WotLK Are Sub rogues any good?

A mini-guide for beginners sub rogue bg/world pvp:

As a sub rogue you have 2 modes, super pwn mode which means you are in stealth with a full energy bar or floppy noddle mode which happens if you are in combat without energy. In a BG you should always try to only open, hopefully kill, run away. Dont fight in drawn out battles (untill you get a lot of gear). You entire playstyle is oriented around a hit and run playstyle. And a lot of your toolkit supports that.

The usual opening sequence is (premed + snd if possible, but its not that important) cheapshot, get to 5 combo points via backstab/hemo, wait till cheap shot is in its last second and then kidney shot and spam backstabs (+evis). This will kill or almost kill anyone with equal health to you, if they trinket use blind. Sap and then open again in the same way. If the enemy trinkets your opener and not your blind you are generally in a very good spot.

You can do the same with dance, cheapshot - ambush, kindey just before cheapshot ran out, ambush ambush evis over and over as much as you can. This will kill/almost kill people even with a lot more health then you, (if you have 14k health this will usually kill 20k health people). You can do the dance thing if you got caught out of stealth which gives you an escape.

(the best burst you can do i cheapshot and spam ambushes like crazy, but thats only usefull if you need to kill as soon as possible)

If you got caught out of stealth but have energy still you can try to get to 5 cp, pool energy, shadowstep kidney (so you cant get parried) and spam backstabs. Its decent enough damage but you probably have to use an evasion or so to survive untill you get the initial 5 cps.

It is almost never usefull to open with an ambush (or garrote), all that does is let the enemy react to you. Any rogue that opens with ambush in any fight that isnt a total roll-over is a horrible rogue.

Thats the killing part, get zerker buffs and other stuff to make your burst scarier. You operate around the idea of killing in a stunlock, defensive gameplay isnt really your priority.

Now, to the get away after. If you open on a target with the whole cheap/kindey thing and you barely dent them - vanish when kidney is at 1 or 2 seconds left and simply run away. If they target trinkets and you dont have blind, vanish. If the enemy bubbles or does similar stuff, vanish (unless you are sure you can kill them). However, dont be afraid of dying. You need cooldowns (at least kindey) and energy to kill anyways, and if you wait it out in stealth or while dead doesnt make a difference. If you can potentially get the kill, go for it. Nothing better then killing an enemy with under 100 health left.

Basicely, the first way of getting away is to vanish before they can even touch you. As vanish does have some rather long cooldown and prep is even longer, you do need to use other tools to get away. And you have a few, sprint is the most basic, sprint + cloak of shadows lets you get away from most casters rather easily. Run for the hills and restealth. The same is true for classes that dont have a way of moving fast or that do have CDs on them, a DK with no grip or a ret paladin you can just run away from with sprint.

Then you have blind, it can allow you to do the whole open twice sequence but it also allows you to run like crazy. You also have shadowstep, which can be a bit tricky to use properly. But even if you just use it on the enemy himself, it is a mini sprint and can confuse people. You can also do cool stuff like step to the horde guards on towers in altercal valley (all the way up) or port you to cannons in siege maps.

Not to mention your most diverse, screw you im running for it, tool, gouge. It has almost no CD and it buys you a lot of time (but not enough if you run in a straight line while slowed). Professions can also help greatly here.

Lastly, focus mostly on stuff that increases your damage skill wise, while not ideal for arenas and duels it does boost your damage a lot in bgs and makes your openers a lot deadlier. Stuff like Master of Subtely instead of improved gouge may sound like heresy for more seasoned rogues, but if your gear is lacking and you need every last bit of damage you can, get the extra 10% damage on every opener is a very big difference.

So, to summarize, you try to oneshot a target - if it fails you run aways, then you try to oneshot another target. There is a lot more to rogue gameplay then this, and you have tools to survive even longer head to head encounters, but thats how you should apprach bgs as a low geared sub rouge. And sapping a target while killing his friend, to then resteathl and kill the sapped target too just is a lot of fun.

Some passing remarks, get a good dagger as fast as you can, its by far the most important piece of gear you have. And if you have a lot enough GS not to oneshot mobs, you can try your pvp openers on the normal mobs running around to get a feel for them. Elites allow you to master the dance opener too. And ganking leveling chracters in northrend is good practice too, if they get to move during your opener you did something wrong. (note that this stuff only is usefull untill you get gear, then you oneshot everything with one ambush and it loses all challenge and just makes you a dick).

Semirelated to that, the pvp you can get from 75-80 as a sub rogue is simply amazing.