PVE Combat spec guide

[bloodmist]

About Combat

Combat is the mainstay Rogue PVE talent tree. The spec of choice in both Classic and the Burning Crusade, Combat has spent much of WoW’s lifetime as the prominent (and dominant) spec choice for Rogues. With the advent of WotLK, Combat has seen fair competition rise up from within the Assassination tree in the form of viable Mutilate builds; still, Combat remains a strong option in PVE, offering greater or equal DPS to other specs. The greatest asset Combat holds over Mutilate is its access to on-demand burst in the form of multiple strong cooldowns, which can result in massive DPS boosts when coupled with other external buffs.

Combat sees generally less use in PVP than Mutilate or Subtlety builds due to poor sustained (PVP) damage and inferior burst in most situations (Killing Spree on even two targets dramatically cuts down the strength of the ability).

This guide focuses exclusively on PVE Combat.

[bloodmist]

I. The Spec

Currently, there is ONE viable Combat spec:

20/51/0: www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhg00tLZMgVo0cxqru0xRt:kNh

With the 3.3 Deadly Poison change, Instant Poison is now hands-down the best choice of poison for all specs MH. This is currently the best spec for making use of Instant as Combat, awkward though some of the point allotment may appear.

If you are at a point where you might still consider using Rupture (it won't be hard to gear yourself past that point with 3.3), move the points in Improved Eviscerate to Blood Spatter (2/2) and Ruthlessness (3/3).

II. The Glyphs

For sustained damage, the following Glyphs are optimal:

Glyph of Sinister Strike
Glyph of Killing Spree
Glyph of Eviscerate

Glyph of Tricks of the Trade can be competitive if you trade Tricks with another Rogue regularly, and you're both willing to glyph for it – the best glyph to replace in this case is Eviscerate.

Use Glyph of Rupture in place of Eviscerate until you are using an Eviscerate-Only cycle.

For fights with significant AoE, replace Rupture/Eviscerate with Glyph of Fan of Knives.

[bloodmist]

III. The Weapons

-Speeds
--Main Hand: Slow
--Off Hand: Fast

The biggest differentiation between Mutilate and Combat is the weapon choice. While Mutilate is only compatible with Daggers, Combat can make use the plethora of melee weapons Rogues have at their disposal.

The Combat trees various “weapon specialization”; talents break down the available weapon choices into three groups:

Close Quarters Combat (CQC): Fist Weapons and Daggers
Hack and Slash (HnS): Swords and Axes
Mace Specialization: Maces

While which path you chose to take can be a matter of personal preference, it is generally advisable to let what weapons you have acquired dictate your choice of “weapon spec.” It’s a bad idea to stubbornly use your two Maces when you have a significantly better pair of Swords sitting in your bank, for example; such practice only hurts your DPS, and makes you less valuable to your raid. As a Combat Rogue, you should roll on every usable melee weapon that is an upgrade. Again, don’t pass on a weapon just because it doesn’t belong to the “weapon specialization”; you’re using now; your spec is only as good as the gear you have to fuel it.

Let’s look at Sinister Strike, the Combat combo point builder:




Sinister Strike is essentially a Main Hand swing that you get a combo point for, and that in turn costs Energy. Because the Energy cost is fixed, you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck by using a slow Main Hand weapon to maximize the damage done by each Sinister Strike.

The Off Hand a key part of your Combat DPS due to the talent Combat Potency, which has a chance to give you Energy every time your Off Hand auto attack hits. Faster weapons allow for more frequent auto attacks, obviously, meaning that faster Off Hand choices will generate more Energy in a given duration.

IV. The Poisons

-Poisons
--Main Hand: Instant
--Off Hand: Deadly

Poisons are a prominent part of Rogue DPS for any spec; without them, one loses a significant amount of damage.

Following the change to Deadly Poison, consider that both Instant and Wound Poisons have a much higher chance to proc - about 50% more, actually. Because of this massive buff, Instant Poison is now the MH poison of choice using the above spec to maximize it's effect.

Deadly Poison is typically the Off Hand poison of choice. The strong scaling with AP coupled with the lack of PPM mechanics (Deadly Poison has a fixed proc rate regardless of weapon speed) make it an ideal candidate for faster Off Hand weapons. Add to this the new functionality (proccing the MH poison at five stacks), and you have a poison that's rough to go without.

V. The Cycle

Combat cycles used to be fairly static, but changes to the game have made it less feasible to retain such unmoving cycles. Aldriana has coined terminology to describe the three cycles he currently believes have some viability:

High Rupture: At especially low gear levels, it may be prudent to prioritize Rupture above all else. In a traditional format, you might look at this cycle as 5r/3s, though your mileage may vary. Basically, you goal is to keep Rupture up 100% of the time, and Slice and Dice (SnD) otherwise when it does not interfere with your Rupture.

Thus for High Rupture, we have the priority:

Rupture > Slice and Dice

All Ruptures should be at 5 Combo Points.

Low Rupture: Closest to the traditional 3s/5r/5e, Low Rupture prioritizes Slice and Dice ahead of Rupture, but certainly still uses Rupture. Your target is ~70-80% Rupture uptime, and 100% SnD uptime. Never let SnD fall off. Eviscerate at as many Combo Points you feel you can get while having enough time to build CPs for SnD/Rupture.

So, for Low Rupture, we have the priority:

Slice and Dice > Rupture > Eviscerate

All Ruptures should be at 5 Combo Points.

Eviscerate-Only: At some gear level, you will find that swapping glyphs and talents to buff your Eviscerate further will improve your DPS beyond that of a Rupture cycle. At this point, your cycle becomes incredibly simple: build to 5 Combo Points, refresh SnD at any amount of Combo Points if it's about to fall off (less than 2 seconds left), and otherwise Eviscerate when you've reached 5 Combo Points.

Eviscerate-Only cycles use the priority:

Slice and Dice > Eviscerate

All Eviscerate should be at 5 Combo Points.

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VI. The Stats

The most fun part of character progression is making sure you’ve hit all your caps; unfortunately(?) for Combat Rogues, however, you have only one cap to focus on, and that is:

-HIT RATING

There are three categories affected by Hit Rating that pertain to the Rogue class (these numbers assume 5/5 Precision):

Yellow Hit (Abilities)
99 Hit Rating to cap
66 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
99 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
66 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

Spell Hit (Poisons)
315 Hit Rating to cap
288 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
237 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
210 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

White Hit (Auto Attack)
722 Hit Rating to cap
689 Hit Rating to cap with Heroic Presence
722 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target
689 Hit Rating to cap on a Raid Debuffed* target with Heroic Presence

*Raid Debuffs affecting Hit include Improved Faerie Fire (Balance Druid) and Misery (Shadow Priest). These debuffs provide the same benefit but do not stack.

The important two are the Yellow Hit and Spell Hit caps. Beyond those two, stacking hit (that is, to the White Hit cap) is a bad idea; the DPS gained from the extra auto attack hits will be far outweighed by the DPS lost from not stacking AP or Agility. Also note that it’s fair to assume that you’ll always have at least one Boomkin or SPriest, as well as a Draenei (if you’re Alliance), in the raid; as such, it is not advised to gem for Hit above the “raid” Spell Hit cap for your faction.

-ATTACK POWER (AP)

This is the bread-and-butter stat for a Combat Rogue. Once you’ve reached your Hit cap, this is the go-to stat before you've obtained four pieces of Tier 8. Attack Power is cool! It makes you hit stuff harder, and hitting stuff harder is good. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Stacking AP over Agility is advised at lower gear levels, due to the nifty talent Savage Combat, which gives you four percent (4%) more Attack Power. As Attack Power gems give twice the amount of AP as Agility gems, AP is the advisable course to take when gemming lower-end gear to best maximize the benefit of the talent.

-AGILITY

A pretty cool stat itself, Agility (Agi) increases a whole bunch of your stats per point, including:
- 1 Attack Power
- 0.02% Critical Strike Chance
- 2 Armor
- Some Dodge Chance

The Critical Strike Chance does not initially make up for the lack a second point of AP (the exception being four-piece Tier 8) when considering DPS only; from a min-maxing perspective, two (2) AP (rather than one (1) Agility) gives a superior increase to DPS at lower gear levels, especially as Combat (due to the Savage Combat talent).

By the time you've reached four pieces of Tier 9, however, it again becomes initially unclear whether AP or Agility is better. As it turns out, however, Agiltiy remains the superior choice post-T8, as the benefit of the Critical Strike chance given by one point of Agility is increased by every point of AP you have; that is, at some point, you will have enough AP such that the crit you get from Agility will outweigh the second point of AP you've lost.

Exactly where this breaking point is unclearly, largely because the four-piece Tier 8 bonus greatly inflates the value of Agility prior to this breaking point. It is reasonably safe to say, though, that at and after four-piece Tier 8, you should gem Agility.

Also worth noting is that Agility does a fair amount to increase your survivability; at lower gear levels, you might consider gemming Agility over AP for the extra dodge chance and armor, but gemming AP will still yield (slightly) higher DPS prior to four-piece Tier 8.

-ARMOR PENETRATION

To give a fast and flawed description of its function, Armor Penetration increases the amount of enemy armor ignored by your non-Bleed attacks. Opposite of Haste, each point of Armor Penetration Rating is better than the one before it, since it increases the chance to do whatever crazy thing it does. Eviscerate Combat benefits most greatly from ArP, since the vast majority of damage you deal will be physical (poison damage isn’t mitigated by Armor to begin with).

The difference between stacking ArP and AP or Agi in Tier 7 or Tier 8 isn’t that huge; in Tier 7, it’s likely negligible, and in Tier 8, the difference is negligible. The big jump comes in Tier 9, where lots (most) of the gear you’re come across has ArP on it, making hitting the ArP cap not only possible, but easy.

ArP is capped (understandably) at one hundred percent (100%), which equates to 1400 Armor Penetration Rating. Should you choose to use the Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone trinkets (using them together is inadvisable), you should gem and gear to not exceed the ArP cap when the trinket proc is active.

Post 3.2.2, stacking Armor Penetration to reach the soft cap in Tier 9 gear is slightly less desirable than before. Setups using a Grim Toll or Mjolnir Runestone and pushing to the soft cap (that is, having enough Armor Penetration so that you're are just at the ArP cap when the trinket proc is active) is now much more desirable - about 20 DPS behind a full BiS setup using all Armor Penetration gems and two Death's Choices.

-CRITICAL STRIKE RATING

Critical Strikes are always fun – those big numbers light up anyone’s evening. Stacking Critical Strike (Crit) rating isn’t actually the best idea though, as the DPS it gives tends to be inferior to, say, Attack Power or Agility. Still, when you come across the odd Yellow Socket, if the socket bonus does anything to boost your DPS, the best option is almost always to socket it with an Orange gem – AP/Crit or Agi/Crit, depending on where your gear is at.

-HASTE

Haste is a very “meh” (someone else’s word) stat. The only real function it serves is to decrease the time between auto attack swings, as Rogues mostly operate on a one (1) second Global Cooldown to begin with. A fair amount of Physical DPS gear ends up with Haste on it, and it’s not something you should make a special effort to avoid.

Haste is inferior to certain stats (see Attack Power, Agility), and can be especially bad at low gear levels. As your gear improves, however, the value of the Energy provided by Haste (through Combat Potency) begins to increase, and Haste will begin to outclass Crit Rating as the secondary stat of choice.

Worth noting is that each point of Haste Rating is less valuable than the one before, as the percentage decrease in swing time per point of Haste itself decreases as you gain more Haste – if that all makes any sense.

-EXPERTISE

Expertise is far from a strong stat for Combat Rogues. The talent Surprise Attacks makes your finishing moves unmitigatable – with enough Hit Rating, they will always land. This tends to diminish severely the value of Expertise, as it only affects Sinister Strike and auto attack. It is inadvisable to go out of your way for Expertise, but it can still provide a minor DPS benefit to you (especially at higher gear levels).

At the end of the day, Expertise will do less to help your DPS than an equivalent amount of AP or Agility. You get 10 free from Weapon Expertise; you’ll be fine without more.

For reference, the dodge Expertise cap is 26 Expertise, or 214 Expertise Rating.







For quick rule-of-thumb guesstimations, use the following to determine what’s better:

AP = Agi > Yellow Hit > ArP > Spell Hit > Crit = Expertise > Haste > White Hit

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VII. The Cooldowns

What most differentiates Combat from Mutilate is access to on-demand burst in the form of multiple strong cooldowns, which can result in massive DPS boosts when coupled with other external buffs. Combats cooldowns are unique and kind of awesome; still, they all function in a very specific way, and knowing the details may prove to further increase your DPS.

For all cooldowns, using them earlier is generally better; multiple uses of CDs throughout a fight only serves to increase your DPS. Another smart rule of thumb is to use them with Bloodlust/Heroism whenever possible.

Killing Spree

A beast of a skill with all sorts of fun uses and bugs, Killing Spree is the “staple” Combat cooldown in WotLK.

How It Works: As the skill description states, Killing Spree lasts for 2.5 seconds, and will teleport you to a target within 10 yards of you and strike with both weapons every 0.5 seconds, for a total of 5 strikes. A 20% damage bonus is applied for the duration, but you cannot use any other abilities while Killing Spree-ing; thus, the only things other than Killing Spree that receives this buff are auto attack and poison procs.

Who It Targets: The targeting mechanics for Killing Spree is much more involved than simply “anything in 10 yards.” When you activate Killing Spree, the ability remembers every enemy that was within 10 yards of your position (where you were when you activated Killing Spree). Killing Spree (KSp) will only jump you to those people who were within 10 yards of your starting position, and only if they remain within 10 yards of you. This is important to note because you can control who Killing Spree targets even in situations where they are multiple targets near one another. For example, if two enemies are five yards apart, you can move yourself so that only one of the two is within 10 yards of you when you use Killing Spree; if you do this, then Killing Spree will NOT target the second enemy even when you jump to the first and are five yards away from the second.

When To Use It: First of all, make sure you're low on energy when you use Killing Spree; since you can't use abilities while Killing Spree-ing, you want to avoid energy capping during those 2.5 seconds to make sure you don't miss out on additional damage. Killing Spree benefits from anything that increases your attack damage (AP Trinkets/Racials), as well as anything to increase your auto attack speed (Haste Trinkets/Racials/Potions; Bloodlust/Heroism; Blade Flurry). Stack as much as you can to maximize the 20% damage buff for the ability’s duration. Also, Killing Spree instantly jumps you to your nearest target regardless of whether you’re on the ground or in the air; using Killing Spree as you’re knocked away from a boss (Razorscale and Icehowl come to mind), you will lose your momentum away from the boss and end up right back on top of it, giving you much more DPS uptime than your fellow raid members, in addition to the sick burst.

Adrenaline Rush

The classic thirty-one (31) point talent remains largely unchanged from its original incarnation.

How It Works: Adrenaline Rush provides a 100% increase in base Energy regeneration rate, giving the Rogue 22.5 Energy per second (assuming 3/3 Vitality).

Who It Targets: You!

When To Use It: While Adrenaline Rush (AR) will give you stupid amounts of Energy, the buff itself does not do any damage – that much is up to you. Most Rogues will choose spam Sinister Strike, burning the Combo Points on five-point Eviscerates if Slice and Dice and Rupture don’t need to be refreshed. To this end, using anything that makes you hit stuff harder in tandem with AR is advised; haste buffs can help to make your Energy regeneration even stupider through increased numbers of Combat Potency procs.

Blade Flurry

The original Rogue AoE.

How It Works: Blade Flurry gives you a 20% Haste buff for 15 seconds, giving it a reasonable amount of utility for single target DPS. Where it shines, however, is in situations where you have two targets within melee range for the full duration. Blade Flurry performs an attack on a second target similar to one you used on your target. This attack deals damage equal to that of the attack mirrored (although copies of critical strikes are not themselves critical Blade Flurry hits), but Blade Flurry attacks do not have a chance to proc Hack and Slash.

Who It Targets: Blade Flurry targets the enemy closest to the center of your hitbox, excluding the target of any attacks it it copying.

When To Use It: Like the other cooldowns, Blade Flurry is best stacked with other buffs that make you hit harder and faster. In particular, however, Blade Flurry syncs up very nicely with either Adrenaline Rush (extra Sinister Strikes/Eviscerates on other targets) or Killing Spree (all five hits strike two targets). During encounters where you have only one target to deal damage to, Blade Flurry still remains a powerful haste buff primary to be used with Bloodlust/Heroism and/or Killing Spree.




On Stacking Cooldowns: While Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush or Blade Flurry and Killing Spree are both solid and smart combinations of cooldowns, using Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree together is a very bad idea. Since Killing Spree does not allow you to use abilities for its duration, and as Adrenaline Rush doubles your Energy regeneration rate, you are almost guaranteed to cap out on Energy during Killing Spree – meaning that some Energy you could have otherwise used will be wasted, and you will have lost potential DPS.

Accepted wisdom is that, in the event all of your cooldowns are available, the best order to use them in is

Blade Flurry > Killing Spree > Adrenaline Rush

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XI. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: So which is better, Combat or Mutilate?
A: It depends, both on boss and the tier of gear; for individual fights, Mutilate will be generally better if Murder is applicable (that is, if the boss is of Humanoid, Dragonkin, or Giant classification), and Combat usually comes out ahead if the boss is not affected by Murder (that is, if the boss is of Undead, Demon, or Mechanical classification). The difference in either case is minimal, however; if you have equivalent gear, play the spec you prefer.

Q: So which weapon specialization is best?
A: It depends, primarily on tier of gear. In T7 and T8, CQC ends up working out to be BiS simply because it has the best possible weapons available. In T9, it is believed that Mace Specialization will be superior, using the 25 Tribute Chest Mace and offhanding the 258 fast dagger with your filler point in CQC (that is, 5/5 Mace Specialization, 1/5 Close Quarters Combat). Until you have access to best in slot gear, however, you should always use the best pair of weapons you have available, and talent accordingly.

Q: So which Meta gem is best?
A: The Relentless Earthsiege Diamond, which provides 21 Agility and an additional 3% damage from Critical Strikes. It requires one of each Red, Yellow, and Blue gems to activate.

Q: So which Blue gem is best?
A: Only ever use one gem in blue sockets for PVE: Nightmare Tear. Since you can only use one, socket it where you get the best socket bonus with a Blue gem. Beyond that, do not socket Blue gems.

Q: How good is the Slice and Dice Glyph?
A: It isn't. Don't use it.

Q: How good is the T9 2/5 set bonus?
A: It's terribad. With a roughly two percent (~2%) proc rate, you'd be lucky to see it more than three or four times in a single fight.

Q: So should I break the T8 set bonus for T9?
A: T9 is very lame. For Rogues, T9.232 is worthless. Running VoA25 to get T8 Legs and Gloves is smarter than going for four-piece T9.232. If you're talking four pieces of T9.245, you've got a slight upgrade form T8: your DPS will go up on the order of 100. The only clear upgrade from T8 is four pieces of T9.258 - good luck getting those tokens, though.

Q: Why isn't Combat Daggers mentioned here?
A: Because Combat Daggers is dead. It has been dead, and it will be staying dead. If you don't believe me, read the Rogue Q&A.

Q: So I'm pulling [number here] DPS on a target dummy. Why am I so low?
A: Because you're attacking a target dummy. Unless you're attacking a fully raid debuffed target dummy while you yourself are fully raid buffed, you have no business using a target dummy for DPS assessment. If you are attacking a fully raid debuffed target dummy while you yourself are fully raid buffed... well, those circumstances alone are pretty crazy.

Q: So I'm pulling [number here] DPS in Heroics. Why am I so low?
A: If you're in a Heroic and not fighting a boss, you should be spamming FoK, except on single target pulls. This alone should raise your DPS in Heroics significantly.

Q: Should I be sustaining Expose Armor on targets?
A: If you have NO Warriors in your raid, you should absolutely be on full-time EA duty. If you have any Warriors in your raid, however, be they Protection or otherwise, convince them to keep it up; accepted wisdom seems to be that DPS Warriors take less of a DPS hit stacking Sunders than do Rogues sustaining EA.

Q: Recommend any UI add-ons?
A: ROGUE POWER BARS. Also, Nug ComboBar is wonderful. These are the only two Rogue-specific add-ons I use, but as with many others, I couldn't live without Bartender, PitBull Unit Frames, and Grid. Also, Parrot is a much more attractive scrolling combat text mod than those other ones, I don't care what anyone says. OmniCC is wonderful for keeping track of when cooldowns become available, assuming you're comfortable with glancing down at your bars every so often.

Q: Which spec do you prefer?
A: Honestly, I love Mutilate more than I could ever enjoy Combat. It was my first love, and remains my passion. Don’t let that dissuade you from trying both specs, though; to each his own, as they say.

Q: So how do I write a Tricks of the Trade macro?
A:
________________________________________
Q u o t e:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade
________________________________________

A solid macro, this will cast Tricks on your focus target; I use this macro for Tricksing tanks in Heroics and raids. For situations where you'll be using Tricks on the same character often (such as in Arenas or in a guild raid), replace the "focus" part of the "[target=focus]" clause with the name of the player. For example,
________________________________________
Q u o t e:
#showtooltip
/cast [target=Ippon] Tricks of the Trade
________________________________________
will only ever cast Tricks on Ippon, regardless of your current target.

Q: Crit Cap? What's that?
A: While the hard Critical Strike cap (the point at which critical strike rating provides NO benefit) is obvious (100%), there exists a "soft" Critical Strike cap at which point additional crit rating provides a greatly diminished benefit. This "crit cap" varies based on your stats, and can be calculated with the formula:
________________________________________
Q u o t e:
100 - 24 - (Hit Percentage - 22) - (Expertise Dodge - 6.5) + 4.8
________________________________________
The result of this formula is the Critical Strike chance percent at which you are "Crit Capped;" the "Hit Percentage" is your current increased Chance to Hit (assuming 5/5 Precision); the "Expertise Dodge" is the amount that your Expertise prevents Dodges. Because your Critical Strike chance against all boss-type NPCs is depressed 4.8%, you will need 4.8% more Crit to reach the cap. What this equation tells us is that, even if you reach both the White Hit cap and the Expertise cap, your "crit cap" is at 76%, due to glancing blows (hence the "-24"); as there is no mechanic in place for reducing glancing blows, you cannot push the crit cap any higher. You generally don't need to worry about surpassing this cap, however; even raid buffed, most Rogues won't get to the crit cap this tier unless they have the Dark Matter trinket.

Q: Is Throwing Specialization worth it?
A: Now that Fan of Knives no longer interrupts when you pick up this talent (post-3.2.2), it is generally considered worthless. Spend your filler point somewhere else.

Q: Good raiding professions, go!
A: Most say that Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing are the most solid combination of choices for raiding. Inscription, Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Alchemy are all very competitive to the point of minute differences. Engineering can actually be the best profession given that you use bombs every cooldown in addition to the various enchants; anything less, however, renders Engineering inferior in comparison.

[derxor]

nice guide but you could jsut roll a mage to beat bloodmist in dps

[bloodmist]

true but then again im assa spec so

[derxor]

Im going ot sticky lock this thread for veiwing purposes only
Derxor

[Brommy]

lol