PvP: Falken’s New Gear and Template

Last week, I was QQing over Falken’s lousy PvP skills. I received quite a bit of good advice, and while Falken still sucks, at least I can get him up to the first page of the Alliance Damage/Kills ratings for AV. Thanks to all of you who took the time to comment!

I added the Vindicator’s Leather Bracers on Saturday, and in case you haven’t read my last couple comments on the earlier article, I also picked up two of the pieces of the blue rogue set from Faction Quartermasters (thanks again, Ratshag, for the tip!). So now my Resilience is up around 140, if I recall correctly. (Not to mention the armor and stat increases.) Unfortunately, I think I’m Honored only with the two factions from which I got the blue pieces (Lower City and either Cenarion Expedition or Honor Hold). Falken was never played as a main, so he’s run only a couple Outland 5-mans.

Diversion follows; feel free to skip the blue part.

In fact, I finally took him through normal Underbog on Saturday with three other Level 70 guildmates, a couple of whom also needed some Underbog love. My overarching goal was to complete the quest for the [Everlasting Underspore Frond].

I cheated did my “rogue thing”: Before we fought Hungarfen, I stealthed over to the large fungus from which the quest item is harvested and grabbed it. Only after I had secured the frond did Hungarfen alert to me; a quick Vanish and I was home free. Of course, our Warlock needed the item too, so we did fight Hungarfen, winning quite handily. In fact, we cleared the instance with only one death: me, at the Black Stalker. Otherwise, UB with four 70s was a romp.

Now, why did I want the Frond so desperately? Because I hate taking mana biscuits from a mage table. I don’t HAVE mana. (Pet Peeve: Warriors who piss and moan when there’s no mage table. Got Underbog??) So the pods don’t fully heal me; they are a lot cheaper than bandages and don’t have a cooldown. (Also, when PvE soloing, they’re an effective heal food when I don’t need a buff.)

No apology for the foregoing: It was one of the most fun things I did all weekend, so I thought it deserved mention. (And I managed to get a mini-rant in, to boot!)

Alright…back to business. In my last comment to the article linked above, I mentioned I respecced Falken to a Mutilate build. I like it. A lot. I ran the Sunwell Dailies with this build, soloing them once. All I have to say is, stunlocking almost every foe for the entire fight is a Very Beautiful Thing. (Click my Armory link on the right to see all the goodness that is Mutilate.)

How did I come up with this build? (Experienced Rogues should recognize it as a fairly basic, but effective, build.) I simply checked out Osiris’ Guide to Playing a Rogue, and went with his Mutilate build. I also used Gankbang.com to examine highly rated rogues on my realm, both Alliance and Horde. (Of course, a lot of those that Gankbang says are dagger specs are now sword or mace.)

Some of the things I really like in this build, besides the fact that is extremely viable in PvE as well as PvP:

• Fleet Footed – Rank 2/2
  Increases your chance to resist movement impairing effects by 10% and increases your movement speed by 8%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects. (More than offsets not having Camouflage, which I never select anyway–and it is a definitely noticeable speed increase when unstealthed–and when mounted.)
• Cold Blood – Rank 1/1
  When activated, increases the critical strike chance of your next offensive ability by 100%. (Oh yeah, baby! A 5-combo-point Eviscerate or Envenom with CB up…yummy!)
• Quick Recovery – Rank 2/2
  All healing effects on you are increased by 20%. In addition, your finishing moves cost 80% less Energy when they fail to hit. (This is simply all win for PvP. Not a bad thing in PvE either.)
• Seal Fate – Rank 5/5
  Your critical strikes from abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point. (Clearly there is a lot of crit love in this build, Resilience notwithstanding: Cloth is still cloth. And as long as I keep that caster from casting, I have a pretty good chance to kill him. Or her.)
• ImprovedGouge – Rank 3/3
  Increases the effect duration of your Gouge ability by 1.5 sec. (That’s another 1.5 seconds to regain energy for another stunlock combo or a finishing Eviscerate. The key is to wait for it–and that’s where I’m still weak.)
• Improved Sprint – Rank 2/2
  Gives a 100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when you activateyour Sprint ability. (Yep: 100% chance. This is the same as having a second PvP trinket! Definitely comes in handy when I break Fear with the trinket, then get trapped by Frost Nova. Improved Sprint + Fleet Footed = Dead (or badly damaged) blinking Mage.)

A few things I really miss are Preparation, Shadowstep and Cheat Death. Preparation was nice because with Prep + Cheap Shot, I was looking at a 4- or 5-combo point Eviscerate or Kidney Shot right off the bat. Shadowstep is made up for by Fleet Footed and Improved Sprint, for the most part. And Cheat Death…I’ll just say that when I have another rogue down to 1% and I hit with a huge crit and he lives…GRRRRR! Yep, I miss it. On the other hand, it doesn’t last forever, either.

So what were the results? For one thing, I didn’t run a lot of BGs this weekend. Most of the weekend was spent running Sunwell dailies on four of my five Level 70s.

I ran a few ABs because that was Saturday’s daily, and managed a single win out of two or three tries. But I spent that battle on Defense, so didn’t really get a ton of kills, or chances to kill: We held three nodes the entire fight. Sunday, I was able to get four or five AVs in, and won all but one of those.

However, in looking at my output, I was as high as 11th in damage (Alliance only), which is quite an improvement over the low 20s to low 30s. My overall DPS was up to around 400-500 (still unsure of how well Violation is working post-patch, but it’s been updated two or three times, at least, since the patch), compared to 275-350 before the gear and template upgrades. I lived longer, too.

My focus this week will be on my hit rotation, concentrating on developing muscle memory for my stunlock combos. First, I need to learn the combo so it becomes second nature.

Second, I need to learn how to weave in Expose Armor and Envenom, among other things.

I will probably look for a mod that displays combo points more visibly than PitBull does: Those little dots require a lot more attention than something more visible. I think SCT tells me about combo points too, but I don’t have time to read all that stuff! I’m sure there’s something suitable (for me) out there; I just need to find it.

Finally, I need to figure out how to run more BGs while trying to do dailies! I suspect only one character per night will get to Quel-Danas, though.

However, I’m a happier with Falken than I was a week ago!