Rogue Guide (1-60)

Rogue Guide (1-60)

Classic Rogue Guide


Rating:

When grouped with others, the Rogue is considered to be the DPS Machine. In other words, you are there to kill stuff. Occasionally you sap mobs or scout around in stealth mode, but for the most part, you are there to deal a world of hurt to your enemies. And as everyone knows, a Dead Rogue = 0 DPS, so it is your responsibility to make sure that your Rogue is equipped with not only the best in gear but also the best in potions and other items that will keep you alive while increasing your DPS. After you’ve reached level 60 and have acquired an epic mount and a decent collection of armor and weapons, any extra gold that starts building up should be used to increase the combat effectiveness of your Rogue. © Shadowpanther.net

Abbreviation
Agi – Agility
AP – Attack Power
BF – Blade Flurry
BiS – Best in Slot
CC – Crowd Control
CD – Cooldown
CP – Combo Point
DoT – Damage over Time
DP – Deadly Poison
DPS – Damage per Second
IP – Instant Poison
LoS – Line of Sight
PVE – Player versus Environment
PVP – Player versus Player
SnD – Slice and Dice
Stam – Stamina
Str – Strength

Races

Human [S80 A130]
Perception stealth detect, nice for PVP
Sword Specialization / Mace Specialization skill increased by 5
Diplomacy 10% more reputation

Gnome
Escape Artist nice for PVP and some PVE situations

Dwarf
Stoneform nice for PVP and sometimes in AQ / Naxx

Nightelf 
Shadowmeld +1 Stealthlevel, kinda useless, except for PVP
Quickness 1% dodge

Orc
Blood Fury 2min CD, Increases base melee attack power by 25% for 15 sec.
Hardiness a resisted stun won’t damage you, really nice for PVP and PVE

Troll
Berserking totally situational (grants more attack speed, when hurt badly)
Beast Slaying – 5% damage against Beasts, not that many beasts bosses around

Undead 
Will of the Forsaken nice for PVP and some PVE situations

If your goal is endgame raiding the choices are quite simple:

Human is the master race when it comes to pure dps if you decide to play alliance.
Orc is the master race when it comes to pure dps if you decide to play horde.

*Added base stats at lvl 60 [S = Strength A= Agility]

Talent Builds

Leveling Spec

Combat Sword 19-32-0
Combat swords rogue spec 19-32-0

Combat Sword 19-32-0
Combat swords rogue spec 2 19-32-0

Combat Sword 20-31-0 with Maladath
Combat swords rogue spec with Maladath

Combat Sword 19-32-0 Naxx Progress Special
Combat swords rogue spec 19-32-0

Combat Dagger 15-31-5
Combat Dagger rogue spec

The following Specs become more powerful when you reach a higher gear level (~AQ40 Gear) or you just get all possible Worldbuffs and reach the Critcap.

Seal Fate Dagger 30-16-5
Seal Fate dagger rogue spec

Seal Fate Sword 30-21-0 Naxx Progress Special
Seal Fate sword rogue spec

 

Seal Fate Sword 30-21-0
Seal fate sword rogue spec orig

Alliance Sidenote: Imp. Poisons are higher DPS than Imp. Eviscerate, but in longer fights, you going to risk losing all poison stacks, especially in Naxx. This is getting fixed someday. Let’s hope so.
Horde Sidenote: Imp Eviscerate is better than Imp Poisons by ~2 DPS, depends on points spent. If you have Windfury available.

PVE Rotation

First of all: you are playing with energy, you have 100 energy as default and you gain 20 energy every 2 seconds. That being said, you can start now with the basics.
Let’s assume that you are standing in front of a boss.

Step 1: Check your buffs

Check your buff bar for all group buffs, consumables, and poison stacks and rebuff if needed.
Fact to know: When you are grouped and stealthed, you are invisible for your groupmates too, keep that in mind, when you want to receive buffs -> go out of stealth.

Step 2: Opener

The first attack of a rogue, when he engages a fight, is called opener and rewards the first CPs.

Ambush [60 Energy | 1 CP | Stealth | Dagger needed]
Deals very high weapon damage.

Garrote [60 Energy | 1CP | Stealth]
DoT lasts 18sec, scales with AP, but consumes a debuff slot.

Cheap Shot [60 Energy | 2CP | Stealth]
4-sec stun
Very handy when you have to stunlock mobs.
Useless in most boss fights.

Sinister Strike [40 Energy | 1CP]
Deals weapon damage.

Backstab [60 Energy | 1 CP | Dagger needed]
Deals high weapon damage.

Recommendations for

Combat Swords – Sinister Strike
Best opener for Sword Spec, in my opinion, less dmg than garrote (SS can crit), but less energy cost. Easier to keep up your cycle afterward and to get faster to the target without the stealth penalty.

Combat Dagger – Ambush / Backstab
The average damage of Ambush is higher than Backstab, even without the 30% extra crit rate.
But Backstab doesn’t require stealth and you could get faster into the fight. Decide situationally!

Seal Fate Dagger – Backstab
Best opener, 30% higher crit rate than Ambush, you want to crit with your CP-builders.

Step 3: building CPs and using Finishing Moves

CP can be built via Sinister Strike or Backstab (Hemo/Ghostly Strike for PVP-Spec).
You can receive a maximum of 5 CP.

CP consuming abilities are called Finishing Move or Finisher.

Slice and Dice– DPS
Maintain it 100% of the time, it’s your main damage deliverer. And it does not matter how much CPs you have to use for it, so use it with your first CP and further into the fight try to use it at 5CP all the time, to profit from Relentless Strikes.

Eviscerate– DPS
use it at 5CP all the time, to profit from Relentless Strikes.
Decreased damage by armor.
This is your default finisher.

Rupture– DPS
Ignores armor – useful for bosses with high amounts of armor.
Be Aware! it consumes a debuff slot, ask your raid leader.
It depends on your gear and spec if it’s more useful than Eviscerate. Check the Spreadsheet to get exact data and keep in mind: rupture can not crit.

Kidney Shot– non-DPS
Finishing move that stuns the target. Lasts longer per combo point.
Doesn’t work on most bosses, but sometimes very useful on adds and trash to prevent them from hurting you and your group mates.

Expose Armor– non-DPS
overwrites the Sunder Armor debuff of warriors, kinda useless in PVE situations
Don’t bother using this, its a waste of precious CP.

Step 4: The DPS Cycle

Most DPS is done by 3 things: spamming main ability which grants CP and using these CP to maintain SnD and use the rest of CP for dmg finishers like eviscerate.

Step 5: Movement in Fights

Movement is by far the best skill check of a player, to maintain the rotation isn’t really hard, but to move and keep an eye on the boss mechanics while maintaining the rotation is the tricky part.
To be honest, there’s not much to say here. Turn your character with the mouse, turning via A / D = DEAD or less DPS.

Step 6: How to use Cooldowns

The first thing to know is, that you want to do as much DPS as possible.
Your DPS is affected by debuffs on the boss and your own buffs.
That kept in mind, you should always wait with using offensive cooldowns until the most debuffs/buffs are up, for example, 5 stacks of sunder armor, faerie fire, etc.
Maybe adding a crusader proc to it, now its the best time to use your AR, BF, racial, or whatever your race/spec offers to you.

Combining cooldowns with each other maximizes your DPS on an enormous amount.

Example: BF + Blood Fury both 2 min CD, best used together

On the other hand, you’ll face a few boss fights where you can cleave adds with BF.
It’s best to not care about debuffs/procs at this time and use every possible cooldown for the cleave. Adds die faster, your DPS is UBER HIGH = WINNING.

Another example is boss fights, where you’ll face enrage phases or phases where you should do the most DPS in (f.e. Onyxia Flight Phase), use the cooldowns there!

Killing a boss and saving your teammate’s lives always has a higher priority, than your personal DPS!

Cooldowns

Offensive

Blade Flurry CD: 2 min / Duration: 15 sec
Increases attack speed + hitting a second target nearby

Adrenaline Rush CD: 5 min / Duration: 15 sec
100% more energy regen – instead of 20 per 2 sec, you gain 40 every 2 sec
Using it less than a second before a new energy tick, will result in 8x 40 energy ticks, using it too early will only get you 7.

Cold Blood CD: 3 min
100% Crit on next yellow attack – best used for 5 CP Eviscerate

Sprint CD: 5 min
70% increased run speed

Thistle Tea CD: 5 min shared CD with Major Healthstone, Whipper Root Tuber and some others
Grants 100 energy on use – best used at 0 energy

Defensive

Vanish CD: 5 min
Wipes threat & removes immobilizing effects – use to prevent gaining aggro or to get out of slows and stuff

Blind CD: 5 min
10 sec CC – use it to rescue teammates from lose mobs, until the tank picks it up again

Evasion CD: 5 min
50% increased dodge chance – used to tank a short period of time or for dodging cleaves

Debuff Slots and why are they important

In 1.12.1 we face a limitation of 16 debuffs that can occur on a mob / boss.

Here is a list of debuffs, which grant extra DPS for us rogues:

Sunder Armor – reduced armor by 2250
Curse of Recklessness – reduced armor by 640
Faerie Fire – reduced armor by 505
Gift of Arthas – Increases physical damage taken by 8

I personally start arguing about missing debuffs, when other classes slack. (not recommended)

So in 40 man raids, it’s most likely that the 16 slots are filled with useful debuffs, to push the overall raid DPS or for defensive matters.
In 20 man or lesser raids, you can check on your group setup. If you can find space on the debuff list, then its fine to use deadly poison or rupture/garrote, but only if it actually pushes your DPS.

Poisons

Instant Poison – this is your DEFAULT poison, use it on both weapons (Horde only on OH)
Deadly Poison – does more DPS than IP on long fights, but consumes a debuff slot, not recommended in 20/40 man raids
Crippling Poison – useful for a few boss fights, where you have to slow adds and kite them
Mind-numbing Poison – increasing spell casting time, useless for most boss fights
Wound Poison – reduced Healing taken, useless for most boss fights

Main Attributes (Stats)

Attributes are the basic building blocks for a character’s combat ability. The five primary attributes are strength, agility, stamina, intellect, and spirit. These five attributes along with armor appear on the character sheet under Base Stats. These are often referred to as simply stats.

A number of secondary attributes affect specific areas of combat more directly and are often influenced in some way by a primary attribute. Secondary attributes include critical strike rate, damage absorption, attack power, spell power, and many others.

All characters inherently have some amount of each attribute that increases with level depending mainly on class. For example, a mage will have more base intellect than a rogue, who will have more base agility. Increasing these attributes is mainly done with equipment, as well as temporary effects such as buffs, elixirs, scrolls, auras, and many other means.

Nearly all combat mechanics rely in some way on one or more character attributes. Increasing the appropriate attribute will increase damage done, reduce damage taken, increase healing done, affect a character’s mana or health, or other benefits. Understanding how these attributes work is important for effective combat.

Agility
Increases attack power with both melee and ranged weapons by 1
Increases your crit chance by 1% per 29 Agility
Increases Armor and Dodge

Strength
Increases attack power with melee weapons by 1.

Stamina
Increases health points by 10 per point

Intellect
Increases the rate at which weapon skills improve

Spirit
Increases health & mana regeneration rates = useless stat

Armor
Decreases the amount of damage taken from physical attacks
A stat you don’t have to care about

A list of Values for the Combat Specs
expect that crit & agi value is higher in Seal Fate Specs. Especially for BiS gear. If you want to calculate with Spirit of Zandalar just add factor *0.15 to Agi and Str. These numbers are averages and you can use them to calculate your Items, without using my spreadsheet.

Pre Raid BiS Gear buffed *[Dagger]

Alliance

1 Crit = 23 AP [20]
1 Hit = 18 AP [16]
1 Agi = 1.9 AP [1.8]
1 Str = 1.1 AP

Horde

1 Crit = 24 AP [20]
1 Hit = 20 AP [17]
1 Agi = 1.8 AP [1.7]
1 Str = 1.0 AP

BiS Gear*[Dagger]

Alliance

1 Crit = 29 AP [25]
1 Hit = 21 AP [18]
1 Agi = 2.2 AP [2]
1 Str = 1.10 AP

Horde

1 Crit = 28 AP [24]
1 Hit = 24 AP [20]
1 Agi = 2 AP [1.8]
1 Str = 1.0 AP

Effects of Weapon Skill

For each point that your weapon skill exceeds your opponent’s defense, you gain the following:

Your chance to miss decreases by 0.04%.
Your chance to score a critical hit increases by 0.04%.
Your opponent’s chance to block your attack decreases by 0.04%.
Your opponent’s chance to parry your attack decreases by 0.04%.
Your opponent’s chance to dodge your attack decreases by 0.04%.

When you hit a monster or a boss the game will go thru a small procedure to decide what your swing will be… will it miss? will it crit? will it be a dodge or perhaps a glancing blow? The easiest way to explain this is by imagining yourself a prioritized list like this:

1) Miss
2) Dodge
3) Parry
4) Glancing blow
5) Block
6) Critical hit
7) Normal hit

What this means is that if places 1-6 total up to 100%, Normal hit will be knocked off the table and never occur.

Important to know is that a boss has a base dodge chance of 5.6% and can only parry/block attacks that are made from their front, but since a rogue should never be attacking a dungeon/raid monster/boss from the front, we will see their parry/block chance as 0%.
Your base chance to miss is 24,6% when dual wielding against a boss.
Another good thing to know is that when you as a player gain +hit you do not exactly increase your hit chance, instead you reduce the chance to miss.
The total amount in the hit table can not be higher than 100%.
Your chance to hit is what is left over to reach 100% after adding all the other things. Let’s say your chance to get a miss+dodge+glancing blow+crit = 80%, then you have 20% to get a normal hit.

Hit refers to physical damage that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons. The base chance to miss with maximum weapon skill (300) against an opponent of equal level is 5% for two-handed and 24% for dual wield.

In short: 310 Weaponskill = huge dps boost

Calculating your Hit Table

The standard white hit table for a naked level 60 rogue looks like this:

Miss: 24.6%
Dodge: 5.6%
Parry: 0%
Glancing blow: 40%
Block: 0%
Critical hit: ~10%
Normal hit: 19.8%

This means that if you make 100 attacks against a boss, you will deal 0% damage 30 times, 200% damage 10 times, 100% damage 20 times, and 70% damage 40 times.

Now lets say you find a lot of gear that gives crit but no-hit and end up having 35% crit, your white hit table would then look like this:

Miss: 24.6%
Dodge: 5.6%
Parry: 0%
Glancing blow: 40%
Block: 0%
Critical hit: 29.8%
Normal hit: 0%

Note that you have 35% crit but only 29.8% of your strikes will be critical strikes, this is because you are over the thing people like to call crit cap. It’s quite a nice name, but unlike the hit cap, it is not a fixed value. The crit cap is the same as the % of swings that will not be glancing/dodged/missed.

Let’s keep going with this example and say that you find gear that does not reduce your chance to crit and gives you +6% hit, your white hit table would look like this:

Miss: 18.6%
Dodge: 5.6%
Parry: 0%
Glancing blow: 40%
Block: 0%
Critical hit: 35%
Normal hit: 0.8%

As explained earlier, the +6% hit will not increase the chance to get a normal hit… but rather reduce the chance to get a miss.

There are two big differences between a white hit-table and a yellow hit-table and that is that yellow hits can not be glancing blows and the standard chance to miss is only 8%.

The hit cap is the amount of +hit you need in order to make sure none of your attacks will miss. There are two different hit caps

The first hit cap is the most important one, it is commonly known as the yellow hit cap. This hit cap is the amount of +hit needed to never miss with special abilities which damage is shown with yellow text on your screen. You will need a +8% hit to always hit with your special abilities against a raid boss. This hit cap is a lot more important than the next one because missing with your abilities such as Sinister Strike, Backstab or Eviscerate is a huge waste of energy and global cooldowns, and also this one is a lot easier to achieve.

The second hit cap is the white damage hit cap. This is the amount of +hit that needs to never miss a normal melee swing. You will need +24.6% hit to always hit a raid boss, as you might notice 24.6 is a lot higher than 8 and this is the reason why it’s not as important as the first one since you would have to give up a lot of other stats in order to reach 24.6% hit, and there is nowhere near enough +hit on gear early on at level 60 to reach this cap.

Poisons are affected only by Spell Hit and special talents, so don’t bother about them.

In short: Minimum Hit = 8% (5% from talents + 3% from gear) and maximum Hit = 24.6%

Critical strike and how to calculate crit cap and why is it important?

Critical strike (often abbreviated as crit) refers to 100% bonus physical damage (twice your normal damage) that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons.
The chance to critical strike can be viewed by opening your spellbook and moving your mouse over the attack ability shown there.
It is increased by agility where you increase your critical strike chance by 1% for every 29 points.

Crit cap for your auto attacks (white damage) is a variable that changes based on the following formula:

100% – 24.6% miss – 5.6% dodge – 40% glance + your hit%

Crit cap for your yellow attacks :

100% – 8% miss – 5.6% dodge + your hit%

note that yellow attacks cannot glance and that you can not push off dodge with hit rating

Now to elaborate why is crit cap important, well its quite simple actually, there is no point of having more crit than crit cap because we already established that the total amount in the hit table can not be higher than 100%.

In short: after reaching 8% Hit, Crit > Hit, until you reach the Crit cap.

Best in Slot (BiS) Gear

Here is a list of items that you can easily obtain in 5/10 mans without big efforts.
This gear setup is called Pre Raid BiS Gear and is the best way to get into your first raids.

T0.5 4-Set Bonus is a good way to push your DPS when you can’t reach higher level gear like T1/T2 etc. Feel free to check out the spreadsheet, to calculate the values of your current/future gear.

Pre Raid

Combat Sword Spec [Combat Dagger Spec]

Head
Mask of the Unforgiven
Lesser Arcanum of Voracity
Neck
Mark of Fordring
Shoulder
Truestrike Shoulders
none
Cloak
Cape of the Black Baron
Cloak – Lesser Agility
Chest
Cadaverous Armor > Nightbrace Tunic > Shadowcraft Tunic
Chest – Greater Stats / Chest – Stats
Wrist
Bracers of the Eclipse > Deepfury Bracers
Bracer – Superior Strength / Bracer – Greater Strength
Hands
Devilsaur Gauntlets
Gloves – Greater Agility
Waist
Cloudrunner Girdle [Mugger’s Belt]
Legs
Devilsaur Leggings
Lesser Arcanum of Voracity
Feet
Swiftwalker Boots / Mongoose Boots
Boots – Minor Speed / Boots – Greater Agility
Ring
Don Julio’s Band > Tarnished Elven Ring > Painweaver Band > Blackstone Ring
Trinkets
Hand of Justice > Blackhand’s Breadth > Rune of the Guard Captain > Royal Seal of Eldre’Thalas

Mainhand
Dal’Rend’s Sacred Charge [The Lobotomizer > Electrified Dagger [A] – Glacial Blade [H]*
Weapon – Crusader [Weapon – Crusader / Weapon – Superior Striking]
Offhand
Dal’Rend’s Tribal Guardian > Mirah’s Song [Felstriker / Distracting Dagger]**
Weapon – Crusader
Ranged
Precisely Calibrated Boomstick < Satyr’s Bow (This will change in a future patch)

*The Lobotomizer uses a debuff slot and i don’t recommend it for 40 man raids. Its totally fine in 5-20man.
** Distracting Dagger is just an example, its best when you don’t have Mugger’s Belt, otherwise every other fast Dagger is nice to have with a high dps rate.

Current BiS List 1.6

I did the calculations without the World buffs and fully Raid buffed of course. For the alliance side, as human.
Feel free to create your own Horde equivalent Version of it, by using your brain or my Spreadsheet.

Combat Sword Spec [Combat Dagger Spec]

Head
Bloodfang Hood
Lesser Arcanum of Voracity
Neck
Prestor’s Talisman of Connivery
Shoulder
Bloodfang Spaulders [Nightslayer Shoulder Pads]
none
Cloak
Puissant Cape
Cloak – Lesser Agility
Chest
Bloodfang Chestpiece
Chest – Greater Stats
Wrist
Bloodfang Bracers
Bracer – Superior Strength
Hands
Bloodfang Gloves [Aged Core Leather Gloves]
Gloves – Greater Agility
Waist
Bloodfang Belt
Legs
Bloodfang Pants
Lesser Arcanum of Voracity
Feet
Bloodfang Boots [Boots of the Shadow Flame]
Boots – Minor Speed
Ring
Band of Accuria + Master Dragonslayer’s Ring
Trinkets
Hand of Justice + Drake Fang Talisman

Mainhand
Chromatically Tempered Sword [Perdition’s Blade]
Weapon – Crusader [Weapon – Crusader / Weapon – Superior Striking]
Offhand
Brutality Blade [Core Hound Tooth]
Weapon – Agility
Ranged
Striker’s Mark

BiS Overall

Sword Spec [Seal Fate Dagger Spec]

Head
Bonescythe Helmet
Death’s Embrace
Neck
Prestor’s Talisman of Connivery
Shoulder
Bonescythe Pauldrons
Might of the Scourge
Cloak
Shroud of Dominion
Cloak – Lesser Agility
Chest
Bonescythe Breastplate
Chest – Greater Stats
Wrist
Bonescythe Bracers
Bracer – Superior Strength
Hands
Bonescythe Gauntlets [Aged Core Leather Gloves]
Gloves – Superior Agility
Waist
Belt of Never-ending Agony [Bonescythe Waistguard]
Legs
Bonescythe Legplates
Death’s Embrace
Feet
Bonescythe Sabatons
Boots – Minor Speed
Rings
Bonescythe Ring / Band of Unnatural Forces
Trinkets
Slayer’s Crest > Kiss of the Spider > Drake Fang Talisman

Mainhand
Gressil, Dawn of Ruin [Kingsfall]
Weapon – Crusader
Offhand
Iblis, Blade of the Fallen Seraph / The Hungering Cold for non human [Harbinger of Doom]
Weapon – Agility
Ranged
Nerubian Slavemaker

Biznicks 247×128 Accurascope not sure if working on Nostalrius, it shouldn’t!
Seal of the Dawn or Mark of the Champion are the best trinkets against undead.

Professions

Engineering / Mining – best profession for maximizing your DPS
Goblin Sapper Charge / Dense Dynamite / Thorium Grenade (not working on mobs that are stun immune) / Field Repair Bot 74A / Gnomish Battle Chicken (unproved functionality)

Herbalism / Alchemy – to farm / craft your own consumables

CookingRecipe: Thistle Tea

Picklocking – a REAL ROGUE trains his picklock skills! you can make some extra gold here.
Tip: Train it while leveling your character, your reachable max skill increases by 5 for every level.

Consumables

Here is a list of useful consumables you should bring to a raid.

Mandatory Stuff

Elixir of the Mongoose or Elixir of Greater Agility
Winterfall Firewater
Juju Power
Grilled Squid / Blessed Sunfruit
Ground Scorpok Assay & R.O.I.D.S.

Instant Poison VI
Heavy Runecloth Bandage
Flash Powder used for vanish
Blinding Powder used for blind
Thistle Tea

Crystal Charge / Ez-Thro Dynamite II / Stratholme Holy Water for AOE

Additional / Survivability

Flask of the Titans
Sheen of Zanza
Spirit of Zanza
Swiftness of Zanza
Elixir of Fortitude
Elixir of Demonslaying for Doomlord Kazzak
Elixir of Poison Resistance nice for AQ / Naxx
Gift of Arthas +10 Shadow res
Major Troll’s Blood Potion
Rumsey Rum Black Label
Dirge’s Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops
Free Action Potion for all bosses, who stun & do movement impairing effects
Jungle Remedy nice to have for 5 mans
Major Healing Potion
Restorative Potion

Greater Fire Protection Potion MC / BWL / Naxx
Greater Nature Protection Potion ZG / AQ / Naxx
Greater Frost Protection Potion Sapphiron / Kel’Thuzad
Greater Arcane Protection Potion Shazzrah / Gothik
Greater Shadow Protection Potion BWL / AQ / Naxx
Holy Protection Potion hmmm yeah, it exists

others

Oil of Immolation enhanced by spell power and expendable to 100% uptime
Flask of Supreme Power to enhance Oil of Immolation and/or Lifesteal
Elixir of Greater Firepower to enhance Oil of Immolation
Greater Arcane Elixir to enhance Oil of Immolation

Juju Might currently higher droprate on Nostalrius, than retail, go get it!
Juju Flurry not really worth it

Buffs

Raid Buffs from Groupmates

Blessing of Might Rank 7 or Blessing of Might Rank 6
Blessing of Kings
Blessing of Salvation

Windfury Totem switchable with Grace of Air
Grace of Air Totem R2 / Grace of Air Totem R3
Strength of Earth Totem Rank 4 or Strength of Earth Totem Rank 5

Trueshot Aura

Gift of the Wild

Prayer of Fortitude
Prayer of Shadow Protection

Battle Shout Rank 6 or Battle Shout Rank 7

Blood Pact

World Buffs

Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer Head of Onyxia
Spirit of Zandalar Head of Hakkar
Mol’dar’s Moxie Tribute Run
Fengus’ Ferocity Tribute Run
Slip’kik’s Savvy Tribute Run (needs some testing, if it affects melee crit)
Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Damage always click the first message to get the damage buff
Songflower Serenade

Warchief’s Blessing Horde only

UI & Addons

Mandatory

Chronometer (Bar for SnD Uptime and others)
BigWigs (Basic Boss mod)
oRA2 (Basic Raid mod)
KLHThreatMeter (Simple Aggro Meter)

Oto’s UI Compilation

Image

Macros & how to

Sinister (BS/Hemo) + Auto Attack

/cast Sinister Strike
/script if not IsCurrentAction(9) then UseAction(9) end;

This macro allows you to attack your target with Sinister Strike and turns on the auto-attack. Useful for every target switch when you don’t have energy left or you don’t wanna right-click on each target.
Attention: you need to put the Spell Attack in your action bar! In my example, I put the Spell on the first action bar on slot 9. This can also be used for BS or HEMO. Just replace the spell name and the energy cost.

This Screenshot can help you by finding the best positions and slot numbers for your macros.

Trinket Button

/script UseInventoryItem(13);

or any other slot, by using this screenshot.