Rogue: How to Spec and Play Combat

*** Updated for 3.1 ***

Now that 3.1 has been released, Combat has once again become a truly viable spec for raiding.  In my personal tests with my current gear, Combat and Assassination are close in DPS, but when I’ve been in a raid, I seem to do slightly more damage Assassination.  That being said, Combat still performs very close to Assassination on bosses, and on pre-Ulduar trash, it can’t be beat by the other two specs.

Today, I’m going to break down a basic combat spec, and discuss how to play it.  Combat specs are extremely dependant on which weapons you use.  I’m currently using a  pair of fist weapons, but realistically, you can use Fists, Swords or Maces.  While you can mix and match, using two weapons of the same type is generally the best idea.

- How to: Combat Spec -

We’re going to build a 7/51/13 Combat Spec.  This Spec is designed with pure damage dealing in mind, and has little in the way of utility.  You’ll notice that I’m going to leave 5 points in the Combat Tree unaccounted for.  These are meant for your specific Weapon Specialization, and will be indented with three asterisks (***).

Combat Tree (51)

Tier 1

5/5 Dual Wield Specialization – This talent increases your offhand damage 2% per talent point, for a total 10% increase.  It’s also a prerequisite for Close Quarters Combat

2/2 Improved Sinister Strike – This will reduce the cost of your Sinister Strikes by 5 Energy.  You will be using Sinister Strike hundreds of times on boss fights, so the energy adds up quickly.

Tier 2

2/2 Improved Slice and Dice – Increases your Slice and Dice duration by 50%.  This ability should be up at all times, so extending its lifespan is a must.

5 /5 Precision – Increases your hit chance by 5%.  Dual wielding carries with it a huge hit penalty; every PvE Rogue should have this, although some specs can live without all 5 points.

Tier 3

1/2 Endurance -This will give you a bit more Stamina and slightly lower your cooldowns on Sprint and Evasion.

*** 5/5 Close Quarters Combat- Take this if you’re using fist weapons, as this will increase your Crit chance by 5%.

Tier 4

5/5 Aggression- This talent increases your Sinsiter Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate  damage by 15%.  Another boost to Sinister Strike, which you will be using often, as well as Eviscerate.

3/3 Lightning Reflexes – Newly redesigned, this provides 6% Dodge and 10% Melee Haste.  Hopefully you won’t be needing the dodge, but the haste should come in very handy for a nice DPS boost.

Tier 5

*** 5/5 Sword Specialization – Take this if you use Swords; it will give you a 5% chance to gain an extra attack with your swords whenever they hit.

*** 5/5 Mace Specialization -  If you’re using maces, take this; It will allow you to ignore 15% of your opponent’s armor.

1/1 Blade Flurry- 20% increased attack speed, and your attacks will hit and additional nearby enemy while activated, for 15 seconds.  Multi target DPS and faster attack speed on a 2 minute cooldown; no Combat Rogue skips this.

Tier 6

 2/2 Weapon Expertise – Increases your Expertise by 10.  That’s 10 skill (the cap is 26), that you don’t have to get from stacking expertise rating.

2/2 Blade Twisting- Increases Backstab and Sinister Strike Damage by 10%, and gives your melee attacks a 10% chance to daze the target for 8 secs.  The daze effect and Backstab damage are nice, but the reason for picking this up is Sinister Strike damage bonus.

Tier 7

 3/3 Vitality- Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 25%.  Faster regen equals more energy to use sooner.

1/1 Adrenaline Rush- Increases your Energy regeneration rate by 100% for 15 sec.  Even more Energy regen on a 3 minute cooldown; another talent Combat Rogues do not skip.

Tier 8

5/5 Combay Potency- Your successful off-hand auto attacks have a 20% chance to generate 15 Energy.  This is why we took a sword offhand and Sword Specialization; another talent that keeps feeding our energy machine.

Tier 9

1/1 Surprise Attacks- 10% increased damage to Sinister Strike, Backstab, Shiv, Hemorrhage and Gouge, as well as removing the chance that your finishing  moves can be dodged.  Another boost to our damage output.

2/2 Savage Combat – Increases your attack power by 4% and all Physical damage caused to poisoned targets is increase by 2%.  This is not only a nice buff to attack power, but also a 2% buff to all group/raid members doing physical damage to poisoned targets.

Tier 10

 5/5 Prey on the Weak – Critical strike damage increased by 20% on targets with less health % than you.  If you can keep your health % above the boss for  a whole fight, you can have this bonus the whole time.

Tier 11

1/1 Killing Spree- Step through the shadows from enemy to enemy within 10 yards, attacking an enemy within 10 yards every 0.5 sec with both weapons until 5 assaults are made.  Can hit the same target multiple times, but cannot hit invisible or stealthed targets.  A good solid AoE ability, or single target damage ability, but with a 2 minute cooldown.

Assassination Tree (7)

5/5 Malice – Increases your critical strike chance by 5%.  An easy 5% crit; no serious rogue specs of any spec skip this talent.

2/2 Blood Spatter- Increases the damage of your Garrote and Rupture abilities by 30% 

Subtlety (13)

5/5 Relentless Strikes – 20% chance per combo point to restore 25 Energy.  More energy equals more damage.

3/3 Master of Deception - Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while in Steath Mode.  Anticipating the need for CC in the near future, we’re taking this to help us stay in Stealth.

2/2 Dirty Tricks - Increases the range of your Blind and Sap abilities by 6 yardsand reduces their energy cost by 50%.  Again, there’s the potential for CC to make a comback soon, and this will help.

3/3 Serrated Blades – Causes your attacks to ignore 640 (increases by 8 per level) of your target’s armor and increases the damage of your Rupture ability by 30%.  This is the reason we went for 13 points in this tree.  We could have easily used 15 points in the Assassination tree, but this one talent, which increases one of our two major damage abilities while ignoring a significant amount of armor, was to good to give up.

How to play this spec:

Assuming perfect conditions (stationary mob with enough health) the following rotation will produce good DPS.

1. Opener - Garrote if stealthed, Sinister Strike if not.
2. Sinister Strike to 2 combo points
3. Slice and Dice
4. Sinister Strike to 5 combo points
5. Rupture
6. repeat from step 2

Note:  If you build 5 combo points before using Slice and Dice, and you have the ability to build enough combo points fast enough, it is possible to also fit a 5 point Eviscerate or Envenom into the rotation.  You should only do this if you already have a Rupture on the target  and Slice and Dice has more than 12 seconds left on it.  That rotation looks like this:

1. Sinister Strike to 5 combo points
2. Slice and Dice
3. Sinister Strike to 5 combo points
4. Rupture
5. Sinister Strike to 5 combo points
6. Eviscerate / Envenom

If you are faced with a mob that will die too quickly for your Rupture debuff to last its full duration, Eviscerate will produce more DPS, and should be substituted.  This frequently happens on trash, or when a boss is near death.  In these situations, do your best to keep Slice and Dice up and use Eviscerate as your finisher.

Another Rotation that might work for you is:

1. Sinister Strike
2. Slice and Dice
3. Sinister Strike to 5 combo points
4. Rupture
5. Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3
6. Eviscerate / Envenom

Other abilities:

Blade Flurry should be used when it is available, and if possible at the same time as Adrenaline Rush.  Using Tricks of the Trade before using the other abilities will keep you safe, as you will pass your first 6  seconds of threat to the tank.   Also, use Killing spree whenever you can, again, using this with Tricks of the Trade will keep you from pulling aggro.  Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush, and Killing Spree should be used as early and often as possible for maximum DPS.

Conclusions:

Combat gives you more options than Assassination, and because of this, it will produce greater DPS on trash.  If you do spec combat, use a training dummy in a major city to practice the timing of your rotation.  I would start with the simple rotation first, and once you’ve mastered it, try and use the more complicated rotations, as they will produce even greater results.  Practice will make the application of these rotations second nature to you, and should help to improve your overall play.

- Sam

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Spec Changes, 3.1, and /facepalm
• Rogue DPS: The Assassination Experiment
• Initial Testing: Combat vs. Assassination
• Rogue craft