Swords are better for killing raid bosses, not for 'PvE' - I hate that these terms get used interchangeably.

E.g. for grinding, Maces mean a lot less incoming damage and less downtime. Comparable or better than Swords, for that. Ditto, on Heroic Trash, Maces are great.

It's not so cut and dried.

off topic question.

I'm torn on what trinket to use...
Dragonspine Trophy
or
Tsunami Talisman

I pvp either Mutilate or combat swords (depending if im too broke to respec each week). Thinking DST for combat swords and TT for mutilate. Any suggestions?

Dst is not really the best trinket in pvp, you can better stay with alot of crit in pvp, so its better to choose a trinket based on that, I would use the TT for both specs in pvp.

I'm curious if anyone has any advice for a long time raiding rogue who has very little PvP experience. In particular, how to get the best out of the standard 20/41/0 combat sword raiding spec when PvP'ing.

Since all I know about it is raiding, I'm very unfamiliar with skills such as Shiv, Expose Armor, Blind, Garrote, and Deadly Throw - which never see usage in raids. Do I use cooldowns like Improved Spint, Cloak of Shadows, and Evasion whenever I can, or save them for particular situations like Frost Novas, Warlock DoTs, and Rogues - respectivley.

Essentialy, I'm looking for some help to make the best out of my not-so-PvP-oriented talent spec, and basic information that I can build a solid foundation on. Things like is cheap shot always the opener of choice? It my role mainly to disrupt healers, or nuke the primary target? Believe me when I say no information would be too redimentary, as I really have no experience when it comes to PvP. I've never even played a single EotS game.

I did some 2v2 with my girlfriend to get the S2 OH sword (because there's no PvE alternative until BT) but we were never very good, and I'm exalted with Stormpike due to grinding AV back in the day for the dagger combo, but that was a long time ago.

I assure you, even the most mundane and common sense information would be helpful to me.

While I'm sure you dont expect to jump into 2k+ immediately, Search Neilyo do an excellent job of showing cooldown management. I believe in the "2.4k + All Brackets" video he 1v1's a frost mage in nagrand arena and has impeccable cooldown/los management. While the highest I've managed to get my rogue was 1900 in season 1, Neilyo's movies are a great pvp resource.

I think you could help us help you better by giving us what bracket and/or teammate classes you plan to play with, as your roles will change slightly with each.

For arenas it'd mainly be 2v2 with my girlfriend, who is a holy paladin. I'm also interested in general PvP'ing tips when it comes to BGs as well, as I'll need to farm those quite a bit to start putting together a set of resilience gear.

Edit: Thanks for the videos idea, I just watched a couple and got some good new ideas, like using name plates, and setting up a focus for the opposing team's healer so I can see when he's starting a heal.

Just a speculation question I would like answered by my fellow rogues.

My buddy and I were recently talking about the upcoming season and how the gear was going to be significantly better. He asked me which weapons I was going to pick up for season 3 and I didn't have an answer. I told him I had 33.19% unbuffed crit with mediocre gear and fist spec currently. He told me that with the new S3 gear coming out, I could get up to 40% unbuffed crit. So here's my question:

Will 40% unbuffed crit be enough to overcome the resilience issue? I know there is a resilience cap, but could someone please elaborate and explain how much resilience reduces how much crit? Would 40% unbuffed crit in full S3 gear be enough to make speccing fist worth it?

Just from personal experience, I estimate about critting 1/4 of the time with sinister strike(whites damage crits about a 1/3 of the time) during arena battles with my current crit %.

Just wondering what other people think. I believe that with 40% unbuffed crit, it might be worth speccing fist instead of going mainstream and getting maces/swords (plus, fist weapons look badass and looking good is half the battle :P).

Thanks.

Adding a further speculative question, I'm wondering if it will be worth it to stay Mutilate in s3.

HP totals and rsl for more and more people are going to be maxed out. Mutilate can do acceptable burst and decent control but I'm definitely experiencing a noticeable drop-off in effectiveness the higher and higher my team pushes.

Given that the 2.3 rogue changes seem to be positive for maces (hey, mace spec partially counters rsl!) and mostly neutral for heavy assassination, I'm strongly considering the change. Which is ironic because so many mace rogues seem to be bored with combat and want to go mutilate now, but there it is.

Well, buying Mainhand and Offhand maces outright lets you play a variety of specs, full combat maces, hemo seal fate, ar/prep - along with Riposte buffs and mace spec buffs... and mutilate got 7% runspeed? ;x

I'm so bored with Combat I've been pvping mutilate with s1 shanker and a malch... but unless they change something soon I'll still be buying 2 maces ASAP.

maces will be the favorite for season 3, for tons of reasons, large control, heavy consitend damage and alot of other plusses over the other weapons. At this moment it seems there is only one right thing to go for and that is combat maces, if you aren't already using them.

Kinda silly that blizzard nerfs most of the spec who are a better choice above other other specs (like the warrior mace stun), but is buffing maces instead of nerfing them. Whats going on eh? Is the main developers wife playin a combat maced rogue?

All I want is for Mutilate to feel viable... equal.

My current 'focus' is perhaps going to be a resto sham/afflock/me 3v3 team, and even there I feel like Maces will still be better.

I really want to go Mutilate and I really hope it's buffed a little.

I guess buffing Rogue Maces falls in to the same category as buffing Warriors in PvP despite their over-representation: *why*?

Uh, I don't understand the talk about Mutilate being inferior to Combat Maces. Sure the "buffs" in 2.3 for Maces seem good.
But there's nothing there that would make or break Mutilate.
Mutilate will still offer better burst and similar sustained dps.
Maces will offer somewhat better control, perhaps better sustained damage.

I didn't jump on the mace bandwagon in season 2. I don't plan on doing it in season 3 either.

Looking for advice on a PVP spec. I am mainly a PVE rogue but starting to get into PVP. A lot of the gear that I have is retired PVE gear or PVE gear that does not happen to have +hit on it (even itemized this way I have 199 +hit in PVP gear). I'm a sword rogue and I have always been combat swords or combat daggers. Right now I have both S2 swords with mongoose on them so any build would probably be built around these. (The only other weps that I have that are worth mentioning (barely) are Riftmaker and Emerald Ripper)

Most of the time that I PVP I just stay in my cookie cutter 20/41 sword spec. But I am interested in developing something that I could switch into when I know that I'll be PVPing all day Saturday, for instance. Because I'd only be switching for a day or two every couple of weeks I don't really want to get into something that is very different. This led me to an AR/prep build.

I'm not sure what filler talents particularly in the sub tree are worthwhile. Could people please comment on the pros and cons of different options there? I'm pretty sure that I should have 5/5 MoD, ghostly strike and serrated blades on my way to getting prep. As far as the others I really have no idea which is better in practice. Should I get hemo? Is it really that much better for pvp? Really any advice on where to tweak stuff and move it around would be great. The only thing that I am pretty confidant about is that I want Prep and I want AR.

To sum up here's the question, if you had the two S2 swords what would your PVP spec look like?

Finally, I 2v2 with a resto druid and our usual tactic is for me to burn/burst one while he CCs the other healer or DPS. This has also lead me to think that the extra burst of a prep/AR build would be better than a hemo/assass build, but I'm open to all advice.

Edit: on a totally different note I have the PVP trinket and three options for the other slot, DST, hourglass and abacus. I've been running with DST, its a big boost and a lot of the time when we are fighting other healer/dps teams its sort of an outlast stratagy so the random procs just make for sort of random bursts to give the other healer some trouble. But if people think that the on demand abacuss is worth it I could switch.

Edit#2: I have Latro's sitting in my bank, would it be worth slapping a weapon chain on it and equiping when I go up against a warrior, or is the S2 + Mongoose so superior that the seconds of being disarmed don't matter? Pure dps clearly mongoose S2 is better but man it sucks to have a warrior at 10% with CPs stacked and not be able to evis to finish it.

I was in the same boat you are now about 4 months ago. I really resisted PVPing because of the lack of rewards for someone that A) Raids and B) Has a life, but have found it very fun since Arenas and gear upgrades. So I'll answer your questions coming from that view point.

Because you have S2 swords I'd build your talents around that. Those daggers are ok, but I'd only go mutilate if you are doing 5v5s or maybe a 3dps 3v3. Now your natural tendency is to go deep in combat, which isn't a bad idea. A build like the 19/42 (or variant) does ok but lacks in burst. I think it's better if you have maces or lots of resilience (300+).

If you're set on an AR/prep build I'd go with this. I started out with this build but it didn't work for what I needed. This build is completely worthless outside of the double AR. If you don't kill someone with it you will lose 90% of the time (in my experience). With that in mind, I'd like you to take a look at the build I'm currently using.

I use a 30/0/31 build. Yes, you will be a hemo rogue. However, the burst you can get from it is very nice. That 1 point in vile poisons can be put in Murder but I wanted a small chance for my poisons to resist dispell as well as an increase in my main-hand poison dps (wound or deadly, depending on if healer is present). Also, because you have a druid to CC the 2nd person you can move those 3 points out of setup into whatever you like. I'd probably go with 2/2 Elusiveness and add a point to deadliness.

Pulling off the 30/0/31 built does require fast reactions and well placed/familiar hotkeys but is well worth it. I used to dread war/healer teams but now almost look foward to them. Almost. Only thing I really miss is imp sprint, which I think should be an innate ability of sprint like intercept/charge currently are; but that's a discussion for another time.

As for the 2nd trinket, go with one that's activated and gives you the best burst dps, which is the Abacus if memory serves me right. Because you are still doing PVE, put a weapon chain on the latro sword. Warriors and rogues do try to disarm, even up into the 1800+ brackets.

Hope this helps and remember to macro EVERYTHING and practice them in the BGs.

I can't say I'd recommend going AR/prep with a healer as your 2v2 partner, that spec is much more suited as a compliment to a 2dps team. It is very solid in the 3v3 realm int he cookie cutter rogue/mage/priest as your ability to stay on target and lock a player down is more important than damage.

I'd probably stick with a 19/42 build with double swords for the rest of season 2. Season 3 will open up the ability to go 5/33/24 and get some great dps utility with dirty deeds and Hemo. Part of the strength of that build is you can still get mace spec though, which combined wih a double set of cooldowns is pretty nasty.

So long term advice, move away from swords, but until you do, stay heavy combat and use your DST.

Stay with swords because the steady DPS is higher?

Not having MoD makes it hard to get openings off, not have imp sap means that I almost never get a sap off (which actually is a possiblity since both me and my healer (druid) can stealth) plus prep is double AR and Double imp sprint and evasion.

I'm certainly open to advice but that seems like a lot to give up just for higher steady dps. Are there other reasons that I don't know, to go with 19/42? Or is the difference in steady dps just a lot bigger than I imagine?

Also, none of the combat arena builds that I have seen have included riposte? Is it just not that good, or is it too expensive, so not worth giving up other talents.

True, I suppose it depends on the metagame of what teams you come up against a lot. So far my team is having a harder time with lock/sp combos than pally/war.

As far as gemming, should I try to stack resil as high as possible or is stam just as good? I'm trying to pick up PVP peices as fast as possible, so I'm mostly asking in regards to the hand me down PVE peices. I'm logged out in my PVP gear right now, if anyone has any suggestions about immediate changes. Armory I also have bladded shoulder pads sitting in my bank. They have two +8hit gems in them now, would it be worth putting at couple steady talasite for the +8resil and the +12sta(total) and using those instead of the T5 shoulders?

IMPORTANT! Need suggestions.


I am currently a part of a warlock, holy priest, and rogue team that is stuck in the 1900-2000 bracket. We can't seem to break into the 2000+ because we can no longer just pick a target and kill it with everything going smoothly like in the lower brackets.

Our warlock used to be UA but respecc'd because he was getting torn up too badly too fast by the higher ranked teams. He is now soul link and switches off between felguard and felpup (we don't know which to use more, we are leaning towards felpup).

We just don't know what to do against mage/rogue/priest teams, pally/war/war, pally/mage/war and the occasional ridiculous 3-dps teams.

We have tried to come up with strategies for the fights but we always just end up picking a clothie and have me dps it, fearing, mana-draining, and praying that they choke before we do. We really have no positional strategies on any of the maps (which I would appreciate suggestions for).

Are there any things we could do to give us the upper hand against most of the teams we play against? I believe that we have a versatile team and that we can handle most combinations well.

We lose often not because we aren't doing the right things, we just aren't doing them when they would be most effective in conjunction with what the other team mates are doing.
Are there any great times to blind/fear combo? Etc.

Most importantly, we believe we need a SOLID BASIC STRATEGY (which we do not have because we change our strategy around everytime we play a different team). What are the basic things we should always be doing in our matches? What are things that we must always do when facing certain combinations of teams?

We are very serious about moving up into the big boy brackets and would like some high-rated vets to give us some pointers about what we'll be doing for most of the time in the higher brackets so we can start to implement strategy in the pre-2k bracket.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Looking for some advice, coming from a 2v2 with a 28/33 priest. I'm currently specced mutilate 41/20, can't afford the maces for combat spec.

Sooo, our bane is currently warrior/paladin and warrior/druid. If I go for the healer, between hamstring and travelform/blessing of freedom I can't get close. If I go for the warrior, he eats my healer's face off. I know this is basically the rock to our scissors, but is there any advice on ways to fight them short of just leaving the arena when we see a warrior run out the door? We're currently bouncing back and forth from 1800-1900 or so.

I run the same set-up around that rating and we lost a lot of points to this team last night, so take my advice lightly.

What we try to do in this set-up is to force the warrior onto my rogue. So rogue annoys warrior with stuns/crippling. Don't run away unless you can get out of LoS or you're just opening yourself to an intercept and your rogue will be left behind. Crippling > hamstring, so you can either outrange the intercept during a KS (unlikely) or pole-dance, which seems much more sucessful.

The problem we run into is that if I play defensively using pillars, the paladin wins the mana war, if I expose myself by trying to mana burn the warrior switches to me and I crumple in a pile of cloth. Any further advice?

NOTE: I'm a hemo prep rogue at heart.

Honestly, AR/Prep will be nice in 2.3, but like other guys said, hold off on going that route untill 2.3. What I want to suggest is what I was running a little while ago(I just switched to mutilate because I get 2 good weapons) - cb/ar <- This build uses a mace spec, but you can just get sword spec instead.

I've tried pure combat builds.. and I think they are horrible, they are only good against other rogues.. simply because surprise attacks whill eat through evasion. Other than surprise attacks, you get combat potency.. hah it's a great skill for pve, but in PvP you spend so much time "chasing" that you will re-gain your energy, combat potency works much better on a stationed target.

Having CB == great burst, yes I know there is plenty of high resi people running around, but when you are chasing that druid or mage.. AR is useless, while CB is a great way to finish people off.

On a side note, somebody said mutilate is not so good in 2v2.. I've only been playing mutialte for last 2 days but.. I think it works GREAT on a 2dps team., but thats for another forum topic.

What would you say is a good spec for a rogue alt made mostly for BGs (and random world ganking), not arenas?