In my City of Heroes days (temporarily on hold, but I will be back) my
max-level characters were tankers, brutes, and stalkers. I definitely
have an affinity for being all up in my enemies’ grill while I show
them the business end of my sword/dagger/battle axe/fist.
I also love to play snipers and I really get my jollies taking control
of Sam Fischer of the Splinter Cell series. He’s got some sweet, sneaky
tricks that make surprise attacks a dream – and I love the fact that if
I don’t want to fight, I can just sneak right on by without anyone
knowing I was there. And therein lies the formula for a World of
Warcraft rogue: melee plus stealth, followed up by a whole lot of
damage.
The early levels sucked for me. I died. A lot. Somewhere in the
mid-teens, out of exasperation I asked my guild what in the world was
wrong with me. I was gently prodded to read some guides where I
determined essentially I sucked because I was not using stealth to its
potential. I was basically using it to sneak past things, but I wasn’t
opening combat with it. I wasn’t even picking pockets! Luckily I
quickly changed my tactics and started acting like a rogue before SI:7
found out and hunted me down and stripped me of my daggers and strung
me up in the trade district of Stormwind for not knowing what the hell
I was doing.
A rogue has three basic Branches of Awesome to help them fight.
You’ll find them in the talents section labeled as Assassination,
Combat, and Subtlety. The only thing I’d like to change is renaming
Subtlety to something like “Subtlety and Oh Shit! Tricks” (I may be an
older gamer, but my mom will still give me the “I’m so disappointed in
you” lecture for swearing, so I’ll call those OST’s).
Assassination hands a rogue a few opening moves to get the fight
going. Depending on the situation, you can sap one mob and take out the
other while he sleeps, you can start out with a cheap shot and
immediately give yourself a chance to build up combo points before the
enemy comes out of a daze, or you can jump right in with ambush and
take a good chunk of a mob’s health with your first shot. There are
other options here, but I find them to be very situational and as a
general rule, sap/ambush/cheap shot will be sufficient to get you
started.
Assassination leads right into combat mode where once again, a
rogue has many options for a bit of ass-kicking (sorry, Mom). I’m
pretty sure that if you’re past level 20 and not applying poisons to
your weapons regularly, you should probably just uninstall the game and
go home. Poisons are incredibly useful in aiding others’ downfall.
Crippling poison is my main hand choice because I hate hate HATE when
mobs run away and pull adds back to me. At least when they’re crippled,
they have to walk and I have a chance to slice them down before they
get too far. There are several other poisons I rotate through with my
off hand weapon depending who I’m fighting and what I feel like. Aside
from that, combat is based on combo points built up from sinister
strike and gouge. From there I can use kidney shot to stun, eviscerate
to damage, or a few other situational moves based on what’s needed at
the moment.
Even with all that I get myself into trouble way too often, and
that leads to where the real enjoyment of rogueishness comes in for me:
OST’s (and subtlety). If I’m fighting you and getting nervous because I
need health, I’ll kidney shot, I’ll evade, I’ll sprint, I’ll freaking
blind you so I can suck down a healing potion or patch myself with a
runecloth bandage (300 first aid FTW!). And if all this still isn’t
enough, I’ll pop some flash powder and disappear right in front of your
face. You’ll forget I was even there and go back to wandering your
patrol until I sneak back in and start it up again – sometimes with
friends, and then you’ll *really* be sorry. (Yes, rogues have friends.)
I guess the point is this: my rogue love comes down to my rogue
options. I like being able to change things up depending on what I’m
faced with. I like being in the thick of it while doing background
work. I love it when I’m in a group and someone asks me to sap one or
to cripple them all or to make sure none of them get away to bring adds
and I can do those things because I’m a rogue. I love being able to
solo and get myself into a mess and get myself out of it if I need to.
I am always expected to do damage, but the way I deal it out is my
choice.
And, perhaps most importantly, I get to wear this t-shirt.
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