SUB rogue FAQ (WIP)

[Flaryon]

Hey guys, with seeing this forum flooded with sub questions and there being mixed responses to these I thought it would be nice if we set up an initiative to get those answered. I myself do not have the answers for all of these so it's very much a WIP and will update it with answers / questions from the comments also feel free to debate on the answers made already.

Artifact & Talents

Q. How should I level my artifact

Sub MS & Sub OS
Finality>Akaari>Nova for Single-Target, Nova>Finality>Akaari for AoE

Q. What talents should I take

Weaponmaster, Subterfuge, Strategem, CheatDeath/Elusiveness (depends on fight), Prey on the Weak, Premeditation, Master of Shadows. DFA is better if 3 or more targets.

Rotation

Q. What is my rotation in ShadowDance

A. SS>SS>Finisher>SS>SS>Finisher is the general rotation. Which finishers you use depends on if you need to reapply Nightblade in pandemic range. You will want to refresh SoD during your dances too if it's in pandemic.

Q. How much energy should I pool before using ShadowDance

A. If you have the sub boots, 45+ energy. If not, pool to 55+

Q. On 2 Targets - what is my rotation

A. Keep Nightblade up on both targets and use Shuriken Storm for 2+ targets instead of SS or backstabs. If you have the Ravenholdt ring it's usually better to use Shadowstrike instead of Shuriken Storm at 2 targets.

Q. On 3+ targets what is my rotation

A. Same as above mostly, upkeep NB on priority targets that will live longest and shuriken storm>evis.

Q. What is the optimal opener

A. Symbols in prepull - SS>SS>SS>Blades>NB, after that you're just going through your dance charges doing the rotation.

Q. How does bloodlust affect my rotation?

A. It doesn't affect the rotation at all. However if you find yourself capped on energy you will want to backstab once before you next dance.

Q. When do I use Goremaw's Bite?

A. When not using Shadow Dance or Vanish, you have 2 or less combo points, and you have 50 or less energy

Q. What do I do after I run out of ShadowDance charges?

A. You will want to be pooling to 55 energy and backstabbing until 5-6 combo points then using a finisher during this phase. If you have Goremaw's or ShadowBlades coming up soon it can be really handy here. Eventually you will have 1 or more Dance charges. Use them as they pop up, but make sure you pool appropriately.

Q. Do I want to line up Shadowblades with Goremaw's?

A. It's usually best to just use both on cooldown. Goremaw's is an emergency energy/cp button, so it won't be used until you start to become starved on dances or energy.

Q. When should I vanish?

A. You use Vanish as a free dance charge, and want to use it when you have 2 or less dance charges available (if you have 3 dances ready use 1 dance instead). So you dance rotation is going to be Dance>Vanish>Dance>Dance in that order.


Legendary Rotation

Q. How does my rotation change with the Legendary boots?

A. Only have to pool to 45+ energy

Q. How does my rotation change with the legendary cloak?

A.

Stat Priority

Agi / Mastery > all for the most part. Sim your character to properly find results

Resources

Be sure to check out http://riff.tf guide as this is the main guide for Sub atm as well as visiting the Ravenholdt discord


Big thanks to Pixel from #Ravenholdt for most of the answers!

[Seliar]

Q. What is the optimal opener

A. Symbols in prepull - SS>SS>SS>Blades>NB, after that you're just going through your dance charges doing the rotation.

Actually this is pretty stupid opener. After 3 ss you won't have energy so you are wasting at least 1 sec for applying NB and you have to pool for a few seconds before using SD too. You can have SB up for like 4-6 seconds without casting any cp generating ability. Rather use if right before your first SS or after you applied NB and are about to cast your first SD but never use it before casting a finisher.

[Clinkzthebonerogue]

Actually this is pretty stupid opener. After 3 ss you won't have energy so you are wasting at least 1 sec for applying NB and you have to pool for a few seconds before using SD too. You can have SB up for like 4-6 seconds without casting any cp generating ability. Rather use if right before your first SS or after you applied NB and are about to cast your first SD but never use it before casting a finisher.

I actually use that style of an opener. Only because I have the bracers that extend the duration per CP. I doubt it is useful without the legendary tho. yep

[Flaryon]

Going with the rotation from http://riff.tf/ , any further suggestions on that?

[Clinkzthebonerogue]

I would not shadow dance at 45 energy as that is way too low to pool for your 4x SS. 60-65 energy is fine, especially if you have the macro.

/cast Shadow Dance
/cast Shadowstrike

Another macro that I use that will shadowstrike if affected by SD and backstab is not.

Trying to find it from a previous post but can't find it. Will edit it when I get home from work in like 6 hours..



Here's a copy/paste from post that I did a couple times. I've been copying and pasting this pretty often... lol.

For Sub:
There is DoT upkeep of nightblade: playing around with finality as in, letting the finality pandemic'd buffed nightblade tick all the way before reapplying another nightblade. So tracking finality buffs. if not you lose dps.
Pooling energy to 60 or so before activating shadow dance so you can fit 4 shadowstrikes in. If your 2nd evis procs weapon master you cap energy immediately which should prompt you to refresh your symbols of death. So symbols of death and shadowstrike should be pressed at the same time so you can fit that 4th shadowstrike in before shadow dance ends. If not you lose dps. Fitting in a symbols of death is also pretty punishing because you will most likely lose a shadowstrike in the dance due to energy. which is remedied with energetic stabbing relics and legendary boots.
Shadow techniques proc and weapon master procs - meaning you don't really know if you will get a set number of combo points. Sometimes a shadowstrike will give you 5-6 combo points so you will need to finisher immediately or else your shadow technique CP proc will be wasted. if not lose CP and dps.
Another note on shadow techniques with shadow dance: The rule of thumb is 4 shadowstrikes in a shadowdance but things like shadow techniques proc will cause you to evis after one shadowstrike (or if it procs from weapon master) in which the shadowdance rotation window would be something like SS > Evis > SS > SS > Evis then Shadow dance would be over. so you missed 1 SS but if you hadn't evis'd you'd waste combo points and an extra evis in an encounter.
Use of Vanish which is similar to outlaw, little different for sin.
Gotta have atleast 1-2 CP before entering shadow dance.
Lets not forget the stun utility that subs bring with the cost of dps which is pretty important in adds like dragons and xavius.
Using Goremaw when you have less then 2 combo points and less than 70 energy. Trying to use it on cd as close as possible.
The use of sprint for flickering shadows to get a free vanish.

Take what you will to add it to this guide, or feel free to debate/correct me if you see anything amiss. Sub is very reactive, so it's kinda hard to put this in words fit for a 'guide'.

- - - Updated - - -

I find it hard to accept your 2 target rotation. I don't have numbers (typing this at work) but I remember looking at the tooltip damage and using SS instead of FoK yields more damage. SS also gives you the chance of energy refunds. Anyone explain this?

- - - Updated - - -

Here's another paste from another one of my posts.

Knowing how long these fights are, sub can't really afford to waste CP/energy gains because you'll eventually run out of SD charges by the end of the fight. oh and btw, if you end the fight with 0 SD charges then you are doing it right. If you can do SS > SS> evis > SS > SS (4 shadowstrikes) in each SD then you are also doing it right. (note** you will need procs from weaponmaster or energetic stabbing (without legendary boots) to be able to fit the 4 SS if you do the math and SDing at about 60ish+ energy.) Probably the first step in mastering Sub would be doing those things, along with keeping the usual Nightblade/symbols up.


Taking advantage of pandemic and weaving it with finality'd night blades is a dps increase. If you are applying a finality buffed night blade you need to take full advantage of the pandemic effect. (30% of its duration will be added to the new application).

So if you are about to apply a 5 combo point night blade you can safely do so at 4.8 seconds remaining of the current nightblade on the target.
if you are applying a 6 combo point night blade, you can safely do so at 5.4 seconds left remaining on night blade.

If your finality buffed nightblade is on the target, you will want to apply it <1 second remaining so that it takes all the way. And you'll want to apply 5-6 CP because the higher the CP, the higher damage buff from finality onto your next Nightblade. (I use Weak auras to track finality buffs)

[Soisoisoi]

I would not shadow dance at 45 energy as that is way too low to pool for your 4x SS. 60-65 energy is fine, especially if you have the macro.

/cast Shadow Dance
/cast Shadowstrike

You'll waste SD charges using that macro.

#showtooltip Shadow Dance
/cast [nostealth,nocombat] Stealth
/cast Cold Blood
/cast [stance:0] Shadow Dance
/cast [stance:1/2/3] Shadowstrike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

You can remove the other stuff like Stealth and Cold Blood if you want, but that will let you spam SD/SS without it overlapping charges. Obviously you will still want another non-dance macro

[elfporn]

Pool to 65 before dance if you don't have boots. 50 or less if you do.

Use SoD at 5 sec on pre-pull timer.

Opener should apply NB first, then SB, then goremaws->finsher@5+cp then dance away. It sholud be easy to come out of SB with 3 dance charges, or very near.

Bloodlust reduces the energy pooling you need to do before dancing.

At around 3minutes start adding another finisher between dances if you want to build charges for a burn, you will run out between 4 and 5 minutes.

As far as stats go, hover around 5% versatility, and then stack mastery heavy/crit gear or mastery heavy/vers gear. At 5% verse it's roughly equal to mastery, and goes down relative to mastery from there.

For reference i sit aroudn 5.4% vers, 83% mastery, and 47.99% crit(in combat) with just over 3% haste. (Lanre-Jaedenar US). I didn't refernce the stats directly, but that's what i've got atm, i need more mastery though

[Soisoisoi]

SoD Pre-pull should be 13s and then again at 3sec. More than enough to get back to full and you get the pandemic bonus up to 45s.

[Clinkzthebonerogue]

You'll waste SD charges using that macro.

#showtooltip Shadow Dance
/cast [nostealth,nocombat] Stealth
/cast Cold Blood
/cast [stance:0] Shadow Dance
/cast [stance:1/2/3] Shadowstrike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

You can remove the other stuff like Stealth and Cold Blood if you want, but that will let you spam SD/SS without it overlapping charges. Obviously you will still want another non-dance macro

Nope I do not use that macro for all my SS, I only press it once to activate the shadow dance and I use separate button for the SS's.