Monday, June 6, 2011 at 10:21 AM |  
So I'm a Rogue in Rift now.

With 1.2 recently out and 1.3 looming, I want to spend some time talking about the current state of rogues in both PvE and PvP. I play as Tank and DPS in raids/PvE (all content cleared) and I'm currently Rank 5 in PvP.

Enough about me. Let's talk turkey.

Overview of Rogue tanks

Riftstalker rogues are currently the best single target tank in the game. We take the least damage thanks to our superior mitigation with Rift Guard and do by far the most threat. The only thing Riftstalker lacks is a Spotter's Order equivalent to let our raid do more damage without a warrior gimping themselves to put the debuff on bosses.

My current tank spec is 51 Rift / 8 BD / 7 Ranger which is essentially the standard. Our main tank uses the Max Effective Health variant which gives him a very big health pool, at the cost of some threat generation and avoidance. His spec is superior for tanking bosses, while mine is more geared for tanking multiple mobs and 5-mans, although I have tanked both Greenscale and Alsbeth with this spec.

Overview of Rogue DPS

Rogues are currently the best single target DPS in the game. For single target melee, I have had the best results with a Bladedancer Tribrid spec that focuses on using Deadly Dance to maximize damage on combo generators. I typically parse 1.3-1.4k on Plutonus without Spotter's Order, so you can add about 200-300 DPS compared with most raids which have this debuff. I'll go into more on this spec, including macros, rotation and other considerations soon.

Saboteur rocks the house for ranged DPS/AOE. It's single target damage is lower than many melee specs on single targets, but for AOE it is rivaled only by Stormcaller mages. The 2 points in ranger are so that your bow is used to calculate charge damage instead of your melee weapon (as long as you're not in melee range). What really makes this spec shine is Incriminate, which lets you shunt all your threat onto the tank for 6 seconds. Because of how effective and versatile this spec is, I have actually dropped my other PvE DPS specs for PvP specs and now only have Saboteur and Riftstalker for PvE.

Rogues in PvP

Despite much of the crying you hear on the forums. Rogues are very strong in PvP Warfronts. The most common specs (by far) are 51 Assassin and 51 Marskman builds. However, I won't describe them and won't go into them here because they are pretty obvious and also rather unimaginative (and I kill them).

I have three PvP specs, 2 of which I'll describe here and one I will save for my next post (still tweaking).

My favorite spec is my Assassin-Bladedancer Hybrid which I have used to great effect. I find it to be far more versatile than 51 Assassin while offering at least as much killing power, and more survivability. Compared to 51 Assassin, you gain a DPS-boosting cooldown that works on your Assassin DoTs, several gap-closing abilities to prevent getting kited, Deadly Dance (which is amazing used in tandem with Slip Away + Assassinate) and little things like Side Steps and Reprisal. I love it.

I also finally broke down and joined the FOTM Marksman crowd, though I do things a touch differently. This spec offers tremendous burst damage from range, but suffers from a significant lack of survivability. I also have used this variant, which is played the same, but adds Anathema and Cleanse Soul for some survivability and anti-healing. The major problem with Anathema is that the range on it is significantly shorter than your max engagement range, so you have to move in close to apply it, which is often a bad idea.

Overall, I find the Assassin/BD build works best in maps where you can use stealth to your advantage to get fights in small groups. This is usually going to be Codex and Whitefall Steppes. Because Black Garden and Port Stormcaller tend to be Zerg-on-Zerg engagements, being melee is often a liability, so MM tends to shine there. That said, I've used both specs on all warfronts and it really depends on the texture of the game. Sometimes Codex gets very zergy and sometimes Port Scion groups split up enough that melee is not instantly killed.

For this reason I think having 2 or more PvP specs is a big advantage, as it lets you adapt to the game and play the role that best fits the situation.

I'll post more soon with an analysis on the state of PvP and Rogues in general and possibly unveil my latest spec.
Posted by Dunsparrow

2 comments:

Vanity said...

I was wondering about your rotation and DPS from the marksman spec's you're using...
Currently, I'm running 38MM/12NB/16SIN. Selfbuffed I'm averaging 770DPS over 5min (on dummy) in a mix of t1/t2 gear and T2 weapons/bow. I've tried a few different builds but this always comes out on top. I use a long and involved rotation and I'm just curious to see how you did, and how you think it compared.

June 20, 2011 at 9:58 AM  
Idryss said...

Wondering about the AOE Sab spec there. 1.3 still strong?
Rotations? I am seeing the potential for a couple depending on group composition (elite/boss with normals about, all normals etc).
Also, in most fights range recommended? Or jump in and melee where able?

June 24, 2011 at 6:30 PM