Rogue PvP guide

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PvP guide:	Dk	Dr	Hu	Ma	Pa	Pr	Ro	Sh	Wl	Wr

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Techniques 3 Strategy 4 PvP Trinkets 5 Classes 5.1 Rogue 5.2 Warrior 5.3 Priest 5.4 Mage 5.5 Druid 5.6 Hunter 5.7 Warlock 5.8 Paladin 5.9 Shaman

Introduction

In PvP, most classes will likely attempt to kite a rogue rather than engage one in melee combat. Warriors, other rogues, paladins, and occasionally (brave) shamans are the exceptions. To avoid excessive kiting, make smart use of your cooldowns (Sprint, Blind, Vanish, Preparation) and Crippling Poison. Specific play style and strategy may vary quite widely according to the rogue's talent build.

Techniques

Re-stealthing is an important rogue skill, and mastering this tactic may greatly improve survivability. This skill can enable a rogue to:

• Blind, run out of combat.
• Gouge, Sprint, run out of combat.
• Vanish.
• Apply Crippling Poison on the target and simply run away from combat.
• Kidney Shot, run away from combat.

From stealth, a rogue has many options available to him:

• Sap, bandage.
• Sap, wait for debuffs or a priest or warlock shield to run out, then Cheap Shot.
• Sap, Cheap Shot, run away and restealth for extra points on the target.

Against melee characters, stuns and disables are very important. Melee characters usually have high chances to parry/block melee attacks. Since all the Rogues moves are melee, this can easily throw off your timing. Stunning an opponent (and running behind them, forcing them to turn around) removes his ability to parry and your attacks, and lets your moves go through much smoother.

Against melee characters wielding a slow weapon, stuns are even more important. A carefully timed kidney shot/gouge can mean avoiding an ugly chunk of Windfury. The best time to stun them is right before they swing. The worst time to stun is right after a swing. Just think of [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros] as a big spell with a 3.70 casting time. You wanna interrupt it as late as possible.

Against pure casters (and even paladins and other classes like elemental shamans which rely heavily on spells), consider opening with a Garrote instead of cheap shot. Since Garrote (starting at rank 7) silences the opponent for three seconds (completely shutting down mages, priests, and locks), you can think of it as a three second Cheap Shot that costs 10 less energy and leaves a significant dot on the opponent. The silence effect is especially important now that pvp trinkets can remove any cc effects.

Strategy

In general, a rogue has three different play-styles available to him or her, namely: rush-down, control, and burst. Of these three styles, each talent build will tend to be strong in one and adequate/weak in the others. This section will cover each style in detail, including how they're used against opponents and to which talent builds they correspond.

• Rush-Down

Knowing how to play a rush-down style is utterly important in high level PVP. To summarize, "rushing down" an opponent means playing as aggressively as possible, using most of your combo points for offensively-minded finishers such as Slice and Dice or Rupture and burning your cooldowns to drop an opponent as soon as possible. In a pure rush down style, Vanish is usually used to avoid attacks and get in a quick Cheap Shot. The preferred opener is Garrote to maximize DOT damage and the preferred poisons are crippling and deadly/wound. In a rush-down style, constant movement is crucial to keeping an opponent disoriented and sticking to your target's back. Timing your Kicks and Gouges is essential when rushing down casters since you will be using your combo points for finishers other than Kidney Shot. Rush-downs are best used against players with high health because it puts out the highest damage over time. It is, however, vulnerable to classes that can CC you easily since you spend most of your time out of stealth.

• Control

Back in the days before the Burning Crusade, Control was king. It was possible to stun-lock most classes from 100-0 and the mark of a good rogue was one who never used his/her cooldowns to win a duel. With the release of The Burning Crusade, however, it became impossible to beat anyone as a rogue without using one's cooldowns due to the high amount of health/armor/resilience players now have. Stun-locking a player from 100-0 now is a near impossibility, unless there is an extreme gear discrepancy between the rogue and his opponent.

With this in mind, knowing how to maintain control over an opponent is still an important skill for PVP- it is just not as important as it used to be. With a pure Control style, you should try to avoid using DOTs since Gouge and Blind are crucial to keeping an opponent locked down. Putting a Gouge in-between a Cheap Shot and a Kidney Shot gives you an extra combo point for your Kidney Shot and allows you to regenerate energy for your Kidney Shot combo. Careful use of Blind will allow you to re-stealth and re-open or will give you an opportunity to bandage up. Kicks must be carefully timed- against a caster class, you should try kicking the opponent as soon as their stun wears off to maximize your chance of interrupting a spell. With Improved Kick, it is even more imperative since the added silence effect gives you a 2-second window for your next CC should you fail to interrupt a spell.

Using a Control style, you run the risk of drawing out a battle too long to the point where you run out of cooldowns and are basically dead. Since you sacrifice a lot of DPS to keep an opponent locked down, it is best used against medium or low HP opponents. Using a control style is also the best way to take out a healing opponent; whether it be a Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druid, or a Holy Priest; since the frequent interrupts will prevent them from healing through your damage. Control however requires a little luck to pull off smoothly- should one of your Kidney Shots get dodged/parried, you'll lose momentum and may have a hard time recovering afterwards.

• Burst

The term "burst" refers to the technique of doing a high amount of damage in a short period of time. A pure burst style thus requires re-stealthing and re-opening several times to execute multiple bursts of damage- needless to say, it is something unique to Subtlety Rogues. For Shadowstep Rogues, a Premeditation into a Shadowstep Ambush will take out a huge chunk of health in the very first strike and will also give you 3-4 combo points to build upon or with which to execute an early finisher. For Seal Fate/Premeditation Rogues, a Premeditation into an Ambush may yield anywhere from 3-5 combo points in the opener with which you can use a Cold Blood Eviscerate for maximum damage upfront.

The key to playing a burst style is to restealth as much as possible and stay stealthed until you can land the opener. Since there is a significant amount of dead time in-between bursts, it is not wise to use it against healing classes unless you are certain you can kill the target in 1-2 bursts. Otherwise, the target will simply heal through your bursts and you'll have wasted a lot of cooldowns. This style is best used against lightly-armored targets, especially those who cannot be locked down easily- most specifically, the Mage. It also excels in rogue v rogue duels since stealth, more often than not, is the key to victory in such duels.

With these three archetypes established, it is important to note which talent builds are best and worst for rushdown, control, and burst styles. In short:

• Assassination/Mutilate builds are second to none for control, good for rush downs (assuming you have Dual-wield Specialization), and weak at bursting since their primary burst comes in the form of Cold Blood, a three minute cooldown.
• Combat builds are the best for rush downs due to their high sustained dps, poor at control (better if they are mace-specced), and decent at bursting with Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush.
• Subtlety builds are superb at bursting, weak in rush downs due to their lack of white damage and slow out-of-stealth combo point generation, and decent at control (provided they restealth multiple times in each encounter).
• Seal Fate/Premeditation builds are also great at Bursting, good at control due to a high combo point generation along with Quick Recovery to minimize energy loss in case of a whiff, and weak at rush downs due to a lower sustained DPS compared to Assassination and Combat builds.

PvP Trinkets

As of Patch 2.1.2,

"Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character."

This means that Kidney Shot and Cheap Shot, but also the Deadly Throw debuff, Poisons, Sap, Blind and Gouge can be removed by any class at any time. Daze (from Blade Twisting) is surprisingly also affected - this misconception exists because there is in fact a difference between player Daze and mob Daze. Mob Daze is in fact only removable by complete immunity effects (pally bubble, Ice Block), while player Daze is treated as any other movement-impairing effect.

This also means that the 3 second silence from Garrote is more important than ever, completely shutting down casters without the threat of being removed.

Classes

Rogue

When fighting another Rogue, it is important to get the first hit. Since most Rogues are specced shadowstep right now and have both Master of Deception and Heightened Senses, this is particularly difficult for combat or mutilate rogues. When you do see the other rogue, try to sap them. Removing them from stealth will give you a huge advantage. After allowing time to regain your energy, you should use cheap shot to stun the rogue. Fighting a rogue is similar to fighting a warrior: you should keep them stunned. A smart rogue won't trinket until you blind, so be prepared for that. Some rogues may trinket your kidney shot as well, in which case you should immediately blind, restealth, sap, and then open with cheap shot again. Blind and sap are necessary to allow diminishing returns to fade before using cheap shot again. Against rogues you should be using crippling poison and deadly poison (although this obviously isn't always an option since it's unlikely you're switching poisons for every fight if you're in a battleground or any large-scale PvP). Remember not to blind when deadly poison is ticking or it will break. Remember to use any dodge abilities when going toe-to-toe with a rogue, especially since, unlike warriors, rogues do not have abilities to counter your dodge except dodging themselves. Evasion and ghostly strike do stack, giving a total of +65% dodge not including base dodge.

Warrior

If you're fighting a good warrior you do not want to get hit at all. Well-geared warriors can cut you down in a few attacks, as well as resist or dodge many of your abilities. Be ready to blow some cooldowns. One method that is very successful against warriors is to employ all the DoTs available to you, and then kiting him with Crippling poison, dive-bombing occasionally to either incur large damage or go for the killing blow. If you know you are fighting a warrior, equip Deadly poison in your main hand, and Crippling poison in your offhand. Wound poison instead in main is helpful in encounters where healers are involved. Due to the warrior ability second wind, stunning an arms specced warrior will cause them to get healed for 10% of their health in the form of a HoT.

There are two general methods of killing warriors: stunning and bleeding. When stunning, the rogue opens with sap. The warrior will use berserker rage to get out of it. Be careful of shouts, as they will all take you out of stealth. Open with cheap shot, followed by kidney shot. The warrior will (hopefully) trinket one of these. The rogue should then blind, allowing for a restealth, sap, and time for diminishing returns to fade from cheap shot and kidney shot to cool down. After stunning for a second time, vanish and restart the process. If necessary (and if specced for it), you may use preparation, vanish again, and stun the warrior for a fourth time if the warrior isn't dead already. Make good use of gouge while fighting the warrior to minimize the amount of time the warrior is free to move around. Always use crippling poison with warriors. The bleed method is harder than the stun method. The rogue opens with garrote, shivs crippling poison, and eventually executes a 5-point rupture against the warrior. Following this, the rogue may either vanish (blind -> restealth is not an option due to the DoTs) or attempt to stay in the dead zone between melee range and intercept range, the latter being much harder to execute than the former.

Priest

Fighting priests is similar to fighting warlocks. Your best option here is to stun the priest to death, using the CS -> KS -> Blind -> Restealth -> Sap -> Repeat method. Discipline priests are hardest, as their ability pain suppression will absorb a large amount of damage. Try to interrupt their heals, and don't forget about their DoTs (especially if they're shadow). It's easy to start whacking a priest and forget about their DoTs which will ultimately kill you unless you use cloak of shadows. Their fear is on a moderate cooldown (about 20 seconds, depending on talents), so have your trinket ready. They don't have any abilities like preparation: they cannot fear twice unless they wait out the cooldown. It is, however, a instant cast fear so be careful of that. Use wound poison and crippling poison against them. Against shadow priests, a common tactic is to fear, throw on some DoTs as you run away, and then mind flay you as you run back. Use shadowstep to negate this. Save cloak of shadows for the end of the fight when you can kill them in the 5 seconds of immunity it provides. Use expose armor to increase their damage taken.

Mage

Open with garrote on mages to apply the silence effect. The mage will immediately blink or frost nova and run away. If the mage blinks, use shadowstep to catch up and be sure to shiv crippling poison to limit his mobility. If he frost novas, he will begin to attack you at range. Use deadly throw to interrupt his casting (if you have the PvP gloves), or vanish to escape frost nova. If he has already used blink, you can then cheap shot to open on him and apply a rupture. Mages have excellent mobility and it can be hard for rogues to stay on them. The key is to try and do as much damage as you can without having to be within melee range. Make good use of garrote, rupture, and deadly throw. If you have time to prepare, you should also use deadly poison. As with all cloth-wearers, it is advisable to use expose armor to increase the damage they take.

Druid

Druids will almost always fight in one of their forms: moonkin, cat, bear, or caster (sometimes using tree as well). Druids have arguably the best mobility in the game, and are especially difficult for rogues. When fighting a druid in cat form, treat them as another rogue. When fighting a druid in bear form, treat them as a warrior. When fighting a druid in caster form, make sure to use wound poison and try to stun them to prevent them from healing themselves. When fighting a druid in moonkin form, fight them like you would a mage. Although they don't have blink, their superb mobility skills will require that you fight them in a similar fashion. Some druids alternate between forms in combat. In this case, try to catch them in cat or caster form where they are weakest. Expect every balance druid to have Nature's Grasp, which has a (base) chance of 35% to afflict you with Entangling Roots for every one of your hits. Either Vanish or CloS, and quickly catch up to them, making sure to apply a snare. Alternatively, wait until they start casting Starfire (this is the hard-hitting spell) and use CloS at the last minute. In summary, remove their ability to kite you while Moonfire/Starfire spamming, and don't be afraid to use Expose Armor.

Hunter

Against hunters, you should attempt to keep them within range as much as possible. Letting them slip out of melee range for a second could completely change the outcome of the fight. Always make sure crippling poison is up. Because of their pet, blinding for a restealth is not an option so use deadly poison (if you have time to prepare) and rupture. Ignore their pet unless they activate bestial wrath: in that case, you should attempt to vanish and wait out the ability. Bestial wrath lasts 18 seconds. A common hunter tactic is to lay down a trap on top of a flare and stand right on top of it. The patient rogue will wait for the hunter to get bored and leave or wait for the flare to fade and attack in between flares. If you need to attack while the flare is up, you can shadowstep and cheap shot before the flare removes stealth if you're fast enough. The hunter will almost always lay down a freezing trap on top of a flare (freezes you in a block of ice). If they're beast mastery, trinket the trap and then shiv crippling poison to keep the hunter close by. There's no way the hunter can out-DPS you in melee combat unless there's a huge gear difference. If the hunter is marksmanship, they will freeze you, move away, and then scatter shot. Wait for the scatter shot before you use your trinket. If you're unsure of their spec, stay in the trap and wait for them to move away. If they scatter shot, they're marksmanship. If they don't, they're probably beast mastery. Remember that in an emergency you can use cloak of shadows to remove hunters mark (along with anything else) and escape. Just watch out for flares. If you're beating the hunter to a pulp, they'll probably use snake trap as a last resort and try to get distance. In that case, use cloak of shadows and finish them off. Shadowstep or sprint if necessary.

Warlock

Warlocks are arguably the easiest fight for a rogue post-TBC and the addition of cloak of shadows. Fighting a warlock is relatively straightforward: open with cheap shot, followed by kidney shot, followed by expose armor and cloak of shadows. Within this time, most warlocks will be dead. If they're not, vanish and do it again. Trinket their fear, if they are able to get it off. Remember to use kick or gouge. Blind as a last resort to interrupt fear, especially if your trinket is already on cooldown. Blind -> restealth won't work here because, like hunters, warlocks have pets. Be wary of felhunters as they give the warlock and all his party members greatly improved stealth detection. They will also eat your buffs (not poisons, though).

Paladin

Fighting paladins is very similar to fighting warriors, except they can heal themselves. Use cloak of shadows to get through consecration. Unlike warriors, paladins gain no advantage from you dodging so use evasion and ghostly strike if you have it. If a paladin is able to bubble, they will heal themselves up to full. Use this time to back off and restealth. Try not to use any cooldowns (blind, vanish, etc.) until they blow their bubble.

Shaman

Shaman are an easy fight for rogues as they have no crowd control. Use evasion and ghostly strike (if specced sub) against them. In general, you should ignore their totems unless they're using it to escape (earthbind totem). Because they have no pet, you can use the blind -> restealth method. Always use crippling poison and wound poison. If the shaman drops a poison cleansing totem, kill it. Having vile poisons helps a lot here. In general, fighting shaman is similar to fighting hunters without pets and no crowd control.