Rogue Comprehensive PvP Guide Part 3: 1v1

So I've pretty much already explained everything except how to kill specific classes in 1v1 situations. I'm going to write this from the stand point of a Mut/Prep Rogue, since that's easy and most people are specced it. It won't be hard to imagine how to do this as any other spec. This is all based on the current game. Later, things will change drastically. For example, atm, Priests are very easy to kill, but I guarantee you in a few months, they will be moderate or hard to beat. When I used classes, I pretty much went with their most common or best specs. For example, Shaman is Resto, not Enhance, because Enhance would be a joke to beat.

Difficulty is based on how difficult it is to win most of the time, assuming you're a good player, against someone of equal skill and gear. So if it says "Easy", then it means it's "easy to win most of the time".

Warrior:
Difficulty: Very Easy
Warriors are very easy to beat in the current state of the game, primarily due to dismantle.

1) Open with Cheap Shot
2) Mutilate and apply a 4-5 point rupture
3) Dismantle
4) Mutilate until you've reached 4 or 5 CPs
5) Save energy until dismantle has 1 second left on its duration
6) Kidney Shot from behind. If it is avoided some how, evasion.
7) Use your burst, Cold Blood mutilate, mutilate again.
8) Evasion if you haven't already, and drop a rupture.
9) Get out of melee range immediately after -- this should be a fluid motion
10) 5-8 Kite him, don't let him intercept you, but don't get melee swung either if it's possible.
11) With near full energy again, go for a vanish cheap shot
12) Mutilate twice again, and if possible, kidney shot
13) At this point, you should be able to finish him off.

As you can see, it's not very exact, lots of things can happen. It's just a general strategy, to give you a general idea of what I'd do if I came across a Warrior.

Warlock:
Difficulty: Easy

1) Cheap shot
2) Cold blood Mutilate, Expose Armor, Mutilate again
3) Mutilate once more, but don't drop under 25 energy
4) Save up energy, he'll probably death coil you some time soon, just be ready to trinket/wotf the fear... You'll be on sprint at that point to get back to him
4) Once you have near full energy, kidney shot
5) Cloak of Shadows immediately after the KS (He'll probably trinket your KS, and this will leave him helpless)
6) Mutilate twice, ending with an eviscerate
7) As CloS is about to go down, vanish and back away from him quickly, avoid getting aoe feared or taking a dot
8) Sit around for a few seconds to gather energy, reopen, and finish him off.

Priest
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

1) Garrote
2) Mutilate and EA
3) Be ready to trinket if he fears right after the CS. I'd say use CloS to resist it, but good Priests don't usually use it so predictably.
4) Mutilate twice more, he will have feared by now.
5) With full energy, kidney shot and CB Mutilate, mutilate again, eviscerate
6a) If he trinkets, CloS and Blind him, restealth and bandage while he's Sapped.
6b) If he doesn't trinket, CloS, Vanish
7) Reopen with cheap shot
8) Get in front of him, and blind, start bandaging
9) He'll surely trinket this blind, otherwise you can restealth, sap, and reopen to finish him off
10) You know he's going to trinket, so gouge him just as he does, try and don't let him get a cast off
11) He shouldn't have fear back up at this point, but he might. If you are experienced with the timer on his fear, there are ways to avoid the cast when your gouge ends.
12) Pool some energy during this gouge, mutilate to 4-5 CPs, and evi
13) If you need to, you can prep vanish and reopen with another garrote
14) Either way, get back to 4-5 CPs, and KS again... he should be dead by this point

Hunter
Difficulty: Moderate

I'm assuming the Hunter isn't BM. If he is, all you can do is zerg him down and through a dismantle in there.

1) Open with cheap shot
2) Cold blood mutilate
3) Dismantle
4) Evasion
5) Sprint
6) Mutilate again and KS
7) Your KS will probably get dodged or parried, or something gay, so just eviscerate
8) Kinda just... zerg him down... lol

The fight's pretty silly.

Druid
Difficulty: Easy to Hard

Resto:
Easy
Do something similar to killing a priest. The only real difference is that you can more focus on DPS. Just chain stuns and silences. Burst him down.

Doomkin:
Easy

1) Open with Cheap Shot
2) Mutilate
3) Eviscerate
4) Vanish if you got rooted from the proc, do it before he gets out of the stun
5) Reopen with garrote
6) Sprint
7) Mutilate
8) Kidney Shot... It's really sort of situational, you might get the feeling he's about to try and pop out of owl form and heal, which is right when you want to kidney shot.
9) If you get war stomped, let him cast the cyclone, then just trinket it and attack, he'll pop into caster when the cyclone cast finishes, and you'll get a chance to do some big damage for a global or two.

It's hard to describe this fight, but it's very systematic, it just takes real practice.

Feral:
Moderate to Hard

Sadly, this is another very stupid fight. Pretty much he's going to sit in bear and spam mangle you, while you 5-8 kite him on crippling poison and Rupture.


Shaman
Difficulty: Moderate to Hard

This is pretty much like fighting a priest, again, except you don't have to worry about CC. You do, however, have to worry about him tanking you and outhealing your damage. There are two ways to beat a resto shaman: Burst with heavy stuns and silence chains, or outlast.

To burst him down:

1) Cheap shot
2) Mutilate, KS
3) Cold blood mutilate, mutilate, evi
4a) If he trinketed KS, Blind, hit his fire totem if it's up immediately, and restealth to sap, bandage, reopen.
4b) Vanish, Garrote
5) Mutilate, Evi
6) Be ready to kick any casts.

To outlast, you'll want
1) Open with Garrote
2) Mutilate, SnD
3) Hit any fire totem, and poison cleansing
LET HIM HEAL, with wound up, you want him to heal, and go OOM as fast as possible.
4) Mutilate, Mutilate, Rupture
5) Keep SnD and Rupture up at all times, and keep hitting those totems.
6) When he drops mana tide, hit it immediately
7) CloS on his Shock CDs, to avoid the damage
8) Use herbalism heal, self heal trinket, or any self heal ability available on every CD
9) When he's as OOM as he's about as OOM as he's going to get, pool energy, kick a heal, and burst him down.

Paladin
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

If he's Ret,

1) Cheap shot
2) Cold blood mutilate, eviscerate
3) Dismantle
4) Mutilate one or two more times, he'll be forced to bubble
5) When he bubbles, sprint away, CloS if necessary, and Vanish
6) Once bubble is down, reopen and repeat.

If he's Holy,

1) Garrote
2) Cold Blood Mutilate, eviscerate
3) Vanish, Cheap Shot
4) By the end of the Cheap shot duration, you can Mutilate again, and he'll likely be scared into bubbling
6) If he doesn't bubble, he'll blow some instants, just kidney shot him here
7) Mutilate to 4-5 points, and he'll surely bubble by now
8) Again, sprint, clos, vanish
9) Once bubble is down, reopen and repeat.

Mage
Difficulty: Moderate (Shadow Dance) Difficult (Mutilate)

Mages and Rogues are pretty much the only opponents in which it's a LOT harder to kill as one spec or the other. The problem with Mutilate and Mages is the lack of mobility, that if you get a little unlucky or make a mistake, you're kited and dead.

1) Ambush
2) Continue to walk forward, through him, and Cold Blood Mutilate
3) Eviscerate
4) Now, if he's Arcane, he might have Ice blocked on your CB Mutilate, and negated it. If so, get in front an watch the Iceblock buff on his buff bar, the instant it disappears, gouge. You'll be able to gouge before he blinks 95% of the time.
5) With him gouged, mutilate.
6) He'll blink, you sprint and vanish. You want to run to the side, not at him, otherwise he'll blizzard you out.
7) Reopen with a garrote, eviscerate, and he'll practically be dead.
8) If he's frost, he may be higher in HP, and you'll have to go with what you've got, continue to burst him down while avoiding his damage.

Death Knight
Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult

Death knights are pretty much like Warriors that have pets that can stun you, and spells to hit you through dismantle. They also have dots, and all sorts of gay shit.

1) Cheap Shot
2) Cold Blood Mutilate, Rupture
3) Dismantle
4) Mutilate twice more and evi
4) Sprint, CloS if needed, Vanish as dismantle ends
5) He probably popped ice bound fortitude already, expecting a KS earlier on, if so, wait it out before you open
6) Reopen with a cheap shot, kidneyshot if he isn't on icebound fortitude, and try to burst him down

Vanishing to avoid damage while you're out of energy is very important against a DK.

Rogue
Difficulty: Very Difficult

This is "very difficult" because it's based upon winning most of the time against someone equally geared and skilled as yourself. Rogue vs Rogue encounters are the fastest in the game, and to win requires great reaction time.

If you've got the opener:
1) Cheap Shot
2) Be ready for him to trinket, don't use Mutilate yet, or it'll put you on GCD
3) If he trinkets, blind, and, if he blinded you, you've won. If he vanished your blind, his stealth will drop, and you can simply vanish yourself and reopen. You've won, if he doesn't FoK you out of stealth. Either way, dismantle him, and you should have it in the bag.
4) If not, kidney shot and cb mut, then vanish in the same instant
5) Reopen with a cheap shot, because he will have certainly trinketed by now
6) From here, he's dead

If he's got the opener:
If he cheap shots and uses an instant, then trinket and blind him. Watch very closely, if he trinkets, vanish. He's just used blind, and you're both out of stealth. This puts you both on even ground. The first thing you want to do is dismantle him. If he's good, he'll do the same. Just after that, evasion. Hope is, you're faster than him, so you've dismantled him and put yourself on evasion before he could do the same. He may vanish, to which you FoK him out.

I find Rogue vs. Rogue duels incredibly shitty, because things never seem to work. For example, it seems that in duels, if I spam blind for a second straight (while not on GCD), it just won't use the ability half the time. I'd think it's just me being shitty, but this type of thing never happens for me in arena, so I don't know. I hate duels, for this reason, it seems like nothing works.

Another reason RvsR duels are incredibly shitty is, you have no healer. What I mean is, if you are opened on, trinket a stun, and vanish, say he vanishes too. He got the opener, so you're down health, and now you're both in stealth. It doesn't help you at all. In an arena situation, getting yourself into stealth like that would save you, give you the chance to be healed, and perhaps win the game.

Anyway, there you have it. My Comprehensive PvP Guide to the Rogue class.