Encrypted Text: 5 tips for heroic rogues
by Chase Christian 
Dec 22nd 2010 at 2:00PM
Why do I ever talk myself into running heroics without my guildmates? I always end up with a tank that doesn't like waiting for CC, the healer who thinks that Recuperate is all the healing I need, and the hunter who wins the roll on Left Eye of Rajh. Despite all of this, I still put myself through all of pain because I love running heroics. Not everyone I meet is awful, and it helps me to keep my gameplay sharp for my upcoming raids.
Practicing in heroics, as if they were raids, can have you learning your new rotation and gearing up at an accelerated pace. The last thing you want to do is underperform at your opening raid, as you'll be first on the chopping block. Heroic bosses have come a long way from the easily conquered Wrath dungeons, and many bosses are basically bite-sized raid encounters. By learning new mechanics and keeping your timing and rotations sharp, you can be fully prepared for whatever tier of raiding you intend to conquer.
Bring your best
The best thing you can do to hone your rogue skills in a heroic dungeon is to give every fight your all. In the words of John Hammond, you need to spare no expense. You should be using whatever rotation and abilities that deal the most damage and focusing on dealing the most damage possible. What you shouldn't be doing is goofing around while you watch a Law & Order marathon. If you get used to sloppy play, you'll end up carrying those habits into raids.
I like to keep myself honest by using a flask when running heroics. It makes me realize that I'm actually spending gold to be there and that I should do whatever it takes to maximize my performance. Practice doesn't make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect. Consider heroics to be your training ground, with you acting as your own personal trainer. Record your DPS with an addon like Recount, and challenge yourself to push harder on every fight.
Play defensively
While it's really none of our business, you should probably know that healers saw some major shakeups in Cataclysm. Their entire healing paradigm was radically redesigned, and mana is now incredibly scarce. Healing is no longer the mindless game of infinite throughput and mana pools; instead, it's more like a survival-horror game in which you're constantly scrambling around for more ammo.
With these facts in mind, we need to be kind to our healers. You should offer to Sap any mobs that you can, and be fast about doing it. If you're quick with your CC, you can move at nearly full speed through instances. Try to score the Glyph of Pick Pocket to allow you to PP while Sapping, and you might score a Spinerender. As a few of the commenters mentioned, we can also help dispel any Enrage effects that an enemy might use by simply attacking them with Shiv. This will reduce the incoming damage to your tank, making everyone's life easier.
With Glyph of Feint (you did get this glyph, right?), you can reduce the amount of damage you take by a dramatic amount without any penalty. Feinting is the easiest way to save your healer lots of mana and time, but we have a few other tricks too. Evasion and Cloak of Shadows have such short cooldowns that you can easily use them for every boss fight, as you should. Combat Readiness is the new spell that everyone forgets to use, including myself. Start using CR when fighting any boss, just to get in the habit of casting it. By reducing your incoming damage, you are directly increasing the chance of your group succeeding. All of our defensive cooldowns are free to use, and if you're not taking advantage of them, you're simply not playing your best. In addition, feel free to spend any excess combo points on Recuperate, especially if you know there's a period of heavy damage coming up.
Play offensively
Even if we're on our very best behavior, our group is going to take damage. As healer mana is no longer an infinite spring, we need to ensure that boss fights are over as soon as possible. While we shouldn't stand in a puddle or in some fire just to get a few extra swings in, we should recognize any opportunities we have to deal extra damage. With Sprint on its new 1-minute cooldown, you can find a use for it multiple times per boss fight. If you're moving, you should be Sprinting. If you can offensively use Cloak of Shadows to dodge a powerful attack, then keep burning down the boss' life.
One of my rogue mantras is that the purest way to increase your DPS is to increase your uptime. It doesn't cost you anything, and more uptime always yields more damage. Find creative ways to deal more damage than ever before. Using Blade Flurry to cleave targets as combat is smart, using Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry as a combo is an even smarter (due to the extra replicated attacks). Look for opportunities to use Vanish to activate Overkill or Master of Subtlety. Remember that many bosses often make themselves immune to damage for a short period of time, opening a window for you to Vanish.
Kick hard
Find out what the bad spells are, and then Kick them. Always Kick. If in doubt, Kick. Already Kicked? Kick again anyway. Interrupts play a huge role in so many Cataclysm heroic encounters, and if your reaction times are to be trusted, you need to practice Kicking. Often you will save the healer mana, reduce damage incoming to the tank or group, and even increase your own damage by avoiding a crippling debuff. As a rogue, you should be first in line to Kick any casted spell.
The Glyph of Kick may seem like a great idea, but it can be painful in practice. If some clever shaman decides to interrupt a spell before you do, and you accidentally Kick, now you're locked out of Kick for longer than 10 seconds. There's no encounter tuned to require Kicks more often than every 10 seconds, so don't risk causing a disaster by picking up this glyph.
Kick harder
Seriously, learn what spells to interrupt, and then interrupt them. If you haven't fought a particular boss, look up its abilities on Wowhead or another site for information. Your group will expect you to know your role, and if you're not interrupting as required, you will almost certainly be removed from the group. I guarantee you that there will be an interruptable raid boss in Cataclysm, and if you're the best Kicker in the guild, I also guarantee you that you'll be brought along for the fight.
Check back every Wednesday for the latest rogue strategies in Encrypted Text! We'll show you how to navigate Cataclysm rogue basics, dig into new rogue mechanics, and gear up for heroics.Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Heii Dec 22nd 2010 2:11PM
Funny you should bring up John Hammond. It's explained in the book that while he said that, he spared some expense in only getting ONE generator and one back-up generator. Or was it one generator for the park, and one generator for the Raptor pens? I have some issues remembering, as it's been a while since I read it.
Anyways; solid article, and even if you don't play a rogue (Such as me), there is still useful information contained in this article.
bethskye Dec 22nd 2010 2:12PM
Feint! Feint like your life depends on it, because if the tank is taking heavy damage, it does!
Sbloyd Dec 22nd 2010 2:15PM
Admittedly, I haven't run my rogue through any Cata content yet... but couldn't you add Blind in as a way to pull off a spell interrupt? Or are there a lot of Cata mobs that are immune?
Rufio Dec 22nd 2010 3:43PM
Sbloyd, I've been experimenting with this. Blind seems to work just fine, but it's sometimes considered wasteful as it's on a, what, 2 minutes cooldown? That and the other bonus of a stun is almost always immediately negated by someone in the group dealing damage to said mob. Thus in terms of a spell-interrupt it should only really be considered when faithful Kick is on cooldown.
I found myself using it in the vortex pinnacle alot on those pesky adepts. Their heal and damage spells have the same spell cast time and I'd accidentally kick the damage spell thinking they were healing. Thus a handy blind came in, er, handy. Gouge also works but (unless you're glyphed for it) you need to be infront of the mob, meaning you need to be on your game to pull that off. If you have combo points you can use Kidney Shot too. So between those 4 interrupts you'll usually have something covered.
Now you likely know all this already, so I'm really just adding this for anyone who might be passing by and new to Rougery.
Cheers.
/Stealth
Crazymack Dec 22nd 2010 2:26PM
everyone seems to 4get about enrage effects
Tom Dec 22nd 2010 3:19PM
Enrage effects? Psh. Way more people forget about capitalization, spelling, and punctuation!
James Dec 22nd 2010 2:29PM
That trinket is totally hunter loot!
REDMJOEL Dec 22nd 2010 6:09PM
Because hunters need expertise so bad!
Hail Dec 25th 2010 5:48PM
HUNTERS!!!!!
Feldring Dec 22nd 2010 2:30PM
"In the words of John Hammond, you need to spare no expense."
Or, in the worlds of Ian Malcolm, "Heh heh ehm har... awwhhrrrrrrr... reh hehr heh harr. Heh HARR! Hah HARR!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBxgAmdPQWg
Words to Cheat Death by, indeed.
Rogue4Life Dec 22nd 2010 2:38PM
great tips. I also have a quick macro when i am not the leader of pugs that says {circle} is what I sap, mark it if u want it to sit for a while. with the glyph, sap is the longest CC there is and seems to be harder to break in my opinion. other CC's can be resisted, but sap is only broken if the target takes damage as far as I am aware.
couldn't agree more about kick. heck it is nearly in my rotation since Lord Jaraxus (sp) in ToC. first boss in Throne of the Tides demands it and the new Shadowfang Heroic first boss has you kicking all day.
side note, i received my spinerender a couple days ago, sap macro is wonderful.
/cast sap
/cast pickpocket
Rufio Dec 22nd 2010 4:43PM
^ Awesome tips. Thanks man!
tenaciousmonkey Dec 23rd 2010 6:35AM
Hehe...I have had that macro setup since I first learned about macros...rarely fails (have had a few times where the pickpocket seems to occur before the sap, and I've been detected) and is a nifty little side job.
KPB Dec 23rd 2010 11:34AM
One of the advantages of Hex is that it doesn't automatically break on damage. It has a CHANCE to break on damage, rather than it being automatic. This is the trade off for it having a longish CD.
Rufio Dec 23rd 2010 7:01PM
Update on this. yesterday I went home, made that exact macro. BAM, on the very first dungeon run, both the healer AND the tank whispered me and said thanks for the good CC work! One simple line to express intent and offer assistance and it makes tanks and healers lifes much easier! Sweet as!
Hail Dec 25th 2010 5:51PM
All my openers are macros with Pick Pocket. I also have it bound to my scroll wheel in stealth.
Rogue4Life Dec 22nd 2010 2:40PM
oh ya, don't forget about Shiv, super handy for enrage effects now.
loganvi Dec 22nd 2010 2:41PM
As a long time rogue I'd like to remind rogues that distract is a skill they have, and it's incredibly useful. Back in the day we distracted pats to keep them away from the group so we didn't wipe. Or to keep them in place so we could make the next pull faster. Or to keep them from seeing us when we tried to sap. Nobody distracts anymore.
Maybe spend some combo points on a stun or two instead of trying to rock the meters so that it mitigates damage incoming. Or remember to control the mobs that get loose with a well timed blind.
You know. Go back to being helpful. A well played rogue is one of the best classes to have in a 5 man group on hard or new content. They have so many tools to help the group be successful that "stabbing things" is not even in the top 5.
Matt Dec 22nd 2010 3:00PM
Hear, hear!!!
Hail Dec 27th 2010 8:23PM
Yep!
Also use your head. In Deadmines, you can pick the lock of the last door instead of using the cannon to avoid the adds. Also, before the forge place stealth ahead, open the door, and grab the prototype reaper. Turn around, and do 30k dps for the last pack. Plus two stuns/interrupts that have no CD!