If you’re playing a burst setup (such as rogue/ret, rogue/destro/offensive healer etc) you’ll be able to get away with low levels of resilience. Since the aim is to score a kill as quickly as possible, you’ll be blowing all of your defensive cooldowns to limit damage intake. If your opponent survives this 45second burst, it’s likely to be a lost game for you regardless of your resilience. With two evasions and a cloak, you should ideally be able to mitigate the amount of damage you receive to avoid having to rely on the passive damage reduction from resilience.

Having 1415 resilience (the current cap) when nobody ever tries hitting you means that you’ve just wasted a lot of stat points. You need to think about how often you find yourself on the receiving end of damage. As a guideline, if you’re playing in a setup where you’re the easiest kill (or the easiest target to switch to after you’ve used cloak/trinket) it’s suicidal to neglect resilience. However, if your warlock partner is getting trained hard every single game, then it’s a good idea to start switching out PVP gear for PVE gear. The class of your healer will affect the situation as well. Druids for example can throw out insane healing, but if they don’t have HoTs on you, you’re initially vulnerable if the enemy makes a switch to you.

The amount of resilience gear you take isn’t a decision you can make once then forget about. At different arena ratings there’ll be different concentrations of setups. This is most noticable in 2v2, but also evident in 3v3. On Cyclone-EU for example, 1500-1800 sees countless random/bursty teams, while 1800-2000 has a lot of RLS/TSG/Beastcleave and destro teams. 2000-2300 seems to be entirely wizard-cleave/caster teams for some reason. Different classes will have different tactics for beating you, so if all you’re facing are beastcleaves, ride through it by gearing appropriately.

If every team is making a beeline to you, it’s also worth increasing your survivability in other ways. A Battlemaster’s trinket, Corroded Skeleton Key or a Glyph of CloS can save your neck in a pinch much more reliably than an extra couple of hundred resilience.

The other consideration is the PVE/PVP gear that you actually have. Taking a heroic Geistlord’s Punishment Sack instead of the Deadly Gladiator’s helm you picked up a few seasons ago is a no-brainer, but don’t underestimate the stats of Relentless/Wrathful set pieces. For example, compare the T10 Shadowblade Helmet to the Relentless Gladiator’s Helm. Taking the 264ilvl T10 will improve your stats by 22 attack power at the cost of 80 resilience – not too impressive a gain. If you’re wanting to play in PVE gear, ICC offset pieces are ideally suited, but with the exception of some heroic ToC25 pieces you’re better off sticking to the honor-bought items. Also consider the gems/enchants and make sure they’re suited to PVP.

A useful site for gear comparrisons is http://shadowpanther.net, which uses AEP values to calculate the value of an item of gear. Simply speaking, AEP (Agility Equivalence Points) is a way of assigning values to different stats – the current formulas are here. It’s not a perfect way of comparing gear for use in arenas (for example, it doesn’t take into account hit caps) but it’s definitely worth a look at.

Looking at the amount of resilience taken by high-rated 3v3 rogues this season, the average seems to be around 1100. This is based on current armory data, so it’s not very accurate (they might be in 2v2/5v5 gear when logging out for example).

Personally, I take the following resilience on the two rogues I’m currently playing. Admittedly I haven’t raided since my ex used to force me into the first wing of ICC25 (no heroic ICC gear for me!), but my resilience levels and current mmr are roughly as follows;

2v2 rogue/priest = 1000 (1900 mmr)
3v3 rogue/mage/priest = 1000 (1800 mmr)
3v3 rogue/dk/priest = 1150 (1700 mmr)

2v2 rogue/shaman = 847 (2050 mmr)
3v3 rogue/shaman/lock = 1200 (2200 mmr)
3v3 rogue/shaman/spriest = 927 (2300 mmr)

My thoughts here are based on a typical assassination spec – I couldn’t possibly comment on combat specs, as the only combat rogue I’ve seen this whole season was in full BiS PVE gear. Thanks for killing my 1100resilience rogue in a single Killing Spree Ashvael, /sulk.

PVP Hit Mechanics – The Basics

All of your special attacks (mutilate, envenom, rupture etc) have a 95% chance to hit a target when you’re standing behind them. Increasing the amount of hit you have by 32.79 will increase your chance to hit by 1%. You initially need to have 164 hit rating just to make sure that you have no chance of missing your target with special attacks.

Hit Reduction Talents/Racials

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. There are several talents/debuffs/racials that affect your chance to hit;

• Quickness Passive racial skill of Night Elves, -2%
• Insect Swarm Even though this is a talent in the Balance tree, it’s not unusual to see Resto Druids with this ability, -3%
• Scorpid Sting Hunter ability, -3%
• Arctic Winds Mage talent, not widely used, -1% upto -5%
• Heroic Presence Draenei passive buff, +1%

In a worst-case scenario, you could be trying to hit a Frost Mage with insect swarm and a sting on you (they do stack) – without any hit rating you will have a 16% chance to miss. You could ‘fix’ this by taking 524 hit rating, but this would nerf your damage/survivability in the majority of games.

How Much Hit Rating for Rogues?

Ideally in 3v3 I like to run with between 6% and 7% as this is enough to counter some hit modifiers and also help lessen the impact of some of the more noticeable ones. In 2v2 there’s less chance to bump into a racial/class that will debuff your hit rating, so you may want to stick to 5% and trust your luck.

Where Should +Hit Come From?

You can reach 148 hit from the Season 8 PVP gear and a weapon chain;

• Wrathful Gladiator’s Pendant of Victory 60
• Wrathful Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory 60
• Titanium Weapon Chain 28

One of the following two rings can help increase your hit further;

• Ashen Band of … Vengeance 53 – 59
• Relentless Gladiator’s Band of Victory 50

If you’re really struggling, a Titan-Forged Rune of Accuracy will give a massive 95 hit rating. Also from Wintergrasp are the Furious-quality Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Triumph.

Other options involve hitting the PVE content (or buying a Wodin’s Lucky Necklace if you’re rich), and as a last resort you can get another 12 hit by enchanting your boots with Icewalker.

Your Blind Missed?

Missing with your 5pt envenom can be annoying, but what can often be game-breaking is when your blind misses. Blind counts as a ranged attack, so if you’re planning to blind a target, there are a couple of additional modifiers. Retri Paladins can gain a -4% modifier from Divine Purpose and many rogues spec into heightened senses, which also gives the same hit reduction against your blind. That’s not too bad, it’s just one of those things you have to live with. However what some people don’t realise is that evasion works against blind, giving a 25% hit penalty. More likely than not your blind will hit rather than miss, but it can pay to remember the extra miss chance that evasion gives (especially in 2v2 when a double-dps team is bursting down your healer and trying to keep you CC’d).

There are plenty of ways of reaching the hit-cap, you just need to find a balanced way of doing so without hurting your other stats too much. If all else fails, maybe convince your partner to reroll as a Draenei!

Mainhand Daggers

For the freshly dinged 80

Blood Weeper (Heroic Forge of Souls) Heartshiver (Normal Forge of Souls) Black Knight’s Rondel (Heroic Trial of the Champion) The Fleshshaper (Heroic Halls of Lightning) Traditional Flensing Knife (Kalu’ak reputation – revered)

For the 10-man Raider

Bloodsipper (ICC10 – Queen Lanathel) Icefall/Nemesis Blade (ToC10 – Twin Valkyrs)

Offhand Daggers for Envenom Spec

For non-mutilate spec, any of the mainhand daggers are suitable.

For the freshly dinged 80

Unsharpened Ice Razor (Trash drop in the ICC 5mans) Krick’s Beetle Stabber (Normal Pit of Saron) Balanced Heartseeker (Hierloom Weapon) Lightblade Rivener (Kirin Tor reputation – honored)

For the 10man Raider

Flesh Carving Scalpel (ICC10 – Putricide) Orcish Deathblade/Dirk of the Nightwatch (ToC10 – Jaraxxus)

The general rule of thumb for envenom rogues is to use a 1.8 speed dagger in your mainhand, with a 1.4-1.5 speed dagger in your offhand. Very high level 1.4 daggers work fine for your mainhand, but you would need an equal level offhand to make it work. If you’re not playing with the Master Poisoner talent, two 1.8 daggers are preferable.

Arena Set Bonuses: The two-piece set bonus for all Wrath of the Lich King Arena sets now provides 100 resilience and 29 spell power or 50 attack power. The current four-piece bonus will remain, however it also now provides 88 spell power or 150 attack power.

So that’s +10 energy, 100 resilience and 200 AP. Not bad at all.

However, what really caught my eye at the weekend was the data-mined set bonuses of the upcoming T10.

Rogue T10 2P Bonus – Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy
Rogue T10 4P Bonus – Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
.

The 2P bonus seems like pure PVE (just an incentive for rogues to hold hands and play nicely together), but I’m thinking with a bit of RNG luck, the 4P bonus could be a killer, especially with an MP build. Anyone else fancy the chance of a 5CP envenom followed straight away by a 4CP envenom? It will be interesting to see how balanced the options are and whether certain rogues will go back to running a mix of PVP/PVE again.

On the down side it means sitting through hours and hours of raids – oh joy :/ I also play without the vigor glyph, which might not be too smart a move without the extra energy from the 4P PVP set.

The first is a BoE mace from Brewfest, Tankard o’ Terror. Judging by the amount of them in the AH the drop rate isn’t too harsh. While Combat-Mace spec isn’t as strong as Swords/Close-Quarters-Combat, this is still a hard-hitting lvl226 weapon. So, if you fancy giving combat a try without raiding Ulduar/ToC for high damage mainhanders, (and if you don’t mind missing out on selling this mace for a couple of thousand gold), you might want to give this a try.

Secondly we have a new drop from The Black Knight in Trial of the Champion Heroic, Black Knight’s Rondel. The drop rate isn’t too horrid and the dagger isn’t unique – it has nice stats and http://shadowpanther.net has calculated it to be almost on a par with Sinister Revenge, without the hastle of clearing Nax25. For a 41/5/25* or HfB build, these daggers would be an excellent starting point if you’re unable (or uninclined) to raid.

* The new Master Poisoner spec (44/2/25) is looking like it needs a fast offhand dagger to really shine.

Nice max damage thanks to its slow weapon speed, and a bit of +hit to help reach 5%-7% perhaps. Not worth dropping a Naxx25/Ulduar dagger for it, but I’ll probably try and get this for one of my rogues (even though it does mean a bit of pve-ing!).

The best gem for your meta socket depends on if you have Fleet Footed or not. For pure DPS based gems, the choices are;

Relentless Earthsiege Diamond
Chaotic Skyflare Diamond

I prefer the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond – if you take away the +0.25% crit that the agility on it gives you, you’re comparing +21 agility and +0.3% dodge to the Skyflare’s +0.21% crit.

If you don’t have the Fleet Footed talent, you may prefer to take this gem instead;

Swift Skyflare Diamond

The following gems may also be worth a look, though I haven’t seen any high ranked rogues bothering with them;

Potent Unstable Diamond
Persistent Earthsiege Diamond

Red Gems

Currently, the best overall stat for a red gem is Attack Power as your poisons/envenom damage receives more bonus damage through raw AP than agility.

Bright Cardinal Ruby or Bright Scarlet Ruby

An exception to the unwritten ‘rule’ that AP is best is the Fractured Cardinal Ruby. With a combat spec using Mace Specialization, gemming entirely with +ArP is supposed to absolutely flatten plate wearers, esoecially when combined with Grim Toll procs. I’d try it out, but I’d have to resocket and spend my last Arena Points of the season on an OH mace I might never use again….

Yellow/Orange Gems

Yellow gems give crit, hit and resilience. You need 164 hit to be capped against all classes except Night Elves (to guarantee a hit on a Night Elf you need 7% hit rather than 5%), if you are bellow this then it’s worth gemming for +hit. Resilience is a tricky subject – 700 is a nice amount to aim for, but unlike other stats it doesn’t particularly lose its value at certain levels. I wouldn’t take +resilience instead of +attack power, but personally I value it more than +crit for yellow sockets.

+Hit Gems
Rigid King’s Amber or Rigid Autumn’s Glow
Pristine Ametrine or Pristine Monarch Topaz

+Resilience Gems
Kharmaa’s Grace (Bought with 20 Stonekeeper’s Shards from Winter Grasp)
Empowered Ametrine or Empowered Monarch Topaz
Mystic King’s Amber or Mystic Autumn’s Glow

Blue/Purple Gems

To put it bluntly, blue is a horrid socket (the only useful ‘blue’ stat is stamina). If you are using epic gems you may wish to ignore blue sockets and gem them with red attack power gems instead. If you need to use a blue gem (perhaps for your meta gem), the previously mentioned green gems and the following purple gems aren’t too bad;

Steady Eye of Zul or Steady Forest Emerald
Vivid Eye of Zul or Vivid Forest Emerald
Balanced Dreadstone or Balanced Night’s Eye

Summary (Tl;dr)

Red = Attack Power
Yellow = Hit/Resilience (whichever isn’t high enough)
Blue = Meh

The Small Print

I lied – the best gem, of any colour, is this one. Unfortunately it’s only available to Jewel Crafters;

Bright Dragon’s Eye

(I wouldn’t leave Dalaran without them).

Because we’re sitting on our 2v2 rating for pts and weapons, we’ve started messing around in 3v3 with an arms warrior who’s just getting into arenas (hateful/pve gear). Using the goggles gave such an advantage against any stealthed team that it did begin to genuinely feel like I was exploiting/cheating. In the Ring of Valor, I was able to sap their rogue before the lifts had reached the top and in several games their rogue was unable to do any dps before dying. The only times we didn’t get the opener on the opposition rogue was when I had accidentally replaced them by playing around with the ingame equipment manager.

Even though the teams we were beating weren’t amazingly good (1900rated max) all of us feel that the goggles gave a huge boost to our chances of winning, and as we get better geared, learn how to work in a team and generally get to grips with this new concept of ‘3v3′, we think the goggles will still give us one hell of an advantage over the opposition.

As far as an item stats comparison goes, compared to the Deadly Gladiator’s Leather Helm the Hypervision Goggles suck terribly. -84 agility, -115 stam, -51 crit, -66 resilience, -meta socket, -red socket, -10 energy (broken set bonus for me). However, they give an almost guaranteed opener on any rogue who isn’t wearing them. It’s hard to put a value on that, I don’t know what stats my helm would need to give before I’d consider the Hyper-vision Goggles as inferior for arenas.

Is it cheap/lame though? It certainly feels overpowered in 3v3 and probably 5v5. For 2v2 I’ll stick to a Gladiator’s Helm – rogue teams aren’t too much of a problem for us (it’s the FotMs that kill us) so the stat nerf from using the goggles would not be much fun.

Hopefully our warrior will gear up qucikly and we’ll all learn enough about 3v3s to make me put the goggles back in the bank for a rainy day. We’ll see.

The Hypervision Goggles require engineering and are taught by a trainer in Shadowmoon Valley

Anti-Crowd Control Trinkets

Unless your rogue is human, you will need one of the following three trinkets.

Titan-Forged Rune of Determination (25 Wintergrasp Marks)
Titan-Forged Rune of Accuracy (25 Wintergrasp Marks)
Medallion of the Horde/Alliance (30,400 Honor).

Bandit’s Insignia
Bandit’s Insignia drops from Sapphiron in Naxx25, and gives plenty of Attack Power as well as providing a proc roughly every 45seconds. It is common to see this proc within your opening stunlock.

Darkmoon Card: Death
While the crit this offers isn’t as good as the attack power from Bandit’s Insignia, the advantage of this trinket is its availability. Mine cost me 700g from the Auction House and I’m lead to believe that this price is fairly typical across the severs (let me know if I’m wrong!). This trinket can proc at the same time as Bandit’s Insignia, and will also proc off your Deadly Poison/Garrote/Rupture ticks. While raiders seem to look down on this trinket, it’s still a good buy – this quote from Mohfuu at Wowhead sums it up nicely; “It’s not like you’ll be doing Yogg Saron.. and he blinds you, vanishes, sprints into a corner to get his health back up by eating a roasted chicken.. but oh no! your trinket procs on him off one of your bleed/dots and poor yogg bites the dust.” Exactly! Procs roughly every 45seconds.

Gnomish Lightning Generator
The poor man’s Darkmoon Card: Death – the ‘GLG‘ might not have the kick of its big, epic brother, but it still gives nice damage and has the advantage of being ‘on use’ rather than ‘chance on hit’ (easier to time your burst and use it when your target is really struggling). This does need engineering however, so isn’t available to everyone. Oh and careful of the malfunctions (hitting yourself for 2k is never a good look).

PVE Trinkets

Less burst damage but more sustained – if you are constantly fighting 10minute games these may be worth a look.

Pyrite Infuser
Quite easy to get, even if you’re pugging Ulduar10, as it drops from Flame Leviathan, one of the easiest bosses in WotLK. Equipping this trinket can be a nice way of reaching the hit cap, and the chance-on-hit works nicely with berserker procs.

Grim Toll
I haven’t ever used this trinket (drops from , but it gives almost +40% armor penetration which is pretty crazy. Combine with Expose Armor to really hurt those plate wearers.

Dark Matter and Comet’s Trail
I won’t ever see these trinkets myself (they both drop from Algalon in Ulduar25), but if you can get hold of these, the sustained damage is very nice indeed.

Other Noteworthy Trinkets

Battlemaster’s Conviction
Maybe not the best trinket for every setup, but I find this a total lifesaver when playing HfB with a prot-paladin. If I was playing with a priest/druid I’d probably leave it in the bank, though maybe it would be useful for double-dps teams.

Anvil of Titans
A nice mix of resilience and attack power, ideal for somebody new to PVP as it is very easy to get (only 25 Wintergrasp Marks).

The Titan-forged Leather Legguards of Triumph cost 40 Wintergrasp badges while the ring is a steal at only 15 Wintergrasp badges,

The chance that you are spotted is influenced by your Stealth Level and your opponents’ Detection Level – the only other things that affect it are the direction that your target is facing (never forget, “Rogues do it from behind”) and how much lag you both have.

If your connection is worse than the other rogue’s, you will appear on their screen before they appear on yours. It might be coincidental but I find that if I am sprinting in stealth I tend to get the jump more often, and I seem to get jumped more times when the other rogue is sprinting. I guess sprinting increases the advantage/disadvantage of the lag effect. Perhaps.

Rogue Stealth Level

There are a couple of other items as well, but these are low level and seriously damage your stats.

Stealth Detection

This is also determined by your level (5pts per level) + modifications from the following;

The worst combination of opponents you can get is a human rogue engineer with 2/2 in Heightened Senses, standing next to a Voidwalker with the Consume Shadows buff active. Their stealth detection level increases by 81pts – however, with 3/3 in Master of Deception, if you pre-vanish (vanish whilst in stealth before you get close to your target) you will still have a slight advantage compared to the other rogue. Risky though, it can be a waste of a ~very~ useful cooldown…

vs vs vs

Fingers crossed Frag Belt will be usable in arenas, although rumours are indicating it won’t be :/

• The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 10 minutes (never runs out!).

No indication of whether or not it’s usable in arenas, while the M.A.D. specifically states it isn’t. Bombs can’t be used as such, but could this be different perhaps? Maybe this will be a 10min CD aoe stun for engineers? Here’s hoping!

Arena Changes

• Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.

Battleground/World PVP Changes

• Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look… stylish?
• The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
• Increased siege damage caused by Saronite Bombs and the Global Thermal Sapper Charge.
• Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
• Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
• Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
• Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical or vehicle units.

Misc Changes

• Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
• Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.
• Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
• A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot – hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
• Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
• A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one’s faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master engineers.
• Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
• The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.

Original blue post here

More information (in a fun format) over at www.ofgnomesandrogues.com.

Weapons make the Rogue!

A pair of decent daggers will make quite an impact on your PVP experience. ‘Skills’ outperform ‘gear’, but the burst from dropping a pair of Sinister Revenge into your enemy’s back can’t be sniffed at.

Mainhand Daggers

For the freshly dinged 80;

• The Fleshshaper (Heroic Halls of Lightning)
• Titansteel Shanker (Blacksmithing BOE)
• Traditional Flensing Knife (Kalu’ak reputation item)
• Wodin’s Second-Best Shanker (Zul’Drak quest reward)

For the Naxxramas raider;

• Sinister Revenge (Kel’Thuzad Heroic)
• Anarchy (Kel’Thuzad Normal)
• Twilight Mist (Grobbulus Heroic)
• Knife of Incision (Anub’rekhan Normal)

Offhand Daggers

*Note: the previously mentioned Mainhand daggers can be successfully offhanded*
For the freshly dinged 80;

• Librarian’s Paper Cutter (BOE drop from Halls of Lightning)
• The Interrogator (Occulus Heroic)

For the Naxxramas raider;

• Murder (Sapphiron Heroic)
• Omen of Ruin (Naxxramas trash drop)
• Rolfsen’s Ripper (50 Emblems of Heroism)

Enchants

Mainhand

• Berserking (Prefered)
• Mongoose or Icebreaker (virtually same boost to dps, but large difference in price on many servers)

Offhand

• Titanium Weapon Chain

Facing a preparation-glyphed rogue without a weapon chain will see you disarmed for way too long in the first minute of combat. However, double-berserking is being used successfully by several serious rogues so far this season (as evident on the Shadowpanther site) so it can’t be ruled out just yet.

*edit – diminishing returns