Rogues and Paladins

I've played a rogue over the past few months and geared him up to the point where im pretty much "maxed" out on valor gear and zulroic gear. "Maxed" because i dont raid or want to spend all that gold on some nice crafted or FL trash dropped item, and because i dont want to waste gold regemming/enchanting a piece that may only be marginally better than what i already have.  That said, my rogue is pretty decently geared and can probably do well in a FL raid.  He's been on hold for the past couple of weeks because there's simply nothing else worth while to do, at least on him.  This is the same for my deathknight.

There are two things i want to touch on when it relates to this rogue.  one, i want to compare it with ret paladins due to their usage of combo points.  and two, i want to theorize about the gearing process and what we might see in the future. [after writing this post, i got lost and cant seem to think straight anymore. so you're left with the first topic of combo point generation and its uses.  I'll talk about gearing a little later.]

Paladins have three combo points whereas rogues have five. as it relates to ret, these combo points are used as a damage buff, an attack or to proc an ability.  Sometimes it can be used to heal, like a holy paladin, but never for spells specific to prot.  understood.  the paladin, with his 3 combo points and 4 second-ish gap between getting each combo point, is a static battle mechanic for both prot and ret.  i believe holy has a different way of getting combo points altogether, which doesnt include CS, HotR or DS (bound by that 4 seconds with little else in between).  four seconds is a long time. and because we're not locked to mana usage when using these abilities, not if we judge, then what happens is that we fall into a pattern of always having to use a combo point ability every four seconds, or our dps falters.

Contrast this to rogues, who's combo point generation is dependent on an energy system and whose abilties are locked out only by a global cooldown, you can ramp up the combo points quickly and wait a few seconds for the final combo point, then finisher. it gives the rogue a lot more flexibility to use their abilities when they want, with the only limitation they're trying to fight is not being energy capped.  can you imagine Sinister Strike (SS), SS, pause for the hell of it, SS, pause because you're expecting a kick, then finisher? all this while keeping your energy below 100?  that seems like a lot to watch, sure.  but it's more exciting than for paladins to Crusader Strike (CS), hope a filler procs, if not wait four seconds for another CS, hope a filler procs, if not wait four seconds for a CS, then YOU MUST CAST INQUISITION AS YOUR FIRST FINISHING MOVE and use up all your combo points.  Then repeat the above for 12 more seconds until you can actually do a beefy damage blow.  what's that? 24 seconds?  some fights last just that long and we've just finished our "ramp up" sequence.  And why is it that my 1 point slice and dice rocks while my 1 point Inquisition is useful for... 2 attacks?  The scaling of the ret finishers are also crap compared to rogues. 1 point gives me about 30% weapon damage, 2 gives me a bit above 100%.  3 will give me over 300%.  that means, even at two combo points/holy power, a templar's verdict will do crap damage at 2 combo points.  We must have 3 combo points to do anything worth while. length of Inquisition? same deal as above. 

Anyway, as you can see, i am not complaining about dps.  i am doing almost just as much dps on my ret paladin as i am with my rogue. and im barely able to enter zulroics on my paladin. imagine beating out my own rogue in dps with similar gear.  that would be odd.  but i have to keep two things in mind.  one, the length of the fight, and two, the use of available cooldowns.

i play as a combat rogue, so this is coming from a combat perspective.  I have two solid cooldowns, which is killing spree and adrenaline rush.  KS is on a 2minute cooldown while AR is on a 3 minute cooldown. in a boss fight, depending, i can possibly get two KS and maybe, if i am lucky, two AR's in.  but i really doubt many fights last more than 3 minutes now.  this provides a nice burst only after i get SnD up, which is really quick.  a 2point SnD will cover all of KS or AR uptime.

However, for a paladin, the buffs are a little different. Again, ramp up time is slow, so Inquisition has to be at 3 combo points.  not only that, zealotry has to be at 3 combo points.  this is great if i get a proc, but horrible if i have to wait the full 24 seconds.  Wings can go up any time and has a 3 minute cooldown. Guardian of ancient kings has a 5 minute cooldown.  Some things to note. 24 seconds into the fight 2 cd's go off.  Zealotry and Wings. Awesomeness happens when i get Art of War procs as well.  However, zealotry started 12 seconds into an Inquisition buff, which means i'll have to reapply inquisition with my last zealotry application.  an application is when i use my 3 holy powers gained from zealotry.  this last application has to be used for Inquisition otherwise, i will spend the next 12 seconds without Inquisition buff.

About 2 zealotry induced Templars Verdicts in, i pop Guardian of Ancient Kings, which i will shorten to Ancient Kings. This Kings will last me through wings and zealotry.  I know, people have other ways of doing this to maximize their buffs, and i am slowly getting into this so i'll have to change my play just a little bit.  Either way, the point here is that there are several buffs that need to go up at once, or else your dps will suck.  Now the trick is to get the boss killed before your dps starts to trickle.  and trickle it does.  the second time around, your first ability to come off cooldown is Zealotry.  So use that, by itself. Then Wings.  So use that a minute after.  Then Zealotry again a minute after that. With Kings a minute after that. Basically your buffs steadys out the longer the fight goes, with some abilities overlapping the further we go down the timeline. but six minute fights are rare. so lets not deal with that for now.

As you can see from the above (or not, i dont know), Paladins produce the bulk of their dps after the first 24 seconds of the fight, for about 20-30 seconds. then slowly trickles with occassional bumps every minute after the second minute.  Depending on how you look at it, this is bad for 8 minute raid boss fights.  Good for 2 minute 5-man heroic boss fights.  Why? because paladins rock the meters in the first 2 minutes of a fight.  Please notice i never added procs. if procs happen, the whole fight might favor the paladin even faster.  but the cooldowns remain the same.  instead of starting doing really good dps after 24 seconds, they can start as early as 2 seconds. but that's RNG.  and we hate RNG.

anyway, the above is a simplified and poorly explained mechanic of how i play a ret paladin and a combat rogue.  now i dont want to suggest any changes, other than give me a free exorcism after i CS (always), or let me use holy shock as a filler for those times i cant use Exo or TV.  i need something in there to bridge the tedium of waiting for CS.  OR... make CS faster, give me 4 combo points with 3-second cooldowns.  i'd be a much happier paladin.  also, stop making 1CP inquisition basically useless.  hell. just make us all rogues already.