Outlaw Rogue in Mythic+: Help needed and general discussion

[Deleted]

Hello everyone!

First off a little bit of background: I just returned to WoW last week after a almost 2y hiatus. A group of friends offered me a spot in their mythic+ group and since we already did the old CMs together I could hardly say 'No'. Group synergy is great - Gold times were easily achieved in MoP/WoD with a few realm-best-times on top of it. We're all a little bit more casual now but going forward our expectations lie in a similar ballpark. Mythic 10+ is definitly our goal and from there on we'll see how it goes.

The group setup is as following: Prot Warr, RDruid/Holy or Diszi Priest, Havoc DH, Ele Shaman, Outlaw Rogue (myself) and a Fire Mage who fills a flex spot. I chose Rogue because I played it on and off over the years and after some preliminary research it looked like a good fit for the group. Also rogue (especially Outlaw) seemed to be in a good spot balance-wise.

So now, after a week of leveling and catching up I'm at ilvl 845 and 18 traits into my artifact weapon. For comparison the DH and the Ele are both at around 855-860 and 23/24 traits. Of course stat distribution and choice of trinkets are far from perfect and my muscle memory is only slowly starting to come back. Never having played anything but Combat helps but I'm a bit rusty none the less. The new centerpiece of Outlaw - Roll the Bones - is also giving me a bit of trouble as I'm painfully aware that my decision-making on when and which buffs to keep is still lacking. I'm doing fine but I expect more of myself. It doesn't help that all of the guides only focus on ST raidboss rotations with a sidenote that says 'Activate BF if 2+ targets are present'. I feel like mythic+ is a totally different beast with its focus on trash and non-mindless rotations where you have to weave in precise CC and be ready to shift focus at a moments notice. And this is why I want to start this thread - to help me fix my own shortcomings and to have a general discussion on how to play Outlaw in a mythic+ setting as best as possible.


Yesterday night was the first time I felt I was close enough in item and artifact trait level to draw some conclusions about my level of performance. We did Black Rook Hold on mythic 7 and missed the timer the first and second time but then cleared it on the third try. Reviewing the damage it was clear that I could not keep up on trash AoE at all. I did not expect to beat DH and Ele on AoE based on what I experienced before but I felt my numbers were too low regardlessly. I did however expect to make up for it on the bosses which also didn't really work out. Yes, I destroyed them on godly rolls but on average I was about equal. Sometimes first, sometimes second, rarely third. On bad rolls I got absolutely dumped on - closer to tank dps than to the rest. In total over the whole run the DH was far ahead then came the Ele then me.

I know it's a samplesize of only three runs but my first question would be: Is this the expected ranking order or am I severly underperforming for mythic+ dungeons? I can clearly see my areas of improvement (smoother rotations / regain that muscle memory; better judgement calls on RtB; gear; artifact trait level; better usage of AR/CotD on trashpacks; better abuse of MfD on trashpacks and to top it off better knowledge of the dungeon I'm running as I've only seen each dungeon maybe a maximum of 2-3 times) but I fear that all this won't be enough to close the gap let alone pull ahead. So either I'm misjudging the amount of improvement I can still readily achieve OR considering the emphasis on trash in mythic+ I'm right at my expected performance level compared to DH and Ele OR my gameplay is fundamentaly flawed in some way and I should pull way bigger numbers. My gut tells me it's option 3.

Assuming that I'm mostly concerned with my performance during trash. On bosses I feel like I will comfortably pull ahead once I tackle the obvious problems I have after the cold start of getting back into the game after such a long time. But on trash I feel kinda lost. Rotation-wise I basically activate BF and run my ST rotation unless I have to switch targets to CC. The one big difference I make is that I preroll RtB with MfD and basically just keep whatever I'm given. I tried rerolling but on trash it just does not seem worth it. Every missed RT is just such a big hit to my dps on these short fights that I shy away from it. What is the general consensus here regarding mythic+?
Apart from that what else can I do to maximize my RTs? Cut GS from the rotation (and/or talent something else entirely - see next paragraph)? Any tips on how to cheese out more through MfD resets? For now I have a hard time to judge when to use it on the priority target and when to put it on a comparatively lower health target and then switch mid-fight. Especially when a trash-fights get hectic I feel like I loose efficiency because I fail to cleanly switch targets back and forth. Is there a smart way to avoid that problem or is it just the good ol' git gud? In essence - fighting trash - it feels clunky, it feels slow and the numbers I pull don't give me a lot of confidence in that it's right what I'm doing when I compare myself to my competition. I just feel like I'm missing something. Any tips here would be greatly appreciated!

Regarding talents - what about ditching Ghostly Strike? It's pretty easy to see why you would want GS in a raid setting but in mythic+ on trash it feels just awkward. With the amount of target-switching that's needed it feels like I rarely get the full benefit from it. Most of the time burst damage is what's needed so I'd much rather maximize the number of RTs I can put out. Quick Draw might be a logical pick here but I'm unsure about the difference in baseline power these two talents provide to make an informed guess as to which one would be better. On bosses GS will always pull ahead but most mythic+ bosses don't last nearly as long as your average raid boss so I would assume the resulting dps loss is somewhat kept in check?

Along the same train of thought is the option to pick up Canonball Barrage over Alacrity. Not sure how this would pan out though as I have the feeling that the loss of haste would severely hinder energy generation and all which is tied to that. Keeping up Alacrity is mostly a non-issue so the tradeoff to pick up a dedicated trash AoE CD in a group which already has ample AoE seems bad. But I haven't tried CB in any dungeon yet so maybe I'm underestimating how good it is?


Anyhow, I guess that's enough rambling for now. I have a lot of small thoughts on the matter and probably equally as many questions but this is already a hefty amount of text. I hope to get some helpful insights and maybe spark a dedicated discussion on Outlaw in mythic+ content as I feel it differs from raiding more than enough to warrant it.

Thanks for reading; Cheers!


tl;dr: Came back to the game after ~2y to do high mythic+ content. Feel like my dmg is lacking on trash in general and especially in comparison to Havoc DH and Ele Shaman. Any tips? Also talents: Which ones to switch in order to better accommodate for the differences between mythic+ and raid content as all guides always assume the latter.

[uniquesnowflakename]

Use MfD on low HP targets during AoE for Run Through spam. You're going to have to pop AR+CotDB during trash pulls if you want to out DPS a Demon Hunter who knows what he's doing; fish for True Bearing rolls before bosses so you can reset your AR cooldown in time. I wouldn't replace Alacrity, you'll energy starve badly and Cannonball Barrage won't make up for the lost damage. Trying to roll for double buff or optimal singles on every trash pull is probably a waste of time, just go with you get (with the exception of when you need TB to reset cooldowns before a boss).

I think Outlaw's AoE really shines when you're pulling groups of 3+, with groups smaller than that it's easy to fall behind other classes (or even other rogue specs) and really exposes bad RtB rolls on the meters.

[Biomega]

The most important thing is proactive cooldown usage. Pop them on anything that will be alive for the full duration pretty much and try to fish for buffs that go well with the spam (TB especially). MfD spreading should be a no-brainer, always try to reset it by using it on mobs about to die, on small fry packs you can easily rack up a huge chain of Run Throughs + Blade Flurry.

Always keep in mind that M+ is all about trash, not so much bosses. Especially when doing 3-chest runs, maximize your trash AoE damage and don't worry about lower boss performance. In the end, total damage dealt over the entire run is usually what matters most in M+.