Rogue PvE Subtlety Guide for 6.2

[Rosvall]

I liked this guide. It follows my principles pretty well.

That said, there's a few minor things in the start. Your usage of "strictly better" on the bleed abilities is just a tiny bit too.. strict. Due to the fact that them providing SV, can in situations (mainly due to poor planning) not be worse.

[Deleted]

I think I only used the word strictly on Ambush vs Backstab and Ambush vs Garrote.

So I guess the Ambush vs Backstab is uncontested, which leaved us with Garrote vs Ambush.

So during T17 I messed around with Garrote for the opener when somebody suggested that it could be a gain and in fact is was a tiny gain, so we had that for the opener. But now that Ambush is buffed by a LOT through the class trinket that small edge will be gone, I am rather certain of it. Didn't sim it though, so I guess you could maybe prove me wrong on that one.
But the only place where garrote could shine was the opener anyway and that is definately gone with the 5CP on pull from vanish. And infight you can prepare for target switches by already having 5 CP for a rupture as your first skill on the add. With that said I stay by my statement that garrote is *currently* strictly worse.

[rj6553]

I saw some people talking about how a few top sub rogues have been using shadow-focus over subterfuge, is this purely because they can't take glyph of vanish for survivability reasons?

Some people were theorising that since we usually use vanish with shadowdance, the extra time to use stealth abilities wasn't as important anymore, and thus the energy saved from shadow-focus is actually a dps increase.
Is this the case? and if not, is there any fight where it would be?

[Generical]

Thanks for the guide Rylix. I routinely watch your Twitch recordings and go over your rotation to make sure I'm doing everything right, so to see an actual guide is great.

[Deleted]

I saw some people talking about how a few top sub rogues have been using shadow-focus over subterfuge, is this purely because they can't take glyph of vanish for survivability reasons?

Some people were theorising that since we usually use vanish with shadowdance, the extra time to use stealth abilities wasn't as important anymore, and thus the energy saved from shadow-focus is actually a dps increase.
Is this the case? and if not, is there any fight where it would be?

As sub you can easily give up the hemo glyph, so running out of glyps is probably not the reason. It's not more dps either, so the only potetnial upside might be ease of use as you don't need to look at your vanish CD anymore. Or if you still use vanish you don't need to pool as good. But wave goodbye to premed then as you gain 5CP through vanishing.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the guide Rylix. I routinely watch your Twitch recordings and go over your rotation to make sure I'm doing everything right, so to see an actual guide is great.

Thank you. The guide took longer than I anticipated, I think I underestimated the scope of the project, making these videos takes really long! unless you are really good with editing, then it's probably faster, but still rather slow.

[Valentyn]

Thank you so much for the video and written guide. As someone completely new to Rogues this was amazing help.
I literally doubled by DPS thanks to getting through all this.

I must say though, the spec certainly has some high gear requirements before it shines. Class trinket, 4 Set, and Leg ring; but even so I'm really enjoying the class and spec.

It certainly beats spamming Howling Blast on most fights, and looking for an Obliterate Proc.

Thanks a gain Rylix.

[Rosvall]

I think I only used the word strictly on Ambush vs Backstab and Ambush vs Garrote.

So I guess the Ambush vs Backstab is uncontested, which leaved us with Garrote vs Ambush.

So during T17 I messed around with Garrote for the opener when somebody suggested that it could be a gain and in fact is was a tiny gain, so we had that for the opener. But now that Ambush is buffed by a LOT through the class trinket that small edge will be gone, I am rather certain of it. Didn't sim it though, so I guess you could maybe prove me wrong on that one.
But the only place where garrote could shine was the opener anyway and that is definately gone with the 5CP on pull from vanish. And infight you can prepare for target switches by already having 5 CP for a rupture as your first skill on the add. With that said I stay by my statement that garrote is *currently* strictly worse.

(Trinket increases damage by garrote as well, though I get your point where our other damage doesn't thus the absolute damage difference is less likely to be offset by !ambush damage)
I don't want to go into extremely fringe cases. But now we open with rupture, so getting SV isn't an issue. However there are cases where you're on prio adds that should die ASAP, while on these you want to dump your CP into them, and not save rupture for target switching. So thus if after you have vanished and dumped those CP and initial ambushes into the prio target, but you still have subterfuge up when it dies. This is leaving you with next to 0 CP left when you swap target again to a target that might not have bleed on it. Opting to use that last ambush on the non bleeding target will leave you with either ~4 seconds without any bleed on the target (that you'll do one backstab into mind you). Or if you choose to hemo (which.. isn't really dps neutral, but a loss to use) will leave you with ~2.5 seconds without any bleeds on the target. All this with FW up as well.

Tl;dr the situation where you targetswap away from a prio target, with subterfuge up and have dumped your resources into prio target.

[Deleted]

Thank you so much for the video and written guide. As someone completely new to Rogues this was amazing help.
I literally doubled by DPS thanks to getting through all this.

I must say though, the spec certainly has some high gear requirements before it shines. Class trinket, 4 Set, and Leg ring; but even so I'm really enjoying the class and spec.

It certainly beats spamming Howling Blast on most fights, and looking for an Obliterate Proc.

Thanks a gain Rylix.

Glad I could be of help. About the gear requirements: So does assassination, though you can be fine with 2p T18 and 2p T17, but there is no way around the archi trinket as well.

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(Trinket increases damage by garrote as well, though I get your point where our other damage doesn't thus the absolute damage difference is less likely to be offset by !ambush damage)
I don't want to go into extremely fringe cases. But now we open with rupture, so getting SV isn't an issue. However there are cases where you're on prio adds that should die ASAP, while on these you want to dump your CP into them, and not save rupture for target switching. So thus if after you have vanished and dumped those CP and initial ambushes into the prio target, but you still have subterfuge up when it dies. This is leaving you with next to 0 CP left when you swap target again to a target that might not have bleed on it. Opting to use that last ambush on the non bleeding target will leave you with either ~4 seconds without any bleed on the target (that you'll do one backstab into mind you). Or if you choose to hemo (which.. isn't really dps neutral, but a loss to use) will leave you with ~2.5 seconds without any bleeds on the target. All this with FW up as well.

Tl;dr the situation where you targetswap away from a prio target, with subterfuge up and have dumped your resources into prio target.

I get what you are asking and yes, with ONLY subterfuge I guess Garrote might be justified, with dance that might be different though. I didn't have that situation come up often though, the only place might be M archimonde doomfire spirits. For the 2nd one I use dance, it dies within a couple of seconds so I have like 4s of dance left most of the time. In that case I went for ambush and usually could use rupture instantly. Most of the times rupture was still up though as it ticks with normal speed when you are not on archi.

For the 3rd doomfire I only used vanish so again I was 5s off the target, I guess there I sometimes could have used garrote when rupture was not on archi.

[Deleted]

Id like to add that rupture stops clipping at 7.3 seconds

[Rosvall]

Id like to add that rupture stops clipping at 7.3 seconds

(Technically 7.2. = 24*0.3 )

[Ryme]

This image is not meant to discredit your post, I would just like to know where exactly you had this feeling coming up. I tried to reduce downtime as much as possible and have ambient music everywhere but in the target dummy.
<img snip>

You know, I have to blame my headphones here, there were a little too quiet and I did miss the ambiance.

Now is that praise or criticism? ;P

Well... best leave some things unsaid ;)

[Vezah]

What about following situation :
-Rupture has 8 seconds left
-SnD just fell off or is close to falling off at 1-2sec
-Find weakness has 2 seconds left
-you have 4 combo points.

Do I wait for Honor among thieves to fill up that last combo point and squeeze in that last evis in that 2 second find weakness window, or do I refresh rupture? And how important is not losing SnD in this situation for a couple seconds until I recover? Or another option would be to refresh SnD during find weakness (which I try to avoid as much as possible) and go from there?

[Deleted]

Up, this helped a lot ! Thanks !

[Todesbote]

What about following situation :
-Rupture has 8 seconds left
-SnD just fell off or is close to falling off at 1-2sec
-Find weakness has 2 seconds left
-you have 4 combo points.

Do I wait for Honor among thieves to fill up that last combo point and squeeze in that last evis in that 2 second find weakness window, or do I refresh rupture? And how important is not losing SnD in this situation for a couple seconds until I recover? Or another option would be to refresh SnD during find weakness (which I try to avoid as much as possible) and go from there?

Just my opinion but:

Not dropping SnD > squeezing another Evi in FW. So in your case: if SnD is already off -> SnD -> Build 5 CP -> Rupture (if rupture drops before then, use Hemo once)
if SnD still has 2 sec, try to get 5th CP and SnD -> 5 CP Rupture

[Pleeb]

Good guide! Good work!

[Deleted]

What about following situation :
-Rupture has 8 seconds left
-SnD just fell off or is close to falling off at 1-2sec
-Find weakness has 2 seconds left
-you have 4 combo points.

Do I wait for Honor among thieves to fill up that last combo point and squeeze in that last evis in that 2 second find weakness window, or do I refresh rupture? And how important is not losing SnD in this situation for a couple seconds until I recover? Or another option would be to refresh SnD during find weakness (which I try to avoid as much as possible) and go from there?

How much energy do I have? I would do ambush -> SnD -> hemo and accept defeat.

Because if you find yourself in that situation you did 99% of the time something wrong and prioritized evis over SnD.

[Vezah]

How much energy do I have? I would do ambush -> SnD -> hemo and accept defeat.

Because if you find yourself in that situation you did 99% of the time something wrong and prioritized evis over SnD.

For some reason I was under the impression that refreshing SnD during FW was a big no no. While this can be avoided most of the time with proper tracking and foresight, I find myself in said situation every now and then. Also I feel like I'm overvaluing find weakness all by itself without any procs or buffs, and have the tendency wanting to squeeze everything into FW before the timer is up.

So safe to say that rule of thumb is 100% SnD uptime or die?

I do appreciate the response!

edit: this might be painfully obvious to some, but I cant figure out how you get your first prepull SnD to be 26sec?

Thank you

[Deleted]

It is in fact 100% on rupture and Slice and Dice or die :P

Since Slice and Dice is 36s, Shadow Dance 60s and Vanish dynamic they will inevitably collide. So just SnD during those, it's fine.

T4 + T15 = 27s. Though I have a feeling this won't last forever with the (probably?) increasing amount of people doing it. But how much of an increase is that really? Can't be too big.

[overdose]

WoW has this queue system which will perform your skill even when it is on cooldown just as the ability gets ready. That only works for very short cooldown durations left, I think you can change it in the interface somwhere.

So if your premed is still on a very low cd, lets say 0.2s and you press it, it will trigger at 0, assuming you are still dancing or vanished. So you could do that and then use your ambush at the last second.

so lets say dance lasts 0.3s and premed has 0.2s CD left.

Thanks for this, I knew there was a queue system for spells, but for some reason I never thought about using it with my rogue.

It is in fact 100% on rupture and Slice and Dice or die :P

Since Slice and Dice is 36s, Shadow Dance 60s and Vanish dynamic they will inevitably collide. So just SnD during those, it's fine.

T4 + T15 = 27s. Though I have a feeling this won't last forever with the (probably?) increasing amount of people doing it. But how much of an increase is that really? Can't be too big.

Prepulls make me hate doing this sooooo much, but I think the gain should be noticable not having to SnD until after the second vanish FW is over.

[Deleted]

Prepulls make me hate doing this sooooo much, but I think the gain should be noticable not having to SnD until after the second vanish FW is over.

I do my first SnD refresh before my 2nd vanish to drop below 5Cp on non bloodlust pulls, which are actually the majority of the fights, at least the harder ones.