It depends. Shs benefits most from PvE gear, but Mutilate is the best 2v2 spec with a Priest. If you're sticking with Shs, I would probably swap out all the PvP gear except for the gloves. You might also want to get a different helm/boots so you can have a PvP enchant/meta. (Your current gear has no +speed mod).

I had a couple'o questions regarding expirience you folks have as rogues concerning poison uptime.

As for poisons, I specced 5 into vile, MH wound OH crip and occasionally swap to a numbed'd or wound'd OH to spam shiv, but when there's a dispeller around I'm basicly always looking at a poison free target, or a max of 2-3 wound stacks with cripling falling off constantly, depending what class. It's come to the point where I don't dare to spend energy on anything but kick and shiv because of chain proc resists and poison dispels meaning I just get kited around untill Shs is back up. when I don't KS to keep something in place so I finally get some uptime I spend CPs on keeping SnD up. Only solution I can think off is more hit rating, but A) my PvE gear isn't awesome and B) when I ran with ~120 rating nothing really changed.

Lately my PC has been quite a piece of garbage giving me 10 FPS tops in actual arena combat, but while "It is too far away" when inside my target doesn't help, I can't see it being to source of too many problems when I'm actually on my target. While it generally destroys all the finesse I try to put into play as a rogue, it's a problem I can easilly fix. The difference between "god's sake I can't get this rogue's poisons off me!" and "for crying out loud I finally had 5 stack wound and now it just expired when I was on my freakin' target" should indicate that either zombie jeebus hates me or I'm doing something drasticly wrong, though.

I miss the days when I could just run with a warrior partner for an about guaranteed perma snare and MS :/

I play 2 vs 2 with a rogue, and when he tried spec'ing for mutilate we went from 2050 down to 1780 in one evening. It might be lack of practice with that spec, but basically as mutilate if someone turned to focus on him, it was very very hard for him to do anything. It gives some very nice burst if left alone and you can set things up properly, but you lose any ability to go toe to toe with anyone.

As far as PvE gear with an ShS rogue - of the two rogues I PvP with, one wears 4/6 slayer 2/5 vengeful, the other wears 5/5 vengeful because he doesn't PvE. Slayer is much nicer in mirror match ups, but 5/5 vengeful makes it much nicer versus double DPS teams. Double DPS teams who focus on a PvE geared rogue will destroy him, shatter combos are painful as hell.

At your rating, double DPS teams are awful, so stick with wearing as much PvE gear as you can.

Actually I plan on swapping the meta gem on my engineering helm. I have the T6 Helm for PVE now. I might just keep the Gloves/Pants.

With regards to a helm for PVP arena, should I just keep the Cenarion Expedition enchant I already have or buy the new Shattered Sun one? Is the difference worthwhile?

180 health and 20 Resilience are not very useful when your job is killing people. 34 AP and 16 Hit Rating can go a long way to ensure your specials are landing and for decent damage, though. That said, I would never give up the [Item not found!] for the [Item not found!] on my helm, even in PvP. The 18 Stamina and 20 Resilience are for classes being targeted with priority, not us.

Also, Mutilate is pretty terrible for 2v2, in my opinion. As Mearis said before, it starts sucking the second your target turns to face you, and with only two people per team, that's gonna happen pretty often. Hell, there might be times your partner is killed and you have to deal with both enemies at the same time... do you really want to worry about position in a situation like that? Never mind all the little tricks a Shs rogue has up her sleeve...

Its not terrible, but ShS is way better, imho. I try mutilate alot and my weapons are even slightly better when I spec mutilate, but it just doesn't work. In my 2v2 I have to catch druids, alot. We have no cc (shammy-rogue), so thats the only option.Ever tried catching good druids with mutilate? Its horrible, it doesn't matter that I have tons of poisons talents, a good druid can always get away from me when I am hamstringed, I shouldn't even try, cause it will not happen, with my shadowstep and alot of cheap (in ways of energy due to 1.50 offhand) shivs its actually possible. In 3v3 mutilate seems easier, but as soon as people notice I am mutilate I get focused and can't do shit anymore. There must be setups where mutilate works, but in that same setup shadowstep actually works too, prolly better.

You don't get on the Druid, you DPS the warrior while dragging him out of LOS to force the Druid closer for Mana Burns and fear. You only switch to the Druid when the Warrior is CCed. Catching a Druid out of Bear as Mutilate is also alot more rewarding.

I'm not really sure how you'd catch a Druid as Shs with a Warrior on you anyway.

Mutilate is actually worse in the higher brackets due not having the train protection of Cheat Death. My 3v3 team actually beat Isolee's RMP several times until he respecced Shs from Mutilate.

While what I'm about to say might sound like someone saying the earth is flat, but mutilate is more simple than Shs. Mutilate is pretty much a one trick pony (damage). While the have to be behind the target mechanic complicates stuff, it's about all you have to wory about.

For example, when you take rogue/druid vs warrior/druid. A shs rogue will only succeed if he can target swap to the druid to pressure him, if he tries to toe-to-toe the warrior all along you'll lose pretty much guaranteed. All a mutilate rogue has to do against this setup is be good at circle strafing and you'll have that warrior boarded up in no time so your priest is open to play his support role.

Mutilate is good at what it does when you do it right, but the problem is that it's skill cap is lower than what a rogue would require (same case for druids > other healers in smaller brackets) for most setups.

Quick comment: whatever team composition you are fighting against, Shadowstep will always be better for switching targets to capitalize on CC. Mutilate might be better spike damage (and I'm not even 100% certain I would agree with that without seeing numbers and maybe playing it myself with equivalent gear), but Shadowstep will get you onto a target for a quick spike a lot more reliably. In 5v5, and even 3v3 sometimes, being able to switch targets instantly instead of having to run from your current target to assist someone can mean the difference between getting a kill and not.

Has anyone put out any videos as muti spec recently, by "recently" I mean since the puncturing wounds buff? I want to see some of this mutilate rogue vs. warrior people talk about. Not saying I don't believe it, I just want to see how they do it, because I had my rogue speced mutilate during season2, and I switched to maces at the start of season3 and couldn't be happier with the choice. Anytime I actually had to toe to toe a warrior I found my damage was horrible and I had a full energy bar a lot of the time because no matter what I tried, I could not actually get a mutilate to go off. I tried jumping straight through the person, and it was extremely inconsistent. I have 150ish ping but I'd like to think it should still be workable, I might just be doing something wrong.

I'm confused by what you mean here. You mentioned taking rogue/druid, but then referred to the rogue's priest later on... which comp are you talking about?

Anyway, I'm finding that as Priest/Rogue, our major strength is the rogue's ability to focus their healer if he's visible, and if I start to get trained (as the priest), the rogue ShS's over to me and locks down the DPS on me while I pop Power Infusion and Mana Burn their healer to nothing. Either that or focus blind followed by a fear, and the rogue can usually drop their DPS before their healer can do anything about it.

Which Mutilate variant (full Mutilate, Combat or Subtlety sub-spec) are people using for 2s with a Priest? Though I'd imagine no rogue spec can really compensate for the weaknesses of that team (vs. Warr/Sham say).

And all that while I initiated this discussion for my shaman rogue 2v2 I am getting confused now too.

I edited my sample setup to rogue/druid because it's more clear how it's ment to be played (with a Shs rogue), but forgot to edit that final part out . Rogues generally have to spec dependant on what they fight unlike other classes who spec for what they team up with, but rogue/priest is actually an exception. If the priest doesn't have to heal much he can burn/off DPS etc, weather you achieve this by making the other team's DPS turtle up with mutilate or by your rogue pressuring the healer with damage by Shsing over is most effective comes down to what spec the rogue is most comfortable with, opposing setup and luck.

I didn't claim that Mutilate was good at switching, my whole point was that you stay on the Warrior and only switch when both are CCed.

And my point about Mutilate is that it's BAD in higher brackets. Are you even reading my posts?

Here's an arenajunkies post about Priest/Rogue with strategies for matchups included: Priest/Rogue (Faction) Strategy - Arena Junkies

We were discussing Priest/Rogue comps, so why are you bringing up Shaman like big giant jerk?

Yes, I wanted you to disagree with me. :rollseyes: Any good team in a higher bracket will focus a Mutilate Rogue. But I wasn't arguing in the favour of Mutilate in a bigger bracket, anyone, which is why I don't get why you brought it up.

Mutilate, is more than just burst. It's far higher sustained damage and extra healing. Yes, you're more likely to get kited, but you can work around it. It may be harder to switch dps targets location-wise, but once you do, you can build up CP and unload energy alot faster. Mutilate is most useful in 2s where you can't get trained. Not to be a prick, but some of you are pretty close-minded considering your ratings.

I find it funny how people have such strong opinions about Mutilate while at the same time admitting they have either not tried the spec or only experimented with it for a seemingly short amount of time.

The issue with Mutilate is that it requires a lot of support, but properly supported it is very effective. This means you need the right comp for Mutilate. Disc Priest/Mut Rogue is a very strong 2s comp. And the whole positional thing is vastly overblown, I still get Mutilates off whenever I want to. ShS will beat Mut in a rogue very easily in a duel with full cooldowns, I'm sure everybody can agree on that, however who do you think wins in mirror Disc Priest/Rogue? Mut has an advantage because if they go after each other's priests the Mut will down their Priest faster than ShS, and toe-to-toe Mut will still win with +20% healing and +30% poison resist.

And I'm not going into the whole "skill" thing. The specs play very differently, but if you think Mut is simple to play, then you're probably not playing it right. ShS is more independent with its self-survivability and mobility, but Mut is devastating when coordinated in the right comp. All that basically means is that ShS fits into more comps in more brackets, but Mut has its own niche and each can be better than the other vs specific comps.

And btw vs War/Druid as Mut I usually have my Priest start 1v1'ing the Warrior and dragging him out of LOS if possible (like the starting area in Ruins). If the Druid pops out to heal or open on him while he's stealthed in cat it is pretty much a win. You can either do enough damage to the Druid from the initial stunlock where he won't be able to keep himself and his War partner up for very long or the Druid trinkets and gets cc'ed into Blind/Sap/Fear and his War gets nuked. It's not an easy match-up but that's the basics of it.

erm..

Did you really juse say mutilate has the advantage when toe-to-toeing an Shs rogue? All the Shs rogue has to do is backpeddle and outside CloS, you won't get behind him. Poison resists are nice, but in the long run, they'll most likely only effect who gets to 5 wounds first and that's not who wins. Then there's +20% healing, but the Shs is taking less damage because he most likely won't get mutilated frequently and +agi talents while he can freely spam hemo. If the mutilate rogue wins this the Shs rogue was pretty damn bad.

I don't like knocking people on expirience because everyone should start with a fair chance, but then, you chose that road before. So yea, what expirience do you have to claim how mutilate is ment to be played? If you play it right against the combs you stand a chance, it's a simple spec. If you wish to dispute, please read my post above first.

Okay. What do you do when your opponents are decent players? Agreed, finding the druid in stealth when your priest is well alligned for offfensive support you might kill him, but appart from that, every single move you suggested is countered at far lower than "top" ratings.

Backpedaling? Yeah that'd work if all the Mut rogue does is blindly try to run in a straight line at the ShS rogue the whole time. In reality that's not how it works at all. It's a offensive/defensive back and forth when going toe-to-toe, it's not a balls to the wall going straight at you. Queuing up energy and cooldowns far favors the Mut rogue who can unload his damage faster and the only chance a ShS rogue has (in a situation where both have priest support) is putting early pressure from aggressive use of his one major advantage, the extra cooldowns from prep.

If you think Mut is a simple spec that's fine, it's an opinion and has no effect on the viability of the spec. It's not a concern of mine but I have played both specs extensively I would not make such a statement. As for my experience? You could always look me up but I came back to WoW after hitting 2.1k in S1, having trouble finding a good mage to run 3s with for PMR, have a non-serious 5s (though 1800 atm) but given the close proximity of S4 I wanted to grab the S3 weapon and shoulders so doing that in 2s with a disc priest atm (hit 1850 in about 2 days of playing) in BG9. Given the competition we faced in 2s so far around 1800 2k seems very highly probable.

Decent players? I spelled out the scenario for you. Either the druid pops or I find him stealthed and if I catch him in human or cat I usually win. If I don't and he bears up after a couple of hots then it is an uphill battle because I will have to help my priest with the warrior. It is highly dependent on the map and how well we can position the warrior and lots of target switching would have to occur. Are you saying ShS has an easier time vs War/Druid than Mut? Because they don't.

Agree to disagree on mut rogue vs shs rogue I guess, it's only been a few times a rogue managed to mutilate me when I wasn't chasing something else, and when I was it's quite feasable to avoid some hits. I just can't see how

-being able to trinket KS without risking a blind on you getting your priest killed
-having more frontal avoidance
-having a frontal attack
-having two sets of CDs
-having a "guaranteed" undodg-/parryable KS

beats
-+20% incoming healing
-more chance to have more incoming healing for a short time
-no survability outside one evasion
-no frontal attack outside shiv (which costs more energy than the Shs's rogue one)

In a toe-to-toe situation. Both rogues have the same snares and ammount of snare breakers, how would a Shs rogue let the mutilate rogue get behind him? You might be an exeptionally talented dancer, but even if you are, your opponent clearly was not.

The point I was making with your warrior/druid example is that if the team is any good and doesn't rush in like maniacs, they'd have little trouble recovering from your "initial burst" (how the hell would you surive a double DPS rogue/caster if your scenario actually works frequently?), followed by a turtle game played the way I discribed above (I thought I refered to it already, it also clearly states I'm aware of the potentional power of mutilate spec), bar, like I mentioned, the off chance a none-perception none-heightened sense rogue finds the druid in stealth or manages to catch him in caster just after.

This, however, didn't really change much to the mut vs Shs discussion seeing as we have largely the same view, in which sellect cases either spec comes on top seems a rather trivial thing to have a sandbox domination war about.

I think mutilate is an amazingly fun spec to play, aswel as challanging because a tough opponent will make you work hard for those mutilates. But I still think two "reliable" target switches / game tops (They are CCing the rogue right.) makes it quite abit more simple than Shs. I don't want to downtalk it as an easy spec, just the fact that you've never mastered Shs if you don't know exactly what happens around you largely doesn't apply to mutilate made me dub it a "simple spec", sorry if that short turn came across offensively.

The problem that you face is that as a SHS rogue, you can detect stealth alot better, thereby finding that druid first. I play a SHS with a druid or a mage in 2v2s. Definitely against a druid/warr team, I've had better attempts then when I was a mutilate spec. Two sprints, 30 second shadowsteps (reset when you pop prep), two or three vanishes in a fight, double evasion for when the warrior is trying to lock you down and allow his druid to escape...

I've had full vile poisons, and every rank from 1 to 5. None of them seem to be of benefit enough to lock that druid down. I win simply by changing targets, shivving crippling nonstop, and stunlocking the druid, none of which a mutilate rogue excels at over shs rogue. Because of the sheer amount of ways a druid can escape movement effects, I saw the issue wasn't that mutilate wasn't good for damage, but I understood that I wasn't locking down that druid. You just cannot do that in mutilate, no matter what anyone says about vile poisons or improved poisons. Neither SHS nor Mutilate builds can do dps if they aren't on your target so Shs rogues just tend to stay on their targets alot better, and that means alot more sustained damage, not quick mediocre burst damage.

While the playstyles are definitely different, I would consider the mutilate style to require more attention / difficulty because of the sheer lack of cooldowns. They have to measure their energy, blinds, evasions, and vanishes alot better, because they receive fewer of them. Less tricks doesn't mean it's easier to play, it just means it's not as flashy, and a bit more predictable.