Project Lore

Follow The Tips Or Be Eaten By Each And Every Maw Combat, Assassination, Sublety.  Backstab, Mutilate, Sinister Strike.  White, yellow, green damage.  These are all important things to consider when you are trying to maximize your DPS, but they aren't the only things.  Not by a long shot.  The stab-happy class (and all other classes) also needs to keep stats like Hit, Expertise and Critical Rating in mind as well.  Then there's the act of standing behind your target at all times, timing a Slice and Dice refresh, popping the various cooldowns to maximize total output, sharing the wealth effectively and dropping a Vanish at the most appropriate time.  In short, the class that many players believe to be incredibly easy simply isn't.  Maximizing a rogue's abilities is as difficult as any other class in WoW. Here's the thing, one's raw DPS isn't the only thing that matters.  Adding to the already complex task of DPS is other raid mechanics.  Staying alive, reducing the healing required, spreading out and minimizing incoming damage.  These are all highly important tactics that every raider should be trying to master.  PvE encounters will become far easier for each member that masters their basic role - DPS, Tanking, Healing - and these "secondary" tasks.  Achieving outside the box is exactly what separates the casual raiders from the hardcore, and I don't mean in time spent. It'd be impossible for me to discuss what every class can do outside their normal role, but here are a few for my favorite class.

• Minimization of incoming damage - Yes, yes, of course killing the target will reduce its DPS to the fullest extent.  By show of hands how many of us can kill an elite target inside 10 seconds?  No one?  Thought so.  In the midst of burning that mob down be sure to interrupt incoming damage as much as possible.  Kick spells - but prioritize which you kick - stun whirlwinds, Blind stray mobs.  Sap.  Every class has a handful of tools to make life easier on the healers, use them.
• Spreading out damage - You have to be careful with this one depending on your class. Especially considering that this mostly comes up during a breakdown in an encounter.  During these hairy times spreading the damage across multiple players can be the difference between a catastrophic failure and a messy recovery.  For a rogue the idea is to save any squisher class from being pummeled, while bringing the mob to a tank.  Liberal use of Evasion and Cloak of Shadows are key.  By reacting quickly you can save other raids members, give healers time to react and focus on the tanks while reducing the tanks incoming damage as the encounter returns to normal.  Saviors just need to watch our for their own well being, as heals won't likely be coming their way.
• Staying alive - Blaming the healer is a fun past time, but barring a complete wipe you could have saved yourself.  If you were one of a few deaths during an encounter it's on you.  Sorry.  Perhaps you should have potted, moved away from the pretty spell effects that were nearby or eaten some food for that extra stamina.  If all else fails Sprint or Vanish.
• Dealing with AoE - Previously rogues couldn't do much with AoE.  We'd just stand there and take it, interrupting when applicable.  And we couldn't return the favor.  Very annoying.  Now we have two new tools at our disposal.  For incoming AoE damage - as seen in numerous Ulduar fights - we should be spamming a tried and true ability, Feint.  A 50% reduction in AoE damage is a sweet buff to the old school spell.  For dishing out AoE we have Fan of Knives.  FoK is best used with slow weapons.  If your energy is going to be dedicated to FoK during an encounter then switch to your slowest, hardest hitting pair.
• For the love of all that is holy - Enchant, socket and fill out all of your glyphs with something!  None of this "waiting for a better piece of gear to enchant" or "need to find a good gem."  Get a placeholder at least!

With many experienced raiders part of the readership I know a fair amount already grasp these concepts.  But I hope each of you learned a new trick, or at least remembered how important these tactics are.  If you already knew this information, then I am sure you have something to add.  Let's hear it.  Examples for other class tactics would be appreciated as well. Remember folks, we each have roles, but we can all make raiding easier, more efficient and, most importantly, faster by performing outside our narrow view of the world.

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