A Primer on Rogue Talents

Hai,

I've been reading these forums for a good while now and it seems questions about particular talents seem to be a subject that never grows old. As such, I've decided to create this thread to adress every single talent currently included in our talent trees. I hope you find it informative.

The talents are rated with either very poor, poor, decent, worthwhile or excellent according to how useful I find them.


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ASSASSINATION

Improved Eviscerate: Increases the damage done by your eviscerate ability by 5/10/15%.
PvP rating: Worthwhile
Solo PvE rating: Decent
Raid PvE rating: Very poor
Comment: This talent was largely more popular at level 60, when Eviscerate was actually worth its combo points. Although Eviscerate hasn't really scaled with the expansion to any notable extent, this talent at least makes it marginally more useful.

Remorseless Attacks: After killing a opponent that yields experience or honor, gives you a 20/40% increased critical strike chance on your next Sinister Strike, Backstab, Hemmorhage, Mutilate, Ambush or Ghostly Strike. Lasts 20 sec.
PvP rating: Poor
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Very poor
Comment: Remorseless Attacks is somewhat of a must-have when you're grinding your way to level 70. It's rather a waste for anything else, however, as you will have to land the killing blow for it to be activated.

Malice: Increases your critical strike chance by 1/5%.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: One of those talents you simply get, no questions asked. This is further supported by the fact that it's required to unlock Lethality (see below).

Ruthlessness: Gives your finishing moves a 20/40/60% chance to add a combo point to your target.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: Ruthlessness is a very useful talent in all areas of the game. Not only does it allow for more effective cycles of SnD/Rupture in a raid situation, it also enables you to spam Deadly Throw with some luck (lowering your vurnerability to kiting by a notable extent).

Murder: Increases all damage caused against Humanoid, Giant, Beast and Dragonkin targets by 1/2%.
PvP rating: Decent
Solo PvE rating: Worthwhile
Raid PvE rating: Worthwhile
Comment: I feel that Murder is a somewhat underrated talent - I'd say that 2% more damage caused to a wide range of bosses and even other players is quite worth two talent points.

Improved Backstab: Increases the critical strike chance of your backstab ability by 10/20/30%.
PvP rating: Situational
Solo PvE rating: Situational
Raid PvE rating: Situational
Comment: A no-brainer for any dagger talent build that doesn't include Mutilate.

Relentless Strikes: Your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to restore 25 energy.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: Relentless Strikes is perhaps one of the very best rogue talents. More often than not, it renders your Slice and Dice, Rupture and Kidney Shot abilities free of charge.

Improved Expose Armor: Increases the armor reduced by your Expose Armor ability by an additional 25/50%.
PvP rating: Situational
Solo PvE rating: Poor
Raid PvE rating: Situational
Comment: Another ability that hasn't really scaled in The Burning Crusade, Expose Armor is not a sensible use of combo points in most situations. Investing two points in this talent will increase the armor reduced by a mere thousand. Then again, this can prove worthwhile in some situations (as a substitute for Sunder Armor in PvE or as a considerable damage boost in PvP).

Lethality: Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Sinister Strike, Gouge, Backstab, Ghostly Strike, Mutilate, Shiv and Hemmorhage abilities by 6/12/18/24/30%.
PvP rating: Worthwhile
Solo PvE rating: Worthwhile
Raid PvE rating: Worthwhile
Comment: Lethality is a strong talent that increases your (yellow) damage output by a substantial amount.

Vile Poisons: Increases the damage dealt by your poisons and Envenom ability by 4/8/12/16/20% and gives your poisons an additional 8/16/24/32/40% chance to resist dispel effects.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Situational
Raid PvE rating: Situational
Comment: Vile Poisons is an underrated talent. It's popular among PvE-oriented Mutilate talent builds for its notable increase in damage dealt by Envenom, however this is far from its only area of expertise. A crippling poison that is 40% resistant to dispel effects makes you less vurnerable to being kited.

Improved Poisons: Increases the chance to apply poisons to your target by 2/4/6/8/10%.
PvP rating: Worthwhile
Solo PvE rating: Worthwhile
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: Improved Poisons will increase the chance you apply poisons to your target by a notable amount, increasing your damage output and/or ability to control opponents.

Fleet Footed: Increases your chance to resist movement impairing effects by 5/10% and increases your movement speed by 4/8%.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Very poor
Raid PvE rating: Very poor
Comment: A wide range of potentially fatal abilities fall into this category (Harmstring, Frost Nova, Frost Shock, Wing Clip, Crippling Poison) which makes this talent very useful in PvP where being in your opponent's face at all times is king. The passive increase to movement speed is a nice bonus, however this can also be accomplished by a meta gem or enchant (note that these do not stack with the movement speed increase provided by this talent).

Cold Blood: When activated, increases the critical strike chance of your next offensive ability by 100%.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Decent
Raid PvE rating: Decent
Comment: Ah, Cold Blood - the very essence of burst on demand. An excellent key talent in whole, and useful for a wide range of abilities.

Improved Kidney Shot: While affected by your Kidney Shot, target receives an additional 3/6/9% damage from all sources.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Worthwhile
Raid PvE rating: Very poor
Comment: Improved Kidney Shot is a very popular choice in both 30/0/31, 21/40/0 and 21/0/40. Combined with Find Weakness, it is lethal. It shines in group PvP and arenas specifically, seeing as how your entire team will do 9% additional damage to a target that's locked down. Unfortunately entirely useless in raids, as most mobs and all bosses are immune to stuns.

Quick Recovery: All healing effects on you are increased by 10/20%. In addition, your finishing moves cost 40/80% less energy when they fail to hit.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Poor
Raid PvE rating: Poor
Comment: Quick Recovery increases your survivability by a notable extent in arenas and largely contributes to a your team's lasting power.

Seal Fate: Your critical strikes from abilities that add combo points have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to add an additional combo point.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: Seal Fate is tremendously effective with backstab-oriented builds as it contributes to the otherwise poor combo point generation by a large extent.

Master Poisoner: Reduces the chance your poisons will be resisted by 5/10% and increases your chance to resist poison effects by an additional 15/30%.
PvP rating: Situational
Solo PvE rating: Very Poor
Raid PvE rating: Very Poor
Comment: Seeing as how poisons are seldom resisted and that resisting poisons yourself is generally only useful against other rogues, this talent is rather useless.

Vigor: Increases your maximum energy by 10.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Decent
Raid PvE rating: Very Poor
Comment: Vigor opens for a wide range of stun-locking capabilities.

Deadened Nerves: Decreases all physical damage taken by 1-5%.
PvP rating: Poor
Solo PvE rating: Very Poor
Raid PvE rating: Very Poor
Comment: 5% less physical damage taken is a very small amount for such a large investment.

Find Weakness: Your finishing moves increases the damage of all offensive abilities by 2/4/6/8/10% for 10 sec.
PvP rating: Excellent
Solo PvE rating: Excellent
Raid PvE rating: Excellent
Comment: Find Weakness is quite deadly and contributes to your damage output in all areas of the game. (note: the damage increase only effects abilities, not whit edamage)

Mutilate: Instantly attacks with both weapons for an additional [x] with each weapon. Damage is increased by 50% against poisoned targets. Must be behind the target. Awards 2 combo points.
PvP rating: Situational
Solo PvE rating: Situational
Raid PvE rating: Situational
Comment: Mutilate is an ability you either hate or love. Quite essentially, it's a more reliable version of backstab.