Raid Sub Build

 What is Raid Sub spec?

This build uses the a full commitment to the Subtlety tree to provide the best buffs to the raid that a rogue can provide.  Improved Expose Armor, and Hemorrhage with Bloody Mess.  In addition it provides several incredibly powerful group buffs further buffing your self and the 5 members of your specific raid group.  It provides Mark for Death, Tricks of the Trade, and can provide move speed, damage reduction, HP shields, and miss chance to the boss, the last 3 are very niche and I suggest skipping them but they are available.

So it's a support spec that does bad damage right?

No.  Don't be fooled.  When mastered this spec can bust out insane DPS.  Shadow of Death, with Mark for Death and Trinket usage when raid buffed can hit for over 13,000 damage.  That is not a typo, this spell when abused can do wrath of the lich king type damage.  Look at this meter from a recent patchwerk.


1759 damage per second sustained over 1m 43seconds.
This isn't like some crazy record parse, other rogue builds CAN do more damage than this, but they all provide 0 raid benefit.  No buffs to party, no buffs to raid.  Meanwhile this build busted a huge amount of damage on the boss while providing some of the best buffs in the game.  It's honestly not close, the first rogue in each raid to go to this spec is simply doing MORE than the other rogues to get the boss dead, and its possible when played well to compete for top damage in this build too.


IEA?

Improved Expose Armor often called IEA is a buff that rogues can apply using the spell expose armor, with the talent Improved Expose Armor.  When cast it removes boss armor, making all physical attacks do more damage.  However expose armor does not stack with sunder armor from warriors.  ONLY 5 point expose armor with the talent is better.  If you do not have the talent IEA, do not ever press expose.  If you do not have 5 combo points don't ever press expose armor.

If it has so many draw backs why would I bother?

When IEA is cast at 5 combo points it provides more armor removal than sunder armor.  Making the raid physical damage go up from 5-10%.  Providing a 10% damage boost to the entire physical damage of the raid is an insane buff.  Many times I have ran the math and the damage it provides is worth around 1.5-2 rogues worth of damage by it self.  EVERY RAID should have an IEA rogue, deploying the buff quickly on bosses, and never letting it drop.  THIS is the best build to provide that by far.

Hemo?

In the Sub tree you can talent into a new combo builder called Hemorrhage which in Turtle WoW provides a 2% increase to all physical damage the target takes for 50 hits.  When talented with Bloody Mess the bonus doubles to 4%, and the cost of this spell becomes cheap.

Hemo and IEA Provides nearly 15% physical damage boost to your entire raid.   Every raid should have 1 rogue using this spec.

Unfortunately Hemo and IEA rogues don't stack all too well, a 2nd rogue doing IEA doesn't do anything for you, and one rogue spamming Hemo provides good uptime, a 2nd rogue spamming it only increases the uptime a little.  So generally speaking each raid should have 1 or 2 rogues at most running this build.

Ok what is the talents?



I suggest running a talent build like this.

Game Plan

  • Keep up Slice and Dice on 1 combo point.
  • Keep up Expose Armor on 5 combo points.
  • Keep up Rupture on 5 combo points.
  • Use Thistle Tea to get to 3 combo points and use Mark for Death to get to 5, then cast Shadow of Death for huge burst nuke.


Rotation

To play the build is the most complicated of all the rogue builds, but don't worry you will master it quickly with some effort.

  1. Use stealth and sneak up to the boss where possible.  Garrote is cheap and will provide 2 combo points.  If you have K40 set bonus you'll get haste for opening as well.  Alternatively if the boss can't be bled or AOE's while you approach, go to step 2.
  2. Cast Slice and Dice on any amount of combo points (1 or 2).
  3. Cast Hemo until 5 combo points.
  4. Cast Expose Armor 5 points.
  5. Cast Slice and Dice 1 point.
  6. Cast Hemo until 5 combo points.
  7. Cast Rupture 5 points.
  8. Cast Slice and Dice 1 point.
  9. Go back to 3 or commit to a casting a damage burst.

Damage Burst?

Yes you can stop the cycle of slice > Expose > slice > Rupture, to do 3 combo points press Mark for Death to go to 5 and get an attack power boost, then press shadow of death.  You can even use preparation to reset and do it again in a fight.  Alternatively you can do 5 combos and eviscerate if shadow is on cooldown.  Shadow of Death when used right is a HUGE damage nuke.  That said, when you stop your rotation to do this you are gambling that you will be able to get back to the next expose before it expires.

Gambling?

Yes, the K40 set bonus provides a random chance to gain combo points, you can also use vanish and garrote to get more combo points for cheap (garrote gives 2 since we have talents). You can also use Thistle Tea to go from 0 to 100 energy.  You even have preparation to let you use vanish a 2nd time in a fight.  So to play this spec to its maximum you need to pay attention and get in as many of these bursts as you can without letting expose or rupture or slice and dice fall off.  If your gear and experience is worse just practice and wait as you gear up.  You can also try using the 0.5 dungeon set bonus for energy gains.

Poison

Dissolvent Poison II is quite good and gets a boost from Taste for Blood, but you can also try Deadly and Corrosive mix and see what does more for you depending on luck and fight length.

Gear

Gearing is fairly simple, most of our damage comes from Shadow of Death which needs ONLY attack power, so attack power and agility are king.  A bulk of our damage is white auto attack damage amplified by taste for blood and slice and dice, so getting +15 weapon skill is great.  A quest exists on Frey island to give you +5 to all weapon types.  I believe the BIS gear is full K40 set, and mostly K40 off set pieces to fill in the gaps.  That said T3 4pc set is decent.

Take a look at the AQ20 set bonus, the Dark Mantle set bonus, and the T3 4th set bonus.

Weapons

Hemo uses your main hand weapon damage with a 10% boost.  So a slow main hand will result in significantly more damage than a fast main hand.  The type is irrelevant.  Just get the slowest highest DPS weapon you can get access too.  The current BIS is the hammer from K40, but gressil and THC from kel'thuzad are also very good.

Add Ons

Tracking your debuffs and buffs is critical so you can time things well (we don't want to overwrite a buff that has 10 seconds left on it, thats throwing those 10 seconds away!)  Try this add on : 

https://github.com/Carravan/Lateral


Macros

Many macros can be useful, I like having a startattack command on all of my major buttons so if I am pressing hemo and my target dies, it will select another target for me and hemo that target for example.  You might also look into a macro for expose armor that makes it impossible to cast it by accident at less than 5 combo points.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Common Problem Trash in Kara 40

 The first problem trash mob you will run into is the  Shadowclaw Darkbringer .  He is a werewolf in a black tattered and hooded shirt.  The problem is that if left alive long enough he will cast this spell. Call of Darkness 160 mana 50 yd range 5 sec cast 14 sec cooldown Hurls missiles of dark magic, inflicting 12000 Shadow damage to nearby enemies. This spell will kill the entire raid if cast. Thankfully you can interrupt the cast however there is another problem.  Before casting call of darkness, he will cast either Veil of Karazhan or Veil of Vorgendor, one provides him a blue shell that makes him immune to physical damage including immune to pummel and kick type abilities.  The other provides him a green shell that makes him immune to magic like earth shock and counter spell. So if he casts Veil of Karazhan then begins to cast Call of Darkness a mage or shaman must wait until he begins to cast Call of Darkness and interrupt with counter spell or earth ...
Read more