Jump to content
FORUMS
Sign in to follow this  
Krushinator

Bandit's Guile : Old School vs New School

Recommended Posts

As you should know by now if you keep up with Rogue news, Bandit's Guile is changing for 6.0. The spell itself is not changing, but the way we will use it is changing due to the new Revealing Strike.

Revealing Strike now deals 20% more damage, but no longer advances Bandit's Guile.

This is a huge change because it gives us a real level of control over turning the states of Bandit's Guile. Depending on how you use it, you could significantly increase the number of Eviscerates you pump out during Deep Insight, or you could significantly reduce the overall uptime of your Deep Insight.

I'm going to go over how to most effectively use this spell the old way and the new way.

OPENING ASSUMPTIONS : I assume that you will know how to use Revealing Strike properly to refresh your damage buff. I will not keep mentioning it through the rest of the post. I will also tell you that I currently only use Rupture at the end of Deep Insight phases. I find that trying to use it elsewhere and trying to maximize uptime on it really gums up my rotation and makes it harder for me to properly exploit Deep Insight.

Old School:

Currently, both Sinister Strike and Revealing Strike add to your Bandit's Guile counter, which makes the buff hard to control well. Nevertheless, here is what you're aiming for:

No Insight - You've just come off of Deep Insight, you're combo point and energy starved. This is the time to build as fast as possible towards Shallow Insight. If your Slice and Dice timer is going to run out while you're still in No Insight, be sure to refresh it with a 5 point cast. This should last you right through your next Deep Insight phase. Don't worry about building energy in this phase, just build combo points fast.

Shallow Insight - Ideally you've got more than 5 combo points at the start of this phase. You will want to keep your combo points high by Eviscerating at 9-10 combo points. If you're lucky, your old Slice and Dice timer has lasted until you have 9-10 combo points in this phase, and you can Eviscerate followed by a 4-5 point Slice and Dice that will definitely last you through your next Deep Insight. The best time for this to happen is when you have 0 or 1 stacks of Shallow Insight, but you don't have a lot of control over that. After you've refreshed your Slice and Dice, you want to start building combo points again.

Moderate Insight - The goal for this phase is to roll over to Deep Insight with as much energy and as many combo points as possible. If you're unlucky you'll have to refresh Slice and Dice during this phase, but your goal is still the same. If you must refresh it, only go with a 2 or 3 point refresh by Eviscerating at 7 or 8 points then casting. Any higher and you might land yourself in the same situation next time around.

Deep Insight - If you've set yourself up well, you've got 9 to 10 combo points, high energy and a Slice timer longer than 15 seconds. It's time to blast away. Get off as many 5 point Eviscerates as you can, and once you reach the last finisher you're going to be able to cast during Deep Insight, use Rupture instead. It will snapshot your Deep Insight (for now) and carry it forward until it expires.

New School:

Come 6.0, Rupture is out and Revealing Strike has a new definition. The lack of Rupture will make things a little easier to deal with, and Revealing Strike no longer advancing Bandit's Guile will give you a much higher level of control over the buff.

BE CAREFUL. Revealing Strike, while buffed, will still not rival Sinister Strike for damage. Also, the more you use the ability, the less overall time you will have in Deep Insight. Just because you can delay your switch into Deep Insight doesn't mean you get to fap around in the lead up and just fix everything right at the end. Your DPS will be lower if you do that.

With that in mind, most of the above information will still apply in 6.0 and beyond. No Insight you want to be building combo points. Shallow Insight you're refreshing Slice and Dice with a 5 point finisher if possible. Moderate Insight you're building energy and Combo points and refreshing Slice and Dice with a 2-3 point finisher if necessary. Deep Insight you're blasting away, no Ruptures.

Moderate Insight is the phase that will change the most in the New School. You will no longer be just hoping you end up in Deep Insight with high combo points and high energy, you can use Revealing Strike to make that happen. Once you reach 3 stacks of Moderate Insight, you'll be using Revealing Strike until you hit 7-8 combo points, then pooling your energy. Once you can no longer pool your energy, hit that Sinister Strike, Eviscerate then go to town.

Remember, the more you use Revealing Strike, the lower your DPS potential gets. You still have to play by the old school rules to max out, but now you get to cheat a little bit before Deep Insight so the potential loss for poor setup is lower. Overall, this is a good thing, so use it, don't abuse it.

BONUS : www.curse.com/addons/wow/bandits-guile-helper

This is a very useful addon for displaying your Bandit's Guile information, I highly recommend it.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's worthwhile to note that SS only hits about 8% harder than RS, so it's going to be pretty flexible in terms of holding out at -1 to Deep Insight for Trinkets/Spree/target swapping/extra damage phases.

 

I'm much more excited to play Combat in WoD, in part because of this change, adding some real big skill play.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You are right, so I'll clarify my point. Come 6.0, there will be no reason to enter into Deep Insight with anything less than 9-10 combo points and high energy. Holding back on Revealing Strike and cheating your Deep Insight will certainly be a DPS loss. However, Revealing Strike is still weaker than Sinister Strike, even if by just 8%. So, in terms of theoretical max, fewer Revealing Strike casts means more damage output and more Deep Insight uptime.

Entering Deep Insight properly by using Revealing Strike to set up will be worth it, but if you lead in properly you won't have to use it excessively.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Not sure about how old your information about this is, but it's my understanding that it's more optimal to use RvS (Revealing Strike) during Deep Insight than Sinister Strike.

 

This may not be the case since I didn't have the chance to test it on the PTR, but for WoD I'm pretty sure that this is the case

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah.

 

The quick version is:

  • SS is 100% MH Damage
  • Combat Mastery is 225% OH
  • Passively white capped

More main hand hits means more Mastery procs, and RvS costs less energy to spam with not a significant amount of damage loss compared to SS. Additionally, running Fast / Slow (Dagger / Sword) for WoD seems to be optimal by about 5-10%  compared to the more tradional Slow / Slow (Sword / Sword) weapon configuration for the same reason - OH DPS is significantly more valuable than MH DPS.

 

This also leans us towards a build that will focus on hard capping mastery, to make as much of the proc as possible, and valuing Mastery more than even Haste. This is really only possible at higher gear levels though, and I'm not sure what the values would be for a Rogue at the LFR level.

 

I need to do some of my own testing on this, but here is Shadowboy's post about it in detail, and potentially how to fix this from Blizz's end

 

http://venomousthoughts.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/combat-off-hand-in-warlords-and-the-problem-with-main-gauche/

Edited by Carrn

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hm, that's an interesting consequence of the changes made to Revealing Strike and MH/OH interaction. From a class design standpoint it's likely unintended, so we'll probably see a change making RvS spam during Deep Insight sub-optimal.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I personally don't care about whether I use RvS or SS inside DI, I just don't want 70% of my damage to be from passive OH swings. It's boring as fuck.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
Sign in to follow this  

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

  • Similar Content

    • By Madshot789
      Children - Zul'jin - Horde - 3 nights/week (9 hours) - Hardcore
      Vault of the Incarnates - M 8/8 (Cutting Edge)
      Sepulcher of the First Ones - M 11/11 (Cutting Edge)
      Apply here!

      Raid Schedule:
      Tuesday - 8:00 PM EST - 11:00 PM EST
      Wednesday - 8:00 PM EST - 11:00 PM EST
      Thursday - 8:00 PM EST - 11:00 PM EST
      We add a Monday raid to the first week of each raid tier.
      Holidays will be rescheduled.
      Current Recruitment Needs:
      High Priority:
      • Enhancement Shaman
      • DPS Death Knight
      Medium Priority:
      • Rogue
      Low Priority:
      • Healers
      All classes will be considered even if not listed in this post.
      Server Information:
      Zul'jin
      Chicago Datacenter
      Eastern Realm Time
      Contacts:
      Battle.net: Madness (Madness#12309) / Discord: Madness (Madness#5716)
      About Us:
      Children is a guild founded at the start of Shadowlands, we accomplished CE in all three raid tiers during the expansion, also obtaining CE in Vault. We are looking to continue this pattern for the rest of Dragonflight, and are looking to pick up new members to join us. We look forward to hearing from you.
    • By positiv2
      This thread is for comments about our Outlaw Rogue Leveling Guide.
    • By positiv2
      This thread is for comments about our Stealth Rogue guide.
    • By positiv2
      This thread is for comments about our Secret Rogue deck guide.
    • By positiv2
      This thread is for comments about our Assassination Rogue Shadowlands Leveling Guide.
×
×
  • Create New...