Resources
Shadowcraft - This is an amazingly helpful web site that can import your rogue from armory and show you the optimal gems and reforges, as well as show you gear upgrades and the exact amount of dps gain from each. It's based on the best modeling math available for rogues.
Combat
Builds
The points in Recuperate and Blade Twisting would be the first to drop in favor of something else, but I highly recommend Blade Twisting; it helps in several boss fights.
For Prime glyphs, Sinister Strike and Adrenaline Rush are the clear winners. For your third you can take Slice and Dice, Rupture, or Revealing Strike, but typically you'll want Slice and Dice.
For Major glyphs, Blade Flurry and Tricks will increase your dps in frequent situations. Feint allows you to avoid AoE damage without costing you dps. Expose armor is the best Major glyph if you're actually using Expose Armor, but you usually won't be; all Warriors, all Druids, and some Hunters are better at maintaining the armor debuff.
Gear
It's important to have a slow main hand and fast off hand for combat builds. Typically you'll be mainhanding a 2.6s weap of any type and offhanding a 1.4s dagger.
In 4.3 Rogues are able to start the legendary dagger quest and very promptly get dual i-397 daggers that work for combat. Try to get them!
Gemming/Reforging Priorities
Reforging
Reforge yourself for exactly 26 expertise at all times. Try not to gem for expertise, because you have to give up agility to get expertise on a gem, but you can reforge crit, mastery, or hit into expertise with much less loss.
Crit is your weakest yellow/reforgable stat, and expertise and haste are your best, so you typically want to reforge crit into expertise until you're capped, then haste. Mastery -> Haste is a good reforge option too.
If you can't reforge mastery or crit, you may want to reforge hit. As long as you have at least 8% hit, haste and expertise will beat it.
A tool like wowreforge.com, askmrrobot.com, or (best of all) shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com is really the best way to figure out how to reforge.
Gems
- Red Slots: Agility
- Yellow Slots: Agility/Haste (consider breaking socket bonus unless it is agility)
- Blue Slots: Agility/Hit (consider breaking socket bonus unless it is agility)
Instructions
- Mainhand Instant Poison, Offhand Deadly Poison, Thrown Wound Poison
Keep your rotation simple:
- Use slice and dice with as many combo points as you have when it's about to fall off
- Expose Armor at 5cp if it has fallen off and you're responsible for it
- If you're at 4cp and intend to use Rupture or Eviscerate, use Revealing Strike for the last combo point
- Rupture with 5 cp, only if it's faded and you're not in red Bandit's Guile. (see note below)
- Eviscerate at 5cp
Bandit's Guile is an important piece of combat dps now. You increase your Guile by using Sinister Strike and Revealing Strike. Every 4 of those attacks increases Guile. When you get to the red phase, it lasts 15 seconds, period. This is where you want to blow your on-use trinkets and Killing Spree. Also, use as many Eviscerates as you can, don't Rupture.
I often start a fight with Adrenaline Rush to quickly get red Bandit's Guile. Then right at the end of the red phase (about 3 seconds remaining), Adrenaline Rush wears off and I use Killing Spree without wasting energy. 90 seconds later, you can generally do the same thing again.
If no one else is keeping Expose Armor up, do it! It's more damage than Rupture or Eviscerate.
Blade Flurry is a very important ability on fights where you have to kill adds or during trash pulls. Turn it on any time it'll hit another target. Use Tricks of the Trade to keep from pulling aggro on everything. Some weaker tanks will still let things hit you, so watch out for that and be ready to hit Evasion, Combat Readiness, or Vanish.
About Rupture: Rupture is only worth using if the target has a bleed debuff. If you don't have a feral druid or arms warrior in the group, don't bother rupturing. Also, if you have blade flurry up, eviscerate will hit two targets, so you should always use it over rupture.
Mutilate
Build
This is pretty much the spec, though you can get one more point of Precision instead of that last point of Opportunity.
Prime Glyphs are Mutilate, Rupture, Backstab in that order. Vendetta and Slice and Dice are both well below Backstab, but Slice and Dice can be nice in 5mans when you're starting your rotation.
Major Glyphs are mostly worthless: Fan of Knives might help you use it in Heroics, Tricks will save you some energy, and if you are the only one who can apply the armor debuff, Expose is a DPS increase. Druids and Fury/Prot warriors are better than you at maintaining the armor debuff.
Gear
- Use the highest dps daggers you can find (Fear and Vengeance, preferably!)
- Two good daggers of different speeds? Faster in the Offhand.
Gemming/Reforging Priorities
Reforging
Expertise does not have to be capped for Mutilate. Doing so can somewhat improve your quality of life, though (when you miss a finisher you have to realize you missed and then do it again).
Instead, you'll want to reforge for hit so that you have 17% spell hit at all times.
Crit and Haste are your weakest reforgable stats, and once you're spell-hit capped Mastery is your best, followed by Expertise.
A tool like wowreforge.com, askmrrobot.com, or (best of all) shadowcraft.mmo-mumble.com is really the best way to figure out how to reforge.
Gems
- Red Slots: Agility
- Yellow Slots: Agility/Mastery (consider breaking socket bonus if it's not agility)
- Blue Slots: Agility/Hit (consider breaking socket bonus if it's not agility)
Instructions
- Mainhand Instant Poison, Offhand Deadly Poison, Thrown Wound Poison
Getting Started
- Garrote from stealth (start fights stealthed)
- Rupture
- Mutilate x1
- Slice and Dice
- Mutilate (x2 if you have time)
- Vendetta
- Cold Blood
- Envenom (make sure you're in time to refresh Slice and Dice!)
- You're engaged, start running the normal rotation
Regular Rotation
- If target is below 35% health, Backstab to 5 cp
- Otherwise, Mutilate to 4+ cp
- If SnD has less than 6s, build energy as long as you can (never allow your energy to reach 120), then Envenom to refresh it
- If Rupture has fallen off, Rupture
- Allow energy to build to 85 (be patient!), unless SnD is about to fall off
- Envenom
Make sure you use both Vendetta and Vanish when they're available, along with any available trinkets. When you Vanish, use Garrote to break stealth. Try to combine cooldowns if you don't lose too much time doing so. Remember that Vendetta is a debuff, so don't use it if you know you're about to have to swap to another target.