Vestalina

Tower-

I know many of the top PMR teams on my server (all are S2 gladiator) and one of them is making their rogue go deep mutilate. One can see that with well-timed CC's and controlled burst, any target can be bursted down. A PI'd mage launching ice lance combos and multiple mutilates could easily kill single targets with the best defense the game has to offer.

Mutilate is a very viable spec for arenas if the rogue is excellent at positioning and energy management... it's just that with the AR/Prep craze, nobody has any reason to spec anything else. We will see a lot more top rated teams sporting mutilate rogues in the upcoming patch if changes are implemented. A well-played mutilate rogue is devastating.

Check out Tosan's rogue/rogue 2v2 PVP video if you haven't already. One is using Emerald Ripper and beating gladiator-geared opponents which I find hilarious.

 

Hildegard

Yes. 20/41 misses mace stuns. Think of warriors, if mace spec would be so deep in the fury tree, that you couldn't spec it with Mortal Strike. Deep sub specs are now strong, but I think still one point away from real strength. It lacks burst, but can build up a lot of pressure. The problem is energy. No Relentless Strikes, no AR, no combat potency. Finishers are so much more expensiv and the energy to make pressure and then bring the kill is just not there.

So what is the point in bringing a rogue into the team and not a warrior ?

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde

http://forscherliga.wikia.com/wiki/Hildegard

 

Tower

Why is this thread the same content over and over and over? Because no one reads past their own post. Yes, Mutilate is a solid spec, no it is not better than the current HARP spec or as diverse in team makeups.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is the point. The more seasons and nerfs we endure, the less viable we become. Shadowstep is shit compared to 15s intercept, I would gladly spec for and gear for a 15s intercept. HARP gave us pressure AND mobility for the first time in TBC, more pressure and mobility than any other class had even if it was for a short time, and now they're taking that away. Druids and warriors, dominant in 2v2, are now even more powerful in 3v3. Druid/Mage/Warrior > Priest/Mage/Rogue.

How can people stomach the fact they're nerfing the best spec we've ever had, and the 2nd best option is going back to specs that were good but not great? Can't wait for the nerf to go through and all these rogues saying "I'm glad they're nerfing HARP!" and "I can't wait to spec back to Mutilate!" play a seasons worth of 2v2 and 3v3 without maces stuns and AR. Season 1 felt like purgatory, that was vindicated by our buffs at the end of Season 2, and now we're going to be rolled back? Fuck that!

Sorry, lots of my posts have been negative lately, but I've spent many hours in arena as mutilate and quite a few as Shadowstep (lots of losses!) and the future ain't bright.

 

Darlal

I have to agree with Tower. I don't have the high ratings he does, but I played at the 1750-1800 range in season 1 and season 2 with my shammy partner. With the advent of HARP we finally felt that we had a chance to break through the impenetrable wall of warrior/healer teams. Instead, druids/warrior has become 10X worse than pally/warrior ever was, and that was bad. In week 1 season 3 I went HARP and my partner went resto (he pvps as resto and enhancement...poor us) and we went from 1500-1620 in 12 games. With the news about the HARP nerf I decided to get a jump on the changes and get back into mutilate shape (using my old season 1 daggers). It was miserable, we managed to eek out a 1-1 record but still dropped to under 1600 for the first time since week 3 season 1. The big problem is that anything with a warrior is an auto-loss essentially, and a single well-geared druid can almost stay alive forever against both of us. I'm not claiming to be a pvp master, but I know how to do damage and how to kite...even with both of us going OOC and mounting it was next to impossible to nail the druid down (full s2/3 gear, resto/feral).

This is not a complaint, rather it's a show of support for Tower in his claim that it's really bad form to applaud the HARP nerf when the things replacing it are rather dismal. I guess I'll go back to PvPing with a PvE combat build.

 

Quellcrist

Is a 41/20/0 build considered the standard Mutilate build in arena? Has anyone found if the yellow gains by going 41/0/20 not worth losing the white damage and sprint?

 

Tower

I believe Opportunity allows for larger mutilates, but by a small margin that is offset by more consistent mutilate damage with DW spec and stronger white damage. I'd say 41/20 is 3v3 and 5v5 only build, while 41/0/20 or 44/0/17 are better suited for 2v2 and some 3v3 makeups.

 

Grunge

Circle-strafe around them and as they turn to face you, circle-strife counterclockwise and you'll get behind them to get a few hits in.

Imo Mutilate really shines in 5v5 and is quite good in 3v3 (with RMP, can't wait until Icy Veins).


Hmm, I haven't played 2346 this season, but after we failed in the initial burst (ex. warrior boarding up or getting PS'd) we'd switch to something different.
And well. 4dps imo is weaker now. Rogue/Mage/Warlock/Disc Priest/Shaman has impressive burst and can still work+ offers mana-burning ability and extra control through shocks.
If you were rolling with Shadow Priest+Paladin... Get the Priest to switch his gear for Disc (if he already bought s3/honor stuff. GM's refund it once per season afaik.), and that setup still works. Not as good as with a shaman but still 2k+ material*.

Well AR/Prep was far too powerful. The nerf might have been too heavy handed but I can't say I'm really sad about it.


Well first. Full Merciless Gear sucks for mutilate. You really want to have a few select items from PvE. T6 Chest or Pants, Akama Ring (imo it > s2 ring). Mother Boots are a few examples.

I agree that not having Renataki really sucks. I pray for a substitute in WotLK but I fear that we won't get one.
As far as specs go for damage you really want 41/20/0, however for 5v5, imo 53/0/7 is the clear winner due to Imp. Kidney+All other support talents. 9% damage increase is quite something when your Mage is PI'd+Trinket'ed up.

I don't know. I agree Mutilate isn't as good as Combat for bg's but it's definitely not as bad as Shadowstep.
In battlegrounds I often find that people are paper. Probably since they aren't wearing full resilience gear. It's really nice to two or three shot people as well. I never had that feeling with combat. Makes me feel like a warlock.

Rogue-Warrior sounds like a rather unorthodox setup. At what rating did you face them? Warlock+R/M/P, Mage+Rogue will rape them and I can't see them getting really high.
About 4dps I covered above.

Why SP? They just suck now, as Disc+Shaman will give the same utility+ more burst.

RMP is probably one of the few (if not the only one) setups that works for mutilate though. Warlock/Warrior-Druid is much better as combat or ar/prep though. You can make it work as mutilate though I guess.

But yes. Imp. KS+Icy Veins+PI. 6-7k Frostbolts anyone? (not that those don't happen already :P)

53/0/7 imo works better for 5v5.









*depending on Battlegroup.

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

 

Tiiki

There is one 'famous' rogue using 53/0/7 for 5s at the top level. I really don't buy its viability for one second. All you need is a warrior hamstringing you and you're fucked. Or a Druid casting roots, or novas about the place. It requires as much babysitting as a warrior, basically, without the toughness. You're taking 12 talents in poisons to basically replace what warrior's get for one (Mortal Strike).

And you just cannot circle-strafe a warrior when you're hamstrung. They can rotate at whatever speed they like while you're severely slowed. Not to mention the fact they're beating the crap out of you all that time. To the extent that when we're focusing a warrior on the other team, I'll try to vanish, or get on a healer or other dps out of range and let the rest of my team deal with him. I'm just a healing sponge with a warrior on me and do negligible damage on plate (CB Mutilate hits for about 1250).

Also, do you not see the problem with saying "Oh, yeah, Mutilate does need a few pieces of T6" ? I haven't raided since just inside S1, and I don't have the time or inclination. I'm rocking the best gear I can have, pretty much, as a pure PvPer, and yes, it's far worse for mutilate than pve gear because you spec mutilate when you don't expect to be heavily focused.

I suspect that the age of Rogues not being focused is already over. The more mutilate rogues there are, the more they'll get focused- it's like fire mages-- only Prep specs are survivable enough to be viable if people start to learn to gib rogues- and any team running a decent warrior can do so.

If you read my previous posts you'd also see that we were losing 20 pts a time (at about 1720 to start with (which is top 100 in our battlegroup, btw)) to the warrior/rogue team because it's not a strong lineup. They weren't smart or coordinated. They just sat a rogue/warrior on me until I used my 3 escapes and then died.

The lineup I'm running is: Holy Pally / Disc Priest / Felguard Lock / Ele Shaman / Me
Shaman, Priest, and Lock are all as well geared as me (over 400 resi, full honor+ 5k of s3 gear, etc.), and the Paladin isn't too far behind.
There is no way in hell we wouldn't be better if I was a warrior, and that's the key frustration.

I hated AR/Prep (it's boring), but I still agree with all of Tower's sentiments.

This is a laughable statement when you look at the state of Warriors at the moment. In what 5v5 (since that's what Blizz are ostensibly still balancing for) lineups were AR/Prep rogues 'far too powerful' exactly?

The fact I don't have a RMP team (or any 2v2/3v3 atm) only adds to my 5v5 frustrations. We're down at 1650 or so now, after a couple of weeks work. Argh!

 

Grunge

Arguably I'd say it's because it requires much more support from your team. Also AR/Prep being the FOTM when s3 hit made a lot of people take maces as their weapon choice. Meaning that they won't be changing them for at least a month and a half, more if you're not 2k+. And well 53/0/7 is a example. I've tried out 42/12/7 and it works out quite nice as well. I'm not a big fan of Murder or Imp Expose (those talents are the reason why you need the extra 5 in imp poisons, since to get them you need to drop Precision) so opting to not take them leaves enough points for precision. Dirty Tricks is just a really REALLY nice talent to have and Opportunity just has better synergy with the burst-like nature of mutilate in 5v5's.

Hmm, I don't know. It's not only circle-strafe, also going through them and stuff like that. It's hard but I don't find it as frustrating I guess.

Understandable. Doesn't change the fact that people who want top gear combination (not to mention epic gems, unless you sold teams and made truckloads of gold to buy them) do both.
It's definitely not a requirement though.


I doubt that, focusing the rogue means they aren't focusing a warlock/mage or your healers.


Did you try mind-control? Blind Warrior early to force trinket->1v1 vs rogue with you having shield+renew/hots ticking?
For that matter as mutilate I really find it uncomfortable to team with a healer. Played with a Shadow-priest both season 1&2, switched to a mage in season 3 (Priest went disc for 3v3/5v5 and Hunter-Priest 2v2). For 2v2's Warlock+Mutilate is decent, but Warlock+Mage is playable. (Winnable against top warrior-druid, which is arguably the hardest match-up for RM).

You're right. In that setup if you were a warrior you would do better.
But that's the thing. Mutilate is not as generic as say Combat Maces or AR/Prep. It works well with a limited number of setups. High Control, High Burst. Elemental Shaman isn't CC, he can shock but it's not that great.
Swap him for a Mage and you'd see much better results.
Of course this isn't a option if you're playing with friends and for fun.
Another thing about shamans, Elemental really lost it's viability with the death of 4dps (Ie. Healing->Spelldamage), as a Restoration Shaman can still shock for high damage and he's a healer. Same with Shadow Priest-> Disc.
If Doomkins could heal in birdform...


Mm, I'll cover that below.



In 5v5 ar/prep wasn't as "overpowered" as it was in 3v3/2v2, as for Blizzard.
Seeing the recent warlock/mage/druid/warrior buffs, I'm not too keen on believing anything when they talk about balancing. Still, try swapping in a druid and maybe get your shaman to get his gear changed for Resto-set...

Mutilate is a solid build. Combat Maces is a solid build. AR/Prep is better than both and then some.
Maybe that's the issue?
Did they nerf it too much? Probably. But if you've been on the receiving end of a AR/Prep rogue while you would know just how much stronger they are compared to Mutilate or Pure Combat.

The thing is if they had nerfed it less it would've been solid. (as a alternative to Pure Combat or Mutilate).
And we could all whine for being weak and needing buffs. They could've nerfed Hemo a bit and buffed Pure Combat and Mutilate. I would've been happy with that. But as it is now... It's just too good.

As for why I can say that I'm glad they are nerfing HARP? Because I hate HARP, I hate Pure Combat. They are both boring to play. I love mutilate. And I didn't jump on Mace bandwagon at the start of s2, and I didn't jump on HARP bandwagon at the end of s2. I knew I was "gimping" myself (and my team) back then and I stepped out of my 3v3. Because instead of playing a spec I hate, I'd rather play a spec that's fun.

For that matter I played for season 1 and season 2 both as mutilate. I can't say I felt that it was painful. Perhaps it was a gear issue, seeing as I did much of season 1 wearing T5-PvE-Some PVP (ie 4pc s1 sucked, 2pc t5 is really nice) gear.
I really loved 2v2 with a Shadow Priest. Nothing put a bigger smile on my face than dropping warriors left and right.
Never felt myself being gimped in TBC. Definitely not as strong as at 60 though, but that's life for you.

I'm sure a lot of rogues are unhappy about HARP. It's just that from my point of view, it's not a bad change.

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

 

• LodeRunner

Subtlety's largest problem remains that too many talent points are devoted to helping stealth or openers. While Deadliness and Sinister calling are very very strong, the rest of the tree is just lackluster in terms of adding offensive ability. There are too many utilitarian talents. I agree that the added utility makes the class more fun to play, but Subtelty's burst pales to Mutilate's, and the sustained damage falls far short of Combat's.

Even some of the coolest abilities like Cheat Death become worse as you stack more resilience because your health bar will be that much closer to empty before a potential killing blow activates it. If you've got no resilience there's a chance that a large burst will potentially kill you when you're at 30%. Cheat Death then activates and attacks are still hitting but you've got this fair bit of a health buffer. With a lot of resilience in the same scenario that huge burst may take you from 30% to 5%, and then Cheat Death procs from the next attack but now you've got a tiny health buffer for your healers to work with. It just seems counterintuitive in some situations.

 

diotox

I just don't see why Blizzard thinks for some odd reason that rogues need to have a diversity of specs. I don't see any problem with rogues having 2 cookie cutter builds: one for daggers, and one for non-dagger weapons. Both builds need to have mobility, preferably in the form of something on a low cooldown. Right now, I have NO idea what the hell they are trying to do with rogues. HARP offered both great pressure and mobility, albeit it did rely on lots of long-cooldown abilities to pull it off, but it was there. And it got gutted. Now they are left with a sub tree that is difficult to balance in their eyes, because the 41 pointer is primarily a mobility ability. Meaning, if it gains too much damage, it will be like HARP in the damage AND mobility department, and apparently they have a problem with that. I just don't see why.

 

Darlal

At the base of it, blizzard just doesn't know what to do with stealth in small-scale pvp. On one hand, the opener is a big advantage and people hate/complain about getting stunned by something they can't see. On the other hand, once you're out of stealth, you're out of stealth for most of the fight (unless you and your partner can coordinate very well). Blizzard is very aware that if they buff Rogue's sustained pvp damage to the level of say a warrior, mage, or lock, people will feel that it's imbalanced for a class to do that kind of damage AND have stealth, yet if they don't increase the sustained damage, rogues become low-tier contenders in arena. The old solution was to give the rogues a specific type of damage, burst, which is why old-school 31/0/30 (or 30/0/31) were so popular, they had extremely spikey attacks that were tough to heal through. Enter resilience. Since late arena season 1 rogues have been looking for non-crit, non-burst specs to balance out the huge hit burst damage takes against high resilience targets. The first major shift was to combat, particularly combat maces, which allow for control and higher sustained damage. Then, with the hemo buffs, to possibility of a spec that completely ignores crit was born. The real power of HARP isn't it's burst damage, it's that it allowed rogues to spec deeply into two trees without spending a single point on crit talents. The only reason AR happened to be powerful is that our best energy returning ability (thus sustained damage ability) is 11 points into assasination, a tree that pretty much forces you to spend your first 5 points on crit and has 5 more points later spent (if you go deeper into it) to increase crit damage, a further 5 points to give a second combo point after a crit, and a 21 point talent that increases the chance to crit by 100%. I would argue that the power of deep combat and then HARP wasn't a vote for AR being over powered, but a vote AGAINST the philosophy of the assassination tree's playstyle in pvp.

I also love the control of mutilate. I played mut rogue/resto shammy up to around 1800 in season 1 before watching my damage plummet and our rating go with it. We were so fed up with the counter-teams and limited playstyle that I went combat in S2, which we found made us a weakened version of war/pally (war/druid these days). The solution is not a nerf to HARP, but a rethinking of WHY rogues are working so hard to avoid certain talents and what can be done to balance the stealth aspect of the class with the out-of-stealth aspect.

 

Leek

I bet a fury warrior could say the same about an arms warrior or a destruction lock could say the same about SL/SL lock. Funny our PvP spec is better then our mostly PvE specs at PvP who would of thought. Its suppose to be like that, for the first time we actually had a viable PvP spec that wasn't a PvE spec taking some PvP talents as filler.

I hope the devs actually take the time to make a rogue and play with it as deep sub build for a month or two. Right now its pretty obvious they are taking shots in the dark, shadowstep is not the glaring problem in the sub tree. It needs work that I admit but if they truly want more sub rogues and maybe they want this to be our main tree for pvp a lot of other talents need to be changed moved or just plain scrapped. They can start with making sprint = to intercept.

 

Vestalina

Hah...if only Blizzard would put Mace Specialization in the Subtlety Tree... nuff said?

 

Tiiki

Darlal:

I mostly agree. Don't have time to write a full response to Grunge (though I would like to), but it comes down to a few things:

- As you note: crit is bad because of resilience. HOWEVER- I do happen to think that 20/0/41 'works' on the crit front. 15% agi + the crit on S3 gear + malice + lethality DOES give a useful level of crits - usually ~35% unbuffed. And lethality + malice go a good way to making crits hit hard. Another way of looking at it is- WITHOUT lethality, all the tons of crit on the S3 gear is 'wasted', since your crits hit so softly. 20/0/41's problems are numerous, but sustained/spiky damage aren't one of them. I actually think if a Rogue stays on target his sustained damage is great. It's just we have by far the hardest job of any class doing that (barring non-viable specs like enh shaman).

- I don't think stealth is the problem at all, but I do think our 'nerfed' burst is. Remember, back in the day- Eviscerate was king, that's what you were really building up 5 CPs for, a big EV crit. KS was secondary. Now a Rogue will use KS, SnD and Expose before he starts thinking of using Eviscerate (or Envenom, ha!). As someone previously noted, as HP/Resi skyrocketed, our stuns stayed the same as at about level 58. 4 sec and 6 sec, despite them STILL being complained about is a very short time compared to 12k HP.

Mace stuns filled this gap, bringing our stun arsenal, if we were lucky up to 12-15 seconds with some lucky procs. And in the face of the changes, I DO now think 20/41 or QR Combat deserve looking at again. Everything has gone a bit "Season 1" and this was the dominant spec then, for good reason. And now, it's the only way to get Mace Stuns- easily the most complained about Warrior/Rogue ability in Arena if you ever read the WoW boards.

But what about Burst? Eviscerate needs 3 talents and then scales very mildly with AP. AP that's always low in Arena gear unless you're 41 pts subtlety for the 2 scaling talents. And even then it's mitigated by the armor that even clothies now have a reasonable amount of. The fact that you can probably, solo, apply more damage during a full KS than you can with a full Eviscerate (followed by your target escaping) tells me that it's basically a broken ability. And remember, this used to be THE signature rogue ability.

What would I do?

I'd add a new rank and increase its scaling significantly. If that was too broken against PvE geared players* then maybe give it a secondary ability too.

I'd also add ~10% to all BASE poison application rates, give envenom a buff / some extra scaling and make it work off wound poison, so that with Vile Poisons it became a useful and worthy Mutilate signature move. To be honest, you could make it some very worthwhile damage since you'd be giving up: a KS opportunity AND a full stack of Wound (which is a huge loss if the target doesn't die) to use it.

Rogues should be known for their on demand: stuns and burst
Warriors have very spiky damage 'for free' because of their slow weapons AND have better mobility AND need less time on target for sustained damage because of the slow weapon issue. 4 secs off a target between MS's doesn't hurt them much at all.
Rogues need to be able to punish people that we DO get time on target on properly, not just by poking at them gently with some red cauliflowers and then have a KS resisted.

Oh and through all this they're still buffing ambush and backstab? It takes about 40 minutes to get enough CPs for a KS with backstab. They will never be viable unless their reliance on critting is completely reworked.

Anyhoo, excuse the stream of consciousness!

* which opens another can of worms - are you designing abilities vs full resi opponents or not? Why should crit abilities be so heavily penalised, etc. etc.

 

Tiiki

Just trawled through our entire top 20 in our battlegroup, only 2 rogues represented. Both on the same team and swapping with warriors. One has Syphon + Swiftsteel, the other has Dual Warglaives and they both wear 60% T6 for PvP.

This depresses me not at all

 

Halfdane

Has anyone experimented with Shadowstep weaponswap?

The idea being that you Ambush/Backstab out of stealth/after shadowstep and hemo (with a non dagger) otherwise?

My limited macro/GCD knowledge suggests that [shadowstep/switch to daggers] could be one macro, and [backstab/switch to big weapon] could be the other, and this wouldn't have any effect on your GCDs.

You would still need to manually (or with another macro) switch to daggers 1 GCD before opening with a stealthed, non-shadowstepped ambush.

 

Tower

I ran 8/12/41 last week a good deal, 5/5 Malice 3/3 Imp BS. It was fun, but like any other Shadowstep build you need a partner who is dishing out a lot of sustained damage to make your burst useful... and hope it isn't a mail/plate target. I ran with a Renataki for a while and I can see how ShS adding a combo point to your new target so you can ShS, Hemo, BS, Ren, BS would be pretty pimp.

But since ShS doesn't stun, warps you with latency, uses a GCD and your target is likely going to run after your shadowstep - good luck sacrificing another GCD with a weapon swap.

 

Morph

Pretty straight forward if you use stance bars (like Bongos to switch bars when swap in and out of stealth). I use this for Ambush. I don't backstab because, at least at the moment, it isn't worth it.

/equip Gladiator's Shanker
/cast Shadowstep
/cast Ambush
/equip Gladiator's Pummeler

You press once for Shadowstep and then again to perform the ambush. The mace is equipped before the GCD is finished to Hemo. Only small issue is that the dagger will equip even if SSTep can't be performed due to LoS or range.

You can always use three presses and do

/equip Gladiator's Shanker
/cast Shadowstep
/cast Ambush
/cast backstab
/equip Gladiator's Pummeler

 

Grunge

You can't compare warrior and warlock specs in that sense. Both Mutilate and Pure Combat were solid. AR/Prep was just better than both and people were forced to (unless you "gimped" yourself for 2's) spec it.
Neither warrior or warlock have gotten a "new" really good spec that blows their old ones away.

Also how do you define AR/Prep as a "pvp" spec? Because it doesn't do as much damage as Pure Combat in pve? Neither does Mutilate (As much as I hate to admit it. It's viable though.) So mutilate is also a pvp spec?

As for viable pvp specs... We had those back at 60. In fact our "golden" age was pre-DR. Even in 2.0 I could take on 4-5 players and win. Granted they weren't the best players, but that's that.
In TBC, the start of season 1 was really good as well imo for rogues, if you worked for your gear. People weren't wearing full resilience and renataki combos could still easily kill someone (now you need a actual coordinated burst from your other team-mates.)
As for subtlety being our main PvP tree. I don't see that happening for daggers at least, and it's the weapon type I like to play with.
I'd prefer Combat being the PvE tree (with it supplementing the other two trees for damage, a'la 41/20/0 or 0/20/41) with both being equally viable and equally powerful.
Shadowstep as a ability is really not a 41 point talent, perhaps 31 at best. Premeditaion itself is a awful one and should be removed/made trainable (unlikely).

I agree that Subtlety needs a lot of work. But so does Assassination and Combat (I'm looking at you Deadened Nerves and PvP Fillers in Combat.)

Hmm. Blackout is filled with rogues. Top 20 has 13. Perhaps it's simply the mentality of your BG Tiiki?
Then again we have Klauz, Xom, Hwarang who are all excellent old school AA players. Can't comment on some of the new faces though (There's been a huge influx of skilled players to AA recently. I hope blackout won't turn into a BG9...)

So don't despair. Try out a warlock/mage ;D If your BG is warrior infested it's just silly how easy it is to win against warrior teams.


Overall, cheer up guys. Rogues aren't off as bad as enhancement Shamans

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

 

Halfdane

So I've tested a bit with weapon swaps, and while they trigger a GCD, you can swap during a GCD. Also, there are ways to set it up to be somewhat more foolproof....

________________________________________________________________________
/castsequence Ambush, [Your Mace Name Here]

You have to actually click it twice (which is to say, spam it until you see the Ambush hit), but it won't switch you to your maces until the Ambush completes. Similarly, you can have a macro

/castsequence Shadowstep, [Your Dagger Name Here]

Neither of these involve any sacrificing of GCD, since you switch to your dagger during the GCD of the Shadowstep.
________________________________________________________________________

The real question is if it's worth it. Suppose that you're 20/0/41 Hemo, but you have comparable main hand dagger/mace. Is it worth not getting any poison talents and having more constrained Subtlety choices in order to get Opportunity/Improved Ambush/Improved Backstab?

Running the numbers, I see an S3 geared Shadowstepping/Sinister Calling Rogue hitting an unarmored 400 resilience opponent for an average crit of 5500 with that Ambush, as opposed to getting a 1200 crit with a mace Hemorrhage.

 

Emth.

As of the current PTR build I can't see how ShS backstab can even touch ShS hemo viability with the horrendous CP generation and need for extra talent point spending of the dagger variant.

Not to mention the hemo debuff which is effectively playing with 150~ more AP. They really need to sort out daggers.

The answer for me would be making mutilate a 31 point talent allowing it to be coupled with the essential subtlety talents such as dirty deeds and prep (or possibly blade flurry if you went that way). It could be overpowered without further tweaks but even with the current layout you wouldn't be able to obtain Dirty Deeds and full Find Weakness together.

 

Grunge

Mutilate as a 31 pointer would be incredible, but it won't probably happen.
Would make it a much much better pve spec as well. (Something like this would be quite nice.)
The question would be if Expertise is better than 2 points in Opp.

Backstab is pretty much dead at the moment. It'd need a complete overhaul to work.

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

 

mde

I don't know if this has already been made but do you think someone could enlighten me about where, and if not, tell me a decent rotation based on spec whether it's Mut or HARP. I'm harp and i feel like i'm just randomly blowing AR.. due to the fact that i have prep and i want to use it as fast as possible to avoid having someone healed to full and yeah.. no burst. I do usually save my trinket for when i do pop it but are there any other guidelines that I'm un-aware of and what are the standards of using SnD in arena? What pointers would be most viable?

I've been told to do cheap shot.. 5pt EA.. then AR and do the 5pt KS.. and then just use evis for the burst.. should i use SnD instead?

 

Tosa

I have a question about warrior/druid. I'm currently running with a resto shaman (pve guild in a pve server, so I don't have a lot of options). We just started playing together and right away we hit a cockblock mostly of warr/druid.

I don't think I can be on the warr because the druid can control my healer pretty easily. So I try to find the druid early and burst him down before the interecpt+hamstring finally keeps me away. I try to save my outs when I get stunned or hamtrung, evasion to avoid bash or to stay alive against the warr. I usually gouge the warr as well before imp sprinting to the druid. I have my shaman use frost shock, war stomp, and earthbind to slow down the druid or keep the warr off of me. We bloodlust early and even have my shaman dps. We've gotten 2 wins in about 20 matches against that combo.

I understand that it might be our lack of skill. But loses to other teams we can usually attribute to a mistake or to some freak RNG thing. Against warr/druid, I don't know what we can do. Is this combo the rock to our scissors, or is there something we're missing?

Hold shift for focused movement.