1. #1
    Deleted

    Concerns over Spec, Damage and Improvements overall.

    Hey guys and gals!

    Been an avid viewer of MMO-Champion for a long time just not ever created an account until now!

    I'm at logger heads at present though, I've been playing a Rogue and a Priest since vanilla and up until lately, only ever raided with my Priest. Who is now and has been an alt since WoTLK. Since I PvPed mostly with my rogue though, pushing for a change of scenery for raiding with him.

    My Rogue is called Sildrae and I'm from the server; The Maelstrom. A link to my character is eu.battle .net/wow/en/character/the-maelstrom/Sildrae/simple. I do have items to upgrade and to enchant too. That will be coming over time, sooner rather than later!

    My question though is that I'm concerned over my damage output, my spec and what improvements I can do overall to make things better not just for myself but for those who I raid with.

    I raid between Assassination and Combat, more so lately Combat through being asked to go that way. I've not spent much time in Combat for a long time, although I am reforged with ReforgeLite to Combat. My suitable play is with Assassination as that is where my experience lies, hence the thread for the help! I've been looking at different specs for people, I have looked at World of Logs but don't fully understand what to go off on that particular website, as I'm not sure on what I'm looking for and/or what I need to be focusing at.

    The spec I currently use for combat is as follows:
    Code:
    Nightstalker
    Deadly Throw
    Leeching Poison
    Shadowstep
    Prey on the Weak
    Anticipation
    Currently glyphed with:
    Code:
    MAJOR:
    Glyph of Adrenaline Rush
    Glyph of Expose Armor
    Glyph of Recuperate
    
    MINOR:
    Glyph of Killing Spree
    Glyph of Decoy
    Glyph of Poisons
    I have seen people using Shadow Focus and Nerve Strike as opposed to my selection, as I also have seen others use Elusiveness and Cheat Death. Concerning the glyphs though, I've been contemplating the Glyph of Recuperate and changing it to Deadly Momentum as I see a lot of people using that too and it seems like a good swap.

    What I'd like to know is why do people use Shadow Focus over Nightstalker (given the 25% damage done via stealth), I am under the impression it is active for the Garrote bleed or am I wrong there? Or is it with Ambush (plus chance on crit with no energy cost) a larger benefactor in damage? If so then I guess I'd swap that without second thought.

    Would I benefit more from dropping Deadly Throw and/or Leeching Poisons? Why is it that I see a lot of people even when speccing for Leeching Poisons they use Deadly and Mind Numbing Poisons? If I took out Leeching I would be using Deadly and Mind Numbing, but with Leeching Poisons shouldn't people use Leeching over Mind Numbing?

    Would it really be wise for me to actually swap Glyph of Recuperate for Glyph of Deadly Momentum?

    I've been reading the threads on here and not fully got what I need really, might be my poor searching ability maybe? I've also given the Rogue PvE Compendium that Coldkil wrote a good read before I started to type this up to get more insight to what I want and see if I can improve.

    I hope I've provided enough information for all those willing to help or those who can aid, if not please ask and I'll do my best to provide what is needed!

    Thank you for taking the time to read this!

    -Lee

    PS: Sorry for no link, I'm not permitted to post links, images or videos yet!

  2. #2
    havent read through all of it yet, but here's your link

    http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...ldrae/advanced

  3. #3
    Deleted
    A massive improvement in our overall output is, in fact, not really in your hands. You simply NEED better weapons. Your output as a rogue is mostly dominated by your weapon attack, so you're very likely to find your dps jumping up with several K's as soon as you get a raid-level weapon. Gear, as a whole, is also of major importance for rogues, seeing as our numbers are mainly generated via our scaling mechanics. The less gear you have, the lower your benefit from your passive scaling mechanics.
    I know it may seem somewhat "excuse-ish" but I really cannot stress the importance of gear enough; It's absolutely vital to your dps as a rogue.

    As for improvements to your spec/glyphs:
    1. You'll want Shadow Focus mainly because it grants you a free attack. At current haste levels, energy is a very valuable resource and anything that can reduce your energy-spending is of very high value. That said, specials barely do any damage for us at all, speccing for a talent that improves something we're not really relying on is just kinda useless.

    2. You mentioned Garrote; Never, ever, use, Garrote. No matter the spec. If you're Combat, you'll want to open with an Ambush. It nets you the highest amount of combo points and damage than any other opener. As Assassination, nothing beats a free Mutilate. Two chances of proccing poisons, at least 2 combo points, and a chance to proc Dispatch, is simply beyond anything Garrote could give you.

    3. The second tier is mainly useful for leveling purposes. As such, Nerve Strike can come in handy, as can Combat Readiness. Deadly Throw is the absolute worst choice on the tier, however. If you're raiding, you'll never want to use it. It's just a waste of combo points.

    4. If you're progress raiding, you need to learn how to use Feint. It's an absolutely fantastic ability for damage-mitigation, and mastering it can not only keep you alive in situations that would kill other people, but it can also indirectly increase your dps by increasing target-uptime(think of Elegon). As such, Elusiveness becomes a very mandatory talent for any raider worth his money. Feint is THAT good.

    5. Seeing as we're speaking of raiding, spending combo points on Recuperate during a fight is an absolute no-go, and should never be done unless your target is dead and you're just trying to get some use out of your about-to-expire combo points. Glyphed Recuperate will rarely be of any use to you in any raid.

    6. Deadly Momentum is rarely useful for raiding. It's mostly a leveling glyph. (And a damn good one, I might add!)

    7. Tier 5 is largely irrelevant to dps. It's more of a preference thing. I've gone with Dirty Tricks, because I make frequent use of Gouge and Blind, and the thought of spending energy on them kills me inside.

    Glyphs to consider for raiding:
    - Adrenaline Rush for Combat. Clear-cut dps increase.
    - Vendetta for Assassination. It's a clear-cut dps increase if you can stay on target for the full duration. Otherwise, don't glyph for it.
    - The glyph of Feint is highly recommended.
    - Expose Armor is also recommended if you're the one applying the armor-debuff in your raid team.
    - Can't go wrong with the glyph of Sprint.


    If I've overlooked something, don't hesitate to bring it up. That's all I can think of for now... :P

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans Kael's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Incineration View Post
    A massive improvement in our overall output is, in fact, not really in your hands. You simply NEED better weapons. Your output as a rogue is mostly dominated by your weapon attack, so you're very likely to find your dps jumping up with several K's as soon as you get a raid-level weapon. Gear, as a whole, is also of major importance for rogues, seeing as our numbers are mainly generated via our scaling mechanics. The less gear you have, the lower your benefit from your passive scaling mechanics.
    I know it may seem somewhat "excuse-ish" but I really cannot stress the importance of gear enough; It's absolutely vital to your dps as a rogue.

    2. You mentioned Garrote; Never, ever, use, Garrote. No matter the spec. If you're Combat, you'll want to open with an Ambush. It nets you the highest amount of combo points and damage than any other opener. As Assassination, nothing beats a free Mutilate. Two chances of proccing poisons, at least 2 combo points, and a chance to proc Dispatch, is simply beyond anything Garrote could give you.

    5. Seeing as we're speaking of raiding, spending combo points on Recuperate during a fight is an absolute no-go, and should never be done unless your target is dead and you're just trying to get some use out of your about-to-expire combo points. Glyphed Recuperate will rarely be of any use to you in any raid.

    6. Deadly Momentum is rarely useful for raiding. It's mostly a leveling glyph. (And a damn good one, I might add!)
    Incineration's response was pretty thorough, but I'd like to expand on/reinforce a couple of points:

    Weapons REALLY change your damage output. Going from a MH 463 to 489 is worth more DPS than any other 3-4 upgrades I can think of offhand. Relic & three other giant upgrades may prove the exception, but only just barely.

    2: There's a lot of back-and-forth between SF Ambush and SF Mutilate, and the best information is that they're close. I deeply prefer mut for the chance to get a dispatch to pop for SnD immediately after rupture. Garrote is behind as an opener, however. Before you have better weapons* Mut is definitely ahead (poison procs > weapon damage).

    5&6: There are *occasionally* exceptions to these rules, but that's what hot-swapping talents/glyphs is all about. If your healers are struggling on Gara'jal or P3 Elegon, getting recup up doesn't hurt, BUT you need to know what enemies do and do not trigger "enemy that grants experience or honor" (i.e. sparks, not charges, not pillars). If you're killing spirits on Gara'jal, with or without recup, Deadly Momentum is a minor bonus, especially if you end up in combat for weapon choices.

    Spec choice: other than stone guards/garalon or other fights with heavy heavy cleave, play the single-target spec you've got the best weapons for, and given equal weapons, don't play combat for single target. If you're not super-competitive, you can try sub or assassination for single-target, but if you're min-maxing, assassination is ahead this tier.

  5. #5
    They covered most of the big stuff. If you are serious about combat though, you don't want to gem for mastery. You also don't want to gem expertise for either spec really. Now if you absolutely can't hit exp cap as combat without gems, it is worth it to do that, but you certainly could as you could replace the mastery glove enchant with expertise to get more than your gem gives.

    I also find the KS glyph to be in general a bad choice. Usually on most fights it will unglyphed return you to where you started anyway because there is only 1 thing up. Even on fights like SG where there are 2, you should still be in range to auto attack your target even if you stop on the other one. The big thing though is that if you KS and your target was moved during the KS, the glyph will place you out of range and you lose dps time.

  6. #6
    Get used to elusiveness - it's not only powerful to aid your healers, it nets you DPS or otherwise helps your raid in general. Most notable example is Elegon, where your DPS will be pitiful compared to range when you need to run out every 5 stacks. With elusiveness, you can easily stay in until 15+ depending on the timing of the adds/phase changes. In our very average 5/6 raid we still had the DPS to push Elegon to phase two and I only reset stacks once each phase 1. You didn't mention what fights you feel you are underperforming on (unless I totally missed it), elusiveness+standinginshit is absolutely required to keep you competitive on many fights this tier.

  7. #7
    WoW, as always ii come late and everything is already said love my fellow rogues

    Just a couple of tips.
    Leeching poison is an extremely valuable tool. Feint + Elusiveness make practically you immune to aoe, but it comes at the expens of dps, and if you need to spam it, your performance will be hindered.

    My suggestion: take elusiveness for the fights in which there is a predictable and heavy spike aoe damage; if the damage is costant during the fight (like garalon if you're not doing the soak work) Leeching poison is better being passive with a nice heal on demand with shiv.

    For the rest, reforge/gem properly, and go for better weapons
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Incineration View Post
    5. Seeing as we're speaking of raiding, spending combo points on Recuperate during a fight is an absolute no-go, and should never be done unless your target is dead and you're just trying to get some use out of your about-to-expire combo points. Glyphed Recuperate will rarely be of any use to you in any raid. :P
    As always a great post, but this isn't true here. If your healers are having a hard time, a recup will help. Especially at second boss in HoF. That said, its still mostly useless, yes.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bluegirl91 View Post
    As always a great post, but this isn't true here. If your healers are having a hard time, a recup will help. Especially at second boss in HoF. That said, its still mostly useless, yes.
    'Twas more of a general comment.
    The point is, you'll generally want to use your combo points to maximize your dps, and as such, continually using Recuperate will become a huge loss. It's not worth using the vast majority of times, and it's most definitely not worth glyphing into. There are much better glyphs that will aid your survival, dps, or general utility.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Thank you all for the fast and detailed response! I wasn't expecting to have so many replies so soon to be fair!

    I've read the lot, though I will go over it again just so I can see where my biggest improvements will come, I definitely need to upgrade my weapons. That much I know for sure, as when I used to PvP all the while that was the one thing I was lacking, with the fact that I was limited on time play! :O

    I'm going to hopefully smash in some heroics tonight, is there anywhere or any major places worth visiting/frequenting for weapon upgrades? What would you lot recommend for/pre raid requirements? My gems are currently set for Assassination if that clears any confusion? Lysah: I didn't mention any particular raid to be honest, though the one fight, sorry two fights I've been in mainly and struggled until I could find my learning curve back with combat was Garalon and Wind Lord Mel'Jarak. I'm part of the guilds Raid 2 party though I'm a stand in for Raid 1. I've been only to those two bosses and really looking for more was to improve for combat as you lot have seriously posted plenty of information! -- I've been on WarcraftMovies and downloaded a few fights for the bosses in HoF, I know MV better than I do HoF although I have not done normal/heroic on either yet, only LFR.

    I've macro'd Shadow Blades with Adrenaline Rush, seems to be working really well with me doing that rather than using them seperately and at different times. KS is one I'm a little off on, when do you know it's the perfect time to use? Clustered or Single target? If Single Target what is the range distance away from other mobs that makes it safe to use?

    Last night after posting this I decided to try Shadow Focus anyway with an Ambush opener over Garrote and it seemed much better for me, with and without pre-potting. So I think I'll be keeping that one now, as for Feint + Elusiveness, I will give that a go this time around as it seems very good! I'll take out the Glyph of Recuperate and have Feint in there instead.

    Oh I actually forgot to mention, we're progressing, I needed to make sure that was out! Just re-read what Incineration said about the Feint being something that I really need to learn how to use ^^

    Thank you again everyone for all the information! I've a long way to go but I'll get there!

    --Lee

  11. #11
    Stood in the Fire Isoge's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Incineration View Post
    6. Deadly Momentum is rarely useful for raiding. It's mostly a leveling glyph. (And a damn good one, I might add!)
    While I mostly agree with what was said, Glyph of deadly momentum is very useful against the adds on the Gara'jal the Spiritbinder encounter as it basically gives you a free refresh when it's your turn to pop into the other realm for a quick visit.


    Anticipation can give you a friggin boost in dps at the start of the fights thanks to bandit's guile, meaning that after you've put up slice and dice, you basically (not going through the rotation, but just barely mentioning it) spam sinister strike until you've reached a higher level of bandit's guile and depending on where you choose to unleash the finishers, the finishers will have a higher output thanks to BG. And this can be repeated once the red BG phase is over. I haven't tried to do this more than once per fight though so I can't say if it's optimal to do this more than at the beginning, but if it is, then anticipation is better than I thought. Keep in mind though that revealing strike has a chance to give you 2 CP instead of one, so make sure to not waste a CP... I start to unleash finishers after 3-4 builders once I have 5 CP... Hopefully, someone with some more knowledge on this subject can bring some light to this matter.

  12. #12
    Do most rogues go into the totems though? Ours just sit on the boss as we decided that rogues seemed a fairly poor choice to have going in there, running around, and target swapping like mad. Ranged, especially multi dotters, seem far better to send in and then most of the melee can just train the boss.

  13. #13
    If you have ranged who can solo the spirit realm, rogues are generally sent down, healed up to a 20%+ buff, and then pop out as soon as possible. Basically, they just go down to get the buff.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by rayanne View Post
    If you have ranged who can solo the spirit realm, rogues are generally sent down, healed up to a 20%+ buff, and then pop out as soon as possible. Basically, they just go down to get the buff.
    I really question whether or not that buff is worth the probably 10+ seconds of you not dpsing the boss at all though (well potentially less if you get really lucky and your totem drops close enough that you can melee the boss).

  15. #15
    Edit: nevermind
    Last edited by shadowboy; 2012-11-11 at 07:00 PM.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by shadowboy View Post
    Actually gemming for expertise as combat is definitely worth it if you can't cap through reforging. At nearly any gear level expertise is worth > 0.5 agi. Gemming for it should be a last resort though.
    You must have missed how I clearly explained he could switch his mastery to gloves enchant to expertise to make up for the gem if he absolutely needed more than reforging would give... actually that is the last line of that quote. Or how I also said that as a last resort it was fine (doesn't apply to this case though).

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Sesshou View Post
    You must have missed how I clearly explained he could switch his mastery to gloves enchant to expertise to make up for the gem if he absolutely needed more than reforging would give... actually that is the last line of that quote. Or how I also said that as a last resort it was fine (doesn't apply to this case though).
    I did. I only read the first line. I skim a lot. Especially as I visit MMO-C fairly irregularly and reading every word of every post is not generally something I can do.

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