1. 8) Outro
1.1. Alright everyone, that's it for this Outlaw Rogue guide on knowing who to target and when to swap. As always, thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.
2. 2) What's in this video
2.1. In this video, we're going to cover how to select your main target, when to swap to healers, when to make defensive swaps, setting up with gouge, and swapping for a kill.
3. 1) Intro
3.1. Hey what's up everyone and welcome to our Outlaw Rogue guide on knowing who to target and when to swap.
4. 7) Swapping for a kill
4.1. Swapping for a kill 1
4.1.1. The final part of this video will cover how you can swap for a kill. Although we mentioned in our damage and cc guide that you should always be using your initial cooldowns with your true bearing buff, there will be times where you should be going for a kill with all of your offensive cooldowns, even if you don't have true bearing up. Whenever a target that doesn't have their trinket ready is in a vulnerable position, you should always be prepared to make a swap. Remember that your artifact is an amazing cooldown for bursting someone down and can be used to score fast kills on someone that it's a position to quickly die.
4.1.2. AFb
4.1.2.1. In this example, we use our disarm on the rogues shadow dance which he decides to trinket. Because he then pushes into a really aggressive trinket, we have the perfect opportunity to swap onto him with our offensive cooldowns, despite not having our true bearing buff. As soon as our fear ends, we grapple towards the rogue and get him into our between the eyes stun. We then use our adrenaline rush, artifact and orc racial and proceed to use back to back sabre slashes and run throughs. This combined with our mages damage is enough to score a quick kill.
4.2. Swapping for a kill 2
4.2.1. And of course, speaking of true bearing, if someone ever gets put into a bad position either because they were feared or just over extended, and you have your true bearing buff, you should 100% make a swap to them with all of your cds. We'll go into this in more detail in our video on true bearing.
4.2.2. ABc
4.2.2.1. In this example, the rogue gets feared really far away from his healer. Because we get our true bearing buff, we decide to switch onto the rogue with all of our offensive cds, despite him having his trinket. We use a marked for death between the eyes stun, and then use our adrenaline rush, artifact and orc racial. We then proceed to use back to back sabre slash and run throughs, before reacting very quickly to his trinket with a vanish cheap shot, and we then finish him off.
5. 6) Setting up with gouge
5.1. Setting up with gouge 1
5.1.1. In this next section, we're going to talk about how you can set up your kill attempts with gouge. Gouge is an extremely important part of your toolset, and if utilised correctly, it can go a long way to improving your kill attempts. First and foremost, you should consider using gouge on someone before setting up on them. If you attempt to use your stun to start the cross cc as soon as your teammates go for cc on a healer, you're actually going to end up wasting a lot of that stuns duration, as your target will be stunned while your teammates are not doing any damage and are instead trying to cc their healer. If you first use gouge, and allow your teammates to get the cc, you can then stun your kill target and start to deal damage at the same time as your teammates, allowing your team to deal damage throughout the entire duration of the stun.
5.1.2. AAc
5.1.2.1. In this example, we use gouge on our target to prevent them from stopping our setup, which involves our mage cc'ing their paladin. The gouge on the hunter prevents him from interrupting our mage while he goes for the polymorph, and we're then able to follow that up with a full between the eyes stun.
5.2. Setting up with gouge 2
5.2.1. You can also consider using gouge on a dps before switching onto a healer. This will prevent that dps from cc'ing you while you attempt to kill their healer, and can potentially give your team the time they need to get follow up cc on that dps. In general, using gouge this way is a great way to counter pressure, because even if you're falling behind, by using a gouge on a dps and immeditely stunning their healer, you're able to stop their damage while turning the pressure onto their healer, which can potentially turn the game on its head if you're able to deal a lot of damage in that switch.
5.2.2. AAb
5.2.2.1. In this example, our team decides to switch onto the paladin as soon as we come out of the rogues cc. By using our gouge, we're able to immediately reverse the enemy teams pressure onto their holy paladin, without any risk. By eliminating the rogue with our rouge, we're able to instantly force the paladin to use his hand of protection on our first stun as their rogue is unable to peel our damage due to the distance between us after running away from him while he was left in our gouge.
5.2.3. ACb
5.2.3.1. And in this example, again we use our gouge on the hunter, this time also to interrupt his wyvern sting. Our mage then gets a polymorph on their paladin at the exact same time as our stun on the hunte which then forces the hunter to use his trinket.
6. 5) When to make defensive swaps
6.1. When to make defensive swaps 1
6.1.1. Continuing on the idea of swapping off of healers, you should be switching onto specific dps whenever you need to stop cc. If your team is under pressure and needs help stopping cc, you must always be ready to switch back onto that mage who's polymorph you need to stop.
6.1.2. AAi
6.1.2.1. In this example, even though the paladin has a hand of sacrifice on the mage, we decide to sit on him because he's going for cc on our shaman. We make this decision because we're already near the mage when he attempts to go for the first polymorph while we're stunned by the rogue. We deal with this by chasing the mage once we come out of the rogues stuns, and sitting on him until we're able to kick a polymorph and ensure that our shaman no longer needs help avoiding cc.
7. 4) When to swap to healers
7.1. When to swap to healers 1
7.1.1. Moving on, let's talk about swapping to healers. In Legion, more then ever, this seems to be an extremely important concept for rouges to understand. Because of the removal of deep freeze from a rogues most dominant comp, rogue mage healer, healer swaps have become stronger then ever. There are several different scenarios in which you should be swapping to a healer. In this section, we'll aim to cover each of them and provide you with a demonstration. First and foremost, you should be making swaps to healers whenever your main target is starting to recover and your team no longer has any cc for their healer. By stunning and swapping to a healer when your team runs out of cc for then, you're going to continuing that cc chain yourself, while also making it difficult for that healer to catch back up as they'll now have to heal two targets.
7.1.2. ADn
7.1.2.1. In this example, the priests uses his life swap on their shaman. Although our mage does get him into a polymorph at the same time, which allows the shaman to recover his health, we still decide to switch onto the shaman because the priest has now fully recovered which means our stun on the shaman won't be as effective for pressuring the priest, however it will allow us to now start to recreate our pressure on the shaman.
7.2. When to swap to healers 2
7.2.1. Specific to holy paladins, is the use of hand of sacrifice. Whenever a holy paladin uses the 100% hand of sacrifice on your kill target, you should be attempting to switch over to them. Your kill target won't take any damage during that 100% hand of sacrifice and stunning the paladin during this time is a great way to burn through that hand of sacrifices duration while also pressuring the holy paladin.
7.2.2. AAg
7.2.2.1. In this example, the holy paladin uses his hand of sacrifice on the mage, so we switch onto him.
7.2.3. AEb
7.2.3.1. And in this example, the holy paladin uses his hand of sacrifice on the warlock, so we once again switch onto him
7.3. When to swap to healers 3
7.3.1. Once you've started to make switches to healers, your job starts to have a little more complexity added to it. You need to start to look out for stun DR's, and make sure that you are swapping between your main target and the healer whenever the healer comes off of stun DR. This is the overarching concept of outlaw rogue target selection, and comes into play even more during your true bearing buff, something we'll truly delve into in our true bearing guide. We've already discussed how you should identify your main target, and that you should be swapping to healers. Now that you understand that, in order to be successful, you have to start to learn how to control your DRs on those two targets, and deal as much damage to them as you can in those stuns. Remember, you don't have to worry about your mage needing to stun the healer for cc anymore, so look for those healer swaps every time they come off DR and your stun is ready!
7.3.2. AAg
7.3.2.1. In this example we showed you earlier, our switch on the holy paladins hand of sacrifice lines up perfectly with our stun dr. We had already made a switch onto him earlier, and now with our stun DR coming off, we're able to put him into a stun as soon as that stun dr fades.
7.4. When to swap to healers 4
7.4.1. On top of swapping when your team runs out of cc and whenever it lines up well with your DRs, you can also swap to a healer whenever they no longer have defensive cooldowns. If you're able to burn through a healers defensive cooldowns while sitting on their dps, you should always be prepared to commit to a kill on a helpless healer.
7.4.2. ADn
7.4.2.1. Again, in this example from earlier, after the shadow priest uses his life swap, we decide to switch onto the shaman. Not only has the shadow priest used a cooldown which the shaman could have used to survive, but the shaman has also already burned through most of his defensive cds earlier in the game. With that in mind, a switch onto the resto shaman here is perfect for us
7.5. When to swap to healers 5
7.5.1. It's important for you to also identify when you should just straight up tunnel a healer. Whenever they are low on defensive cooldowns, if you're able to sit on them and stop them from topping themselves, you should! As long as you're safe to do this because you have your own defensive cds ready and your team can support your offensive push on a healer, it's great to stick to them. Being on a healer is generally the best way to actually create and keep pressure, if you can do it without falling behind.
7.5.2. AEc
7.5.2.1. In this example, we're committed to chasing the holy paladin. He's already used most of his defensive cooldowns, and we have most of our defensive cds ready incase we need them to survive while chasing their healer into a bad position. We use our self heal, blind the warrior and then use our trinket on the paladins stun while we're out of line of sight of our healer, all to ensure our safety while we sit on the holy paladin. Remember that we're only doing this because we've already forced a bunch of the holy paladins cooldowns and we're confident that we can survive by trading our defensive cds to be more offensive. You should only do this when you're sure you can close out the game by doing something like this.
7.6. When to swap to healers 6
7.6.1. Now as important as it is to recognise when you should be swapping onto and tunneling healers, it's just as important to recognise when you should be swapping off of them. Whenever a healer uses cooldowns and is about to recover from your pressure, you should consider swapping back onto your main target. You're overall pressure will immediately plummet anytime a healer uses major cooldowns, and by staying on a healer during this time, you potentially keep yourself in a bad position, which you can be punished for
7.6.2. AAh
7.6.2.1. In this example, we pushed onto the holy paladin after he used hand of sacrifice on the mage. Because he came off stun DR, he's a prime target for us. We use our between the eyes stun and start to create pressure on him.
7.6.2.1.1. When he uses avenging wrath, we should have pulled back. In this moment, the enemy team is no longer in trouble, but our team is. Being pushed up on the paladin has also allowed their mage to get a polymorph on our shaman.
8. 3) How to select your main target
8.1. How to select your main target 1
8.1.1. To start us off, we're going to discuss who your main target should be against most comps. In general, your main target is going to be a combination of who you can shut down the most while also dealing a lot of damage to them. Two great examples are mages and hunters. Mages need to cast polymorph to get cc, and BM hunters need to cast wyvern sting. By sitting on dps like this, you're able to control the game by stopping their cc when you need to, while also dealing a good amount of damage. You're going to be facing a variety of comps in arenas, so every time you enter an arena, you should ask yourself the following two questions. Who is going to be casting cc that I can stop? and who can I deal the most damage to? For example, sitting on a warrior against a warrior mage healer team isn't going to be your best option, as you won't be able to stop polymorphs from the mage and you won't be dealing a ton of damage to the warrior. Sitting on the mage instead will allow you to both create pressure while also playing safe as you'll be able to stop cc whenever you can.
8.1.2. AAd
8.1.2.1. In this example, after getting the opportunity to open on the holy paladin and force his hand of protection, we make sure to switch onto the mage. He's already gotten our shaman into a polymorph which means it's even more important to be on him now, as we have to stop follow up cc. And being on him does allow us to kick his second attempt we re-polymorphing our shaman.
8.1.3. ACc
8.1.3.1. In this example, against a KFC, the hunter is our best target. Our mage is able to cc the warrior with frost nova, and in general it's much harder for our mage to cc the hunter if the hunter plays near a pillar and line of sights polymorphs. By choosing the hunter as our main target, we're able to easily get a strong first kill attempt with a nova on the warrior, a polymorph on the paladin, and a between the eyes stun on the hunter.
8.2. How to select your main target 2
8.2.1. The next section is going to cover when you should swap to healers, however before we get to that, you have to remember this important concept: whenever you can't go on a healer with a stun, make sure you're on your main target! It's easy to forget that you were supposed to be on the mage so that you could stop his polymorphs. So always remind yourself whenever you're not attacking a healer, that you need to be on your main target.
8.2.2. AEe
8.2.2.1. In this example, now that we're no long able to be on the holy paladin with our between the eyes stun, we get back onto the warlock. There are other factors that determine this, such as the paladin using his avenging wrath. We'll go into more detail on this later on in this video.