Tips and TricksFollow

None of these are my own ideas - I just thought it would be useful to condense some of the most useful things I've learnt by trolling the forums into one post. I'd love to see this thread swell to a monstrous length with all the hidden little secrets other rogues have picked up over time . . .

MAP DISTRACT TO YOUR MOUSEWHEEL

Thereby making you more likely to use it. During a good grinding session you can use distract about once every other fight to position your mob for you. two clicks and the mob is motionless with his back to you. All that time you spend sneaking around their back for your ambush/cheapshot/whatever, is now cut down to 0. I think good usage of distract can give dagger grinders a fair chance to equal sword grinder's XP rates.

ADD A PICKPOCKET MACRO TO YOUR OPENERS

/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcasting
/cast Ambush

Be sure that auto-looting is turned on. You can substitute the opener of your choice for Ambush. This takes the extra step out of pickpocketing before an attack. It's useful for many reasons - 1: you get a bit more money, 2: You'll often grab reagents that are a pain to get otherwise (swifthistle, fadeleaf/blinding powder, health potions) 3: You'll pick up junkboxes on which you can skill up your lockpicking. The junkboxes alone are worth it. Nobody should have to farm the swamp of sorrows to skill up lockpicking.

HAVE A BANDAGING MACRO

/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

Substitute whatever bandages you have for Heavy Netherweave Bandage. This macro makes for one-click healing. Insanely useful for when you're desperate to bandage during a 4 second gouge.

HOTKEY STEALTH

I can't count the number of times an easy fight got fouled up because I didn't go into stealth on a bad mouseclick. Now I have stealth mapped to the "1" key. Never fails.

KICK CASTERS

It was a n00b mistake, but I'm probably not the only one out there who has made it. At first I never used my kick ability - I found the timing weird and already had an actionbar overloaded with other options. But learning how to kick a mob in the middle of a spell can save you hundreds of hit points and lots of time. Learn it. Love it.

BLIND ADDS

Sometimes it happens - you're wailing on a mob and some other mob runs up and starts pummeling the back of your head. Take a moment to target them and click "blind," then go back to what you were doing. Some people seem to think that blind is useless in solo PvE work. Granted, if you're careful, you won't overpull very often. But it does happen. Blind when it does. It's better than vanishing halfway through a fight you can easily win.

DAMAGE OVER TIME ON RUNNERS

Humanoids and such will bring their friends with them if you let them manage to run away - but elk won't. If you're grinding on beasts (for xp or leather, whatever) that tend to run off, opt to open with garrote and to poison your blades with deadly. Nine out of ten times your DOT's will finish them off without you having to chase them around. You can move onto the next target.

Other than that, always carry around stacks and stacks of flash powder, poisons, and yes, potions. A well equipped rogue just doesn't die. Unless you're very unlucky, you just shouldn't die.

-Sprint

Not necessarily. When you (like me) fight mainly humanoid mobs so you can pickpocket them, you'll use distract in almost every fight while soloing. Sometimes, you won't have enough time to get in there to pickpocket and ambush/CS/Garotte fast enough, even with autolooting on. The macro with pickpocket would remedy this, though, but its still a helpful skill.

This is probably unnessesary, as if you have floating combat text on, you can turn on an option to have it notify you when riposte is available. Very good guide you have there, new rogues can find this helpful.

Edited, May 6th 2007 3:03pm by Elguapaduro

For the ambush opener for sword rogues, i use itemrack mod, and it seems to work flawlessly. It works by applying an outfit upon an event (like mounted, or swimming, or stealthed) Most of the time I even get my offhand sword critting simultaeously with my dagger ambush. And right when you hit ambush ability, you hear the sound of your MH sword re-equiping as yopu leave stealth.

Stunlocking:

You can increase the length of time that you "stun" enemies, whether they be other players or mobs, by implementing some unorthodoxed tactics.

- Blind and restealth. This only works in PvP. Blind your enemy, and after 5 seconds, you will exit combat, allowing you to restealth and restart your stunlock.

- Restealth and sap. This follows from the last one. If your only goal is to keep your target stunned for as long as possible, restealth and sap them, then cheapshot.

- Time your stuns. Between kick, gouge, and kidney shot, you should be able to to keep any caster from casting nearly indefinately, so long as you time your stuns. If for some reason all those abilities are on cooldown, there's always blind as well.

- Vanish. Seriously, use it. It's probably the most powerful ability that rogues have. If you got nabbed by a frost nova, entangling roots, etc, Vanish will break it, and allow you to start your stunlock over again.

Editted for spelling.

Edited, May 9th 2007 10:17am by Demea

Dont think vanish breaks entangling roots.. but maybe i never used it cause i got moonfired or fairy fired too -.-"

If u plan to gouge or sap, do not use DoTs as it will break ur gouge/sap.

Edited, May 9th 2007 8:32pm by schweizi

Several things I've discovered recently...

1) You can eat whilst in stealth, as long as you eat first then go into stealth mode.

2) If you get feared into a group in an instance, you can save your party from chaos by vanishing, as long as no one else is too close either

3) If you sap a mob in a instance, and it times out, as long as you're not too close, the mob happily goes back to what it was doing before and leaves your party alone. (handy if a different group of mobs gets pulled after you've sapped)

Keep the tips coming! I'm sure I can think of more....

Oh yes - mind-numbing poison rocks in instances!!

A few more:

- Powders and poisons aren't soulbound so if your rogue teammate is low on reagents, feel free to hand them some. They are hella cheap anyway.

- You can actually jump-kick an opponent! While the kicking animation won't display in midair, the interrupt-effect still takes place. Nothing more satisfying than to sprint out of your stealth towards a mage casting pyroblast and make a flying-kick through him interrupting his spell, only to vanish when you reach the other side.

HADOOOKEN!

This might help new rogues to better time their attacks:

Watch your energy bar. It replenishes at regular intervals ("ticks"). If you download a mod such as EnergyWatch, it will be easier to notice.

Let's say you stun your target (CS/KS), and use a first attack, for instance Backstab. Sometimes the stun will end before you can place a second attack, sometimes it will last long enough. This can make a pretty big difference and you can make sure you place 2 attacks by stunning your target JUST before an energy tick. This way, just while you stun the target, the next tick occurs and you got some extra energy immediatly. This is what will guarantee that you have enough energy for your second attack 100% of the time.

Another tip about timing attacks: as you are aware, you can't stealth while a DOT has been applied to you. I mean, you CAN stealth but the next tick of the DOT will take you out of stealth mode. If you need one specific attack which is only possible while in stealth, wait for a DOT tick, Vanish and immediately attack (for instance, CS) BEFORE the next DOT tick occurs (else you'll be out of stealth).

nostra

Great forum thanks alot

At 70, Rogues get Shiv. This tactic becomes all too easy when we can just ride on our mounts and drop off to Shiv people to apply Crip Poison.

In the same token, you can stealth and Sap/Cheap Shot people if you're following on a mount.

To add on to the above post, flagrunning is made even easier if you're specced Subtlety.

Sprint > Preparation > Sprint > Speed pot > Capture.

The idea of sapping multiple targets is great! It's just sad that it's not possible.

You can only sap one target at a time, hence needing to use gouge and blind/cripple on the other.

In the upcoming patch, ALL rogues get imp. sap which is VERY VERY nice for us combat/assa specced rogues.