Very true, but hopefully there won't be too many as elementals are no longer immune to poison so you wouldn't need to worry about that aspect at least.

But the extra crit for mutilate is definitely interesting and will affect the PvE mutilate builds of choice. I think a 41/0/20 build looks a lot more attractive now that the renamed talent Puncturing Wounds gives 15% crit to mutilate.

I need to work on my baby rogue modeling tool to see the effects. Anyone have preliminary results at this time?

I think the thread for Mutilate and Raids is here. There is already some math to be seen:
[Rogue] Mutilate Raid DPS Discussion

At the moment I am still clueless what to spec for arena or if there might be a build usable for raids and arena. 41 points in assasination now seem much to less. So I shamelessly put my wishlist in here:

- Make improved kidney shot unresistable
- reduce talent points needed for poisons
- buff vigor in some way, perhabs reducing the finishers energy cost
- move Opportunity in the Assasination tree

*smiles*

Er, Mutilate needed MORE burst?... sometimes I just don't get Blizzard.

I'm going to have to try this out with the change to Envenom.

Totally, if I can afford the S3 MH before S4 then i'll definately be trying it out. I was mutilate all the way up to the HARP revolution, and was pretty much forced into the spec because it was so much more powerful, and ended up with S3 maces.

I personally believe all stun resist mechanisms should be changed to lowering stun duration. This helps remove the rng element from the game. Kidney shot is very powerful if it lands for the full 6 seconds; with focus fire my 3v3 team typically kills our target with 1 full kidney.

I do not believe any of your suggested improvements to assassination tree to be warranted, it is a result of nostalgia of pre bc sealed fate dagger days of stunlocking targets from 100-0. I believe the game has been tailored away from that and people should move on and realize how imbalanced that was.

Mutilate is fine for pvp. Non Mutilate dagger specs are not viable for arena pvp at all. Rogues in general already have the most viable arena specs to choose from out of all the classes in a game. You are already specced mutilate and have daggers, why do you want to switch to shadowstep? All your "wish list" improvements calls for more burst damage and shadowstep has the least burst damage of any rogue spec in the game. The best thing you can do for yourself is figure out which play style suits you best, then gear and spec towards that play style. There is no best spec, only a best spec to fit you.

I think the 15% Mutilate crit is more for PVE than PVP. Of course it helps in PVP to overcome a targets rsl and often when you're kited, as Mutilate is so easily, you can unload a double Mutilate on your target once you finally get back into range -- extra crit will make it hurt more.

But the problem with Mutilate hasn't ever really been damage or combo point generation, which is what 15% more mutilate crit increases. It's just plain old time on target. Too few root breakers PLUS the added difficulty of needing to be behind a target who can also snare you.

I'm excited about the change, but mostly because Mutilate is what I love playing in PVE. In PVP I think it will remain mediocre. I do literally twice as much damage being Shadowstep as Mutilate simply because a) matches last a lot longer when neither my target nor myself die from burst and b) I'm able to stay on my target SO MUCH MORE. I'll be happy if I'm wrong as I kind of hate Shadowstep, but can't deny the effectiveness of it.

I wonder what the standard PVP mutilate build will be though. Even more points in assassination? You can't get to Mutilate and get Imp KS, Vile, EA, FF at the same time if you spend 3 talents on 15% crit, which would seem to encourage spending more than 41 talents. After all if you're going to 44 why not just go 54? In 5v5 where you can have Freedom I can see Mutilate doing pretty well come to think of it just getting Opportunity and Imp Sap and then taking basically every talent in Assassination except Remorseless Attacks.

What change to Envenom?

Can anyone think of any viable Rogue/Esham/X lineups for 3v3? My 5v5 is collapsing due to no shows... AGAIN!

Envenom doesn't consume the doses of Deadly Poison anymore. That is a change that was in the leaked notes, of which a large part already came true. So there is a chance it might get included.

I hope you mean elemental shaman, and in that case, shadow priest or mage would work. If you are talking about enhancement shaman, try druid for fun, druid works with anything.

The incoming Imp Backstab is forcing me to re-arrange my cookie-cutter 41/20/0 points. Currently I am planning this 41/20/0 build.

In order to get the new imp bs I've had to migrate points from murder and imp ea. This leaves me wondering about the effectiveness of 1 point in lethality vs my 2nd point in Imp EA. Additionally is passing over Quick Recovery kosher?

If you had to level from 60-70 with a true pvp build which would it be?

-HARP (even with nerf)
-ShS
-Mute
-other?

Mutilate in a heartbeat; I DID level from 60 to 70 as a mutilate build. You couldn't start getting Dual Wield spec until 66 anyway, so no reason not to go the slightly more world pvpesque 41/0/x. It's the least cooldown dependant and you can wreck most nonelites in the initial stun period. In particular, Dirty Tricks can be a lot of fun for hassling people in the world.

Could someone tell me where mutilate > ShS as far as arenas go? I know I did well in 2v2's with it but it seems like 3's is going to be impossible with mutilate. 5's seems to work OK until it turns into a FUBAR and I can't tell which way that gnome lock is facing.

If I do drop mutilate and go ShS with maces would i be better off using my s2 daggar in my OH or getting s1 mace? Is maces even the best weapons for ShS/hemo?

Last question, I know this isn't the 3v3 thread but my real life buddies play a warrior and a pally. Could a R/P/W setup work? If so how should we play it.

I used to raid on a mage but now have decided to lvl my rogue and 2v2 with my boyfriend. I’ve been reading Elitist for awhile now but new to the arena scene. I’ve noticed that Warrior/Rogue 2s are not popular in the least and probably for good reason. However; getting a good rank is important we mostly just want to arena together. Eventually we’ll probably pick up another for a 3v3 team.
So the questions at hand is what spec would be the best for starting out while teaming up with a Warrior. I know 20/0/41 seemed to be the best atm but seeing I’ll probably be targeted is this way to go? What would be some good pointers being in this set up and a general strategy?

Always have Expose armor on the target, trying to blind healer when you see oppoturnity to kill. For 3on3 team you might want to team up with druid. Rogue/druid/warrior is quite effective setup.

On Mutilate vs Shadowstep in arenas, my personal experience is that mutilate is much harder to pull off. For starters if you go with 41/20/0 the lack of Master of Deception and Dirty Tricks will make for pretty hard saps. Secondly, an overall lack in mobility with a mutilate build and the positional requirement aren't exactly conducive to arena play. What you stand to gain is great burst potential, talents to make heals/poisons more effective and possibly a more viable spec for PvE exploits.

Shadowstep in my experience is for more of an outlasting strategy. You have double the cooldowns, good mobility, nice survivability with cheat death and if you have sick gear, possibly good burst. Both of these specs lack in energy imo.

I find myself confused personally with the situation. My rogue/mage team destroyed War/druid-pally-priest teams but fell short to hunter/druid-priest and Lock/druid were a toss up. When I'm on my lock playing with a shadowstep rogue we burn the tits off war/healer, lock/healer, hunter/healer but fall short to good mage/rogue or rogue/healer teams.

I know when I'm playing my combat mace rogue my chances are pretty good when I'm up against a shadowstep rogue. I just keep him ruptured/stunned and usually my frost mage or hopefully future lock does the rest.

I've been testing out 0/39/22 on the PTR and so far I'm really happy with it.

The point about ShadowStep is the bug, that won't be fixed. If your mutilate double crit hits combined for 32 damage it is kind of stupid. So it is very hard to focus a ShadowStep rogue. I like Mutilate even now much more, but it will never become a bandwagon-spec, because you completly have to change the way you are moving, if you never played daggers in PVP before.

So I think trying the build on the PTR is the best solution for anyone not sure about this. I went from 0-31-30 directly to Mutilate and it felt so much stronger, because the burst isn't so easily counterable and much faster.

Overall Shadowstep will stay stronger for anyone that has access to high level PVE gear or a teammate with this access. Without PVE gear I think Mutilate is stronger even now - at least in 3vs3. And landing a kidney shot on a PVE geared rogue with 120 Energy and Renataki available is a lot of fun. Of course only until he reaches 1%...

You would take 5/5 camo over 1 point in Ghostly Strike?

Dirty Deeds >>>>>>>>> Combat Potency
Particularly when you consider in Pvp gear you'll only have like 5% to hit + Precision. Lots of problems with that build, many others are stronger for offense and defensive reasons.

You're going to see rogues not using t6 pve gear at least.. they're removing all stam from t6.. so yeah gg. But as to the new changes and whether to go mutilate or shadowstep I'll definetly have to see myself.

On another note mage rogue is still the best combo in terms of 2 dps. Especially with the upcoming mage buffs.. it's going to be even nicer. Mage/rogue will pretty much beat your conventional warrior/druid if played correctly and all you need is 1 or 2 lucky crits. Me and my mage go to 2002 rating this week and we're thinking about continuing or perhaps just selling the team and remaking it up there again. All i know is..that the mage has to be really good and you two must have complete sync and trust in each other. Breaking sheeps and blinds are unaffordable considering those extra seconds of having to re-cc or those extra seconds of a dps on you could cause you the game. Play a lot of games and one day you'll get it , asumming both players are skilled especially the mage. We went from being stuck at 1750 to getting to 1900 in one day then blew to 2k (9-1). Although you're going to have troubles with druid hunter(nagrand arena) and warlock/pally, you can beat almost every other team. And if you're a human rogue, you have a huge advantage against mirrors with the initial sap =). Some advice I can give you is, if for any reason your mage cannot get one frostbolt shatter off, you guys will most likely not win. The reason that it's rogue/mage and not warrior/mage, is although the warrior does more dps and has the instant healing-debuff, the rogue is the one that stuns for the easy frost nova shatter to go off.. especially druids. Coordinate, go balls out, know when to blow your cooldowns and you'll win.

They're not retroactively doing anything to old t6 unless there's some change I don't know about. Also all the boots/belt/bracers t6 from Sunwell got some stamina added back on them.