Having Hemo add +36 damage each debuff tick and +20% damage on a target below 35% is a huge part of spec'ing AR/Hemo in 2.3 If you can soften a target with a first AR, CC and execute another AR with +20% damage on a low target with Hemo hitting a good deal harder, you'll find your dps boost.

I now feel hemo is stronger, or rather will be in 2.3 for rogue/druid/lock in 3v3. We're a control team first and foremost so mace stun is very nice along with improved kick and greater mobility. We play with a soul link lock just for the record, reason being we feel control and CC are our strong points so we actually WANT opponents to focus me. And obviously hemo is the stronger spec when they do.

5s is a different playing field though and the things I really miss when playing hemo is the poison application and improved kidney shot. The damage doesn't seem to be vastly higher, what really pushes our burst is improved kidney and the fact that with muti the target usually has one more stack of wound up by the time we start bursting it down.

I actually ran some numbers in the DPS spreadsheet to get an idea and mutilate came out on top with 803 dps vs 699 from hemo for my stats. Now, I didn't allow rupture, didn't calculate any resilience which hurts mutilate more than it hurts hemo and I didn't count the hemo dmg bonus.

In the patch I don't think the difference in raw damage output between the two specs will be that big. It's all about utility and the role you play.

I still haven't decided which one I'll go for, but it's leaning toward hemo of some kind at the moment.

Not intending to troll, but I'm assuming this was just a typo? 30/0/31 should be what you go for. Without Premeditation, you lose the ability to rip a 5-point CB->Eviscerate immediately after an Ambush.

My 5v5 team runs something similar to this (currently sitting at 2207), with a frost mage / mutilate rogue / BM hunter / elemental shaman / holy paladin set up. It works extremely well against most four DPS setups, especially those using druids as primary healers. We run into a rough time against three healer set ups, mainly, or sometimes groups with an abundance of CC if their warlock were somehow to survive the initial burst. We simply lack the tools to compete with more than one spammable CC against a team smart with their purges.

It's not quite as easy for us to drop a warrior as it is for a caster heavy 4 DPS team, so we tend to shun killing them until the end. When we ran with a shadow priest, the warrior was always the #1 DPS target, but we've taken to going warlock > shaman > priest > everything else in terms of kill order now.

What race are you supposed to pick in 2.3 when starting from scratch for PvP only (eg. AV and Arena)? The +2.5% to hit seems to be quite nice combined with Perception (Human), but then there's WotF (Undead)...

I'd say that it depends on your battlegroup, prefered bracket and other variables.
In a War-Druid infested bg I'd go for human, but overall I'd say Undead is still one of the strongest rogue classes.

Agreed Nzg, AR/Prep isn't really all that great.

Another interesting point, I was running many different Mut builds on PTR without Sealfate and can honestly say it performs better in some situations. Getting 3 instead of 2 CPs is not that big of a deal and with resilience it happens pretty rarely anyway, those 5 points let you pick up other things like Imp EA, Imp Evis, more poison talents, or even (gasp!) Deadened Nerves.

It almost feels like Sealfate should be in Subtlety and Surprise Attacks should be in Assassination.

I've been playing wow for about a year now and had I known that I would become a lover of pvp i never would have rolled night elves but yes, my main warrior and alt rogues are such .. haha. anyway my rogue just hit 70 and I've been contemplating the best way to gear him.

I think in a months time I can get 2 min trink / and all the upcoming vindicators gear. The problem I am having trouble dealing with is weapons. I don't do endgame - it doesn't appeal to me and I don't have the time for it anyway. I was thinking of saving the arena points that I will begin accumulating and get the merc shiv, slap some mongoose on it and then get the shanker, then start getting s3 gear ... all the while I will be getting s1 gear thru honor. The thing is though ... I feel that it will take a very long time to get those weapons ... will it be worth the wait? What would be the most efficient upgrade procedure?

Find a 5v5 team and save all the points you can until November 20th. You will have poiints and be able to directly upgrade to S3 armor.

When has rogue dps been any different? Sustainable crushing melee damage that's hard to heal through comes from Warriors, not rogues. Yeah, you shouldn't be AR/prep if you're not running a dps heavy team or if you're running a drain team, it's the same as previous season. Rogues have been pairing up with warlocks for that purpose for months now. You make the offense make a choice, be locked down by a mace rogue or get demolished by a warlock.

Horrible players will be horrible players, same goes for mediocre in season 3. Using AR for anything but a softener or finisher is a waste, people say it's only 4 more Hemos or whatever, but you if you use that in conjunction with your teammates dps and CC, that 4 more Hemos turns into devastating instant damage on a target below 35% health.

You people claiming ar/prep is merely a bandwagon spec should log onto test and actually run a competitive makeup with it. It's strong, strong as mutilate - for different reasons.

One note about AR prep that I don't think has been mentioned is the synergy between all the new armor pen stats on the S3 gear and Serrated blades. Just something to keep in mind.

@nazg
Hemo hits hard, you already have 300 base armor pen with Sub talents, it's 125% weapon damage, adds +36 damage per white hit debuff on your target(10) AND it's only 35 energy - what other convincing do you need to understand it is a vast improvement over the previous Hemo and quite competitive with SS+SA? Throw in more bloated AP from deadliness and +20% damage increase on targets below 35% and hemo hits HARD.

I can't disagree more. Hemo rogues have more dodge (avoiding imp ss), equal parry, ghostly strike, 2 evasions, 2 vanishes and 2 sprints vs Surprise Attacks? Killing an ar/prep rogue is VERY VERY hard as combat, you automatically lose the opener 2 fold. Any decent rogue can put 0 points into combat and get undodgeable finishers, it's just like playing daggers in pvp, run behind your target (or jump through) and use your finisher, no dodges - good game.

Is healer/Combat rogue vs Healer/ARprep Rogue balanced? Yes, but both rogues need to play differently.

Also, why is your profile fake?

CP with 7% hit rating is a joke. Only if you're shiv spamming will you see noticeable CP procs. And when it comes to shiv spamming, the build you are is moot. I would only say that 41+ combat is better dps than AR/hemo in a sustained dps scenario. Due to the nature of pvp where you dont even come close to 50% time on target, 41 combat builds lose their sustained dps power. AR/Prep allows for more burst when you need it and you can do it twice. 41 combat is in reality not the ultimate anti rogue spec even with suprise attacks. Unless you're human, you won't ever get the opener and then have to fight an uphill battle with only one set of cooldowns.

We were doing some twos last night, and of the ~20 games we played, every rogue was already specced AR/Prep. It was a real pain, because giving up the finisher + having to spam shiv through two evasions is a huge loss of damage at the start. So yeah, definitely a valid concern.

Just a quick hijack, as with the new season I'll be focusing much more heavily on my rogue's pvp (thanks to stepping into full sets rather than slowly, painfully adding pieces painfully before).

So reading over this thread it would seem the old combat specced rogue is being usurped by AR/Prep. Interesting. Currently, as an AV grinder, I'm full subtlety with Shadow Step. I was planning on hitting the combat tree hard as soon as I get the 2 s2 maces. Is this not a viable build now?

I've been under the impression for a long time that points needed to be spent in Assassination (imp evis, malice, lethality etc) and Combat (dual wield etc) and the rest was just gravy. I did try Mutilate but found it unsatisfying, especially against good players or kiters (anyone else think Shadow Step would be great with Mutilate?).

Basically what does everyone think will be the viable or premiere pvp builds now as a rogue, and will this change weapon choice? I'm pretty set on my maces as I l<3 the stun proc. Will this change?

In addition, does anyone else think Riposte will become a lot more useful in 2.3?

Any advice would be great.

Hemo hits less than a talented SS on the same char, fact. 35 energy hemo without relentless is worth the same as 40 energy combat, and less than SS with combat potency. Another myth that hemo rogues blindly regurgitate.

Why is 41 combat the anti rogue spec? Because surprise attacks negates evasion completely. First evasion, you kidneyshot, vanish cheap shot, rupture and kite. Second evasion, you kidneyshot and rupture/kite. Evasion is taken out of the picture against combat rogues. That argument only applies to other specs. Saying that getting undodgable finishers by just running through your opponent is just being ignorant. You have to assume that crippling poison is on both for the entirety and getting behind your opponent is not an option if they are good. Then there is the argument about double AR; 19/42 combat or some variation will regain more energy over a fight than double AR. Standard combat also has points in improved poisons which is an advantage in a poison-stacking contest. I could also mention Blade twisting and nerves of steel giving a big advantage to deep combat.

AR/prep only has an advantage against rogues in terms of the opener. If getting a sap off is your aim in matches then great, AR/prep is ideal for you. However in a rogue vs rogue 2v2 contest i would take combat maces anyday over AR/prep. Sap is not worth nearly as much against good players since the unCC'd partner will always stay away.

As for my profile, i dont really care about this site so i entered random information. I play a rogue on EU reckoning and i am 2100 rated in both 2v2 and 3v3, i dont bother with 5v5. I don't see why my profile is of importance.

If we start going down this route, then we have to list all the ways that a AR/Prep Rogue can screw over a Combat Rogue, then it just becomes a matter of opinion and it starts turning into a list war about dueling.

As for the Profile, it's a rule on this site. Anyone can say they have a 2100+ rated Rogue in 2v2 and 3v3 (and I'm not saying you don't), but having an accurate profile proves it. Think of it this way, if you were a guest in my house for dinner and I asked you to take off your shoes because I have new carpet, would you say "my shoes have nothing to do with dinner" and leave them on? It's just a curtesy we all make to one another.

Untalented, you're right, but with appropriate talent specs, it's much closer. If you are 1x/4x/0, then you probably have 3/3 Aggression, 1/1 Surprise Attacks, 5/5 Combat Potency, 2/2 Imp SS, and 1/1 Relentless Strikes. (None of these exist in a 0/31/30 build.)

These talents all either increase SS's damage, or reduce the effective energy cost of SS (or, more literally, the number of SS you can do over a period of time).

Consider if you were auto-attacking with a 1.5 speed offhand weapon unhasted (assuming no misses, which is a bad assumption I know). This would proc Combat Potency about every 5 attacks, so every 7.5 seconds you gain 15 energy. This means you gain a total of 90 energy every 7.5 seconds, so you can perform 2.25 SS in 7.5 seconds, which brings the effective cost of SS down to 33 energy. (Let's estimate it's closer to 36 since of course some attacks will be dodged, parried, or will miss.)

Also, SS gains damage bonus from Surprise Attacks and Aggression. These are additive I believe, so SS really does 116% of weapon damage.

That said, Hemo does also have some damage increase talents (Serrated Blades and Deadliness), but it's clear that the SS talents combined are superior overall, and it closes the gap between Hemo and SS.

Nobody I know cares about "how much easier farming is" when its easy with swords, and slightly easier with maces.

Also, I dunno about your guild, but we dont have much trouble with trash, we tend to have more with the raid boss.

Thus, PvE = Raid Bosses.

Surprise Attacks and Aggression are actually Multiplicative (if that's even a word), so it's 106% X 110%, but for the sake of simple math 116% will do.

The new Hemo is going to be better than Sinister Strike from a straight Damage per Energy standpoint. For example, with the S2 Mace (which I believe even my grandmother has at this point) and 1400 AP we get the following for Sinister Strike and the new Hemo:

Average Weapon Damage = (177+330)/2 = 253.5 (we'll say 250 for easier math).
Damage from AP = 2.4 * 1400/14 = 240.


Average SS = (250 (WD) + 240 (AP Damage) + 98 (SS Bonus)) * 110 (SA bonus) * 106 (Aggression)
Average SS = 685
DPE = 17.125

Average Hemo = (250 (WD) + 240 (AP Damage)) * 125 (Hemo Bonus)
Average Hemo = 612.5
DPE = 17.5

The one thing when DPE conversations come up is that Combat Mace builds have Combat Potency. But you'll probably have about 7% to hit in optimal PvP gear, so Combat Potency loses about 17%-18% of it's efficiency.

So it's basically Undodgable Finishers, Relentless Strikes, Malice, Lethality (currently bugged with Resiliance) and 83% Efficient Combat Potency v. +36 on every white hit, Prep, Serrated Blades and the new Deadly Deeds (or whatever the Sublelty Execute is called).

I think it all comes down to personal preference at that point, but Hemo is no longer gimped like it used to be, that's for sure.

Hemo also gives you better stealth, opener on warlocks, setup for massive cp gen, and ghostly strike, 2% less chance to be crit, and cheaper cheap shots and garottes.

All in all, it gives a lot, and you're losing the top half of combat which is not where the majority of your dps comes from. I know we all love CPot, but you can live without it.

I'm going to give 11/26/24 a strong chance for both arena and pve, and see where it takes me.

I don't see the value in Ghostly Strikes anymore too be honest. Sure, it's not normalized (at least I don't believe it is), but with a 2.6 speed weapon we're talking 25 extra non-crit damage for an extra 5 energy. You get the Dodge so it has some uses, but I just don't see it.