Rogue Talent Build for Max Damage Output - Need Help

[tok3n]

Hi. I've been trying to get some opinions and suggestions on how to make my WoW rogue talent build. I figured getting ideas and feedback from experienced WoW beta players would be best.

I will be playing on a PvE server so making the build for PvP situations is not an issue. No need to stuns and other ways to keep a player from attacking. Instead, I am looking for the best build for what I figure will be our job in high end raid situations, pure and simple melee damage. Of course this is from a EQ perspective so who knows.

I figure the staple of rogue damage will be from unleashing combo points into one big eviserate (crit with cold blood). The question then becomes whether to focus on improving your basic combat skills (via the Combat Talents - dual wield, dagger specialization, etc.) or to improve attacks such as ambush and backstab.

Below are two builds I've been tossing around: Both have the same talent build for Assassination but the first focuses on combat talents, for more damage with basic(auto) attacks while the second focuses on subtlety talents to improve damage from ambush and backstab by reducing recharge times, crit chances, and damage of the hits.

I am leaning toward the second build because I figure with faster recharge of vanish and the use of preparation, you can get in more big ambush hits. Even backstab is improved. But to really capitalize on those, the length of the fight needs to be long enough since with any build, you can ambush right off the bat, vanish, then ambush again. The difference comes with the 3rd ambush chance as the second build allows you to use vanish 75% faster. But there are many other factors such as increased crit chances and damage so that's why I'm asking the experts .

Any ideas/suggestions/builds would is appreciated. Ideally, I would like to know which style of build is better suited for obtaining the max damage output and then tweak that particular build. Thanks!


--Build #1 (Combat Focus)--
Combat Talents (25 points)

* Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2
Reduces the Energy cost of your Sinister Strike ability by 5.

* Lightning Reflexes - 3/5
Increases your dodge chance by 3%.

* Improved Evasion - 2/2
Increases the effect duration of your Evasion ability by 4secs.

* Improved Backstab - 3/3
Increases the critical strike chance of your Backstab ability by 30%

* Precision - 5/5
Increases your chance to hit with melee weapons by 5%.

* Dual Wield Specialization - 5/5
Increases the damage done by your off-hand weapon by 10%.

* Dagger Specialization - 5/5
Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Daggers by 1%.


Assassination Talents (21 points)

* Improved Eviscerate - 3/3
Increases the damage done by your Eviscerate ability by 15%.

* Remorseless Attacks - 5/5
Gives you a 100% damage bonus on your next attack after killing an opponent.

* Malice - 5/5
Increases your critical strike chance by 5%.

* Lethality - 5/5
Increases the damage done by your critical strikes when using Sinister Strike, Gouge, Backstab or Ambush by 50%.

* Murder - 2/2
Increases your chance to hit while using Sap, Ambush, Garrote or Cheap Shot by 6%.

* Cold Blood - 1/1
When activated, your next Sinister Strike, Backstab, Ambush or Eviscerate is guaranteed a critical strike.3 min cooldown


Subtlety Talents (13)

* Master of Deception - 5/5
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while in stealth mode. More effective than master of Deception Rank4





--Build #2 (Subtlety Focus)--
Combat Talents (9 points)

* Improved Sinister Strike - 2/2
Reduces the Energy cost of your Sinister Strike ability by 5.

* Lightning Reflexes - 3/5
Increases your dodge chance by 3%.

* Improved Backstab - 3/3
Increases the critical strike chance of your Backstab ability by 30%


Assassination Talents (21 points)

* Improved Eviscerate - 3/3
Increases the damage done by your Eviscerate ability by 15%.

* Remorseless Attacks - 5/5
Gives you a 100% damage bonus on your next attack after killing an opponent.

* Malice - 5/5
Increases your critical strike chance by 5%.

* Lethality - 5/5
Increases the damage done by your critical strikes when using Sinister Strike, Gouge, Backstab or Ambush by 50%.

* Murder - 2/2
Increases your chance to hit while using Sap, Ambush, Garrote or Cheap Shot by 6%.

* Cold Blood - 1/1
When activated, your next Sinister Strike, Backstab, Ambush or Eviscerate is guaranteed a critical strike.3 min cooldown


Subtlety Talents (22)

* Master of Deception - 5/5
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while in stealth mode. More effective than master of Deception Rank4

* Opportunity - 5/5
Increases the damage dealt when striking from behind with Backstab, Garrote or Ambush by 20%.

* Initiative - 3/3
Gives you a 45% chance to add an additional combo point to your target when using Ambush, Garrote or Cheap Shot.

* Elusiveness - 5/5
Reduces the cooldown of Evasion, Vanish and Blind by 75secs.

* Improved Ambush - 3/3
Increases the critical strike chance of your Ambush ability by 45%

* Preparation - 1/1
When activated, this ability immediately finishes the cooldown on your other Rogue abilities. 10 min cooldown

[Gorlab]

Are you looking for burst or sustained damage? If you have no desire for pvp then drop the subtlety tree entirely, just not worth it. If you go with the first build you are missing blade flurry and adrenaline rush, two of the best talents out there. If you go with the ass tree then go for poisons (extremely underrated, actually one of the biggest dps upgrades for talent points available) and seal fate.

Regardless drop the lightning reflexes, imp. evasion, remorseless (nerfed to useless), murder, and all subltlety talents.

[tok3n]

I've heard that some of the highest damage comes from improved ambush and backstab which is why there are they subtlety talents.

[Gorlab]

Improved backstab is in the combat tree, you can spend 10 points to get opportunity to increase BS/ambush damage and 3 more for improved ambush but the damage increase is not as high for that 10-13 talent points as you would get elsewhere. Specifically Aggression, blade flurry and adrenaline rush cost you fewer points (as long as you are going heavily in that tree) and give you more dps. Also 10 points in poisons (vile and improved instant for example) will up your dps more than opportunity as well.

Also keep in mind ambush is an alpha strike only that is to say you only get it once per fight (vanish/preparation tricks aside) and in groups in instances and on raids you'll almost never ambush. It really is points wasted for what you described that you wanted.

[Northerner]

There are actually many, many ways to build an effective Rogue for PvE in WoW right now. Preparation is almost worth the bigish investment into Subtlety for example, but unless you are using stealth a lot, I'd doubt worth it enough.

So, from a 'raid' perspective where you want to be a primary damage-dealer (which I might warn you, may or may not be the primary function of Rogues eventually) you'll want to go deep enough into one tree to get it's big perk and then deep enough into the others to round that out.

I've found that fighting enemies well over my level is difficult at best as a melee damage dealer, primarily because base melee attacks miss and miss a great deal. In fact, I'd be tempted to say that base melee will be such a small percentage of your dps against serious future raid targets that the best bet is to lean hard on specials and skills that work with specials. In order to get such a build at 60 though, you would need to miss out on some skills that are simply wonderful for soloing. Ah well, compromise is a good thing.

So, tree by tree we have this:

Assassination (my favorite) gives Cold Blood, Seal Fate and Vigor as the big perks. Ruthlessness, Relentless and poison skills are also very, very good while Improved Evicerate is a staple and Malice/Lethality sure don't hurt any. If you want to climb the whole tree then you'll eat up a lot of points but get some really good stuff along the way. Specifically, the skills help greatly in the two areas that Rogues will need help in for any single-target long fights that may come in the future. One, increased pace of combo-point generation and two, increased energy regeneration and a 10% higher maximal energy amount. Max amount may not seem to matter but between misses (which often can take you to max energy in time) and thistle tea (and likely other items like tea later) i find it's good to have a big tank. It's not such an issue yet really but I do foresee true long fights eventually.

Combat is a favorite of many Rogues actally. No build should be without Imp SS likely (even if mostly a solo thing, it is points well spent) and Blade Fury, Agression and Adrenaline Rush are all crowd pleasers. (Now, I base a fair bit of my thoughts here on the idea that daggers will somehow be made out as the most viable Rogue weapons for high levels. I play a SS/Evisc Mace/Sword Rogue as well and although I find the build sinfully annoying, it is very effective at present. Somehow though, I do expect that backstab energy costs to effectiveness will be brought into line.) Sorry for that small derail. Blade Fury is nice I suppose but I'm not sold. The miss rate against serious targets simply makes my autoattack not valuable enough to focus talents into. Aggression is a big portion of a SS/Evisc Rogue build and at present may well be worth shooting for, even if you need to drop the fun of the Assassin build. I'll stick by my guns though and say that a positional rogue will eventually be the primium damage dealer by a sizeable margin. AR? Well, a 4.2% increase in energy regeneration if you spam it just is not crazy thrilling. However it is 'on demand' and is great for some situations I imagine. Me, I stick with tea for sticky solo work and prefer the regen from Relentless and such. It's nice but second choice for me. The middle of the tree also has some nice stuff and even though it does nothing for my dps, I still liked Improved Sprint for a goodly while.

Subtlety is the dark horse. Opportunity is a staple (I sacrifice to get it) and Preparation is a gem, but too deep into the tree for my taste. In fact, the Subt tree is one I almost completely ignore and I've often thought about dropping it completely. That's still something I'm debating to be honest but that 20% mod for BS is keeping me there although with the hope that MoD might be worthwhile. The tree is good for PvP or single-fight (solo) PvE but frankly I'm not going to be PvPing much and there's little that a well-geared and moderately intelligent Rogue cannot kill inside the +3 level range anyhow. Moving into the 4-5+ level range it becomes pretty moot and no amount of talents devoted to stealth attacks is gonna make much odds. Besides, even the PvP Rogues proably won't be deep into this one. Oh and Premeditation is a silly skill... deadly for one-shotting perhaps but I doubt that's a good idea.

Anyhow, I always was a long-winded Rogue and sorry for that. I'd recommend as one workable option: Assass to Vigor (Malice, Improved Eviscerate, Ruthlessness, Relentless Strikes, Lethality, Vile Poisons, Improved Deadly Poison(2/5), Cold Blood, Seal Fate, Vigor) Combat (Improved Sinister Strike, Improved Gouge, Improved Backstab, Precision - 2/5) and finally a little Subtlety (Camouflage - 3/5, Master of Deception - 2/5 points, Opportunity - 5/5 points). It's one of a million possible builds for the PvE raid-focused Rogue though of course.

[Aiden]

i would suggest jumping on the rogue forums at www.worldofwarcraft.com

yes it is laggy and hard to find sometimes.but off hours you can look through it.

there is an extremely large ammount of information there,about every build you can wish for,as well as lots of information that should help you decide what you want.