I've only been raiding with my rogue for a few months now, and have just recently respecced to the 16/25/10 build (2/3 Isnd). My question is how do rogues with my similar spec use their combo points initially to get their snd going smoothly? For example would it be more benefital to ambush/backstab opener and then use snd with only 1 point, and work from there? Or do you perhaps just build up 5 points and snd?

I read a thread that had a little bit of the information I was looking for. It said something about using a 4/5 snd cycle but what I don't understand is what is done in the very beginning of the fight.

My other question is if you guys even use feint anymore, and if you do, how does that work into the snd cycle? Maybe my warriors are just dirt, but I find that if I'm not feinting I am pulling aggro with my new spec. I noticed this recently on an Onyxia run where I pulled aggro at phase 3, and I'm pulling aggro on other consistent dps fights like the drakes in Bwl. Perhaps it has to do with gear, as my guild has only been in BWL for about 2 months now and we are still working on Nef.

Any information would be greatly appreciated, and I'd like to thank you all for it in advance. I have been reading your forums for a couple days now and there is alot of great information.

Generally speaking we don't have to feint, but we've got some extremely good tanks. Realistically, one or two feints and then a preemptive vanish midway through the fight will probably be enough.

Note that non-prot warriors can be incredibly skilled but won't hold aggro nearly as well as partial prot(X/X/defiance) or full-prot tanks. One of the things you learn to do as a rogue is adapt your damage dealt to the person tanking. Every tank is a little different, and the differences add up.

You should not have to feint very much at all (if at all) for the most part. Onyxia, Firemaw, and Ebonroc are the only ones really where feinting may be an issue, but in those cases it's a function of your raid DPS. The higher your raid DPS is, the less likely you will have to feint before the midway point, which is vanish time.

As for openers with Combat Daggers, usually I will start with a Backstab and SnD immediately. Then either 3 or 4, depending on luck, then basically 5 CP SnD every time. That's for standard fights at least, different fights will call for different things.

Personally, I generally lead off with one backstab on trash, or two on a boss, then commence my SnD cycle.

I do find it hard to build up to high CP SnDs successfully, even on sustained DPS fights like Ebonroc, but it's still entirely possible.

A few things I learned recently (ie. I was a moron, and knew it before, but it eventually clicked into practice): Watch your energy, watch your EnergyWatch mod, and adjust accordingly, even in PvE. Don't refresh your Slice and Dice prematurely, if you can get off another backstab before you have to refresh (ie. if you have 0 energy, you have 5-6 seconds on your SnD), do so. If not, just regen energy and let slice and dice wind down and refresh it at the last second. Use Blade Flurry whenever it's up, especially at the outset on long fights.

It's really a very "intellectual" and not-so-much 'feeling-based" spec for PvE, and you're going to have to learn to put all the things that you already knew into practice.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm generally seeing that getting snd up as fast as possible equates to the most damage, so I'll stick with doing that.

SnD does a lot of damage.

Yeah I'm gonna chime in and agree that it's really going to depend on your tanks. If your tanks are swapping to berserker to use bers rage just for the extra rage, use macros that prioritize skills for maximum aggro generation (or do it manually, but don't you hate when you sunder armor and right as you press sunder, revenge activates off a random parry?), are spec'd for defiance and possibly deeper into prot, and are just on the ball in general, you wont have to feint on 90% of the fights.

Another thing you might want to try to inch out a tiny bit more not-pulling-aggro goodness is to wait to use your damage abilities as long as possible. For example, don't backstab at 60 energy, wait until youre at 81-100 energy then backstab right before your energywatch ticks up. This allows you to 'end-load' your damage a bit more by delaying the backstab damage by an additional ~3.5 seconds, possibly making all the difference in the world if you're riding on the knife-edge of pulling aggro. This of course doesn't apply to feint or SnD. You always want to feint as early as possible, and just SnD exactly when the previous SnD expires.

I'm not sure how BF and SnD stack. Depending on that, it might be better to stagger your first BF and SnD instead of stacking them. If you were to BF right at the beginning of the fight, that would give you 15 seconds to build up a few more CP's for that first SnD, making it more energy efficient and increasing the odds of a Relentless proc. Of course, the difference in overall DPS between either method is probably going to be tiny, but when you are minmaxing...

BF/SnD stack multiplicatively.

I.E. when both are up, you get 56% more attacks (1.2*1.3), not 50% more attacks.

Oh wow! That's good news. :)

Yeah, it's just an issue of knowing your warrior. I know that with my warriors I'll occasionally pull aggro if I don't use the feint too. If they were better at initial snap aggro then yeah, I'd just skip the feint. I know for a fact that they don't start in berserker stance, use berserker rage, swap def stance, use bloodrage as they run up to the mob - something I always did as a warrior and it made a huge difference on your initial snap aggro having that extra rage.

Saving feint for when you get aggro is about the worst thing you can possibly do. If youre going to feint at any point during a fight, you should be doing it at the beginning of the fight, as early as possible. In an ideal situation, assuming that the mob doesnt have any threat% reducing abilities that hit the rogue, you would want ALL your feints to occur as early as possible in the fight then never feint again once you've reached the desired number of feints. In addition, mobs can parry feint but if you feint when you're behind the mob it can't be parried. Waiting for the mob to turn on you not only gives you a chance to be 1-shotted or 2-shotted by the boss or fire breathe the raid or whatever, but also increases the chance that your feint will fail.