Nostalrius Begins - Quality wow vanilla realm (1.12)

Hey guys,

So I joined retail vanilla only a short time before TBC came out so I never got to experience vanilla raiding as a rogue.

I'm just wondering, what's the most fun/active raiding spec in the current vanilla right now? I know daggers seems to be a literal 2 button rotation, but I'm looking for something more complex that's still viable damage. I remember from my early TBC raiding that Assassination had rogues watching a 3 or 4 different buff/debuffs throughout a fight, strategically popping vanish/cooldowns for extra bursts, etc.

I'm still far far from raiding right now, but I'm just curious if there's any builds out there that make rogues actually fun to raid with right now or if I should just level something else and wait on my rogue till TBC is launched (next year-ish?).

all pve rotations are extremely simple in vanilla. especially because of the debuff slot limit. You wont be casting any dots. Maintaining slice and dice and positioning yourself behind the boss is about as hard as it gets.

Damn... Yea today was the first time I heard about the debuff limit, I never even knew that existed before.

Well, as much as it sucks maybe I'll just roll a tank or something useful to raid with until TBC comes out so I can have some fun with my rogue.

As far as FUN goes, Assassination is by far the most fun imo.

Seal Fate generates a lot of combo points, sometimes quickly with crit luck, meaning you can throw out a lot more eviscerates or kidney shots should they be wanted. It feels nice using other finishers besides slice n dice often.

Cold Blood lets you GUARANTEE 5 point eviscerates will crit, resulting in awesome big crits of 2000+ in 60 preraid gear on certain enemies who are sundered, etc. The cooldown is 3 minutes which is the only downside, but seeing a big chunk cut out of a mob you cold blood evisc feels great.

Improved kidney shot I believe is vastly underused and underrated, but it actually does significant damage that you cannot see. 9% of the damage your allies do in the time period is effectively the damage it does, which can be a lot in a raid on a high HP enemy which can be stunned.

It's by no means the most effective pve spec but it's variety which is sorely lacking in other areas of rogue play.

Kuroyu wrote:As far as FUN goes, Assassination is by far the most fun imo.

Seal Fate generates a lot of combo points, sometimes quickly with crit luck, meaning you can throw out a lot more eviscerates or kidney shots should they be wanted. It feels nice using other finishers besides slice n dice often.

Cold Blood lets you GUARANTEE 5 point eviscerates will crit, resulting in awesome big crits of 2000+ in 60 preraid gear on certain enemies who are sundered, etc. The cooldown is 3 minutes which is the only downside, but seeing a big chunk cut out of a mob you cold blood evisc feels great.

Improved kidney shot I believe is vastly underused and underrated, but it actually does significant damage that you cannot see. 9% of the damage your allies do in the time period is effectively the damage it does, which can be a lot in a raid on a high HP enemy which can be stunned.

It's by no means the most effective pve spec but it's variety which is sorely lacking in other areas of rogue play.

You... I like you.

Kuroyu wrote:As far as FUN goes, Assassination is by far the most fun imo.

Seal Fate generates a lot of combo points, sometimes quickly with crit luck, meaning you can throw out a lot more eviscerates or kidney shots should they be wanted. It feels nice using other finishers besides slice n dice often.

Cold Blood lets you GUARANTEE 5 point eviscerates will crit, resulting in awesome big crits of 2000+ in 60 preraid gear on certain enemies who are sundered, etc. The cooldown is 3 minutes which is the only downside, but seeing a big chunk cut out of a mob you cold blood evisc feels great.

Improved kidney shot I believe is vastly underused and underrated, but it actually does significant damage that you cannot see. 9% of the damage your allies do in the time period is effectively the damage it does, which can be a lot in a raid on a high HP enemy which can be stunned.

It's by no means the most effective pve spec but it's variety which is sorely lacking in other areas of rogue play.

Thank you! See, now this is what I was looking for! As long as it is still viable, I'm all for this kind of raid build. I got really bummed when I started hearing that all rogues were supposed to do was BS -> SnD with Instant Poison. That's absurd! I know the debuff cap keeps me from using things like Deadly Poison or Rupture, but to only use 2 abilities is just so boring!

I'm enjoying the hell out of vanilla right now, and I'm sure I'm going to have fun running raids that I never got to experience, but I will say I'm looking forward to the TBC launch so I can have a LITTLE more action in raids. =P

Prototype958 wrote:

Kuroyu wrote:As far as FUN goes, Assassination is by far the most fun imo.

Seal Fate generates a lot of combo points, sometimes quickly with crit luck, meaning you can throw out a lot more eviscerates or kidney shots should they be wanted. It feels nice using other finishers besides slice n dice often.

Cold Blood lets you GUARANTEE 5 point eviscerates will crit, resulting in awesome big crits of 2000+ in 60 preraid gear on certain enemies who are sundered, etc. The cooldown is 3 minutes which is the only downside, but seeing a big chunk cut out of a mob you cold blood evisc feels great.

Improved kidney shot I believe is vastly underused and underrated, but it actually does significant damage that you cannot see. 9% of the damage your allies do in the time period is effectively the damage it does, which can be a lot in a raid on a high HP enemy which can be stunned.

It's by no means the most effective pve spec but it's variety which is sorely lacking in other areas of rogue play.

Thank you! See, now this is what I was looking for! As long as it is still viable, I'm all for this kind of raid build. I got really bummed when I started hearing that all rogues were supposed to do was BS -> SnD with Instant Poison. That's absurd! I know the debuff cap keeps me from using things like Deadly Poison or Rupture, but to only use 2 abilities is just so boring!

I'm enjoying the hell out of vanilla right now, and I'm sure I'm going to have fun running raids that I never got to experience, but I will say I'm looking forward to the TBC launch so I can have a LITTLE more action in raids. =P

Another fun thing to do is use deadly poison/garrote/rupture to stack dots and see your enemy bleed to death.