[DPS] rogue dps guide

This guide is written for Rogues who strictly raid and does not make any attempt to accommodate PVP. Keep in mind this guide isn't written to accommodate competitive non-Combat specs; it is completely about maximizing your PVE DPS and making you mathematically as effective as you can be.

How to Raid as a Rogue, v. 1.0:
Before Raiding

First off, spec Combat--20/41 for Swords or Fists, 15/41/5 for Daggers. There is no reason to be any other spec for raiding if you want to maximize your DPS. Remember that you are not speccing to top the meters on clearing trash; you are speccing to maximize your DPS for boss fights. Swords and Fists are pretty much equally viable.

Swords, Fists, and Daggers are all competitive with each other--the main problem with Daggers is the abundance of fights in TBC which force you to move around, and the slightly more complicated cycle that it uses, which both make it less easy to play. In the hands of a skilled rogue, all three weapon choices are viable.

Mutilate builds can do decent damage, but it has no place in 25-man raids if you want to do the best DPS you can possibly do. It can be almost "competitive," but not optimal.

That being said, here are some of your most viable raiding specs:
20/41 Combat Swords/Fists: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=w0ebovZMIVobVzxMGot
20/41 Combat Swords/Fists, Poison/Bleed-immune mobs: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhebotZMIVobVzxMGot

Substitute 5/5 Fist Spec for 5/5 Sword Spec if you prefer them.

15/41/5 Combat Daggers: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=w0gcoLZMIVbrEz0MMotV

Improved Gouge, Improved Sprint, Endurance and Improved Kick are all filler points and can be exchanged to your liking, but all the other points should remain as they are.

The other important part of preparing yourself for raids is configuring your gear properly. There are a few stats which you want to focus on, in no particular order:
-Agility: 1 point of Agility increases your Attack power by 1. Every 40 Agility increases your chance to Crit by 1%. Every 20 Agility increases your chance to Dodge by 1%.
-Hit Rating: 15.8 hit rating = 1% chance to hit a mob. You need 25.5% hit to not miss a level 73 mob (aka, raid bosses). 5/5 Precision reduces this number by 5%, and 2/2 Weapon Expertise reduces it by 1%, therefore you need 19.5%--308 hit rating--to never miss a level 73 mob with the aforementioned talents. A Human using Swords will need 300 hit rating. Further weapon skill decreases the amount you need even more, and is discussed a few lines below.
-Crit Rating: 22.1 Crit Rating increases your chance to Crit a mob by 1%.
-Attack Power: Every 14 Attack Power increases the DPS of your weapon by 1, by increasing your weapon's damage range. This affects both white damage and yellow attacks.
-Weapon skill: 3.9 weapon skill RATING on an item will net you 1 weapon skill. 1 weapon skill gives you .1% increased chance to hit as well as a small increase to your chance to crit and a small decrease to the chance that the mob mitigates your attacks. These numbers are not included since they are disputed and undergoing testing.
-Haste: 10.51 Haste Rating gives you 1% Haste. Scales incredibly well with Sword Specialization, Windfury, and raid buffs.
-Armor Penetration/Ignore armor: Ignores some portion of your target's armor. Only found on end-game items, for the most part. Very useful, since it increases all of your damage by some percentage.

Ideally, you want to balance these stats, with the consideration that having a high hit rating is very important--if you miss the mob all the time, it doesn't matter how strong your attacks are. A rogue who has all the Karazhan epics up through Opera but instance blues for all the rest, with all of his gear enchanted, might look something like this:
-1500 AP
-280 Hit
-23% Crit

The high hit rating comes from the early Karazhan drops (such as Romulo's Poison Vial) and items such as the Fel Leather set, which is an excellent set of starter gear for raiding.

A Rogue in full epics including some T5 gear/heroic gear/some T4 gear might look like this:
-1750 AP
-250 Hit
-25% Crit

Karazhan/T4 gear has abundant hit rating, whereas T5 gear starts to push you towards heavy AP and more crit while sacrificing some hit rating.

Weapons:
Main Hand: Slow (1.8-19 for daggers, 2.6-2.8 for Swords), high average damage, high DPS weapon for heavy hits with your instant attacks.
Off Hand: Fast (1.3-1.5 speed in either case), high DPS weapons for more Combat Potency procs, more poison applications, and more sword specialization procs. You should really do a couple weeks of Arena, even if you only play ten games a week, to get the Season 2 Offhand weapon of your choice: it is truly the most powerful Offhand you will find until very, very late in the current raiding progression.
Choose ranged weapons purely for their stats, but keep a throwing weapon for PVP as well.

Finally, enchant your gear. The following are the best enchants for each slot and are meant for very good gear; cheaper ones are listed after it for beginning raiders:
Weapons: Mongoose on both (Cheaper: +15 Agility, +7 Weapon Damage)
Head: +34 AP/+16 Hit (Glyph of Ferocity)
Shoulder: Either Aldor (+30 AP/+10 Crit) or Scryer (+25 AP/+15 Crit) shoulder enchant.
Chest: +6 All Stats
Legs: +50 AP/+12 Crit (Nethercobra Leg Armor) (Cheaper: Cobrahide Leg Armor: +40 AP/+10 Crit)
Gloves: +15 Agility, or +10 haste rating at a certain point of Hyjal/BT gear.
Back: +12 Agility
Feet: +12 Agility
Wrist: +24 AP
Rings: +2 Weapon Damage. Enchanters only.

During the raid:

ALWAYS ATTACK FROM BEHIND. Mobs cannot parry or block your attacks from behind, and it is obviously a requirement for Backstab, Garrote, and Ambush. You also won't get cleaved by mobs that can do so.

On Regular Bosses:
Windfury MH, Deadly Poison OH if you have a Shaman
Deadly Poison MH, Instant Poison OH if you don't.

On Poison Immune Bosses:
Windfury MH, Adamantite Sharpening Stone OH if you have a Shaman
Adamantite Sharpening Stones on both if you do not have one.

COMBO POINT CYCLES (very important):
You need to know how to use your combo points properly in order to do well. This is a heavy factor in what separates good Rogues from bad ones. Your primary goal is to keep Slice and Dice up at ALL times. It is by far the best PVE finishing move. Once you keep that up at all times, you will want to toss 5 point Ruptures or 5 point Eviscerates (for bleed-immune mobs or trash) into the mix.

OPENING MOVE: It's a good idea to get an opening move off to get an initial combat point so that you can get Slice and Dice up immediately. Try not to use Cheap Shot unless an encounter or trash mob specifically calls for it; it will really annoy your tank when he is trying to move a mob into position. Instead, if you are opening from Stealth, use a Garrote or an Ambush (if you are Daggers). If Stealthing is not possible, using your normal CP-generating attack (Sinister Strike is backstab) is fine. After you have a Slice and Dice up from your initial combo point, the following cycles are some of the most efficient for many configurations of gear:

Daggers:
3 Backstab, Slice and Dice, 5 BS, SnD, 5 BS, Rupture, repeat

Swords:
(with 2-piece T4 set bonus): 1 Sinister Strike, SnD, 5 SS, Rupture, repeat
(without) 3-5 SS (depending on your exact gear configuration), SnD, 5 SS, Rupture, repeat.

These can change slightly depending on your gear, but the importance of keeping SnD up at all times stands.

Use consumables, especially when learning new content. The best flask you can use is an Elixir of Relentless Assault; the best food available is either a Warp Burger or Grilled Mudfish. Scrolls of Agility V (random world drops) , Haste Potions (created through Alchemy), Drums of Battle (Leatherworking item) are all items that can squeeze out an extra little DPS.

The most important rule of all: do not pull aggro. A rogue who pulls aggro and dies is not only completely useless, but will probably wipe the raid on many bosses. If you wait a little bit to start DPSing and time your Vanish right, you will probably not have to use Feint at all assuming your tank is competent--in the hands of a good rogue, Vanish isn't an emergency tool but a tool that you use once (or twice) per boss fight at the perfect time to maximize your DPS. Don't be afraid to simply STOP ATTACKING if you cannot keep your threat generation low enough with both Vanish and Feint.

The one important lesson I hope for you to learn from this post is that the hard part of being a successful rogue preparing beforehand. The only real hard thing you have to do while actually playing the game is keep your cycles up, watch your aggro and respond to whatever gimmick abilities the mob has. Once you get your gear, spec and combo point cycle set up right, hitting the buttons during the raid is the easy part.