Saturday 12 March 2011

Rogues in Raids

One of the most popular questions people ask me every day is "Are rogues viable for raids?". This means essentially are rogues good DPS choices for raids at the moment? Can they top the DPS meters in encounters, can they handle trash well? Do they have abilities that are useful in raids? The answer is a resounding YES to all of these.

Rogues are one of the best Melee DPS classes in the game currently if played well. With the right gear optimisation, rotation and build your rogue could easily be the top of every single DPS meter in any group or raid. What's even better about this is that rogues are still one of the most underplayed classes in the game with just 6% of all players having a rogue as their main toon. This means that rogues are not only extremely powerful characters but also very much in demand in many raiding guilds at the moment.

There are usually spots free in raids for rogues when looking for a PuG (Pick up Group) as well as rogue vacancies in many top raiding guilds. Not only this, but rogues (unlike casters) have very little competition for loot. Rogues share their armour drops with feral druids alone which are themselves usually very hard to come by. At most you will find yourself in a group with one feral druid tank and it's extremely unlikely there will be a feral cat DPS there. On top of this, Rogue loot drops very frequently! Combine these factors together and you will quickly find your rogue is not only wanted by most raiding guilds but you can also gear her/him up extremely quickly making you eligible for higher standard progress guilds too.

If that wasn't enough to tickle your tastebuds, rogues are also one of the few lucky classes to get 4 Epic quality Bind on Equip drops from raid trash which include a Dagger, Head, Thrown and Trinket. That means you can get most of your epics without even touching a raid boss at all allowing your rogue to become extremely desirable for many guilds quickly and easily.

Now all you have to do is make sure you are completely raid ready as a rogue and you are well on your way to becoming the best DPS in your guild.

Sunday 27 February 2011

Rogues

Before getting your teeth into a good rogue raiding guide you first need to learn the basics about the Rogue class. Rogues are a solid DPS class which means their job in dungeons and raids is to deal massive amount of damage. The term DPS is an acronym for Damage per Second and this is how rogues measure how well they doing in terms of damage versus other classes. Rogues are one of the most powerful damage dealers in the game with some very interesting and fun abilities at their disposal.

When dealing damage, Rogues use a selection of "Combo Point generators" such as Sinister Strike or Mutilate on their target. These are abilities that not only deal damage to your target but also apply one or more combo points. These combo points can then be used (removing them from your target) by using a "combo point finisher". These finishing moves do more damage the higher the number of combo points you have on your target. You can stack up to a maximum of 5 combo points at any one time and this will give you the best damage from your finishers.

Each rogue ability also uses something called Energy. Energy is depicted in the game by a yellow bar underneath your health bar. You can have a maximum of 100 energy at a time and when used it naturally begins to refill back up to 100. Stacking haste can improve the speed as which your energy refills allowing you to use more abilities more often. Nearly all rogue abilities require energy to use them.

Rogues can also do many fun things in the game that other classes cannot do. For example, rogues can Pick Pocket humanoid mobs to gain extra loot from them, even looting Epic Quality rogue weapons that you can either keep for yourself or sell! In addition, rogues can open locked boxes and treasure chests found in loot or around the world itself giving them access to even more loot and goodies.

Rogues also have the ability to Vanish from sight allowing them to quickly drop enemy creatures when they get into trouble or to Stealth past creatures they do not want to fight. Rogues even get the chance to earn Exalted with a faction that no other class can have!

Rogues overall can be a very rewarding experience for any player and they can be used effectively in a variety of situations such as questing, PVP (battlegrounds and arena), dungeons runs and raids. There really isn't anything a rogue cannot master in the game whereas other classes may struggle in different situations.