One Rogue's Journey

A few nights ago in Hyjal, Anetheron dropped [Blade of Infamy] and I proceeded to get no less than eight tells from various guild members, including a not so subtle one from my GM saying “That would be really good for starting a sword set, don’t you think?”. I sighed. It was very true of course, in fact it’s likely the best main hand blade out there outside of Sunwell and the extremely unlikely. With a heavy heart I picked it up. The time had come. The [Quickening Blade of the Prince] that had been sitting in my bank finally had a companion and it was time for me to respec swords.

It’s been a few raids with swords now and I feel like I have firm grasp on what they are all about. While it doesn’t erase the overall dirty feelings, watching the extra sword strikes from sword spec proc windfury and visa-versa gives me a warm feeling inside. I miss the 60% chance for a large Backstab but the combo point generation from Sinister Strike is far superior, making it easier to keep Slice And Dice up while adding even more Ruptures to my rotation. The energy cost difference seems to be the real kicker here. Backstab costs 60 energy, Sinister Strike costs 40 with the talent and your average raiding rogue has a 100 energy pool while gaining 20 energy every 2 seconds. A dagger rogue will Backstab for 60 and quickly slice and dice for 25, come the next “tick” (which should be almost immediate at this point) baring any Combat Potency procs the rogue will have 35 energy and will have to wait two more ticks (4 seconds) before backstabbing again. Now the sword rogue will Sinister Strike for 40 and quickly slice and dice for 25, come the next tick they will have 55 energy and can Sinister Strike again immediately. While an extra strike with an attack that does less damage may not seem like much this process repeats itself and it’s not long before 2 instead of 1 becomes 4 instead of 2 and so on. More “yellow” strikes means more combo points which means more 5 point Slice And Dice and Ruptures which guarantees 25 energy from Relentless Strikes which causes swords to pull even further ahead. Because of all this, and the significant additional white damage that swords cause, (and it pains me deep down in my backstab loving soul to say this) make swords the better option for raiding.

I’ve seen a few things from the alpha regarding rogues, most exciting of which being some talents that decrease the energy cost of backstab and ambush. This could go a long way to increasing the viability of daggers again, which is something I’m greatly looking forward too. For now though, goodbye Backstab, I will miss you. This world is not good enough for you…not even close.