I'm still very much a believer that Rogues will never be totally eradicated from the game the way more than a few claimed they would earlier in this thread. With the experience I had in all of the 5mans up to 70 in beta, there was never once an occasion where the group said "sorry, we're not taking your rogue because your class is borked and mages are awesome".

I don't know, I've run the 5 mans only with guildies so I haven't had any trouble with the instances at all, but every time I sapped something it felt like a "pitty sap" rather than "we need your cc!". It wasn't really because it was actually needed (if they needed cc they let the mage or lock do it) it was kind of a novelty... 'let glassjaw run up and use his 2 talent points so we can get on with it'. Especially in these easy 5 mans like furnace where people just want to keep moving sap is awkward and time consuming and it's a one-shot deal.

So far, and I've run Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens and The Underbog.. Every instance seems to have 2 chests that are in fixed positions. Whether the chest is locked or not alternates. So, if you find the two chest positions, and it's not locked, the other one is. Also, these chests drop some really good loot, too. It's almost like having a guaranteed shot at at least one gem, and we've had pretty high amounts of BoE blues / decent greens (ilevel 96, whoo)

So far I'm pretty pleased with my choice to go Combat Fist over Mutilate for leveling. I haven't had a ton of playtime yet due to work (only level 61.5), but due to the camped nature of HFP, the lag, and the large amounts of time spent riding right up to things then dismounting and looting, I think that Mutilate would offer no advantages. It is a fantastic grind spec, but what I've done so far hasn't had any traditional grinding.

I am kind of intrigued by the idea of an 11/0/41 Shadowstep build for questing. There's been quite a few times that I've thought "damn, it sure would be nice to 'blink' up to that mob on the ledge" or "damn I wish I moved faster in stealth."

However, I do think my gut feeling that the "survival" talents in Combat would help have paid off. With Endurance, I can spam Evasion, reducing my downtime, and I have +3% Dodge and +5% Parry for tanking multiple mobs. I've only died 3 times so far, all of which should not have happened. First one was a PvP death due to accidentally getting flagged at the Voidwalker area and getting ganked, second was a lag death at Forge: Rage, and third was a death due to bugged cannons at Forge: Rage (kept shooting me after I died the first time, and insta-gibbed me when I res'd).

What are others thinking about their chosen leveling specs?

Bears are best tanks for this reason imo. :-P


Maybe its just the way people are specced, but the bears who have been tanking furnace/ramparts seem to have a much easier time holding aggro and not taking absurd amounts of damage than the warriors I have grouped with.

Sounds like I have almost the same build as you. I respecced 17/34 at 60, and 11/41 at 61 (I can't go w/o relentless strikes :p)

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhg0ooZMGEz0VzVMhot

I don't think I'm going to pick up endurance just because the way I use my cooldowns when I'm in full grinding mode go

2m next fight blow earthstrike (bladefists soon), blood fury, blade flurry on 2-3 mobs
5m next fight blow earthstrike (bladefists soon), blood fury, blade flurry, adrenaline rush, evasion on 3+ mobs
loop

having a 3.5 min evasion wouldn't really do too much for me.

as far as the spec itself goes its fantastic. pre-expansion announcement i had almost exclusively been 20/31, occassionally going 31/8/12 if i wanted to pvp. after the xpack was announced i was almost exclusively hemo first 17/3/31 and then after the new talents went in 8/0/43.

combat potency is fantastic, makes me wish i had iblis, oh well i'm sure that will be upgraded soon. and a nice thing for soloing about surprise attacks is no dodged kidney shots may save you a repair bill a few times.

I am mutilate spec now. Given that we get imp BS also its really a great build.

I am at 28% crit unbuffed atm, lvl 62. I double crit a muti last night for 2800 =). I have tried combat fists and I just miss the CP generation SO much, and I am taking a LOT more damage. I think I will stick with it. Even when I get double non crit muti's The extra CPs make it worth it to me. Plus I can apply poisons faster for envenom.

Overall I will stick to mutilate, I have my HWL fists for if I ever wanna try something different.

I've been mutilate since the 2.0 patch. In the 5 mans the combo points mostly go to waste it seems, normally I'm scrambling just to get a 3 pt evis off and 90% of the time a bs seems to be energy better spent. There are the odd one-in-a million ~2900 mutilate double crits but I could count the number of times I've seen them on about 3 fingers since 2.0 came out. For questing/grinding mutilate is a very good build, but I don't know how many of us are solo questing/grinding all that much. I'm nearly 100% partied with my wife (warlock) or a couple buddies (our guild's MT, mage lead, priest lead, etc.) so getting two mutes off (of which most of the time only one or even none of them crit) and then actually using the combo points for anything is a problem. There just isn't enough time. I don't think I would change to combat daggers because it's so boring, but for all the work you have to do with a mutilate build managing energy, points, efficiency, timing etc. in comparison to no gain in cd damage (which is easy mode) is a little disappointing.

One talent I really like that I never gave much thought is quick recovery. It's a great way to get heals (healers love to see those big numbers) and heavy netherweave bandages ticking for 510 is awesome.

I'm all about quick recovery for that same reason. Bonus benefit on bandages is awesome, and then healers will suddenly become your new best friend when they realize how easy you are to heal large amounts.

Even had some guildmates try to get some new records, currently one shaman got a 6373 healing wave record on me, we're going to try with some cheating buffs and aim for 7000.

The energy back from dodges and similar is also very very useful.

How did you keep your crit up at 28% at 62?

I was 28.x at 60, but now at 62 I'm down to 25ish, with no new gear, of course. Where is there easy to find crit gear 'upgrades'?

Im wearing 8/8 BF + Cloak of Veiled Shadows. I could go to Sure Step, Marsh Dweller shoulders and that Cloak reward from BF for loads more AP, but less crit/hit and of course the 8/8 bonus (which is superb with mutilate, adds an appreciable amount of dps AND is superb for grinding for the 360 HP back).

When do people think it's sensible to break the 8/8 BF set?

My crit has dropped a lot going from 60 to 63, but it's deceptive. Right when I dinged 62->63 I looked at my crit and I was like "WOW, 1.26 lost just by dinging" (actually I thought I lost 2% but realized I had different gear on :P), but part of it is the fact that your weapon skill isn't maxed out. I've gotten a couple weapon skillups and I've recovered ~.2 of that crit already.

EDIT: Why is my troll *ROGUE* wearing a dress?

I agree, how in the world do you have 28% crit without dagger specialization at 63? Unless you're still using a lot of crit epic 60 pieces in which your ap would be absolute trash. There just isn't enough crit itemization in the first 3 levels to see that much I don't think, even with sockets being full.

Bonescythe? I've got like 29.1% at 61 and it would be higher if I wasn't using Boots of Displacement to get around.

Yeah, for some reason I thought Kink was in aq gear. It's all the damn murloc icons.. :P

Speaking of tier3, seeing those demon hide spaulders as boe lvl 61... yow. I got a pair last night and they look like shadowcraft, well, at least they don't look like stormshroud, for the 50th time.

I have close to 31% at 63, but I have sinister calling (13/0/41 ATM), so I imagine that helps :P. It's a hemo build (HWL/HoD), but I picked up shadowstep for fun. It helps a little bit with all the mob-tapping competition. Rogues are bad at tapping :-/.

The damage is great for the opening seconds, but after a little time outta stealth I start losing steam. I've still topped all the 5-mans I've run so far, so I don't feel any low damage guilt yet.

I'd like to get Maexxna's out of the bank and go Mutilate to see what envenom can do, but as someone else mentioned, mobs are just melting unless you are solo. Even 5-man trash/bosses die insanely fast, and I think I'd see a ton of wasted CP. When grouped and questing I'm lucky to get a 5 pt finisher on a mob, and I have initiative! I do a lot of CS(3)->GS->Evis when there are other people hitting my target.

I'm also really liking 5 MoD + 5 Camo. It's just quicker and easier to get around doing stuff, and I don't have enough pts to keep both of those with mutilate.

I've managed to retain 35%ish crit at 62. All I've replaced so far was Striker's Mark with Toxin Injector for more stam, and HoJ with Bladefists. That and I'm Fist spec. But my stam probably blows compared to someone who's been gearing up on TBC blues. I haven't found that to be much of an issue yet however, as my dodge and parry makes up for it. That and the fact that everything is camped to hell.

See, I'm just too much of a +hit junky to replace my CoVS with the Perfectly Balanced.. I keep wanting to .. but I just can't bring myself to, ya know?

28.9% crit, 1212 ap running 8/9 t3 and kingsfall/maexna fang with a 45/2/7 mut build. Crit doesnt fall insanely fast, allthough it does fall.

Could go to 1242 ap and closer to 30 crit if I used 2 agi enchants instead of dual crusader. Im running around nagrand soon to get a primal air, for +12 agi to cloak too.

It depends on your spec. You still need at least 5-6% for yellow damage and as close to 24% as possible if you want combat potency to work right. There's no such thing as too much +hit imo. The fact that it degrades is a good argument to ditch it for static attack power which does not, but you still need +hit.

Envenom...what a trash ability. Even with mutilate and having improved poisons, it's just not any better than using either rupture or eviscerate. I thought as combat swords I could try and use it to take DP off of a mob so I could gouge or blind it (mainly because I like to multi-pull mobs while soloing) to bandage...but it seems that the chance to reapply DP after an envenom is incredibly high.

I'm going 41/20/0 for the initial push in progression at 70. The only situation I could see using envenom in is against a high AC boss with lots of hit points...even then I think rupture wins out considering how low my crit% will be at 70. Eitherway, this ability seems like nothing more than a new clicky doing something that you could have done with either eviscerate or rupture.

I like my crit and hit. I'm still wearing the Onyxia Tooth even though I have a Barbed Choker in my bag and a Pendant of Cunning (BoE blue 40 AP 20 agi) in the bank.

I thought about swapping DD vest(+4 stats) for Vest of Vengeance, but even after I gemmed up Vengeance it was +11 AP and I think a little hit rating vs a loss of 1% crit. With my AP already in the mid 1300's, that crit is too valuable. Maybe if I got a cheap +3 stats on vengeance, but then it's a stam downgrade and prolly a wash for damage.

Yesterday I came across of a strange bug, which granted me the wish, every Rogue has - permanent Adrenaline Rush (^,..,^). It persisted through death, but perished after logging out. I told a friend about it and he responded, that he infact once experienced the same bug, but several patches ago. I couldn't reproduce the bug, but my guess would be that it has something to do with an AR ticking, while one gains a level up. Anyone experienced anything similar since TBC Release?