shadowcloaked

Some of you assasination rogues may know this, but some most certainly dont:

Backstab! Why? because its cool! And rogue-like! And its what we do!

But seriously, you wouldnt believe how much of a dps increase this is: Backstab becomes like a shooting someone with an M60 when your target is below 35% health. Why? http://www.wowhead.com/spell=14159/murderous-intent

What it all comes down to is energy. Rogues need energy to do whatever special attack it is they want to do. Now normally for an assasin specced rogue the backstab ability would be too expensive on energy to use on a mob. It gives one combopoint with the of chance of giving 2 on a crit where mutilate gives 2-3 combopoints AND is cheaper on energy. Ok backstab hits harder but not enough to make up for the cost. easy choice right? It is, untill your target gets at that magical 35% health and murderous intent does its magic. Combine this with the 10% energy gain you get from your dots (poisons and garrote) backstab becomes cheap enough to be able to spam it up to 4 – 5 combopoints and finish off with a nice envenom or rupture. since backstab then all of the sudden is cheaper then mutilate AND hits harder, you’ll see your dps skyrocket for that last 35%. So change that mutilate with backstab at 35% and be that top rogue you where intended to be!

A few notes to be made here:

Backstab is rather expensive on energy so either make sure you have enough energy to launch that first backstab or use your cold blood cooldown for it. A cup of thistle tea usually does the trick too if your in a pinch.

Make sure you have a Tricks of the trade ready because on a bossfight you WILL pull aggro from the tank if your not carefull, and you dont want that bosss looking at you. You’r a class that is supposed to not be seen. Not one that goes splut on the pavement.

For a real boost in damage use your vanish, garrote your target, start your vendetta + trinkets and start spamming backstab X4 and envenom as a finisher. you can drop rupture at this point.

We are silent assansins, agile brawlers, deadly masters of poison, and a lot more. But the signature ability, the one thing that scares our foes and creeps out our friends is our stealth. The only other class that can rival that is the druid and most druids use it rarely if at all.

With the return of CC in dungeons stealth will be more and more an important ability, even for the combat rogues amongst us, as we will be sapping alot again. What i did notice however is that alot of people who levelled their rogue in combat and played combat troughout wrath, because it was the top dps spec, dont know how stealth actually works. Let me be clear:

Stealth is not invisibility. Its an aggro range reduction mechanism. You can still be detected by others. A few things you want to know for your life in the shadows:

• A player can even still hear anything you do. 
• The level difference between yourself and a mob also determens how easy it can spot you.
• In any normal situation a mob wont be able to “see” you unless it has the ability called truesight (most animal-mobs and some bosses).
• Standing right in front of a mob while stealthed will attract its attention. It will start staring at you to try and see you. Thats a good time to take a step or two back.
• If behind a mob you can practicly stand on top of it before it will notice you, but if you stand in its frontal arc it will notice you much easier.
• Use the distract ability. Its a life saver! Also a nice form of temporary cc till you have sapped your target.
• You cant enter stealth while in combat, but thats why you have vanish. Wheter you use it offensive or defensive, its a great ability.
• Sap, distract, pickpocket and tott wont break your stealth.

Try testing your stealthing skills on mobs outside dungeons. Learn your ranges, manouver trough packs of mobs unseen, and try sapping here and there. Spend some time on it because your tank will ask you to do so in a dungeon. A rogue who is good at this will look awesome, and lets be honest, its your job to be awesome that way. If you get noticed during an attempt to sap your assigned mob it wont matter as you’ll be dead…

Its always a bit scary to be sent in to do the dirty work all alone, and tends to give me a kick every time again Did you ever break stealth in the middle of a pull? whats the scariest moment you ever had sneaking up to a target?