Encrypted Text: My ganking toolbox

I love being prepared. I always like having the right tool for the job. My desk at the office is covered with spare parts and manuals, and my junk drawer at home is filled with cables and loose screws. And when I say junk drawer, I mean junk cabinet. I won't throw away something that could be useful later, which has me worried that my next TV appearance will be on Hoarders.
Luckily, I can't be judged for all of the goodies that I keep in my rogue's bags. One of my favorite threads on the official rogue forums is the Ganker's Kit of Ganking. It's a very robust list of items in WoW that can help you kill your targets and avoid being killed yourself. I find that we're usually so focused on our normal gear that we forget about all of the other items in our inventory that can make playing a rogue fun.
Don't let your prey escape
The most frustrating thing for a rogue engaging in PvP is when his enemy escapes his grasp. I can't tell you how many times I've cursed the name of night elf druids that use Shadowmeld to hop into Flight Form. In order to prevent my targets from running away, I utilize a few different items to catch them.
Let me start by saying that my rogue is an engineer, which gives me access to a plethora of utility tools. Rocket boosts are going to be your best friend for catching up to fleeing prey. As an engineer, I like to equip double rockets -- a belt with the Nitro Boosts tinker and my Rocket Boots Xtreme. The two speed boosts don't share a cooldown, although they obviously can't be activated at the same time. Between two different rocket boosts, my Sprint and Shadowstep abilities, and Crippling Poison, my targets rarely escape.
Every once in a while, one of my foes will jump off a cliff to avoid me. With a Flexweave Underlay, I can jump right after them. Rogues take less damage from falling passively, but the Underlay ensures that you never take any falling damage. I've also run into opponents who like to hop into the water in hopes of swimming away. Unfortunately for them, I have an Azure Silk Belt and my Glyph of Blurred Speed. Only warlocks and druids will be able to outpace you in water with the Azure Silk Belt equipped.
Surviving at all costs
Speaking of water engagements, it's important that you're able to not only effectively kill your opponents but that you can also make a strategic retreat. I use my Deepdive Helmet to pursue my prey into the waters as well as to avoid packs of enemies who can't stay underwater as long as I can. I also use my Gnomish Cloaking Device to make myself invisible. This is especially useful for avoiding enemy rogues, as you can't detect an invisible player like you can detect a stealthed player.
I also carry around several Living Action Potions, which you can use like a second trinket to break out of stuns and snares.
Don't forget the basics
While there are obviously a lot of flashy tools that you can use in PvP, you also want to make sure you are stocked up on the basics. Keep plenty of poisons on you, at least one stack of each flavor. I keep a few stacks of food, as well as plenty of flasks. You should have this stuff already if you're raiding regularly.
In addition, keep a few stacks of Dense Embersilk Bandages around to use while you have your target Blinded or Gouged. Finally, you're going to want a few potions to restore your life in combat. I like to use the Rogue's Draughts we get from pickpocketing, since they're free.
Rogue-specific trinkets and baubles
Speaking of pickpocketing, I always keep a few rogue keepsakes in my bags. Besides my Thieves' Tools and my Flash Powder, I have also been collecting the dice sets that we can find through pickpocketing. The dice sets are pretty rare and always turn a few heads when you use them. Along with my Rabbit's Foot and my Rabbit's Other Foot, they bring me good luck when I'm rolling on a piece of gear that I want.
Disguises for disguising
I love dressing up for world PvP. I carry my Red Defias Mask and my Blood Elf Bandit Mask around in case I don't want my identity to be revealed. I have a few stacks of Noggenfogger Elixir and an Iron Boot Flask to change my form up. I am also lucky enough to have a Tabard of the Lightbringer, which I hear causes a lot of confusion for my opponents. Then, after I've defeated an opponent, I use my Rosary of the Light to Tebow right on top of their lifeless corpse (hopefully before they release).
What are some of your favorite items to use on your rogue? Because WoW has been around so long, there are literally hundreds of fun items that don't see much use anymore.
Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
AltairAntares Feb 1st 2012 9:10AM
I have to say, hitting shadowmeld and then flight form is one of the more hilarious things I love about druid pvp. So much fun to taunt people.
Even more fun to chase people who try to escape.
HDPriest Feb 1st 2012 9:14AM
" Only warlocks and druids will be able to outpace you in water with the Azure Silk Belt equipped." My Shaman with Water Walk, Earthbind Totem, and instant Ghost Wolf up would like to race you :) Lol you would probably kill me before I got that far, but it would be fun.
Pyromelter Feb 1st 2012 6:18PM
Death Knights too with unholy presence, Path of Frost, Chains of Ice to slow the rogue down, and if they are frost, Chillblains and Hungering cold.
My guess is that any regular DK that would normally be ganked wouldn't have the wherewithal to use their tools to escape. Good DK's or ones that have DK's as their main probably would, but the rest of us wouldn't.
JattTheRogue Feb 1st 2012 7:45PM
The problem with Water Walk and Path of Frost is that they drop immediately when you take damage. If you're trying to escape or kite a rogue by running across the water with one of those abilities, good luck. You're almost always going to have a bleed or poison DOT on you, depending on the spec.
Killik Feb 1st 2012 9:17AM
But doesn't it affect your ability to actually kill people, with so much ~level 40 utility gear equipped?
HDPriest Feb 1st 2012 9:31AM
Probably not by much. When a good Rogue catches you (or me anyways, lol) it usually goes something like this: You cannot do that while stunned. You cannot do that while stunned. Release to Graveyard.
Diop Feb 1st 2012 11:13AM
You have to remember these are tips for gankers, not just random pvp encounters. Presumably a Rogue engaging in this activity will be kitted out in the best of the best PVP gear, whereas most of their prey will either not be as well geared or in PVE gear to burn down the mobs quicker. Therefore losing the head and belt slot won't be too bad since their resilience will be much higher, they will be fully buffed and they will be expecting combat.
I mean seriously, most people don't even keep a pvp trinket equipped when they go questing/farming/etc.
exogenesis. Feb 1st 2012 9:29AM
Isn't equipping low level head/cloak slots detrimental? Surely losing out on the stats would make you a bit easier to kill?
Pyromelter Feb 1st 2012 6:23PM
Looks like he's only equipping the boots to start in a gank, so not too much of a loss there. He equips his water helm and belt only if chasing into water (I'm guessing he has an equipment set for quick switching.) The cloak he just has the enchant on to parachute down, you can put that on any cloak.
Lemons Feb 1st 2012 9:37AM
It's good to carry around some Blackened Worg Steak (or a similar item that allows you to track humanoids) if you're corpse camping. That way even if they try to get clever on you and rez somewhere out of sight you can still see them pop up on the mini-map.
Edymnion Feb 1st 2012 9:55AM
You have to be careful with that though. Hitting them a time or two is fine, but if you keep camping someone its actually in the ToS that persistent corpse camping is a form of harassment and they can open a ticket on you.
Texanatthedoor Feb 1st 2012 10:36AM
@Edymnion You can only get camped on pvp servers, agreed? As such it is not against the TOS to camp players, because there is a pvp solution. Namely, call in a bunch of your higher level buddies to counter-camp. Or level up and get pvp geared and go stalk him. The only time a GM will intervene is when there isn't a pvp solution, which are pretty rare these days. Things like killing badge vendors, which is now impossible.
Now, the issue is that a person who does camp persistently (not just killing and moving on) is more likely to also engage in actual harassment, which you should always report to GMs.
Chase Christian Feb 1st 2012 10:57AM
@Lemons - good call!
If it were against the ToS to camp, I would've been banned a hundred times over by now.
VSUReaper Feb 1st 2012 11:02AM
Persistent is defined by Blizzard as 20+ times. I got camped during wrath for about 6 hours and the person never received any punishment, even after submitting a ticket for harassment.
Travy Feb 1st 2012 9:56AM
I've seen rogues in vanity items in bgs manage to murder people o plenty simply by way of skill n stun locks. While supobtimal eqp might mean something against players of equal skill, ganking implies less than equal skill.
Sinderion Feb 1st 2012 10:08AM
For anyone confused about using lower lvl stuff for utility:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl8MixWnV6E
good old original 'control' by reckful.
Guy dominates in 80 arena, and just to prove how important rogues non dmg stuff is, he uses old weapons and still runs the show. Even some lvl 60 zg weapons! and it's still all about the control.
MUST SEE for anyone that plays a rogue if you haven't seen it. Even if you don't have a maxed rogue, he's demonstrating how it's done.
That being said, he's only using the low lvl weps to prove his point, but if a 200 ITEM LEVEL drop on WEAPONS (at 80, guessing 264-65 or thereabouts) still lets you get teh job done, I think you can get away with hopping out of combat and switching some gear up or down from time to time in a fight. It's all in how you use it.
Max geared dps wont get you much if you cant reach your target. Similarly, if you HAVE to get away to survive.. it wont help if you have 5k more hp/some more resil... but cant get away...
Eastland23 Feb 1st 2012 10:59AM
So this begs the question (for me at least)... Anyone have experience using an addon to auto-vendor grey items that will also let you exclude from sale the ones that you want to keep? There's a lot of fun goodies that are grey items, but I haven't yet figured out how to keep them from being vendored. Getting rid of the addon and having to manually vendor grey items will kill me.
Lost my Pitchfork that way months ago and haven't seen another one since... :(
Berna Feb 1st 2012 11:54AM
There are several 'gray-sellers' that let you make exceptions, and there is an addon called Vault, that let's you put a lock on whatever you don't want to sell (works with any 'color' stuff). I haven't tried it myself, but it sounds like it ought to do just what you want.
Freakprince00 Feb 1st 2012 11:46AM
[flag of ownership] [stormwind banner] [guild standard] and [elune stone]
Juzelle Feb 1st 2012 12:32PM
I always make sure to have my [enchanted broom] handy to clean up the mess