Game Tactics

Destruction—–>http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=IZ0xMZEchqr0tAsAfot

Has Been Turned around to be more more “Fire” based in wotlk, with shadow benifits. Unlike the usual Shadow Destruction Build by criting you buff everybody’s Shadow damage dealt to the target. With out Really using “Immolate” or “Searing Pain” But with this New Spec you have a lot more options mainly using fire, but shadow with raiding. This Spec is mosly keeping the target burning which keeps up fire damage dealt to target, and increasing fire damage up to 25%  by using Incinerate , and having your crit chance higher with Conflagerate, immolate, shadowflame. And Having a Soulfire like cast for only 1.5 without the soul shard use with Soulfire. Not to mention mages being Fire for raid spec. Our spells are Buffed from their bonus fire damage to targets. The Demo tree part can be moved around depending on Healthstone size, and improved imp since we do not need to use demonic sacrifice for this talent tree, the bonus fire damage makes up for it.

Rotation)   is still hazey, because of new spells such as “shadowflame” All the information given atm is that it deals shadow damage, with a fire dot. so rotation is clearly changable once we get these new spells.

curse of elements->immolate->Incinerate-chaos bolt, repeat incinerate until chaos bolt cooldown is up, than chaos bolt again, than use immolate when it needs reapplying, if it needs reapplying. conflagerate when immolate DOT needs to stop ticking. Shadowflame is a new spell, but can help in rotation, still need to find out more about that spell before i put it into a rotation. needs to be timed correctly too since it has a fire dot. for fights where agro drops.

Pros of Fire build-

Cataclysm-Reduces the Mana cost of your Destruction spells by 6%, and increases the chance to hit with your Destruction spells by 3%

Dots increase Fire damage by 10% for 6 seconds,

Nether protection after being hit with a Shadow or Fire spell, you have a 30% chance to become immune to Shadow and Fire spells for 4 sec.

Soul Leech-Gives your Shadow Bolt, Shadowburn, Soul Fire, Incinerate, Searing Pain and Conflagrate spells a 30% chance to return health equal to 20% of the damage caused

Improved Soul leech-Your Soul Leech effect also restores mana to you and your summoned demon equal to 30% of the damage caused.

Backdraft-Increases the critical chance of your Conflagrate, Immolate and Shadowflame spells by 10%.

Eternal Flames-Your Searing Pain and Incinerate spells have a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Immolate spell on the target. In addition, the Immolate effect on your target is increased by 5%, and your Searing Pain and Incinerate spells increase the damage of your Immolate on the target by an additional 5%, up to a total of 25%.

Chaos bolt-Sends a bolt of chaotic fire at the enemy, dealing 990 to 1256 Fire damage. Chaos Bolt cannot be resisted, and pierces through all absorption effects.

Affliction—–>http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=IbxMbxrAoVt0uAoZE00VR

Is Basicly the same but with a few bonus damage qualities and more self sufficiency. Main Focus is Shadow damage with out using fire. Using Fire will disrupt rotation and your bringing in a spell with no bonuses to your main rotation. This Build is for survivability, Having health draining effects, and health returns. One of the new Spells is “Haunt” If times correctly, you can life tap right before this ends, and you with have mana plus be instantly healed from the damage you dealt. Also with “Death’s Embrace”, when the target is at 20% or below, the critical strike of your Shadowbolt, and Haunt abilities is increased by 15%. And your Corruption and Unstable Affliction ticks have a 15% chance to incrase spell haste by 20% for 15 sec. Having Shadow Embrace also reducing the damage dealt of the target by 5%.

Rotation)      Unstable affliction->Haunt(assuming the target is alive more than 12 seconds, mainly used for raid bosses because it uses 12% or your mana->Curse of Agony->Corruption->Siphon life(only on raid bosses, Shadowbolt (repeat Shadowbolt until DOTS need reapplying. Rinse and Repeat.

Pros-

Dark Pact-Drains 305 of your summoned demon’s Mana, returning 100% to you.

Eradication-Your Corruption and Unstable Affliction ticks have a 15% chance to increase your spell casting speed by 20% for 12 sec.

Death’s Embrace-Increases the amount drained by your Drain Life by 30% while your health is at or below 20% health, and increases the critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt and Haunt spells by 15% when your target is at or below 20% health.

Ever Lasting Affliction-Your Corruption, Siphon Life and Unstable Affliction spells gain an additional 20% of your bonus spell damage effects, and your Drain Life and Shadow Bolt spells have a 100% chance to reset the duration of your Corruption spell on the target.

Haunt-You send a ghostly soul into the target, dealing 645 to 754 Shadow damage and increasing all damage done by your damage-over-time effects on the target by 15% for 12 sec. When the Haunt spell ends or is dispelled, the soul returns to you, healing you for 20% of all damage done to the target.

Shadow Embrace-Your Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption spells also cause the Shadow Embrace effect, which reduces physical damage caused by 5%.

With the launch of the wrath of the lich king beta, it’s time to revisit the hunter talent builds.  These specs will probably change prior to the release of the expansion - but here’s something to discuss now.

BM Raiding build. 51/15/5 I would expect this to be one of the raiding builds that I use myself.  Several of these points will probably change.  Specifically this build doesn’t have efficiency in it, which is a useful raid talent.  However, it has the new talent Invigoration so we’ll see how much mana that returns.

Deep Survival build. 5/15/51 This spec goes deeper into the survival tree for the readiness talent.  I’m not currently sure how important that explosive shot talent will be.  If it turns out to be a bit of a waste, some of those points could be moved into the marksman tree.   Also, I’m sure a few of you will feel the urge my choice of Improved Feign Death, but if you’re raiding T6 content now you’ve probably noticed how annoying those resists can be when you’re riding the tanks threat.  (You wouldn’t need that talent in lower end content)

PVP Marksman Build. 0/51/20 This spec probably needs some changes, but here’s a point to start from.

Edit 7.29.08 - updated the BM spec a little.

This post is accurate through patch: 2.4

Rogue Itemization:

Weapons

     The biggest part of a rogue’s itemization is the weapons. Weapons should be upgraded before any other item. For rogues looking for some good weapons, Merciless Gladiator’s Slicer and Merciless Gladiator’s Quickblade are easily attainable for honor and will be sufficient until Vanir’s fists. Once you obtain Vanir’s though you are set until you can get s3 swords or a BT sword. Assuming the exact same stats Swords are better than fists because of the extra swing specialization. The reason that Vanir’s is better than merciless is because the stats and dps on vanir’s outweighs the loss of the sword specialization from merciless. I believe the ranking of weapons for rogues to be Swords>Fists>Daggers>Maces. The reason for maces being last is because of the mace stun rogues get from mace spec. Stunning any mob in a raid is a very bad thing as it causes the tank to lose threat.

 If you hate pvp, an easy upgrade for the main hand is the Spiteblade in Karazhan that drops offNetherspite and the Vindicator’s Brand from the Aldor rep vendor. Also, the Latro’s Dancing Blade out of Magister’s Terrace and its brother the Latro’s Shifting Sword out of Black Morass might help you until you get your gear up to par.

If you do choose to go into a mutilate build, which I do not recommend unless you are trying out a mutilate spec in a on-farm raid, go after the easy Season 2 Arena daggers. The Malchazeen is an easy drop from Prince Malchezaar in Karazhan while you are saving your points. Swift Blade of Uncertainty is a great find and only 45 badges from the vendor on the Isle of Quel’Danas thanks to patch 2.4 and one of the highest dps daggers.

Stats

     For combat spec’s projected gear point value is rated Point for Point as follows: Expertise > HR > Agi > Haste > AP = Str > Armor Pen.

     Again, that is a strick point for point value, it does not imply that armor pen is the least important stat, armor pen comes in last because it usually comes in chunks much larger than other stats.

Gems

     Gemming is another important part of rogue itemization. A rule of thumb is to gem for Hit Rating whenever possible. Rigid Dawnstone (8 HR) and Glinting Noble Topaz (4 HR, 4 Agi) are the two most common gems you should be using if you are gemming correctly. Dawnstone’s should always be put in yellow sockets and Topaz’s in red sockets. Socket bonus’s can be ignored in favor of Hit Rating gems depending on the socket bonus and socket requirements. Relentless Earthstorm Diamond should always be used in the meta socket and Shifting Tanzanite should be used to fullfill the the 2 blue gem requirement. All gems should be upgraded to the new badge gems but only after gear upgrades.

Enchants

     Enchants are fairly straightforward and below I have linked the enchants that I use:

Helm, Shoulders, Back, Chest, Bracers, Gloves, Pants, Boots, (Enchanters) Rings.

     When deciding on a weapon enchant you have 2 decent choices: Mongoose and Executioner. Double mongoose is the best choice for a combat build until BT/Sunwell gear. A hemo build may benefit more from Executioner MH / Mongoose OH.

     Minor deviations might be switching the Shoulder enchant for the old world Might of the Scourge from Nax or switching the Boot Enchant for Cat’s Swiftness if you don’t need HR.

Thanks to Rancid for info on beginner sword choices and lots of dagger choices.

This Post is accurate through patch: 2.4

Rogue Rotation:

     A solid rotation is paramount for pve along with the talent build, without a rotation that suites your toon you will be at an extreme handicap. There are a few things that go into consideration when deciding a rotation such as, Slice and Dice duration (T4 2 piece bonus increase), Health of the mob, abilities of the mob (Immune to bleed).

Combat Rotation

     The foundation of a rotation for combat spec is always going to be SS (Sinister Strike), SS will build 1 combo point each time it is used not accounting combo point procs from gear or talent abilities. Your next move should be SnD using either 1 or 4 combo points depending on if you have the T4 2 piece bonus. A good rotation will be able to keep SnD up 100% of the time. Once SnD is up you have to make a decision of rupture or eviscerate, usually based on the mobs health. For any mob with high health (Any boss, some raid trash) a 5 point rupture is the best choice. With low health mobs a eviscerate is usually the best choice since a rupture will not be up long enough to be fully expended. A macro may even help although can get convoluted because of the nature of combo points.

Tri-Spec Hemo Rotation

     A pve Hemo rotation is going to be fairly similar to a combat rotation. Obviously Hemo will always be used over SS. SS should never be used in a hemo build. SnD should still remain up 100% of the time. Rupture should also be kept up as much as possible as a hemo build gives an improved rupture. Eviscerate may still be used on low health mobs if the situation permits.

This post is accurate through patch: 2.4

     I am going to attempt to create a 3 post guide for rogues. Check back for a post on the finer mechanics of a rogue and possibly a post on my finding’s on a post 2.3.2 hemo build.

Rogue Talent Builds:

Combat Build

     A spec can make or break a rogue, and although in pve there are various specs for a rogue, there is one that dominates in raids, 20/41/0. This build is your cookie-cutter combat build and if used correctly can sustain top raid dps. The two cooldowns that come with this build, AR (adrenaline rush) and BF (Blade Fury) should be used as soon as they are up, along with any racial or trinket cooldowns. A good idea may be to create a simple macro to burn all of your cooldowns, as most of them do not trigger the Global Cool Down.

Tri-Spec Hemo Build

     Another build that may or may not be viable is the tri-spec hemo 11/28/22 Build. This build’s enffectiveness increases if you have high amounts of melee in the raid as it boosts melee dps for the whole raid, but your own dps will be gimped in comparison to combat. A hemo build will also increase tanks threat as the tanks will be doing more dps. I would not recommend this build unless you feel like testing it out in a raid your guild has on farm.

Mutilate Build

This Build requires daggers and has been show to lag well behind combat swords. That being said I decided this build should be included in the post as it can still do considerable dps if used correctly, it just does not stand up to the combat build. 41/20/0 is the correct way to spec into mutilate. This build comes with 1 cooldown, CB (Cold Blood) which unlike combat cooldowns, should be burned at the correct time, usually before a mutilate. DP (Deadly Poison) is a requirement for this build, if DP is not being used in at least 1 hand you are losing out on major dps.

Thanks to Rancid for her insite on daggers.