Spec
This guide is written for mutilate rogues and the abilities outlined will be outlined assuming you have certain assassination talents, however it is not the only viable spec. A lot of the tactics covered are useable with sub too.
My spec is 41/5/25 for pvp
Important talents include:
Mutilate: This is, obviously, essential to a mutilate build, as it will be your primary nuke and combo point generator.
Seal Fate: Makes every move that generates combo points generate another combo point. This will send your burst through the roof.
Quick Recovery: Increases healing on you a great deal, and refunds energy when you miss a finisher.
Vigor: Some argue that it only amounts to 30 more energy the whole fight, however this is true only in pve, in pvp you have time off your target and when you restealth, and 30 more energy is that much more to burst with.
Dual Wield Spec: This is your 5 points in combat. Increases mutilate damage a lot particularly with opportunity. Don't pass it up
Master of Deception: Increases your stealth level. If you don't have this you will get caught and crushed by opposing rogues.
Opportunity: Increases mutilate damage even further.
Dirty Tricks: More range to your CC's and much less energy cost.... Crucial.
Heightened Senses: Crucial to finding opposing rogues, and reduces change to get hit by spells a lot.
Preparation: Another sprint, vanish, and evasion? Hell yeah!
Glyphs
Use Glyph of Mutilate, Vigor, and Eviscerate.
Your Abilities and When to Use Them.
Now chances are you know your abilities by level 80, if not, this guide may not be basic enough for you, despite me dumbing it down as much as possible, however there may be uses and techniques you aren't aware of or don't commonly use.
Deadly Throw: A finisher that does damage equal to roughly half of what eviscerate would do. The damage isn't quite important, as deadly throw also slows them down. Use this ability when a warrior hamstrings you and tries to run out to intercept, use it on hunters to prevent them from kiting you, use it on warlocks to prevent them from kiting you, use it on mages immediately after they blink, so they can't get away, use it on shammies trying to create space to heal, use it on druids ALL THE TIME, they love their cheetah form.
Mutilate: This is your primary nuke. 2 combo points and high damage? Hell yeah! Use it after your cheap shot to get 5 combo points. Almost impossible not to have 5, as intiative would have to not proc, and you would have to not crit with mutilate. After you kidney shot start spamming this.
Eviscerate: What was once nearly useless as a finisher has scaled nicely at 80. Use this whenever you have 5 combo points and kidney shot is on cooldown, unless it's a situation for rupture, which I'll go over soon enough.
Dismantle: 10 second disarm. Gotta love this move. Use this ability on melee after you stunlock them a good 10 seconds, then you have 10 more seconds of going practically untouched, also useful when you need to buy time for your arena partner to drink, or when you're going to die.
Rupture: A powerful dot, however a very situational one in pvp. Use this ability on warriors after a garrote and a mutilate, then vanish and do your standard stunlock. Also use on Pallies and DKs if they have particularly high armor, and use on rogues to prevent a restealth.
Kick: One of the most useful rogue abilities. As most of the classes you will be fighting cast spells, and you will commonly be harassing healers, being able to interrupt heals and spells is invaluable, not to mention if you kick a heal, they wont be able to heal again for 5 seconds. If you kick a fear you've got yourself a dead lock.
Kidney Shot: Extremely useful stun with an short cooldown. use this after a cheap shot and a mutilate, right as your cheap shot is ending, and you have a good stunlock. if they trinket the cheap shot, they have a good 6 second stun coming.
Evasion: Life saver. Tired of getting raped by warriors pallies and DKs? Use it. Rogue Vs Rogue? Use it twice. Hell you might dodge a kidney shot then they're ****ed.
Sprint: This, along with cloak and deadly throw, is your kite prevention. makes you way faster, if you need it, use it.
Cloak of Shadows: This works miracles. It instantly drops all the debuffs except for bleeds, and makes you immune to damn near every spell for a couple seconds. Use this when you have DK diseases on you, use it right after a lock dots you up and right before he fears you. If he fears you first, trinket THEN cloak and finish him. Use this on a mage frost nova. If a pally sits on his consecrate, this will prevent it popping you out of stealth.
Blind: An extremely useful CC. You can use this after a sap runs out for 10 more seconds of CC on a healer, while you murder the dps, or you can use it after a stunlock to restealth and stunlock him again.
Vanish: It removes all those annoying movement impairing techniques, and immediately stealths you. This ability is useful against pretty much every class.... Can essentially reset the fight.
Feint: Originally just a PvE move, this reduces damage from AoE by 60% therefor extremely usefull on a warrior's bladestorm, which can kill you by itself, or on a boomkin's starfall, the only other serious AoE threat.
Fan of Knives: Just an AoE. Use it to kill treants and use it to pop rogues out.
Rogue VS __________
This is, essentially, how to handle each class, although some will be MUCH tougher then others.
Warrior Difficulty=Hard
Against a warrior you'll want to open up with a garrote, mutilate quickly, put up a 5 CP rupture, and vanish out. After your energy goes back up to 130, or 120 if you don't have 4 piece pvp set, Cheap shot, mutilate, and wait for cheap shot to just be ending and use kidney shot, a standard stunlock. if your bleeds are done at this point, blind, restealth and reapply bleeds, use preparation to vanish, and repeat until the warrior is dead.
Ret Paladin Difficulty=Hard
Ret Paladins will blow you up QUICK if you don't play this defensively minded. You're not going to keep them stunned the whole fight as you would a warrior, they can bubble, put up wings, and burst you in a couple seconds. Instead, you want to keep them stunned only when kidney shot is up and useable, and keep evasion up as long as possible. You should be dpsing as hard as possible in the meantime to make him bubble and heal, as he is bubbling and healing, restealth and use the same strategy as warriors and you have him.
Holy Pally Difficulty=Medium
If it comes down to 1v1 with a Holy Pally, keep him stunned as long as possible and put dps on him gradually till he is absolutely forced to bubble. With a Holy Pally the idea is to outlast him until the bubble, and after the bubble, restealth and blow him up.
Death Knight Difficulty=Medium
Yes they have pets, yes they have self heals, but DKs are helpless once you're on them. all they can do is chain you and run out, and to heal themselves they need to hit you. Also, don't bother dotting them up, it's far more benificial to blind them, restealth, and put more burst on them.
Resto Shammy Difficulty=Medium
Your in for a battle. If you can't burst them down in your original stunlock, blind, restealth and do it again, because they can last for ages if you're energy starved. Kill mana totems and flame totems if it turns into an endurance competition.
Enh Shammy Difficulty=Easy
One of the easiest fights. Stunlock them, nuke the hell out of them, and they will try to run out and heal, blind them and finish them. Damn near helpless against rogues.
Ele Shammy Difficulty=Medium
Somewhat more difficult then enh. They have thunder, so if they survive the stunlock they'll blow you away, put some serious burst on you, and heal, however, this is counteractable by a quick cloak after your stunlock.
Hunter Difficulty=Medium
If you use you anti kiting abilities as i outlined in the abilites section, this fight isn't difficult at all. IF you stand right past the edge of their flare you can sap them as the flare is ending, then move in and stunlock them, keep them stunned until absolutely impossible, then make sure they don't kite you. If you dismantle them they can't wing clip or concussive shot you, so all they can do is disengage, in which case you can sprint after them.
Resto Druid Difficulty=Hard
Resto Druids don't need to cast, so it makes kick nearly useless with the exception of cyclone and roots, also makes MN Poison ineffective. Even with WP on them, they can heal more then effectively through your damage, so you have to time your stuns for when the dots are almost done.
Feral Druid Difficulty=Medium
They will come at you in cat form stealth, and if you can find them this fight is easy, but if they find you, they will stun you, burst, and immediately go bear. If you dont trinket during the stuns, you'll get bleeds on you and this fight will be almost impossible, but if you trinket fast and get a blind off this fight is yours. If they start in bear treat them just like a warrior.
Boomkin Difficulty=Medium
This is a fun one. You need to burst the hell out of them and get them on the defensive, because if they can put down their trees, starfall, and get dots on you you will most likely lose. Get their health down fast with a stunlock, followed by a restealth, garrote-muti-evisc, then vanish and stunlock to finish it off.
Rogue Difficulty=Medium
This fight comes down to who finds who. If you find them, stunlock, muti 2x and eviscerate, then put a 1 cp rupture if they're still alive. If they trinket immediately blind so they can't. If you get found, trinket and blind before they get a rupture on you, then restealth and take them out as if you found them.
/Targetenemy
/Cleartarget
/Cast Sap
That macro will continue targetting until it finds a stealthed rogue and will immediately sap him. Spam it.
Priest Difficulty=Easy
Regardless of spec this fight isn't much. Burst the hell out of them and then cloak once they are free to move (to prevent fear) in order to finish them.
Mage Difficulty=Medium
Open with garrote, they will blink out of cheap shot. After garrote silence wears off they will immediately blink out, they will be out of blind range, so cloak off frost nova, which will be applied by frostbite, sprint and get a blind on them, then restealth and stunlock while blind is on cooldown. This should take them down.
Warlock Difficulty=Medium
Start off with a stunlock. If they are any good, instead of trinketing they will seduce you with their succubus, no problem, trinket it and vanish, stunlock them again, this time they will trinket, and then you have them, blind them, restealth, and burst them till they die. If they try to fear cloak.
Effective 2v2 Combos
Roguex2
In this combination you'll be sapping one target and then blinding him, and bursting the other target down. Highly effective with good coordination. It's generally better to CC the Healer and burst the DPS unless the Healer is significantly softer.
Rogue Mage
Same as Roguex2 except the mage handles the CC and you always burst the DPS first.
Rogue Disc Priest
My Combination. Highly effective. stunlock the dps as your disc priest mana burns the opposing healer down. In a 2 dps combo pick the dps most capable of harassing your priest.
Rogue Resto Druid or Dreamstate Druid
Was good in BC but has diminished greatly in WotLK. You'll want to both start in stealth, and if they find your partner be sure to blind one target and stunlock the other so he can heal up and get away. Hots help a lot so you can afford to put a little more burst out and play slightly more recklessly.
This isn't every combination, simply the ones that are most effective. Some people swear by Rogue Lock but i've never been successful with it.
