Rogue PvP Spec SPECIFICS

[Daramun 0]

Hello, using all of my resources I've been able to find that the Rogue pvp spec of choice is either 21/3/27 or 23/3/25.  What I'm wondering is where are the points going? None of the videos of people who you get to watch and see know what they are doing actually show the specifics of the spec in it and I have no idea at all what I'm doing when it comes to rogue.

 

NOTE: THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A GUIDE, RATHER SOMETHING TO PROVOKE DISCUSSION TO GET SPECIFIC ANSWERS OUT THERE

I usually am able to figure out just by reading a talent if its worth taking or not. That being said I have a few questions here.
Below is what I think is pretty close to what the spec would be, I'm going to use this as a frame of reference for my questions.

SPEC:http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhe0oezZhZgMe0cGoo

I feel my combat and assassination talents are pretty spot on. I don't really have any questions about them (if they are wrong by all means let me know, please just also give me the why). Subtlety is where I have questions as there is so much good shit but not enough points. So below I'm going to break down how I view the talents in Subtlety CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG PLEASE.

Below are my assumptions:

Mandatory:

Camouflage 5/5

Elusiveness 2/2

Improved Sap 3/3

Serrated Blades 3/3 (to get Hemorrhage)

Hemorrhage 1/1

Preparation 1/1

 

Highly useful but not enough points for all:

Master of Deception: 5/5

Opportunity: 5/5

Initiative: 3/3

Heightened Senses: 2/2

 

All of this above stated, those 15 points listed above, we only have enough left to snag 12 of them.  This means we need to take 3 points out of them, but I just wasn't sure where.  I've always erred on the side of utility and that's why I've elected to take the points out of Opportunity in my link. That all said, I have NEVER played a rogue in vanilla nor have I ever hit one to max level in any expansion, but I am looking to play one now strictly for pvp. As such I may have underestimated how crucial the damage from Opportunity would be. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope it provokes thought and response from you. Again, this isn't meant to be a guide, rather something to provoke discussion so that the rest of us rogues have a spot to get our answers specific to talents and WHY we are taking them over others.

 

Please keep the WHY in mind when responding.

 

Thanks in advance!

~Senorsneaky

[Choppybacon 0]

It depends on what weapons and gear you have. I don't think you specified whether you're using daggers or not, and that's still not made clear in the spec you linked by having points in both Opportunity AND Hemo....  Your spec is going to depend mostly on whether you have a good dagger (and sufficient +Crit gear), or not.

If you have a hard hitting Dagger and ~22+ crit gear, you'll want to pick all the talents that add to Backstab/Ambush damage (including Opportunity). If you don't, you want to spend no points on those talents.

This is the spec I started using when I first started PVPing with total crap gear because it works well in group PVP regardless of your gear: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fhe0RxkbZhZxMe0chRo

Using that spec you always start out with Cheap Shot and and Hemo to build points, and (most of the time) have 5 combo points on your target before it ends. You then decide whether to ColdBlood/Evis them if they're low enough on health, or KS for another 6 seconds. Or, if they're wearing plate/mail and you have other melee hitting them, maybe do Expose Armor (with the 50% bonus). It's very flexible and I stuck with it for months even after getting better gear, because being able to sap one player and stunlock another is just so huge in BGs.  For this spec you want as hard hitting weapon in your main hand as possible b/c that's basically what dmg Hemo is doing, which is going to be a mace or a sword. (Crits hit much higher tho). Dirty Deeds is key if you're doing Hemo, gimping yourself without it. I don't consider Heightened Senses to be worth the points. (Anticipation of where enemy stealthers will be headed, proper positioning, ping, and luck are the main factors in which stealther is going to see the other one first. Humans will always see you first if they know you're coming, with or without these points. So you're basically spending 2 points to get a slight edge up on night elf rogues and 4% chance to resist spells, not worth it to me.)

The differences in the Assassin tree are fairly minor, but really just up to preference, and what kind of enemies you think you'll be facing more. If you're fighting a lot of druids/pallys/shamans who have poison cleanse abilities, then the anti-dispel talents might make them have to spam them to get out of your crippling. I prefer the 6% dmg bonus to everyone who's hitting my target when I KS them, and the Expose Armor bonus. (Makes significant difference against some classes/gear) Never pick Murder for PVP (has no effect against players), or Remorseless Attacks if you already have Hemo because you'll never use the abilities it benefits.

P.S. My comments re: Heightened Senses are on the assumption that already have 5 points in MoD at the top. I consider MoD and Camo mandatory for PVP, and you (and everyone else) will see Rogues who do NOT have MoD WAY before they have a chance to hit you.)

Edited May 24, 2017 by Choppybacon
Added P.S.

[Choppybacon 0]

There are a couple of different specs you can do if you want to use Daggers instead. You can go full down Assassin tree to get Vigor, which pairs nicely with the 5 piece bonus of Nightslayer, but you give up Prep to get it. Or you can put more in the Subtlety tree (but not Hemo) and use the Remorseless Attacks as an approximate Cold Blood in multi-target fights. Whichever dagger spec you choose, you're going to be better while solo jumping injured targets (or Mages without any bubbles up) before anyone realizes what happened (you don't even usually really appear on their screens until after your Ambush & Backstab have already gone off), or in group fights while someone else has already stunned them or grabbed their attention. All your damage is going to burst within the first 1.5 seconds (if using tea), and it's very important that you crit. You can do amazing burst if you crit, or be very gimped if none of them crit. Which is why having as much crit gear as possible is important.

(This is in contrast to the spec in the previous post, where your big burst dmg doesn't even happen until at least 1.5 seconds into the fight. You gain the chance to be able to do 3000-5000 dmg in the first 1.5 secs on your target, vs. being able to hold them still for a full 10 seconds while you and others are beating on them the whole time. Different play styles for different opportunities and gear.)

[Daramun 0]

7 hours ago, Choppybacon said:

It depends on what weapons and gear you have. I don't think you specified whether you're using daggers or not, and that's still not made clear in the spec you linked by having points in both Opportunity AND Hemo....  

I did not specify that because I was not sure what would be better. I assumed the end goal would be daggers, and I read that snagging hemo for the times you can't get behind is better than imp ss/ss without talents even if you have a dagger mh.

I just made my best guess off of lines read here or there and being told that the pvp spec is roughly 2x/3/2x.

 

Appreciate all of the advice. Very helpful.

My question for you would then be, do I HAVE to wait for gear to go daggers spec? That's a big part of what I've always thought was super cool about rogues. The versatility that daggers offers them. Do I want to ambush this clothie? Do I want to stunlock and then spam out backstabs? etc.

 

Also, was I right in assuming Improved Ambush and Remorseless Attacks simply aren't worth it even if you are daggers spec?

 

Sorry for the delayed response, I posted it and went to bed immediately after.  I didn't think it would get such an immediate response.

~Senorsneaky

[Daramun 0]

I also found a post early this morning (again no exact link to talent build, just mentions of talents) saying that there is a spec that's better than this one if you simply can't deal with kiting where you would pickup imp sprint. They mention the build is 16/12/23 but again, they don't say where the talents would actually be spent.

With what you've said in mind, I feel for a daggers based spec with imp sprint it would look something like this:

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#fbe0oxZhfM0bZiMe0c0R

Is that a pretty viable spec also? I feel like with this heavily of a daggers bould MoD would be the talent that most makes sense to give up points in.

You lose out on CB for guaranteed crit and 5% evisc damage, but you gain 30% crit on backstab so overall I would think that's a damage increase + the utility of imp sprint.

 

~Senorsneaky

[Choppybacon 0]

You could do something like that, but I'd have to ask WHY you're getting kited so much. And also point out that the Imp Sprint talents don't make you immune to slowing effects for the duration of sprint, they just clear those effects once right when you hit the button. Any class than can root/slow you is able to put the slow right back on, so I'd rather put them in Endurance instead, or maybe chance to hit (if you don't have enough +Hit gear yet), or finish off Imp Evis? If you use double crippling poisons they should be at least as slow as you, and they should be dead within a few seconds anyway or you used gouge/blind/KS to hold them still while you gain more energy.

Also, if you're going the dagger route, it's all about the surprise burst dmg, so I'd probably give up Dirty Deeds to get the Imp Ambush. You will still have to CS occasionally, but your main opener should be Ambush > BS... and then depending how much armor/health they have left (and whether other enemies are around), decide whether to Tea > Backstab > Evis, or Gouge/KS, or Vanish > Ambush, etc. 

I'm sure other people who have been using daggers more recently than me can give tips about their exact specs, and what specific gear or hit/AP level milestones you might want to change things up. I know there are different Combat Dagger specs that people use while raiding that give you even more dmg output during long fights, but they usually feel gimped while PVPing using them.

[Daramun 0]

5 hours ago, Choppybacon said:

You could do something like that, but I'd have to ask WHY you're getting kited so much. And also point out that the Imp Sprint talents don't make you immune to slowing effects for the duration of sprint, they just clear those effects once right when you hit the button. Any class than can root/slow you is able to put the slow right back on, so I'd rather put them in Endurance instead, or maybe chance to hit (if you don't have enough +Hit gear yet), or finish off Imp Evis? If you use double crippling poisons they should be at least as slow as you, and they should be dead within a few seconds anyway or you used gouge/blind/KS to hold them still while you gain more energy.

Again, I'd like to clarify. I'm not even above level 30 yet. I just made a rogue yesterday and I like to know anything and everything possible about the class as early as possible. I haven't pvp'd yet other than the few world encounters I've been in. But I figured if many people were agreeing with that spec that kiting was a problem rogues faced. From the sounds of your response though, it shouldn't be. I'm aware it just treats sprint as a break if specced into. I wasn't sure if it was worth going, was just trying to gauge opinions.

When asking about vanilla rogue pvp a lot of people don't really go into depth like you have so far and I appreciate that very much.  In particular the most common response I got was "Just watch a Perplexity video and copy his spec" he never implicitly shows his spec, but, unless I'm blind he doesn't appear to use (and thus have) cold blood, so I thought maybe he was running something like this. I will have to rewatch the fights a few more times though to try and deduce what he may have. It's apparent he has prep though (as should every pvp rogue imo).

Thanks for keeping the ideas and reasons coming. I love the help and I'm sure others have the same questions as me so hopefully they can read through this and learn a bit from it as well.

~Senorsneaky

[Choppybacon 0]

Ahh OK. For leveling I basically just go down the combat tree, as it's the best for fighting things that are pretty much always facing you and (generally) aren't ever trying to run away from you, so you want to increase white dmg, increase chance to hit, and have some melee mitigation defense. So parry, riposte, blade flurry, +Hit/skill are all excellent for that. (I probably did Imp Sprint too just cuz I needed the points spent)

I usually don't put any points into the weapon specific talents because you're usually just using whatever you come across if it's an upgrade. But if you get some nice blues that you're sure you'll use for a long time or have another char that can buy good BOEs, then sure go sword spec or whatever. Just plan to respec once you hit 60 and try a couple variations out for at least a week at a time so you have a good chance to see how they work for you. As you've seen there are some talents that are hugely beneficial, and some that are just down to preference. So there's been lots of arguments and debates about what the "best" spec is, but there's quite a few reasonable variations. Unless you have some obvious mistake points spend that aren't in line with your objective (like Murder if you want a PVP spec, or backstab/ambush talents if you're not using daggers, etc), then you'll usually end up with most of the points spent on must have items, and a few points you can move around up to preference. Which might be why people don't bother showing their exact specs in videos. They'll just say CB/Hemo or Seal Fate or whatever so you get the basic idea. 

You may also switch your spec depending on who you spend a lot of time playing with. I spent a lot of time hunting with another dagger rogue friend, or another mage friend. Me being stunlock spec works extremely well with them (I'll hold em down, you f*&% em up!), especially against warriors, so the other dagger rogue respeced a bit to lose Cold Blood and picked up some other talents, including Remorseless. I'm spending most of my energy keeping them stunlocked, so he almost always got the killing blow. Which means (particularly in BGs) he very often had a guaranteed crit on the next ambush. Don't really need CB if you have that going for ya.

[Choppybacon 0]

Also to answer one of your questions I missed, I believe at lower levels you need less agility to get each percent of crit. So no you would not need to wait to get good gear to be able to benefit from Backstab talents while leveling. But your crit chance will drop off as you get closer to 60, and then yes you specifically will want to get good +crit gear for it.

It IS possible to jump back and forth thru mobs and backstab them even while they're trying to face you at all times, so that you can spend all of your energy on backstabs while grinding and not on stunning them so you can get behind them. However, I'm too old and lazy for that I guess. Required way too much energy and constant spinning for me lol.