Rogue tanking - Ideas and questions

[Birdcage]

Hey everyone, I know I'm brand new here, but this looked like the right place for tanking help. If the thread's in the wrong place, feel free to move/lock it, I won't give any hassle.

Anyways...rogue tanking. As defence/dodge rating is now not put on leather gear, rogue tanking is a lot harder. Not impossible, as I've found, but harder.

I started wanting to rogue tank as soon as I learned Evasion while I was levelling. Back then, it was my first character and I was a noob, so obviously that never happened. Now, I'm a seasoned raider of TBC and WotLK, so I figure it's a better time for me to do it now.

I'll put up different posts for spec, gems, etc later on, but right now I just want a few questions discussed about it, and any ideas you guys can throw at me. For the while, I'll only be doing heroics, no 10 or 25 mans yet [though I did OT Patchwerk, but I don't think that really counts for much.] My spec is 0/26/45, mostly for Cheat Death, Hemorrhage and Honour Among Thieves. Also have Blade Flurry and Riposte.

Anyways...questions

1 - perfect group composition for a 5 man?

I would have thought it would be: me, as a rogue tanking, then 2 more rogues and a hunter DPSing. Reason being that both can drop aggro if I fail [which will happen for a while, sadly] and both have a misdirect [which Mutilate rogues should be glyphing to last 10 seconds instead of 6 anyways] and a Paladin healer, as they have they have strong single target healing [with all the MD, it should be only me getting hit] and can bubble away their aggro.

2 - how to pull?

Obviously I have my throwing weapon if I need to drag a mob back. But, otherwise, this is what I've been doing:

Single target, stunnable: Cheap Shot, Hemo till 5 CP, Kidney Shot, then make sure I keep Blade Flurry and Rupture up, but in a 5-man, the mob's normally dead by the end of KS.

Single target, immune to stun: Garrote [though I suppose macro-swapping to a dagger, then Ambush would be better] then make sure I keep Slice n Dice and Rupture up. Tanking, with HAT, I have plenty of spare combo points, so Envenom as well at times.

I have tried many ways of pulling more than 1 mob, but it never goes well without an MD or two. Any ideas on how to pull more than one without being given aggro would be awesome.


And, finally, question 3 - are we allowed to link videos? I have one I can put up on YouTube to demonstrate a DTK run I did with 2 pallies and 2 mages. Held aggro on the bosses without MD's, but we couldn't think of a way to beat King Krush. So just the 3 bosses in the video.

[Maèl]

Well, you can spec into double evasion neck-to-neck and Ghostly Strike which would make a very short boss fight.
Given how stats are distributed on leather you would have to gem quite a bit into defence(giving you parry and being missed and dodge).
Your mitigation would be a problem. Your run of the mill heroic boss should be able to two shot you. I don't think that agi will evar give you enough armor so you can eat three shots so I wouldn't try.
Another problem would be threat. Your equip would be more suited for survival and not damage which will also be a problem.

I think survival wise the sub/combat spec should work best.

For your group composition you should look into using a Disc priest. They add quite a bit effective health with all their bubbles and 10% less damage taken.
HPS doesn't do you no good when you are lacking in mitigation. A Disc priest is a great outside source of mitigation. That could solve your
dino problem with a little bit of timing.

Back in classic when Uldaman was still tough I tanked Archaedas on my Rogue while the tank handled the adds. In Naxx/40 a rogue did tank
Maexxna for the last 20-30 seconds after the tank had bit the dust. We got her down with rogue tanking.
I applaud your idea and I would very much like to hear if you could make it work.

[Eravian]

Back in TBC we went through Karazhan with me as the only tank, so in situations when we needed an extra one, we had a rogue fill in. Cleared it all the way to Prince, and when we downed him, I had died from a bad Infernal drop and the rogue tanked him for around 10% of his health. The rogue died right before we killed him, and if I remember right the only person left alive when he died was a level 69 hunter we had let come along because it was better than an empty spot... lol

[swelt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAfoqMbHQ0A

But I think diminishing returns on avoidance, removal of explicit tanking leather and the erratic behaviour of mobs (getting behind you = instagib) will limit you to tanking things that you have trivialised by gear.

The perfect group would include buffs and debuffs to help your avoidance & survival. e.g. shaman for SOE or DK for horn, hunter for scorpid sting, etc.

[Birdcage]

Good idea with a Disc priest, I think I had a brain lapse for a second about them, heh [never played a healer, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.]

I have Ghostly Strike, obviously, didn't glyph it, however. For a longer fight, I'd rather have it up more often, as it increases the CD by 10 seconds [I believe.] Mitigation wise, I do have the Cloak of Shadows glyph [40% less physical damage for 5 seconds,] but with such a low uptime, it's not really something I can count on. Normally use it at the beginning of a fight, before the heals start landing.

I am crit immune, in my tanking gear, however. 2% crit chance reduction from talents, 3% from resillience and another 2.5% from defence rating. If anyone has any articles I can read about diminishing returns on avoidance, I'd appriciate it - I have a DK tank, but I'm not the best tank, and I gem pure stamina, so never bothered to learn about it. Need to maximise my avoidance - I sit on 67% unbuffed at the moment.

The other big problem is aggro. Armsman gives me another 2%, but any other ways I can increase it apart from more DPS?

[Quinafoi]

Three places where a rogue will always fall short.

1. Taunt. Your group requirements are quite rigid because you have to rely on others to be able to drop threat in case you can not hold it.
2. Threat generation. You have no modifier for increased threat or abilities which cause increased threat. Threat is based on damage only.
3. Effective health. You don't have the same level of passive damage mitigation as a conventional tank. You also don't have the same stamina or health modifiers. Armor is always going to be substantially lower and even if you are crit immune, the hits will be larger regardless.

It's a fun area to explore but you will always have these limitations working against you. Those areas will always be in favor of the conventional tanks.

[Grindleguts]

Ofc it's obvious that rogue cannot replace a conventional tank in today's WoW, but nonetheless it's a thrill to do things like this that can actually make heroics a challenge again.

[Birdcage]

Indeed, that's the idea Grindleguts. I know I won't be tanking the Lich King like Illidan was tanked, but that's not my end goal. My end goal is being able to tank a few bosses, even if the group is way outgeared. It won't be a giant project to somehow get 102.6% avoidance, but rather enough avoidance and mitigation to tank Naxx, or whatever.

Quinafoi, I already addressed that those are my problem areas. I do more DPS than a normal tank in my tank gear, so aggro generation is a much smaller problem than normal. Hemorrhage also adds to the group DPS, as it's a debuff that's normally never available in PvE. With a misdirect, that means more aggro for me to start. What I'm looking for is help in working out these problems, not people repeating what I need to overcome to succeed, like I just did there.

For the perfect 5-man group, so far I've got:

Me [rogue, obviously]
1 more rogue [Mut spec preferably, as they glyph for Tricks of the Trade, so 10 secs of MD]
1 Hunter [MD, shot that decreases chance to hit by 3%]
1 DK [Horn of Winter, AP proc from talents]
1 Disc priest [Mitigation buffs]

Link to video of me rogue-tanking DTK (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c3e5UaKWbU) - help with how to go about killing the big dinosaur guy would be awesome [name escapes me]