The goal of this guide is to allow a rogue player to quickly put together a team and break 2000 in whatever bracket he plays in. I am a strong believer that 60% of an arena match is determined before the gate opens. Class make-up, gear, racial, spec and teammates play as big a factor as actual coordination and execution.



The best example of this is Neilyo, the highest rated arena rogue in the world. It wasn't very long ago he was considered one of the best skilled rogues without an elite team. He played 30031 with a weak class combo and did reasonably well. Shortly after he went 41/20, started playing with some of the best players in the game, his 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 all started using top tier rogue combos, suddenly he was over 2400 in all three brackets. Some of it is because of BG9's liquidity allowing teams to get higher ratings than they could in other BGs, but as much as he grew as a player, class make-up, gear and spec are just as important, and will be the focus of this guide.



The limited mobility of the rogue class, and the fact that none of the top tier rogue teams involve a warrior, mean for the most part you will be sticking to the primary target the entire time if just to stack wound poison on him. Our class simply doesn't switch target anywhere near as often as say, a mage or priest. As a result I personally believe a classic team like rogue, mage and priest put significantly more weight on the other two player's capabilities. This isn't to say a well-timed blind or vanish sap off a full sheep/fear can't win the game, or you shouldn't be kicking healers that are close to you or shiv cripple people that run past you, I just feel the quality of healers mean significantly more than the quality of DPS.



I won't be covering gear as I feel it is too easy to obtain in TBC. A 1900 5v5 team will get full S2 gear just fine. BG honor takes care of rest of your slots. There is just no excuse to be undergeared in TBC as the stats between top arena rogues are miniscule at best. Unless of course you are Zerix, whose PVP gear has 11K HP, 2100 AP, 150 resilience, 150 hit, 30% crit, and . . . Illidan twin blades.



Arena 101:



(Almost) always kill a DPS first, control the healer.



There are exceptions to every rule, but most players new to arena play will go a long way if they followed this rule faithfully. This is especially true as a rogue team, as whatever target you are on will lose a lot of effectiveness against your stunlocks and interrupts. Even against warrior teams more often than not you have to kill the warrior, and if your team lacks the DPS to do so, you probably won't win the match-up.



Talent Specs:



Combat mace and combat mutilate are the top two specs. Even mutilate heroes like Nitrana and Neilyo admitted that combat mace is a little better in most situations, however mutilate is far more enjoyable to play and it does perform better if you are with a mage. Combat mace is far easier to play and doesn't require as much coordination with your teammates and I recommend it for newer players. With mutilate, the margin of error is much lower as the spec is heavily reliant on your ability to coordinate that full energy kidney shot -> CB mutilate with your teammate's burst combo to finish someone off while his healer is CCed.



In any case, top mutilate rogues are pretty much universally 41/20. The extra root breaker with improved sprint and roughly 10% higher overall DPS over the subtlety version make it the standard mutilate spec. Although everyone have slightly different assassination fillers.



Combat mace can go anywhere from 16/45 to 20/41, although 19/42 is the most popular variant. There is no right or wrong filler choices. Most combat mace rogues dropped riposte in favor of other combat talents, I personally find myself playing against too many rogue teams in 3v3 and my 3v3 strategy always involves focusing on the other rogue. 5 parry, 3 dodge and riposte makes a huge difference against combat rogues without these talents. Again, your mileage may vary.



Xecks's 1942：http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=foebRxZGcV0rVt0bhRt

Neilyo 's 4120：http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhe0oxTsizVohhVbbV



2v2:



Top Tier: Rogue/Restoration Druid, Rogue/Priest (Both holy and shadow), Rogue/Soullink-Siphon Warlock

Second Tier: Rogue/Ice Mage, Rogue/Paladin



Rogue/healer vs warrior/healer is pretty much impossible when gear/skill are equal. Warrior is with either paladin or restoration druid. If you go after either healer, between hamstring spam, mace stun, stun proc from skillherald, and of course, the lovely 15 second intercept, his healer can kite you with ease. Not to mention paladin and restoration druids are hard to kill as it is.



If you are with a holy priest you may as well AFK against top warrior/healer teams. With restoration druid you can open up on warrior while the druid lock down the paladin with "cheapshot" into "gouge" into cyclone. Once cyclone is on diminishing returns you can get on the paladin to stop his healing and buy time for your druid's cyclone to recycle. If the paladin bubbles or uses blessing of protection on the warrior, you cyclone the warrior to deny his heals. This strategy works to a degree but the margin of error favors the warrior/paladin team by far. Basically if the warrior gets healed to full even once you lose.



In season 1 and early season 2 for that matter rogue/healer used to beat lock/healer. However the majority of the 2v2 locks switched to the dreaded 27/34 drain spec, and coupled with a paladin or druid, and of course huge increase in resilience, this fight for rogue/healer is almost as tough as warrior/paladin. You can't kill the warlock until their healer is out of mana but he is going to send his felhunter on your healer which means your healer never gets to drink. All of his offensive capabilities are instant so other than kidney shot and mace stuns, you can't stop his damage. There is always the lovely curse of exhaustion kiting as both paladin and druid can remove your snares. Even if you dispel freedom/abolish poison once the warlock gets distance, outside of sprint we just can't catch-up.



This is why a lot of the top 2v2 rogues switched to double DPS teams like rogue/shadow priest or rogue/life drain warlock. Both classes have more lasting power than the classic rogue/ice mage. 27/34 warlock is the best 1v1 class in the game which means if you can cancel out their other player with your rogue, you usually have an easy win. The shadow priest offers double buff/debuff removal and limited healer once you do drop a player, fear into silence into blind is a very nasty chain of CC's. Even if your primary target is not dead by then, the rogue can usually get on the healer while the shadow priest finish the DPS off.



With double DPS you have significantly better chance to bring someone down before the rogue uses up all of his cooldowns. I enjoy playing with restoration druids but I accepted the fact that he is much better off with classes that are made for outlasting.



Next Entry: 3v3 and 5v5