Exchange the 'fr' in your link with 'en' to see the english calculator. It's Ghostly Strike btw.
World of Warcraft Europe -> Talents

Also, relying on cooldowns, abilities or procs seems rather risky to me. There's a reason why warrior and druid tanks are reaching for enough defense to be un-critable, same goes for a rogue here to be 'un-hitable'.
Relying on luck (or rather, hoping that bad luck doesn't occur) is no fun.

Unless, of course, you can come up with a situation where you can set up some sort of 'rotation' with evasion, ghostly strike and trinkets to be always above 100% avoidance, not relying on mongoose procs. Then you'd have something like a rogue-tank-rotation, similar but different to a tank's ability rotation, not aiming for maximum threat, but for maximum avoidance.

(Thanks, I'll correct that ^^)

I think it's way funnier to have to play with a lot of differents cooldown and be aware of the risks at anytime than to have 101.8%. :P I'll explain why it's funniest without being more risky (well it's not really complicated).

The idea is precisely to cover all the time with cooldowns. Of course you use them only when Mongoose is not on proc : being aware of the Mongoose buff, you don't use your CD while it's up. So you need 95.8% only. (less than, well, 95%, would begin to be really risky)

You create a rotation with this cooldowns :
- Tenacity trinket (+150 agi, so 7.5% dodge, 20 sec, 2 min CD)
- Moroes watch (+300 dodge, so 15+% dodge, 10 sec, 2 min CD)
- Evasion (50% dodge, 15 sec, 3.5 min CD)
- Preparation (reset cooldown of Evasion, 10 min CD)
- Ghostly Strike (15% dodge, 7 sec, 20 sec CD)

And then, the last and most useful "Cheat Death". Why ? Because you can take risks as long as it has not proc.

The idea is to keep having 98-100% avoidence permanently ; if you're hited sometimes, that's not a problem : if the hit just arms you, you'll be healed ; if the hit kills you (he will in most of the boss cases), then cheat death triggers and you avoid death + got 3 seconds of quasi-invulnerability. (if, by some malchance, the foe were to hit you a second time just after dispite your quasi total avoidance)

So Cheat Death is used as a mean to avoid malchance by mitigate it. (it's a 3 sec proc that appears only when you need it, I think it's pretty excellent) Thanks to cheat death, you can allow yourself to have "only" 94% for a few seconds, if your cooldowns are all in use. You take no risk as long as Cheat Death is not on cooldown, just the risk to lose your joker.

If you lose it (and you certainly will sometimes), you just have to avoid having less than 100% for 1 minute (the time needed for cheat death to reset). That's possible, even if mongoose doesn't proc for the entire minute, just use all your cooldown if necessary. Preparation is the ultimate barrier if ALL your abilities (cheat death included) are on cooldown, so you can have 15 seconds bonus of immunity.

Conclusion : the idea is to use your cooldown only when mongoose doesn't proc, and allow yourself to take a little risk sometimes, because you can do it thanks to different abilities.

It's a lot more fun imho, because the 100% avoidence is possible only if you play well and have the good gear (instead of "only if you have the good gear"). Plus, this tactic requer to be highly reactive and make good choices in battle, so I think this is fun too. ^^

(well In fact you can easily do errors without risks, because the statistics say that, with mongoose and ghostly combined, you already have a very few chances to drop under 100% each minute)

Hm, how do you start your fight without risking an immediate death, when mongoose hasn't procced yet? Activate a trinket/evasion before engaging? But then it might be unavailable the next time you need it.

Btw, can you post a link to your tanking equip?

Seems pointless to go through the cooldown management stress and frustration when full avoidence is reached pretty easily. I guess you could use that technique if you were attempting to truly solo an encounter.

What are the chances that mongoose would drop off both weapons at any given time? Depending on cooldowns and mongoose to survive seems risky, but I'm sure doable. I beleive you can survive for about a minute and a half with well timed trinkets, evasion, prep, and ghostly strikes - I doubt mongoose would be down for that long, but eventually you will run out of cooldowns.

Remember however that depending on Ghostly Strikes and Mongoose procs are risky since you will most likely have a low hit rating and expertise in a high avoidence set. A dodged Ghostly Strike or two could mean a squished rogue.


Edit - scratch the idea of being completely solo and using cooldowns to make up the last few points needed to get to 101.8%. Using Loot Rank to find the best of the best equipment and Warcrafter.net to put it all together it looks like you still come up short of the minimum. A self-buffed NE Rogue with the best avoidence pieces in all slots but the trinkets* will get you 87.63% total avoidence. Mongoose will get you 6.9% avoidence per weapon proc - so even having both up always (which won't happen) wouldn't make you completely safe. You need 94.9% passive avoidence for the technique to work, and that won't happen without outside buffs.

Warcrafter link - 70 Night Elf Rogue

*had to use Moroes Trinket and the Jewelcrafting BOP instead of better trinkets because those were the best trinkets with an on-use ability

Keep in mind that all my work is theorical at the moment, my rogue is not achieved. I hope it will be done in ~one month.

You begin with ghostly strike (7 sec of total avoidance), then you wait for the proc. The proc frequency is high (I plan to use a MH with 2.6 speed), plus your dps cycle is optimized so you have the more instant possible in the battle (mainly using Riposte that proc very often with 10+% parry). Slice and Dice is an option, but now that it doesn't increase the proc chances, it should just be used for a better threat generation depending on the situation. Eviscerate, Hemo and Kick should be spammed (Kick does pratically no dps but is often usable and cost only 25 energy). You can vary the cycle, depending on your threat and mongoose proc necessities.

Then you have different choices. You can wait for mongoose, only using ghostly strike (meaning 2/3 of the time, you will have 6% chance of being hit, and then probably loose your first joker). It's better to do that on foes who won't kill you on one strike. On these ones, if you're hit, you can use a CD then, or simply be healed. (foes that doesn't kill you on one hit are really easy to fight) Or you can use a cooldown, the moroes one, who lasts only 10 sec. Ghostly (0-7), Moroes (8-18), nothing (19-20), then ghostly again. That buy you 27 seconds for mongoose to proc. Plus, the cooldown of moroes will come again soon, you have a lot of others to use waiting for the 2 minutes to pass by.

(You have to count the fact that nobody can have less than 1 sec precision on a trinket activation (difference between mathematics and reality XD), so you lose (or gain, if you play well) 3 or 4 seconds every 1 or 2 minutes. In my opinion, you'd better wait until de "0 s." under the buff has showed pratically 1 sec before clicking, so you're sure not losing time ; this way you take a little risk to be hit, and so a very very very little risk to be successfully hit.)

There's no internal cooldown on mongoose, as you certainly know, and you do (that's just statistic) 20 to 30 instant hit per minute, so you're multipliying by two (if not more) the proc of mongoose (which is on a weapon with 2.5+ speed), doing that.

So the better choice is to use cooldown mixed with ghostly at beginning (you can do 7 - 15 - 7, 7 - 10 - 7 or 7 - 20 - 7, maybe using evasion is a better idea because the cooldown is longer and the duration more optimized for a fight beginning : 7-15-7, 29 seconds without void).

Remember that you never risk death, because you have cheat death. Once cheat death has activate though, you risk something, of course. Playing with cheat death is part of the process. (it should be used as often as possible, but not too often.) You should take risk, but a little risk every minute, so you're economizing your cooldown : if you take too much risk, you're just going to be hit often and stress every minute ; if you don't take any risk, you'll use your cooldowns too fast and won't have them when it will be necessary. You have to mitigate yourself the risks you take by duration.

As for the stuff, here it is (I translated with switching language in armory ; plus I'm working on real paper so I can't just c/p... I'm old school hehe) :

PLACE : Item name xx stat xx stat xx stat [gem 1] [gem 2] [gem 3] (bonus gem) {enchant}

HEAD : Deathblow X11 Goggles 48 agi 28 sta [12 agi crit+3%] [5 agi 7 sta] (+4 agi) {16 def 17 dod}
NECK : Necklace of the Deep 21 agi 20 sta [10 agi] [10 agi] (+3 hit)
SHOULDERS : Merciless Glad 32 agi 45 sta [10 agi] [10 agi] ( - ) 24 crit 25 resi 24 AP {15 def 10 esq}
BACK : Slikk 37 sta 16 dod 25 def {12 agi}
CHEST : Auchenai's Monk 24 agi 24 dod 19 hit 18 AP [10 agi] [10 agi] [10 agi] ( - ) {15 def}
WRIST : Vindicator's Leather 25 agi 33 sta 12 crit 15 resi 26 AP [10 agi] ( - ) {12 def}
HANDS : Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation 35 agi 22 sta 42 AP [10 agi] [5 agi 7 sta] (+3 crit) {15 agi}
BELT : Belt of Deep Shadow 32 agi 14 sta 18 hit 66 AP [10 agi] [10 agi] ( - )
LEGS : Trousers of the Scryers' retainer 43 agi 45 sta 30 hit 104 AP [10 agi] [10 agi] ( - ) {40 sta 12 agi}
FOOTS : Nimble-foots treads 32 agi 24 sta 25 dod {12 agi}
FINGER #1 : Delicate Eternium 25 agi 15 sta 16 dod {4 sta 4 agi 4 str ...}
FINGER #2 : Elementium Band of the Sentry 24 sta 20 def 19 dod {4 sta 4 agi 4 str ...}
TRINKET #1 : Moroes 38 dod =use : +300 dod / 10 sec, CD 2 min=
TRINKET #2 : Tenacity Trinket 308 armor =use : +150 agi / 20 sec, CD 2 min=
[note : there's two others trinkets that are good : commendation of kael'thas (magister hero), and the simple charm of alacrity (+192 dod / 10 sec)]
RANGED : Sunfury bow of the Phenix 19 agi 34 AP
[if possible, else any 14+ agi ranged weapon will do it]
MAIN HAND : Rage 2.6 speed 174-323 dmg 20 agi 18 sta 13 crit [10 agi] ( - ) {mongoose}
OFF HAND : Felsteel longblade 2.2 speed 128-239 dmg 26 agi 15 sta {mongoose}
[there's the Sun Eater too, but I really don't like the look ; plus, there are no combat bonus on it, it's not really easy to get, and the defense bonus are not way better than these two ones. The MH is probably the hardest item to get in the stuff.]

I think that's all. (pfiu, that was damn hard)

The point of this gear is of course that it's "cheap", there's not a single item that needs a 25 persons raid to be obtained and only a few ones that need a 10 persons raid. Most of the stuff is buyable by someone else (I intend to buy the more possible with my main, the epic gems being the main part) ; most of the droppable items are easy-kara, hero, quests or simple honor pvp. And the expensive items are DPS items, and not special-tanking ones. (=> head, MH, legs for exemple) So it's not too much of a burden.

@ SeanDamnit : what's not pointless in it ? It's that the gear I'm preparing is quick to do, no PvE experience requierment, etc. It's simple : it was said before, but the gear you shows ask for a sunwell level. So it is not that useful, because all the BC encounters are passed. The gear and tactics I show allow a new 70 to have it quickly. That's my case : I stopped PvE raid 6 or 7 monthes ago, I can't have sunwell stuff, and I highly doubt any guild would give me tank items for my rogue if she went to SSC or TK, by any chance. (they never gave me tank item for my warlock, though I really don't understand why... hehehe)
I understand your point of vue about the stress ; as I said before, I think it's way funnier this way than just having 101.8%. It's, however, only my own feeling about it.
Last thing : don't forget Cheat Death. It seems like everyone forget this talent, but it's the key here. You can take risk BECAUSE you have it. And you're forced to take ~5 seconds of risks per minute (average estimation), 5 seconds were you have "just" 94% avoidance. Most of the time you won't be hit in these 5 seconds, but often you'll be hit, and that's Cheat Death that allow this tactic to work despite these 5 seconds.

I didn't mean that I expect tanking rogues to ONLY use the best of the best sunwell avoidence gear - that part was just to see if it's possible to reach 101.8% completely solo with the clever use of cooldowns and mongoose procs.

I meant that you can reach 101.8% without only a few raid pieces, so cooldown tinkering (to make up for missing avoidence) didn't seem necessary.

Small addition to above post:

I realize [Stanchion of Primal Instinct] would be more Agility than [Shivering Felspine] however it would be impossible to tank anything with that because the DPS (= threat) on it is so low. I probably should have specified that the weapon is pretty much untouchable for that reason but every other slot is fair game.


[edit:] [Vicious Hawkstrider Hauberk] gives an extra 7 Agility so an extra 0.35% dodge, making the total 100.74% Avoidance

Well obviously Hunters can't tank in the classical sense, even with gear for it. Our threat is just not very good in melee.

However Surv hunters are not bad at all at saving raids when the boss gibs the tank and goes on a rampage. Like a Rogue he can pop Deterrence and soak it up for the duration hopefully. But that require the Hunter to carefully manage his threat to be just behind the tanks.

But I wonder about Roguetanking. Can they do it while the boss is enraged? Leading to infinate encounter really.

There's no reason they cannot, unless there's some sort of magical damage which also gets increased by enrage.
And also, not in Sunwell of course, due to the 20% dodge and 5% hit buff, as mentioned several times already (Brutallus being a perfect example for both restrictions).

I thought about doing Gruul with 3 or 4 players (tank rogue, chaman, pal and maybe drood), but the AOE damage are increased with time, so I guess it would be pretty hard to not die after 25 or 30 growth. (if he still grows after this time)

I think the problem with Hunters (and really any non-rogue/druid 100% avoid tank) is that you have to ask what the benefit is for obtaining that level of gear for the gimmick set.

Rogues and Druids are interesting because they are able to get 100% avoid with suprisingly little gear restrictions, and they can put out appreciable amount of threat. In addition to that, they can stealth to help solo through things (imagine a close-to-100% rogue enchanter strolling through 5 mans. Health Pots+Luck+Trinkets/Cooldowns can probably buy you enough time to solo most 5 man bosses). Druids are interesting as well because the gear they need and the talents they need to choose don't deviate too far from the standard, so they would still be viable in a non-gimmick situation.

A 100% avoidence Hunter is just as difficult to make as a Warrior or a Paladin, but lacks the threat and other gimmicks that would make them an important tank (spell reflect for example).

But hell, if you can do it, more power to you.

Go watch the video on MMO CHAMP (or linked elsewhere) from Gaeowyn who kind of started all this and is getting world firsts in terms of Rogue tanking. He 5-manned it with his standard de/buff group which is required (Pally, Druid, Shaman, Hunter) and you will see that after 30 growths he resets to Growth 1...

As a benchmark, Gaeowyn sits at ~79.57% total UNBUFFED avoidance.

Personally, I'm very close. I got Attumen's gloves last night and once socketed/enchanted I should be right at 101.8 with the standard de/buffs to try out Kara tomorrow night. While it's true that it's (relatively) easy to achieve the 101.8% the point is to exceed that so that you can start using DPS gear to increase your TPS - see Gaeowyn's tank set.

For reference here is the Loot Rank listing that I'm using:
Loot Rank for WoW

Here is my current tank set: gah... can't get my current set to save, will edit soon.

Scroll is 20 agi, not 30.

Tried Doomwalker this night.
Only two tries because the Mark of Death becomes too much of a nuisance for raiders

Total hits: 0.

Now i only have to find a group in my guild that know the meaning of "don't pull aggro"

This is my armory link with equip:

The World of Warcraft Armory

Doomwalker Guide
Bosskillers World of Warcraft Bosses, Guides, Movie Reviews and Guild Kills

So I finally got the gear I needed to be untouchable and tried it out in Kara today. I successfully tanked 7 of the 8 bosses I tried (Nightbane squished me pretty good) but I thought it went pretty well considering the absence of a hunter for scorpid sting, and the druid did not have insect swarm (she was feral). So in actuality I was 7% avoidance short of the cap from those two debuffs. Here's a link to a thread on our forums with my info and a kill vid of Curator (more kill vids on the way as I compress and upload them).

The Twelfth Man • View topic - Whisperwind Gnome Rogue Tank

If you are a real rogue tank... you don't take any hits in the beginning. So why do you worry?

In case one of your buffers/debuffers is slacking off, or gets DCd, or other uncontrollable factors. I'm just curious in the odd chance you do get whacked, can the cheat death change kill you?

If I'm reading and interpreting this correctly, what it means is that the first hit from a boss like Gruul will bring you down to 10% health, no matter what your health is. The problem comes if you take a second hit in the 3 second window, since you will likely have little to no resilience, you will die. So you are no longer basically immune for 3 seconds. This would be a problem if you are turned around for any reason against a fast hitting mob, or feared or something.

I think this change is more aimed at "lawl rogues cheap death is OP in pee vee pee" then "OMG, a rogue can tank???" But yes it scared me too when I first read it. This shouldn't change rogue tanking much, just give us slightly less breathing room. Not that we had a whole lot beforehand :-P

That doesn't change anything. (more reactivity on cheat death eventually) Well, it does change something : you can now use [Commendation of Kael'thas], which is very likely to proc when the rogue drop to 10% with cheat death... :] Another interesting possibility for rogues who plays with cooldowns.

Zork, just wondering if it was referring to my doomwalker tries.

However, we have managed a few overruns with MISDIRECTION (Works wonders), and another one simply doing NOTHING AT ALL during overruns.

Druid Heals help a lot as they don't pull aggro. Real pain is when Scorpid/Insect are fading out ... has happened one time, i missed the first hit, and the druid aggroed with Swarm... pretty much a wipe (if the hunter aggroes, he can always feign death).

Always remember to hit dodge CD at the start of overrun so you don't get hit and others can wait for that little bit of aggro by your part.

Tanking with minimalistic avoid gear does work but its nothing i would advise to do.
If you want to tank instances more than just once for fun you should consider getting some really good avoidance gear and not just the blue / low level epic items.
Because if you get some of the better avoid items you can actually equip several damage items.

Rogues dont even get 100% of their damage as aggro so you really have to get some dps out as a tank or every boss fight will take ages (or ppl will get aggro and wipe the raid) and no one will ever want to do it more than once with you.