Rogue Comprehensive PvP Guide Part 2: General Practice

Now that you know the intricate details to Rogueing, I'll give the less important in-game situational guides:

Basics:
DPS:
Pooling Energy: If you don't pool energy, you aren't going to kill any good player if he's got a healer or heals himself. Using all of your energy at once to damage is much more effective than doing it slowly, because it gives healers less time to react.
-Don't use your damaging ability until you're about 10 energy from full.
-Never leave yourself under 25 energy (otherwise you can't kick)

Finishers: Using the proper finisher for every situation takes a lot of experience, but here are some good guidelines. This is assuming your comp isn't super gimmicky and bursts things down instantly.
-Slice and Dice: This is a very powerful finisher, and can be used on any enemy that you don't plan on killing in the next 10 seconds. It will up your DPS substantially, but also apply your poisons 30% faster.
-Rupture: With Blood spatter and Serrated blades, rupture can do a ton of damage. It's most effective when used against targets with high armor, because it ignores armor.
-Expose armor: Counter intuitively, expose armor is best used against opponents with very little armor. Using expose armor on clothies can make you do 20-30% more damage.
-Eviscerate: In WOTLK, eviscerate became much stronger than it was in TBC. Eviscerate is great when you plan on actually killing someone.
-Kidney Shot: Perhaps our best finisher, Kidney shot makes the enemy unable to dodge, parry, block, or use [almost] any defensive ability.

Openers:
-Ambush can be used on mages, if you actually plan on forcing an iceblock.
-Cheap shot is great for anything that can't break it, but can fuck you up while silenced. For example, as a Rogue, being cheap shotted is your worst nightmare.
-Garrote is great for a healer you plan on killing. It puts a dot on them, so you can't use blind or sheep after garroting, but Garrote has no DR, meaning you can garrote multiple times and apply multiple 4 second silences.

CC:
-I already covered sap pretty well in section one. Essentially, getting a sap from the start is important, but if it means you can't get an opener (cheap shot) on your target, then you might want to forget it.
-Blind is our main arena CC. It should be used in a chain with other CCs, when your target is getting low, to force a trinket, or to kill your target.
-Dismantle is great for any melee class or hunter. It totally disables all of them except for DKs, for the duration. It's a very defensive ability, and great with preparation glyph.
-Gouge is awesome, I use it every arena to stop the casts of people I'm not trying to kill. For example, if I'm killing a warrior, I'll gouge his Paladin's Holy Light.

Arena:
In arena, the Rogue's job is to (in order of importance)
A) Lock down
B) Reduce Healing received
C) Deal Damage
D) Interrupt Casts
E) Crowd Control

You don't bring a Rogue to arena primarily to deal MASSIVE DAMAGES!, you bring him because he can make an enemy helpless. A Rogue can turn another Rogue into a dead man. Rogues also reduce the healing taken by their target by 50%, which is crucial to most teams.

How to be effective:
I) Don't die
II) Don't let your partners die
III) Don't let your enemy get away
IV) Burst when your target can't get healed
V) Sustain damage when you know you can't burst him to death

I) To avoid dying:
Learn when to use your defensive cool downs. Examples:
-Don't use CloS when you're facing a Rogue+Mage team in arena, until they're actually planning to kill you (or unless you're CloSing a sheep cast, and your target is about to die).
-Don't use evasion unless the warrior is actually trying to kill you, not when he's just intercepting you off his healer
-Don't use evasion if he's already dismantled or in a full stun, until the duration ends.

Learn to LoS your healer, and your enemy:
-Are you about to die, and the person you're trying to kill is no where close? Don't run out of LoS of your healer, just get heals and then go back at him.
-If you and your target were both to die, would your team win?
-If you and your target are next to the edge of a wall, and someone is casting on you, go behind the wall. That's obvious, but pretty much just stay situationally aware.

Learn to kite:
I have survived and won countless games because I've simply ran from a melee dps, or a caster (going out of LoS), until my healer got a chance to heal me.

II) Don't let your partners die:
-Is there a warrior and a dk killing your priest? Shiv and Gouge the DK, dismantle the warrior, then get back on your target.
-Is your hunter about to get blown up by that mage? Blind/kick/gouge him before his cast finishes.
-You've got Gouge, Blind, Dismantle, Kick, Crippling poison, Mind numbing, use them!

III) Don't let your enemy get away:
-Always keep crippling up
-Is that warrior running towards you? Vanish his intercept.

IV) Burst when your target can't receive heals
-Is your target fully hotted and at 90% HP? Don't bother bursting, it won't work.
-Use Cold Blood and offensive vanishes when their healer is about to get caught in an unbreakable CC (his trinket is blown).
-Do the same if your target is out of LoS of his healer, and can't get into LoS before he'd die (you have him stunned there).

V) Sustain DPS when you know burst won't work
-Warlock Druid, for example. Keep EA and SnD up on that lock, and just keep DPSing. If you're pooling energy effectively, you should be scaring their healer into blowing trinket and NS. Once those are down, generate a CC chain and burst the lock.

1v1s in Arena:
-If your target has no DoTs to put on you, you'll typically want to be near a pillar. You want to kite your enemy around, and get as many restealths as possible. For a example, against a Warrior, you want to use crippling poison and avoid him as much as possible until you're really ready to take him down. Rupture him while you avoid his melee swings.
-Using nameplates is very useful for that task.
-Some pillars are thin enough for Taurens and Gnomes to hit through, so make sure you're back a little bit on the pillar.

-Against casters like Warlocks, it's pretty much a DPS race. All you can do is try and kill him before he kills you.
-Don't lose your cool, be sure to kick any casts. Don't forget expose armor.

Click to read part 3 of the comprehensive Rogue PvP guide