It is good stat. Generally the more you have of it the better it is. Note that if enemy's armor drops below zero after expose armor and your passive armor penetration it takes no additional effect.

The top end is not an accurate gauge for much of anything -- really you should be looking at the average damage, but that is only worth considering for mainhand weapons, since Hemo/SS are performed with your mainhand. (That said, [Quickening Blade of the Prince] actually has a higher top end than [Gladiator's Bonecracker] anyway, so I'm not sure what you are getting at.) Your offhand weapon's damage range means basically nothing. The important characteristics are the speed (1.5 or faster ideally) and the weapon DPS (higher the better, of course). These two stats naturally dictate the damage range, but the damage range itself really doesn't have any significance.

All in all, [Quickening Blade of the Prince] and [Gladiator's Bonecracker] are probably about equally good. Keep the sword in case you want to PVE, since it would be better if you spec Combat; otherwise it's a toss up.

I greatly appreciate all the advice about hunter/druid teams! I hadn't thought about mana burning the hunter, and it seems so simple really...

Especially with the rogue on the hunter's pet, even if the rogue isn't able to kill it right away, it forces the druid to go crazy trying to heal the pet and he won't be able to get a cyclone off without risking a dead pet. Also, most hunters I've faced only have about 6k or so mana, so burning that away would be a matter of about 9 seconds with power infusion.

I will give that a try for my 2's this week and post my experiences once I've done enough hunter/druid matches.

The [Quickening Blade of the Prince] is a small upgrade in my eyes, higher damage, same speed, more stamina (which you want till you got at least 10k hp) and more AP (which you want maximized with a shadowstep build) and to top it off some armor pen. It doesn't got resilience, but you don't need tons of that as a rogue, the only thing you could be missing is the hit, but 9 hit is not gamebreaking actually.

I am currently combat daggers in PvE and I want to be able to do as much damage in Arena with what I have, since I am not getting any maces or swords anytime soon. What would be the best way for me to spec with daggers (preferably a variant of combat since that what I'm used to)?

41/20 pve mutilate works fine in alot of setups, 5x/x/9 or something is slightly better cause you can get saps easier off. Look at the top arena rogues on sk-gaming.com/arena/ to see what they use for dagger spec. Combat is horrible in arena's, combat daggers is even worse. Mutilate is harder to play then shadowstep in pvp, surefooted on your boots is advisable, it helps alot. Mutilate specs shine out in burst and lack mobility in my opion. Try some different specs out to make sure you like it.

On another hand, its not that hard to get a mace /sword of fist weapon. You only need one for your mainhand and you can get them easily from honor or arena points :P The new badge rewards even pack some nice fistweapons if you can't get your hands on vengefull weaponry.

I asked this same question at Arenajunkies myself. The answer I got was that it had not been tested, but probably checks whomever got the last proc for dispel mechanics.

Example:
rogue1 has Vile Poisons, rogue2 does not.

rogue1 procs the first stack (Vile poisons active)
rogue2 procs the second stack (VP not active)
rogue2 procs the third stack (VP not active)
third stack is dispelled (2 stacks, VP not active)
rogue1 procs the third stack (VP active)
rogue1 procs the fourth stack (VP active)
rogue2 procs the fifth stack (VP not active)
rogue1 refreshes the fifth stack (VP active again)

If that's the way it works, if one rogue has improved poisons, they'll more often be proccing, wasting the effect of Vile Poisons. But again, it's not tested. If you do test it, I'd be interested to see how it works out.

For testing purposes, I'd imagine using a paladin or shaman with direct poison removal would give clearer results than abolish.

Druids have Cure Poison, just nobody uses it since Abolish is the same mana/effect.

What is the optimal string for a 20/0/41? I'm referring to BG or 2v2

I seem to have good luck with ShS/Premed/Cheap Shot, maybe do 1 hemo then a 5-pt KS, then mostly Hemos after that. Should I use SnD? I see other rogues kill way faster than me and I wonder if it's my string or because I'm out-geared?

Judging by your armory and the average rogue gear I see in battlegrounds you are just outgeared. And if you got a spare CP and KS is on CD and your target isn't dieing in the very forseeable future SnD is indeed a rather nice DPS boost (roughly 20% for a ShS build)

If you're going to be fighting a warrior or warlock, you could also premed-cheap shot, followed by an expose armor immediately. Then slice'n'dice if you get a combo point from the finisher. That should help your DPS out some.

Expose Armor is still worth it against plate or mail if you are not the only physical class attacking the target, but otherwise a Rupture or SND is better.

Well since more or less you can ballpark numbers you can calculate these things yourself. If you assume 11k armor on a 2h'ed war imp expose would still increase your dps by ~16.64%. So say for ease of math you think you can pump out 10k physical damage (from yourself or other teammates) on the target in 30 secs that would be 1664 damage. Is that higher or lower than your rupture damage (make sure to factor in resilience)? Expose also has the side benefit of allowing your hits to be more spikey and will scale with SnD (which should be used before rupture or expose anyway in most cases if your concern is maxing out constant DPS).

Personally as mutilate I don't have access to serrated blades and I spec imp expose, so I expose every class except for mages if they are in a comp with healers. For ShS which has access to serrated and is more about constant DPS rupture looks more favorable.

Except if it's a dwarf warrior

Newb here. Just dinged 70 with my Rogue last night.

My Rogue will be running BGs and Arena with my best friend who is also a Rogue. Our idea was to try and maximize Rogue potency by taking two very different routes. He is going for pure damage output (mutilate spec, daggers) while I'm trying to go with a more 'utility' spec... mace spec with some other goodies to boost his damage.

So the spec I thought of was as follows: [url]http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fMZ0xqbbVxZxMe0GGos0s[\url] but there are a few points here and there in which I don't have much confidence (reduced vanish cooldown, etc).

Can some of the experts in here take a peek and dissect the build?

My only stipulation is that I want to remain a mace-rogue, which means investing a certain number of points in combat, aside from that I am completely open to suggestion/critique.

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Edit:

I should note that my primary attack is Hemmorage, in order to keep the debuff on the target, and I am using Rupture as a damaging finishing move, the only time I really deviate from Rupture is if I need to lock down a target, then out comes the Kidney shot... or if I'm solo against a clothie, then I pop out an expose armor, but 90% of the time it's been rupture.

If both are focusing the same target then EA will outperform rupture.

If you really want to run a mace spec then either go combat, or HARP, both aren't the main cookie-cutter arena spec, but I don't think you'll be facing ratings anytime soon where it isn't forgiving enough to allow you to spec either of those two.

Combat Maces: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fbe0RjZMjV0bVt0MGot
HARP: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fZhfV0rVt0M0oZxMjoMGRoL

Side notes: with adrenalin rush timed over an imp KS while EA is active you'll be putting out some massive hurt.
Blade Flurry is a rather nice dps boost single-target, but when you are fighting a SL/SL warlock it really shines, by killing the pet early. After the pet is dead the warlock loses Soul link, master demonologist, paranoia and basically becomes a lame duck.
Combat maces does not have the Hemo debuff, but it does a far better energy/CP generation than HARP, both focus around having AR.

I wouldn't use it on a plate target or a feral bear, toughness shaman is on the border, but on hunters and anything below that it works like a charm with 2 rogues profiting. The second rogue can always rupture, but EA+rupture outperforms rupture + rupture by a great deal.

BTW: I'd cut out vile poisons in the earlier suggested specs, and let the mutilate rogue use it, you might better put it in nerves of steel/imp gouge/imp poisons.

Does anyone know if Setup places combo points on your current target or the target attacking you? Ive always been curious about the talent.

It will only place combo points on your current target, and only if the dodge or resist was from your current target's spell/attack.

Sorry if this is posted before, attempted to search, couldn't find anything...

When I'm playing arenas, no matter what I do, I always seem to get sapped before I can sap the other rogue. I'm specced for shadowstep (Dirty Tricks 2/2, MoD 5/5, Hightened senses 2/2), I have Stealth enchant on my cloak, and am using the below macro for Sap.

My understanding is that with this macro, and the proper setup, I should be going at least 50/50 against an equally geared, non (paranoia/perception/NE) rogue. I run around spamming the macro and still lose the Sap war.

Any tips or anything I'm missing?


#showtooltip Sap
/console targetNearestDistance 10
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/console targetNearestDistance 41
/cast [modifier:shift] Shadowstep
/cast [harm,nodead] Sap

Walk in a circle instead of a right line helps a lot. Also the macro won't function correctly if you already have another target.

Another good thing to note is that sometimes it's worth it (depending on the setup you are facing) to blow one of your vanish at the start of the match while still in stealth. The +stealth bonus not only lets you get the opener vs other stealth classes, it negates things such as Perception.