The Rogue's Gallery

[Occhidiangela]

Not sure how many folks want to play a rogue, however, one of the things that slowly went south on the Lounge in D II was the hosting of quality guides. Of course, plenty of good guides got linked to and were proofed there.

So, in the interest of returning to form, I will be posting from time to time little things I learn about the rogue in this thread. Anyone else who plays a rogue is welcome to do the same. When I get home today, I'll do some cut and paste from an older Beta discussion of skills, once I get permission from the author.

Rogues: We really are the finest adventurers in the World of Warcraft. :D

Full Disclosure: This project is aimed at getting me mo betta skilled at the various site tools by having to apply them, and at getting a quality Rogue's guide posted here at the Lounge. That means . . . I sure don't have, and won't have, the corner on the market of good ideas, far from it, with the sparse game time I have seen in the past week.

Occhi

[Cryptic]

I played a rogue for the first time these last 4 days, currently level 19. So please forgive me if some of these are blatantly obvious to a veteran. I think initiate rogues would find some of this helpful, though!

A few basic notes to start with …

Attacks & Energy Management: Do not conserve energy unless you have a costly finisher in mind. You should always be spamming your abilities to get things to go off ASAP. Remember that you can change the sound options to turn off your character’s voice. “Not enough energy … energy … I do not have enough energy …”
:blink:

Equipment - Hand weapons: There are many different approaches to rogue building; I decided on heavy combat. For this build, I recommend dual wielding specialization with one-handed swords (or axes). A combination of stat-improving daggers and swords will serve you well throughout the game. Having two weapon types to choose from will increase selection and help you raise dps on demand.

Ranged weapon: I recommend a light bow or gun for pulling. Stealth pulling is slow and dangerous. If you’re not going to backstab the mob, and just want to pull them out of a group, invest in training and a minor ranged weapon. Throws are OK if you want to be cheap.

Stealth: Changing the camera options so that you can pull all the way back (and see about 30 yards in any direction) makes it much easier to see where you are in relation to all monsters. Use this if you’re stealthing to avoid contact with a swarm of mobs, as opposed to sneaking in for a kill. Warning: Mining takes you out of stealth!

Backstab: The easiest opponents to backstab are non-aggressive mobs; no stealth is necessary. Just walk up behind that giraffe/kodo/whatever and give them a whack. It uses a lot of energy, however, so be careful that you don’t pull another mob.

Evasion: Increases your ability to dodge. I recommend using this at any time you’re facing a high-level mob or a swarm. If need be, it combos well with Sprint. Try not to waste it because the cooldown is lengthy.

Eviscerate: The coup de grace. Build up Sinister Strikes and then cut loose with this. Will do devastating damage if you get 3-5 combo points built up. However, it can be difficult to save the energy up in a fierce fight, and Slice and Dice might be better if Eviscerate is not going to kill.

Gouge: This move is confusing at first. It stuns the opponent into inactivity, but if you attack, it is cancelled. It is basically used either to build back energy in a 1-on-1 confrontation, or to end combat and run. Often followed with Sprint.

Pick Pocket: Only works on humans and humanoids, and is worthless to begin with. This skill pays off in instances, especially when you’re not getting much loot, because it draws from a separate treasure table and it doesn’t “steal” treasure from the group. It basically gives minor bonus items, such as gems. Some quests require practice of this skill.

Sinister Strike: Good for building up combo points. I usually recommend getting 3 combo points before ending with an Eviscerate.

Slice and Dice: Finishing move that increases attack speed. If you’re facing an agile or high-level mob and you can’t land many hits, I recommend frequent Slice and Dice activations over an Eviscerate. You’ll land more blows and do more overall damage.

Sprint: This is your life-saving skill – sprint away from the opponent until their image icon disappears from your screen, then a few seconds more. You can return after you heal and stealth/approach again. Some people recommend this for speeding up travel, but I do not. It has a long cooldown and you never know when you’re going to need it. Save it for emergencies, unless you are certain you’ll only be in town for the next 5 minutes or so.

The rogue's paradigm: Eat what you kill. Maximize each kill's efficiency with rapid and effective combos. If you played a D2 assassin, you'll like the rogue. And be sure to get the most out of each kill with pick pocketing, skinning, and especially mining of the nearby areas - that smelted ore can be worth a fortune!
:shuriken:

[Tal]

The rogue's paradigm:  Eat what you kill.  Maximize each kill's efficiency with rapid and effective combos. 
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Except in instance groups - warriors and paladins have great difficulty pulling aggro off a rogue who make no effort to control their aggro.

[Treesh]

Gouge:  This move is confusing at first.  It stuns the opponent into inactivity, but if you attack, it is cancelled.  It is basically used either to build back energy in a 1-on-1 confrontation, or to end combat and run.  Often followed with Sprint.[right][snapback]62723[/snapback][/right]

You forgot to mention the best use of gouge - gouge and then move around behind for a backstab. It's excellent to use to maneuver yourself into better position when soloing and not just for crowd control, although it's great for CC as well. :)

Pick Pocket:  Only works on humans and humanoids, and is worthless to begin with.  This skill pays off in instances, especially when you’re not getting much loot, because it draws from a separate treasure table and it doesn’t “steal” treasure from the group.  It basically gives minor bonus items, such as gems.  Some quests require practice of this skill.[right][snapback]62723[/snapback][/right]

Pick pocket is not useless at the beginning. You can get necessary (if you're soloing) health pots from those low level humanoids (especially if you are a human rogue) and it will also help you bring in a lot more money at the beginning. But please, if you're in a group who tends to go on murderous rampages frequently (the whole less chat more splat mentality), don't slow them down by trying to pickpocket everything.

Edit: I forgot to mention that not all humanoids have pockets to pick. Wendigos, for example, don't have pockets even though they are humanoid. Of course, they are also a humanoid that you can skin so they're a little different anyway. ;)

Slice and Dice:  Finishing move that increases attack speed.  If you’re facing an agile or high-level mob and you can’t land many hits, I recommend frequent Slice and Dice activations over an Eviscerate.  You’ll land more blows and do more overall damage.[right][snapback]62723[/snapback][/right]

I absolutely love slice and dice with my rogues. I use it as soon as I have one combo points. Very few fights (at least one on one or one on two encounters) last long enough for that tiny slice and dice to wear off.

Sprint:  This is your life-saving skill – sprint away from the opponent until their image icon disappears from your screen, then a few seconds more.  You can return after you heal and stealth/approach again.  Some people recommend this for speeding up travel, but I do not.  It has a long cooldown and you never know when you’re going to need it.  Save it for emergencies, unless you are certain you’ll only be in town for the next 5 minutes or so.

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I use sprint for travel frequently because if I get ambushed on the way, it's either a small enough group that I can take care of it without needing sprint or it's such a huge group that even sprint won't save me because I'll get dazed and slowed and they'll work me over anyway. Sprint is great for getting your butt out of a nasty situation, but those nasty situations don't happen that much anyway. If you are in a group, you don't sprint away anyway unless the tank(s) tell everyone to bug out.

BTW, I just want to say that I absolutely love playing a rogue. :) Soloing and grouping with one are completely different though. I play my group NE rogue soooo much differently than my solo gnome rogue. The NE has to do her talents different too because of the completely different tactics used in group play.

[TheDragoon]

Remember that you can change the sound options to turn off your character’s voice. “Not enough energy … energy … I do not have enough energy …”

I didn't even think of that! That's one of the most annoying things about playing a rogue, in my opinion, so I'll have to try it out. Thanks!

[Guest]

There are 2 major divisions. and 2 semimajor subdivisions.

First you have daggers vs sword/mace.
Dagger rogues love sneak attacks.
Sword/mace users depend more on SS. The sword/mace builds need a slow main hand weapon.

The second divsion is Combat focused talents vs Assassination focused talents. Assassination buillds depend heavily on making the best use of cold blood.
The Combat builds depend highly on blade fury.
Combat is roundly accepted as a superior PvE build.
But Assassination is often thought to be better for PvP, however this debatable.


Its going to take some tests and number crunching to figure out which build has the highest DPS in a PvP fight.

[Occhidiangela]

BTW, I just want to say that I absolutely love playing a rogue. :)  Soloing and grouping with one are completely different though.  I play my group NE rogue soooo  much differently than my solo gnome rogue.  The NE has to do her talents different too because of the completely different tactics used in group play.
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If you get the time, an elaboration on the tactical differences would be appreciated. My observations on Rogue is

You can go one level up on opponents easily, two takes a bit of planning, three is not healty at all, however, I am only 8. (or 9, I forget.)

Occhi

[Treesh]

If  you get the time, an elaboration on the tactical differences would be appreciated.  My observations on Rogue is

You can go one level up on opponents easily, two takes a bit of planning, three is not healty at all, however, I am only 8.  (or 9, I forget.)

Occhi
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I have managed to take on six when soloing, but they weren't all at the same time. The groups did manage to space themselves out just enough so I managed to kill them all, but it was still dicey. They jumped me when I was trying to harvest some peacebloom. OT - peacebloom seems to be the most heavily guarded plant EVAH! (At least out of the low level ones. ;) )

Anyway, gouge the add, go back to swinging at the first critter. Use slice and dice with the first combo point you get. If you have quick enough weapons and have slice and dice up you can frequently get them locked in recovery animations and unable to do Bad Things to you. After that, you can use expose armor or eviscerate, whichever you prefer. I frequently do expose armor before eviscerate and it works quite well for me. YMMV. If you get three or more critters on you at once, use evasion ASAP so it can start its cooldown sooner. Keep health pots and bandages ready. If you see yourself missing a lot, move closer to the target. My gnome is usually standing right inside the critter - she seems to hit better that way and it also makes the monster frequently turn and move away from me giving me a backstab chance if I'm quick about it. Even if I'm not quick about it, the critter isn't using that time to beat on me so it's still good. If you've already drank a health pot, gouge whatever you can and slap a bandage on - some heal is better than nothing. When all else fails, Sprint your little butt away - preferably not into elites that are 6 levels higher than you are :blush: - and regroup a bit.

Keep in mind that my rogues are all alchemists as well so I almost always have troll's blood pots, defense pots, lion's strength pots, minor fortitude elixirs and agility elixirs on my little girls, which helps immensely, but still doesn't keep you from dying in every swarming. Oh, and I always try to have a well-fed bonus up as well. :)

Edit: Anyone who's had a higher level rogue can feel free to mention if these general tactics work higher up as well when you are soloing.

Also I got so wrapped up in telling about when you get swarmed that I completely forgot about the original request.

When soloing, I rely on the stealth skills heavily. If I can get them to half dead without being seen, that makes things a lot easier. In groups, it's a bit trickier to use those same stealth skills, although it's a hell of a lot easier to use backstab. Someone draws aggro, I backstab, someone draws aggro off of me again, I backstab. GG's druid and my night elf rogue frequently ping-pong the critters between us doing that. It's fun. :) I also managed to do that with some random mages, which was fun too. I also don't spam my sinister strike frequently if I'm generating too much aggro for the group setting. With slice and dice on, I seem to be able to still do good damage, but I don't quite generate the amount of hate so the healers can concentrate more on healing others than on healing me. Now, I've still got a lot to learn about my rogue playing well in groups and seeing how my skills affect the other classes, but really the biggest thing to learn is how to manage your aggro. In solo you don't have to worry about it, but you definitely do in groups. It's the main thing that decides whether or not your group is successful - does everyone know how to manage their aggro?

[Tal]

Sword/mace  users depend more on SS. The sword/mace builds need a slow main hand weapon.[right][snapback]62730[/snapback][/right]

What is SS? To me SS in WoW stands for South Shore.

I can't fathom why any rogue would decide that mace is a better way to go than sword/sword or Sword/dagger as the rogue class seems to live and die via how quickly they can put out damage. Maces in general are much slower than swords and certainly slower than daggers. Though I can see the attraction of using a mace given the human racial bonus to mace type weapons I don't think it outweighs the negatives of slower speeds

[Treesh]

What is SS? To me SS in WoW stands for South Shore.

I can't fathom why any rogue would decide that mace is a better way to go than sword/sword or Sword/dagger as the rogue class seems to live and die via how quickly they can put out damage. Maces in general are much slower than swords and certainly slower than daggers. Though I can see the attraction of using a mace given the human racial bonus to mace type weapons I don't think it outweighs the negatives of slower speeds
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SS= Sinister Strike

Myself, I prefer daggers, but that's because I can't do backstabs without a dagger in the main hand. Swords are ok, but seem to cause some issues with missing more often. Maybe I'm just not as used to the range of the swords so I can't get the "sweet spot" right. /shrug

[Arnath]

I believe the attraction to maces (and swords for that matter, which are still slower than daggers) is that Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and most of the rogue's other special moves ignore attack speed and just go off right when you hit the button. Also, Sinister Strike damage is only based on the max damage of your weapon, not the dps. This makes swords/maces tend to do more damage while just spamming Sinister Strike (although I still preferred daggers, because you can't Backstab or Ambush without a dagger).

[Tal]

I believe the attraction to maces (and swords for that matter, which are still slower than daggers) is that Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and most of the rogue's other special moves ignore attack speed and just go off right when you hit the button. Also, Sinister Strike damage is only based on the max damage of your weapon, not the dps. This makes swords/maces tend to do more damage while just spamming Sinister Strike (although I still preferred daggers, because you can't Backstab or Ambush without a dagger).
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The problem with that is you're still relying upon a slower weapon for the rest of the fights. ;) Though I do see your point and hadn't thought of that. Thanks. :)

[Guest]

Slow main hand is actually awesome.


SS(sinister strike) is an "instant" and is based off of the main hand damage. That means you total DPS goes way up if you use a slow main hand weapon win using sinister strike.


The BAD aspect of daggers actually that they are fast so that means you get very little damage out of your SS. This is the trade off that makes both builds viable.

Slow swords/maces for SS

Daggers for BS(backstab.)




The perfect weapon would be a dagger with an insanely slow speed like 3.0(this doesnt exist).

[Guest]

Do you play a rogue Tal?


I suspect you dont. There is no advantage to fast weapons in any situation for a rogue.
The advanatage of a dagger is that it lets you use special styles, not that its fast.

Im talking about the main hand. Fast weapons in the off hand are fine, maybe even best because they may proc poison more often(I havent seen a test checking this though).

[Tal]

Do you play a rogue Tal?
I suspect you dont. There is no advantage to fast weapons in any situation for a rogue.
The advanatage of a dagger is that it lets you use special styles, not that its fast.

Im talking about the main hand. Fast weapons in the off hand are fine, maybe even best because they may proc poison more often(I havent seen a test checking this though).
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I don't presently but I did in Beta to level 42. Certainly not to cap but long enough that I got a feel for the class.

I stand by my assertion that the soloing rogue is concerned with burst DPS over a short period of time. I also do not believe in making one trick ponies that rely upon a single skill for their damage output, hence my "I cannot fathom" statement. I have anecdotal evidence to back up my impressions of late game rogues. As a high level paladin I frequently grouped with rogues of every play style. On many occassions, as the support healer, I would slap a seal of reckoning on a rogue to allow them to heal themselves over time. The quicker the attacks, the faster the rogue would heal. In every instance the rogue dual wielding daggers healed themselves faster than a sword/dagger rogue. In addition it was always the dagger/dagger rogues that could pull aggro off a tank because of their fast, damaging attacks. They frequently would then switch to a sword in their main hand over their dagger precisely to slow down the damage they do.

[Guest]

Someone was confused. Either you or the rogues you played with. "They frequently would then switch to a sword in their main hand over their dagger precisely to slow down the damage they do."
Slow main handers wont slow your damage other than in not allowing you to backstab.

Repeatedly using backstab in a group is a GREAT tactic. That is the good reason to use a dagger when in a group. But the spead of the weapon is having no effect.

The Seal of Reckoning would be a special case where the fast attack was better. There are perhaps some other mutualistic situation where fast attacking as an advanatge.
But based on the rogues mechaniics alone a fast mainhand weapon is always worse.

IF you want to see more discussions on this check out http://vnboards.ign.com/WoW_Rogue_Class/b22782/ Theres plenty of flaming on the forum but also good info.


Remember I am not saying daggers are bad, just that slow swords/maces is a good and reasonable alternative to backstabbing with daggers.

[Tal]

But based on the rogues mechaniics alone a fast mainhand weapon is always worse.
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This is where I don't see eye to eye with you. These kinds of assertations don't match up with my experinces in the game. With talents a rogue using dual daggers with poison will out DPS a sword/dagger, sword/sword, and even sword/mace combos because the faster the attacks the more poison procs. In WoW, as in Diablo 2, I still hold to the "speed kills" way of building a DPS character.

Edit: Upon further thought on the subject I think we're both talking around the same general idea that the game allows for many different ways to play the game - that there is no one way of creating an effective rogue. My comments in this thread are limited to how I would create a rogue not how everyone should create a rogue.

[TheDragoon]

With talents a rogue using dual daggers with poison will out DPS a sword/dagger, sword/sword, and even sword/mace combos because the faster the attacks the more poison procs.

Don't be so sure. :) When I was playing my Rogue during the beta test I was using a 2.8ish speed sword in her main hand because it did roughly twice as much damage, per hit, as her daggers did. I was using Sinister Strike a LOT and that meant that I was getting almost as many extra attacks as I did normal attacks.

Here's an example to compare the two. Imagine a dagger that does 15 damage per hit at 1.3 and a sword that does 30 damage per hit at 2.6. Here's how the damage would compare over a given time interval:

Over 2.6 seconds the damage from the weapons would be the following:
dagger - 15 + 15 = 30 damage
sword - 30 damage

However, if you assume you can get off two sinister strikes in that period (say at the beginning of a battle), then you get sinister strike damage as follows:
dagger - 15 + 15 = 30 damage
sword - 30 + 30 = 60 damage

So, overall, the sword would be doing 30 more damage than the dagger.

Of course, this ignores the effects of using poison and such, but remember that, for some reason or another, not all rogues use poison and they might not want to put their talents into subtlety in order to increase their poison damage. In addition, I'm pretty sure Rogues have a talent where, with a mace, they can gain the ability to stun the things they attacks (I might be wrong... not at MY computer right now so I don't have the links to the talent calculator I use). This can turn a battle easily toward a rogue's advantage.

Finally, remember that with a sword or mace in the main hand, there's no reason why a rogue can't use a nice fast dagger in their off-hand so they can make use of poison's damage there to get the nice poison effects there, if they so desire. :)

I just thought I'd throw some numbers into this thread as an example since I have seen plenty of rogues that could dish out insane amounts of damage with a non-dagger in their main hand. It all comes down to the question, did the Rogue plan to use that weapon all along or are they just randomly using a non-dagger because it was new and shiny. In the first case, they'll probably dish out damage like crazy, but in the second case, probably less so.

[Treesh]

In addition, I'm pretty sure Rogues have a talent where, with a mace, they can gain the ability to stun the things they attacks (I might be wrong... not at MY computer right now so I don't have the links to the talent calculator I use).  This can turn a battle easily toward a rogue's advantage.

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Yes, it's mace specialization.

[Quark]

I'm now a level 34 Rogue, so I have a pretty good feel for how to play a Daggers rogue.

Observations I've made so far:
Poisons are worthless in the 2nd hand. I've rarely found a case where I used even half my poison's charges in the timespan of a single application. Sword or dagger, they just don't seem to hit enough. Has anyone else experienced this? The few times I add poison to my off-hand anymore, it's for Mind Numbing (casters) or Crippling (runners) that only occassionally help me out.

Rogues are an awesome class for clearing out lower level areas. Ambush Specialists (which I am), can make an enemy a one or two hit kill after an Ambush criticals.

I really like the Rogue specific quests so far, while my friends have complained there's not much for thier classes. They're probably right, but it seems to me that the Rogue gets to act most like a rogue during their specific quests, especially the new Ravenholdt ones.

I haven't gotten used to using Gouge or Garrote at all. In fact, it took me about 10 levels extra to get some of those to higher ranks because I simply saw no need. Am I missing out on Gouge? Keep in mind that at least 80% of the time I'm in a group with my friend's hunter and others, and I have a very group-based build.

Great combination for when you're playing with a Hunter:
Hunter starts with Conussive Shot, stuns enemy. When enemy unstuns, you follow with: Cheap Shot + SS (2 or three times) + Kidney Shot. In a 5-person group versus a single enemy, the others can do great damage while you focus on stun. I use this most often versus high/spread-damage, high-armor enemies.

Group oriented Rogues would be better served going Backstab/Ambush than SS with swords, if you have the right group members. Nearly always having a Hunter's bear with me has been a great help, as I'm backstabbing throughout the entire fight. In my party, I would do much less damage overall if I was SS oriented.

Finally, an observation I almost started a new thread for:
Distract. Do not underestimate distract!. Use it, learn to use it, get good at it, and start some interesting crowd control techniques! Today my hunter friend and I were tracking 4 Undead Bodyguards covering an Undead Courier. We didn't have the capability to take them all on, so I cast Distract in a place that caught 2 Bodyguards and the Courier. The two other Bodygaurds kept walking, and we proceeded to take on the remaining three with much greater ease. This is only the best use I've had of Distract, many times it's simply been a matter of stopping a patrol in Gnomeregan (Saved my party with that, we weren't ready), making sure a wandering monster doesn't make it into a fight, etc. Use Distract!