Bmx:
Hey There Keatstwo, thank you for allowing us to interview you. First of all could you introduce yourself to our readers?

Keatstwo:
Hi there Bmx, my current main is Keatstwo, a rogue which i started playing last season,
before that i mainly played paladin (Keats, duh) but got sick of it and quit partway though s5.
Like most people who quit I ended up coming back and decided to roll rogue because, well,
I guess it just looked like fun! Been playing pretty much since launch and I’ve enjoyed PvP ever since BGs were introduced.

Bmx:
Sounds like quite a WoW history. Why did you pick the rogue class to roll after your comeback?

Keatstwo:
Well, I enjoyed paladin, but it always seemed a bit dull. I used to watch quite a lot of PvP vids
and most of my all time favorites were rogue movies by Buddhist, Mahiko, Akrios, Happyminti etc. etc.
So thought I’d give it a shot!

Bmx:
Haha. So after rolling your rogue and trying to be like the people you looked up to. How did you do in arena?

Keatstwo:
Well I was a bit shaky to start off with, but whilst playing my paladin I made some pretty good friends who’ve been doing consistently well in arena since the early days, they were kind enough to play with me despite my lacking gear and inexperience
as a rogue. I feel I’ve learnt alot by playing with really good players and getting the chance to play against
some of the better players on our BG.

Bmx:
You sure sound like a lucky one to me. After playing with these players what setups do you prefer for 2v2 and 3v3 and why these setups?

Keatstwo:
Well I can’t say i’ve played an overly wide variety. Focused mainly on priest / rogue in 2v2 last season, which was a pretty fun and versatile setup. Played a bit of rogue / rogue and rogue / mage, which were fun too, but I’d have to go with priest / rogue as it’s a much more forgiving comp. Don’t really play 2s very often nowadays though

as for 3v3…
I’ve played some pretty wierd stuff, the wierdest would have to be rogue / rogue / resto druid, or maybe rogue / priest / moonkin, which were fun but never overly competative. I’ve only played a little RMP but as everyone knows that’s a solid comp and i’d like to play more of that someday. Currently im playing priest / ret / rogue, which is a bit zergy, but it’s quick, fun games, and my partners really know what they’re doing, so for now that’s my fave 3s comp.
(sorry for the wall of text).

Bmx:
No problem. On to the next question which is an easy one. What do you think the easiest and hardest encounters are for rogue in arena?

Keatstwo:
Well in 3v3 right now there aren’t that many hard counters. RMP is countered pretty hard by beast cleave, but most rogue comps are pretty versatile and can deal with a wide range of comps. Double healer teams are always a pain though, and no matter how well you play there’s always the chance a wizard cleave will global you or a TSG will kill your healer in a strangulate / bladestorm ^_^

Bmx:
Have you got any hints or secrets you want to let our readers know regarding rogue pvp?

Keatstwo:
Umm, lets see. If you aren’t using them, focus macros help alot (focus kick, blind, dismantle etc.) If you play with a priest try calling for a PWS before you vanish to reduce the chance of getting knocked out. You can start out of stealth then immediately stealth on most arenas, this brings you up on your enemy’s gladius so they won’t know immediately when you open. If you’ve got kidney up and an enemy rogue is in evasion it’s always worth gouging him, if it lands you can kidney him without fear of wasting it. That’s all i can think of off the top of my head really!

Bmx:
Allright your really being helpfull here! Are there any shoutouts you’d like to make?

Keatstwo:
Um, big shoutout to my guild <Daycare> Chromaggus EU. Also big XOXO to Pettan, Roth, Aletank and Lilim and co.
Also, Cornedbeef is terrible ^_^

Bmx:
Well thanks a lot for allowing us to interview you! We wish you the best of luck in arena and are hoping to hear from u again soon!
In the meanwhile, keep checking http://www.lastrogue.com for our weekly interviews!

Firstly, where did the vanish fix go? Guess it’s still WIP, I would have liked to have given it a try on the PTR before it was removed, but oh well. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but since transfering server and starting playing again, I’ve not had vanish fail when it shouldn’t have done.
Rogue changes for the next patch are a bit crap, but hey, at least we’re not being nerfed?

• Dual Wield: Rogues now know this ability upon logging into the game at level 1.
• Stealth: This ability no longer has multiple ranks. While active, the single rank of this ability (available at level 1) allows rogues to move at 70% movement speed.

Game breaking

Secondly, looks like WotF is in for a hit.

Will of the Forsaken now shares a 45-second cooldown with similar effects, including the Medallion of the Horde, Titan-Forged runes, Insignia of the Horde, etc.

With nearly half of the top 100 players rolling as undead at the moment (and 67/100 undead rogues), I’m not surprised Blizz are nerfing Will of the Forsaken (considering how quick they were to nerf fear/blind combos after a few days of priest+rogue domination).

Is the change justified though? In 2v2s WotF hurts, but since Blizz is supposed to be balancing arenas for 3v3/5v5, is this just a knee-jerk reaction to a popular race choice? I’d be interested in seeing what percentage of high-rated undead were top100 players before they changed race.

Lastly, there’s this semi-trivial change coming that I hadn’t noticed at first;

• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).

It’s come too late for me, but this is pretty cool for anyone levelling up an alt to PVP with – no more mindless rep grinding with pointless factions

I’ll be back on track now, will try and get more “Know Your Enemy” notes uploaded as soon as I can.

*Moving house, losing internet, transfering server to Chromaggus, losing internet again, getting roped into some raiding, being very busy at work and having to start up 2v2 and 3v3 with new partners…. it all adds up to a lot of downtime :/

Shamans in PVP – What to Expect

Totems

Shamans can put down four totems at once – there are 23 different totems, but the most problematic ones available to all specs of Shamans are as follows;

	Cleansing Totem (Water)	Cleansing totems will attempt to remove one poison off each party member every 3seconds.
	Earthbind Totem (Earth)	Reduces your movement speed by 50%, 10yard range. Luckily this totem has a 15second CD so can’t be spammed.
	Manaspring Totem (Air)	Restores a small amount of mana every 2seconds. Not as powerful as the Mana Tide totem, but worth destroying nonetheless.
	Magma Totem (Fire)	This totem pulses an 8-yard AoE every 2 seconds. If this hits you it will remove your sltealth.

The other totems generally give party buffs so it’s a good idea to destroy them if you get the chance. If you play with a healer, try and convince them to either wand or melee down the totems whenever they get a spare few seconds between heals. The Shaman will most likely keep dropping them, but this costs mana and gives them a GCD. Unfortunately totems can no longer be targeted with macros, but your partners can use a [target=mouseover] macro to help wand/petattack them without changing target. AoE has no effect on totems, so don’t waste energy trying to FoK them down.

Bloodlust/Heroism

A 40second buff that increases all enemies melee/ranged/spell casting speed by 30%. I normally try and keep some defensive abilities in reserve for this as it’s not uncommon for the other team to combine this buff with their other DPS cooldowns.

Hex

A strange form of CC that lets you continue to move normally, but unable to cast/attack. You can still activate sprint/stealth, so it might be worth using this as on opportunity to get out of combat and re-open on someone, rather than just hopping around behind your target waiting for it to run out.

Kiting

With the changes to Ghost Wolf last patch, it is now quite hard to keep on-top of a Shaman if they are trying their hardest to get away from you. Crippling poison/deadly throw won’t decrease a Ghost Wolf’s movement speed to less than 100% and they can combine this bonus with Frost Shock, Tremor Totem and even Thunderstorm to keep away from you.

Shaman Specs

Restoration Shamans

How to spot them: Check their partners for an Earth Shield buff
Strengths: Able to kite
Weaknesses: Can struggle with mana compared to other healing classes

Abilities

Earth Shield
Each time you hit someone who has Earth Shield active, you will heal them for a small amount once every second. As a rogue there is nothing you can do about this (other than trying to LoS your target from the Shaman) but if your partner can keep dispelling it you will hurt the Shaman’s mana. Dispelling Earth Shield only removes one of the stacks.

Mana Tide Totem
Kill this as soon as you see it – it will restore 24% of the other team’s mana over 12 seconds. It’s quite easy to spot as it has a pulsing animation.

Nature’s Swiftness

Converts a Shaman’s timed heal into an instant cast. If you are partnered with a Mage they can spell-steal this buff if they are quick enough.

Tactics

In 3v3 Resto Shamans seem very easy to burst down and our tactics generally involve opening on the Shaman as hard as we possibly can and swapping if needed. In 2v2 playing as rogue/healer it’s a different story – even when I’m in Mutilate/Prep spec I struggle to stay on top of a good Resto Shaman. Instead we concentrate on out-lasting them which seems relatively easy as long as we kill the Mana Tide totem and stop them from drinking. Playing as double-dps in 2v2 probably gives enough burst to kill them so it might be worth experimenting with.

Elemental Shamans

How to spot them: The buff from their Totem of Wrath. Using caster weapons and shields/caster offhands
Strengths: Insane damage if left alone
Weaknesses: Low survivability

Abilities

Thunderstorm
While this isn’t as annoying in arenas as it is in BGs (especially in EotS and AB), it can still get in the way when you’re trying to burst down an Elemental Shaman. While it’s possible to use Cloak of Shadows to preempt the knockback, it’s a better idea to always makes sure that you position yourself properly. If you think they might use a Thunderstorm (often when they are low health and stunned), try and make sure your back is facing a wall/pillar if possible (to reduce the distance you are thrown backwards). Whatever you do, don’t let the Shaman use it to knock you off the bridge in the Blades Edge Arena or off the platform in Dalaran Sewers. If a shaman kites you behind the boxes in the sewers, expect them to use thunderstorm, so try and predict the cast and dodge backwards behind the corner of the boxes (easier said than done!).

Lava Burst
If you have the DoT from Flame Shock ticking on you, this 2-second cast spell will have a 100% crit chance. Expect to be hit for 5-8k damage every 8 seconds, unless you can keep interrupting.

Flame Shock
Used in conjunction with above, this guarantees a crit from a Lava Burst. However, if the DoT from Flame Shock is dispelled, you increase the Shaman’s casting time by 30%.

Tactics
Interrupt like crazy, avoid the knockback and nuke as fast as you can. Left to their own devices, Elemental Shamans can pull insane amounts of damage out of nowhere, so don’t let them stand there casting on you while you chase their partners.

Enhancement Shamans

Abilities

Feral Spirit
The two pets that this spell summons are fast moving and can each stun you for two seconds. 150% of their damage is returned as healing for both the wolves and the Shaman. They last for 45seconds so it’s worth saving evasion for this spell.

Shamanistic Rage
A 15 second damage reduction talent that allows the Shaman to regen mana whilst hitting you. If you are managing to keep the Shaman’s mana low you might want to play defensively while this buff is active by gouging and trying to conserve energy.

Tactics

Enhancement Shamans don’t seem very popular at the moment, so I haven’t played that many games against them. Shamans I have spoken to recommend going toe-to-toe Rogue vs Shaman as the lack of defensive cooldowns will become apparent after the Shaman has used all their Cooldowns.

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).

After a bit of playing about last night (faking afk and trying to get mages to jump me in WSG) it seems that using distract to spin a caster around before their spell cast completes is both doable and fun . In ‘real’ combat, I didn’t get an opportunity since everyone was constantly in combat and not distractable, but in an arena* it’s something that’s worth remembering and probably worth binding to a key if you have any left.

* I’ve been slacking with arenas since 3.2 came out as my 2v2 partner has been on holiday, but will be playing rated games as of tonight. After killing Death Knights in Wintergrasp with 2 tenacity buffs 1v1 I’m feeling hopeful that they’ve been hit hard enough to stop the bad ones beating us in arenas, but knowing my luck those were probably bots or something.

After four years of playing rogues, I realised last month that you can use distract without being stealthed. I’d only ever used it before to spin mounted enemies around for sapping, so the spell had only been on my stealthed actionbar. Luckily, (and about time!) I’ve since found that distract can be used in several more ways, and definately deserves a place on my regular actionbar. It’s worth getting a Glyph of Improved Distract for the extra range this gives.

Distract interrupts drinking

It doesn’t put players in combat, but if a drinking player is affected they will turn around and stand up, stopping the drinking from affecting their mana.

Distract works around corners

The effect from distract doesn’t require LoS so if a healer has ran around a pillar to drink, this can save valuable time. It can be cast whilst moving, so no need to pause like you would if you were using a throw to interrupt.

Distract can help against rogues

This needs a fair bit of luck, but using distract on an area where you believe there’s a rogue could spin them around and stop their movement (depending on the skill of the other rogue, if he’s mouse-strafing and doing 360° jumps while spamming sap, the advantage you get will only be momentarily, but hey, every little helps). A stationary target is easier to sap since you’re not relying on their computer to upload their current location to the server.

Distract can seperate players from their pets

I guess this one is pretty situational, but a well placed distract will stop a pet’s movement for 10 seconds. Could be useful for setting up for a pet-kill, perhaps, maybe, possibly.

Distract can interrupt spellcasts…

… theoretically I’ve not tried this yet, but since it’s possible to sap a priest who has left combat and is starting to cast again, it makes sense that distract would work on them as well. I’ll test this out tonight, but I’m guessing that you should be able to spin the caster around and make their spell fail. I play a priest casually, and if someone span me on my holyfire cast, I’d certainly be confused as hell.

#showtooltip Sinister Strike (or /#showtooltip Mutilate etc)
/run SetCVar(“Sound_EnableSFX”,”0″)
/use 10
/cast Sinister Strike ( or /cast Mutilate)
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/run SetCVar(“Sound_EnableSFX”,”1″)
/startattack

This example will try to proc whichever gloves you are wearing at the time (/use 10), then cast a sinister strike.

#showtooltip Fan of Knives
/cast Fan of Knives
/startattack

For trash pulls/AoE spam, ensures you start attacking the next nearest target if your current target dies.

#show throw
/cast deadly throw
/cast throw (or /cast shoot for PVE purposes)

Save up a slot/keybinding on your actionbar by combining throw and deadly throw into one icon – this will Deadly Throw if you have the combo points, or perform a normal throw otherwise.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] blind
/cast [modifier:alt, target=mouseover] blind
/cast [modifier:ctrl, target=focus] blind

Hold alt to blind your mouseover target or control to blind your focus.

#showtooltip Gouge
/cast Gouge
/stopcasting
/use [target=player] Heavy Frostweave Bandage

Possible lifesaver in 1v1/CC situations.

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [target=XXX] Tricks of the Trade

Set XXX to who you want to TotT onto, any of the following works; party1, party2, focus, Playername.