Not That Simple

As anybody knows, you don't hit 80 and play a perfect class. Skill comes with research, time, and practice. This guide will provide all of the research and number crunches you need to save you the work! Also, I will browse over the 3 rogue builds individually and give you what you need to know about them to play them well. Now, everything that I felt a rogue should be knowledgeable about has been added, I may have possibly missed something but that should be all.

-Your Role as a Rogue-
If you have ever examined a damage meter, usually the rogues are in the top 5. This is because rogues have a higher potential than most classes aside of mages. Knowing how to gem and itemize appropriately and having an understanding of your damage priorities is very important, because unlike a Ret Paladin you can't just press random keys and do the same dps as your optimal rotation. No offense to the Paladins.

Tricks of the Trade is one ability you also have to make smart use of. Not every class has a misdirect, and rogues tend to have a massive threat problem without it. Tricks of the Trade lasts for a 6 second duration (10 seconds if glyphed) which grants 100% threat misdirection along with 15% damage increased to the target. There's really only 3 usages for it, misdirection to a tank which makes picking up the boss/mobs alot easier; giving/trading damage buffs with another high dps class; and helping somebody get bit on blood queen. It's an amazing ability, and since almost every rogue has 2 piece tier10 nowadays it should always be on cooldown.

Our last great mechanic is Kick. Even though classes such as Death Knights can cast one for free, and warriors with a plethora of rage can pummel/shield bash with little ease it is usually dawned upon us to use Kick. Since we regenerate an amazing amount of energy through Combat Potency and Focused Attacks the energy for kick comes very easy. And no need to be frugal with it, one kick to interrupt a spell cast can suffice for the grain of rice lost in dps.

-Class Summaries-
Mutilate
The Assassination builds revolve around maximizing poison damage through use of Instant and Deadly poisons with the use of the Envenom finisher. There are 2 main Mutilate builds, (51/18/2) and (51/13/7). The variant between the two builds is that the first aims for Lightning Reflexes for the passive haste where the second aims for the 100% chance for Relentless strikes and the extra mutilate damage from Opportunity. The first build is as of now the top dps build for mutilate, because mutilate is usually #3-4 on your damage done and you are usually pumping out enough energy for 100% envenom uptime. So instead of excess energy and the mutilate damage, you get the haste because aside of the fact ITS ALOT OF HASTE, it will improve your melee dps which is your #1 and more poison applications so your Instant Poison which is #2 on the meter is now higher.

Combat
Combat revolves around physical damage with the common poison applications. The optimal combat build is (20/51/0). There isn't much to say about Combat except that it uses a slower main-hand than mutilate. Since Assassination uses the mutilate ability as a combo point generator, it requires 2 daggers which vary from 1.4-1.8 in speed. Combat uses Sinister Strike as a combo point generator, since it does an instant strike with the main-hand weapon causing the hit damage + x amount.

Sublety
This spec is no longer viable, it is just the junk build at the moment for pve. Upon WotlK release the ability Honor Among Thieves (whenever a member in your party critically hits you gain 1 combo point on the target) did not have a cooldown. So in a 25 man raid the target would be stacked with combo points in one global cooldown. So they would keep up slice n dice, rupture, and use eviscerates. It was stupid easy and was amazing, but they gave it the boot and gave it a 1 second cooldown. But backstab and hemorrhage causes menial damage, and there isn't much else in that build worth while to go for.

Damage Priorities
The Combat 'Rotation' is to maintain Slice n' Dice, use the Eviscerate finisher with excess combo points, and use cooldowns accordingly. Now, when your attacking a target you want to use Sinister Strike as your combo point generator; it grants 1 combo point usually but if you are glyphed it may grant 2 on a critical strike. For optimal damage, maintain Slice n' Dice at all times, and don't energy cap. When your energy hits 100/100 all the energy there on out is wasted. Upon the start of a boss fight, begin with 1 Sinister Strike just for a quick combo point then throw up Slice n' Dice. Then build up about 4-5 combo points and wait until your Slice n' Dice is about to drop and just save energy without capping. Once Slice n' Dice drops refresh it and you are started. Now you spam Sinister Strike and Eviscerate with 4-5 points. Once you reach about 10-14 seconds on Slice n' Dice you wanna start building up points again so once it drops you can renew it right away. So it should be understood that there is NO specific rotation, your rotation is based on procs and luck.

For cooldowns as Combat, you have Killing Spree, Blade Flurry, and Adrenaline Rush. Killing Spree gives you 2.5 seconds of 20% increased damage without the use of other abilities. So, if you have Bloodlust/Blade Flurry/Potion of Speed or any other damage increasing buff this will stack with it and increase all white smack/poison damage done in that 2.5 second duration by 20%. So, you wouldn't want to just blow it at random, save it for use with blade flurry perhaps or on a trinket proc to make the most use of it. Blade Flurry is the ROGUE CLEAVE! All strikes and poison will also afflict a nearby target. This is a great chance to double your damage if 2 targets are close to each other. The other benefit to Blade Flurry is that it gives you a 20% haste buff for the duration. Adrenaline Rush increases your energy regeneration by 100% for the duration, I would recommend you pop this after you refresh a Slice n Dice because then you can pump out double the amount of Eviscerates.

Mutilate revolves around maintaining Slice n Dice as well, but you also keep up Hunger for Blood and hold the Envenom buff. Your #1 priority is Slice n Dice, but you still want to open with garrote for the bleed effect, throw up Slice n Dice then Hunger for Blood. Now you want to use Mutilate to generate 4-5 combo points, then use Envenom because it will refresh Slice n Dice to full duration each time, and give you a buff that grants 15% increased chance to apply Deadly Poison and 75% chance to apply Instant Poison. The buff will last for as many seconds as combo points used, so in respective order you want your priority to be to maintain Slice n Dice, Hunger for Blood, the Envenom buff.

Now, Assassination only has 2 cooldowns compared to the 3 of combat. Cold Blood gives your next damaging ability 100% chance to critically hit. This means you want to use it right before you do a 5 point Envenom to get the best usage out of it. And your other cooldown is Vanish. The reason it is a cooldown is because it re-stealths you, and while stealthed and for 20 seconds after breaking you have the Overkill buff generating 30% additional energy. I recommend using the cooldowns asap to get the most use of them in a fight, like once your Overkill buff drops the first time, vanish and right click the target again to break it so you have it again. Then use cold blood the first time you get 5 combo points towards an Envenom.

-Gear/Gem Patterns-
Mutilate revolves around poison applications, attack power scales with your poisons along with haste. As for gems and gearing, make sure you have the expertise cap, it is the #1 priority. Nothing will affect your dps nearly as much as the lack of expertise. Even if you are 24 or 25 that is not cap, throw a 10 hit/10 expertise gem in a yellow slot to cap and your good. The next important thing is do not crit cap, which will be covered later. After you are expertise and under the crit cap, gem for hit rating. Fully raid buffed you actually do want the 17% spell hit cap for your poisons. You get 5% from talents, so you need to gem to 12%. Be sure to deduct more if you have a moonkin/shadow priest in the party. Once you are spell hit capped too, go for Attack power and Haste Rating. At higher amounts of Attack Power you do want to gem for Haste, but that's something you kind of need to Spreadsheet when to gem. It isn't just hit 5k attack power and go balls deep in haste, it is just what matches your gear.

Combat is about 75% physical damage and about 25% from poisons. With this, you want to gear in favor of the Armor Penetration cap. It is nearly impossible to hit the armor pen cap even with end game gear, but you can get close. 100% is obviously the cap because ignoring 105% of somebody's armor just wouldn't make sense :/. But, before you go armor pen be sure you are at 213+ hit rating. Don't go for more on intention, but you want 213 for the magic number. Expertise is not as important to combat as mutilate, if it's on gear that's nice but you want to gem for armor pen. If you have a socket that has 6agi+ throw in a 20 haste gem because the socket bonus is worth it, if it's like 4-5 or lower then still keep armor pen because the socket isn't worth it. Critical rating is also good, but Armor Pen + Haste rating are more important.

-Crit cap-
A ton of people seem to overlook this because they don't know what it is. With Icecrown Citadel equivalent gear you begin to hit large amounts of crit with raid buffs. There is not a solid number for the crit cap, it is about your Hit/Expertise/Crit. Your individual crit cap will be 100%-(Glancing%)-(Dodge/parry%)-(Miss%). So, since we dual wield you have a 24% chance to glance as a standard. So you default have a maximum crit cap of 76%, but you have to deduct the chance your attack can miss from not having the hard dual wield cap, and the chance to be dodged/parried for not having expertise cap. So say you have a 70% chance for your swing to actually connect to the target, that would be your crit cap. In a nutshell, you cannot crit more than you can hit.

If you have any requests/suggestions just let me know.

important for any classes, dont tunnel and zerg something without any awareness, learn to interrupt omfg ppl are bad that. getting top dps is cool but if u cant even get the basic of the fight ur worst than someone 1k dps lower than you who can follow the fight.

Good Write up Tsohg. make sure all the rogues take a look at this.