How many times have we all seen this: the tank goes down, and the mob that he was tanking goes running around one-shotting everyone else. A classic instance run wipe. During your corpse run you look down the portraits on the left of your screen… dead… dead…. dead… wait a minute. The rogue is still alive. How did he pull that off?
Ah, the wonder of Vanish. PvP rogues use it all the time to get a second opener during a fight, or to keep up a stunlock going with Cheap Shot. But for a PvE rogue its the wonderful reducer of repair bills. In pre-70 instance runs there were times when I did not die even once on a run, despite our group having three or four wipes.
Unfortunately, many rogues keep this mind-set that your Vanish should be reserved for an “Oh sh!t button.” Its kind of a “Break in case of emergency” button on your screen. After all, its got a 5 minute cooldown so you wouldn’t want to use it too early, right?
Every rogue need to realize that Vanish does not only put you into stealth during combat. It also resets your threat.
Rogues – do you find yourself constantly catching up to your tank’s threat? Do you have down time during combat while you wait for the tank to establish aggro? Do you find yourself using Feint often?
Vanish!
In a typical tank-and-spank boss fight, I can usually catch up to my tank’s threat at some point during the combat. If Vanish is not available, then I have to hold back on dps to avoid grabbing aggro. However, if my Vanish is up then I can reset my threat when I get too close.
My typical routine is: wait for the tank to get in a few shots and sunders, then stabbity-stab, backstab, rupture, etc… and watch my threat on Omen. It climbs gradually upward… 80% of the tank’s threat… 90%… 95%…98%…
Vanish! Zero threat! Ambush! Hit Adrenaline Rush! Lots of energy. More stabbity! No holding back on DPS!
By doing this, rogues can maintain a very high dps output without getting aggroed by mobs. Looking at my WWS reports, there is often a lock or mage with higher dps than me, but I always have higher overall damage output because they get aggro and die when they go all-out.
