It's not the wounding shiv that's key, it's the Mind Numb. Getting it on a caster is amazingly good.

Essentially, if my target is moving (ergo not casting), i'm chasing them shivving Crip (unless they have freedom, in which case MN anyway).

If my target is standing there taking it, which, as discussed above, they often do, I'm shivving MN on the whole time instead....

Had a question regarding Expose Armor and how to incorporate it into a mace (or other build) combat cycle...

While its a fact that in PvP you can never depend on a cookie cutter combat cycle, assuming all things go in your favor at what point do you use expose armor? I have read a lot of posts praising the usefulness of imp expose armor with a warrior on the team but have noticed many top 2v2 mace rogues speccing into imp expose even with non-melee partners. Theoretically you would think doing unmitigated dmg to a caster (or anyone) would be amazing, but seeing these rogues' success seems to prove it is in some way working in their favor. Where does it fit in? Do you drop your first 5 points into expose? It would seem that with 3/3 ruthlessness dropping a 5 point expose wouldnt be a bad idea as you would get an extra point 60% of the time. Would it be best to use this point to SnD to maximize the unmitigated dmg the expose gave you on the caster? Obviously expose's benefits decrease the higher your target's armor, so does this mean expose is only fully beneficial on cloth wearers? Can someone who has had success with expose/imp expose enlighten me?

In PvP I'd probably EA after S&D. Then blow your adren rush and trinket after that.

It's mostly used to set up a spike since you can put it up and rebuild up to 5 CP's but having had Imp. EA in most of my builds I can't say that I'm a fan of it when you're the lone physical DPS to take advantage of it. It's only 2 points however, and really the only other viable PvP choices for those points are in murder or vile poisons. As of late I'm leaning towards vile.

Btw the macro for the OH weapon swap is:

/equipslot 17 Warp Splinter's Thorn;
/equipslot 17 Gladiator's Shanker

I was wondering what the thought was regarding resilience as a stat for Rogues, especially in lower brackets. I play in a 2DPS 2v2 and 3DPS 3v3 (yeah, yeah, I know... it's points, though relatively few of them), and have noticed that trying to tank things, even with my current 77 resilience (working on it, have pvp neck, bracers, boots) doesn't seem to work out all that well, and that we tend to do much better frontloading DPS onto a target such that it requires fairly focused healing or making it 3v2, in our favor unless the remaining targets are paladin/feral druid (something that has happened a fair number of times, unfortunately).

Now, with 9.5k HP and 77 resilience, as well as Cloak and Evasion, we can usually manage to get one target down, following which the whole survivability aspect becomes more important. But given that the burning down one target ASAP is key to our strategy, while blinding and sheeping healers and whatnot, should I honestly attempt to achieve the 200 or 300 or whatever is the max resilience for rogues? Or should I focus more on being able to burst down that first target, not sacrificing so much AP and Crit, with a passive focus on stamina and survivability.

I'm not saying that resilience ever hurts, merely asking "Is it worth the damage sacrifice for a class that has such little innate survivability (compared to priest, warlock, warrior, druid, etc.) anyway?

For 2v2 if you're with a healer, resilience is key. That doesn't mean you swap out your t6 for Halaa Battle Token armor, but it does mean if you can wear gladiator gear or better, you really should. If you're playing rogue/mage or rogue/lock, then you can skimp a bit on resilience, as you're attempting to use cc and damage to win but the same still applies, you better be wearing great PvE gear if you're banking gladiator.

3v3, it depends on your partners. 3v3 is more of a balancing act, but I shouldn't have to comment how much resilience you're going to need if your team is paladin/warrior/rogue or some other strange variant. Rogues best friend in 3v3 is a mage or warlock along with another healer, as they offer a ton of cc and good damage, making the team decide who to lock down instead of just "burn the rogue".

It should also differ from spec to spec too, Mutilate you want more offensive stats for those ever crucial KS > Cold Blood mutilates than will win a lot of your games. Maces on the other hand is the rogues poor man arena spec. The strength is in your punishing white damage and stun cc, which relatively has little to do with how much gladiator gear you decide to wear. You're more effective being a stun/pushback machine for 3 minutes than only living for 2.

I'm leveling a rogue and I will be gearing her in the Battle Grounds once she hits 70 (in a couple of months). That is about all she'll do.

What I've noticed is that nobody has the Subtlety tree completely filled out. Cheat death and premeditation look quite good. Shadowstep looks like fun and the 15% more agility talent looks solid enough. For BG pvp would a 40 or 41 point Subtlety build make any sense or is you damage just too nerfed?

In addition, since Subtlety is so dependent on your opener, it drops like a rock the better geared/organized your opponent is. If they survive the initial onslaught, and a random player in Arena gear will, you're in deep trouble. Shadowstep only finds the scrubs and takes them out with ease ... but the scrubs don't really matter, anyway.

My advice on that matter would be:
Play Shadowstep till you start thinking about serious arena play.
Shadowstep is fun to play in Battlegrounds, getting 3-4k ambush' on cloth is fun, no matter what everyone is telling you.
But for serious arena play you need something more reliable. Once you get in 1,8k rating area, nobody will die from a Premed->SS->Ambush->CBEvis Combo.
Hell in a couple of month with arena gear avaible through honor, you will meet 12k HP Warlocks in the lower ratings, too.

So grind your honor points in the battlegrounds with whatever spec you want. But don't expect to be competetive in any arena bracket.

2v2 team, until recently, was Rogue/Rogue, and, strangely, I found resilience most useful in that makeup, again because of the paladin/feral teams that we seemed to go up against that were almost impossible to kill.

3v3, at present, is 3DPS of some sort. Rogue/Mage/Rogue, Lock/Rogue/Mage, Lock/Mage/Lock, or some other iteration thereof. Again, it's not optimal, but I feel to a certain degree that my "boom" is essential.

Regarding spec? You're going to cry, but 15/41/5 even for arena. I should probably try out Mutilate again, but I prefer to be ready for raids/instances at any given moment.

What do you guys think of Blade Twisting for 5v5? The daze effect seems like a solid insurance policy for the more easily dispelled Crippling Poison.

That a 20% chance to proc on an ability we only do once every 4 seconds isn't really worth it. You really don't have an excess of free points either.

How important is having a slow, high damage offhand for mutilate? My rogue alt who is mutilate right now is using season2 shanker mainhand, and a [Crystal-Infused Shiv] in the offhand. He has 9.3k hp, 187 resil, 23% crit, and 1282 AP. I know in the long run I should probably get a shanker for my offhand as well, but I'm impatient, I've been eyeballing the possibility of just picking up a season2 shiv for my offhand. Is this a huge blunder, should I just suck it up and save up points for a second shanker? Or maybe should I forget the offhand and work towards 2 pieces of arena armor to bump my survivability a bit? I don't do serious arenas with him, only 2v2 with various DPS friends, and I have no intentions of raiding or doing any PvE at all. Getting those extra stats from the offhand sooner rather than later is very appealing.

The damage difference between a shanker and a shiv in mutilates is not really something to worry about ( Rogue Theorycrap: Mutilate, Part 4: Myth on Off-hand Weapon Choices ), get a shiv for more poisons/lower cost on shiv etc. Personally I'm using a S2 shanker MH and S1 shanker OH, but i've kept my S1 shiv and put a weapon chain on it to swap in if people disarm me. Right now I have to work on replacing the blue honor gloves/legs with gladiator items, then I will probably get a S2 shiv for a weapon chain.

If you wanted to know a point equivalence system(that's how I understood it ) here's mine:

Agility = 1
Stamina = this really depends on your hp, over 10k its imo more to 0,5, 9k-10khp 1,5 and under 9k hp 1,8 or so
Resilience = 1 (over 10k hp and if you still feel you die too quick rate it higher)
Attack Power & Strength = 0,7
Crit Rating = 0,8 (With resilience and crits doing less damage I really don't favour this stat, all offensive gems unless you want the gem bonus or something should be Attack Power)

I'm looking for some input from anyone on a Warrior-less 4 DPS lineup (pref. with a rating over 2000). Have you regretted going Mutilate over Combat Maces, or vice versa? If so, why?

I'm currently Swords on a 4 DPS (2007 rating), debating between the two. On one hand, I feel my team could use more burst. On the other hand, everyone we face now seems to have 400+ resil.

Thanks for your input.

Go maces,

The rogues Job on 4-dps is to control the focus target and to stack wound poision.

Focus on doing that first, and let the locks/mages/SP/shaman provide the burst.

Mutilate felt better for 5s than maces do, mostly because your job is to be the person who punishes a mistake. If you're on the warrior, for example, much of your time is spent waiting for that warrior to overextend or place himself in a vulnerable position somehow(using death wish, switching into zerker) so you can nail him to the floor. The extra 9% damage from Improved Kidney, FF snare resists, and QR along with controllable burst from CB Mutilate made it feel better overall. That said, we tacked on ~86 points with me as maces, so it doesn't really seem to matter all that much.

I did some looking around on the wow forums (>_<). The consensus seems to be Brutal Earthstorm stuns (1% chance for a 1 second stun) and Mace Specialization stuns (6% chance for a 3 second stun) are both privy to the 'uncontrolled stun' 15 second (20 in pve) diminishing returns.

Is it rational to use a Brutal Earthstorm, given the chance that its stun proc will reduce an undiminished mace stun from 3 seconds to 1.5?

I don't think it's worth it, even if it didn't compound DR problems. Stun and snare are a rogue's bane. We all know how fast we can go down after an intercept - 180hp +5% stun resist is going to be king for a while.

I just dusted off my newly 70 rogue (after a several month hiatus) this past week for PvP (and some minor raiding). My initial goal is to pick up enough stam/resilience gear so that I can arena without being turned into a grease spot in 5 second flat. Obviously, more time in the BG's (for honor gear) and arena (for gladiator maces + armor) will improve things.

Here's what I have acquired so far in my limited play time, which puts me at 130 resilience.

* [Cowl of the Guiltless]
* [Grand Marshal's Leather Spaulders] / [Grand Marshal's Leather Gloves]
* [Shadowstalker's Sash] / [Shadowstalker's Leggings]
* [Big Bad Wolf's Paw] - Very lucky first drop for my guild's first Opera clear

My next plans include working for spirit shards for the [Band of the Exorcist], as well as mats for [Necklace of the Deep] + 2x12 stamina gems.

So two questions for folks:
1. What other easily obtainable entry level PvP gear would you recommend I look at?
2. Since my partner(s) is probably going to be a shadow priest (2v2) and SP/rogue/mage (3v3), any advice on team composition or strategy from someone who has fooled around with those combo's?

Well, I think a good rogue rule of thumb is if you can't fill the spot with resilience gear, fill it with a solid epic - which in your case is a good use for heroic drops and heroic badge items. The heroic badge neck + cloak are often used in 2v2 and 3v3 over PvP epics if you're looking to grab more hit and offensive stats to complement your teammates. The [Bloodlust Brooch] is also a must.

Heroic Slave Pens
[Midnight Legguards]

Heroic Black Morass
[Girdle of the Deathdealer]

2 good boot options. (Boots are great with a PvP cloak with +steath enchant. Rogue openers are still valuable in 2v2 and 3v3)
Heroic Arcatraz gets you a chance at [Shadowstep Striders]
BOE blue drop [The Master's Treads]

Your first piece of PvP Honor gear should be the PvP trinket with 20 resilience, then the Veteran's bracer, and you should fill it with the 10 resilience gem from Halaa PvP or the new 6sta 4resil gem along with a 12sta bracer enchant, in my opinion. First PvP of arena gear is hands down the gloves, then the shoulders.

Sorry if I mentioned anything you though well-known >_<

Actually, noone will die from that combo until lvl 71.

(CB and ShS is mutually exclusive as for now.)