Back Again
I just got back from holidays and finishing my first week of the new semester. With a full course load and the pressure of my final stretch of university, I’m finding less time to play games than before. Compared to my definition of hardcore, I’d say I’m playing casual right now. I have no serious arena teams, still looking for a good fit, and in the current state of rogue that seems to be hard to find. It feels like not only do you need top skilled teammates and all having high level gear to succeed, there are very few comps that work with rogues. So while I continue my search, I’m just working on keeping my gear level up and PvP’ing a bit to stay sharp.
What I’m learning is that even casually playing WoW can be a huge timesink. On Sunday evening I logged on to work on my rep grind and do a heroic daily, 6 hours later it’s 2 am and I still have an assignment to do, and my rep grind isn’t even near being finished. I’m doing my best to manage attending all classes, going to the gym, writing for this site, taking care of those extras that come up in life and trying to dip my ladle in a few bowls of soup along the way. But enough bitching about busy life, how about some bitching about WoW!
A Lesson in Humility, Losing a 500g Series to Massive Today, Thoughts on Dueling DKs
Today I thought I’d have a quick series of duels against massive for 500g (i know that’s not much for most people but I haven’t been farming much lately), which he broadcast for about 500 or so people on xfire. I thought I had a pretty good chance, and we had some practice duels that were extremely close. I should have realized in the last practice duel that he figured out the trick to beating me, trinketing the KS. If you’re wondering, Massive is the DK I dueled in Eviscerate X. He’s played competitively with complexity and has multiple rank 1 titles, he’s a huge scumbag and a friend. He also recently made the switch to tauren, which means additional HP and warstomp which is pretty huge, it means you can’t trinket either gnaw or stomp.
In the first 3 duels I was swept. Two of the duels were close and one of the duels was lost due to a stupid error with me not having focus blind on my bar. Regardless, we continued after for a bit more. The series ended at 4-1, and in the subsequent 20 or so practice duels I think I was winning about a third. Other than how to throw away gold, here’s some things I learned.
The strat he found to beating me was trinketing the initial KS. This is important because it’s very hard to get clean cloak+vanishes off against him. He can deathgrip my vanish at least half the time. Like blinding a rogue out of vanish, there is a grace period after vanish where the DK can still deathgrip you out. I know a lot of people will say “lol I shit on dks you suck”, but while I feel like I have an advantage against 99 percent of the DKs that I duel, at the highest skill and gear level it’s a very different fight. What massive does differently than other DKs, I find, is his timing with CD use (garg, ghoul sac, AMZ + AMS, ETC). He also is smart enough to try to spin to avoid my gouge when he trinkets. That and he has the best possible gear.
Anyway here is a tip that was working fairly well. If a DK trinkets your KS, and later pops gargoyle, you’ll probably need to get a cloak and vanish off to win. The trick to doing this is to either catch them at a global or at a time they aren’t suspecting it. Once you get a cloak and vanish off, be patient and if gargoyle is out, wait for it to go away. You can now focus the ghoul. Sap the dk and immediately focus blind the ghoul and start bandaging, you now have a clean opener on the DK for a full duration stun, although when the DK has 1100 resil this doesn’t always mean a victory.
Other things that seem to work better against DKs include, firstly, being standard mut 41/5/25. Initially you might think envenom is better because of the increased poison damage against plate, but in the span of a duel AMS and AMZ can really shut down all of your poison damage and burst, and you lose your double cripple which means a lot against a DK that is trying desperately to kite you. I watched litre try some envenom rush down and it didn’t seem to be very effective. Also, prep glyph is great for this duel for double dismantle, you should always be able to have dismantle or evasion during the fight.
Anyone have any other thoughts on this match up?
That’s all for today but I should be back with some articles these week. Hope everyone had a great new year!
Related posts:
first comment?
Kewl thanks for this really helped against those geared dks
Comment by Djreplay — January 11, 2010 @ 11:26 pm
Please post video of the duels.
Comment by wowpwnslol — January 11, 2010 @ 11:32 pm
Hey Akrios!
Good and great DKs are certainly scary people to duel. I’ve dueled quite a few and there’s 2 in particular where I’m from that can beat me on a 90% basis and they’re no Massive. Still, any DK who can consistently DG vanish and know how and when to use what cooldown is a frightening experience from the rogue point of view. I’m sure you’re already aware of this though. Not sure what I’d do differently to gain victory. I’d say against those types of players the prep glyph is nigh required because no serious DKs use weapon chains and they don’t have any disarm duration reduction talents a la Weapon Mastery or Pursuit of Justice. 20 seconds out of the duel you can keep them from doing strikes seems necessary to me if you’re going to avoid eating the huge hits. Better luck in future duels though!
Comment by Mathris — January 12, 2010 @ 12:24 am
were the duels recorded? if so gimme link pl0x kkthx
Comment by frolol — January 12, 2010 @ 1:48 am
=)=)
Comment by Arwiny — January 12, 2010 @ 1:51 am
Bleed moar? Be all Sap Garrote Muti Rup vanish. Then all CS > KS Or…
start sap DK > Rush down ghoul sprint los restealth, Start on DK, as soon as he trinkets, blind, sap etc. win.
Comment by Protege — January 12, 2010 @ 3:47 am
Maybe one of the toughest duels for a rogue, a skilled+geared dk, different from a warrior duel, where Dismantle may grant you “imunnity” for a few seconds, making you free to damage him, Dk’s are hybrid, as they get dismantled, they can still cast a series of magic dots, usually forcing the rogue to pop CoS.
My vision of this match is that victory is usually given to the rogue when damage is done all the way to the deathknight while avoiding being hit (or at least heavily hit)
Comment by Agnuz — January 12, 2010 @ 5:11 am
Thanks for the great tips… I duelled a greater geared and skilled DK (than the usual DKs I come across anyway) and noticed right away the difference… I am Envenom specced and it was a nightmare and it’s the first time I was kited by a DK.
I must’ve been duelling noobs before.
The Deathgrip out of Vanish happened too which surprised me and yes, although I lost I was chuffed it was close… Evasion and Dismantle x 2 is very useful.
Btw Eviscerate X is awesome!
Comment by Recked — January 12, 2010 @ 6:35 am
Lol I shit on DKs you sux. jk
Comment by Sinne — January 12, 2010 @ 7:18 am
“nigh required because no serious DKs use weapon chains and they don’t have any disarm duration”
Personally I have two weapons (one for fallen crusader and one for swordshattering) and change between them as required. Costs some extra points, but what else am I going to use them on?
I’d also be very interested in seeing some/all of these fights.
Comment by Oshi — January 12, 2010 @ 7:21 am
Good pointers there. But maybe the reason I suck is because I don’t understand what half those cooldowns are…
Comment by Zeneroth — January 12, 2010 @ 7:38 am
the best method i have found when dueling a dk is using a rush down. What i typically do is control the fight and burst out enough damage to where they can’t even get a hit on me. after your original opener every dk is going to expect a kidney shot. what i like to do instead is let the cheap shot go down and dismantle them immediately and i have caught a lot of dk’s off guard and watch them pop their trinket. its funny stuff
Comment by theoneandonly — January 12, 2010 @ 9:49 am
@theoneandonly
Yeah well, I guess you’ve only been dueling baddies / DK’s that predict WAY too much.
Comment by Unseen — January 12, 2010 @ 10:46 am
Hey akrios, its always been no secret that a rogue going toe to toe vs. a dk even with with dumping 2x evasions and a defensive cloak for further training / dmg mitigation usually is unsuccessful. I’ve found that constantly resetting the fight with bleeds and even deadly poison ticking at this point in the rogue state is most likely the best option. however considering the fact that our bleeds hardly even tickle a tauren dk, its not as strong as it once was in S5 when we actually used to spec into bleeds for high armor classes.
massivez is a top notch dk and if he can deathgrip your vanishes as consistently as you say, that is a problem considering how you would most likely need to use a global (cloak of shadows) to get a clean vanish off in the first place. If you have the concentration, I may even recommend vanishing in between his globals, while also vanishing in between disease ticks and then cloaking immediately before it knocks you out of stealth. aside from that…i’m gonna have to say you are shit out of luck
Comment by Zenasty — January 12, 2010 @ 10:51 am
also, litre is an old friend of mine and if hes also having trouble I don’t kno who to call for. possibly ask neilyo for some tips? lol…
in all reality, maybe rogues just aren’t supposed to win against a skilled dk….I mean if you are really having this much trouble it seems as futile as theory-crafting a duel between a mutilate rogue and a pre-hot’ing resto druid…
Comment by Zenasty — January 12, 2010 @ 10:56 am
Well from my exp its like CS -> EVA -> KS then if he trinkets i stay on him during eva,then i choose between dismantle and cloak/vanish..from my experience,i rarely saw a dk that death gripped my vanish (Probably i havent duel any exceptional) but i dunno..maybe wait a bit with vanish after cloak and move away because of refreshing dot that dk has (cant remember name) then vanish and hope for the best i guess,then reset,..u have blind,prep (dismantle again)..in my scenario they usually go down after that..but thats just my scenario
Comment by qwe — January 12, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
I’ve always blinded when they trinket KS. If you’re fast enough, they won’t get diseases up and you can vanish w/o using cloak. Don’t bother sapping since if they’re good they’ll Lichborn as they drop combat. Just wait for your KS CD to come up and do it all again. Evasion right after cheap shot to dodge a gnaw, and follow it with a dismantle. Prep another evasion/dismantle and usa a cloak/vanish if he starts to get a chains of ice kite on you. Should be able to get some wins that way (I farmed a Glad DK on my server doing this).
Comment by toadish — January 12, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
Also, if you blind early like that, you can swap to slow/fast while stealthed and use envenom for the rest of the fight.
Comment by toadish — January 12, 2010 @ 12:12 pm
@ Protege you cant rush down any skilled DKs ghoul because they will have their pet use huddle which is almost near immunity to damage for the ghoul.
@ zenasty you kind of just repeated what akrios recomends people to do. You said to vanish between global while he said the exact thing in his article…
@theoneandonly gosh those are bad DKs
Comment by Hidden — January 12, 2010 @ 3:39 pm
Side note: Death grip isn’t on the global CD
Comment by Oshi — January 12, 2010 @ 11:21 pm
Another usefull trick you didn’t mention is to frag granade both the ghoul and the DK to get a clear CoS Vanish
Yeah, i find legit using the belt enchant on Duels =/
Comment by Wagj — January 12, 2010 @ 11:51 pm
all that Akrios said is right and wat i saw u need very very good luk there coz these days for rogue skill+gear is like 80% from the fight and 20% is totally luk…
latency, insane crit, vanish bugged, blind resist…etc u all know that
Comment by Zarakï — January 12, 2010 @ 11:51 pm
yo man whats the deal with dks? why is it impossible for blizzard to balance them. we had a 3s match @ 2100 mmr and killed druid killed warr, but dk was able to down our priest death grip me ( i have no cds at this point) kill me, blow ams/purple bubble, and rape my mage. what other class in the entire game has the ability to solo 3 people. im qqing yes, but every season rogues are by far the hardest melee class to play. i guess they are trying to appeal to the 8 year old, retarded class of people. cmon man. did anyone watch the mlg tourny? i saw one rogue team out of all the other teams. guess who won. dumbass beast cleave. that says alot about the true nature of this game
Comment by uschearak — January 13, 2010 @ 4:45 am
To understand the class better I decided to level a DK myself. So far, what I have found is a few pretty cool exploits/mechanics of the class.
The fact that you can macro Deathgrip (because it is off the GCD) and Icy Touch together really makes it difficult for rogues to get away.
Despite the range differences of the abilitys (DG @ 30yds and Icy Touch @ 20yds) all you have to do is set the macro to show the Icy Touch tooltip and when you are in it’s range you are in the range of DG as well.
Here is what happens, rogue Vanishes >> Good DK hits macro >>> Rogue gets Deathgripped and hit with Icy Touch >> Rogue has Frost Fever, DK hits Plague Strike >>> Rogue has two diseases, Rogue cloaks >>> DK turns around to avoid Gouge, hits AMS.
Just the fact that we can be DG’d into instant Fever is insane and requires sheer luck and/or fast reflexes and a CD.
Way to avoid the DG/Icy Touch. In the middle of DG spam your Gouge bind, giving you that split second to Cloak when you hit the ground, watch your Debuffs and Vanish. Hit Sprint >>> Break through and behind the DK. Garrote, causing the DK to be unable to spam Runic powers, such as Death Coil, Frost Strike, Obliterate. Muti to 4+ combo points, Evasion, Rupture and Prep if you have not already.
The key to the DK that I have seen as playing and as Akrios has said, to catch them on the GCD. DKs that are in Unholy presence has a decreased GCD by 0.5 seconds, so you have to bear in mind the presence. Like a warrior they can switch stance but it costs 1 Rune of the appropriate presence to change, so many only switch if necessary. Be wary of DKs with full bars of Runic energy, as they can then use a Frost Rune to Chain you, then Death Coil you over and over, hit Chains of Ice, gain 10 Runic energy and repeat, hence the kiting.
Good way to break it, Cloak, sprint backwards and Vanish away once Diseases fall off.
Just some observations from a DK point of view, hope it helps. Thanks for the post Akrios.
Comment by Tokikonae — January 13, 2010 @ 6:22 am
with DK’s it’s important to get a vanish off as soon as cloak is up to prevent being plague striked and costing you the game
Comment by josh — January 13, 2010 @ 7:13 am
I take it there are no recordings of the duels_
Comment by bukkit — January 13, 2010 @ 7:42 am
I strongly recomend you to try and have the dk in a little cc before u pop cos and vanish. What u can do is: gouge, bomb, last sec of a stun duration etc. I usually win to high rated dk’s if i can get a clear vanish off. Gamebreaking!
Comment by Acronical — January 13, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
is it just me or do just rogues have to try that hard to win against some classes?
Comment by Jizzthethug — January 13, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
LAWL that is a good trick there Spining gouge, now i feel like a scrub for not doing it >. Sping Blink lawl
Ill see you in the Tournament (Hope they open it soon)
Comment by Shadowblake — January 13, 2010 @ 10:16 pm
Well fuck, Idk then I knew i’d been fighting bads.. my strat against dk’s right now is using the envenom mutilate build, both stuns, watching the durations, dimsantle+ cloak of shadows, as soon as cloak breaks vanish idk.. I don’t really know the strat for dk’s ^^ it works becausz theyr all bads :3. I’m glad i’m not fighting massive
/comfort akriios. Scary DK is Scary.
OMG DID YOU KNOW LICHBORN + DEATHCOIL = HEALTH? WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????? FROST/UNH FROST/UNH 2′S OUTLAST COMBO GOGOGO
Comment by Elanar/Varick — January 14, 2010 @ 3:25 am
Akrios, you should update the “Guide” section of this site and add a “Fights & Duels against DK’s” article, where you sum up the tips given in your current article.
About this one, well, as usual, you give a smart analysis of both classes. What we learn, surprisingly (lol), is that vanish is still the key ability for a rogue. A reason why Blizz should maintain its attempts to fix it, or do something about it, in my opinion.
baruch
Comment by baruch — January 14, 2010 @ 4:39 am
<3 Akrios
Comment by Tokikonae (formerly Faeyna, Stormreave/ Arena Realm 1) — January 14, 2010 @ 4:56 am
Hey there. Uhm, on my server (Sunstrider – EU) everythink it’s damn lame to prep in duels. I wanna have prep duels, but noone else seems to. what shall i do KEK? But very nice tip, but as u might understand i can’t use thet prep glyph neither the prep abilitie so
Comment by Rohx — January 15, 2010 @ 11:44 am
K this is how i deal with Skilled/Geared Death Knights with my Rogue. I do it a bit differently than different rogues. Number one, do not be scared to use Preparation think of this as a counter to all of their 10000000000 defensive cool downs and a ghoul sacrifice. My open usually consists of a Bleed/Expose armor rotation just to get their health slowly ticking for your next open. Also i wouldnt go standard prep vs a geared skilled Dk. If you get enough bleed/poison tick pressure they with either be forced to AMS early which gives you a full clean envenom rotation. I would only use SnD in your initial vanish this way you can save your energy for burst because you will need it to even come close to kill a geared/skilled death knight. Also instead of using a focus blind immediately on his pet use an initial evasion on open, because if he does get you in a ghoul stun you will mitigate alot of the death knights damage. You should save your blind for when you really need an out not to just CC a ghoul. This really doesnt ever seem to fail for me but, i guess it really has to do with the rogue’s playstyle.
Comment by Zieglol — January 15, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
Deathgrip should be put on a GCD then, this reminds of when mages had a Counterspell that broke Vanish, was so ridiculously easy to Counterspell a Vanish
Comment by Aeias — January 15, 2010 @ 2:46 pm
So…does anyone know where Neilyo (Rhythmic) has gone?
Comment by Evolas — January 15, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
scratch that last comment. Armory must’ve been a little buggy
Comment by Evolas — January 15, 2010 @ 11:26 pm
Easiest way to beat them in With deep combat.
Open with blade flurry + adrenaline rush ,BLade flurry should take a decent chunky out of pet as well so when DK trinkets,blind and finish off pet,expose armor in blind , and reopen with killing spree.
Comment by rohan — January 15, 2010 @ 11:42 pm
What I do and works quite well, is cheap shot of course, after that duration, gouge (they could trinket anticipating a KS) and if they do quickly KS then, if not then kidney shot and expect a trinket. But after KS’ global, Disarm and evasion. DK then does low damage on you. Do some decent damage then gouge him (after doing as much damage during evasion/disarm as possible) Hes down for 4 seconds allowing you to cloak/vanish without problems and you can reset with ease. Given, there is a large margin for error here depending on how the dk reacts. But for me it has worked on several arena master dks after practicing the strat. Give it a try!
Comment by Syni — January 16, 2010 @ 11:09 pm
^^ that is assuming your not envenom as akrios was not. DP breaks gouges but depending on the tick you can get a good 3 seconds out of it if your lucky. So envenom can still use this strat, just pay great attention.
Comment by Syni — January 16, 2010 @ 11:11 pm
I have a few questions I thought you might be able to help me with. Can you tell me how I should gem out for mut pvp, agility or ap? Shouls socket bonuses be ignored? With regard to weapons, should both daggers be 1.80? Do you know any good sub rogues in pvp?
My numbers:
resilience is 747
attack power 3924
hit 76
crit 30%
expertise 3/3
Thanks,
Comment by Chowhound — January 16, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
Im not much into rogue pvp anymore but why not trying to get a gouge of and then vanish?
Comment by Szerion — January 17, 2010 @ 8:54 am
Chowhound, im not sure but i think you should go for AP gems, and if you play the normal mutilate spec, go with 2 slow daggers. If you play envenom you should have a slow MH and fast OH. Ignore socketbonuses. If you wanna try subtlety, you can check me up, ive been playing sub for 1 year now. Moj-Sunstrider
Akrios, you shud do as unmercey and try subtlety. And make a movie of it ofc
Comment by Moj — January 20, 2010 @ 12:51 am
What college do you go to?
Comment by Nur — January 20, 2010 @ 7:50 pm
@ comment #6, I’ve had a lot of success with this as well. Bleeding and using vanish offensively. It seems to throw them off their game. Especially paladins, I use blind offensively to use up their trinkets and wait with a gauge or KS. Then pop evasion and go to town. I’ve also found myself opening with an ambush rather than a CS. I’ve had people stand their thinking they are stunned because they expect every rogue to stunlock.
Comment by Feight — January 26, 2010 @ 12:34 pm
@ 41: DEFFINITELY go for AP. If you have a relatively good crit rating, don’t worry about Agility and ignore the socket bonuses. I just spent well over 1k Gold on switching from Agility to AP. HUGE difference… I was trying out agility gems because it seemed it would be better… guess not..
Comment by Feight — January 26, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Which meta gem? Is there any reason to have one if you don’t have any blue gems? And for shoulder enchant, Greater inscription of the axe (+40 ap 15 crit) or Inscription of Triumph (+40 ap +15 resil)
Comment by Chowhound — January 27, 2010 @ 5:56 pm