Tonight marks the end of fourth and final season of TBC, and looking back it has been one amazing journey. The rogue class went through more changes than anyone else in this span. We played most of season 1/2 splitting between combat and mutilate until the inevitable hemo/dirty deed buffs for subtlety. AR/prep was for many including Neilyo-kun and myself, the way a rogue is meant to be played, the one patch when I felt I was the best class in the game but Blizzard quickly took it away.

Shadowstep/cheat death opened the door to PVE gear but in my opinion, we were stronger during AR/prep days, when tournament finals were played between RMP mirrors featuring AR/prep rogues. A shadowstep rogue minus 4+4 and glaives is still no match for a warrior in most comps, and the dominance of warrior/lock/druid in recent tournaments proved my theories.

My Own Performance Over The Four Seasons

As far as arena goes you are as good as the people you play with, and I was blessed to be teamed with some of the best players in my BG(s) during season 1-3. Dhaoss/Hibiridi in season 1 for rogue/affliction warlock/priest (have to say the game was a lot more fun when nobody knew what they were doing), Bynis/Haables/Radikal in season 2 for RMP, and HL/Xpoze for rogue/druid in season 3, I finished every season at top 5 of the BG, and I didn't really understand how difficult the game can be once you go casual.

In a shortened season 4, I took almost six weeks away from the game between apartment renovations and going back to China to pick up Estel. Even before that I played just 10 games a week to maintain my ratings. When I came back and tried to push for 2200 and shoulders in 2v2, wow, this was actually very challenging! We hit 2185 quickly before a nasty rejection by a same-server warrior/druid team and it all went down hill from there. We lost 100 plus points and it felt like we couldn't beat anyone.

That is when Kirara, the calm, kind, soft-spoken, kawai druid partner of mine allowed me to consult other druids for advice. He was still willing to play with me even after I left his 2v2 to play with HL last season. He didn't ditch me for a scrub friendly warrior/druid comp even during my six week retirement in season 4. Heck he wasn't even against the idea of obtaining Serennia-sama or Hafu-chan's full service + happy ending if we really couldn't make it.

Thankfully, we didn't have to. Wildo of Mal'ganis gave me a complete update on rogue/druid strategies. Against warrior/healer teams I started to save all of my combo points for full energy, 5 point shadowstep kidney shots and Kirara would cyclone around these kidney shots. Against warlock/druids I started to eat a fear or two intentionally then go full rushdown on the enemy druid while I am near/at fear immune. A lot of little things I didn't really pay attention to, but they made a huge difference in battle.

The very next night we hit 2193 before a rejection by . . . a same-server rogue/mage team. We spend about 2 more hours between 2170 and 2195 and we finally broke through. Satisfied? Not exactly. Relieved? You bet. I really had to work for this one, and it made me appreciate my teammates of past and present more than I ever did. It is so easy to blow up a roster when you feel you deserve better, but the truth is, it takes time to make a team perform at the sum of its individual pieces.

3.0 Specs: Does Mutilate Have Enough Survivability/Mobility?

Mutilate will unquestionably be the most popular spec and for good reason. Without the positioning requirement of old school daggers and cooldown management of a prep build, mutilate is easy to play and does most burst/sustained damage of any rogue spec at 70. It also brings back big numbers which we all missed since the day we switched to hemo.

However, without prep which mutilate doesn't get until WOTLK, the spec is severely lacking in outs and terrible at catching mages, one of the most dominant classes in 3.0. For offensive comps, perhaps a prep spec is still worth considering.

Mutilate: 42/5/14

With hunger for blood extremely weak as is, the level 70 mutilate spec will probably look very similar to its level 80 equivalent minus prep/dirty deed. You will put 41 in assassination, 5 in combat and 7 in subtlety, that leaves you 8 points to work with. I personally prefer the utility of 3/3 master of deception, 2/2 dirty tricks, and 2/2 elusiveness for that all important 1 minute cloak, but outlasting teams (not sure how well these will do in 3.0) may prefer to go deeper into assassination for more damage talents.

AR/Prep: 0/38/23

For offensive teams that requires cooldown spamming, high mobility and good survivability, I think AR/prep is probably the best overall spec. The addition of relentless strikes and 25% higher energy generation via vitality really solves all the energy problems old school AR/prep had, that missing a second AR is no longer a major issue. -30% damage while stunned is a HUGE talent given how dominant retribution paladins will be. And blade twisting is a very handy additional snare for abolish poison.

Shadow Dance With Weapon Swap: 5/5/51

A very interesting spec I been trying on PTR. Backstab without lethality is really weak, but hemo suffers far less from lack of lethality and you basically play it like standard shadowstep (with 30 energy hemo and dualwield specialization for a significant sustained damage increase) until shadow dance comes in, which gives you a huge increase in burst damage that standard shadowstep never had. However with weapon swaps and the fact you have to deal with stance macro to swap your bars going into and out of shadow dance, this spec has a steep learning curve, I doubt too many people will bother with it in such a short patch.

Deadly Brew/Hemo: 33/4/24

If you can get mutilate and prep in same spec this build won't exist. However because you can't at 70, this is still a very interesting choice. Deadly brew is our best new talent and adding dual wield specialization to the standard seal fate hemo equation is very attractive.

What makes this build strong is the opener. You start out with a 120 energy bar, 30 energy CS, 25 energy hemo, 30 energy ghostly strike and you can drop a 25 energy CB evis in someone's face (which hurts, a LOT with the new eviscerate equation and is free after relentless proc), with energy regeneration, you still have 75 energy left to work with. That is a lot of pressure assuming you are playing a double DPS team.