Rogue 6.0 Transition Guide

[Krushinator 49]

 

This post will be laying out the most important changes that will affect your playstyle the day that patch 6.0 goes live. There are changes that will affect all of the specs, and changes that will affect specific specs. I will conclude with my thoughts on the most important things to know and practice for Warlords of Draenor.

 

Combo Points: They are now shared across all enemies. Redirect is no longer a thing, poor target switching is no longer a thing, and I couldn't be happier. Now you won't have the "rogues are bad at target switching" excuse to give to your raid leader when you tunnel the boss, so take advantage of this great quality of life change.

 

Tricks of the Trade: It no longer has a damage component. You can now use this ability as I believe it was intended; defensively. You can use it on the pull to avoid insta-death, and you can use it to divert threat on a newly spawned add.

 

Shadow Blades: It has been removed. This comes as somewhat of a relief to me, as I didn't feel like it really added much to the rogue playstyle. Assassination spec would just use it on cooldown, Combat could actually just macro it to Adrenaline Rush and have a one button cooldown, and Subtlety just used it with Shadow Dance.

 

AoE Buffs: I'm going to highlight the exact changes in the spec sections, but I wanted to emphasize it here. All of the rogue specs are getting increased AoE capabilities, and you are going to have to learn the proper AoE rotation for your spec(s). They will be highly useful going forward.

 

DoT spells: If a DoT spell is recast with 30% or less time remaining on the original timer, the remaining time will be added to the new duration of that cast. This is a very important change that will make the rotation easier for all specs. To give an example of how this is applied, lets say that you have a 5 point Rupture running, which has a total tick time of 24 seconds. At 5 seconds remaining, you cast Rupture again. Instead of losing those 5 seconds of damage and resetting the timer back to 24 seconds, those 5 seconds will be added to the new timer, for a total of 29 seconds. Now, let's say this Rupture starts ticking down and you recast at 4 seconds. This DOES NOT mean your new Rupture timer will be at 33 seconds. The added time will apply to the original timer length, meaning your new timer will start at 28 seconds. This change is confirmed for all DoT effects and periodic buffs such as Slice and Dice and Revealing Strike.

 

 

 

 

 

Seal Fate: Now affects Fan of Knives when it critically strikes the main target. This is a big step in increasing the viability of the AoE rotation for Assassination rogues.

 

Venomous Wounds: No longer procs from Garrote. This means Ambush or Mutilate will be your opening attack now.

 

Until you actually reach level 100, Assassination isn't going to feel that different. For the time being, test your AoE rotation with Fan of Knives. I expect Envenom to still be the preferred finisher in 6.0 over Crimson Tempest due to Envenom now increasing the chance of poison application by 30%, up from 15%.

 

 

 

 

 

Fan of Knives: It can no longer be used by Combat Rogues. Since Blade Flurry no longer has a target cap, this isn't a big change.

 

Blade Flurry: It can now trigger poisons. This is the AoE buff for Combat, and while I don't think Combat really needed an AoE buff, they're getting on because everyone else is. This isn't a playstyle change, but it is interesting to note.

 

Bandit's Guile and Revealing Strike: This is a very important playstyle change for Combat. I actually wrote an entire article about this back in April which you can find here: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/5459-bandits-guile-old-school-vs-new-school/ , but I'll give you the short version.  Revealing Strike has had it's base damage increased, but it no longer advances your Bandit's Guile. This is going to give you a much greater degree of control over your Insight buff, and allow you to exploit your Deep Insight buff with greater consistency. It used to be a "would be nice" to enter Deep Insight with high combo points and high energy, but now that is under your control. Track your Bandit's Guile buff closely and take full advantage of this mechanic change.

 

Combat is undergoing the biggest immediate change of the three specs by far. Interacting with Bandit's Guile through Revealing Strike is going to be the keystone of the spec going forward, so get as much experience with it as you can now!

 

 

 

 

 

Ambush and Backstab: Ambush no longer has a positional requirement to use, and Backstab can now be used from the side of the target instead of just the back. This will make positioning a little easier in PvE and a lot easier in PvP. Enjoy the freedom.

 

Sinister Calling: Whenever your Backstab or Ambush triggers multistrike, it advances your bleeds by two seconds, causing an instant tick. This is an interesting change because it adds a bit of that Combat Restless Blades flavour, but in a more random way. While this does increase the effectiveness of your bleeds, the random nature will have you watching your bleed timers much more closely. There will be more instances of bleed buffs falling off due to untimely multistrike procs, and energy pooling near the end of bleed timers will be far more important to try to mitigate the randomness. This is already a focus of Subtlety playstyle, and it will be all the more important come 6.0.

 

Subtlety's playstyle update isn't as monumental as Combat, but it is still going to be a learning curve to adapt to the lurching bleed timers. Try to update your interface to highlight this new aspect of your rotation.

 

 

The 6.0 changes in rotation are significant for two of the specs, however the changes will be much more drastic at level 100. AoE is undergoing a very big change with the new talents and "enhanced" abilities, and even the standard rotations will see some changes. As I've stated, practice AoE no matter what your spec, and everyone should learn how to interact with the new Bandit's Guile.

 

These are the points that I found the most important. What do you think? Is there anything happening in 6.0 that you feel will affect rogue performance/rotations? Let us know!

 

 

 

Change Log: 

Oct. 6th: Changed wording in Combo Points section to reflect PTR Patch notes wording change.

Oct. 13th: Added section on DoT spells.

[gonlaz 6]

Is that combo point thing going to make it live? I read months ago it may not.

[Krushinator 49]

There was a slight change in the wording recently, but the essence of the change is still the same. Instead of saying that the combo points are on the rogue, the wording now reads that combo points are shared across all enemies. It is functionally the same thing from our perspective. I am confident this change will make it to live.

 

I have changed the wording in the OP.

[draggit 0]

After reading this it seems that my rogue is a good contender for my main DPS next X-Pac. Haven't finished reading everything yet though.

[Krazyito 521]

Something else you may want to note is that rupture and envenom (and any other similar buffs/debuffs) will take the Warlock Pandemic effect for 30% of their duration.

 

So Rupture lasts 24s, which means you can refresh it anytime lower than 7s and you gain its full duration + that 7 seconds.

[Krushinator 49]

Wow, I don't know how any of the rogue synopses I found didn't list that. That is incredibly important to the rogue rotation, as it makes it a lot easier to handle. That means you can clip Rupture at sub 7 seconds and Envenom at sub 1.8 seconds. I'll edit the OP soon.

 

Thanks Krazyito!

[Jayshwa 0]

We never used garrote (edit: in mop) as an opener anyway, I don't see why this affects the opener? I've always used mutilate, personally.

 

I'm sad about shadow blades being removed, I enjoyed it even if it didn't add much. Having endless combo points was fun.

 

Anyway, thanks for this.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Jayshwa

[gonlaz 6]

Back in Cata at least, I used garrote as an opener. IMO that was the best time to be assassination, the rotation wasn't soooo boring and the overkill ability was cool!

[Krushinator 49]

Sections updated. Change Log added.

[Krazyito 521]

 

Confirmed for Revealing strikes (24s base) and SnD (36s base)

 

You can easily test any spell by using it twice in a row to see if it goes above the original duration

[Grig 0]

Does 6.0.2 implement the change to Assassination and SnD? I've read over the past months that they were toying with removing the spell and making it passive for Assassination Rogues. However the newly updated rotation guide and the 6.0.2 patch notes do not reflect such a change.

[LordsofAcid 0]

Does 6.0.2 implement the change to Assassination and SnD? I've read over the past months that they were toying with removing the spell and making it passive for Assassination Rogues. However the newly updated rotation guide and the 6.0.2 patch notes do not reflect such a change.

As of the last beta build, the change making slice n dice passive is a draenor perk earned sometime before 100. Perks are unlocked every two levels (i.e. 92, 94, etc.). When I leveled my rogue as assassination I didn't recieve this Perk making it passive till level 98. Hope that answers your question. When I did get it, I did see a slight dps increase relatively in dungeons due to being able to use more envenoms. Was definitely a load off my mind but it seemed to make the rotation kinda boring tbh.

Edited October 14, 2014 by BrianWeddle

[Grig 0]

As of the last beta build, the change making slice n dice passive is a draenor perk earned sometime before 100. Perks are unlocked every two levels (i.e. 92, 94, etc.). When I leveled my rogue as assassination I didn't recieve this Perk making it passive till level 98. Hope that answers your question. When I did get it, I did see a slight dps increase relatively in dungeons due to being able to use more envenoms. Was definitely a load off my mind but it seemed to make the rotation kinda boring tbh.

 

Thanks for the help. I guess I'll have to do more research on these perks.

[Damien 1,514]

I think it could be added that Combat Rogues no longer have access to Fan of Knives.

[Falcifer 7]

For assassination (maybe other specs, too) it seems that crit is worth far more than it used to be. I have 3 Mythic Warforged items that Shadowcraft and SimulationCraft suggest should be replaced with Mythic (non-warforged) versions that have crit + (haste/mastery) rather than the non-crit WF versions. 

 

Ricocheting Shoulderguards & Shoulderguards of the Righteous Stand for example.

 

The Warforged shoulders give me +5 agility, +12 mastery, and +52 haste, but -55 crit over the non-warforged ones. Gems and socket bonus are the same. 

 

Hellscream's Razor and Hvitserk's Formidable Shanker are similar;

 

+2 agility, +20 haste on Thok's dagger

+4 mastery, +28 crit on the heirloom

 

The last items are trinkets, so the procs are different and I can't really compare them directly, but I'm replacing Mythic WF Detonator with Mythic Talisman (mastery vs. multistrike in terms of base stats).

 

So my basic question is, what are the relative values of agility and crit/mastery/haste? With shared combo points and Seal Fate working through FoK, is it the same for AoE and target switching, too?

 

Edit: is it as simple as taking the stat weightings and multiplying by the amount of each stat?

 

e.g. for the shoulders, (5 * 1.103) + (12 * 0.759) + (52 * 0.643) to get the overall value of the item? The difference between the shoulders in that case is less than 0.1, and the "DPS" value comes out at 5.1 difference, so it's not a major thing really. But it would be nice if my warforged items were of some use.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Falcifer

[Carrn 284]

 

Edit: is it as simple as taking the stat weightings and multiplying by the amount of each stat?

 

e.g. for the shoulders, (5 * 1.103) + (12 * 0.759) + (52 * 0.643) to get the overall value of the item? The difference between the shoulders in that case is less than 0.1, and the "DPS" value comes out at 5.1 difference, so it's not a major thing really. But it would be nice if my warforged items were of some use.

 

Short answer is yes

[Slicing 0]

For Combat Rogues - What's the consensus on Deep Insight? Is it better to switch to Revealing Strikes while at 20% DPS increase, and only use Sinister Strike when the buff is about to fall off for extra time in Medium Insight, or are the extra combo points worth it to use Sinister Strike instead? 

[Carrn 284]

For Combat Rogues - What's the consensus on Deep Insight? Is it better to switch to Revealing Strikes while at 20% DPS increase, and only use Sinister Strike when the buff is about to fall off for extra time in Medium Insight, or are the extra combo points worth it to use Sinister Strike instead? 

 

According to the numbers Fireydemise posted a couple weeks ago, it's beneficial to swap to RvS. Howver, that's a couple weeks old and I don't know if they changed numbers or not.

 

I did that when my guild cleared through Mythic and it seemed to work well - even playing as Combat, which is now the lowest of all 3 specs single target, I was relatively competitive. I suggest playing Asn or Sub though, since both of them Sim better for WoD and perform better on Live

[chom 0]

Hi guys, I'm new here and I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong section. I have a combat rogue, earlier today I was using Askmrrobot which recommended me to use all Crit gems but now its recommending me to use all Haste gems? Anyone know whats up?

[Krazyito 521]

Read this: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2430-to-those-people-who-ask-why-does-mr-robot-do-x-and-y/

 

Despite what I wrote up there, Mr robot is a little wonky eight now with the new patch. 

[Carrn 284]

Rogues have an advantage in that we have Shadowcraft. You should always refer to that first, as it will probably be more accurate for both your gear level and whatever the current sim data says

[Suvai 0]

I am surprised (and a bit suspicious of the validity) of the new stat priority you have listed for Assas. Crit over Mast and Haste? It doesn't seem logical - given the increase chance to apply poison, you would want them to hit as hard as possible so I think Mast might still be more important than a chance of proc'ing an extra combo point (which my rogue has no problem doing, at all, even set up as Mast>Haste>Crit). The new stats I can see - especially with a moderate emphasis placed on haste and rogues naturally fast attack speed, MS seems like a winner and Vers is just kinda logical. I might be over capd with my rogue on Mast (he's at 112% WITHOUT procs/flasks/etc...with he gets up around 240% I think) and he hits like a truck. Please check this and get back to me...I could be wrong, but I think you might have the stat priority off a bit, and I need to know. Thank you!

[Falcifer 7]

Some discussion here: http://ravenholdt.net/index.php/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10

 

Keep in mind that many/all of the rogue theorycrafters are players at the highest level. They have a vested interest in the information and tools they put out. They do a lot of testing and number crunching, too. And there are plenty of people out there who follow them and report back if they notice discrepancies.

 

For AoE or lots of target switching (Spoils and phase 1 of Galakras, for example) mastery may be slightly better, but with the changes to agility secondary stats are much stronger than before.

 

Agility doesn't increase crit now, like it used to. And it awards less attack power, too.

 

All in all, if you feel like things work better another way, there's no harm in doing that. If you prefer stacking mastery, and haste/crit isn't an issue, then there's no need to follow some website that says otherwise. And you can always change gems/gear/enchants and see how they affect your damage.

 

Fierydemise (one of the rogues who reviewed the Icy-Veins guide) is on twitter and usually can be found in the Ravenholdt.net ICR channel if not on the forums, so they're good places to talk about rogue stuff with someone who spends a lot of time doing some serious theorycrafting with other rogues.

[Carrn 284]

Crit Sims higher, especially at higher gear levels. Point for point, it will give higher returns than Mastery.

 

Without getting into too much math on the subject, Agility no longer provides a lot of passive Crit, so we need a lot more of it to compensate and give us the same percentage that we used to have. Additionally, Crit scales best across many classes that didn't use much of it before (such as Frost Mage) because of the number tuning on it.

 

The other side, specifically for Assassination, is that a higher Crit build allows for literally permanent uptime on Envenom. You're still prioritizing Mastery after Crit and before Haste (Crit > Mastery > Haste), although the values are very close. I just re-did my Rogue and got a value of 0.887 for Crit and 0.748 for Mastery

[Suvai 0]

Ok, wanted to make a note regarding my earlier post, and to say that I wasn't doubting your competence, but I'm not the type of person who believes everything they read just because it comes from apparent authorities on a subject. Again, thank you for his information. I gemmed specifically for Crit yesterday and ran H SoO on my alli rogue (going to leave my horde rogue as is right now). The numbers were noticeably higher on skada, even with my poison still being one of my highest damage sources (I believe it was #2 overall). This is the reason why I doubted the claims made initially. Assas has always relied heavily on poison for its main damage source(s) (comparably more so than he other 2 specs). It is going to be interesting to see how this changes at level 100. Again, thanks for your info, great job and please keep it up!