Ozzmar

Thanks for the input man. I did a few BGs with Hemo this past week, and what you're saying is pretty clearly evident. With a Premeditation -> Shadowstep -> Cheap Shot -> Cold Blood -> Ambush (Ruthlessness proc) -> Hemo x 2-3 into Kidney Shot, the spec can be pretty devastating against a single target. But, like you said, once I was out of Stealth, I was left to tricks and lucky crits to kill my opponent.

That said, I'm still curious about the possibility of the spec working *somehow* in 2v2, even if it's just marginally.

What do you (or anyone) think of the idea of my partner going with a more offensive spec like 24/0/47 instead of full Resto? Or would full Moonkin be better? Would that help compensate for the lack of raw DPS from my spec and still offer me the mobility and survivability (and fun) of Hemo?

Thanks again for the advice!

 

Valustria

So... having done most of my PvP as Mutilate this season, I decided to play around with Shadow Dance for a bit. I felt I hadn't really given it a fair shot before writing it off last time, and playing around with it in BGs this past weekend, I've come to decide that it has a lot of potential, but I'm not sure I fully understand how to play it to get the most out of it. I'd really like someone who has played it in arenas -- preferably above 1850 rating -- to comment on my observations and give me some feedback.

My thoughts/questions on Shadow Dance:

1) It's really difficult to play past the initial opener, which I'm not even sure I'm doing right. You have a ton of tools and options at your disposal, and I often forget about things like Prep even being available because I have so many other things I could do.

2) My initial opener tends to be Ambush, which gives me 3-4 combo points depending on whether or not it crits (usually it does, so let's say 4CP), followed by either Eviscerate or Kidney Shot (depending on whether or not I expect them to try something like Blink or an instant fear of some sort), into Backstab, Backstab, whatever, Eviscerate... there are so many variables regarding CP generation that it's hard to give a strict rotation.

3) For that reason, I can see your partner(s) being a huge factor in terms of arena viability.

4) I seem to want to save Shadow Dance as a later advantage after I've exhausted this initial burst and need to go toe-to-toe with someone. Is saving it like this a good idea, or should I be using it from the go for a quick surprise kill right away?

5) Currently I'm glyphed for Ambush, Shadow Dance, and Cloak of Shadows -- is that right, or am I missing something important?

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Ozzmar

I'm not real experienced with it, but I've messed around with it a time or two. Your post sparked a couple questions for me though...

Re: #2 - Are you not taking HAT in this spec? Ambush and Backstab have the highest crit rate of our entire arsenal; it would seem wise to take it, no? Premed + (HAT) Ambush = 5 points. Also, assuming you have them Kidney Shotted and you're dancing, 2 Ambush crits = 5 point Eviscerate. What's your spec look like?

Re: #4 - I would wait on it. It's wise with any spec heavily reliant on cooldowns to force your opponents into a corner first, then reset the match with Vanish or CC. If you blow SD early, you risk getting CCed or your opponent surviving it because they still had a cooldown left waiting for you.

Re: #5 - Ambush, definitely. Shadow Dance, definitely. Cloak of Shadows, maybe? I guess it depends a bit who you're teamed with, but I would think you could go for Preparation (for double Dismantle) or Eviscerate. Dismantle will be indispensible against anyone with good melee avoidance. A parried Kidney Shot screws your setup entirely, so it's important to ensure that it lands. Eviscerate would also do well I think. You will have a decent combo point pool if you take HAT, and you'll be doing a lot more finishers than you think.

Hope this helped!

 

Valustria

I definitely spec into HAT. I think I forgot to put Premed on my bar because I'm used to it going where Ambush is now (this evolved from never using Ambush when I was Shadowstep Hemo in the past, and never having Premed when I play Mutilate). If I'm using Premed though, I could lose 3/3 Initiative and still get 5CP pretty reliably.

EDIT: I think this is one of the big reasons I couldn't give Shadow Dance a fair shot before -- it requires so many different hotkeys, even with its own bar, that it's literally too much to deal with. If I can just find a way to make it all work, I think it'll be really good for me... but it's so hard to find ways to make skills that have occupied certain keybinds in other builds play nice together in this spec.

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Ozzmar

Ah, that would make sense. Yea it's definitely a hotkey-heavy spec. I've gotten in the habit of Shift-macroing almost every hotkey I have to compensate.

And to be fair, I forgot about Initiative when I replied initially. Every Ambush, regardless of crit, will grant 3 combo points (2 base, 1 from Initiative). Maybe HAT isn't as important as I originally thought? At least when Ambushing anyway...

 

Valustria

It's not when Ambushing, but it is overall. I feel like one of the ways this build keeps up against other sustained builds in light of all its key attacks being positional is a lot of extra combo points from HAT. If you can't get behind someone and were forced to SS or Shiv for CP, it would be horrible. At least HAT means you aren't starved for CP all the time, provided your party is alive and critting.

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Cos-

I can't imagine a druid speccing into enough damage to make up for how shit terrible hemo is without just going balance but that's just me. You don't want to wear enough resilience to make CD any good and shadowstep will get you to the druid without any reasonable means of making use of the time you caught him in caster.

If you really want to use that sword then once again I have to suggest a Killing Spree build. It has some grotesque burst and nerves of steel really helps keep you up versus frost mages, ret paladins, and other rogues. Killing Spree makes you unpeelable for 2.5 seconds every 1.25 minutes which to me is already superior to shadowstep with how it is now. Then you get the obscene damage of a bladeflurry killing spree if both of your targets are near each other along with surprise attacks.

Most of shadowdance's limited success has been coming in 3v3 from what I see.

 

Troisloeil

You're looking at my PvE spec, try the other tab, I'm dual Combat. I have 2/2 Nerves, 3/3 MoD, and there's no Sleight in my PvP spec.
My Team hasn't played any games this season as yet, just some non-rated test runs. Both my partners are away at the moment. (Pally and an Ele Shaman)

1) I use a very efficient Weapon swapper WeaponQuickSwap - Combat Assist - World of Warcraft Mods, Addons, and More!. Weapon twisting makes up for constant cripples, and I don't generally have a hard time keeping my target slowed, and Savage Combat up.
There's a fair amount of burst in the spec, and while not massive, it is sufficient to put down anything with less then 30K, assuming the open. I generally get the open these days, being human. The only issue becomes that everyone BUT Rogues seems to have a built in heal these days, so it can become a fight of attrition, which is where Combat seems to shine for me.

2) No argument there, it is not easy, and requires practice and good awareness. I enjoy the challenge, and find that most opponents do not expect to be fighting a Combat Rogue, which can be used to my tactical advantage.

 

Veri

It's not a cast sequence macro. When you attempt to use a trinket during a cast it wont work, but when someone hits you the cast interrupts (in the case of hearthstone). What Unmercey does most likely is he probably sets his hearth to a bind, hits hearth and spams trinket. Once someone opens on him the cast will cancel and trinket will go off instantly. Against rogues you can essentially do it with any cast because rogues open with cheapshot, so in arena you could use something like a poison application, mount, or anything you have that's casted.

On second thought, you probably could make a ghetto version with cast sequence but it's probably not as reliable.

 

mattipanduro

Hi there.

Ive been searching the forum for answers regarding rogue PvP caps and general amount to aim for in my stats. Some of the info ive found before and some not. Those ive found before I couldnt seem to find again this night, which leads me to my first post here.

Rogue PvP cap for:
- Hit (170? 178?)
- Expertise (if any)

Amount to aim for:
- Ressiliance?
- ArP (if any)
- Haste (if any)

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

 

liquidroyl

This post has most of the cap information you are interested in:

Combat Ratings at level 80

Hard Cap Values

• Hit - 5%, which at a rate of 32.79 rating per 1%, is 164. There is argument for more hit against certain Races (Night Elves), Abilities (Insect Swarm), and Talents (Arctic Winds), but that is up to you. I have not seen proof that hit is correctly offsetting racials or talents recently, but afaik it works.
  
• Expertise - There's no hard cap on expertise since different classes will have varying amounts of dodge. If you want to parry cap, it's also 5%, which at a rate of 32.79 is also 164 Expertise Rating. Most rogues disregard this stat, because being behind your opponent eliminates their chance to dodge / block / parry, and stuns also eliminate those possibilities.

"Goal Values"
I would just armory high level rogues according to composition for this. In general:

• Resilience - PvP rogues can be found wearing between 400 and 700 resilience. This varies by comp and playstyle. For example, 2 DPS teams usually run less resilience, whereas Rogue / Healer teams tend to run with more.
• Armor Penetration - Rogues usually avoid Armor Pen, but take it as a 5th stat if the PvP alternative piece has fewer stats on it (examples include Neck, Cloak, and Ring slots). Not sure on the math behind it, but I'm guessing the main motivation is because it's Too Damn Complicated.
• Haste - Rogues usually avoid Haste, but take it as a 5th stat if the PvP alternative piece has fewer stats on it (examples include Neck, Cloak, and Ring slots). The primary argument for this historically is that Haste (for Mutilate Rogues) only benefits your white attacks, which are a relatively insignificant portion of your damage. With the 3.1 PPM changes to poisons haste may be a little bit more valuable (iirc the PPM is not modified by haste), but most rogues still don't stack haste.

 

mattipanduro

Thx allot liquidroyl.

Havent gemmed for ArP but I have for Expertise (im JC). Im at 113 atm due to gems and Proto-Hide Leggings.

If I understood it correctly, basically your saying, cap hit at 164 and dont gem for expertise and ArP.

Im at roughly 600 res, so I should regem my expertise gems for Agi/AP/crit, right?

 

liquidroyl

Not to handhold too much, but honestly at your gear level and the quantity you're talking about it probably doesn't merit changing gems - you won't notice much difference. As you gain additional pieces of gear you can transition out of Expertise and save yourself some g in the meantime.


But back to the topic of Shadowdance and Subtlety in general - does anyone else find this tree just extremely awkward? It seems like Blizzard is trying unsuccessfully to promote Subtlety as a tree that you can use either Daggers or Non-Daggers, whereas the other trees are clearly defined. Assuming you get Shadowdance (which I feel is correct for PvP and consistent with Blizzard's 'vision' of how they want people to spec, considering the 3.2 buffs) you are also going to end up taking most of the Ambush talents (minimum +20% damage and +50% crit chance).

Assuming this is true, you have two choices:

1. Take Hemo - Taking Hemo requires that you have a weapon macro to swap to daggers so you can Ambush during Dance. I feel that any spec that requires a player to have use macros to play successfully is a poorly designed spec. It also means that you've taken talents which you're only getting partial benefit from (no benefit on your main attack from Opportunity).
2. Take Improved Backstab - Taking Improved Backstab results in a more aesthetically pleasing spec, but gives you a much tougher play pattern. Mutilate requiring position at level 70 was only partially acceptable in my mind because you only needed to land 1 every 60 energy, whereas with Backstab you need to land 1 every 45 energy. Position requirements for small bracket competition like Arena is simply never going to be good AND good for the game, especially considering that rogues are among the highest priority kill targets because of their frailty. So, unless Rogues are willing to pigeon-hole themselves into cloth-only teams until the end of time, I'd rather not see this be the premiere Subtlety spec either.

Reviewing all of the assumptions I made I think the root of the problem is the fact that there is no non-dagger instant damaging opener for Rogues that can be used during Sdances. I think if there was a "Hemo Ambush" it would alleviate a lot of the awkwardness of being Hemo Shadowdance. Backstab Subtlety would still exist for those interested in BG or 'challenging' spec.

 

Valustria

I just finished a fairly long love affair with Shadow Dance, dagger style. The positional requirement wasn't as much of an issue as you might think initially, because you can pretty reliably open with Premeditate -> Ambush, and that will give you 5CP for a full-duration Kidney Shot that you can follow with two Backstabs. If you've managed to get this far without using Shadowstep, you've still got a way to get behind your target after pooling some more energy. Maybe Vanish and get away to reset, or pop Dismantle/Evasion while you pool energy and get ready to Shadow Dance as soon as the opportunity presents itself. There are a couple ways you can play almost any situation with that build... it definitely takes some time and experience to get past that awkward feeling and find your comfort zone in it.

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Chack

i think the biggest problem with backstab builds in pvp is how heavily diminished the damage from critical strikes is. Backstab does decent damage when you crit, but if you don't then it's really poor (you can sometimes end up in the 3 digit area). It is really hard to bring down armored targets because you can only use 1x wound poison and once you run out of stuns it's really hard to stay behind your target. To make dagger-sub competitive again they'd really need to buff backstab in a similar way to how they buffed the cat version - feral backstab (shred) get's a 30% damage increase from mangle, also it's 225% 'claw damage' opposed to 150% weapon damage. But i am not entirely sure what kind of normalization ferals have on shred, the 150% weapon damage might end up as superior scaling, i doubt it tho as shred seems to crit in the 12k area raidbuffed.

 

Valustria

I should know this already, and I'm going to test it myself soon as I find a rogue to duel me, but I'll ask anyway:

Does Evasion help a rogue dodge another rogue's Fan of Knives? (Can you even dodge Fan of Knives, considering it is a ranged attack?)

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Arakas

Fan of Knives definitely can be evaded, since evasion has a 25% ranged component to it. Just like evading physical attacks, make sure that you're facing the attacker.

It's not worth banking on using Evasion to prevent being brought back out of stealth, but I have dodged another rogue's FoK when I've vanished at the tail end of evasion. And I have seen my logs show a rogue dodging mine when we hit a double-rogue team.

 

Valustria

Well, I wanted to know because whenever I go toe-to-toe with another rogue who is spamming Mutilate, if we are both using Evasion, I'll Fan instead for the better chance at hitting him, since it is ranged.

"In emptiness there is good, but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the way exists, and the mind is empty."
~ Miyamoto Musashi, The Scroll of Emptiness, The Book of Five Rings

 

Chaggi

It's a bit late, but... I'll commenton combat
since I've done >1850, all in this season. I might be rusty in my explinantions because I haven't realistically played in the last month+

Combat: I run primarily H Paladin / Mut Rogue, and when 1850 weapons were released, we decided to try out combat at around a 2100 rating. In short, it was hard. Every match that was healer/dps (this was around when druids realized their dominance) lasted easily 10+ minutes, and often into the 20s. You could catch people off guard and open a KS on them. A big part of the build was having to switch weapons for KS (Wound on OH makes a huge diff) and Cripp on normal.

The good part of this build was simply the lasting power I had compared to Mutilate. I could last through most pre nerf Ret stuns, and a good amount of Rogues couldn't kill me like they used to. Warriors I could go toe to toe with and my partner would go harass. Essentially, we played the mana game, and to an extent... it worked.

The bad is, unless you're ooming people, you're essentially gonna have to kill them within a KS. More teams would have to play defensively against you, in preparation for KS, and I don't feel like I had the constant pressure that I had from Mutilate. Once teams figured out the 1.25 minute CD to KS, it was fairly easy to rotate their playstyles. We also played a lot of player switching, to force oom a bit faster. I saw an earlier post saying that they didn't have that hard of a time to snaring other players. Honestly, I had the opposite experience. I found that it was pretty difficult to keep people snared. Not impossibly hard, but much much more so than I had from Mutilate (durrr)

I think if I had a more offensive partner, maybe a Shaman or Priest, (more Shaman) it could be something to try. When my partner's essentially only damage comes from a damage/heal, it's really just me doing the killing.

 

Zoephobia

Some thing also goes for blind: Even in full hit gear pve spec (that's way over 10% hit) I still missed blinds on a rogue with evasion.
So if you're sure, you're going to be blinded soon throw in an evasion just to piss the other rogue off.

 

Baihei

Do you think maxing out Herbalism would be worth it to mitigate this?

I just got my little Elf Rogue to level 80 and am mulling over what professions/specs to settle on after I finish grinding out the more massive final-level expenses. I am doing my own number crunching and research, but any rendition of personal experience would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure there's something I'm not aware of. I am very, very "O.O noob-rogue!"

Most of the decent PvP-Rogues I personally know are some sort of combination of Engineering, Mining and Skinning. However, with the recent Engineering nerfs and the incoming buffs to Lifeblood, Toughness and Master of Anatomy, I'm wondering how it'll change.

Test Realm Patch Notes: WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes

Edit: Forgot a preposition.

 

Cos-

BSmithing and JCing will be ~ 40 and 42 agi respectively, Master of Anatomy will be what? ~60 crit rating? No thanks. I can't imagine people with gathering skills are currently using them for the amazing buffs.

 

Baihei

Huh. I didn't even think to look into the other profession-only buffs outside of those four, and a bit of Alchemy. Thanks. I'll go research some more.

 

Troisloeil

I belive Cos is hitting it on the head.
All the gathering skill buffs are on the mediocre side. I was originallly excited about the Toughness buff to miner's, but at it's best it was only 600 health, now it's a joke, but I feel you absolutely must have it to go Engineering, unless you're ROLLING in gold or have an Alt to grind for you. Once you cap your skill level, it may be feasible to change to something else, I don't see trying to level the profession without it.

Keep in mind, this is what Blizz claims the nerfs to Engineering have been all about. They felt that Engineering seemed to be the "mandatory" profession for PvP, due in part to the Googles. I'm still not sure what they intend, as they taken, and are about to give back, in a way that seems to make their claims...specious (they claim to be increasing the benefits in 3.2 of the items they just nerf'd). New Engineers may be disapponted, or maybe not. I will say I miss my Nitro Boosts like a junkie misses his fix. They're not all that useful in PvE, and losing them in PvP period, really sucks.

I've not personally used the Herbalism heal, so I can't say how helpful it is. I don't think I'd consider it for that alone. It just doesn't seem to pack enough punch for us, so unless it's supporting your craft skill (Alch, Inscrip), I'm not sure it makes sense. It is a strong cash earner, if that enters in to it.
With the Human Racial "Every Man for Himself" I basically get a "free" trinket slot, so I've situationally used [Medallion of Heroism] and one of the Battlemaster trinket's [Battlemaster's Conviction].

If you try it out, I'd be interested in hearing how it *actually* works out for you

 

Grunge

No. Lifebloom is horrible and Mining is terrible.

Jewelcrafting and Engineering are the defacto leaders for pvp, even more so in 3.2 since, depending on how the trends go we might gem for resilience (god forbid!) or at least gear more for it.
Meaning that Jewelcrafting will offer the most flexibility via Dragon's Eyes, although Blacksmithing is also a "equal" alternative.

Also Engineering will be superior to everything else as long as rockets will be usable in arena.
Same reasons as Bandit's and DMC: Death will be top-choices for a long time.

Fans glory to the Gladiators,
Gods glory to the Heroes.