The Rogue Compendium is the collective work of our class community in Season of Discovery, primarily via conversation and log/sim analysis on Simonize's Discord. The goal of this tool is to help educate Rogues of all skill levels and elevate their performance in a raid environment.
The "đź’¦" icon emphasizes a sweaty tip that most players won't bother with, but may improve your performance if it meshes with your raid environment.
Review this spreadsheet which compares all the specs at different lengths and includes Carnage / Cut to the Chase variations of each spec to help you make more informed decisions. All simulations use Comfy's APLs, providing casual and sweaty variants.
Simulations for the larger, more casual crowd. These are very attainable, do not require any professions, and are more forgiving to mistakes in gameplay with average kill times.
Simulations for the smaller, more hardcore crowd. These requires strict planning, best professions, full consume coverage, near perfect performance, and fast kill times.
Simulations for the larger, more casual crowd. Note, Backstab leverages Sebacious Poison, while Mutilate and Saber Slash require manual casting of Expose Armor.
Simulations for fresh Phase 5 gearing for optimal play going into the phase. Sims shown at 60s for the majority crowd.
Bogling Root đź’¦
Chronoboom Displacer
Dragonbreath Chili
Elemental Sharpening Stone
Elixir of Coalesced Regret đź’¦
Elixir of Fortitude
Elixir of Greater Firepower đź’¦
Elixir of Superior Defense đź’¦
Elixir of Poison Resistance đź’¦
Elixir of the Mongoose
Flask of Supreme Power
Free Action Potion
Goblin Land Mine đź’¦
Greater Arcane Elixir đź’¦
Greater Fire Protection Potion
Greater Frost Protection Potion
Greater Nature Protection Potion
Greater Shadow Protection Potion
Ground Scorpok Assay
Hourglass Sand
Juju Might or Winterfall Firewater
Juju Power or Elixir of Giants
Limited Invulnerability Potion
Magic Resistance Potion
Mighty Troll's Blood Potion đź’¦
Mildly Irradiated Rejuvenation Potion đź’¦
Poisons
Restorative Potion
R.O.I.D.S.
Rumsey Rum Black Label
Smoked Desert Dumplings
Snowball đź’¦
Target Dummy đź’¦
Thistle Tea
Dire Maul Tribute:
Fengus, Slip’kik, Mol’darÂ
Demonic Pact
Battle Shout
Heart of the Lion
Improved Mark of the Wild
Leader of the Pack
Strength of Air Totem [H] or
Horn of Lordaeron [A]
Strength of Earth Totem [H] or Blessing of Might [A]
Curse of Recklessness
Dreamstate or Stormstrike [H]
Faerie Fire
Gift of Arthas
Improved Expose Armor
Improved Scorch
Mangle
Mark of Chaos
Occult Poison
Phase 5 finally allows Rogues to leverage Sebacious Poison via Backstab specs. I highly recommend everyone just play Backstab when on IEA duty once you have the gear for it. Until then, or if you just prefer Muti or SSL, refer to the IEA section of the P4 Compendium on the proper way to handle IEA.
Unlike Molten Core, BWL doesn't have full AOE encounters, rather just moments of opportunity to cast Crimson Tempest. As such, simply work this into your normal rotations where you see the opportunity for multiple mobs to live more than 12s.
While we try to provide as much information as possible, nothing will benefit you more than learning how to use the WowSims tool. It's extremely important to understand that DPS improvements are relative to your current gear, raid comp, etc.
Raid stacks on affected player to share damage.
Run out and drop poison pools away from raid.
Ticking damage until directly healed above 90% HP.
Movement speed increases and decreases at random.
Burn down Controller & adds.
Kill adds on your side of the room.
Restealth before you engage Razorgore.
When Razorgore becomes active, pop a [Free Action Potion] and burn the boss.
Kill drake when it spawns, avoid bad things on ground.
Insane energy regen - go hard.
Run to opposite side of boss with Burning Adrenaline.
Leverage [Healthstone] since you won't need [Thistle Tea].
Highest threat w/ Burning Adrenaline is rooted into place.
This should be the Tank anyways, so not really an issue.
Avoid Lightning traps, disarm other traps up to boss corner.
Face back to wall for knockback.
Leverage Vanish or [Limited Invulnerability Potion] for aggro issues. Tanks reset threat often.
Follow Tank when boss teleports, avoiding traps.
Most groups will bring the Boss into a cubby down the hallway to shorten the required distance after teleport.
Let Tank approach first, then kill boss.
Saving Vanish for when you approach for a threat reset and MoS opener is good.
Pre-Pot [Greater Fire Protection Potion] and [Greater Nature Protection Potion].
Pop another GFPP once the first wears off.
Wear an [Onyxia Scale Cloak] and Fire Resist gear.
Stand max melee range to avoid static damage from Tank.
If Flame Buffet stacks get too high, LoS boss until it falls off.
Stacking static debuff every time you take ANY damage, which pulses damage at 10 stacks.
Run out at 7-8 stacks (within LoS), let the 10th stack apply and pulse, then back to boss.
Boss casts AOE damage every 30s, causing additional static debuff stacks.
Wear an [Onyxia Scale Cloak].
Fight both bosses at once.
Brand of Flame and Brand of Shadow debuffs require spreading bosses and swapping at 3 stacks of each.
Stronger raids will opt to stack the two bosses and cleave them down before stacks cause a wipe. đź’¦
If you have the Stop debuff, stop moving.
If you have the Go debuff, keep moving.
Currently, you must press "W" or "S" to avoid taking damage.
Pre-pot a [Greater Frost Protection Potion].
Threat can be a real issue. Leverage Vanish and [Limited Invulnerability Potion] where needed.
During Frost Burn, use another [Greater Frost Protection Potion] after yours falls off.
Use [Hourglass Sand] to remove Bronze Affliction.
LoS all breaths except Time Lapse.
Boss will do all five breaths in quick succession between normal breaths.
Boss will "Fetch" a random player and hold them for a few seconds.
At 50%, boss will Roll Over. Spread out and dodge falling rocks.
Wear [Onyxia Scale Cloak].
Kill adds on your side.
DPS Nefarian when he lands.
Probably just burn boss, but Raid Lead might ask you to help with adds.
Rogue call teleports you to boss and roots. Tank should shift boss.
Class weapons are dropped during each class call. Just move away from them.
When can I swap to Backstab?
The general timeframe of when Backstab will pull ahead is around 2-3p ZG and 4p T2. However there are too many variables for a definitive answer, so you should sim yourself regularly to determine when that time is for you.
Which professions are BiS?
For most, Alchemy and Engineering (Please be careful with the Alchemy potion, as you take 100% physical, nature, shadow damage while it's active). Leatherworking for sweaty Muti Rogues for the helm.đź’¦
Where are the AOE specs?
BWL doesn't have any encounters which justify the usage of specific AOE builds, since there is only one encounter which has more than one mob that doesn't die very quickly (Ebonroc and Flamegor). Just use Crimson Tempest instead of Rupture in AOE situations.
Which spec is Pre-BiS at the start of Phase 5?
Saber Slash with Sinister Strike weaving is the best performing at the start of P5. Be sure to run sims regularly to determine when it's more DPS to swap to your new spec.
Does Spell Power affect poisons?
No, spell power only affects damage from Dragonbreath Chili.
Warriors tell me I need to run Improved Expose Armor??
Yes, one Rogue in raid should run IEA, as the armor reduction is higher than any other class in the game. Preferably, this would be handled by a Rogue Tank, but falls to DPS if no other option.Â
How can I improve my damage?
Get comfortable using the Simulator. It's your best friend.
The awesome Rogue community over on The Simonize Show Discord. Special shoutout to Ra and Simonize for the hard work they do.
Updated BiS food consumable from Grilled Squid to Smoked Desert Dumplings. Added Elixir of Poison Resistance to consumable list for sweaty Chromag.
Updated IEA and Pre-BiS sims based on rewritten Comfy IEA APLs.
Updated BiS and Sweaty BiS based on updates to Combat Backstab using CT over Rupture as primary bleed.
Updated BiS and added Sweaty BiS with new simulation values based on Comfy's updated APLs.
Adjusted sim values based on updated sim modeling for Venomous Totem. This dropped value of Muti by a little.
Fixed a couple Black Trial inaccuracies, based on logs.
Minor improvements to BWL strats.
Added Weakauras and FAQ regarding when folks should expect Backstab to outperform SSL.
Improvements to BWL strats.
Simplified talents section to show less recommendations (use the spreadsheet for more detail).
Adjusted world buffs.
Removed ZG. Added BWL guides.
Re-calculated simulation values for all Backstab builds to reflect the 10% Cutthroat rune nerf.
Added initial FAQs and update supporting imagery.