Multiple Spec Rogue PvP Guide.

[justinsroy]

I was looking over another's Rogue PvP guide and felt that not so much an "updated one" was needed, but i felt some of his info was not correct/complete.
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Starting with Specs. DO NOT LOOK AT GLYPHS, I DIDNT UPDATE THEM ON TALENT CALCULATORS. You can choose what glyphs you wanna run with, everyone has there preference.
Envenom -
44 / 2 / 25

44 / 4 / 23

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Extra 2 points in OH specialization comes from Heightened Senses (If your always getting opened on anyway, go ahead, or human/NE) or Dirty Deeds (Dont advocate this, but can be done).
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Shadowstep/Cold Blood -

26/0/45 Is my current spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

There are a lot of different forms of this spec (Switching from 5/5 lethality and 3/3 initiative and even 3/3 Honor among thieves). You can play around with different ones, find one fits for u.
Personally running with any DPS/Healer that crits alot (Frost mages/Druids with rolling HoTs, ect.) i would say get Honor among thieves because its just free combo points.
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PvP Combat -

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The above spec is a "Backstab/Ambush/Killingspree" spec, it is specced for daggers and will allow for hard hits with backstab out of stealth into a killing spree and ambush into your rotation.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The above spec is a Mace spec (Can also switch to sword without switching any points around) for raw dmg, mainly SS/Eviscerate will be used along with the regular stun locking.
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All Specs listed are "Viable" if played right, I would suggest if you are new to rogue/rogue PvP you should try out envenom or the ShS specs (even ShS is a bit trickier due to not having the immense burst that envenom does).

Depending on playstyle/preference you will be throwing a few points in a few different places but you can use the specs above as a template.

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Gearing up in the beginning -

When you first hit 80 your gonna wanna do 3 things:
1. Get full welfare epics from honor and WG marks of honor (Full deadly mainset peices, full furious offset pieces this season, next season it will be Furious mainset, relentless offset).

2. Heroics for weapons/trinkets (Daggers/Axe from H-FoS/ToC, Mace from H-HoR/ToC, no solid sword from heroics except from Battered Hilt). Wowhead.com for loot tables.

3. Run Arena for points, every week if you play 10 games, even at 0 rating you can get
261 from 2's
303 from 3's
344 from 5's
Until you get full welfare and weapons from a heroic you can build your arena point total, then find a partner to push over 1500 with and getting your actual offset pieces.

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Hit Cap!!!
You should be at 5% hit cap. Using Knightbane Carapace - Item - World of Warcraft you only need to buy one piece of hit gear (Ring/Neck or Cloak) and 10 extra hit from a gem (Pristine Ametrine works).
If you don't plan on getting a PVE chest/cloak that has a lot of hit, then you will want to buy 2-3 pieces off the hit offset gear.

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Gear Setup -
You can do this however you'd like but heres some suggestions.

Weapons - For Mutilate/Envenom the rule of thumb is that if you are using Deadly poison OH then your gonna want a fast OH/slow MH. If your not using it then use double slow (1.8 weapon speed).
For ShS/combat specs use slow (As slow as you can find, my sword is 2.7) and fast (1.5/1.4) OH.

Personally i would suggest running 4-5 piece deadly/furious/relentless to get the set bonuses. The new 4 piece set bonus gives an extra 150 AP.

Trinkets - Either the 108 Resilience or WG AP/Crit trinket along with a battlemasters is what most people run, if your a human you can choose to run with double PvE or PvE/Battlemasters trinkets.

Offset pieces - You can choose to run with full offsets or sub in a cloak/ring/ect, I try to stay around 700 resilience and maximize my AP. Running with full offset+PvE cloak (50 badge Frost emblem cloak) gives me roughly 5077 AP as ShS/CB spec.

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Gems
Meta - Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (21 Agility and 3% increased critical damage).

90% of your gems should be +32/40 AP, Cardinal rubies and scarlet rubies. You do NOT want to do +20 Agi due to resilience will scale down your crits, so having more AP rather then more AP/crit combined.

The only reason why you should do something other then this would be to: Hit cap, activate Meta. For your belt when you add a belt buckle i would SUGGEST STRONGLY you add in a Nightmare Tear (+10 stats) which accounts for every type of gem, which automatically activates your meta.

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Enchants -
Helm/Shoulder - Your choice here, if you feel you need more Resi, use the PvP WG shard enchants. If you are lacking AP/crit then buy the Ebonblade helm enchant and Sons of Hodir shoulder enchant.

Bracer - 50 AP

Boots - Icewalker/32 AP or Nitro boots (If you choose engi in the other section).

Gloves - 44 AP or Hand rocket (Engi).

Cloak - Shadow Armor (Extra Stealth + 10 agi) or Agility if you dont feel the stealth will help.

Chest - 10 Stats.

Legs - Icescale leg enchant or Stam/resi (Dont advocate this, but if your lacking health then do so).

Weapons - Berserking Mainhand, Titanium Weapon Chain Offhand (So when you get disarmed its not 10 seconds).

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Poison use in arena/BG's/PvP.

This is pretty simple:
If your envenom (with deadly brew) then use Wound MH/Deadly OH, OR Double wound vs rogues if you plan on doing quick switches (With deadly poison its tough to get it off before you CC due to Master Poisoner, UNLESS YOU PLAY WITH MAGE WHO HAS GLYPH OF POLYMORPH).

Any other spec (Combat/ShS/ect):
Wound Mainhand/Crippling Offhand. Theres no reason to switch that up to be perfectly honest unless your just messing around in BG's. Without Crippling you will be nerdraging because you will be chasing constantly.

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I'm opting to not go over the basic skills, you all know them, depending on the spec you can choose to use different ones with different rotations.

Some pointers about certain skills-
Mutilate - if your facing a heavy dispelling team (Druids/Shamans/Pallies) make sure you have any form of poison on the target before you mutilate so your damage isn't gimped.

Killing Spree - Use blade flurry before popping this, your damage from this spell will increase dramatically (Tested with another rogue, ~40% from one killing spree to ~70-80% with blade flurry active on another killing spree).

Shadowstep - Save this until you really need it against casters/hunters! This goes for heavy caster teams with Cloak of shadows as well, a lot of the time you will want to use Shadowstep/CoS offensively, but when the time comes that you desperately need to stun/kick and remove DoT/get out of a mage freeze then you'll be kicking yourself if you blew those 2 cooldowns early.

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Macro's you will want.
Focus Blind:
/cast [target=focus, exists] Blind; Blind;

Will blind your focus, if you dont have a focus then it blinds your target. This can also be used a kick/dismantle macro, just switch out the skill name.

Stealth macro:
#showtooltip Stealth
/cast [nomodifier] !Stealth
/cancelaura [modifier] Stealth

This is a mashable stealth key. Simple as that.

Burst Macro:
/use Mark of Supremacy
/cast Cold Blood
/cast Eviscerate
/use Furious Gladiator's Leather Gloves

This uses everything (Trinket for AP, Cold blood then Evis, also has Handmounted Pyro attached to my gloves). On average that macro with 5 point evis can hit for ~10-11k between the 2 skills used.

Shadowstep Sap:
#showtooltip Sap
/targetenemy [harm][nodead]
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/cast Shadowstep
/cast Sap

Regular Sap:
#showtooltip Sap
/targetenemy [harm][nodead]
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/cast Sap

These are the quickest ways to find other rogues. If they come from the back of you is the only way you WONT see them, they might get the sap off still but it will come down to RNG and how fast you are clicking.

Tricks of Trade macro to partner -
/target Stalked
/cast Tricks of the Trade

Pretty simple, enter the name of your partner (specially if your running mage/rogue, or other double dps team).
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1v1 Classes:

Mage - Ok, MOST are frost (Some on my server are fire and do know how to play it) but with frost, basically your gonna want to sap, garotte or CS-->do as much dmg as you can before they blink (if they do) if they dont, then KS which then they blink. Vanish and restart before blink CD is back. Basically what your gonna want to do is make sure you dont get polymorphed, most mages will try to and get a burst chain on you. As ShS it will be easy to not get poly'd, right as they blink then you Shadowstep and KS, which then they iceblock, vanish and restart.
What your gonna want to do is stay out of snares/nova's at all costs but save your trinket for poly/deep freeze (Some mages are smart and will deep freeze, and cast poly right after, hoping that you will trinket into a poly, watch out for this!)

Warlock - With the Succy out, you gotta sap the lock and blow up the succy as much as you can. If you cant kill it before sap runs out then vanish, resap and kill the succy then. If its in phase shift, then this will be quite hard and you will probably lose unfortunately.
With the Fel-puppy out, you just gotta go balls to the walls on the lock keeping him locked down, if a fear gets off on you then ur gonna die (Deathcoil to Fear is fine but you gotta get back to the lock ASAP)

Warrior/Feral druid - Ok boys and gals, this is the time to shine. Sap--->CS and keep them locked down, KS with 5 points, if they TRINKET then quickly blind and restart. There basically gonna try to tank you down, use ruptures/SnD to keep up the damage and timing your evasion and dismantles (against warriors). If your good at playing the deadzone 5-8 yards, then do so, but if one charge gets off your done.

DK's - Nearly same as feral/warriors. Your gonna have to time your CoS with vanishes, starting out use Garotte/Disarm back to back so they cant cast/hit u for that opening time. Continue on as you would with a Warr/Druid.
If you have energy use gouges on the pet (not applicable as envenom).

Ret - OP class, basically start with Garotte/Disarm, when you KS there gonna blow blessing of freedom, your gonna want to vanish or blind (your choice, if they dont trinket blind then sap/clean open on them, or wait for KS to come back up) and restart quickly, use gouges/everything you have to stop the dmg output. CoS early IMO, some pallies are not amazing and will throw a hammer/repetance into your cloak and waste a 30-45 second cooldown.
When they bubble, there is a very high chance they will heal, if they do then run/restart, if they chase you, then pop ur evasive cooldowns and minimize the dmg.

Rogues - O noez double rogue duel! Basically spam the crap outta the macro's posted above to find them.
No opener - Choose to trinket CS or KS and quickly blind--->vanish--->re-open. Depending on the rogue, they will probably have bleeds on you, but easily timeable to vanish/CS quickly.

Sap on the rogue starting - CS or Garotte (If you garotte quickly disarm/Evasion), if they trinket CS then blind them. Throw your KS before Garotte, if they trinket KS then blind. If you get them in blind with no trinket then its insta-win.

Every other class is basically a lockdown/weardown type of playstyle, some classes are similar in styles, with pets and such. Healers are nearly* impossible depending on the spec/class but do-able, specially in arena when there focusing on there partner as well.

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Arena Partners -
Priest - You can either play a offensive version or a defensive version, have him spec into smite/holy fire spec, or just the regular disc defensive spec. Mainly he will be mana burning while you lock down the dps. Depending on the opponents of course.

Druid - I prefer druid, been running Druid/Rogue (as druid and rogue) since S1. Basically you can play it as your druid locking down 1 target while u focus other, or choose to not get too choosy with targets and have druid CC the target that is not on DR. As envenom i'd suggest choosing one kill target due to needing to stack DP for envenoms.
You can choose to have your druid start in stealth and open with pounce into CC chain, or start in tree.

Mage - Prefferably ran as Frost, but they can choose to be arcane as well. Mage will be mainly focused on CC, not as much trying to dps the crap outta targets. Gonna really be on the mage to sheep as much as possible and peel (rank 1 FB's) on melee, use blind when sheep is on DR.

Shaman - This is kinda a weird comp but i have seen it done, mainly the shaman needs to be focus hexxing/wind shearing and stopping the damage output. I have never played this but yah, keep the mana up for ur shamm, and keep peels so your shaman doesnt get rocked.

Warlock - This was a popular comp during S6, during this season its not AS strong, but still pretty fun to play. Basically keep the CC chains rolling, just like with Mage/Rogue, also can bring out the succy to have some more CC going. The burst is insane with this team though.
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Cant think of anything else, if you want input suggestions, post em up here. I can also add onto this. If you have a suggestion for more info hit me up or post here.

Some videos to check out if you wanna see solid players:
Any Akrios Vid.
Six Silent Shadows.
Asu PvP 4 LAST ORDER.

Thanks, hope it helps.

[gtdarkside]

Great guide, even if I don't agree with some of your 1v1 tips .
Just wanted to add shadowdancing with the stars as an awesome video

[justinsroy]

Thanks Darkside, everyone will have there little tips/tricks against certain people in 1v1 situation, most of those were quickly thrown together near the end (whole guide took me a few hours to write) and from mainly a ShS spec perspective and how i take care of them.

Always open to comments/suggestions for improvement.

[Contributer]

Great guide!
I'd rep you if I could

[buddhistgrandma]

Couple tips you forgot to mention.


1) against warriors, don't forget to feint the bladestorm. I see a lot of rogues not doing this.

2) Against mages, something that is helpful is the cheapshot without breaking sap. Basically you need to sap, and then stand at about a 45 degree angle away from the mage, and use cheapshot. As soon as you do, you have to turn QUICKLY so no auto attacks hit. This allows you to restealth, and start with 2-3 combo points already built up.

3) Vanish during iceblock is not a good idea. You want to save vanish for Novas, or to prevent a poly cast. Move to the front of him, and the moment the iceblock buff fades, gouge him. Now you have regained initiative.

4) You mentioned sapping the lock and blowing up the succy. The succy is invisible, you wont see it. You cant blow it up during a normal 1v1 fight.

5) You advocate using garrote as an opener against DK's. This is not something I would recommend. DK's have stupid high damage, and you have to lock them down as much as possible and prevent as much damage as you can. Cheapshot to Kidney Shot would be a better opener. And then chain your CDs.

6) Against a ret, you advocate garrote as an opener again. For the same reasons above, I prefer cheap shot. Many ret paladins will pop hammer as soon as they freedom/trinket out of a stun, if you can cloak this, you are in good shape. DO NOT TRINKET REPENTANCE. If you don't have a trinket for Hammer, you lose. When they bubble, use sprint/rocket boots/vanish to get back into stealth. Once his bubble fades, you need to kill him quickly, or you are going to get hammer of skilled again, and at this point will surely mean your death.

7)Against a melee, dont pop Dismantle and evasion at the same time, it's a waste. It's better to chain them back to back to get the most out of them. Ex. Disarm for 10 seconds, and then once it's done pop evasion.

For the best Rogue v Rogue information, refer to The Comprehensive Rogue vs. Rogue Guide | Rogue-Rogue This was written by Akrios, and he is very very good. I recommend his movies if you are looking for an example of a good rogue.

Hope some of these tips helped. If you need clarification on anything, just ask, and I would be more than willing to clear it up.