Raid DPS Guide and Links

Ok. Here's a brief guide to raid DPS as a rogue

The only thing a rogue brings to a raid is his DPS. We have very little utility outside of it, so more than any other class, we need to make the most of what we're good at.

Raid dps as a rogue is a three legged stool. Gear, Spec and Rotation. Each needs to be as good as you can make it or you'll see huge and unnecessary drops in DPS.

Gearing - first off, your single most important stat, without gimping yourself, is +hit.

You want +8 hit % chance, which translates to around 260 hit rating at 80. Until you reach that, any yellow slots should be +hit, any red slots should be +hit/+ap orange gems, any blue slots should be +hit/+sta green gems.

Simply put, until you hit +8% to hit you will miss on bosses more than necessary.

Once you reach that, your gemming should be for AP/Agi/Crit as appropriate to your spec.

Next up: Spec

There's a lot of variation in viable raid DPS specs these days, and it depends on what gear is available to you.

If you have good daggers, assassination/combat mutilate is a very easy spec to play, and gives great dps. Click here for the spec.
If you have maces, fists, swords or (now) axes, combat is the way to go. Click here for a sample combat spec.

Next up: Rotation

Keeping an optimal rotation up is necessary. If you're sloppy on your rotation, all the good work you did in gearing and speccing will be to no avail.

It's not actually that hard.

For mutilate, you .. open with mutilate or ambush, optionally mutilate again, then start up rupture, then start hunger for blood. then mutilate mutilate then slice and dice., then mut mut envenon mut-mut-envenom (every envenom will refresh SnD to it's full duration) as many times as you can until rupture needs refreshing The only change is when rupture is close to dropping. Pool your energy (let it build up) and hit rupture when it drops, then back to mut-mut-envenom.

Easy, huh? Whenever you have 4 or 5 combo points, use a finisher. envenom if rupture doesn't need refreshing, rupture if it does. keep HFB up. envenom takes care of keeping SnD up.

For combat, use the following

1. Sinister Strike to 3+ Combo Points.
2. Slice and Dice.
3. Sinister Strike to 5 Combo Points.
4. Rupture.
5. Sinister Strike to 5 Combo Points.
6. Does Slice and Dice have >12 seconds left? If yes, Eviscerate. If no, Go to Step 2.
7. Go to Step 1.

That's it.

If you need practice, or want to know which poisons are best, use the boss practice dummies. Get your rotations down, log your poison dps, tweak as you see fit.

It's not a hard job, being a rogue. Most of what we bring to a raid is preparation. Other classes rotations are much harder than ours.

Just make sure you're prepped. Have stat food (hit or ap or crit), and sufficient endless rage flasks for the raid. If you want to boost your dps a bit more, bring a stack of speed potions too.

Also, read and stay current on the elitist jerks class mechanics forum for rogues.

Start with the rogue Pocket Guide to WOTLK at http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t37183-pocket_guide_wotlk_updated_3_1_a/

shadowpanther.net ha a great set of spreadsheets for gear - what's best in a given slot and so on. i thoroughly recommend you familiarising yourself with it, and until you have raid drops for that slot, pick the appropriate crafted, badged or heroic gear for the slot.