zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Happy holidays to everyone. Today’s post is about something that’s loved and hated: Honor Among Thieves (AKA HAT). As you can see from the skill description, you get a combo point everytime someone else crits. That part works as intended. The rather controversial aspect is how it stacks with other rogues. You get one combo point per HAT rogue, so if you have 3 rogues with the talent, you get 3 combo points per crit. That’s how you can spam Eviscerate and get the top DPS spot in no time.

Right now, that information isn’t groundbreaking. A lot of people know about it and the reactions are mixed. Those who love it argue that it contributes to overall DPS and makes raids faster and easier. Those who hate it say that it’s a bug that’s being exploited. I’m not here to discuss the pros and cons in those terms. The fact is that it’s happening and it’s being used to its fullest advantage.

There is one question that some of you are asking: how does HAT perform with only one rogue in the group? I hope to answer that. Note that I’m approaching this coming from a Mutilate background. I was curious about HAT so I decided to give it a whirl earlier today. I do not have the screenshots anymore but after running three instances, I was satisfied that I got the answer I was looking for. We ran Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme, The Nexus and Drak’Tharon Keep, all on heroic. I reset the data per instance, to give it a fair comparison. Our group consisted of a prot pally, a ret pally, a holy priest and a hunter. At the end, my DPS was a hundred or so less as a HAT rogue compared to Mutilate. I’m used to seeing it hit 1300-1400 DPS with Mutilate. With HAT, it was 1200-1300.

Now, here’s where the pros and cons “in those terms” come in. The pros of a HAT rogue is that it’s very easy to get the numbers above. You literally just spam Hemo and wait till the combo points come in. Once you get five, hit Eviscerate and repeat the cycle. It’s literally easy DPS, probably the simplest that you can get in-game. The cons? If you’re running solo HAT, its performance greatly depends on how well your group crits. Your damage output is literally dependent on everyone else’s crit ratings, so be prepared for that.

So that’s it. If you have your doubts I suggest you try it out yourself. It’s really not too bad. Plus, you get the benefit of taking a break from the complicated rotation of Mutilate.

I read this post on Forever A Noob and, while I share the whine about rogue DPS (more like the lack of it), it’s comforting that I’m not the only one experiencing it. I still consider myself in the learning phase of all things related to rogues so there’s always doubt about the gear, talents, rotations and skills that I’m using. If I’m not on top of my party’s DPS list, “am I doing this right?” is among the first questions that come to mind.

My inability to keep up with my guild’s raid schedule has led me to shelf my rogue if no raids are ongoing. The DPS is disappointing and I don’t really join PUGs. I’m currently having a lot of fun with my death knight alt. There’s something about multi-mob killing that’s very satisfying. For once, I created a male toon. My DK would’ve been a female BE too (similar to my rogue) had it not been for the awkward-looking animations. Male BEs look better wielding two-handed swords and axes than their female counterparts, so that served as the deciding factor. And no, I don’t have plans to dual-wield right now. My rogue is already doing that.

Some of my guildmates are asking if I’ll be switching mains, considering the amount of time I’m spending on my DK. For now, no, and I’m only saying that because I don’t like making final statements. My rogue is still my main. I’m just waiting to get her properly geared before I start playing her seriously again. I just wish I could meet those raiding schedules.

I’m lagging behind my guildmates on the DPS race due to my pathetic gear. I missed out on an instance marathon due to work and I’m now paying the consequences for trying to live a life outside of WoW. Yes, yes, I know. The whining and dining will stop there.

I’ve been looking at other builds for my rogue recently because Hunger for Blood is a bitch to maintain. There, I said it. Assassination is a tree that will keep you awake during raids due to the fact that its rotations are more complicated than Combat. I tried creating a dagger-based build for the truly lazy and came up with something focused on Sinister Strike. Now, I know that Backstab is supposed to be the attack skill of choice for Combat Daggers, but I did say “truly lazy”, right?. I keep hearing that ‘Sin (my shortcut for Assassination) specs have the best DPS output, but its learning curve is definitely a rude awakening for those who aren’t used to it.

There are two things that are preventing me from actually doing a respec: Mutilate and crits. Mutilate is well worth the talent-point investment and should be the only choice for Rogues who prefer using daggers. ‘Sin’s critical hits are just plain addictive to see. You’ll want to get an addon that will make your crits more obvious like SCT or MSBT that changes the fonts or Comix that plays sounds. They’re only aesthetic changes, but ones that you’ll learn to appreciate.

Well, the leveling took longer than usual. Two weeks after I got WotLK, I finally managed to get my rogue up to 80. It’s a week longer than I anticipated, which made me think about the time it took to get from level 1 to 70 (about a month). My /played showed that I needed 7-9 hours to get from one level to the next (70-71, for example), which is roughly the same rate that I got from the previous expansion (going from 60-61). While it’s a nice parallel, I still wish I leveled faster.

Every WoW player will tell you that maxing your level is actually only the beginning. When you get to that point, it’s time to get your character geared. The entry level dungeon is Naxxramas, so just like TBC’s Karazhan, it’s time to get pre-Naxx gear. The problem with that is I can’t find any pre-Naxx gear list of rogues yet, so I’ll have to wait for that. For now, I’m going to try to follow WoW Insider’s rep reward list and go from there.

The last thing I want to mention is that I’ll be linking my armory page to the site permanently. My intent is to get feedback regarding my gear, talents and other things related to being a rogue. WotLK is so new I’m having a hard time getting the information I need, so anything that will help improve my DPS output will be great.