Re: Manglefiend's 24 Subtlety Rogue Guide (!WIP!)
Getting Started: Races
Each race in this game has a set of unique racial abilities that only that race can use. Each race also has different base stats than each other, making some more stronger stat-wise than others. Races come down to personal preference and their racials are good, but barely game changers. Pick a race you enjoy the most unless you want to be the very best. This is in no particular order, I am just bringing up the best in my opinion.
Alliance:
Human - A human character starts off with fairly balanced base stats, primarily twenty base stamina and twenty base agility. What makes human one of the better races for a rogue is their racial ability, Every Man for Himself. This ability works like the PvP insignias which free you from immobilizing or movement impairing effects, but better in the sense that it has a faster cool down. With this racial, that means that it frees up an extra trinket slot for other trinkets. They also come with a sword expertise racial.
Night Elf - As a Night Elf, you start with the highest base agility in the game, 25, beating any race on each faction by far in terms of agility, though you start with 19 base stamina, 1 less than human. As a Night Elf, you start with the racial ability, Shadowmeld. This ability will instantly place you into stealth upon use, though once you move, you become visible again. This racial removes you from combat, allowing you to stealth after you use it. This is a good ability if you are on the brink of death, or if you want to get in another ambush. Night Elves also move faster in stealth.
A good Night Elf macro is:
Using this macro, if you cast Shadowmeld while you are DoTed, you will not be removed from Shadowmeld due to being sat down.
Gnome - As a Gnome, you start with the second highest base agility in the game, 23, and start with 19 base stamina. You start out with the racial ability, Escape Artist, a weaker version of the human racial. They have increased one-handed sword and dagger expertise, making them a very viable and silly option for an Alliance rogue.
Worgen - As a Worgen, you have a base agility of 22 and base stamina of 20. You will have the racial ability, Darkflight, which will allow you to increase your speed by 40% for 10 seconds. You also have a passive which reduces the duration of diseases and curses on you.
Horde:
Orc - As an Orc, you have a base agility of 17, a base stamina of 22, and a racial that's useful in tight situations, Blood Fury, which increases your attack power by 24 at level 24. You also have a passive which reduces the duration of stun effects on you.
Undead - As an undead, you have a base agility of 18, and a base stamina of 21, and a racial ability that's not worth mentioning since the Insignia's better and they both share a cooldown. You have increased shadow resistance and a passive chance to restore roughly 100-200 HP when you damage an enemy (This can proc with poisons, too). If you find that your health is getting low, you could always cannibalize your fallen enemy to restore health, it's also a good way to get back at that pesky OP shadow priest or HPally if you beat them.
Troll - As a troll, you have a base agility of 22, and a base stamina of 21, as well as the racial ability, Berserking, which increases your melee and ranged haste by 20% for 10 seconds. You have the passive racial that makes it so movement impairing abilities don't effect you as badly, and you have the passive racial that allows it so you can regenerate health faster, and you can even regen health in combat.
Blood Elf - As a Blood Elf, you have a base agility of 22, a base stamina of 18, and the racial ability, Arcane Torrent. This is an excellent ability when fighting against casters or healers as it silences all enemies within an 8 yard radius, as well as restores 15 energy to you.
Goblin - As a Goblin, you have a base agility of 22, a base stamina of 20, and the racial ability, Rocket Barrage, which fires a rocket at the enemy. The damage scales with attack power and level. They also have the racial ability, Rocket Jump, which allows you to do a large jump. This ability is useful in the sense that it can close a gap or get to places that is either hard or impossible to get to otherwise. It can be used strategically to fake people off an edge as well. This ability shares a cooldown with Rocket Barrage. They can also summon a bank, which is useful if you forgot something important.
That is about it! If I didn't list a race, it's because I feel they aren't as strong as the ones I've listed.
Getting Started: Class Role (Basic Idea)
So you've picked a race for your rogue, but are you sure that it's the right class for you? Some people pick classes with no idea on the specific role on what they do (I do not mean DPS, tank, or healer). I've seen mages try to be tanky FCs, I've seen lone priests trying to take on 5 at a time! They don't know their roles. As a rogue, you are primarily DPS. You should never FC unless nobody else will step up, or if you feel the the only possible FC is too undergeared. Your main objective is to defend your flag, and if someone picks it up and gets out of the base, your objective is to kill them at all costs, be it taking out a healer first or sap locking the EFC in mid until your team catches up. A good rogue should never be seen fighting in the middle due to having stealth unless it's to aid FC, to kill a healer who's playing objectively, or to kill EFC. You should spend most of your time in your base, the enemy's base, or in close proximity to the EFC. When you fight a caster or a healer, you have two abilities which can stop them in their tracks (Three if you're a blood elf). Use them to your advantage. A kick, a gouge, or an Arcane Torrent could save the game!
Basically, a rogue provides solo objective DPS and good cockblocking against healers.
Why Subtlety? Here's why:
Subtlety isn't the end all, all of the other specs are completely fine, though they don't match up with Subtlety's utility in my opinion.
First of all, what is the gain of Subtlety that makes it superior? Let's compare the other spec's defining gains. I will not include Combat as I have no experience with Combat rogues whatsoever and just reading WoWhead can give you wrong impressions.
Subtlety:
Hemorrhage: This ability replaces
Sinister Strike. Hemorrhage is a strong ability which does good damage (Even more when paired with a dagger), that also leaves a long-lasting DoT on the target. It is a good way to stop enemy rogues or feral druids from running away and can be crucial into saving a game. It awards one combo point and is the main way a rogue should be building combo points after you open.
You also gain a passive 30% more agility through being Subtlety as well as your ambushes giving you 10 seconds of avoiding 70% of the target's armor.
Your attacks do 10% damage while stealthed and 6 seconds after stealth is broken.
Assassination:
Mutilate: An ability that does decent damage as well as awards two combo points. It's large energy cost and inferior damage to Hemorrhage if the Sub is using a dagger makes this ability not as strong damage wise compared to Hemorrhage.
Envenom: This ability replaces
Eviscerate: I have little experience with this ability myself but it's main benefit is the greater chance for poisons to be applied to the target.
When you roll Assassination, you have a passive 20% chance increase to apply deadly poison to the target, as well as a 20% damage increase and 20 energy increasewhilst wearing daggers.
Both Subtlety Rogues and Assassination rogues are great though, and are both worth rolling. Overall, Subtlety in my opinion is the best due to comparison.
Professions:
Engineering (MUST): Engineering not only allows you to create strong damaging or control-oriented items, but also gives rogues the BiS cloak, Parachute Cloak. Engineering is a necessity as a level 24 rogue in my opinion, even if you aren't using explosives, the cloak is a godsend.
The next two professions aren't necessities, you can pick one of either of them and still be fine:
Skinning: Leveling skinning to 225 will allow you to get the passive, Master of Anatomy, increasing your critical strike. If you drop skinning, you drop this passive.
Herbalism: Leveling herbalism to 225 will allow you to get the ability, Lifeblood, an ability which increases your haste and heals you.
I feel mining isn't as important to a rogue as it increases your stamina by a small bit. It isn't a big gain for anybody, especially a rogue.
I also feel most of the production professions except for alchemy are terrible. Alchemy is a decent profession as it doubles stat gains from potions, elixirs, and flasks.
