Rogue Heirlooms and leveling spec

[ossy86]

Heey guys,

I have rolled a rogue as one of my alts.

In cataclysm what are the best heirlooms?
Im aiming mostly for the weapons.

And in combination with what spec?

[silverhawk11]

I'd say Leather heirlooms . It doesn't necessarily matter what you use for heirlooms in my opinion, as long as it's the best material that the class of your choice can handle. I'd say Subtlety as they are pretty good in PvP.

[mzanker]

Well, it does matter - you wouldn't use the spell leather heirlooms any more than you would use quest rewards with intellect

I've used the agility leather heirlooms and two of the agility daggers (Balanced Heartseeker?) with assassination/subtlety specs to great effect.

[pinghansen]

In cataclysm what are the best heirlooms?
Im aiming mostly for the weapons.

For subtlety PVE, I use "Balanced Heartseeker" * 2 + "Charmed Ancient Bone Bow" (for the stats). Some would prefer a sword for offhand.
For PVE, I also use "Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders" + "Stained Shadowcraft Tunic". Apart from being plain good, each speed up the leveling. I top this off with "Swift Hand of Justice".

And in combination with what spec?

I prefer subtlety, because it is more fun. I find combat boring and find assassination a bit weak for leveling, compared to subtlety.

If you go with subtlety, then stay away from Zygor's subtlety spec, as it doesn't have Premeditation. The sub spec I use for leveling is in the talent thread, or you could try this in stead: Gerwulf's Sub spec. It IS an endgame spec, but it looks good for leveling as well. Good balance between survivability and "oomph".

[cabby]

If you go with subtlety, then stay away from Zygor's subtlety spec, as it doesn't have Premeditation.

You obviously haven't checked out the Zygor spec in a while as Premeditation was added in to that spec a while ago.

[mzanker]

Yes, you get Premeditation at level 39 with the Zygor spec.

[Kamchak]

Just to toss in my $0.02, I have been using sub for PvP and Assassination for leveling.
Sap, Ambush, Mutilate (should now have 4 - 5 combo pts), then either Slice n' Dice for a long fight or Eviscerate on a short fight.
Tight group of mobs you can Sap the one that is close to your target and finish that target.
Granted my rogue was 56 by the time Cata hit, and has been waiting for me up until a few days ago, so you may not have all the abilities quite yet.
For leveling tough, in my opinion, having mutilate that gives 2 combo pts instead of 1 combo pt given by Sinister Strike is a far greater advantage. That extra combo point means I can finish off a mob that much faster.
As far as combat.... no idea. Never tried it.

[mzanker]

I tried Combat but didn't really like it - it didn't feel like a rogue. I'm dual-spec Assassination/Subtlely but I too prefer Assassination for levelling. Deadly Momentum is fantastic for tearing through mobs and I've no idea why the Zygor build waits until level 57 to give you just 1 point. I put 2 points in this at level 10!

I can only assume that the Zygor spec is for dungeons/raiding rather than levelling.

[silverhawk11]

Well, it does matter - you wouldn't use the spell leather heirlooms any more than you would use quest rewards with intellect

I've used the agility leather heirlooms and two of the agility daggers (Balanced Heartseeker?) with assassination/subtlety specs to great effect.

Oh, I just figured everyone knew you didn't need intellect as a Rogue :P. My bad.

[mzanker]

Yes, we know these things now but, with my very first toon, it took me a while to understand what stats I needed. For ages I used to just pick whatever had the highest armour value

[Cartman]

A friend of mine has many intellect items on his feral druid because he simply has RatingBuster configured wrong. He just looks if all is green but does not actually look what stats are on the item. And RatingBuster by default shows only caster stats on the druid stuff.

[pinghansen]

You obviously haven't checked out the Zygor spec in a while as Premeditation was added in to that spec a while ago.

Great! About time too. I must have checked an older archive. Mea culpa.

Anyway, I generally don't use the TA, partly because it looses the spec all the time (checked very recently), partly because I use dual-spec, which the TA handles about as elegantly as a rhinoceros trying to walk a tightrope. Besides, the rouges I play the most are twinked.

Kamchack has a point about long fights. Subtlety is all about damage burst and survivability. Hit'em hard and vanish. If we are talking longer fights, assassination is slightly better, but for leveling, who cares? The only two things I haven't been able to solo in Nagrand with a lvl 64 sub rogue, are the final Nesingwary quest (the big elek), and Durn the Hungerer, whom I managed to get pretty far down.

[Kamchak]

A friend of mine has many intellect items on his feral druid because he simply has RatingBuster configured wrong. He just looks if all is green but does not actually look what stats are on the item. And RatingBuster by default shows only caster stats on the druid stuff.

Informant is much more complete and.... well, informative.

[Cartman]

The Informant that is part of the Auctioneer suite? Does it show the effect of items on character values? Didn't know this.
RatingBuster works well but sometimes it has to be configured to show some stats and not show others. Especially on hybrid classes like druid.

[Kamchak]

The Informant that is part of the Auctioneer suite? Does it show the effect of items on character values? Didn't know this.
RatingBuster works well but sometimes it has to be configured to show some stats and not show others. Especially on hybrid classes like druid.

It is RatingBuster... thanks Cartman.