f13.net

The review is well underway and we wanted to share a sort of first glimpse into the changes being made for the rogue talent review. Keep in mind that these changes are not complete or final, and the below information is likely to alter as we move into our testing phases. While not everything is listed, the below list encompasses the majority of changes being made in the review.

I'll be working in the weeks to come to get as much additional information as possible, but it is likely that quite a bit of the final information regarding talent changes will not be fully announced until the talent calculators go live. Of course you'll also be able to actually play around with the changes too once the Public Test Realms go up.

I'm going to just list the changes and provide additional information where possible or necessary. Let's get to it.

# The following talents have been removed: Improved Deadly Poison, Improved Distract, Throwing Weapon Specialization, Improved Vanish, and Rapid Concealment.

# Improved Instant Poison is now "Improved Poisons" and increases your chance to apply ALL poisons by 2/4/6/8/10%.

# Rapid Concealment has been merged with Camouflage, by combining these talents you not only get a great talent to start off the tree, but obviously it frees up a number of points to be spent elsewhere.

# Murder will now also apply to all finishing moves. The benefit this will provide to output and attack combinations is fairly straightforward.

# Vile Poisons now gives your poisons a chance to resist dispel effects, in addition to increasing poison damage.

# Improved Kidney Shot has been changed, and will instead increase the damage taken by the target while they are affected by Kidney Shot. This talent no longer reduces the cooldown of Kidney Shot.

# Improved Sprint has been changed, and will instead have a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when you activate your Sprint ability. This talent no longer reduces the cooldown of Sprint.

# Improved Evasion renamed to Endurance, and will add a Sprint cooldown reduction.

# New talent Weapon Expertise in the Combat tree, increases your weapon skill with all melee weapons. The recovery of damage with an increased weapon skill should be a good boost to overall output.

# Initiative is being reduced to a 3 point talent, but resulting in the same 75% end chance to add an additional combo point.

# Elusiveness is being reduced to a 3 point talent, but resulting in the same 75 sec cooldown reduction to Evasion, Blind, and Vanish.

# Ghostly Strike now has a reduced Energy cost, the reduction of Energy was enough to make it necessary to also reduce the damage output slightly.

# Improved Garrotes damage reduction will be removed. This is being changed as part of an overall improvement for Garrote.

# Setup is being moved higher up in the tree, becoming a 16 point talent with no prerequisites, helping move the talent in reach of specific builds.

# New talent Heightened Senses in the subtlety tree, increases your Stealth detection, and reduces the chance for you to be hit by spells and ranged attacks.

# Hemorrhage will be moved up in the tree to become a 21 point talent. This should help to place the ability in a more reachable position, and allow for a little more versatility with specific talent builds.

# New talent Deadliness in the Subtlety tree, increases your Attack Power by a percentage.

# Premeditation will have its Energy requirement removed, changed to an instant cast, and range increased. Its cooldown will remain the same. Premeditation will now be pre-reqd by Preperation.

# Vanish will now remove effects that allow the caster to remain aware of the rogues presence, such as Mind Vision and Hunters Mark.

# Garrote, Rupture, and Eviscerate are being increased in damage. More details to come.

# Expose Armor will now reduce armor by a percentage.

I'll be continuing to speak with the designers and collecting as much additional information as possible in the coming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

    Q u o t e:
    I have a few questions.

    Improved Kidney Shot: Will the damage debuff effect monsters that are Immune to stun?



No, I don't believe there will be any dual-purpose for Kidney Shot on a mob that may be immune to stun. The increase to damage isn't an additional debuff as far as I am aware.

    Q u o t e:
    Improved Expose Armor: Are there plans to make this raid friendly?



Such as? I think the new change makes it quite friendly.

    Q u o t e:
    How far up the tree are: Weapon Expertise/Deadliness/Heightened Senses



I can say they're in there somewhere! This would be part of the 'more info to come' rigamarole.

    Q u o t e:
    And finally, are these ALL the talent changes planned?



No, but they do encompass the vast majority currently. The changes won't be 'complete' until 1.12 launches onto live realms after the PTRs. Up to that point we're going to continue evaluating, testing, and tweaking the changes until we're happy with them.
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I was hoping everyone would be able to read between the lines, but it seems I may have overestimated you. ;)
We are building a forum of extraordinary magnitude.

Did I miss the change to Eviscerate ?

The more trees come out the more I realize Hunters and Warriors got screwed by going early.  Some of those are changes they had been dead set against ages ago.  Some are just plainly uber.  Happy for rogues, though.. they'll be more hated than hunters again.

I do giggle about the comments in regards to allowing more versitlility in builds.  Rogues had the three most-flexible trees, allowing for a good number of builds.  Moving talents HIGHER in the tree is reducing that versitility, not increasing it.

Did I miss a memo ?

What's wrong with hunters now ?

(Sure, the class was totally shipped without, er, anything, but it's good right now...)

I think hunters are ok :P (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/Tremmie/1150409130_ownage1.jpg)

I think hunters are ok :P (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/Tremmie/1150409130_ownage1.jpg)

Sorry that "you're screwed" was directed at the point of hunters and warriors having their reviews early made them less dynamic.. they've said they are revsiting warriors again after rogues, but there's been no mention of hunters ;) What you got is what you get.

I think hunters are ok :P (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/Tremmie/1150409130_ownage1.jpg)

My hunter has never done anywhere near that type of damage.  That hunter must be wearing the very best equipment in game for that kind of damage.

Overall I'd say the changes so far are good, especially in the fact that a stunlock is no longer looking to be the only and best way of killing.

<hunter stuff>

I forget what he's wielding, but last I recalled it was the Halberd off of Mandokir in ZG.

Yeah, I use the 10-second cyle and all that.  I'm in the top 5-10 because the other members of the raid rotate out frequently and are using blues, but I can't come anywhere near the top two rogues, both of whom have Gutgore Rippers. Then there's the Fury warrior who, even with all his deaths, still out-dpses the rogues without even trying.  I forget what he's wielding, but last I recalled it was the Halberd off of Mandokir in ZG. Those weapons alone will outdps any bow I can hope to get until BWL.

 Now, perhaps things will flip-flop later but for now I'm solidly behind them, with no hope of great improvement given that the Epic bow is only 7more DPS than my current one, and the X-bow of smiting is 1.4 more dps beyond that.  The burst damage, however, IS crazy from both of those, because of the wacky mechanics Blizzard uses.  However, you have the same problem with warrior abilities and 2-hd weapons, but nobody seems too concerned about buffing those.   

Quick edit: We have a hemo rogue with the AQ ripper that keeps up with the rest of us. Because Hemo wasn't normalized with the rest of the attacks, rogues still gain more benefit from a slower weapon. With that bonus, Hemo does just as much as SS with specific weapons when you get above ~12-1300AP, PLUS the 7-extra-damage-per-hit extra ~200dps to the raid as a whole. There's no reason not to have at least one hemo rogue.

The only thing I want as a warrior is the protection tree to be completely overhauled. I'm fine with the arms and fury trees, but for heaven's sake, we're designed tanks and that tree absolutely blows.

The tree starts off well with shield spec and Anticipation. I have no problems with either talent.

Second tier, Imp. Bloodrage is pretty lame. Two points in a talent to get an extra 5 rage? The sad part is that it's tied to last stand, which is a lifesaver. Toughness gives the 10% bonus to armor, so that's uber. Iron Will is stupid. Nobody cares about charms or stuns enough as a tank to blow 5 points in it.

Third Tier, Last Stand is fine, Imp. Shield Block needs work. It's nice that you get the extra block, but you don't really gain much for putting 3 points in it. They should add more blocks with the longer duration. The Imp. Revenge stun is nice, but in larger instances, it doesn't work. I don't know if it adds more threat with each point, but it should. Defiance is uber, anything that adds total threat is nice.

Fourth Tier, Improved Sunder Armor is another talent where the bang for the buck is low. 3 points to reduce 3 rage off the talent. It was better before when the talent added more reduction to armor and more threat. Improved Disarm? 3 points for an extra 3 seconds? That's completely useless. Improved taunt is nice to have a lower cooldown, but I'd rather have that talent decrease enemies abilities to resist it, which would negate needing the quick cooldown in the first place.

Fifth Tier, Improved Shield Wall currently makes it last longer by 5 seconds, but the cooldown on it is hideously long at 30 minutes. If any talent screamed for a cooldown reduction, this one does. Concussion Blow, fine in solo, but it doesn't work on any raid bosses, and if you're speccing this deep in protection you're probably fighting more than a few of those. Improved Shield bash is great with the silence, but it's way too deep in the spec, and frankly it should probably just be part of the ability and not a talent option. Otherwise it's just a stupid little ability that does nothing damage.

Sixth Tier, One handed weapon spec. 10% more damage is fine and good, but we're tanks. The damage output is secondary to our abilities that generate aggro.

Top Tier, Shield Slam. I personally like the talent, but I'd like to see it have more damage scalability based on the quality of the shield. Maybe have it do damage based on your percentage of AC on the shield, or as a multiplier on how much block it does. Something to that effect.

If you have enough combat rogues, there is no reason TO bring a hemo rogue.

Shhhhh! I like my 31/5/15 build still being considered plenty good enough to MT! My guild just started doing the 20-mans with another guild and some totally epic'd out fillers from a larger guild, and being MT is blindingly easy on damn near everything in ZG.

Yes, tanking ZG has nothing to do with spec. At all. It's really just about making sure you're group isn't retarded enough to pull things off of you when they shouldn't, and CC's. Hell, we've been running it for pretty much five months solid, and it's doable to get the whole thing except Jindo done in less than three hours. It's one of the more fun places in the game.

Unfortunately, spec does come into play in places like BWL and beyond. MC you can do whatever you like, but once we started hunting Rags, I changed over from the arms to prot spec.

Yeah, things that make tanking at higher levels great in the prot tree?

Improved Shield bash's silence is awesome. It works a lot on trash, not so often on bosses.
Last Stand is awesome. It's probably the biggest lifesafer for your raid, let alone you. That extra second where you can get a late heal is everything.
Improved sunder is great, but could be better. Having sunders cost 3 less rage means you use 15 less rage each time you stack five on a target.
Shield Slam is killer. The threat on it is pure gold if something is trying to get away from you. It probably is the single most threat generating ability in the game.

I don't see the silence being all that amazing since while I've only really done the 20-mans up to this point, kicking rogues and counterspelling mages are generally more effective.

Last Stand looks really useful but it's not worth taking points out of another tree. I usually have limited invulnerability/elemental absorb/health potions and a health stone which have bought me the extra second I needed for a heal to land.

Improved Sunder is definitely not worth the points. I'm getting so much rage when I'm getting pounded as MT I can't sunder, revenge, shield bash, shout, or even mortal strike it away quick enough.

Shield Slam would be cool if I didn't have to spend a shitload of points in worthless skills to get it.

I just don't see how a full prot spec warrior would be required to do say BWL or Naxx. It'd be helpful, but I don't know if it'd be helpful enough to take a boring shit spec like protection.

Go human for the +5 swords and rep or NE for the shadowmeld which is sick in PvP.

I thought shadowmeld was a cheap stealth?  What does it do for rogues in particular?

I think I'll make a gnome rogue.  I have a 53 undead one on a pve server, but I want to make a twink for the little bg.

Gnome best race, right?  Since I am not worried about end game rep?

The gnomes have the best giggle.

Its a passive stealth bonus for rogues and druids, about equal to 2 points in MOD.

Shadowmeld adds 5 to your stealth level; MOD adds 3 per point. Items that add stealth also add 5. Really, it's a mildly useful racial but it's only useful if you stack up the stealth buffs.

Of course, freaking hunters and their shadowmeld... they can stay shadowmedled and cast a aimed shot, and don't unstealth until it actually fires.

Escape artist is a nice idea, but in practice it's not overly useful. Maybe if it was instant cast....

It's nice for Warriors, I've found it less useful with every other class though. To chime in though, I'd go Human too, Specializations + Perception are very evil (more so then Shadowmeld I feel, although I find it invaluable on my Druid).

And about Aimed Shot, they changed that at least a patch ago I thought (or at least on my Druid I can't start casting from Shadowmeld without it doing the fade-in animation as soon as I do).

Of course, freaking hunters and their shadowmeld... they can stay shadowmedled and cast a aimed shot, and don't unstealth until it actually fires.

False.  That was removed 2 patches ago with the stealth changes.  You can't do ANY actions while stealthed now including but not limited to: Eating, bandaging, drinking, aimed shot, mounting and precasting.. byotch.

I'm pretty sure you can eat/drink while stealthed (as in: you start eating/drinking and then go into Stealth/Shadowmeld, you will continue eating/drinking until you move). I do it all the time.

True.

you can apply poisons when stealthed.

I know that I had hinted at specific functionality, and I take that mistake upon myself for making statements based on information which was not final and/or fully intended. Expose Armor will not stack with Sunder Armor in 1.12.

The changes to make it perform as a percentage is still intended, and it should now give a pretty nice boost against high-armor targets versus the current Expose Armor functionality.
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Rupture was found to be performing at-par to where we want it to be and will not be changed. While there was certainly some intention initially (and why it was included in my post) to improve or change how it functioned, after careful study it has been decided to not change the Rupture ability. I know that may be a dissapointment, but after careful study, no change was necessary.

Eviscerate is being improved by a new book, allowing a new rank and a general base-damage increase.

Garotte is receiving a damage boost. While final numbers are still unavailable, we are shooting for an approximate 50% damage increase.
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I suppose that depends on your definition of the word 'fucked.'
About raids: I'm not sure what you mean by rifle rounds, but rogues can do higher sustained dps than any hunter, and have better aggro management than warriors. As for mages, well... mana. Sure mages and hunters can sustain a really high rate of dps, but a hunter can do that for about a minute and a half, and then it's FD/drink or pot-chugging time. I'm not sure about mages - it's probably not as drastic but they still have elemental resistances and threat management to concern themselves with.

Oh, except for the 'have to be in melee' range bit. Hunters can do more sustained dps becuase they don't have to worry about being in melee range. They are also much lower maintenance to the raid as a whole, not being in range of cleaves and other monster attacks. Many hunters do more damage on trash becuase it moves around so much.

On bosses, many hunters do just shy of a like-equipped rogue's damage and in some cases (sartura, shaz, geddon, razorgore, broodlord) easily do more. Add the ability to FD-swap-trinkets, and you can get even more DPS out of cycling armor and the activation trinkets (swarmguard, zandalar, earthstrike) mid-combat.

And they've got NR aura, trueshot, and pet damage which I'm not even taking into account.

Minute and a half? Not sure where you got that, becuase our hunters rarely run out of mana except on the longest of boss fights. 6-7 mins until empty by my reckoning.

Just to partially derail, with Expose Armor being % based, one can assume on high-armor targets it will knock their armor down more then Sunder. But Sunder is a decent threat builder for Warriors so in this situation, yeah... increasing Raid DPS while decreasing Tank Threat is a way to get killed, painfully.

But what about a Druid Tank? A Druid's threat is multiplicative of their damage (Paladin's as well) rather then additive like a Warrior's so it would scale with a raid's damage in the case of an Expose Armor. If you have a Druid that can main tank something, he should be able to do it with the new Expose Armor just as well, just that the mob dies faster :P.

It's rather situational raid utility, but utility none the less.

PVP wise,What happened to ea is they just saved priests butts. now if its a % then the 1700 from before will no longer be as much for the clothies as it is now. it may help with warr and pallies but it does hurt the dmg we can do on clothies and mail

ex. cloth has 2.4k armor 1.7k = 70ish % of that

mail wearers break 3k armor and 1.7k= 56ish%

so to make it even on clothies it would have to be around 70ish % which would make on mail the 5 cp ea to be a 2.1k ea and on plate at 5.5k armor a 3.85k Ea

to keep it the same for clothies the result would be

cloth starting at 2300-1700 = 600 armor left
leather starting at 2400-1704 ea = 696 armor left
mail starting at 3000-2100 ea = 900 armor left
plate starting at 5500-3850 ea = 1700 armor left

all this is if EA % is at 70-71% if its any less than that then cloth/leather gets a buff and if its any less than 56% then mail gets a buff and if its any less than 31% then it has been nurfed all together for all classes.

I play a rogue. I have raided on it.

I'm not saying that damage doesn't matter on trash mobs. Obviously everyone should keep at the same pace they do during boss mobs. But nobody judges a class's effectiveness based on how much damage they do to trash mobs.

As far as trinket swapping goes, I've done it and I do it on long fights. Overall a 150 AP boost for 20 seconds every 2 minutes is actually just not much better than a flat 48 attack power, even if you swap it in and out with FD. If you're counting Earthstrike and Jom'Gabbar, it probably would be better. Trinket swapping is a lot better for rogues than it is for hunters, mainly because of things like backstab and ambush, which multiply your damage, as well as the fact that rogue attacks are not on cooldowns whereas hunters' are.

I have the wolf that has Howl, and yes it's a nice boost to damage - but not that much. As far as having them attack - let's see, I can't use it on Luci, Mag, Gehennas, Garr, Geddon, Shazzrah, Golemagg, or ragnaros - that's 2 out of 10 where it's useful. Hmm, BWL: not on razorgore, vael, broodlord, firemaw, flamegor, chromaggus - that's 2 more bosses I can use it on. AQ40 I don't have much experience on, but what I do know is that it's again useless on Sartura and Bug Family. Pets don't get heals, and trying to manage a pet getting it in and out of AOE is just not worth the effort for the difference it makes.

You seem to have neglected to mention the usefulness of stuns on mobs and adds in raid situations. In MC this is of course nonexistant, and in BWL minimally so, but from what I gather quite a few mobs in Naxxramas are not resistant to stuns, and they are also quite useful in AQ40.

I'm actually kind of surprised you're comparing the two classes. They're clearly quite different, and to balance each class around a (largely artificial) raiding model is just plain shortsighted. I won't dispute that rogues may have some problems on raids, because it's not worth even discussing. It's not accurate or logical to try and make a clear-cut comparison between any two classes in WoW, and there is not (and cannot be) objective evidence that rogues are useless or even sub-useful. It's an immaterial argument.

I play a rogue. I have raided on it.

I'm not saying that damage doesn't matter on trash mobs. Obviously everyone should keep at the same pace they do during boss mobs. But nobody judges a class's effectiveness based on how much damage they do to trash mobs.


You seem to have neglected to mention the usefulness of stuns on mobs and adds in raid situations. In MC this is of course nonexistant, and in BWL minimally so, but from what I gather quite a few mobs in Naxxramas are not resistant to stuns, and they are also quite useful in AQ40.

I'm actually kind of surprised you're comparing the two classes. They're clearly quite different, and to balance each class around a (largely artificial) raiding model is just plain shortsighted. I won't dispute that rogues may have some problems on raids, because it's not worth even discussing. It's not accurate or logical to try and make a clear-cut comparison between any two classes in WoW, and there is not (and cannot be) objective evidence that rogues are useless or even sub-useful. It's an immaterial argument.

For aux, Rogue has:
Disarm trap (added in BWL to make them feel useful)
stuns (paladin and warrior stuns are better)
Um.....  .. Sap?

Nah, dagger rogues aren't useless, but we do get double pumped -- once because we're in melee, and a second time becuase we have to deal with facing. Sword rogues do just as much as dagger rogues, and ranged guys can outdamage us.

The problem with DPS wars is well, they have no aggro dump. At all. That means when they fuck up, they fuck up bad. That means even though you can probably out-dps your fellow rogue, you can't, becuase if you step over that aggro line you have no way of stepping backwards. Getting the AQ 30% threat trinket would probably fix that. We have 2 dps wars on our crew and they do just fine. They have to constantly hold back, if it's no-holes-barred, they can leave us in the dust. They both use 2h swords, but I think dual wield can do just fine.

Non-prot spec warriors can tank in a pinch, but you really want a prot spec war to be your MT if at all possible. A lot of boss fights are just too close calls.

It's not that bad. At least rogues have more than 2 useful talent specs.

Tranq shot (added to make them feel useful)
Trueshot aura
NR aura
Speed aura
Traps
Pets (pulling)
Daze or Stun depending on build
Hunter's Mark

We're not comparing skills here

For aux, Hunter has:
Tranq shot (added to make them feel useful)
Trueshot aura
NR aura
Speed aura
Traps
Pets (pulling)
Daze or Stun depending on build
Hunter's Mark

For aux, Rogue has:
Disarm trap (added in BWL to make them feel useful)
stuns (paladin and warrior stuns are better)
Um.....  .. Sap?

I disagree. At it's base, once you boil everything down, there are two components to each class. DPS/Healing/Tanking (primary raid role) and special case/aux raid support.

DPS is both the hunter and the rogue role.  Hunters are within 10% of rogue damage. They don't require melee and can swap trinkets/gear (so they do more overall damage, bringing them about even with the rogue). They don't require extra healing, don't get hit on all sorts of splash damage like a rogue does. Check out the 'healing taken' meter some time. Hunters will be about 1/10th of rogues.

The point is, flat out, blizzard has said that melee DPS should do more than ranged DPS because they take more damage in return, have to position, and are generally more threatened. It's clearly not the case currently and we have been waiting a long time for it to be rectified. That is what I want to be balanced. Apparently it's simply not going to happen.

So where are these Rogue boards you're talking about? I just hit 59 earlier today and I'd like to check them out. Safehouse's WoW section is a joke compared to the old EQ1 section in it's heyday..

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.aspx?fn=wow-rogue

The stickied messages have some real meat, the rest is just a hair above vault boards.

The answer to this quandary is not simply giving rogues more damage. If anything, I'd decrease the damage hunters do (which is too much IMO) and give rogues some more utility. Rogues are gaining utility as raid dungeons are released, but I don't see hunter damage going down.

Rogues need a better solution for when they accidentally gain aggro outside of just hitting evasion, feinting, and praying to god the boss/trash gets back to bashing platedewd.

Isn't vanish an aggro dump too?

There aren't a lot of other aggro dumps really.  It seems to me that rogues have more than most.  Priests have fade, druids can shift to cat and cower, hunters can FD.  Mages can iceblock only if they are specced for it.  Warlocks are screwed unless i'm forgetting something.

With feint and vanish, rogues are looking pretty good to me.  Most other classes have zero or one detaunts, and some are talents.

The one argument I never got was "We want finishing moves to scale." I mean... while I understand it and all (since it's the one gear-independent damage source you have), it's the same thing with Druids, Ferocious Bite and Rip (which is rarely used in raids in the first place) do not scale either.

Sorry I don't have the numbers off-hand, but how much of a Rogue's raid DPS is from Eviscerate in the first place?

Rogue talent preview:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html

Fuck you, blizzard.

Rogue talent preview:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html

Fuck you, blizzard.

Wait, what's wrong with daggers? Last I checked Combat Daggers was the best PVE dps build in the game. I think I missed something...

Ah, I see. What changed?

What the fuck? Are you kidding? Do you have to try at stupid or does it just come naturally? Go away.

Edit: Becuase I know you're slow, let me explain. We've been discussing this for 4 pages. If you have to ask at this point, you shouldn't be here.

Wow, thanks for the informative reply. When I get home I'll look over the notes and see why CD has become so incredibly terrible, since all you seem to be able to do is react in a belittling and hostile manner.

[edit] I seem to have misread your post thinking you said that combat daggers got worse. My bad. I'll never make the mistake of asking you a question again.

it's clear that you don't even know what you're talking about, despite having "raided as a rogue".

Had you LOOKED at the preview talent tree and had ANY INKLING WHATSOEVER of common rogue builds

you would have answered your own question

If a rogue does manage to get right up next to you they can mess you up pretty good but if you detect them at anything other than point blank range you will likely kill them or at worst force them to flee.

As a warrior, I'm gonna say...oh well. Rogues are solo/pvp classes but they will still work in raid situations. Here's a hint, outside of yourselves nobody gives a shit. I run a BWL raid and I'm not silently thinking to myself, hmmm, i wonder if there is a way to fuck rogues out of my raid because hunters are l33t. It just sounds weird and insecure.

PS, if you're around ppl who aren't rogues that actually DO give a shit, they are dickheads. Get out of that guild/alliance/whatever.

We begin, as I am fond of doing, with some history:

    Q u o t e:
    The review will mainly be centered on talent improvements, making some talents more appealing and general improvements without removing or disrupting current and viable builds if at all possible.



    Q u o t e:

    The review, any review, is intended to bring a class to a certain level of balance, hopefully ending up with a balanced set of classes.



I'm taking you at your word. The purpose of this post is to point out that the rogue review as it currently stands has disrupted the delicate balance of incentives for a raiding player, and that as it currently stands it has failed in creating the level playing field that was its stated goal.

Here are two rogues - we'll be using them as the basis of comparison for this post. They have identical armor, and their weapons are as closely approximated in terms of total DPS and stats as possible.

Dagger Rogue: http://ctprofiles.net/2298985
Sword Rogue: http://ctprofiles.net/2299353

Some breakdowns for those who don't want to dig through the profiles:

The dagger rogue has 30% crit(including dagger specialization 3/5) and 16% hit(thanks pugio), with 1152 attack power. The sword rogue has 27% crit and 15% hit with 1151 attack power.

Dagger Rogue Damage Per Energy pre-patch: 21.0
Sword Rogue Damage Per Energy pre-patch(no evis): 15.4
Sword Rogue DPE w/Evis: 17.5

So, being a combat dagger rogue buys you a small but significant DPE boost - your special attacks scale slightly better. Over the course of 60 seconds, a sword rogue uses Sinister Strike 15 times, Eviscerate once, and Slice and Dice twice. The dagger rogue uses backstab 10 times, and slice and dice twice.

Dagger Rogue Special Damage(60s window): 12600
Sword Rogue Special Damage(60s window): 10478

The DPE efficiency of Eviscerate closes the gap between the two builds: Combat Daggers has a 5.6DPE lead on special attacks, but the evis closes the Actual DPE differential to 3.5.

With regards to melee damage, we model sword specialization as a 4% net increase in total melee damage - this is due to the fact that extra attacks are implemented as "your next melee attack occurs instantly" and thus the damage bonus is not as large.

Dagger rogue melee DPS: 175.9
Sword rogue melee DPS: 175.3

Dagger damage(60s): 10554
Sword damage(60s): 10518

However, these numbers don't take into account one critical factor: glancing blows. Of the melee attacks that take place, 40% will glance, dealing 70% of their damage. So let's factor that in.

Dagger damage with glancing(60s): 9287
Sword damage with glancing(60s): 9255

Dagger total: 21887
Sword total: 19733

So daggers are slightly better with identical gear. It's a small advantage, yes, but that margin was enough that people specced daggers and put up with all the hassle. Now, along comes 1.12. We see the sword rogue spec change: he can drop 2 points in Improved Eviscerate and pick up Weapon Expertise, or drop two points in Lethality and pick up Weapon Expertise.


If you drop 2 points in Lethality, the following changes occur:

Sword Rogue Special DPE: 15.0
Sword Rogue Special Damage(60s window): 10237
Sword Rogue melee with glancing(60s): 9888

Sword Rogue(+WeapExp -Lethality): 20125
Dagger Rogue(1.11): 21887

Here, the gap shrinks by 3%.

If you drop 2 points in Improved Eviscerate instead, the following changes occur:

Sword Rogue Special Damage(60s window): 10370
Sword Rogue Melee with Glancing(60s): 9888

Sword rogue(+WeapExp -ImpEvis): 20258
Dagger rogue(1.11): 20387

Here the gap shrinks another percentage point, meaning all that extra work is buying you 4% more performance than a combat swords build.


What happens if we try to get Weapon Expertise as a combat daggers build? Well, we gain 1% crit and +5 weapon skill, and lose 2 points in Lethality.

1.12 Daggers DPE(+WeapExp -Lethality): 20.1
1.12 Dagger Special Damage(60s): 12060
1.12 Dagger melee(with glance): 9924
1.12 Dagger total: 21984

Comparing "new daggers" to "new swords" we see that the gap separating them in 1.11 has shrunk quite a bit in 1.12. Further, the dagger build is even more limited than it was before, because a greater portion of its damage is reliant on melee attacks. Any situation where you are not attacking a monster 100% of the time, you're actually losing damage.

It only gets worse - if the new rank of Eviscerate provides the same 36% increase in damage that we got going from rank 7 to rank 8, combat swords will generate the following numbers:

Sword Rogue Special Damage(1/3 Imp Evis): 10777
Sword Rogue Special Damage(3/5 Lethality): 10683

That closes the gap between Combat Swords and Combat Daggers quite a bit further, down to 4%. With such a small margin separating swords and daggers, the relative tradeoffs for combat daggers are no longer worth it. Why be restricted by positioning and heavily spiked damage - both a problem on zerg encounters like Noth or Gothik? Why suffer with fewer combo points, less mitigation, and the inability to disarm opponents?

It just won't be worth it anymore. Combat dagger rogues thought optimizing for raiding would be rewarded by Blizzard, but we didn't know how good we had it now.

[ post edited by Wodin ]

Swords:

1.11  |  1.12  | 1.12(new evis)

----  |  ----  | ----

19733 |  20258 | 20658

Daggers:

1.11  |  1.12

----  |  ----

21887 |  21984

Let's emphasize this. In this case, by restating and repeating.

A mage, who can outdamage a rogue on many fights due to the nature of the fight, has useful functions outside of damage, and risks far less abuse to do it...

Can tie a rogue for damage on a fight which is practically ideal for that rogue.

This review....

Buys that rogue a .4% DPS increase. About 2.5 DPS.

Think that 2.5 DPS makes up for losing half my DPS time to running around on Fankriss or Emps?

Think that 2.5 DPS makes up for soaking up cleaves and warstomps capable of two-shotting me if my healers aren't spot on? Not to mention my increasing the overall heal burden as a result?

You know what?

I don't want an answer to why Evisc and Rupture won't scale.

I don't want an answer to why our cooldowns can't be reduced in both time and power to even our power curve out.

I don't want an answer to any of the numerous questions this joke of a review has raised.

I want a Blizzard answer to one question.

"Why bother?"

Why bother bringing a rogue when you can bring other classes for more functionality and equal damage?

Why bother playing a rogue that's even capable of matching those classes, at the cost of being able to do anything *but* match those classes?

Why bother paying for a character with no real use in the endgame that another class can't fill just as well, with more utility beside?

Rogues are a rather straightforward class, in that we have two specs: daggers, and non-daggers. Of those specs, we can choose PVE and PVP variants to varying degrees of effectiveness.

All rogue builds start out with the following base: 16 in Assassination.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=f0eMox

(2 filler points may be put in Remorseless Attacks, Murder, or Improved Eviscerate over Improved Slice and Dice)

Malice is critical for the rogue class, pun intended.
Ruthlessness and Relentless Strikes are core talents, and are absolutely required for combat longevity. Without them, we suffer heavily.
Lethality directly improves our burst damage, both with daggers and with swords/maces/fists, and is considered a required talent.

After the rogue has filled these talents out on his preview sheet, he must look at his gear, common activity, and desired playstyle. There are generally a few considerations:

a) Do I PvP? What percentage of my playtime is devoted to PvP?
a1) Is the majority of my time spent in world PvP or battleground PvP?
b) Do I PvE? What percentage of my playtime is devoted to PvE?
b1) Is the majority of my time spent in small-scale PvE or raid PvE?

After these questions are answered, the rogue may then ask himself:

c) What playstyle do I like?

There are multiple answers to this, including:
c1) Combat-resilient low-burst, high-sustained brawler
c2) Hit-and-run frontloaded burst damage
c3) High degrees of control in 1-on-1 fights
c4) Tricks over damage; able to live to fight another day.

And finally, the rogue must ask himself:
d) What gear do I have (particularly as far as weapons go)?

After these questions, the rogue may begin to form an idea of where his talent build will go.

PvP-heavy builds
----------------
The PvP rogue must focus on two things: Hitting as hard and as fast as possible, and then escaping to return to stealth. An unstealthed rogue is a free kill to almost any class that wants to take the time. To this end, PvP rogues nearly always choose daggers as their weapons. Daggers hit harder than swords, and gain more burst benefit from items like Renataki's Charm of Trickery and Thistle Tea.

All dagger builds require two talents in addition to the original 16:
- Improved Backstab
- 5/5 Opportunity

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=i0eMoxZGcZ0xx

Improved Gouge is considered a useful talent on the way to Improved Backstab, but it isn't a make-or-break talent. Its primary use is to push gouge past 5 seconds, allowing the rogue to restealth in PvP, lag permitting.

Improved Sinister Strike is nearly 100% filler here.

Lightning Reflexes is generally not considered worth the talent points, as dodge is a defense that is negated positionally, is completely useless against magic and ranged attacks, stops working when we're stunned or otherwise CC'd, and allows warriors to overpower us. Most dagger rogues take Imp SS so that they can feasably use Sinister Strike in PvE situations where they find a mob on them and no way to get around it.

The first tier of Subtlety is useful for PvP. Most rogues tend to max Master of Deception, though you can go with any combo of MoD and Camo, as there are items and enchants that boost both skills independently from talents, so you can itemize to make up the deficit.

We have now spent 34 of our 51 talent points, or an even 2/3rds. The rest of our talent points will determine our playstyle.

[[ PvP Subtype: Seal Fate Daggers ]]
Some rogues - particularly rogues with access to high-end gear - spec down the Assassination tree, gunning for Cold Blood and Seal Fate.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhecov0oxGcZ0xx

Improved Eviscerate is useful here, but the points in SnD (which can go into Remorseless or Imp XA, as well) and the points in one of your poison talents (I chose Vile in the build above) are generally considered filler.

We now have a gear/playstyle choice to make. With 5 Nightslayer, this is a no-brainer - a point goes into Vigor. Some 30-assassination dagger rogues like Vigor even without 5 Nightslayer as it allows them to execute cleaner stun chains out of stealth. However, there is no denying that Vigor is at its most powerful with 5 pieces of Tier 1 armor, granting the rogue an Ambush/Backstab and an immediate follow-up backstab. If the rogue has access to Renataki's Charm, he will likely use it here, granting him an Ambush and 2 Backstabs immediately out of stealth, for heavy damage and a nearly guaranteed 5 combo points.

If the rogue chooses to not take Vigor, he will put the three remaining points in Improved Ambush. If he does take Vigor, then the two remaining points will go into Improved Ambush.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ihecov0otGcZ0xx0b

[[ PvP Subtype: Prep Daggers ]]

Returning to our base dagger build (http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=i0eMoxZGcZ0xx), we have another option: fill out a few points in Assassination to Cold Blood, and then put the rest in Subtlety to get Preparation.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ihecox0oZGcZ0xE0hco

Again, Improved Slice and Dice is filler in the Assassination tree, and we have a number of filler talents in the Subtlety tree. Many prep rogues pick up Init for additional combo points out of stealth, as well as Improved Sap, which may be useful when attacking multiple opponents. We do pick up Improved Ambush, and the feather in the cap is Preparation, which grants the rogue extreme flexibility in individual fights, and a host of escape options.

This build, however, is by far the most cooldown dependent. It doesn't have the staying power of Combat, or the effective energy:CP ratio of Seal Fate. This rogue is extremely powerful with his cooldowns up, and a free kill with them down.

[[ PvP: Hemo ]]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhecox0oZhZVgV00IR0o

An extremely specialized build. Hemo rogues are extraordinarily gear-dependent, needing slow, heavy weapons and very high Attack Power ratings to do decent damage. This build focuses heavily on 1v1 control at the expense of burst damage. The requisite 16 are spent in Assassination, and then an additional four finishing SnD and Imp Evis. A final point in Assassination gets us what we're really interested in here, Cold Blood.

Improved Gouge is picked up from Combat for additional control.

On to the Sub tree, Elusiveness, Improved Rupture, and to a degree, Improved Sap are all filler talents here. The bread and butter of Hemo are the Init, Prep, Cheap Shot, and Hemo talents. These grant the rogue extremely fast CP generation out of stealth, which in turn grants him stun chains that he may use to control his opponent while whittling him down. The rogue is also given twice the utility of other rogues with the inclusion of the Preparation talent. While this build is less dependent on cooldowns than the Prep Daggers rogue, it is extremely dependent on 1v1 or 1v2 small-scale, controlled fights. Opponent adds into a fight will ruin a Hemo rogue's day in no time flat.

[ post edited by Adrine ]
http://tachyonsix.com/?s -Sanity. Better inventory.

PvE Heavy Builds
----------------
PvE rogues are blessed in that they may choose either swords or daggers for their work, and will perform roughly the same with either. Some expect this to change in 1.12 in swords' favor.

There are two PvE dagger builds, and a number of Sword/Mace builds. We'll go over each of those.

[[ PvE Subtype: Combat Daggers ]]
Generally hailed as the king of raiding DPS charts, combat daggers is an interesting combination of the strengths of Combat and the better long-term efficiency of Backstab over Sinister Strike.

We start with the requisite dagger base:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=i0eMoxZGcZ0xx

In this case, the first tier of Subtlety is completely wasted - all three first-tier talents are pure PvP talents. Any of the three will work, as stealth is rather meaningless in raids.

From here, we move directly into Combat.

We pick up five points in Precision (very useful), and then put two filler points in Deflection (generally wasted). This then opens up Dual Wield Spec, which we max out, in turn giving us access to Blade Flurry, which we pick up. The final four points are invested in Dagger Specialization.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=w0eMoxZGci00yzZ0xx

This build performs wonderfully in raids - Precision and Dual Wield spec mean that the rogue will see high sustained white damage, and Blade Flurry grants the rogue the ability to double his damage for 15 seconds every 2 minutes. This is particularly useful in clustered packs of enemies, where the rogue may backstab multiple enemies at once.

This build suffers heavily in small-scale PvE and PvP, due to its complete lack of burst damage and utility, and its heavy reliance on long, protracted fights to get maximum benefit. This build is generally only used by exclusive raiders.

[[ PvE Subtype: Seal Fate Daggers ]]
A dagger build for the rogue that wants more flexibility. We covered it already in the PvE section.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhecov0oxGcZ0xx

Seal Fate daggers are more flexible than Combat Daggers for PvE, in that they allow for faster combo point generation and better burst damage, making them better suited to small-scale PvE, where individual mobs go down comparatively quickly. This build has the advantage of allowing the rogue to float between PvE and PvP. In raid PvE, it is not as effective as combat daggers due to the lack of Precision, Dual Wield, and Blade Flurry, but it performs decently.

[[ PvE Subtype: Combat Swords/Maces ]]

An all-around brawler subtype, this build is also decently suited to melee PvP. It suffers extremely heavily against casters in PvP, however. It is generally considered to be the second-best choice for raid damage, and is a solid bet for small-scale PvE damage, as well. This build is often recommended as a levelling build.

Starting with the requisite 16 in Assassination, we add Improved Eviscerate and finish out Improved SnD.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhecox

We then move over to the Combat tree, where we pick up Improved Sinister Strike - the sword/mace rogue's most vital talent. The additional three points for the tier may be invested in either Lightning Reflexes or Improved Gouge as filler.

We then work our way directly down the Combat tree, picking up Deflection and Riposte (which serve as an increase to survivability, especially against melee in PvP), Precision (vital for combat specs), Dual Wield (again, vital), Blade Flurry, and then deeper than we've been before to Sword or Mace spec, depending on your weapons. We finish the tree off with 3/3 Aggression and Adrenaline Rush.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=whecoxZMhEz0Vzxco

Some rogues who desire to offset their disadvantage against casters will drop 2 points from Improved Slice and Dice and instead pick up Improved Kick, resulting in the following:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=whezoxZMhEzMVzxco

PvE/PvP Hybrid: Seal Fate Swords
--------------------------------

An extremely gear-dependent and rather rare build, but one which allows for surprising flexibility in PvP, at the cost of diminished PvE utility. However, the simple fact that it is a swords-based build with combat talents renders it adequate in PvE.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fuecsx0oxMhEz0mz

Imp Evis and Imp SnD are filled out in Assassination, and Imp XA is picked up as filler. 1 point also goes into Remorseless as filler.

We then pick up Cold Blood and Seal Fate, and move on to the Combat tree.

Here we again take the requisite Improved SS, and then 3 filler points in either Lightning Reflexes or Improved Gouge. As this is a PvP hybrid, Improved Gouge is likely the better choice here.

Deflection to Riposte is taken - again, a critical sword PvP talent - and precision to dual wield are picked up. However, we eschew a point in Dual Wield to pick up Blade Flurry, rounding out our build.

Seal Fate swords requires a hard-hitting sword and a high crit rate (27%+ unbuffed) to be effective, but it allows for more dynamic swordplay than standard combat builds.


Now, with these things in mind, let's look at the new talent trees. http://tachyonsix.com/?s -Sanity. Better inventory.

We are given a number of goodies to evaluate and play with:

Assassination
--------------
- A different Expose Armor, tier 3. Not much known here, since we don't know the new XA numbers.
- Two improved poison talents, tier 4. Both of these appear to be decent PvP talents, with Vile Poisons appearing particularly appealing due to the potential for Crippling Poison to resist dispel effects.
- An improved Kidney Shot, tier 5.

Combat
--------------
- A changed Improved Sprint and a new Improved Evasion (renamed Endurance), tier 3.
- Weapon Expertise, tier 6.

Subtlety
--------------
- Camo with Rapid Concealment merged in, tier 1
- New talent, "Sleight of Hand", tier 2.
- A more accessable Setup, now tier 4 without a pre-req
- New talent, "Heightened Senses", tier 5.
- Hemo moved to Tier 5
- New talent, "Deadliness", tier 6

Now, let's look at each of these talents in light of the builds we've just outlined.

- Expose armor would apply in the Seal Fate Daggers, Seal Fate Swords, Prep Daggers, and Hemo builds. Most rogues still feel it will be filler, due to the prohibitive mechanics of Expose Armor.
- Vile Poisons and Improved Instant Poisons. This will apply to the Seal Fate Daggers and Seal Fate Swords builds. Most rogues will likely put four points in Vile Poisons to improve the chance of Crippling Poison sticking to their target, and thus, keeping their target in range. This will likely be exclusively considered a PvP talent.
- Improved Kidney Shot again applies to the Seal Fate Daggers and Seal Fate Swords builds. Seal Fate Daggers will likely see the most use out of this one, serving as a damage boost to 120 energy thistle tea/Renataki combos.

- Improved Sprint would be accessable in the Combat Daggers build, but it would be rather useless there. It would be useful in raiding on Garr in Molten Core, but then only for a few seconds until the slow is applied again, and only once during that very, very long fight. It would also be accessable in Combat Swords builds, but you have two issues here - one there's not really any place to use it, and two, there is no place to pull points from to invest. Our filler in that build is done in the Assassination tree, and on the first tier of Combat, leaving us with no wiggle room. Most rogues are also concerned that a one-time snare break is insufficient. Vanish works decently as a snare break because it causes our target to detarget us, and to not be able to immediately attack us. Not so the case with Sprint, which will result in rogues being re-snared extremely quickly. Earthbind totems will likely completely negate the sprint break.
- Elusiveness suffers the same fate as Improved Sprint.

These two talents would be most useful to the Prep rogue, who relies on cooldowns and utility tricks to stay alive, but they are out of reach for him.

- Weapon Expertise. Accessable to Combat Swords/Maces at the expense of a point in Aggression and a point in Slice and Dice. This also eliminates the Improved Kick variant, as non-improved Slice and Dice simply isn't feasable in raiding. Given that Weapon Expertise only affects enemies of a significantly higher level than the rogue, and that the rogue must give up a direct damage talent (aggression) and an indirect damage talent (slice and dice) to reach it, most rogues feel that they won't be taking it. It is also -potentially- available to Combat Daggers rogues, but try as they might, nobody has been able to put together a good combat daggers build with WEx. The opportunity cost to get it is simply too high.

- Camo With Rapid Concealment. Now accessable to all dagger builds, as well as Hemo. A nice nod to PvP rogues, but it still leaves PvE dagger rogues with the fact that they must spend 5 points in talents that are utterly worthless to them in order to gain access to a defining dagger talent.
- Sleight of Hand. Accessable to all dagger builds and Hemo. Potential tri-spec for Combat Swords, eschewing tiers 6 and 7 in Combat and removing 2 points from either SnD or Sword Spec. I don't think any raiding rogue would consider the burn of the first 5 points and then a 2 additional points worth a 220-damage buffer on Feint, and a -2% chance to be crit, especially given that you have to give up Aggression and Adrenaline Rush, and points in SnD or Sword Spec to get it. Hemo and Prep builds don't do enough damage to make the Feint component valuable, and -2% to be crit is seemingly worthless.
- Setup, still 45% to get a combo point when you dodge your target's attack. The points are better spent elsewhere. Too weak, and no compelling reason to take it over a number of other talents. This almost seems like a "rogue tank" talent, except that rogues aren't actually given the skills or itemization to be tanks.
- Heightened Senses. Most rogues were really excited about this one. However, its placement makes it accessable only to Hemo rogues, and a -4% chance to be hit seems way too low for its place in the tree. The increased stealth detection is nice, and will be useful for Hemo rogues in PvP, but raiders were really hoping that this would be accessable to them, allowing them a better chance at avoiding hard-hitting raid AoEs. No such luck. This talent is effectively available to one build - a 1v1 exclusive PvP build.
- Hemo Tier 5. Nice for Hemo rogues. Allows Hemo SF to become possible. Four points in SF allows the Hemo rogue to pick up Preparation, as well. Expect this build to generate lots of complaints from non-rogues.
- Deadliness. Wow. This may be the biggest disappointment from the entire review.

Rogues have long lamented their AP scaling formulae. We have a very hard time with our critical AP scores, and the option to potentially increase it with talents was appealing and exciting, especially for the raiders who often eschew defensive stats in favor of Attack Power.

However, this talent has been placed 6th tier Subtlety, out of reach of...everyone, with the possible exception of a new 17/2/32 Premed/Prep/Hemo build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=yhe0oxZbZEcco0cddt

This is essentially an extension of Hemo with a timer component built in - every 2 minutes, the rogue may load up Premed, Imp Cheapshot, and Hemo to 5 CP - ultimate 1v1 control, potential 100-0 stunlocks. Yeah, that's going to endear us to the non-rogue community.

And it still does nothing for anyone who isn't a 10-minute ganker.

To top it off, Deadliness is 5 points for a 10% AP boost at tier 6. For a raiding rogue with an insane 1000 AP, this means a 100 AP increase for a grand total of an additional 7.14 DPS.

Compare, to, say, hunters, whose 6th-tier talent Lightning Reflexes, grants a 15% boost to agility. Hunters gain the vast majority of their AP from agility, resulting in a close to 30% increase in ranged attack power, on top of increased dodge, AC, and crit. 10% to attack power at that tier is insulting.

I hope this explains where rogues are coming from, and why we are disappointed with the results of the review thus far. The new talents don't address standing problems, are are out of reach for the builds that really need them. The review feels disjointed, disconnected, rushed, and frankly, as though there was little thought or communication put into it. We are desperately hoping for talents that will augment our roles, rather than talents that are attractive but unreachable, or talents that have the right idea, but don't really do enough for us.

Right now, the review is not sufficient. We're hoping that by communicating to you, the developers, where we, the community stand, that we can get a review that we'll all be happy with.

Thanks for reading.

[ post edited by Adrine ]
http://tachyonsix.com/?s -Sanity. Better inventory.

What the fuck has this got to do with Anything ?

What the fuck does anything have to do with anything? His point was that 90% of this thread consists of winning whines about how much rogues suck in raids, and the implication that they're never going to get invited to the party now that they suck even more. Essentially, I think its a call to please stop the self-pity and either enjoy playiing a rogue in raids, play a rogue where they are situationally superb, or play something else.

Warriors suck at ranged AoE. Blizzard needs to fix this now.

This is NOT about PvP.

PvP is fucked.  It always has been.  It's fucked, fucked, fucked.

This is about our usefulness in endgame raids.  Right now we don't have any.  ANY. NONE.  I have no fucking idea why you would take a rogue into raids when you could get a hunter or a mage.  And don't give me that mana shit because if you had enough you could do rifle rounds, ffs.

So we want some utility.  And what do we get.  PvP goodness.

Fuck that.

It was never, NEVER going to be a revision, though.  Even 2 or 3 patches ago they made a statement about how rogues were just going to be tweaked, and the devs felt they were just about where they wanted them to be.  They've never used the words revision, revamp or any variant other than "review." 

Now, you might feel it's bogus, and in fact it does mean that you're PvE endgame choices are very narrow, but that's not too different from any other class.  Thus, the lack of empathy from any other classes players. 

Exactly, I mean fuck, warriors have TWO choices in the endgame. Priests have basically ONE. Rogues getting narrowed down on choices to raid isn't going to shock the other classes at all.

Exactly, I mean fuck, warriors have TWO choices in the endgame. Priests have basically ONE. Rogues getting narrowed down on choices to raid isn't going to shock the other classes at all.

Hunters have an aggro dump and can do almost our damage, and can do more on many of the new boss fights (abom wing).
Mages can do more damage than a rogue without pulling, plus extra raid utility
Warlocks and others can simply use the aggro trinket from AQ.

Fine, you're right. You're all fucked. Game over, man! Reroll before the sky falls, etc etc.

I fail to see how these changes specifically make this any different than before. All I can see now is they didn't improve the shit you wanted, so you're still in the same boat. If that's the case, rogues should have never been getting into groups in the first place, which I certainly don't see happening now.

Wow. Way to fucking miss the point Righ. Yeah, that's what this thread is about. You got it.

I want to make sweet passionate love to the talent review.  I've been playing with the calculator for the last hour and i honestly have no idea what im going to do, i can come up with viable interesting builds with any weapon/tree.  Thats really all we could have asked for, that and the scaling is nice.

if people hadn't bitched,

Wouldn't matter.  Everyone will be bitching again soon.  I remember the neverending hunter bitch thread.  Everyone who plays MMORPG's bitches about something all the time.  Forever.  It's traditional.

I recall the mage and priest revamps starting out like this too, with some truly retarded ideas at the beginning which turned into fairly decent revamps at the end.

I do wonder, if people hadn't bitched, would it have been changed? Probably not.

You joke but look at this talents compared to those they posted a few days ago, do you think there would such massive changes in such little time if there hadn't been massive, vociferous and justified complaining by the entire rogue community?  How did they go from "no scaling" to "evicerate rupture and garrotte will scale" in the span of 2 days?

I think they do this intentionally. They initially release a set of mediocre changes while holding they changes they really intend to make in reserver. Once the bitching goes on for a week or so they release the changes they intended all along and everyone is happy, where if they're released them orignially people would still have bitched. They know people will bitch and complain no matter what they initially release.

Wow, what a turnaround for this thread.  Now if Ironwood posts with a neutral - hopeful flavored post, I'll just retire having seen it all.

I recall the mage and priest revamps starting out like this too, with some truly retarded ideas at the beginning which turned into fairly decent revamps at the end. 

I got almost the same thing in my WoW inbox in-game. freaky.

It's like they're stalking me.

Are you stalking me?

Since we are now going THIS direction, I thought I would bring up some thing.

Have any of you guys noticed the price of gold has skyrocketed? Blizzard must be really cracking down on farmers lately. A few months ago gold on my server was $35 for 1000g now the lowest price I can see is $150 for 1000g. Thats an amazing jump in price. Odd that I havent heard about any mass farmer bannings or such.