Disclaimer: The text below is a 100% honest-to-goodness review of the above-mentioned guide. I do not earn anything from writing the review nor from providing the links below.

Here’s a review of The Ultimate Rogue Raiding Guide from PVE Rogues:

PROS:
• Has everything you need to know to get your rogue ready for raiding.
• Uses a friendly, easy to understand approach to explaining rogue concepts.
• Having all that information in one package is very convenient. The cheat sheet is a huge bonus.

CONS:
• The information is also available online.
• Very text heavy. Prep your reading glasses.

The biggest advantage that you can get from this guide is convenience. I mean, yes, the content itself is excellent. It has everything you need to know to get into raiding as a rogue. It tells you what enchantments you need, what glyphs to get and what specs to use. It even tells you exactly what your rotation should be.

The text and flow are easy to understand so the only requirement that it asks from you as a player is that you have a rogue at max level. While it’s arguable that the content is also available online, what it offers differently is that it bundles that information in one convenient package.

One last thing: the website offers free upgrades so I’m assuming that if anything changes with future patches, the guide will get updated as well.

Interested parties can get it here:
http://www.pverogues.com/products-page/

I have a confession to make in case it wasn’t obvious: the whole point of building a Combat set was to bring back the glory days of WotLK. I’m referring to being able to run both as Combat and Assassination. I just liked having that choice back then. Now that I actually have a decent Combat set, things aren’t working out as I intended.

This explains why:

Q: What’s the top DPS spec?

A: Assassination and Combat are both reasonable options. Combat should be a bit ahead above 35% and a bit behind below 35%, but its hard to say which is going to be higher on average. In practice, I think they’re going to be pretty close on single-target, and primarily distinguished by how they perform in non-single-target situations. That is: Assassination has vastly better AoE and more broadly applicable utility talents, while Combat will be the king of DPSing two targets (via Blade Flurry) and has better burst via cooldowns; for any given fight, this distinction is likely more relevant than the theoretical single-target difference between the specs. [via EJ]

Combat used to be the spec of choice when it came to AoE situations, making it better for 5-man dungeons. Now that Assassination is the superior spec for both single and multi-target fights, the only reason to run Combat is when I’m cleaving. I don’t know about you but I find that option severely limiting.

Don’t get me wrong. Combat DPS is amazing when it’s used properly. With my current gear I usually get 6-7k DPS on single-target and 11k when I can use Blade Flurry. 11k is good damage, obviously. My only problem with it is that it seems so situational.

Think about it.  With Assassination all you need to do after the pull is to cast Tricks then go crazy with Fan of Knives. That’s it. With Combat, I have to decide whether hitting two targets only justifies not touching the others. I also have to worry about the eventual threat issue when Tricks goes down. Bottom line, I need to do more runs as Combat and see what I can learn. I also have to convince myself to stick with Combat even when I start seeing my numbers go down (cleaving nothing, KS on cooldown, etc.)

How about you guys? Any similar experiences? Have you tried running both? Is it better to just stick to one spec?

So the patch is out. I went ahead and assembled a second set for Combat to try it out. In case you’re wondering why a second set is necessary, it’s because of stat weights; Assassination and Combat have different priorities. For example, Spell Hit is critical to Assassination due to its reliance on poison damage. Special attacks play a more vital role for Combat, making Expertise a priority over Spell Hit. You can look up my previous post on stat weights for more information.

I tried out my Combat set earlier today and here’s what I can tell you.

• This is an early impression, but soloing and questing were more convenient to do in Combat because my special attacks were hitting harder. Downsides? Recuperate was healing less and I was running slower. Why? Because they were both untalented.

• Blade Flurry did wonders for my DPS during trash pulls on heroic dungeons. It was fun cleaving everything. However, it also messed up my threat big time. I was using Vanish then Evasion + Cloak of Shadows when it was on cooldown more often than necessary. And yes, even when I was casting Tricks I was still having problems. I’m going to try to include Feint in my rotation and see how it goes. It’s better than turning off Blade Flurry altogether.

• How’s Combat’s single-target DPS compared to Assassination? Forget it, it’s not even close. Go switch specs and use your daggers when you’re fighting only one mob.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the patch notes you’ll know that Blade Flurry is about to become a toggleable skill in the upcoming patch, causing Combat rogues to get a permanent cleave. While I admit that it was a notable change, what made it even more interesting was last night’s main hand axe drop, giving me a weapon that I could use for that spec.

Long-time readers of this blog know that back in WotLK I ran Combat for 5-mans and trash pulls then switched to Assassination for boss fights. That switch involved changing specs and weapons only, which isn’t something you want to do in Cata due to the implementation of Mastery. Assassination rogues prioritize hit and mastery while those who prefer Combat reforge to hit and expertise. This leads to the conclusion that if we want to swap between the two specs, we need two sets of gear.

I’ve yet to come to a decision. I could wait until the patch is implemented to see how Blade Flurry performs damage-wise before I start working on getting the gear or I could throw caution (and gold) to the wind and prepare myself beforehand. In case you’re saying that I should check the spreadsheet, I already have. I’m looking at a 3K DPS decrease given that most of the Combat items will be ilvl 333. I’m okay with that. The spreadsheets are for single-target boss fights anyway. Cleaving a second target isn’t accounted for. Not yet anyway.

Cataclysm Raiding FAQ

Assassination:

• Spec
• Pre-raid gear list
• Stat weights

Combat:

• Spec
• Pre-raid gear list
• Stat weights

ShadowCraft Engine web frontend AKA Cata spreadsheet

I hit 85 a couple of days ago and I’m in the process of gearing Sin for raiding. Well, possibly anyway. There are a couple of things we need to sort out guild-wise before we get there but that’s a different story. Anyway, here are a couple of things you might want to know in case you’re also considering getting your rogue geared.

The item level of regular dungeon drops is 333. Gear that can be acquired by Justice Points is 346. Regular dungeon drops have a heroic equivalent when you run heroic dungeons. The level of these items is also 346 and says “Heroic” under the name.

You need an item level of 329 in your character sheet to qualify for heroic dungeons.

Assassination provides the most DPS out of all three specs. Combat is supposed to be close. That isn’t the case in my experience though.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, everything you need to know about Cata raiding (stats, specs, etc.) can be found here. An in-depth Assassination guide is also here. Specs, stat weights, gems, etc. are all there.

Here’s a gear list of sorts that you might find useful, sorted by slot. Note that I only queried armor so trinkets, rings, cloaks and weapons aren’t included.

That’s it for now. Hope you find the information useful.

I didn’t participate in the beta when it was available so when I upgraded to Cataclysm I didn’t know what to expect. Thankfully, the amount of hand-holding that Blizz has implemented is so rampant you’d have to be blind to miss it.

I’m leveling as Assassination. The experience might be different for Combat or Subtlety but till I respec I won’t know what it’s like. As a dual-specced rogue Sin’s second spec is non-existent. EJ says that Assassination is the clear winner in raiding DPS and I’ve also read that Combat is “missing” damage, whatever that means, which are the reasons why I haven’t set it as my second spec. If this was WotLK, I’d be Combat in a heartbeat because of the cooldowns, AOE attacks and simpler rotation—okay, mostly because of the simpler rotation. Cata re-introduces Rupture in the Assassination cycle and also brings in Backstab, but the details on that are for a different post.

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