Back to the tried and true for heroics.

[Pokecraft 1]

So during Siege of Orgrimmar, I have played around with all 3 specs for my rogue on all the bosses. Now keep in mind, I am no professional, it is May and I am still only 2/14H. I have always been a fan of assassination personally. I just happen to like the idea of soaking daggers in lethal poison and even with a small cut, inflicting hell on earth on your foes. This is what I thought about each spec.

Combat: I am going to start here because this is where everyone is saying its at. This spec is very strong which is made even stronger with how many cleave fights there are in Siege of Orgrimmar. Now some people have claimed that cleaving is the only thing that makes this spec viable but in my personal experience, even single target I was able to pump out some serious damage. The drawbacks for me is I never really enjoyed combat, seems to me to be more of a warrior with lighter armor.

Subtlety: This is my favorite spec but rendered nearly unplayable due to bosses constantly spinning and moving graying out the oh so necessary backstab button. I do plan to play subtlety in WoD but for now, I just don't like losing out on so much dps because tanks are bored of where they are standing. Also when solo questing and killing rates, the lack of combo points from Honor Among Thieves gets really annoying.

Assassination: Now some people have called me lazy for playing assassination but I promise you that's not the case. I am lazy for many other reasons. But honestly if I were lazy I wouldn't play every class in the game with gear and experience with every spec. That said, assassination to me feels like what a rogue should be. The load screen I am so fond of with the wicked looking goblin. Those ain't daisies dripping off his daggers. Poisons are very fun to me and boosting poison damage with abilities is what makes me feel like a true rogue. In Siege though, assassination became too boring and lacking in the aoe area. Eventually some changes were made through patches and higher gear levels allow for a more upbeat style of play.

With all this, now that I am getting into running heroic modes, I am starting to build up a nice set of gear. My most recent change being dropping my 4pc set to instead take the heroic warforged chest and helm I lucked into as well as the heroic gloves. This is just a list of my personal ideas and shouldn't be taken as any kind of serious theorycrafting or min maxing. That said, I wouldn't mind seeing what the community thinks of this. For anyone wanting to armory my rogue, his name is Poketherear on US-Turalyon server.

[Hybrys 199]

I don't really understand the negatives that are attributed to Sublety.  It is, without a doubt, the highest single target damage, and any skilled rogue should be able to play it for the majority of low-mid movement fights.  

 

The only fights I could see it being subpar for are Dark Shamans and Spoils.  For each other one, normal and heroic, I've had no issues maintaining 280-300k or higher in ~560 ilvl.

[Pokecraft 1]

I don't really understand the negatives that are attributed to Sublety.  It is, without a doubt, the highest single target damage, and any skilled rogue should be able to play it for the majority of low-mid movement fights.  

 

The only fights I could see it being subpar for are Dark Shamans and Spoils.  For each other one, normal and heroic, I've had no issues maintaining 280-300k or higher in ~560 ilvl.

Like I said, subtlety is my favorite spec but I am looking for a spec for all fights. I never said I can't pull good numbers in sub, just that the position requirement is annoying for too many fights. Thank you for your comment.

[Krushinator 49]

Alright guys, let's keep it cool.

Pokecraft, thanks for posting here. I think you've brought up not only a by-the-numbers raid topic, but a game experience topic as well, which I feel is very important to keeping players coming back to the Rogue class.

From strictly a math in raids perspective, assassination is behind at higher gear levels. The reason for this has been discussed in other threads, so I won't go into detail here. However, I would like to reiterate that unless you are in a heroic raiding guild working on the last wing, the single target damage difference between specs is not what is going to push your raid to a kill.

I would like to talk about class experience. You mentioned that you weren't a fan of the combat spec because it just felt like a Warrior. You also mentioned how you liked the feel of the Assassination spec because it was the truest to how you imagine a rogue should realistically be. I've heard similar sentiments from other players as well. I happen to think that the Subtlety spec is the closest to how I think a rogue should be. A Rogue emerging from the shadows, incapacitating the target, throwing some quick back stabs and finishing off the target with a strong attack feels the most realistic to me. Another player may like the light Warrior style that Combat, as they may see the Rogue as more of a toe to toe fighter with a high level of expertise and dexterity versus the raw power of the Warrior.

What's important about our opinions is not whether one is right and one is wrong, it's that we have them at all. Having an emotional and mental connection to the class you play is what will keep you coming back to the game and coming back to the class. If all you care about is the numbers then WoW becomes math homework, leading to constant class switching and eventually burnout.

Two main things have kept me playing my rogue for the past 7 years: it's a melee DPS class (which I enjoy the most), and it has a frantic pace. I've tried to play caster classes as a consistent alt, but it just feels too slow. I've tried other melee DPS classes, but they don't have that satisfying feeling of using a flurry of quick attacks to set up the haymaker. Even a Feral Druid didn't have the right mix of combo attacks and cooldowns that sent you into a button mashing rampage. I've found that I have a strong connection to all of the Rogue specs, so switching between them isn't a problem for me.

Question for everyone: Are there specs you enjoy playing more than others for a reason other than DPS numbers or rotation? Why?

[Hybrys 199]

Like I said, subtlety is my favorite spec but I am looking for a spec for all fights. I never said I can't pull good numbers in sub, just that the position requirement is annoying for too many fights. Thank you for your comment.

I know, I'm just saying that I don't find the positional a burden.  I really think Sub could be the best for every fight.  It's annoying sometimes, but it makes me feel like a great melee when I can pull it off.  I guess talking about numbers is an unfair thing to do though; I enjoy the spec the most and that matters above all.

 

The real loss is that Sub can't do AoE very well.  I'm really disappointed with that fact, and definitely wish it was a little more balanced.

 

I'm a big fan of the 4pc, but just because the Sub and Combat varieties feel great in usage.  Sticking with 2pc and going to the higher ilvl is probably a great idea, though.

 

@ Krushinator

 

I think we're cool.

 

I'd rather do both.  I feel that great numbers and great gameplay make me play better.  Simple as that.

[Pokecraft 1]

@Krushinator, I agree with you on pretty much everything here. How you described Subtlety along with the complexity of Subtlety are the main reasons why I feel that subtlety is my favorite spec right now, although I will stick with my poison spec til WoD which is when I plan to go subtlety all the way.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Pokecraft

[Pokecraft 1]

@Hybrys, I agree with you here, I did like it when I was able to pull it off, although for me personally, I just happen to like assasination almost as much as I like subtlety, thats my main reason for going back to assasination. That little annoyance plus lacking aoe just pushed assasination ahead in my mind. 

 

I also appreciate the opinion on dropping my 4pc bonus, I was actually looking forward to hearing if people thought this was a good idea, so I do appreciate it.

[Falcifer 7]

Are there specs you enjoy playing more than others for a reason other than DPS numbers or rotation? Why?

 

I levelled with sub - when I started plyaing, soon after MoP came out, I'd heard that rogues were a tough class and that sub was the hardest spec, so I chose a sub rogue. The positional requirement was an issue while questing, but I wasn't worried about the numbers.

 

Once I got to 90 I raided a bit, in LFR, with sub and didn't have any issues. But I wasn't playing optimally. It wasn't until a guildmate mentioned that my DPS should be higher that I started looking into the rotation in more detail. Sub is very much how I imagine rogues; lots of stealth and attacking from behind. I remember when I first tried assassination, I simply changed spec, left my gear alone, and without even looking up the rotation, I was able to do more DPS. That's probably partly due to me not being good at sub, and also because of how easy assassination is by comparison, but after that I didn't go back.

 

The heavy reliance on poisons isn't a million miles away from my view of rogues, and thinking of them more as assassins than rogues, it makes more sense. A lot of people don't like the slow pace or the amount of passive damage, but the less spamming I'm doing, the more I feel like my button presses actually mean something. Conversely, when I tried combat and was trying very hard not to cap energy, I never felt like I was in control of what I was doing. I was just spamming what I could to keep the buffs/bleeds up. I'm sure with some more time put into it, that would change, but I really enjoy assassination.

 

I also feel like the slower pace allows me to have more raid awareness, because I'm not focusing heavily on position or worrying about spending energy as fast as I can.

 

 

Also, I'm sure it's different for different guilds, but I'm in a 10-man guild and we're currently progressing on HC Paragons. The only time DPS has been an issue (and it wasn't specifically mine, but overall raid DPS) was on HC Norushen which has a rather tight enrage and we had a few undergeared people at the time. There were a few without the legendary cloak, and plenty of timeless gear. Other than that, I struggled a little on the belt on Normal Siegecrafter, but I was still running with my LFR ToES dagger with the Sha-touched gem (which was better than any dagger that had dropped for me since).

 

For our guild, the problems tends to be down to people making avoidable mistakes. I'm sure on Garrosh, DPS will start to play a more important role, but so far, as an assassination rogue with 12/14 HC progress, DPS hasn't been an issue 

 

Having said that, combat would provide higher single-target, and we'd probably have killed bosses faster/sooner if I'd had a little more DPS, but my point is that being assassination isn't going to be a hindrance