Rogue about to hit 80, spec ambivalence.

[Dhurn]

So my rogue is 77 right now, should hit 80 by the weekend and I'm having trouble deciding whether I should gear up as assasination or combat. I've leveled all the way as combat, and had a pretty good time with it for the multi mob killing capabilities and such, but I'm also running into the feeling of just being a warrior in leather with 1 handers (I play a fury warrior as my main).

So I'm thinking I want to spec assn at 80, but the problem I'm running into is - I see arpen on like 70%+ of the perspective gear I could acquire (craftables, t9, triumph badge vendor). Now I know arpen is a premier stat for combat, but i also know I'm supposed to avoid it as assasination. So I guess my question is, is arpen really that bad of a stat for a mutilate build? Will my dps be gimp if I'm going into icc with half my gear having arpen on it? If so I'll probably stay as combat until I can fill out more pieces with appropriate stats.

One other thing, as a lowly geared assasination rogue (thinking ilvl200-232) what the best "yellow" stat to go for on gems after poison hit capped? I've heard both crit and haste from different people, I know a spreadsheet would tell me definitively but I'm kind of just looking for a general consensus for that gear level.

Any other tips/advice are welcome too.

Thanks.

[bozwell]

So my rogue is 77 right now, should hit 80 by the weekend and I'm having trouble deciding whether I should gear up as assasination or combat. I've leveled all the way as combat, and had a pretty good time with it for the multi mob killing capabilities and such, but I'm also running into the feeling of just being a warrior in leather with 1 handers (I play a fury warrior as my main).

So I'm thinking I want to spec assn at 80, but the problem I'm running into is - I see arpen on like 70%+ of the perspective gear I could acquire (craftables, t9, triumph badge vendor). Now I know arpen is a premier stat for combat, but i also know I'm supposed to avoid it as assasination. So I guess my question is, is arpen really that bad of a stat for a mutilate build? Will my dps be gimp if I'm going into icc with half my gear having arpen on it? If so I'll probably stay as combat until I can fill out more pieces with appropriate stats.

One other thing, as a lowly geared assasination rogue (thinking ilvl200-232) what the best "yellow" stat to go for on gems after poison hit capped? I've heard both crit and haste from different people, I know a spreadsheet would tell me definitively but I'm kind of just looking for a general consensus for that gear level.

Any other tips/advice are welcome too.

Thanks.

There are a few things as advice:
1) when in doubt, use a spread sheet
2) arpen isn't *bad* for ass, just nto as useful as it is for comb. . And this is because assn boost poison dmg and poison dmg isn't affected by arpen at all. This affects combat to a lesser degree, but on higher armor targets, env is prefered over evis anyways.
3) rogs still do alot dmg through physical, so, even though arpen isn't as strong for assn as comb. , it's still good. Just don't gem for it or go out of your way looking for it.

As for how to use a spreadsheet, consult the sticky thread. If you are a competent player, your dps shouldn't be gimped just simply you have a piece or 2 gear has arpen instead of ap.... ..

[Surly]

You asked if your damage would be gimped when you head into ICC so I'm going to assume this is for the purpose of raiding. To that end I'd say play and familiarize yourself with the spec you wish to raid with. That said.. I'd add a few comments.

-Combat is superior for running heroics. If you plan to gear up with that route as I'd think you would.. chances are you'll find Assassination builds perform at a fraction of the damage and can be more than a little tedious.
-Haste is the yellow stat you'll want as assassination, but again that's much more suited for boss fights. On trash pulls in heroics haste won't have time to stack your poisons and you won't have the crit for the haste to yield significant energy returns. Gemming haste can even pull ahead of AP on fights without movement in ICC, but its far less flexible on other fights and surely far less optimal in lower levels of gearing on very short fights.
-I'd go so far as to say armor pen IS a bad stat for mutilate builds. Between the two specs armor pen is worth possibly 30-40% less than the other stats you'll come across. Obviously a 232 or 245 crafted piece will beat out a 200 blue you're rocking.. but between the two specs armor pen for a mutilate build is basically the only poor one you'll find. All others are nearly a wash until you're nearing armor pen hard cap as combat of course.

Play what you like honestly. As mundane as combat probably feels to you right now.. its arguably more difficult to get the most out of in a raid environment. Assassination has essentially no cooldowns to monitor. Try not to overlap your envenom buff and smash two buttons endlessly. Combat is more or less the same thing.. but with cooldowns you can time as well as trying to maintain a high rupture uptime. That's for endgame raiding of course.. neither spec in a heroic will spec into or use rupture. Good luck.

[Dhurn]

Ok thanks for the responses guys, i think I'll stay combat for the heroic grind and try to gather some decent haste/crit/hit pieces and a couple good daggers then head into icc as assasination.

[Amgyn]

I've been having the same questions as you, except from the other side... i leveled as mutilate from 60+

I didn't enjoy the 'warrior in leather' feel you mentioned when i used combat for a few levels because i got a pretty good weapon that wasn't a dagger...

however... i found ass to have a couple of things that leave me wanting...

* your issue - arp on a lot of leather gear!
* have to use daggers - i've had to pass up so many 'upgrades' to weapons...
* gets boring~.

im not sure at the raiding level how it will in terms of staying aware... but i havent played with combat long enough to figure out the rotataions and cooldowns.

you need to juggle maybe 4-5 buffs and cooldowns.... cold blood, 2 trinkets, vanish, envenom buff, Hfb and SnD..

but in the end its just mut x2, envenom...

[Tyrrandion]

As to the yellow stat, noone can tell you with out knowing waht your gear is, You're going to have to spreadsheet things eventually anyway, so get in the habit of doing it early. Also, if you're going to replace stuff fast, gem it w/ blue gems.

As to the spec, id go combat if i were you. I started mut and love it but most of the gear you'll be getting will be more geared tward combat, and the gear thats itemized for you combat rogues will want too. Its much easier to go from a combat spec into a mut spec than the other way around. (Having 2 sets of gear blows) plus most of the fights in ICC want you to be combat, and you'll probably be able to go into icc pdq, rogues are op like that.

Also, weps are so much easier to come by. Lower Spire is easy to pug nowadays, and you can get some nice 251+ weapons from there both in 10 and 25 man (marrowgar and lootship 10, lootship and Saurfang 25) When you're running your heroics roll on daggers if they drop (best setup from heroics i believe is Bloodweeper from FoS and Unsharpened Ice Razor) so you have those ready for when you choose to duel spec.

Good Luck.

[DrgnDancer]

First, I'd say the people telling you to Spreadsheet are being a tad disingenuous. None of the current Rogue spreadsheets contains more than a few pieces of gear below ilvl 232. Other than DMC:G I don't think they really contain anything at all below 219. While you CAN manually program every piece of gear you have, and every upgrade you get, into the spreadsheet... Well tedious is a good word for that. I'd say your best bet is to wing it until you're in at least half ilvl 232 gear, and honestly I'd probably wait till I had more than that. So having said that, what should you look for?

The stickies have "rule of thumb" stat weights. Follow those. They are accurate enough for most purposes. ArP is awesome for Combat, but it's one of those things that only really becomes good when you already have a lot of it. Generally the rule of thumb is "Don't start gemming for it till you have around 600 or so passive on gear". Which pretty much means that by the time you start gemming for it, you'll probably have enough good gear to be spreadsheeting, and the spreadsheet will tell you when to start gemming it.

As a VERY generic rule for both Combat (until you have a lot of ArP) and Mutilate stat weight are OFTEN Hit/Exp to cap -> Agi -> AP -> Haste -> Crit. The difference between Agi and AP is often very tight, and gemming for one or the other usually makes only a tiny difference in DPS.