Kaij

I'm considering 28/33/0 for 2v2 with a Disc Priest partner and I'm wondering if anyone has any insight into negatives of the build. Other potential partners are a Resto Druid and an SL/SL Lock (all four of us share a team, but the DP and I group 100% of the time and the other two group 100% of the time... lately we're thinking of switching things up though).

As I see it, the picks in the first three tiers of Assassination are a flat-out requirement. 4/5 Vile Poisons instead of Imp Poisons to slow abolish. The fifth tier is, again, a given in my opinion, as I get much-needed mobility from Fleet Footed, imp KS for finishing targets off, and Quick Recovery to take pressure off my Disc Priest partner (both 2v2 and 3v3). Cold Blood... I don't know, it feels a bit optional, but I would on put it down in Vile Poisons anyway, although a point in Master Poisoner would provide some small amount of protection against teams with Rogues. Then again removing that burst option would likely cause fights to draw out a bit more.

For the Combat tree... Imp Gouge and Imp Sprint are requirements. Not so sure about Endurance as Evasion is generally only useful against 3 classes, meanwhile Imp Kick would generally be useful against 6 classes... but Sprint is fairly clutch so I like cutting the cool-down time. DW spec, Mace spec, etc, seems pretty self-explanatory. Still get AR for some burst and Nerves for some much-needed fear/stun resist.

So, problems:
No Surprise Attacks so SS only benefits from Aggression
No Imp EA
No Riposte

Any other thoughts? Haven't tried this out just yet. I don't think either team rating will go down much, just that my Arena partner isn't on for me to test.

 

ekval

You could drop Endurance and Imp. KS for Riposte easily. About Imp. EA, you really don't have enough CP's to EA people with that spec anyway. Considering that you take Riposte and no Imp. SnD you mostly end up refreshing SnD all the time. Even getting 5CP KS while having SnD up is really hard with QR/Combat spec. The combo point generation is quite awful after AR considering you don't have Combat Potency that full Combat specs have. Imp. KS doesn't add much if you only play in 2v2 (with healer) and considering you play QR/Combat which doesn't allow enough combo points to KS every 20sec cooldown most likely.

I played QR/Combat in Season 2 and it was quite good actually. It's more like outlast build and requires to be paired with healer. CP gen is not awesome but mace stuns help so you don't need to Kidney Shot all the time.

If you really want Riposte, then preferably drop Aggression for Imp. SnD. If you can live without Riposte you can take Imp. SnD, Endurance and max out Vile Poisons.

Variation

You can switch last 1 talent from Endurance to Aggression if you prefer damage, or 1 point from Lethality to Aggression.

 

Stylle

I'm new to pvp and have a few questions about getting started in Arenas. My guild is 4/5 Hyjal and 4/9 BT so I have access to decent but not great pve gear. My partner is a disc priest. He's an alt of a guild mate and right now his gear is pretty mediocre (Kara healing gear with 1 or 2 honor pieces).

My assumption has been given that I have T5 quality gear, I'm better off using pve gear until I get S3/Vindicator's gear rather than switch to S1/S2 gear. Is this correct?

Also, I'll be playing 41/20 combat swords with 5/5 vile poisons and no riposte until I get the swiftsteel bludgeon to drop then I'll be going Combat maces with the Kael mace. Is this a reasonable plan?

Is it reasonable to try to stack armor pen? I just got T6 gloves and I'll get S3 chest on Teusday. I also have the choker of serated blades and can get Dories Embrace in a couple weeks. Given this, is it reasonable to use warp spring coil and put executioner on my mainhand (blade of infamy) or should I stick to bloodlust brooch and mongoose? My other option is the dragonspine trophy.

After 1 day of 2v2 our rating is 1658. We got to 1699 before a string of dc's and bone head moves dropped our rating down. Is this reasonable given our experience and gear or should we be rethinking our strats going forward.

Finally, I've found when playing warrior/healer that we do best when I just tank the warrior. I shiv spam wound poison and burn him down. This works for rogues as well. The only exception is when the healer is a druid. How do I defend against abolish poison so my healer doesn't lose the mana war?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

 

Tiiki

Shiv Wound and put Deadly on MH as well. And apply SOME control to the Druid.

Executioner never makes sense for PvP. The dodge from Mongoose is valuable too, remember.

How much resilience do you have? I'm very very impressed if you can tank a Warrior in T5?!

 

Stylle

I've only got about 60 resilliance right now.
Maybe the warriors were all scrubs (it was in the 1600-1700 bracket) but I never really came close to dying.
I'd pop AR and Evasion and spam shiv instead of sinister strike. By the time Evasion faded, I'd be at 80+% and the warrior would be below 30% with 5 stacks of wound on him. The healer simply couldn't recover. We farmed about 50 points from a warrior/shaman team and easily beat a warrior pally team this way.

 

Faras

Heya Guys
Don't blame me for my English, I'm not that good at
I got a little question:
How do I make a macro for

shiv with weapon swap for a cheaper shiv?
I'd like to have the "old" weapon right back equipped, after shiv.
I'm a newbie to all this macro stuff and I didn't really find such a macro with google or at this site, nor at the public wow forums. I'd also appreciate a link were I can look it up.

Thank you guys for all the information provided here. It helped me really out sometimes, when I didn't know how to skill / improve my skill.

Thanks @ElitistComunnity

 

Darlal

Stylle, I'm really shocked to hear that. As a rogue who played in the 1800 bracket in S1 (took most of S2 off) I find warriors to be horrendous. When I spec Riposte and evasion I can tank them for a bit, but good warriors will just destroy my team (rogue/heal shammy...not ideal for 2v2, but still). I think we are playing in roughly the same bracket (1666 rated right now, shooting for 1750 this weekend) and we consider warrior/druid or pally (and even priest/shammy) nearly an auto-loss. Thankfully our record against non-warrior teams last week was 6-0 and we went 1-3 against warriors. In general a warrior will simply sword and board during evasion, weapon switch back to a twohander when the Overpower cd is up. Or they'll blow their fear at the beginning of evasion and usually get a nice hamstring/mace stun that tends to finish off the evasion timer. After that I WILL eventually eat a mace stun/MS crit for a solid 3k damage (with about 380 resilience and 11k hp). Now rogue/priest is a good deal stronger than rogue/shammy as you can mana burn the pally/druid while I fight the warrior which could turn these battles into wins. Still, I can't imagine considering warrior/healer a good matchup.

 

Stylle

Well I had fear ward up so int shout wasn't a concern. Non of the warriors tried to intercept stun/disarm me which I chalked up to me chasing them down and staying withing 8 yards or perhaps it was a lack of skill on their part.


I was eating the occasional crit for 1.5-2k but in almost full pve gear with slice and dice, I was tearing through them faster than they could tear through me with evasion up. I don't know what to say perhaps we just had a lucky day. One of the warrior did switch to sword and board and defensive stance but it didn't seem to help much.

 

Mackabre

Hey, my alt is a rogue. I've been playing Harp as most rogues have been. Since the patch, I've went 20/0/41 and like it so far. It's pretty BS that we gotta now choose between Mobility or sustained dmg. But I like how this spec is working out. My rogue is currently almost 2.1k 2's and 3's. Full S3 armor atm socketed with mainly epic orange gems, heh I have access to em in my guild.
So far, it's been so so...you have to rely more on your partner to do more dmg to get em below the 35% mark, but usually after that I finish a lot. Ruthlessness and Relentless strikes help out a lot with combo points and energy regen with the lack of AR, although it's not really an AR it definitely helps. Only thing I miss is imp SnD and Imp sprint, but so far dealing well with it.

The World of Warcraft Armory

if ya wanna see em.

 

Almehym

I only have to ask why you socketed so many crit/ap gems. 10agi seems like it'd be a better spending of gems, or even agi/hit, considering no precision or weapon expertise as with a combat build. You're basically wasting the bonus agi that sinister calling is giving you.

 

Mackabre

Ya, the main problem was of course Red gems. Maybe just my guild, but we're always short on Red gems, so gemming an alt with em would be pretty bad. I'd figure the orange epic would be better than the red rare gem and have been playing like that since. No precision or weapon expertise has been slightly noticeable on my part.
I would like some input though, would agi/hit or straight up agi gems be a lot better? I didn't think 15% more agi would be better than the straight attk power gems would give.

 

ice.cream

Yea I've asked this question before, and with agi gems you can benefit both from deadliness and sinister calling, but I'm not too sure what to gem as well.

 

Tiiki

If you're 40+ subtlety, definitely Agility in all possible slots where the colours are viable. I'd keep all gem slot bonuses as well though.

 

Tiiki

Hi Faras-

You can't swap instantly back like that, because there's a GCD on each weapon swap (1s for Rogues).

You can have macros, though, to swap OH, then hit Shiv, then swap back, and have an array of OHs with different poisons on in your bags.

This is the one I use at the moment:

#showequip 17
/equipslot 17 Merciless Gladiator's Shanker;
/equipslot 17 Vengeful Gladiator's Mutilator

It equips my S2 Shanker on press, and swaps back to my S3 Mutilator when you press it again.

I think I will move to using 3 buttons (or at least some shift-combos) to swap S3/S2/Malchazeen to give me 3 OH poison options (Wound / Mind Numb / Crippling).

 

Hildegard

Envenom in 2vs2 when playing with a shadow priest
I read lots of comments stating over and over that evenom isn't viable as a finisher, since the ticks do plenty more damage. Well, when playing as a mutilate rogue with shadow priest in 2vs2 things change in my opinion. One standart tactic of this combination is to bring a controlled burst by luring the enemy healer and the focus target to use fear ward / insignia and then to kill of one oponent. In this scenario envenom starts to become viable in my humble opinion - especially when combined with shadow word death.

The numbers:
Base damage: 5 doses Deadly Poisons: (900+AP*0.15) damage
Attack power: 1550 (supposed mungo didn't proc)
Vile poisons: 20% damage increase
Murder: 2% damage increase
Improved Kidney Shot: 9% damage increase
Find Weakness: 10% damage increase
Misery: 5% damage increase
400 Resilience: 20% Damage loss on a crit
Meta Socket: 3% Increased critical damage

900+ 1550 * 0,15 = 1133
1133 * 1,2 * 1,02 * 1,09 * 1,1 * 1,05 = 1745 damage not critical

Modifiers combined: 1,5409548

Damage with four stacks up: 953 * 1,5409548 = 1469
Damage with three stacks up: 773 * 1,5409548 = 1181

Critical with five stacks up: 1745 * 2 * 1,03 * 0,8 = 2876

1745 damage after two mutilates (one with double crit), which also have find weakness and improved kidney shot up, combined with the shadow priests burst seems like a fair trade to kill someone off.

Usually the battle is lost once this burst fails - so I don't see the point in not using envenom if 4 to 5 stacks are up when trying to burst someone down.

Of course one can argue about choosing deadly poison over crippling or even mind numbing, but point of discussion is envenom usage as finisher instead of eviscerate (which could/would cost three talent points more) and is affected by armor migitation.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

Mackabre

Question, I know that Lethality is a mathematically bad talent. I always thought Murder and IEA would be better than Lethality. Thats why I totally dropped it and went those, with maxed VP And Imp. Evisc. Is it worth picking up?

 

Hildegard

When going mutilate I would definetly take it, as Mutilate profits a lot from critical damage and it ads up with the meta gem. I'm too lazy to give you numbers, but mutilate is a lot about controlled burst damage and the lethality increases the spike a lot or to say it the other way round: Without lethality mutilate is missing the BANG. Especially since PVE gear is the flavor of this month. When going deep combat I would most likely drop it and put five more points in the combat tree.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

ekval

Envenom should be made to work with Wound Poison to be honest.

 

HLG

What happened to QR/Combat maces guys? Suddenly, everybody forgot about it and started talking only about mut and shs specs or 30/0/31s.

Anyone tested out QR/Combat maces?

 

Tower

What's to test? Gimp damage and +20% incoming healing, test it yourself and quickly respec to a build that is more focused.

 

Hildegard

All Specs Took Maximum DPS Talents As Filler Choices:

19/42 Combat Sword: 847
19/42 Combat Mace: 822
41/20 Combat Mutilate: 790
0/31/30 AR/Prep Swords: 781
0/31/30 AR/Prep Maces: 755
31/0/30 Seal Fate Hemo: 750
19/0/42 Assassination Shadowstep Hemo: 747
0/20/41 Combat Shadowstep Hemo: 745
25/36 QR Combat Mace: 730
43/0/18 Subtlety Mutilate: 717
30/0/31 Seal Fate Dagger: 707
53/0/8 Heavy Poison Mutilate: 690
19/0/42 Shadowstep Dagger: 690

Based on 4000 armor and 400 resilience. The full article can be be found here: Sustained DPS Comparison: Popular Rogue PVP Specs from World of Ming | GAMERIOT

I didn't check his results, but it seems that AR/Prep is still quite strong and the sustained damage of ShS/Hemo builds is higher than expected. Anyways would be interesting to see how much simplification is in there and how much certain builds proft from higher/lower armor and PVE gear.

Hildegard Sprigglespruxx - Wissenschaftlerin am Institut für Pfuschkunde

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

 

Mackabre

Those numbers are good, but like you have to tank into the account the target isn't just gonna stand there and do nothing and you'll be uninterupted the whole entire time fighting. Being kited kills/snared off the target kills a lot of the combat specs and the ones without imp sprint or ShS.

 

Tiiki

It's still very interesting. I've seen some top Rogues swear blind that Step/Hemo is better sustained damage than Combat Mutilate. Which I knew was bound to not be true.

As Mackabre notes - time on target is another issue: and it generally benefits Mutilate builds, since they can unload a full 120 energy bar in basically one GCD.

The other interesting thing (that everyone probably knew) is that they're all pretty close.

And lastly - why is 31/0/30 > 19/0/42? Seal Fate better for DPS than Sinister Calling? I find that very very hard to believe.

EDIT: I thought this was personal testing Ming has done. On checking, he's just using the Rogue spreadsheet, which I understand doesn't model Mutilate or Seal Fate generally, very accurately. That's a shame, as it kinda undermines that part of the numbers...

 

Halfdane

Am I missing something? For sustained damage, how does 1 AR, 1 BT, weapon expertise (?), and the mace crit buff beat out Sinister Calling? 10% more damage on hemo? 75 more agility?

 

Ratak - US KT

There's been a bunch of work to improve SF modeling so it's much better - and the numbers should be pretty good. Depends on the version he was using. However these calcs are based on sustained CP cycles which I find is meaningless in PvP more or less as you'll more often than not use control finishers.

Ratak