Vase
OG
I said in the previous "pvp balance" thread I would take a few minutes from my busy schedule (lol)and create a new thread for any rogues that would like to try assassination spec out in pvp. This is just a basic guide for anyone out there, there's no maths or calculations like you would see on elitist jerks.
My spec:
Shadowfocus: Abilities no longer cost energy when stealthed. Free opener, leaving all that energy for me to plow into what ever I'm doing. You will be opening a lot with Mutilate which costs 55 energy, so this is a good one to go for.
Deadly Throw: Movement speed reduced by 50%, if used with 5 combo points a SIX SECOND SILENCE. (Imagine garrote silence, full kidney shot, then 5 combo deadly throw silence, thats a healer locked down for 16.5 seconds) I didn't choose Combat Readiness because I have always found a slow and silence better use for a rogue than damage reducers, and we have evasion and feint and if you choose choose Preparation so you can use it twice if you need.
Elusiveness: This is one spell you will cast a lot, hence why you don't need to stack full resi, never go under 2k ap as you can and use Feint when required, keep Recuperate up, manage Evasion well, hotkey Cloak of Shadows, survive and still be able to apply pressure to healers with a decent amount of ap.
Burst of Speed: Simply for the insane amount I am kited about, I used to have preparation but I found out I needed a low cooldown kite breaker more, its come in handy more times than Prep, so its good enough for me to switch over to it.
Glyphs (I'll list the pros and cons for all viable glyphs and let you make your mind up which one you like most)
Glyph of Garrote
Pro: Extended silence and bleed (albeit a really really crap one)
Con: As assassination it applies a weaker version of Venomous Wounds, which I'll do deeper into later but its one of your main sources of damage.
Glyph of Gouge:
Pro: Doesn't require you to be in front of the target, making for easier CC.
Con: Takes up a whole glyph slot when you just have to get good at positioning yourself mid fight.
Glyph of Recuperate:
Pro: Increases healing of Recuperate, you should be keeping up recuperate up as much as you can in pvp, this glyph will only make you harder to kill.
Con: I can't think of one.
Glyph of Cloak of Shadows:
Pro: 40% less physical damage. Pain Supression for rogues, plus is stacks with Feint
Con: Again I can't think of any
Glyph of Feint:
Pros: If you have specced for Feint then this could be really handy, another 2 seconds of reduced AoE damage and all damage taken by 30%
Con: If you are already having no survival problems, you probably shouldn't waste a major glyph slot
Con: Feint triggers your global CD and costs 20 energy
Glyph of Kick:
Pros: More frequent kicks, more silences, keeping pressure harder on the opponent
Cons: If you get caught out by a caster fake casting then you have to eat the extra 4 second cool down on the unsuccessful kick
Poisons
Your poisons are now split into two categories, Lethal and none-Lethal, you can have a Lethal one in one hand a none-Lethal in the other. Lethal Poisons are your damaging Poisons while Non-Lethal Poisons provide crowd control and utility. Deadly Poison and Wound Poison fall under the Lethal poisons and Mind Numbing and Crippling are none-Lethal, I won't go to the other poisons you can spec for because I've not looked into it. Poisons are now spells that are cast.. Poison is applied to the rogue, not the weapons and They no longer consume inventory slots!
Lethal
Deadly Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply.
Pro: Affected by your melee crit chance,
Pro: Deals nature damage too
Con: Deadly is unaffected by haste
Con: It doesn't stack any more and reapplying it simply restarts the dot again
Wound Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: effectiveness of healing effects on the enemy reduced by 25%
Pro: also does nature damage too, but not quite as much as deadly.
Con: at 70 its too hard to kill a healer anyway, so its a waste of time
I'm using Deadly all the time at the moment.
None Lethal
Crippling Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: chance on hit to slow the enemy by 50%.
Pro: is constantly applies from your attacks, even if it is dispelled
Con: hand of freedom and other spells like that cancel it out, only temporary though
Mind-Numbing Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: Has a 50% chance on hit to increase the enemy's casting time (not casting speed) by 50%
Con: Only reduced by 25% on players
Con: Does absolutely no damage
Con: Pointless again pure melee class
I'm using Crippling at the moment, I'll probably be switching poisons about when arena is back on but I just wanted to give a brief run down on the poisons after 5.0.4 so its clear to all. Its important to remember that Fan of Knives can apply your active poisons to all enemies around you.
Assassination 5.0.4
Openers
Mutilate from stealth. Mutilate has a chance to proc Blindside and if you have Shadow Focus, it's FREE. That's essentially 2 free abilities! And LOTS of quick damage done in a very short period of time.
Don't open with garrotte even though it triggers Venomous Wounds*, this is because you can only benefit from rupture or garrottes venomous wounds. Garrote ticks every three seconds, Rupture every two, both do pretty shit damage but Venomous Wounds does great damage so you want the faster ticker.
Don't open with Ambush, although Ambush does more raw damage, Mutilate gives a chance to proc Dispatch so when you take into account overall damage potential as well as energy use, Mut actually may come out slightly ahead.
*Venomous Wounds. Each time your garrotte or rupture deals damage to an enemy you have poisoned it has a 75% chance to deal nature damage that scales with your attack power, in addition it also generates you 10 energy. Also if an enemy dies when your rupture is active you will gain energy proportional to the remaining duration of it, thus making rupture the FIRST thing you apply, even before slice and dice.
Basic Rotation
From stealth you will want to do Mutilate, then Mutilate AGAIN then do Rupture, always keep rupture going on the target. Get another two combo points and then get Slice and Dice ticking. Mutilate to five combo points and use Envenom.
Envenom replaces your Evisrate, it completely ignores armour and deals out nature damage scaling to your attack power. It also refreshes your slice and dice, freeing up your rotation for either Recuperate or more envenom or Rupture, never let Rupture or Slice and Dice drop.
Use Dispatch when it procs, its a really helpful ability and comes in great use when you are low on energy. It awards a combo point so make sure you use your combo point management correctly. Don't use the dispatch proc when you are riding at 5 combo points, use up the points and then use it, so none goes to waste.
Stat Priority
Agility > PvP Resilience > 3% Melee Hit > PvP Power > Crit > Haste > Expertise
Agility is still your main stat. I've tried a few combinations, full resilience didn't work, I couldn't do any decent damage and was really low pressure on healers, so much they didn't even have to target me. Full PVP Power didn't work either, I found it really lack luster compared to AGI, so I brought it down to 8% which is just a nice boost on top of a decent amount AP. So what I did was find a nice balance of Attack Power, Resi and PVP Power, at the moment I'm riding at 2.6k AP, 43.50% Res and 9.55% PVP Power, which is a great balance for me and is working very well.
I'm really enjoying Assassination spec at the moment, I find it easier to manage than Sub as subtlety has more complicated rotation. Give it a try and see what you think, any questions just post em up.
My spec:
Shadowfocus: Abilities no longer cost energy when stealthed. Free opener, leaving all that energy for me to plow into what ever I'm doing. You will be opening a lot with Mutilate which costs 55 energy, so this is a good one to go for.
Deadly Throw: Movement speed reduced by 50%, if used with 5 combo points a SIX SECOND SILENCE. (Imagine garrote silence, full kidney shot, then 5 combo deadly throw silence, thats a healer locked down for 16.5 seconds) I didn't choose Combat Readiness because I have always found a slow and silence better use for a rogue than damage reducers, and we have evasion and feint and if you choose choose Preparation so you can use it twice if you need.
Elusiveness: This is one spell you will cast a lot, hence why you don't need to stack full resi, never go under 2k ap as you can and use Feint when required, keep Recuperate up, manage Evasion well, hotkey Cloak of Shadows, survive and still be able to apply pressure to healers with a decent amount of ap.
Burst of Speed: Simply for the insane amount I am kited about, I used to have preparation but I found out I needed a low cooldown kite breaker more, its come in handy more times than Prep, so its good enough for me to switch over to it.
Glyphs (I'll list the pros and cons for all viable glyphs and let you make your mind up which one you like most)
Glyph of Garrote
Pro: Extended silence and bleed (albeit a really really crap one)
Con: As assassination it applies a weaker version of Venomous Wounds, which I'll do deeper into later but its one of your main sources of damage.
Glyph of Gouge:
Pro: Doesn't require you to be in front of the target, making for easier CC.
Con: Takes up a whole glyph slot when you just have to get good at positioning yourself mid fight.
Glyph of Recuperate:
Pro: Increases healing of Recuperate, you should be keeping up recuperate up as much as you can in pvp, this glyph will only make you harder to kill.
Con: I can't think of one.
Glyph of Cloak of Shadows:
Pro: 40% less physical damage. Pain Supression for rogues, plus is stacks with Feint
Con: Again I can't think of any
Glyph of Feint:
Pros: If you have specced for Feint then this could be really handy, another 2 seconds of reduced AoE damage and all damage taken by 30%
Con: If you are already having no survival problems, you probably shouldn't waste a major glyph slot
Con: Feint triggers your global CD and costs 20 energy
Glyph of Kick:
Pros: More frequent kicks, more silences, keeping pressure harder on the opponent
Cons: If you get caught out by a caster fake casting then you have to eat the extra 4 second cool down on the unsuccessful kick
Poisons
Your poisons are now split into two categories, Lethal and none-Lethal, you can have a Lethal one in one hand a none-Lethal in the other. Lethal Poisons are your damaging Poisons while Non-Lethal Poisons provide crowd control and utility. Deadly Poison and Wound Poison fall under the Lethal poisons and Mind Numbing and Crippling are none-Lethal, I won't go to the other poisons you can spec for because I've not looked into it. Poisons are now spells that are cast.. Poison is applied to the rogue, not the weapons and They no longer consume inventory slots!
Lethal
Deadly Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply.
Pro: Affected by your melee crit chance,
Pro: Deals nature damage too
Con: Deadly is unaffected by haste
Con: It doesn't stack any more and reapplying it simply restarts the dot again
Wound Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: effectiveness of healing effects on the enemy reduced by 25%
Pro: also does nature damage too, but not quite as much as deadly.
Con: at 70 its too hard to kill a healer anyway, so its a waste of time
I'm using Deadly all the time at the moment.
None Lethal
Crippling Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: chance on hit to slow the enemy by 50%.
Pro: is constantly applies from your attacks, even if it is dispelled
Con: hand of freedom and other spells like that cancel it out, only temporary though
Mind-Numbing Poison:
Pro: 50% if you are specced Assassination to apply
Pro: Has a 50% chance on hit to increase the enemy's casting time (not casting speed) by 50%
Con: Only reduced by 25% on players
Con: Does absolutely no damage
Con: Pointless again pure melee class
I'm using Crippling at the moment, I'll probably be switching poisons about when arena is back on but I just wanted to give a brief run down on the poisons after 5.0.4 so its clear to all. Its important to remember that Fan of Knives can apply your active poisons to all enemies around you.
Assassination 5.0.4
Openers
Mutilate from stealth. Mutilate has a chance to proc Blindside and if you have Shadow Focus, it's FREE. That's essentially 2 free abilities! And LOTS of quick damage done in a very short period of time.
Don't open with garrotte even though it triggers Venomous Wounds*, this is because you can only benefit from rupture or garrottes venomous wounds. Garrote ticks every three seconds, Rupture every two, both do pretty shit damage but Venomous Wounds does great damage so you want the faster ticker.
Don't open with Ambush, although Ambush does more raw damage, Mutilate gives a chance to proc Dispatch so when you take into account overall damage potential as well as energy use, Mut actually may come out slightly ahead.
*Venomous Wounds. Each time your garrotte or rupture deals damage to an enemy you have poisoned it has a 75% chance to deal nature damage that scales with your attack power, in addition it also generates you 10 energy. Also if an enemy dies when your rupture is active you will gain energy proportional to the remaining duration of it, thus making rupture the FIRST thing you apply, even before slice and dice.
Basic Rotation
From stealth you will want to do Mutilate, then Mutilate AGAIN then do Rupture, always keep rupture going on the target. Get another two combo points and then get Slice and Dice ticking. Mutilate to five combo points and use Envenom.
Envenom replaces your Evisrate, it completely ignores armour and deals out nature damage scaling to your attack power. It also refreshes your slice and dice, freeing up your rotation for either Recuperate or more envenom or Rupture, never let Rupture or Slice and Dice drop.
Use Dispatch when it procs, its a really helpful ability and comes in great use when you are low on energy. It awards a combo point so make sure you use your combo point management correctly. Don't use the dispatch proc when you are riding at 5 combo points, use up the points and then use it, so none goes to waste.
Stat Priority
Agility > PvP Resilience > 3% Melee Hit > PvP Power > Crit > Haste > Expertise
Agility is still your main stat. I've tried a few combinations, full resilience didn't work, I couldn't do any decent damage and was really low pressure on healers, so much they didn't even have to target me. Full PVP Power didn't work either, I found it really lack luster compared to AGI, so I brought it down to 8% which is just a nice boost on top of a decent amount AP. So what I did was find a nice balance of Attack Power, Resi and PVP Power, at the moment I'm riding at 2.6k AP, 43.50% Res and 9.55% PVP Power, which is a great balance for me and is working very well.
I'm really enjoying Assassination spec at the moment, I find it easier to manage than Sub as subtlety has more complicated rotation. Give it a try and see what you think, any questions just post em up.
