Phaelia’s Guide to Roguery

While switching from Druid to Rogue is a seldom-made choice (why play a Rogue when you can already play a Cat?), I thought I’d share with you a few tips on playing a Rogue from my extensive experience playing with Valenna over the years:

1. Stab things. Or slash them. But don’t smash them. People who smash are PEE-VEE-PEEers, are considered inferior, and are not really cut out for raiding.
2. Damage meters are your life and are almost as important as loot.
3. Exclude Beastmaster Hunters from your damage meter output. They’re so easy to play, they should be considered hired NPCs. And exclude Mages who have the unfair advantage of AOE. Exclude Warlocks for being … Warlocks. If you ever find yourself not at the top of the damage meters, it is because Blizzard hates you and has designed the encounter to screw over Rogues. On the other hand, when you do top the damage meters, it is clearly due to your superior skill.
4. Watch your threat. Watch it go higher and higher. Whee!!
5. Never use Feint. If you absolutely have to, make sure everyone knows (a raid-wide announcement is appropriate). If, after using Feint, you end up below #1 on the damage meters, blame it on the tanks’ lack of aggro forcing you to waste valuable energy to Feint.
6. If you die, it’s because Vanish is broken. If you pull aggro, it is because Vanish is broken. If you aren’t #1 on the damage meters … you guessed it. It’s because Vanish is broken.
7. Running out of AOEs is for pansies and people who aren’t #1 on the damage meters.
8. Don’t use poisons. They’re expensive and time-consuming to create. Just press your stabbing/slashing buttons harder; it’s almost the same thing.
9. Complain about how Blind is an inferior crowd control to Cyclone. Ignore all other forms of crowd control at your disposal. Fervently insist that Gouge, Sap, Kidney Shot, and Cheap Shot are not forms of crowd control but merely roleplaying features appropriate to your class.
10. Never, under any circumstances, use bandages, healthstones, or — Elune forbid — healing potions. Give a healer any room to slack off and you’ll be expected to maintain your own health indefinitely and waste valuable seconds and global cooldowns that could instead be used to DPS.
11. If you ever must violate #10, make sure everyone knows. Keep a running tally of how much money the healer owes you in expensive, life-saving consumables.
12. YOU should get the battle rez. No one else. Not the MT healer, not the Mage responsible for crowd controlling the Square who’s about to break. Not even the other Druid who still has a battle rez. And if you know your Druid has a battle rez available, be sure to die before the DPS Warrior.
13. Gloat over your ability to destroy X, Y, and/or Z class in PvP. Ignore the fact that it is merely a current design quirk of your spec/class/gear that allows you to do so. Bemoan the nerfing of this clearly (unadmittedly) overpowered ability.
14. Playing DPS is HARD. Don’t let anyone tell you different. You are important! You are a beautiful and unique snowflake! Along the same lines, frequent AFKs are acceptable as long as you leave yourself on auto-attack and within range of the mob you’re stabbing (or on auto-follow).
15. Never get rid of anything. You never know when you might need that level 65 quest reward with 4 more attack power (but otherwise vastly inferior stats) than what you’re currently wearing. Who says Druids need to be the only ones with four sets of armor in their banks?
16. Your racial abilities are vastly inferior to those provided to Rogues of other races.
17. It is acceptable for you to always be the person who aggros additional mobs when your group is moving through a dangerous area. This makes up for all the times you don’t aggro things while sapping.
18. "I thought I was stealthed" is a perfectly valid excuse … for anything. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise; they aren’t Rogues and wouldn’t understand.
19. Mana Tide doesn’t increase your standing on the damage meters. Windfury does. Therefore, a Shaman in your group is worth two in the raid.
20. Lament every new Rogue that joins your raids, be they newly-leveled alternates of guildmates or an applicant to your guild. Simultaneously complain that your class is much less desirable than it was at release.
21. If, in an upcoming Patch, changes are made to all other classes that would be considered nerfs, bemoan the fact that Blizzard just doesn’t care about Rogues.
22. It is completely unfair that there is only one set of gear for you to roll on. You should at least be allowed to roll on Ret-Pally and Enhancement Shaman gear to make up for the fact you only get to roll on DPS-Rogue leather — of which there is none.
23. Along those same lines, there is not, nor will there ever be, an upgrade for you wherever you go. In fact, all your current items are probably just sidegrades from the gear you had at level 60.
24. DPS Warriors should never have priority on weapons, rings, necklaces, trinkets, etc. because they can also tank. All you have is DPS! This goes double triple for Druids!
25. Opening lockboxes is hardly a class-defining skill. The skill should either be made self-only, or the boxes that you unlock should become soulbound.
26. Blog … but only occasionally. And only when you’re guilted into doing so by your best friend, Phaelia.

In parallel to this guide, Valenna has written a guide for Druiding (he refers to it as "Druidity").

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