5 Rogues and talent advice needed

[blast3r]

I RAF'd 5 rogues to lvl 60 several months ago and decided to pick them back up and get them to northrend. I'm trying to decide what best talent tree I should go with. I never played rogues before this and am not that good with them yet.

When I logged them on I found I had to pick talents again. I guess a patched added some new abilities. I went with combat for "Killing Spree" but haven't been able to use that ability yet. Just got them setup again last night.

If there is anyone that is familiar with rogues I would appreciate some advice. What spec would you go with if you were multiboxing with them and why?

[turbopinto]

My rogues are 70, but I haven't played them since the mutilate damage nerf. I had played shadowstep until i switched to Mutilate around lvl 61. I still think that Mut is easiest to chain pull singles with the non positional requirement (and with master poisoner, getting the crip poison for free) and running thru the target spamming Mut, but maybe using combat and sinister strike would be just as effective in the current build. With murder spree, evasion, and blade flurry you could be pulling like 7 mobs once every 2 mins to add a bunch of XP when cooldowns are ready. I am planning to go back to shadowstep for PVP when I get a chance to continue with the team (mages and druids are 70, then buy WOTLK >.<). Maybe ill play a bit on them tonight and try to give an update, depending on wife aggro.

[FIra]

Hello. I just yesterday RAFFED some new accounts for the soul purpose of doing a 5man rogue team. What I plan on doing is going Deep Sub for shadowstep and shadow dance.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684

Honor among thieves should have great synergy between the 5 rogues.

I'd go with this for fist crit: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684

that is if you need more crit.

TBO this setup could be combo point overkill. Getting one every second if you crit + opening moves + dodging is alot.

[genocyde]

I'd go with this for fist crit: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684

I don't mean to be rude here, but that spec is.... odd. You don't take 2-3 of the best talents in the sub tree. You have ghostly strike + hemo, but no opportunity or improved ambush? 3/3 Setup but 0/5 Slaughter from the shadows.

What exactly do you intend to fight with that build? I only have one rogue, but he is 80 and doing well in arena (deadly weapon as soon as I have the points) and i just don't understand that build at all.

[FIra]

Oh I linked the wrong one. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogu...0&version=9684

Thats the one that works great with the spec via ambushes and backstabs and stuff. I havent gotten a rogue to 80 yet so forgive me. Looking it over again I'd prob. rather go the last points into assassination rather than combat for crit and if i were to go sub, i'd stick with daggers.

[ElectronDF]

Just my 2cents. Sorry you didn't ask for it. There are primary functions you need in a group depending on where that group goes. I am mostly an instancer, so that is my perscpective. I didn't notice if you are only doing PVP or arenas, or what?

For instances, you need a person who can take hits. It doesn't have to be a fancy person, just something that can take hits. I have DKs (plate and taunt), hunters (mail, pets and taunt), shammies (mail, stam and play defensive) and recently locks (multiple voids). What are you going to do when tough mobs want to smash your face in? Sure you can feint, but that just means another person gets their face smashed in.

For a lot of things you need a person who can heal. DKs aren't bad at self/group heal, hunter's pet are tough and can be healed (talent/mend), shammies are pretty good healers (totem/chain/lesser) and so far locks aren't bad on healing (heal pet, steal life back). Sure you can feint or vanish and bandage and maybe an herbalism heal. That isn't very much.

Melee and movement. I first noticed it on my shammies (they are melee/resto). It was supposed to be really bad, but I just pulled melee to me and shocked casters and they came to me. For BG's/PVP, I just healed, since I could heal 2-3 times more than I could do damage and healers were in short supply in PVP. My DKs just laugh at melee and for casters I have deathgrip. Hunters and locks just range everyone. If I understand, rogues can shadowstep, but that is a deep talent. So that probably picks your talents for you.

I am just worried that you have low take-hits-ability, low healing, virtually no ranged and if anyone moves 1/2 and inch, some of your attacks don't work (gouge-front, backstab-back, etc). I hope it works out for you. Good luck.

[blast3r]

The only plans I have for these rogues at the moment is just world pvp fun. That will likely change a bit later. I am thinking of 10 boxing and if so would match these up with my 5 druids in a group for some real fun.

I think when servers come back up i'm going to use part of the spec from the link flra posted. Those sub talents look pretty awesome, actually.

[Tasty]

The only plans I have for these rogues at the moment is just world pvp fun. That will likely change a bit later. I am thinking of 10 boxing and if so would match these up with my 5 druids in a group for some real fun.

I think when servers come back up i'm going to use part of the spec from the link flra posted. Those sub talents look pretty awesome, actually.

I started off with shadow dance but found that not quite to my liking. Seemed a bit hard to use from my perspective though I just picked up tricks of the trade so I guess it would work better now if I decided to go back. At the moment I'm Shadowstep/Cold Blood. I pretty much destroy everything now including level 80 deathknights I have yet to try Killing Spree though I imagine it would instantly gib any solo player lol. I plan on using that as my second spec when the patch is released .

Oh and for the record casting four tricks of the trade on your main is AWESOME +75% damage and the additional threat means the mob won't turn around and attack your alts.

edit: current spec if you want to take a looksy

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...20333103201200

double edit: one of my favourite past times is hitting level 80 tanks with 5 garrotes and 5 ruptures and 5 deadly poisons then vanishing and watching them run around while 25k health quickly drains away /evil
be
(I did this to a horde that was afk outside org near the duelers at one stage and managed to get away lol)

@ElectronDF you raise some really good points. Its different playing my rogues over my priest/mages as I can't heal atm (gonna level bandaging at 80 but cant be bothered doing it atm) The one thing we do have though is escapeability aka cowardice. I've been attacked while questing so many times only to evasion/CloS/sprint/vanish and come back to gank the person that attacked me. If its just one person attacking we also have 5 gouges/stuns/blinds/dismantles on round robin available to give us bandage time.

One other thing I should mention that if you get a non gouge resistant mob you can gouge it on round robin until its dead without letting it get a single attack off :P

[blast3r]

Cool Tasty, looking forward to getting leveled enought to get tricks of the trade. I'm having just a huge amount of fun with these rogues right now. I'm keeping things simple for now and pretty much just have two buttons (well, 4 if you count they are FTL setup). Stealth and then my melee macro which uses /cast and then castrandom. Shadowstep just rocks. omfg...can't wait to do some bgs with these guys.

Do you plan on doing areana with them? I was talking with a guildy yesterday about it. 3v3 would just be soooo unfair. Stealth/Shadowstep kill healer, vanish...stealth/shadowstep kill one more and it is then game over. I am wondering if 5v5 might be fun in arena.

[genocyde]

For the record Killing Spree is the most annoying skill in WoW for a boxer. As of the last time I spec'd combat, it not only breaks follow but also removes that player from /focus in all ways. So you have to re /focus before /follow or anything like that. PITA

And ya that talent can wreck things. I imagine 5x killing spree may even have a chance in arena providing you can work out the end of the match with 5x melee.

Killing spree as of 3.1 (i believe) is going to raise all damage done by the rogue 20% during killing spree. Sooooo.

Walk up in stealth; 5x Tricks of the trade in a circle (all 5 toons get the benefit 15% dmg); 4x garrote 1x cheapshot; 5x killing spree; should raise your bleed + poison damages by 20% along with the 15% from TotT, with all that flying around you could potentially drop half a team of clothies in 1 attack.

however if you play it right with shadow step + shadow dance you could walk up and 5x Ambush a clothy for an instant kill. Then press a shadowstep macro that will automatically Shadow step + Shadow Dance + Ambush a second target for 2 kills in 2 GCD's then with shadow dance active you can bull charge another guy and use premeditation to fill a few combo points and drop a Hemo with your leader running through him and 4x Eviscerate on them with the slaves that should be 50%-death depending on the target and his gear.

In a perfect world you can see how this could be sudden panicy death for multiple people and i have plans to do a 5x rogue team soon to try the following.

5v5 arena:
Close in on opposing team, activate cloak of shadows + evasion + sprint + Tricks of the Trade
1st target: Walk up. 5x ambush
2nd target: Shadow dance + shadow step + 5x Ambush
5x /target nearest /cast blind
3rd target: 5x premeditation 5x Eviscerate or possibly have leader use hemo and clones eviscerate. This may not kill the target but I would move to the next target anyway to keep the chaos
4th target: Aquire target, 5x Preparation macro ( uses every skill preparation resets: sprint + vanish + premeditation + cloak of shadows + shadow step + dismantle) and then press it again to activate all of those skills which vanishes and shadowsteps your target and then 5x ambush
5th target: may very well be crying and/or sucking his thumb at this point and you can just shiv him to death or what have you.

On paper this looks like a good 5v5 strategy but when I tried it with 5 solo played rogues the timing and target selecting was an issue and we fell apart in the 1900's