Hello everyone,

I am playing a rogue that has recently switched from 20/31/0 sword/claw combat to 17/24/0 dagger combat. While the basic strategy of how to play the spec in Raid-PvE is rather well documented:

- stand behind the mob
- keep SnD up all the time, preferably 5cp SnD
- use backstab whenever possible

not everything about the spec is as clear cut as it seems. So I was wondering if some of the more experienced rogues would be willing to share their knowledge on how to optimize this spec (and its DPS-output) in an actual raiding situation. Any input would be appreciated, but there are also some specific questions I have found no good answer to yet.

- How do you start a fight? Do you use 1cp SnD to get SnD running as soon as possible, or do you prefer to wait a few seconds for a 2cp SnD? Does this depend on what mob you are fighting?
- One of the biggest opportunities to loose DPS in my limited experience is the start of a fight against fast moving targets, where it is not so easy to land the first backstab. (Once you have placed the first backstab you can start SnD and then have at least 6 seconds to properly position yourself.) Examples of this would be the lava elementals in MC. How do you deal with these situations? Do you just rely on your reflexes and skill to land that first backstab asap, or do you - at least for the beginning of the fight - switch to a sword/claw and use Sinister Strike.
- While it seems rather obvious which routine to follow on sustained damage fights like Garr and Ebonroc, I am still not sure I have found the correct routine on in-and-out fights like Firemaw and Chromaggus. How do you optimize your DPS here?

1cp for trash, 2cp for bosses.

Just land the first backstab ASAP. On Lava Surgers it will be annoying of course, but for the majority of trash you run into, it shouldn't be that bad.

Firemaw is too variable to come up with a consistent CP cycle other than just use CPs on SnD when SnD is down. For Chromaggus, usually what I try to do as my cycle is 3 CP SnD when running in after a breath. If I get my 1 combo point from the finisher, I'll then build 3 CP to Rupture (2 CP Rupture if I don't get 1 combo point), then build CP until it's time to back out again.

Hope you mean 17/24/10 and not 17/24/0 :)

I get SnD running from the first combo point. Shortly after I respecced to 17/24/10 I found it interesting that Improved SnD gives you just enough time to work your way up, point by point.

Meaning:
- Backstab, SnD (12 sec)
- Backstab, Backstab, SnD with maybe a Feint in there, and the first SnD will almost be over.
- Backstab, Backstab, Backstab, SnD with a Feint in there, and the second SnD will almost be over.

And so on. A 30 second SnD gives you enough time to backstab 5 times and feint twice, with almost perfect timing to start another 30 second SnD.

Usually reflexes.

Firemaw, Chromaggus, and also fights like Huhuran and Emperors are hard because you almost never get the full effect from SnD.

Firemaw: I usually have 325 FR on that fight so it's a little safer for me to do a 5pt SnD, but with less you might want to stick with 2 to 4 points. If you get to 5 I'd do an Evis or even a rupture.
Chromaggus: I only do 5 points if I have 5 points before I back out on an AE call, then I use it immediately after going back in.
Huhuran: SnD is frustrating on the fight with how often you're getting slept.
Emps: I'll do a 2-3pt SnD right when I get to Vek'nilash after having run across the room.

With regards to starting the cycle, it's as the previous posters have said. 1 for trash, 2 for bosses.

You get used to positioning automatically after a while. I was surprised how much I'd rusted when I went back to daggers after something like 9 months of swords. It was pretty brutal - I was just outright bad at keeping behind mobs. I'm still not wonderful at it, but it's better than it used to be.

For non-TL Chromaggus, I tend to use the "small SnD, small rupture" strategy. For TL Chromaggus, you get additional time to tee off on him, so it's safer to use a big SnD immediately after the non-lapse breath. It lets you use a much more standard rotation.

For Emperors, I actually use Rupture exclusively. You can keep a 5pt constantly running with the energy recharge you get from crossing the room, and it seems to work better in practice despite being less damage in theory. My current hypothesis is that it happens because all he's got is Sunder.

For Emps I also use the "small SnD, small rupture" strategy as opposed to pure rupture like Wodin. Works well for me, usually I win or am very close to winning DMs ;).

First, thank you for the helpful replies so far. Hopefully getting used to positioning will be as easy as you describe it to be. :)

What also made me curious is that many of you use Rupture instead of Eviscerate. Now I can understand the reasoning behind this. Without any Talents to boost its damage Eviscerate will do almost exactly the same amount of damage as Rupture, and Rupture will ignore the targets armor.

However, as far as I know (I may be wrong here) Rupture can not crit, while Eviscerate very well can. So assuming the target has a damage mitigation of 20% - which seems a realistic value with 5 Sunders - your Eviscerate will still do more damage than Rupture once it has a crit rate higher than 25%. And you will not occupy a debuff slot.

So what am I missing?

Rupture costs 25 energy, while Evis costs 35.

The rupture is used on the fights where there's a lot of running, and you spend alot of time away from the mob. In these fights you'll get a small SnD, and a small rupture, because SnD while not meleeing the mob is a complete waste of a combo point. If you do a 2 point rupture, you're gonna do 425 damage. If you do a 2 point evisc, you'll do 384 - 480, before reduction. With reduction that drops alot more, and with only 2 points, a crit isn't going to be groundbreaking. But that's just my view on it.

One more question I have been thinking about (please tell me to shut up if I am getting on your nerves :-)):

What is really the best Mainhand enchant?

Now accoring to Chalon's very good Combat-Dagger DPS spreadsheet it clearly is Crusader. However Chalon assumes a sustained damage situation. Which is not that common beyond MC. In BWL its basically Vaelastrasz, Ebonroc and Flamegor, haven't been past Skeram in AQ40 yet.

Considering that +15 Agi and +5 damage are not far behind Crusader, and both (especially +5 damage, as it is probably the best enchant for unloading your initial energy bar) loose far less in a non-perfect sustained damage situation, I was wondering if one of them might be actually better in the day-to-day life of a raiding WoW-Rogue.

What are your thoughts and experiances?

I think it comes down to either Crusader or 15 agi on the main hand if you're talking about PvE. At the moment my weapons are 15 agi/15 agi, but that's more because my main hand is a BQP, and I will be off-handing it once I get Death's Sting. When I get Death's Sting, I will put Crusader on it. 15 agi of course is a far cheaper enchant, as well, which definitely is a plus if it's something you know you will be replacing.

So in a fight like firemaw using 2 BQP, would you say crusader still beats out 15 agi? 5 dmg?

Depends on how much FR you wear. I personally wear enough to treat Firemaw as a sustained damage fight (I rotate out 2-3 times per Firemaw now).

I think Firemaw is the one fight in the game where sacrificing some stats to get more FR is pretty much *always* worth it. I'm not saying wear Volcanic pants over Bloodfang, but Fireguard Shoulders over Nightslayer is probably an excellent tradeoff.

One more question. Finally we come to the unavoidable Spec-issues...

What I was wondering about are the first seven points in the Combat Tree and where you think they should be put. My logic was as follows:

The first two go into Improved Sinister Strike without a second thought. Even in Raid PvE there are enough situations where Sinister Striking is the better option.
Since this will allow me to solo-PvE pretty effectively pretending I am still 20/31/0 Combat Fist I do not need Improved Gouge (I PvP almost never).
So I put 3 points in improved dodge and 2 points in improved parry. The reasoning here was that several raid mobs have some sort of cleave ability (and from what I hear it gets even worse in AQ40), against which those should help.

But now I am wondering: Can Cleaves and other dodgeable AoE's (like e.g. Moam's Trample) be parried, or should I have put all 5 points in improved dodge if I have a pure Raid-PvE focus?

Or would you have done things completely different?

Any attack which can be dodged can be parried; they both mitigate the same kind of attack - melee/physical.

The only difference, I believe, is that you can only parry frontal attacks, while you can dodge attacks from any direction (unless stunned); of course, this doesn't usually matter unless your back is turned to a mob for some strange reason.

Personally, I went with improved evasion, under the reasoning that the utility of an extra 4sec of evasion when I'm forced to tank outweighs another 2% to my already high natural dodge, but I also got imp gouge for pvp/solo pve utility, so YMMV.