Hello, my name is Sidhe and I play a rogue on Neltharion.Since there is no consistent guide on PVP Subtlety, I will try to make one that will cover pretty much everything, with a couple of explanatory videos on tactics,addons and interfaces and much more.
This guide will be user-feedback friendly meaning that it will change depending on what users think.
WARNING This guide is better served cold with some of this with it.
Contents of the guide:
Spoiler:Show
Introduction
The Subtlety tree offers a lot of utility and mobility as well as high survivability trough talents like Cheat Death and abilities like Preparation and Shadowstep .
Since Cataclysm has arrived it brought with it major changes to Rogues:
Smokebomb - The number one go in for a quick kill spell.
Stuff you should know:
-Everyone inside gets a debuff while in the smoke bomb.
-This debuff doesn't stay on forever even when they leave the cloud (like flare... cough cough).
-Enemies of the rogue can't cast into or out of the smoke bomb; if they're in, they only cast in; if out, other way around.
-Friendly targets of the rogue are unaffected; they can dps people in the smoke bomb and heal them too.
-AoE attacks (Shadowfury, Flamestrike) can still be placed in the area of the smoke and hit everyone inside.
-AoE heals (Tranquility, Healing Rain) work the same way.
-8 yards from end to end.
-Because you're in the middle of it when you cast it, enemies have to move, at most, 4 yards to get out.
-Not very easy to see at first, but the debuff goes up instantly so look for that.
-Sub rogues can use Glyph of Preparation to have Prep reset the cooldown on this bad boy (recommended!).
The new best move in the game in PvP, taking the title from the old champion, Shadowfury.
Edit: The rogue DOES get the debuff from his own smoke bomb.
Edit2: Being nerfed in patch 4.0.6. Now will only last 5 seconds instead of 10.
IMO, not a huge nerf. The longest you can really keep anyone inside this thing is 5 seconds if you land a 5-point kidney then on your next GCD use smoke bomb, because like I said, it's only 4 yards at the most that they have to move before they're getting healed again. It would be nice if the duration was 6 seconds so we could get a restealth off with it, but whatver, it's still awesome.
Edit3: I've known this for a while but held off on posting it here because I thought it was unintended. Since it doesn't look like it's getting fixed soon, I might as well share it. Smoke Bomb breaks enemy rogues out of stealth as soon as they enter it, and works pretty much like Flare. This means a few things. For one, when you notice that you're up against another rogue team in arenas, you can open on one of his partners and drop a Smoke Bomb immediately. This way when the enemy rogue comes to open on you, he breaks out of stealth and doesn't get his opener. You can also drop it on a rogue who's about to Vanish. No more Vanish for him.(wowhead source)
Recuperate - QQ little warr, QQ
Recuperate is the new death strike in 4.2 hehe
Not much to say about this one, its a neat ability that allows the Rogue to heal in combat.This should have 100 uptime as it not only heal you, but it also regenerates energy if you have this talent Energetic Recovery
Redirect - The most usefull spell when changing targets
This is most usefull in 3s.It allows you go quickly change the target, geting 5cp's on it, and maximize the burst potential with your second dps mate.
Combat Readiness - The cherry at the top of the cake
This ability is made out of 2 buffs
--The first is combat readiness, and lasts for 20 seconds. Getting hit procs the next buff.
--The second is combat insight, and lasts for 10 seconds. Reduces damage by 10% per stack, stacking up to 5 times.
Max duration is 30 seconds. There is a small 1-2 second internal cooldown for building stacks. That means you need to pop this before the damage starts coming; it's going to take a few seconds to stack the buff up to 5, and you could be dead by the time that happens.(wowhead source)
Talents and glyphs
Before I start with the talents, I would like to say that there is no standard build here, you can mix some talents up to get the desired effect.The talents I will show you are broken up into 2 specs.The one with the improved recup. is the one I use for bgs, because most of the time I get zerged when I'm defending, the second without improved recup. is the one I use for arenas, because I don't get targeted that much, most of the dps out there go directly for my mage, leaving me free talent points.
8/2/31 My BG build.
http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0e12d3fd.jpg
10/0/31 My arena build.
http://i1321.photobucket.com/albums/...psb282639d.jpg
A few words about talents
In the picture below, the talents marked in red, represent the crucial and important ones, while the green ones represent the free hand you have in mixing them up to suit you're needs.Ignore the nightstalker, for some reason it has been taged as crucial in that picture but its not a vital talent.
http://lastrogue.com/gfx/subtlety-tree.jpg
Waylay the first green talent, its for those times when you find hard to slow your targets in arena, for example when your crippling poison fails.Its a good talent and you should pick this one in case you have trouble with slowing.
Moving on, Honor Among Thieves, this talent gives you combo points when someone in your group crits on your target.The cooldown of this ability is affected by the number of points you're prepared to invest in it - you're likely to be generating a combo per cooldown regardless of the spells rank. I'd recommend taking at least one point in HaT. The one thing you'll need to be careful of is switching targets - you will lose existing combo points on your old target if you fail to Redirect them onto your new target before HaT procs.You could either go 1/3 or full 3/3 on this, it depends on how you like it most.
*This may change depending on user-feedback and/or bugs.
The glyphs we are going to use are pretty straight foward, we are going for Glyph of Backstab/Sdance and Hemo, for the next glyph tier we are going to mix up one Glyph of Preparation, 1 pack of Glyph of Blind and some Glyph of Garrote, and for the final ingridients Blurred Speed,Poisons and Safe fall.Voila, you know have a deadly set-up ready to assasinate your enemies.
Stats,gems & enchants
The rule for stats on a sub. rogue is the following : hit 5% > crit > haste > mastery > expertise
The best way to reforge your gear would be, excess hit in crit, on items with Crit rating reforge Crit to Haste.
***IMPORTANT **** MISTER***
Resilience is also a ****ing great stat, so using PVE items to "max" damage is a nononono sir.Resilience is really important as it makes you able to "tango" with more enemies than ever.Do not use PVE items over PVP ones.
The gem section, well, this depends on the pieces of gear you have, if you feel like you're missing some haste, or some crit, so I will write the list of gems you can use a rogue.Of course, you can go all 40 agility if you want to......
Meta
+54 Agility and 3% Increased Critical Damage
+54 Crit Rating and 1% Spell Reflect
Red
+40 Agility
Orange
+20 Agility and +20 Increased Critical Strike Damage
+20 Agility and +20 Haste Rating
Purple
+20 Agility and +20 Hit Rating
End gear rogues, will probably go for full 40 agi, but in case you are not that well geared, you can use some of those gems.
Enchants
Head+65 Agility and +35 Resilience
Shoulders+50 Agility and +25 resilience rating
Cloak+65 Critical Strike rating
+50 Critical Strike rating
+22 Agility
Chest+20 Stats /+ 20 Resilience
Legs+190 Attack Power and + 55 Critical Strike Rating
Hands+50 Haste Rating
Bracers+65 Haste Rating
+50 Critical Strike Rating
+50 Agility
Boots + 35 Agility
Main Weapon 1000 Attack Power Proc
Off-hand Pyrium Weapon Chain
Misc stuff.
Ok well here, this will be my little corner where I will write some tactics, macros, and some little guides from time to time.We should start with some macros, some that I'm currently using.
In arena, as a rogue, I find it difficult to turn my camera around and see whats going on with the other target, so I use a simple focus macro
Code:/focus [target=focus, noexists]
/stopmacro [target=focus, exists]
/target focus
Now, we all know what Rogues do...they annoy the CC out of their targets, and if you can do it on your target, why not do it on your focus aswell.
Code:#showtooltip Blind
/cast [target=focus, exists] Blind; blind;
Code:#showtooltip Gouge
/cast [target=focus, exists] Gouge; gouge;
Code:#showtooltip Kick
/cast [target=focus, exists] Kick; kick;
Those Macros will help you CC your focus target without having to change the target.
I used to have a diferent macro for my sap but strange...it stopped working maybe someone can fix it..Code:Sap macro
/cleartarget
/targetenemyplayer
/cast Sap
A good redirect, kidney for Change Target/stun comboCode:#showtooltip Sap
/console targetNearestDistance 15.000000
/targetenemy [noharm][dead]
/console targetNearestDistance 41.000000
/cast [harm,nodead] Sap
/dismount [target=target,exists]
Code:#showtooltip
/castsequence [@focus] reset=20 Redirect, Kidney Shot
You can use this macro to spam stealth without breaking it yourself
Code:#showtooltip Stealth
/cast [nomodifier] !Stealth
TOT arena partener
Code:/cast [target=Frostadamus] Tricks of The trade
This one is a good macro to avoid BAR LAG
You should have this on Main Bar/StealthBar/SdanceBar.What it does it casts Ambush if you are in stealth, Backstab if not and Ambush if you are in Sdance.Code:#showtooltip Backstab
/cast [stance:0] Backstab
/startattack [nostealth]
/cast [stance:3] Ambush
/cast [stance:1/2] Ambush
Another topic I would like to discuss about is Energy Pooling.What is Energy pooling?Its the most complex skill a rogue has to learn in order to be successful.What its all about, its not spaming your abilities hadless,in order to try killing a person.I usualy see rogues spaming backstab, geting energystarved.If you are doing that, STHAP, you are counter-productive.You always need to have at least a quarter bar of energy saved, in order for a quick gouge or a saver move.The time when you need to SPAM and dump your energy is in SDANCE.I'm still not good at this, but its the one thing I focus every time I go into PVP.
The little things separate success from failure. You can choose to consistently do things which will make a difference in the long run, or you can take the easy path today and pay the price long term. The choice is yours. Choose wisely.
More guides,tricks,tutorials for addons will be shown on my youtube channel.
Sources : wowhead,lastrogue,skillcapped,etilist and my own knowledge.
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