Stabby Sunday: Assassination Rogue
Stabby Sunday: Assassination Rogue
WoW Blogs - Stabby Sunday Rogue Blog
This weeks stabby Sunday will be about a topic close to my heart, a little too close for comfort, assassination or "muti". Before all you skillingspree spamming combat rogues start complaining I'll be writing about you next time.
This article is about what makes a good muti rogue, I'm not talking about gems, enchants or "phat epix" (although i will mention them at the end) I mean "rotation" (and i use this term very lightly). A "rotation" is what buttons you hit, when you hit them, and why you hit them. The reason I use the term "rotation" in commas is because there is no set rotation, people seem to think a good rogue will tell them "hit mutilate twice then envenom" if he told you that, he was a) not a good rogue or b) was trying to get rid of you.
All classes (bar ret paladins pre 2pt T10) have a priority system, not a rotation. The mutilate rogue's priority system consists of keeping slice and dice up, keeping hunger for blood up and mutilating to build combo points to help keep your envenom up. The most important thing new mutilate rogues seem to forget is that envenom isn't just a damaging finisher, it's a buff, and while the 12k crits or whatever are nice and shiny, it's NOT the reason that you use envenom, the reason is for the buff.
The buff: Envenom: Chance to apply Deadly Poison increased by 15% and frequency of applying Instant Poison increased by 75%.
In other words, you poison more. More poisons = more dps, since you are gemming attackpower or haste (depending on your gear) you get more of a buff (since attackpower is so your poison hits harder, and haste is so your poison hits more often).
Combo points: Now thats all well and good but to build combo points, the primary way to build combo points is mutilate, we do not sinister strike, EVER, unless by some freak chance your repair bugged up (because you should never go yellow) and didnt repair one dagger and it goes red and the boss is about to die...you always use mutilate, this will give you 2 combo points, but with 5/5 seal of fate 3 points on aro crit, if you hit the crit cap your priority system just got easier. For the others, you will sometimes get 3points sometimes get 2 points. We also have ruthlessness (like it wasnt already complicated enough :p) which gives us random combo points after a finisher (then the 4pt T10 which makes matters even worse with energy capping)
Other fiddly bits to watch: Now we have a damaging finisher, and a way to build combo points, not that complicated, having to watch your envenom buff, mutilate crits and ruthlessness procs, we have hunger for blood. This is the second most important thing in your "rotation" (the first being slice and dice). Oh, and this needs a bleed on the target which makes it even harder to keep up, you usualy end up doing a 1point rupture, or asking your friendly warrior/bear tank to put a bleed on, if you have a kitty or a dps warrior, its all good.
Summery of the cycle: You should open with garrote, this gives the initial bleed for hunger, pop slice and dice up, then hunger (I have my glove enchant macroed to hunger as im an engineer and they have the same cooldown, gloves being off the global cooldown) if ruthlessness procs hit a quick envenom, and start mutilating for combo points, if it doesnt, then mutilate then envenom, at 4 or more combo points you envenom, this is where most rogues mess up, and start going crazy and envenoming when they hit 4, I can't stress this enough, LET THE BUFF FALL OFF, assuming you dont hit 100 energy. other than that your envenom refreshing SnD, and it should go well. If your hunger for blood is about to fall off and you have a single point on from ruthlessness, hit a rupture and refresh hunger.
Gems: Attackpower in red, Haste in yellow, go for the socket bonus in red or yellow, depending on your gear you will either gem attackpower or haste (not sure on the crossover, spreadsheet it)
Enchants:
Head: arcanum of torment
Shoulders: greater inscription of the axe
Cape: 23 haste
Chest: 10 stats
Belt: Belt buckle with an epic gem in it
Legs: Icescale leg armor
Bracers: +50 attackpower
Gloves: attack power
Boots: Icewalker
Daggers: Berzerking
Profession enchants will take priority.
What hands:
The final thing in this what seems like an essay on rogues is what daggers go what hands, highest dps goes mainhand, if theyre equal dps, it doesnt matter overly, you'll be looking at 1-200dps at most. Deadly poison goes on the fastest one, instant on slowest. Note: the "highest dps goes mainhand" changes if you have something like tiny abom in a jar, then fastest goes mainhand because you hit more with your mainhand, and proc tiny abom more.
Untill next week, and punt some gnomes! (For those of you observent enough to notice 2 of my addons are gone, I had some.... Mishaps after disabling all my addons for the kaluak derby, every second counts :p)
Last Updated on Monday, 09 August 2010 03:49 Written by Dasistmir Saturday, 07 August 2010 22:54