Ok. My build is (currently) planned out to be 31/2/18. Basically all that is "crucial" to the build is the 30/2/18. I'm pretty much a stunlock build. I like solo pvp/ganking and do this:
CS+SS+Gouge+SS+KS+SS+SS+Gouge+CB+Evis
It generally kills them. Now that you know my build and playing style, answer me this. I essentially have 1 extra point in my build. I can either go Vigor or Ghostly Strike. Vigor would be nice, I mean, 10 extra energy. But, it's basically just -10 energy on opener. Ghostly Strike would also be nice; 15% dodge as well as a combo point, but my build centers around the target being stunned. What to do? Thanks in advance.

Edit: No idea why I put Vigor vs Peparation (misspelled at that). Should read "Vigor vs Ghostly Strike"

The problem with Vigor is that, unless it's a long fight, I think it will only help you if something goes wrong. When a skill misses and takes less energy, then the 10 you start with might be able to get you over that bump. So that means all your preceeding skills are hitting 2 seconds earlier.

If nothing misses, it takes a long fight to get to the point where 10 energy will help you not wait for the 2 second tick. Because of this, for right now I am planning not to go Vigor, even though I am getting 5 Seal Fate. However, if I end up getting the rogue set that adds +10 to energy, then I would definately get vigor. In that case, it's a full 2 second tick saved, as most of the skills I use cost either 40 or 60 energy. It's the 3rd or 4th skill I use (depending) where I'm waiting for energy. 10 energy won't help that, but 20 will.

Hmm, good point. I forgot about that set (forget what it's called). I've heard that it's not so great though except for the chestpiece and the helm. Anywho. Currently I use Gouge to recover lost energy as well as gain a combo point. I can then SS once more and immedietley KS. Ghostly strike will most likely be my choice for it's PvE uses and against mail wearers. There's currently a 2-3 second gap after my first KS that the target isn't stunned. May come in handy there. Against cloth I don't have to KS, I jump right to CB Evis. Thanks for the input.

That set is okay, and it takes 5 pieces to get +10 energy.

The biggest problem is they are all epic pieces requiring level 60, which means about the only place you'll be able to get them is raid bosses like in the Onixian instance and Molten Core.

I really can't foresee too many people except serious raid guilds playing that kind of content enough to piece together 5 pieces of that set worth wearing. Assuming Onyxia drops a set piece every time (she dropped a piece of the epic Priest set for the US group that defeated her) you'd have to kill her like 40 times before you had decent chances at collecting 5 items from any one given set. And you'd have to be the only rogue winning the rolls out of the 40 killing her.

I think it's safe to say taking that particular set into account on a build is wishful thinking at best.

That kind of stuff doesn't drop in BRS? I thought it was the big drop zone and that's why eveyone is farming it in preparation for Battlegrounds. Well, if only she drops it then I defintley won't go vigor.

Against a good mage that's built for PvP versus rogues, you'd better use KS before CS wears off.

A mage built for PvP against rogues is going to have tons of stamina gear to survive the initial stun. They're also going to have Presence of Mind so they can instant cast polymorph as soon as stun wears off for a split second. So you're gonna want to maximize your stun length in the very beginning.

After you're polymorphed, the fight gets tricky. Most likely he's going to lead off with a fireball so you can't vanish, then a cone of cold or frost bolt to slow you down and stay away. You're only option then is to use Sprint, but you'll still be running at only 60-75% speed. It does help with delaying their fireball though, so you might get a window of opportunity to vanish, maybe.

Cloth my level may have +stam gear but that's not gonna stop a 700 dmg evis (after armor reduction). Between poisons and SS damage, they're at half health by the time I get 5 cps. If a is mage really thinking, he'll blink out of CS, as mages can blink out of stuns (WTF?!). Pretty messed up, but I'm about 90% sure it's true. My only hope is to surprise them so much they don't think fast enough. Or just catch 'em when they have no mana Mind numbing Poison helps a lot too.

Mages can't blink out of stun. What you're seeing is them blinking immediately after stun wears off.


Can you get 5 cp's and pull off a CB Evis before the initial 4 second stun wears off, though? Hmm, perhaps if you use a Thistle Tea...


This is one of the main things that used to get me killed by rogues. That and lack of experience, assuming they didn't pull something lame like ambushing me while I'm low health from mobs.


That's obviously to your advantage, but if they're an arcane mage, health is more of your concern cause they can use Evocation to recover ~2/3 of their mana (10 min cooldown) while you're poly'd.

This ambushing in bad situations is what pissed me off about rogues, and inspired me to build my character to kill them. If someone does it to me, they'd better make sure they kill me, cause if they don't I'm going to pot, kill them, and camp their corpse for an hour.


I have a question about this skill, since nobody ever seems to use it on me. What does it do to instant casts?

Are you sure about that? I've seen quite a few mages say otherwise, but my mage isn't high enough for me to see for myself.

I could've sworn I tested this out a long time ago and it didn't work, but I just tried it again and it does. Was this an unintended change that happened in the patch where they fixed blink to break root like it was supposed to, or am I trippin?

I get inconsistent results when trying to Blink while stunned. Sometimes I'll blink, sometimes I'll get "Can't do that while stunned," and I swear I've moved forward the 20 yards while remaining stunned before.

Oh, and mind numbing poison has no effect on instant cast spells, other than a talented instant Arcane Explosion (which then has about a half second cast time).

Interesting.

Blink is supposed to break all roots and stuns, but I've been told that it's bugged so that the only stuns it breaks are the warrior stuns and some of the rogue stuns. Combined with it's 15 second cooldown it's one of the most overpowered skills in the game in PvP.

After reading your post I just took a look at the tooltip, which reads "Also frees the caster from stuns and bonds"... I don't remember it ever saying anything about stuns before. Was this changed in the patch, or do I have a bad memory?

Anyway I took the oppotunity to do some testing with a rogue friend.

Blink broke stun every single time, out of ~20 tests. It did not however allow me to cast blink while I was under gouge, while stunned or not.

Also found out another interesting tidbit. If a rogue Cheapshots you while you're eating/drinking, you cannot blink because it keeps you sitting down while you're stunned.

Thanks for checking that. And I think the reason why it didn't allow it for gouge was because gouge is actually a disorientation rather than an actual stun? Can you blink from a sap? A sap is just a disorientation too rather than a stun like cheap shot or kidney shot.

Hmm. I didn't make a conscious effort to check for differences between sap/gouge, though I know I was sapped a few times and I think I tried to blink unsuccessfully, but I'm not really sure.

I would assume that they work the same though, for the reason you stated. I would guess the balance reasoning is that if you get knocked out of the "stun" by being hit, then blink is not supposed to work.


Edit: Oh and by the way, the failure message you get when gouged is "You cannot do that while stunned", and for when you're sitting down and stunned, it's "You need to be standing to do that".

That kind of stuff drops from raid level content, not BRS unless you're really lucky (even then I don't know if it does)

Now that people have hit up Molten Core quite a bit, it's clear that the bosses in there drop the same kind of stuff, and they are more farmable than Onyxia (since onyxia is one boss and after that it gets locked for 5 days, but MC has several mini-bosses. As such you can "farm" more items from MC than Onyxia.)

These epic items are starting to show up more in thottbot now that MC is being raided more regularly.

Blues are primarily what drop in BRS. Some bosses drop epics (Rend, for example) but they are very rare, with a <3% drop rate. The raid level bosses seem to drop 2-4 purples every time from the info I've seen. (no personal experience with that kind of stuff, of course but if you watch the conquest videos, several show the drops)

As an aside they have posted that raid loot will be improved shortly:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...p=1#post1340627

or Gouge...CS+SS+Gouge+SS+CB+Evis That leaves 'em unstunned for about 1 sec and that is while waiting for the 35 energy for Evis; I have 25 energy as that's where I sometimes KS. 25 energy = Kick if necessary. If they instacast poly, dommage. Priests I don't mess around with Evis, that's a straight KS, obviously.



Lame? Explain. Enemy = enemy to me provided they're similar level (no more than 2-3 below me; ganking levels considerably lower is lame )



Now, that is lame. I've seen a video where the guy had the full set...he must have a lot of time on his hands.



Wow. That's lamer then ganking in my opinion. Each to his own.

Blinking out of stun seems...strange. My definition of stunned is...stunned, can't do anything etc. Sap, Gouge, and Blind are all disoriented (i'm only 90% about Blind, I very rarely use it)

You may have seen someone in a full set of Shadowcraft, but that doesn't give +10 to energy as a partial completion bonus. The increase in max energy is from the nightslayer set, and I'm fairly confident that nobody has more than one or two pieces of that set since it drops off of Molten Core monsters and Onyxia.

What do you mean by "dommage"?


How is it any different? Attacking someone with low health/mana gives you just the same advantage as being significantly higher level. They basically have no chance to kill you regardless of your skill unless you suck.


And that's precisely the point. I exagerated a bit in what I'll do that in response to; typically they have to really piss me off, usually repeated incidents of lame stuff. But the point remains, when people do lame stuff to me, I'll do whatever I can to do worse to them. Otherwise I try to be cool with horde, despite my friends devoloping factionist hate towards their entire group, I try to focus on individuals.

After extensive testing on my part, I've come to the conclusion that yes, Blink breaks stuns and has always broken stuns. I said it didn't in my mage guide, but I was not entirely correct. That said, I wasn't entirely incorrect, either.

We need to establish, at this point, the distinction between a "stun" and "being stunned". Being stunned is a condition whereby you can't move or activate any button. A "stun" is an attack that inflicts the stunned condition and adds a little blue swirl above the stunned target's head. Without the little blue swirl, it's not a "stun", even if it causes its target to become stunned.

Why did it seem to me that Blink doesn't break stuns? Because, of all the mobs in the game, only one actually has a "stun" attack. Many, many of them, from Defias guys in Elwynn who Snap Kick to Earth Elementals who Knockdown, have attacks that inflict the stunned condition, but which are not technically Stuns. Only the Scarlet Defender in Stratholme has a Stun, which is an exact copy of the Paladin's Hammer of Justice. (The Wracking Pains curse inflicted by the Torturers in BRD might be a second, but it's not really an "attack".)

Hence, Blink will break all Stuns - that is, all the Warrior, Rogue and Paladin attacks as well as the Scarlet Defender's attack. It won't do a damned thing to get you out of stun conditions inflicted in any other way, like 99% of the stunning monsters in the game do. No blue swirl, no blink out. So basically - Blink breaks stuns in PvP. It doesn't in PvE.

French equivalent of "bummer" You learned something new!



When I attack someone with low hp/mana they generally pot in the first place. A low lvl with full hp/mana ≠ same level with low hp/mana. Damage, armor and stats are all different.



Agreed. Getting ganked multiple times by the same person in succesion really pisses me off.

Well I guess it's really just a question of degrees.

What if they can't pot though? What if their pots are still in cooldown? What if they used their last one in the fight just before you jumped them? You can't just assume they'll pot up right after you attack them, especially if they are down on both health and mana. The rejuv pots aren't that good. You just can't tell from looking at them if they've got their pots available.

Edit: This isn't a knock on your choice to play this way. Just because I choose to not attack people when they are low on hitpoints and mana doesn't mean everyone else has to play this way too. I figure if the monsters can do it to me, why not the players? I just wanted to give you something to think about. That's all.

Are you sure he wasn't wearing this set? I happened to be next to a rogue in the AH last night who was wearing the full set. I was actually very impressed with her equipment. All of it was blue (not the color - the quality).

Does she need some prozak?

One of the mobs in the Scarlet Monastery, the Scarlet Crusader IIRC, also uses the Paladin Hammer of Justice. I know this because I would HoJ them right back when they used it on me.

Probably does after that many runs on the BRS

That is defintley a possibility. No way to tell, it was in the WoW forums about a week ago which means it's on page 33 x 10^23



Meh, I personally don't care if they pot or not. I'm just saying that generally people pot after I jump them. I learned long ago it's either gank or be ganked. For instance, I was ganked (twice) by a 41 druid, 38 shaman and 37 rogue yesterday. I was lvl 38 at the time. That's a bit overkill...I still managed to take out the druid at one point when the group had spread out some. I proceeded to get owned by the other two but I felt a little better. I VERY rarely kill someone more than once. Usually only when they do it to me.

More like gank and be ganked. If you play on a PvP server you're going to be ganked a lot regardless of whether you choose to return the favor.

I love a good PvP fight. The thing that bothers me about PvP servers, though, is that the way the game's designed encourages "gank tactics". Winning in PvP is based highly on numbers, level, and situation; only if those are fair then skill plays a significant role. It doesn't bother me when I lose a fight or get ganked, it bothers me that good fights are so rare. Why should I play a PvP server when I can play a PvE and duel people? Dueling at least encourages fair fights. Sure, I can duel on PvP servers, but why put up with being ganked frequenly if it gives me no added benefits? As for group PvP, most group PvP I've run into has been very lopsided. Raids? Too laggy and one person doesn't make a difference.

As for the "PvP when you want it" argument, I find PvP servers discourage this more than encourage it, for people like me. I'd much rather be able to find people who want to fight than enforce fighting on people who just want to grind/quest at the time. Where am I supposed to find people who want to fight? Nobody goes to the arena.

Another thing I dislike about WoW PvP is it's Horde vs Alliance. Not only does this encourage blind factionist hate which I despise, it takes away my freedom of choice. Alliance group camping Gath'llzog trying to take first hit when you were there first and cleared the way up? Too bad. They get first hit and kill it, but one of their members wasn't there so they're gonna do it again? Too bad. Alliance talking smack? Too bad. Horde come up to you, make sure you can see him, wait till you're done fighting a mob and regen, and then fight you fairly? Too bad, you can't communicate with him or group with him. All of this crap just to maintain the Warcraft factions.

I was thinking more along the lines of when I see someone, I generally kill them because by the time they rez, I've moved along so I'm safe from that person. For awhile at least.



I know this is annoyingly overused but I gotta say it. They chose a PvP server, they need to get over it : /



You can't directly communicate, but give him a little /wave or a /bow and 85% of the time, he'll return it and leave you alone. That's my experience. Personally, I NEVER attack someone that has emoted me politely. If they /spit or /rude...it's on

It's only blind factionist hate if you have no compassion at all for the NPCs. Why should the Alliance continue to spend its resources protecting you, training you, and giving you valuable quests if you're so willing to let any member of the Horde who isn't a personal threat to you or someone you know get away with whatever they like? I'm all for games that allow you to play free-form to the point of disaster (and any sort of sane reaction by the NPCs to such treason would be disastrous to your character), but Blizzard seems to like a bit more hand-holding than that.

Perhaps the game should allow you to play as a neutral, where nobody's automatically hostile to you, but you can't do any major-faction specific quests or use most of the non-shop factioned NPCs.

-- frink

Posting here to correct myself: I had previously played the game of Mathcraft, stating why Vigor might not be helpful most of the time. I was wrong.

At level 60 I still was indecisive about what talent to get. My final thought was "well, going 30 points into a tree without going 31 seems like a waste ... let's try it out." I haven't respeced at all, so a bad choice wouldn't cost me much.

Previously I said that Vigor would probably only help when things go wrong - a miss means the extra 10 energy could be used for something. But battles have gotten longer since then (the important battles, anyway), and my Mathcraft skills forgot one talent: Relentless Strikes. Relentless Strikes has been very useful, it gives a 20% chance per combo point of restoring 25 energy after a finisher. 5 points = 25 energy

The true mathcraft, then, has been working like this for me:
I start with 110 Energy. Open with an Ambush, that gives me 50. At this point I'm mostly using Sinister Strike, so I'm rotating between 10, 30, 50. When I get 5 combo points, I hit Eviscerate at 50 energy. That leaves 15 energy + 25 for Relentless Strikes = 40. At 40, you're already ready for another SS


While I'm here, I'd also like to point out what I've seen as a failure by Rogues on the official forums. They constantly debate Mace/Sword vs Dagger, always fighting over using Sinister Strike with a high damage range, slow weapon, or using Dagger with Ambush/Backstab and the talents to help it out.

Each of them rely on the Dagger build having Improved Backstab and Seal Fate. As I've come to find out, this is not necessary at all. First off, it prevents you from getting Improved Sap (which I've mentioned before). Second off, a suprise for the forum goers, Seal Fate works with Sinister Strike. Every mathcraft post I've seen compares a base Sinister Strike with an Improved Backstab/Seal Fate's Backstab. Not one that I've seen has done the math for a Seal Fate Sinister Strike. Sure, you don't get Seal Fate combo points as often. But you do get the guaranteed combo points from Sinister Strike more often.

If anyone has one of the math comparisons of SS vs BS, I'd like to see it to see if we can add in a Seal Fate SS for comparison. I know it's been working pretty well for me.

The way I see it, the longer the battle, the less worthwhile Vigor is.