Feint FTW. If he's the highest damage Rogue and doesn't know how to go balls to the wall without pulling aggro, he's been stealing loot from people who could use it better. High DPS from Rogues comes from white damage more than anything else, which doesn't tend to *pull* much aggro. That said, the highest damage Rogue will of course be high on the threat list, but it's big crits that pull aggro the most, not high DPS.

But you're right, to spread out the DPS make sure the lower damage Rogues are in groups that get the melee buffs, and if you have to move a Rogue out of the optimal buff group, move the highest damage Rogue. Not for aggro reasons though, just to have all around max DPS. And yes Rogue is capitalized.

Sorry, I should have clarified. By "Balls to the wall" I meant maximum possible dps without feinting. This means that all adding to his attack power and such does is mean he has to feint more. For a rogue that is struggling, adding to his attack power means he provides more dps.

Eh, depends on the tank, I'm always 1 or 2 on the damage meter and depending on the tank I might not have to feint at all. It depends on the tanks aggro holding ability. With the stronger tanks I don't bother to feint, with weaker ones, yeah feint is definitely needed. But that's a whole different discussion.

Also, feint is on a 10 second cooldown and only costs 10 energy, so it doesn't subtract from our DPS that much to do. So the gap between "balls to the wall" w/o feinting and "balls to the wall" w/ feinting isn't really that vast. But again I generally agree, the main thing when considering where to put the highest dmg rogue versus the lower damage rogue imo is based on the warriors in their groups. If a warrior doesn't have imp battleshout, put the higher dmg Rogues with him, and the lower dmg Rogues with the warriors that do have imp battleshout. But that gets into super micro grouping which is usually more of a hassle than really worth it. But in a theorycraft optimal group discussion it's certainly a good consideration.

I can only think of broodlord, and occasionally on rag/emps where feint would be needed. My gear isn't the greatest, but i do have TF, and usually top our meters. I've never really stolen aggro going all out in my experience, but as drakonious said it really depends on the tank.

I don't think it matters much which go where, since you can fit all dps wars/rogues/hunters into 3 groups w/ 3 shaman in a well balanced raid. I think groups and such really come down to how specific you want to be, as a rogue it doesn't really hinder my dps switching people, since i can just let my energy regen while doing it.

I've also lead on a shaman/priest and it is like losing a person at times compared to a rogue when you need to stop and switch, so i could see why those classes might be less specific in their group make-up.

It's funny you mention that, in my guild there's a long standing joke about mana regen vs. energy regen. Starting out in MC ages ago, when healing rotations were a must, healers were instructed to sit down when they ran out of mana, and let another healer go in. So to flaunt the regen of our energy we'd publicly say on ventrilo, "Rogues, when you run out of energy, sit down and let it get to full!"

This can help a lot:
http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/a...dtemplate.html

I dont agree with moving the highest dmg people out of the optimal buffgroups though. Judging by my experience the people that make the most use of the additional buffs are the ones that manage to do best without.
I agree that having people push dmg mindless without thinking of threat and giving them the means for more dmg output is a bad thing but Its not always the "best" players that do most substained dmg that always steal agro quite often its the bad players trying desperatly to cache up without really understanding the concept of substained dmg.

It depends on what you have to work with, really.

Ideally, you'd want to place your weakest dps in the strongest/most optimised group, to normalise your dps and mitigate the effects of losing any one of them from freak accidents (ie not putting all your eggs in one basket)

In practice though, I find that there are usually two reasons why some dps does better than others: a gear differential, or personal skill/situational awareness (ie good player vs bad player)

The ideal approach only works for the first case; the less skilled/aware players don't do as well because of an inability to stay alive or a lack of effort/basic reflexes, and all the group buffs in the world won't change that.

Edit: I've experienced most of the content in the game (less Viscidus/Ouro) as a rogue, usually in a group with imp BS (occasionally with 3pc Wrath bonus), TSA and some pretty decent gear, and I can pretty confidently say that I've never had an issue with aggro even without feinting, as long as I remember to vanish (and in the case of Vael/BL, judicious use of Feint after a string of crits, or after the MT eats one too many buffets from the drakes); granted, I'm Alliance with the benefit of BoS, but considering I've often completely forgotten to vanish at all (on farm content!) with no ill effects, I highly doubt if any rogues are anywhere close to threat-limited for dps.

I'm not intending to draw this discussion out into an OMG BOS IMBA EZMODE thread, but you'd really need to experience an aggro sensitive fight without BoS to really see how quick rogues can pull aggro. Just click it off and do your thing like you'd normally do and see if your tanks notice.

I don't think many Horde guilds give Tranq Totem to Rogue groups. They get Windfury or in slim cases, Grace of Air since it benefits them so much more. They are definately threat-limited :)

As for the OP: I think Horde raids are largely set up around Shamans. I absolutely hate it when we don't have enough Shamans and I get stuck without one, Windfury is such an amazing tool for warrior DPS its sickening. A Twin Emps fight is a good example; without Windfury I sometimes struggle with my rage, forced to auto-attack a few times per switch to build it up. With Windfury, it's one proc and I have plenty of rage to chew through (the shaman usually sticks the totem up on the side he's healing at so we get at least one side with Windfury).

Our casters and hunters are usually sad pandas tho. We hardly use Grace of Air and we rarely have 7 or 8 Shamans in a raid so the casters get Tranq. Then again, I don't really think they need it, they've learned to restrain themselves. The next mage patch will deffo fix that for Mages, and Warlocks, well, they die a lot ;)

I think seting up a raid for dps is way diffrent for the two factions. As some other poster stated I dont either want to make this into a easy mode discussion. But not having to make the raid around shamans in order for people to get the buffs they want should be alot easier.
Having to make to groups so everyone wants the same totems and maybe squeeze in a warrior or so is alot more work then just making sure all rogues are in warrior groups and if more then one hunter should have tsa put them in diffrent groups isnt to much to worry about.

I think it's sort of come full circle since Molten Core. Back when people were fighting golemagg with blue gear, healing was prioritized, because the fights were relatively simple to execute. You wanted a basic minimal number of healing to sustain indefinitely, plus perhaps a little more, and DPS was secondary as you slowly whittled the boss down.

AQ has started to emphasize heavier DPS with timed fights like sartura, but the timing is still doesnt force you to push dps to the max at the current settings. As execution becomes more complex, the longer and longer fights do tend to make room for more player error as well.

Back on topic, I don't know how many guilds spec tide on their shamans. We tend to do so. An attentive raid leader can swap shamans as needed for tide, without leaving a shaman in the healer group permanently. We run 2 groups with 4 healers and a 5th spot for the shaman to move into, obviously a tank group, but with 5-6 shamans in a given raid most of the dps should have one except during swaps.

I don't think it's a big deal. You can optimise your groups, then shuffle them about on a trash pull before a boss if needed. I bet alliance does the same somewhat, it's just slightly more complex for horde, and the difference is negligible.

I would like to request a name change for your Group 5 priest.

I fail to see how it would be the same seeing as you would never have to have a certain paladin in a specifik group in order for him to buff them.
Im not whining like it was a huge deal I'm merly pointing out some diffrences.

For a while now, I haven't set up our raids so that each party would be somewhat self sufficient as far as healing went. I've been putting 4 priests/druids with a paladin with concentration aura into two healing groups for most encounters.

Tank group: Warr/warr/pal/warlock/rogue
Melee dps: warr/rogue/rogue/rogue/rogue
ranged dps: whatever is left between mages/locks and hunters
Healing group: priest/priest/priest/druid/paladin

For NR fights, just swap the hunters around accordingly. C'thun is the first fight since before we finished BWL that I've set up each group to be somewhat independent. Looking back, I think most of it stems from Vael, and the strategy we used. I'm pretty sure that's when we first started doing healer groups. One priest was usually in charge of pohing, so other healers never had to worry too much about their own health. Since then, we just call out targets for each healer.

That healer groups mod looks pretty interesting though, as does the raid setup mod. Will have to try those out soon.

That mod Arawethion linked is brilliant, makes everything a lot easier. Every raid leader should at least try it in my opinion.

Does it allow you to specify which groups certain individuals go in? There's a few groups that I almost always will setup with the same people (assuming that they're on the raid, of course).

Sort of. The mod tracks playernames that have been in your raid group and you can prioritize them by class, with people higher on the list going in the first groups. So if you always want your MT and two specific healers in group 1, let's say, you put your MT at the top of the warrior list, and those healers at the top of their respective class lists.

Cool, I'll have to check this out.

That mod is hot shit, thanks a ton for the link. The class comp is amazingly handy, the player priority is icing on the cake.