Grunge

No no, I usually play 5x in 5's, 44/x/x (with RMP for imp ks) in 3's and 42/x/x in 2's often dropping a point in Vile or something else for Imp EA which here is quite important.
I might try 44 or 46/x/7 variant for 5's this week though since I like precision more than Imp. Poisons.

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

 

bossviking

Having only specced Mutilate once in a few BGs, what do you do with your energy when you and another melee class are targeting each other? I found that I ended up with energy I wasn't able to dump with Mutilate as I was maneuvering for position behind the other rogue/warrior, and Gouge usually broke to unhelpful dots. Should I just spam Shiv or SS until Kidney cools off and I can get behind him again?

 

ekval

Its quite easy to get behind targets atleast with new Fleetfooted (15% run speed).

 

Spoony

Relying on blade twisting procs is not a good sign, 20% from certain abilities only is far too low to catch up to druids, and the daze is unlike a mob daze; they can still travel form out of it.

The highest SS I've gotten vs 400 resil targets were 1200 on a clothie; 700 on plate/shamen.

Honestly given the state of rogues right now, I cringe at the thought of going back to combat; it feels like a gimped warrior way too much.

Ice block is basically a vanish that actually works.

 

Tiiki

You should be able to run through them and get a Muti off every 6 seconds, even when controlled.

It's hard, and I've complained about it before in this thread, but I'm getting better at it...

In other news, myself and the Shaman I referred to previously have just been dumped from our 5v5- seemingly because I have a job and they want to play in the 'afternoon'. This after all three of them frequently were late or no showed for many scheduled evening sessions.

So I guess I am looking at a server transfer to play competitive 5s now.

Fuck.

 

Kreoss

You guys have any special tips for a Rogue - Resto Shaman in 2v2 that I might be escaping?

We are currently in 1740 but anything with a Warrior + Healer sucks... Specially Warrior Druid. Not easy to kill Druid, specially when I have a Hamstring on me all the time and the Warrior Keeps Mortal Strike so easy on the Shaman making him waste lots of mana, his mana will go down...

 

Merradin

Battleground Maces Versus Swords

Ok, here is my situation I've read through the posts in this thread as well as the Roguecraft 101 thread. I have just hit 70 on my BE Rogue. And I did the leveling in a somewhat unusual way, as in I stopped questing at 67 and ground out the last few levels so that I could quest for extra gold. I also spent a large amount of time in the BG's at 69 accumulating 100k Honor and badges to match.

From this point on I plan to quest for gold, do attunement quests for end-game PVE, grind badges of justice in heroic instances, and run daily's, as well as doing arena casually with my RL druid friend if 2v2 or him and someone else if 3v3 as a way to fill in some epic slots that aren't easily filled with badge of justice loot.

Ultimately the goal is to either gear up to a point where I can be competitive enough in PVP to fill out some season sets or to get geared up to a point where I can meet the gear requirements for raiding guilds past Kara/Grull's.

Now that the background is out of the way does anyone have any insight on the decision between the BG Maces and the Swords. The issues I'm stuck on is the -3% DPS versus the added control for PVP and solo mob fighting from the stun proc.

My apologies, if this reply doesn't belong in this thread but based off what I've seen this thread has the most robust Mace v. Sword discussion. Oh and as far as talent spec goes I was looking at the standard combat sword or mace or possibly Hemo.

 

Tiiki

Have your shaman wear some DPS gear and help you out on that front.

Watch some Geecee videos

In general though, it's a weak set up, and warrior/healer will always be trouble...

 

Tiiki

For PvP, and that's what this thread is about.... Maces > Swords by a hundred miles. Easy.

 

Zavior

Hi.

I'm currently doing pvp as shadowstep hemo, and I got access to DST. I was wondering if bloodlust brooch would be better?

 

Tiiki

Read the thread!

And try it yourself. It's a flavour / team setup thing as much as spec.

 

Melnor

Most would say that an on-demand click trinket would have more utility than a random proc trinket. I use Ashtongue or Madness of the Betrayer (or Renataki when I'm mutilate) myself. I never really did enough heroics for a BB.

 

Quellcrist

I'm going to make some small adjustments to my mutilate build again, but before I do I wanted to get people's feeling on Ghostly Strike.

I have 2 points remaining, and I can either go for Ghostly and 4/5 Camo, or 3/5 camo and 2 points into master poisoner.

The idea of a 15% boost to dodge for 7 seconds every 20 seconds seems stronger on paper, but has anyone had any experience with it? or is master poisoner stronger than I am seeing it for?

 

• LodeRunner

I had probably the most fun I've had on my rogue in months yesterday. What did I do, you ask? I spent most of the evening in Battlegrounds Shadowstepping fools. I am so in love with 20/0/41. Part of this was due to Cheat Death being broken*, and it was hotfixed this morning I believe. I played some 2v2 arenas with my frost Mage partner and did so much better than when I was Mutilate. There's something in the playstyle that just feels right about deep Subtlety and having the early Assassination points. I can sap again. I can get openers again. Hell, I practiced the whole blind --> vanish --> sap when you're fighting 2 on 1 (which I'm bad at) and grew a lot more comfortable with that. My Hemorrhages were hitting quite hard, I had plenty of energy, and the Premed --> Garrote --> Hemo/Shiv if cripple isn't on yet --> Rupture is just bleedtasticly good on high armor targets. I'm even saving Ghostly Strike for when caster targets dip below 20% health since it does a tiny bit more damage than Hemo. I am such an incredible nuisance on the battlefield and it is a total breath of fresh air after HARP and Mutilate.
If you haven't tried this spec out and are feeling sort of in a funk with your Rogue, I cannot stress enough how liberating it all felt. The only real damper is that I've ground all my honor gear and have nothing left to buy if I keep doing these battlegrounds. Oh well. I suppose there's always pvp gems.

*For those unaware, Cheat Death was bugged and reducing more damage than intended. Instead of reducing 90% damage for 3 seconds it reduced 99%. I looked through my Combat Log to see such gems as "Frost Shock Crits you for 16, Multishot crits you for 20" etc. Hell, I ran into a pack of 8 enemies and as soon as Cheat Death procced I basically had an extra 3 seconds of immunity.

 

Tower

Go Camo+Master Poisoner.

Ghostly Strike is junk for dagger builds, as you use it to gain access to the dodge at a high energy cost/low damage, then proceed to try and move behind your target, exposing your back quite often and making that dodge gain useless. It's only good if you can use it and dps your target, with the target that you used Ghostly Strike for in front of or on the side of you.

 

Tower

It should honestly be 99%. The ability is complete crap when say you have 2khp left, warrior executes you for 1900 and you bleed for 100 damage. Activating Cheat Death, leaving you with 100hp and certain to die from the next swing, which will likely do more than 1k damage (10% of 1k would be enough to kill you).

For it's placement in the tree at the cost of 3 talent points, Quick Recovery is so much better. Tacking on a +healing effect would do wonders for the reward for investment.

 

• LodeRunner

Yeah well it's sort of a goofy skill. It gets worse when you add more resilience.

 

Tiiki

Hmm, you make it sound so tempting!

I did try 20/0/41 pre 2.3.2 to see what it was like. And I liked it a LOT. But now I'm in my Muti groove, I like that a LOT too. You just can't solo healers with 20/0/41 but a lucky double mutilate on 120e really puts them behind. Muti is just absurdly spiky compared to Hemo and I love that part of it.

The fun of Step is.... well... stepping And it is awesome.

So my 5v5 collapsed and I've actually managed to find an awesome Lock I know and his Druid partner from 2v2. I 3v3 with them now and they may be up for 5s. Which just leaves a Disc Priest - 450+ resi ones of them are like golddust, especially on my server.

So, on to my point: Ming reckons you can get away with a Druid in 5s instead of a Paladin if you're a Step Rogue, because unlike Warriors/other Rogues, you don't need freedom so much.

I wonder how true this is? Paladin/Shaman/Priest is so awesome also for the double offensive and defensive dispelling, as well as offensive and defensive BoF and BoP. I wonder if a Druid's Warrior control (lesser in 5s, due to the other side having BoF almost always available) is enough to make this work: Druid/Priest/FG Lock/Step Rogue/Ele Sham ?

This lineup also has less burst than my old lineup, of course, since I was/am Mutilate in that. In fact it's a very defensive setup full stop.

Bah, and I just bought and double Mongeesed both S3 daggers, too!

I think Mutilate in 5s without freedom available might be pretty lame? (even if I do have imp sprint and 20% snare/root resist...). Killing Hunters would be a bit frickin' impossible too... come to think of it.

 

Ozzmar

True Tiiki, but that's not really what he asked. It's pretty much common sense that maces are the best pvp weapons, and swords are the best pve weapons. I think that's why he is distraught. If I'm inferring his post correctly, he just wants to be good at -something- for end game, but is concerned about the sacrifice that choosing one weapon type over the other will do if he ends up doing the opposite of what those weapons are ideal for.

In other words, which is worse: using maces in pve, or swords in pvp?

My two cents would be to go with the swords. Maces stuns are awesome, no arguing that point. But, like Impact, like Blackout, and like Frostbite, it's not something you can rely on. It's just a really cool proc that happens to help a lot if/when it procs. However, you could just as easily go a whole Arena match without one mace proc. Those instances will have you going "Great, why the hell did I pick these again?"

Likewise, the mace stun proc will almost never help you in a pve setting. The 5% extra crit damage is also almost negligible as you won't be focusing on crit with a Combat or Hemo spec.

To the OP, basically, you just have to bite the bullet and make a decision man. This can be argued into the ground to no avail.

 

Quellcrist

Oh, I know that position has no effect on dodge chance with mobs, but does that not apply in PvP?

 

Merradin

Thanks for the more elaborate response to my original question. Your assessment is entirely correct. I am clear on the fact that if all I wanted was PVP maces would be the choice. However, like you assumed I don't know where I'm going to wind up. Given my situation the question is fundamentally different than the type of sword v. mace discussions seen so far which focus on maximax, whereas my primary criteria for the this decision would be based on minimax and i feel that if anyone else felt it was relevant there is a strong potential for discussion of these types of choices, as we have all been in the position of trying to raid and PVP in our careers as rogues.

 

Tower

Hm, you're misinformed. You always want to be behind your target in PvE and PvP, no matter what your spec is. PvE mobs cannot dodge melee when you attack from behind. PvP players cannot dodge melee attacks that also come from behind. The reason why you see a dodged mutilate or backstab is because your model was probably very close or on top of their model, giving you the ok to mutilate from behind, but also the ability for them to dodge.

My point was, Ghostly strike is useless in dagger builds because in order to dps you are constantly walking through players while snare etc trying to get your mutilate's positional requirement, essentially wasting that energy you just used for extra dodge rating. SS/hemo builds have the option of using Ghostly and circling an opponent, or simply walking backwards out of LOS of other dps.

 

Almehym

PvE mobs CAN dodge from behind. They cannot parry, which is why you should be attacking from behind. That makes it so you do more dps and the tank takes less dmg.

 

Furiousk

That was my understanding as well. Melee attacks from rear positional can be dodge/miss/hit but not parry/block.

Seems to be supporting evidence for this on wowwiki

Attack table - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

this being the relevant portion

I don't know if the attack resolution is identical for PVP vs PVE combat, but as far as I know, you can dodge melee attacks coming from your rear positional.

EDIT:

I will see if i can do a little confirmation testing on this during the evening. Should be easy enough to duel, trigger some high dodge abilities (+50-60%), and have a high attack rate class (rogue) attack from behind. We should quickly see if there are any Dodge results vs clean misses and normal hits.

 

Ozzmar

I've been corrected on this before. Played have 0% avoidance when being attacked from behind.