Rogue News: Talent Trees and Class Changes in Cataclysm?

Ghostcrawler’s latest blue post gives us a hint about some interesting ideas and developments for the Rogue class in the upcoming release of Cataclysm.

There’s been quite a bit of talk about the viability of the subtlety talent tree where utility and mobility are the dominant focus rather than DPS and if you didn’t already know Blizzard are revamping the talent trees in the next expansion…

“… We’d like for more talent trees to look like Subtlety. Trading utility A for utility B is an interesting decision. Trading utility A for more dps is not an interesting decision; the latter is always going to win.

Somewhat related, for the pure dps classes it’s likely that there will always be a spec with the theoretically highest dps. It’s going to be nigh impossible to make multiple talent trees provide identical dps regardless of gear improvement, encounter specifics or group synergies. Our goal instead is just to get things close enough that players are willing to sacrifice a little bit of dps for a playstyle they really enjoy. (For some players, losing any dps is unacceptable, but I also know enough hardcore players that I can say with some confidence that you can’t just make a blanket statement that all competitive players feel this way.) “

My sentiments exactly!

Of course Combat Rogues are currently in first place in terms of DPS in raids. However, I just love Assassination too much to switch. Fortunately, Assassination Rogues are not far off Combat and with the incoming patch 3.3 update we’ll be even more competitive and without the need for any Weapon Swapping shenanigans.

Where it lacks in terms of quick-fire burst damage, for sustained DPS, Assassination wins. Look at fights like Gormok the Impaler, Twin Val’kyrs (Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane)and XT-002 in Ulduar. However, these fights have something in common; they’re pretty much stationary battles. As soon as there’s any real running around to be done Combat wins. However, this is part and parcel of the spec you choose and you have to accept there will be differences.

I chose Assassination and stick with it. For me the challenging rotation, the playstyle is much more enjoyable and I don’t want to have to change to Combat (which I personally don’t enjoy as much) in order to get a regular raid spot and progress.

I enjoy playing World of Warcraft and, without wanting to sound selfish, I want to use whatever playstyle I find most enjoyable not whatever spec is flavour-of-the-month in terms of pure DPS.

“I don’t think we’re there with rogues yet. Assassination is now a serious contender in end-game raiding, but Subtlety isn’t and hasn’t been since HAT was in a silly place. I think we’re a lot closer with mages. Arcane may be the highest dps in a general sense, but there are fights on which Fire will win. Frost is a lot closer than it used to be, to the point where someone who just loves Frost won’t feel like they are horribly gimping their group’s progress. (It probably still needs to be slightly higher than where it is, but we’ll see what Icecrown is like.) We eventually want to get rogues, locks and hunters closer to where mages appear to be in 3.3 (and work on mages more too of course).”

The reason I picked up a Rogue was primarily due to one thing… Stealth!

I played around with the subtlety tree back in The Burning Crusade and absolutely loved the mobility; Shadowstep was just awesome fun! I really enjoyed it and, whilst slower for levelling, used it for questing, 5-man dungeon runs and battlegrounds. Ok, it wasn’t the most suitable spec but it was by far the most fun for me.

I would love to be able to give the subtlety tree a go but it is simply not an option at all at the moment.

“Honor Among Thieves was a good attempt to get more combo points, and therefore damage, into the tree. It ended up having the scaling problem that a lot of our abilites have — it’s easy for it to be too weak in a small, 5-player group and to be too powerful when it’s scaling off of 25 players. (Restricting it to a group doesn’t really help because you can just fill that group full of folks who crit a lot, and raids provide a lot more buffs to guarantee crits.)

I do agree with the general feel of Subtlety being high finisher damage and cps through alternative routes, and that’s a kit we want to keep going forward. I also agree that Ghostly Strike, Hemo and Backstab all could use more “juice” (by which I don’t just mean higher dps). I’ll also add that I think we went a little overboard in emphasizing damage over utility in Lich King PvE, especially in the earlier raid tiers. Who needs a good Sap when you’re AE’ing everything down?”

In terms of PvP I’m using the 44/2/25 spec (primarily Assassination). I am in no way an expert… In fact I’ve got a long way to go before I’d consider myself to be any good… BUT… I enjoy it. I have been tempted to give subtlety a go here too but to be honest I miss the control the Assassination tree provides. Without it I feel too vulnerable; we do get torn apart pretty damn fast without our crowd-control abilities.

In my (limited) experience so far, in PvP, the Rogues job is to control and manipulate the opposition using stuns, interrupts, disarm the enemy and NOT get caught. If we get caught, that’s it. So far I’ve found we are the first nuke target. As soon as we open out of stealth I hear cries of “NUKE TEH ROUGE!”. And it can happen fast!

“PvP-wise, utility can be a lot more useful than in PvE. However, as I’ve said before we think we’ve kind of let rogues get into too much of that glass cannon state. They either keep someone controlled and blow them up, or they themselves get blown up. We would still like to tone down some of the rogue CC and increase some of their passive (not cooldown-based) survivability. It’s a little weird that leather classes are generally more fragile than cloth.”

Amen to that!

So… When are we going to see these changes? Well… Soon says Blizzard.

Personally, I’m excited to see what the changes in Cataclysm will bring.

A Tribute to Zaltu from One Rogue’s Journey…

For those of you who regularly read Rogue blogs Zaltu over at One Rogue’s Journey is hanging up his daggers and calling it a day.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Zaltu for his contribution to the Rogue community. One Rogue’s Journey is definitely one the premium Rogue blogs out there.

Personally, I’ve always looked forward to reading his posts and he’s been an inspiration to me to keep pushing myself and learning more and more about the Rogue class.

Zaltu, you will be missed and thank you for your entertaining and informative articles. I wish you all the best for whatever the future holds for you!

If you haven’t already go wish him well and best of luck.

The Recked Report: Call of the Grand Crusade

Our guild has been slacking somewhat in terms of progression with a number of regular raiders no longer raiding as often as they used to. This of course poses us with a problem in terms of attendance so we’ve been busy gearing up some of the newcomers through ToC 10-man and 25-man normal mode.

Unfortunately, this has meant as a guild we haven’t been able to progress as much as we’d like to. A lot of regulars that do show up for raids, myself included, were beginning to lose interest. One-shotting the 10-man and 25-man normal modes every week is just too easy and doesn’t present us with any real challenges.

The fights in 10-man ToC heroic are much more interesting and demanding. Some of the fights are a little messy but we got through them week in week out. Up to now we just haven’t been able to get Anub’arak down.

That’s all changed! We took the best group available and finally managed to get him down and it felt great. It was a great evening with all of us working hard as a team. The noise on vent as we conquered the battle was electric!

It took us a number of attempts; getting closer and closer each time. At one stage we wiped with just 400k health points left, then 200k, followed by another 20ok. For the next attempt we decided to switch the Instand Poison on my main hand to Wound Poison.

My DPS dropped from 1st/2nd to 5th but this time, with the 50% reduction to his healing from Leeching Swarm, Anub’arak dropped faster than a sack of potatoes.

What a nab!!? To be honest I’m kicking myself for not being “on the ball”; I should’ve known using Wound would be more beneficial in this fight before we even set foot in there. I just didn’t think about it. Of course my DPS wasn’t as high using Wound Poison but still good enough to do serious damage and the utility it brought to the fight gave us that little extra edge we needed to get the kill.

This is the point with raiding… Fights aren’t just about scoring high on the damage meters. It’s about progression; damage meters count for nothing; it’s the kill that matters.

Raiding Lesson #1: Think before you fight

• Sometimes it can be a small thing that makes all the difference between getting that kill and spending the entire evening scraping your dead body off the floor.

Unfortunately, nothing noteworthy dropped for a Rogue but I was just ecstactic the guild made some progress.

Now, I’m hoping to get stuck in to 10-man heroic every week in the run up to Icecrown Citadel and improving on our performance.

What’s the next challenge? Beasts of Northrend on 25-man heroic… Watch out!

The Recked Report: Howdy Pilgrim…

Before you ask.. Yes, that is me in the picture. No, it’s not the first time I’ve been turned into a turkey over the course of this event. Thanks funny ol’ Blizzard for slipping some anti-Rogue antics into the new Pilgrim achievement…

How was it?

I enjoyed this one much more than Hallowed Be Thy Name. Don’t get me wrong; Hallows End was the first World Event I decided to make it my mission to complete and I did have fun doing it. Ok, the last piece needed in the puzzle was that damned elusive Hallowed Helm. And yes… By the end of the achievement I couldn’t help but feel if I ever saw that Headless Horseman again it’d be too soon. But it was fun… Overall.

With Pilgrim’s Bounty it was just as enjoyable but with much less of a grind;  no need to find unsaved group members and no repetitive boss killing 5 times a day.

Turkey Lurkey

Why did Blizzard make it part of the achievement to turn us Rogues into Turkeys? I have no idea! Still… it’s only a bit of fun and, when you think about it, it’s not a bad price to pay for being the best class in-game really is it?

In short the achievements are all pretty easy and just take up a bit of time travelling from here to there. It’s wasn’t all easy though. I’m sure those of you who have completed the achievement (or still attempting to finish it) will agree the hardest part by far was (or is);

1. Finding a Dwarf Rogue for Turkey Lurkey (especially for Horde) and;
2. The Turkinator

The “Dreaded” Turkinator

In order to get this achievement you need to kill 40 Wild Turkeys in row. Is that it? Don’t be stupid… That would be too easy. You have a time limit of a maximum of 30 seconds between each Turkey kill. If you take longer than 30 seconds between one Turkey and the next… BANG!… You go back to zero and have to start all over again.

There’s a lot of people screaming and shouting about this one and I have to admit it can be frustrating. However, it’s not really that hard once you know what you’re doing.

Peak time is definitely not the best time to be doing this. My first attempt was around midnight and I managed to get to 37 before a Druid came along and stole the 2 Wild Turkeys next to me before I could reach them. Aaaaaaaaaargh! If only that cat was within arms reach of me I could have rung it’s neck!

The second attempt went well; I got up to 33 Turkeys before running out… And the third attempt? Meh! Just got worse.

Then a guildie introduced me to… Tracker Snacks!

Having already attempted this achievement a few times already, this time I set about it in a slightly different way armed with my newly acquired beast-tracking skill.

How did I do it?

Recked’s Turkinator Technique

• Do this either early in the morning (any day) or late at night (during the week).
• Pick a spot far away from the main area. What I mean here is don’t go and do this right in the middle of the map. Go round to one of the far-away corners or around the edge. There’s less chance you’ll come across other players hunting on your turf. Check out the map (Elwynn Forest or Trisfal Glades) and pick a spot out of the way.
• Eat your Tracker Snack (for 10 seconds).
• Check your mini-map for the Wild Turkeys. All beasts will show up as a yellow dot and if you run your mouse cursor over them you’ll see what they are.
• When you find a Turkey and make your way towards it others should appear on the mini-map. The trick here is to keep checking your mini-map and plan your next 2 or 3 kills as you’re running to your current target. When I did this I didn’t even have to use my mount; the occassional Sprint was all that was required… Just run to the Turkey and use Fan of Knives and make your way to the next one without even stopping.

… Simple eh?

First time I used this technique I completed it well within the time required.

Now I’ve got my title and I’m already looking forward to taking part in the next World Event.

Have you got your title? What did you think of it?

Improved Poisons and Deadly Poison in Patch 3.3

In a bid to boost damage for Mutilate Rogues Blizzard have announced improvements to Deadly Poison and the Improved Poisons talent in the latest 3.3 patch notes.

According to the 3.3 patch notes Improved Poisons will now increase your chance to apply Deadly Poison to your target by 4/8/12/16/20% (up from 2/4/6/8/10%).

In short, we’ll get our 5 stacks of Deadly Poison up faster (10%).

Great… Is that it?

Woooooooooah! Hang on a minute!

As I said before; Blizzard have also announced an improvement to Deadly Poison too…

In addition to its existing effects, when you apply Deadly Poison to a target which has already got 5 stacks up (the maximum number of applications) it will also trigger the poison which you’re using on your other weapon.

So what?

What do you mean? Don’t knock it!

Deadly Poison will now be applied 10% faster with the change to Improved Poisons and… the icing on the cake is you’ll get more procs from the Instant Poison on your main-hand weapon too.

Meh! There’s no pleasing some people.

Being a Mutilate Rogue I have to say I’m pleased to see this. There’s been a lot of talk about the need for us to use Weapon-swap macros or the Poison Swapper add-on in order to compete with fellow Rogues of the Combat variety.

Real Rogues use Daggers! Now let’s show them Rogue Warriors how it’s really done!

p.s. Dinear over on the Forever A Noob has posted a great article about the latest changes to be announced in the 3.3 patch update today along with his take on the subject. Go check it out.

WoW Rogue Arena Armor Set Bonuses Updated in Patch 3.3

Blizzard, as generous as they are, are upgrading the 2-piece and 4-piece arena set bonuses in patch 3.3 which will provide us Rogues with just a little more burst and survivability…

Arena Set Bonus (Patch 3.3)

2-piece:

• +100 Resilience
• +50 Attack Power

4-piece:

• Increases your maximum energy by 10
• + 150 Attack Power

Having dabbled a little in Arena recently (and making some decent progress I might add) I’m happy to see a significant boost to our attack power.

Like most Rogues I’m currently using a mixture of PvE and PvP gear; using too many PvP pieces means I have to sacrifice my burst damage for resilience.

An additional 200 attack power and an extra 50 resilience is not be sneezed at and should make a bit of a difference.

Following this update you will now have 2 options;

• you can make use of the extra attack power from the set bonus and give yourself that little bit more burst or;
• you can put in one or two pieces of the PvP accessories, keep your attack power at the same level and boost your resilience a little.

Here’s the official quote from Blizzard:

“The two-piece set bonus for all Wrath of the Lich King Arena sets now provides 100 resilience and 50 attack power. The current four-piece bonus will remain, however it also now provides 150 attack power.”

I don’t think any Rogues will complain about this change… I wonder if any other classes will be screaming “OMG Rogues OP! Neeeeeeeeerf!” as a result?

Will you be keeping the extra attack power to improve your burst? Or will you be swapping some of your PvE gear for PvP stuff to boost your resilience?

Rogue News: Emblems of Frost Rogue Gear

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better after finally getting to see the Rogue T10 armor stats the Emblem of Frost gear is now available for viewing!

All the items are level 264 and available from collecting Emblems of Frost. How many? No idea.

Emblem of Frost Rogue Gear:

Similar to the Rogue T10 armor set; we appear to be getting either red or yellow sockets and no blue ones on any of this gear either.

I hope Blizzard haven’t forgotten to give us at least one blue socket for our Relentless Earthsiege Diamond meta gem bonus.

Surely they haven’t overlooked this? Have they…?

I doubt it… but it would be funny… wouldn’t it? NO!?

Looking at this gear and the T10 set one things for sure… Rogue stats are going through the roof! If you haven’t already checked out the Rogue T10 stats go put a silly hat on, stand in the corner and have a word with yourself!

… And for those of you who are not satisfied with dribbling all over those stats go check out what they look like in-game courtesy of MMO-Champion:

Emblem of Frost Rogue Gear

• Shrapnel Star
• Shadow Seeker’s Tunic
• Cat Burglar’s Grips
• Vengeful Noose
• Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape
• Herkuml War Token

Now if these items don’t do it for you I don’t know what will.

GIEF! GIEF! GIEF!

Rogue T10 Stats Revealed: The Rogue Shadowblade Armor Set…

We’ve seen the pictures and the video and now, finally, the T10 armor stats for the Rogue Shadowblade set have been revealed!

According to World of Raids the set is active on the PTR now and without further ado here it is…

 Rogue Shadowblade Armor Set (iLevel 251)

Rogue T10 Stats

In summary, when comparing the T10 set stats to the T9 Level 245 Garona’s Battlegear it’s no surprise it provides a considerable upgdrade. Please note the Attack Power and Critical Strike Rating stats in the table below don’t include the AP and Crit gained from Agility (they are merely the Equip bonuses).

Stats	T9	T10	Change
Agility	562	646	84
Stamina	610	646	36
Attack Power	717	801	84
Armor Penetration Rating	149	223	74
Critical Strike Rating	247	422	175
Expertise Rating	133	80	-53
Hit Rating	215	0	-215
Haste Rating	0	63	63

On top of this the +84 agility between T9 and T10 will give you another +84 attack power and +46 crit rating (+1% crit).

In total the change from T9 to T10 in terms of attack power and critical strike rating is significant:

Total AP & Crit	T9	T10	Change
Attack Power	1279	1447	168
Critical Strike Rating	553	778	225
Critical Strike Chance	12.05%	16.94%	4.90%

Don’t forget this is before we even look at the other slot items AND we’ve got those lovely set bonuses to take into consideration too…

Rogue T10 Bonuses

• 2-Piece Bonus – Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.
• 4-Piece Bonus – Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.

Gems

On the gem front we are going to be better off with 2 more red sockets in the T10 and none of those crappy blue sockets:

Gem Sockets	T9	T10	Change
Yellow	0	2	2
Red	3	5	2
Blue	4	0	-4

Overall

I like the look of the T10 set, I like the bonuses, gems and stats. Win. Win. WIN!

Thanks to World of Raids for making my day!

What are YOUR thoughts on the new T10 Shadowblade set?

Rogue News: Murder Talent Update in Patch 3.3

According to the latest patch 3.3 notes update Murder will provide a flat damage increase by 2% (rank 1) and 4% (rank 2) to ALL targets and not just Humanoid, Giant, Beast and Dragonkin.

Not exactly ground-breakingly exciting but there you go.

Rogue News: Patch 3.3 Rogue Bug Fixes

Blizzard have updated their notes for the incoming 3.3 patch. Nothing amazing really apart from an adjustment to tooltips to show stats according to your talents and glyphs… Oh and Mutilate can now be blocked.

Rogue Updated Notes for Patch 3.3 

• Ambush: The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from talents which increase its damage by a percentage.
• Backstab: The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from talents which increase its damage by a percentage.
• Deadly Poison: Another rogue using a higher rank of this poison will no longer prevent the lower rank Deadly Poison from being applied to the target.
• Eviscerate: The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from talents which increase its damage by a percentage.
• Glyph of Rupture: Now updates the duration on Rupture’s tooltip.
• Killing Spree: Entering a vehicle will now cause this ability to halt, and attempting to use it while on a vehicle will result in an error message.
• Mutilate: The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from talents which increase its damage by a percentage. In addition, the damage from this ability can now be blocked.
• Sinister Strike: The tooltip on this ability will now update properly from talents which increase its damage by a percentage.
• Slice and Dice: Improved Slice and Dice and Glyph of Slice and Dice now update the duration of this ability.
• Throwing Specialization: Deadly Throw will no longer cause multiple spell interruption combat log entries when used with this talent.

Not much to add here but hey… It’s Rogue news right?