Damage optimised rogue

[Quark]

I want to optimise for instant damage over damage over time. I'm imagining that I'll be in groups good enough to steamroller a lot of the content so a 30 second dot is a bit of a waste on something that dies in 10 seconds.

Elite mobs in higher instances may slightly change your perspective on the time, but my philosophy with Rogues is essentially the same. I want to do damage now.

I like crafting in these games so I anticipate being able to support a costly build to run. If I need to drink a mana potion more often than most that's not a big concern

Well, no mana for Rogues at all :)
Just Energy.

The big assumption is that there are viable crowd control, damage mitigation and tanking options elsewhere in the party so I can focus on killing speed.

In my experience, more crowd control is always useful. Having 1 target sheeped while another is sapped really makes battles easier.

Damage Mitigation: don't focus on it at all as a Rogue. If you get hit, you get hurt. So the basic Rogue group strategy is don't get hit. If you do get hit, use Evasion. The exception to the don't get hit rule is if your casters are getting hit. Then Sinister Strike spam away and try to get that aggro, using your Evasion to mitigate your own damage.

The expectation is that monsters will arrive at the tank with me stealthed a few yards away. I read Roland's comments about Rogue pulling a page back with great interest but I'm expecting not to be the puller in a fast-paced group that will have established its procedures before I catch up with them. I'll let the tank build a bit of hate then:
Cold blood
Ambush
(maybe Feint)
Backstab
Eviscerate
thistle tea
Vanish
Ambush
Feint
Backstab
Eviscerate

1) Don't use an Eviscerate without at least 4 combo points. A backstab or SS is better off then. Don't forget that Eviscerate's listed damage is not taking armor into account.
2) Your build doesn't have Improved Ambush, but even so I'd save Cold Blood for Eviscerates. The damage potential of Eviscerate is much higher, so the critical bonus is that much better.
3) Don't rely on Cold Blood, Vanish, and Thistle Tea as your basic combo strategy. The cooldown is too long for all of them to be used every battle. Vanish takes a Reagent so you should only save it for when it's survival or boss fights. Thistle Tea is not easy to cook unless you're an Herbalist, or have a supplier.

However, a combo like this could be useful against a boss where you're expecting to have all your skills ready.

I had a long look at Preparation and I felt it was a big chunk of talent points which would cost damage. I also discarded Improved Sap despite reading that it is very highly regarded. This is because I'm joining a little late and I imagine I'll be hooking up with players who are coping perfectly well with the game and don't need crowd control quite so much as the general population at large

I encorage you to try out your build, and report back (since I'd like to know how it plays), but don't discount the Subtlety tree. I find all the talents I took to get to Improved Sap useful. Especially Oppurtunity and Improved Ambush.

Improved Sprint - 2/3 points
Reduces the cooldown of your Sprint ability by 60 seconds.

I'm not a fan of any skill that reduces cooldown of a single ability. You might be better off finishing Lightning Reflexes.

Vile poisons - it's a toss-up between this and Improved Instant poison to get the pre-req points for the higher talents. The maths seems to be this:

Vile poisons 5 = X poison damage +15% for the talent proccing 30% of the time = X * 1.15 * .3 = 0.345 X per weapon hit

Improved instant poison = X poison damage proccing 40% = 0.4 X per weapon hit

Unless there's something I've missed, Improved instant poison is a clear winner, over twice as good in fact, although Vile poisons has a greater versatility

Your numbers are off, but the real numbers don't make Vile Poisons seem any better. The basic proc amount is 20%, not 30%. So that's X * 1.15 * .2 = 0.23 X per hit. IIP is then 0.3 X per hit. Essentially IIP is a 50% increase in poison damage, compared to a 15% increase for Vile Poisons. Not only that, but before I got IIP, my poison timer (30 minutes) was always running out before my charges were used up. Now that I have IIP, it's more money effecient using poisons as I'm getting more charges used.

Improved gouge - I have to take this or 3 points of Lightning Reflexes as pre-req. Gouge isn't in the game plan but then neither is having to dodge so I've opted for the passive

Not necessarily the Improved Gouge talent, but have Gouge in your plan. My strategy for spellcasters is this:
Cheap Shot or Ambush opener
SS whenever I have 70+ energy (Backstab's too expensive for my spellcaster strat)
Kick when they start casting a spell
Gouge on the 2nd spell, wait for Kick cooldown and Energy while they're gouged.
Kidney Shot substitutes Kick or Gouge when I have 5 combo points.
Eviscerate if I know it'll kill the mob.

If a spellcaster gets a non-instant cast spell off on me, it's because I messed up. Note that this strategy won't work in PvP on mages, they can Blink out of stuns.

Deflection 2 vs Improved sprint 2 vs Improved Evasion 2 - I have two points to spend here, none are skills I'm especially after. Sprint seems the most generally useful but I'd be interested in what experienced players have to say

Well, I mentioned Improved Sprint above, though I do see Improved Evasion as more useful than Improved Sprint if you want a less passive talent. There's no reason to take Deflection instead of Lightning Reflexes unless you're using Riposte, from what I see.

Dual wield specialization - I was very unsure whether +50% damage to off-hand weapon beats +5% critical on Daggers. Has any number-crunching been done on this?

I would guess that Dual Wield spec will add more damage, but Seal Fate builds want as many criticals as possible.


Something I've thought of but I've already cut-pasted all over the place: if you're getting Dagger Specialization, I wouldn't recommend having maces with macro switching. The extra criticals help your Seal Fate, and have a fast dagger in both hands means you can have damage poisons on both hands. Right now I have a mace off-hand because it's signficantly better than the dagger I had, but it's awful at having a second poison.