season 3/4 arena gear, and armor ignore usually works best when you have quite a bit of it stacked, which is next to impossible with the current gear out.

tl;dr : It isn't worth taking.

Rogue Glyphs.

I honestly haven't really decided on the best glyphs to take, I feel they are just based on your playstyle (Which at the moment doesn't really vary due to the insane nuke). This is what I use at the moment.

Glyph of Vigor - Item - World of Warcraft - The Vigor Glyph is definately needed, 20 extra energy on opening is absolutely insane combined with the 10 energy from the 4/5 pieces of Rogue PvP armor. If you open you can manage to pull off 3 mutilates one after the other without really having to wait for energy to tick.

Glyph of Gouge - Item - World of Warcraft - Having 10 less energy on gouge is pretty awesome, although I wouldn't say it's neccasery but it's nice to have if you miss a kick and need to interupt the next spellcast, by the time they come out of gouge you will probably have kick back up, or kidney shot.

Glyph of Evasion - Item - World of Warcraft - The Evasion Glyph against another rogue can be game breaking, if you have the glyph and they don't it means you'll get to have 5 extra seconds than him, meaning you start dps'ing them before they do you, but if they have it and you don't then he'll probably get the advantage.

Glyph of Eviscerate - Item - World of Warcraft - This is a glyph I would probably take next season when I have more crit, due to the fact that it's pretty RNG based, useful but in all honestly the others are going to win more games I reckon.

That's all I can think of posting for now, any questions just ask.

[AscaL]

1) there is no a proper way to spec, some talents are mandatory... other depends on your mate and your skill
2) good rogue (and when i say good i actually mean very good) can skip both initiative and setup, taking serrated blade instead...
3) overall setup is better than initiative... it always been and it always will be... initiative is very good vs rogues... maybe shamans... nothing more
"You're fighting a mage, he has just frost nova'd you, you have no combo points on him and if you don't use cloak of shadows, you're going to either eat a deep freeze or an ice lance or two. So you pop cloak of shadows as soon as you do he casts an icelance, expecting it to hit you, fortunately you have recieved a combo point from setup. He now blinks, he has no poisons on him, no crippling, no wound, no nothing. You have no sprint or vanish and he can just keep kiting you endlessly from now on" this just mean you suck... lemme understand in a situation like that u wasted 2xSprint, 2xVanish, u can't blind him and u havn't touched him at all? or fight is over already or well... one of u is sucking... and is not the mage...

[brynz0rz]

Or maybe you're playing Arathi Basin and had just used them in another fight maybe?

Either way, get out of my thread.

*Edit* Did you actually read the entire thread? If you had you would see my reasoning behind why initiative sucks compared to setup now.

[Robske]

Although this may be a decent guide for the average rogue, at a decent level (2.1K+) in a competative battlegroup this is a worthless guide. Games are way faster paced than you describe it, you really do not have time to load up 2 GCD's for double mutilate against other rogues, dismantle and rupture for ex have a way higher prio. Even before the recent nerf to mindnumbing double wound was a way better choice, once you'll fight against setups that know how to cleanse/abolish you'll know what I mean. Mindnumbing was a gimmick for people who didn't keybind kick tbh. Oh and serrated blades outdoes both setup and initative.

Furthermore, you seem to be putting alot of focus on your kidneyshot, yet lack the talents for a 9% damage boost? Kidneyshot is a depricated ability to lure out freedoms on paladins with 2 or 3 combopoints. It's really gimped now that it shares DR with deepfreeze, HoJ and DK's pet stun.

All in all, this is a battleground build, not something for serious arena.

[khaled1994]

Good for nubs.

[brynz0rz]

Games are way faster paced than you describe it.

Not neccaserily, I meet alot of healer/dps setups and we can have some extremely long games (This is at 2k on Misery EU as disc/rogue) when our healers both go out of mana, having to go survival while our priest remanas while i keep their healer controlled.

Also with the amount of pala/dk teams you meet up to 2k and even further (Don't even try to deny this.) This is probably the most viable spec to use.

Imp Kidney shot isn't really worth taking, because most of my nuke is outside of kidney, and I barely use it except for on priest/warlocks/warriors (Which I never focus if it's healer/warrior, which it always is). The other talents are worth taking. I would probably take it if I played double dps over focused attacks though.

[Robske]

Not neccaserily, I meet alot of healer/dps setups and we can have some extremely long games (This is at 2k on Misery EU as disc/rogue) when our healers both go out of mana, having to go survival while our priest remanas while i keep their healer controlled.

My experience is from double dps only, but even as healer/dps mirrors the damage can be quite high and bursty, especially against restoshammy/surv hunter for example.

Also with the amount of pala/dk teams you meet up to 2k and even further (Don't even try to deny this.) This is probably the most viable spec to use.

Why would I deny it? Statistics don't lie. Paladin are probably even more 'viable' than druids back in s4. How could you do good against holy/unholy with only 1 equally dispellable poison (mindnumb) to protect your wound?

Imp Kidney shot isn't really worth taking, because most of my nuke is outside of kidney, and I barely use it except for on priest/warlocks/warriors (Which I never focus if it's healer/warrior, which it always is). The other talents are worth taking. I would probably take it if I played double dps over focused attacks though.

Didn't say it was, but your guide gave me the impression that you use it alot. And I don't even take it as mage/rogue, as deepfreeze is way more reliable/effective.