Rogue talent changes

[Chenghiz]

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.

[bhodi]

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, earthbind) mid-combat.

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

The choice is pretty clear.

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

[Chenghiz]

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.

Rogues can attack while moving. They can get behind mobs that cleave (most of them, anyway). Nobody cares about trash mob damage as long as said mobs die.

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.

This is true. Trinket swapping makes a pretty trivial difference unless you're on a long fight though.

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

Some hunters have trueshot - it's a talent. NR aura is nice, yeah, for a few fights in AQ40. Hunters don't use pets in raids, it's a waste of mana and food.

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.

A minute and a half (less, actually - 8 cycles/80 seconds) with my gear) if you don't go apeshit with magebloods and nightfin stew, mana pots, and if you're not Alliance. I know you have a lot less mana issues with paladins. If I got mana tide it would be a bit longer, but I don't because shaman are needed elsewhere.

[Ironwood]

The point is that you're factoring in sustained DPS which is only sustained if the Rogue stays alive.

It's easier for a Hunter or Mage to stay alive and regen than it is for a rogue to get back up after an AoE fire blast.

[bhodi]

I'm not going to sirbruce, but I see now that we are playing two completely different games. Alliance is different from horde with paladins.

If you played a rogue, you would know how much "Rogues can attack while moving. They can get behind mobs that cleave (most of them, anyway). Nobody cares about trash mob damage as long as said mobs die." does not cut it. Does not cut it at all. We lose an amazing amount of damage walking around, especially those of us who are foolishly specc'd for dagger and have to be behind the target. Every single mob since MC runs twice as fast as players do. There is a ton of wasted damage, everything from the warrior packs in AQ, sartura who you can't even get close to, any mob that fears, there are a zillion examples of where it flat out sucks to be a dagger rogue.

Also, that attitude is fucking terrible and I've chewed several people out for having it. TRASH MATTERS. Trash does not mean you autoattack and watch the tv, it means you fucking kill the mob at 100% so we can finish this dungeon. Every point of damage less that you do to the mob means the longer we're in the fucking place.

I'm not sure why you think trinket swapping is trivial damage. It's not. It's a LOT of damage. And long fight = over 1 minute, since you pop the trinket, wait 30s, swap it, wait 30s, pop the second. It's a huge damage boost, way WAY more than say the DFT or blackhand in the same slot. You won't believe how much more until you get one. With two, you double the effectiveness of that trinket slot. It's like having an extra free epic.

You can use that pet that howls to increase your attack, and some mobs and bosses you can have your pet out with, you just have to pay attention to which ones do aoe damage and which don't.

[caladein]

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.

[bhodi]

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.

No, changing it to % is a flat bad idea. Check out some math. The only way it would be a possible buff is if it was a huge % and the mob had a huge amount of armor. Your average BWL/AQ mob only has about 5-6000 armor. This is a nerf unless the % is huge.

Druid tanks are good, true, but again we're talking a talent you'd have to spec to likely make it worthwhile. As it stands, sunder is better unless a rogue has 3/3 in improved expose armor.

This will pretty much ruin the extra expose damage for cloth.

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.

[Chenghiz]

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.

[Chenghiz]

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.

[edit] The Expose Armor change makes me sad, but I will live, I think.

[Ironwood]

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.

What ?

[bhodi]

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.

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?

On the trinket thing, swarmguard and earthstrike are unbelievably good and help both classes.

Neither class have an overly large amount of utility in an endgame raid role, though endgame hunters can solo MUCH more effectively than a rogue.

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.

[Fabricated]

The 40-mans are a totally different game from the 20-mans I know, but we have a couple dagger specced rogues in my guild, and we had 4 dagger specs total in AQ20 and ZG over the last couple weeks, and they did some pretty fucking impressive damage across the board. The only problem with the melee range thing was when someone would take a crit from a cleave or get hit by sandtraps/aoe/suicide explosions, since rogues are amazingly squishy and as mentioned have to be in melee range.

If you're going to say that dagger rogues are useless, what about duel-wield/DPS warriors? Every warrior has to be Protect spec or sword and boarding to not suck in a 40-man? Fuck that noise then.

[bhodi]

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.

[Ironwood]

I'm a dagger Rogue.  30/8/15.  Possibly sword rogues have it easier, but I couldn't manage the boredom.  You have 3 buttons - Sinister Strike, Slice and Dice and Feint.

And that's all you use.

I was once asked to bring my Warrior to MC to fill in for someone missing.  The fun difference was unbelievable.  I didn't die once.  It was like heaven.

End game Rogues Suck.

[Chenghiz]

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.

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

Poisons
Stealth
Sprint

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

[Fabricated]

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.

I forgot about warriors having absolutely no way to dump aggro out of just not attacking. I've never had to really deal with that since I've been Arms/Prot specced (31/5/15) for the longest time. Alliance side could possibly have a Blessing of Salvation on DPS warriors, but I guess horde is fucked again.

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. I do agree they get fucked in melee range in terms of raw danger. The finger wigglers and hunters just sit back and sling sparklies and projectiles, the warriors/pallies are in plate and have 25%+ more damage reduction and probably 1500-2000+ more HP. Meanwhile, you're a fucking one-hit wonder should lag not be your friend or the server decides that you really deserve that cleave despite being behind the boss.

In my ghetto shit tanking gear + buffs + auras I have 8000+ armor, +58 Defense skill, and 6300+ HP, and fucking Thekal pre-tiger form STILL FUCKING CRITS ME on his goddamn hit+MS for 3/4ths of my HP. And blizz wants leather wearers in proximity to that?

[Threash]

The problem is any class can do 90% to 75% of the damage a rogue can and they still bring a ton of other things to a raid.  All we can do is dps, we might be the best but its only by a slight margin and when you remove aggro control problems on a warrior they very easily surpass us.  Expose armor stacking would give us something extra to bring to a raid besides our own damage, thats all we need.

[bhodi]

For aux, Rogue has:
Poisons
Stealth
Sprint

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

Did you even read my post? I said AUX RAID SUPORT. Poisons are factored into DPS, it's assumed you're always poisoning your weapon. Sprint and Stealth don't help the raid. We're not comparing skills here, I'm trying to have an abstract discussion with you and you're failing at life.

Are you sure you don't work for Blizzard's Dev team?

[Chenghiz]

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

- gimmick
- useful
- situationally useful
- useless
- useless
- nice to have
- useless
- useful to hunters

If you want me to make a valid point, make some of your own. Or just yell that the sky is falling like every other person on the rogue boards. Or just quit, since it obviously means so much to you. It's a game. Good lord.

[bhodi]

OK, we're done. You keep trying to itemize skills by their breakdown, get pissy, and then say "it's just a game." My points were all above, laid out in the first paragraph of the post that you keep quoting, but you apparently missed all of them.

[Chenghiz]

Itemise skills by their breakdown? Where? Weren't you the one who first listed each class's 'auxiliary skills?' I addressed each point with which I disagreed in turn.

We're not comparing skills here

After you post:

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?

Could have fooled me.

[bhodi]

I said we're done.

Here, let me spell it out for you, again. Imagine I'm speaking louder and/or slower. Maybe it's in a really big font in your head. Whatever helps get through.

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.

[Azazel]

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..

[bhodi]

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.

also, for a rogue, www.roguespot.com is good.

[caladein]

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.

http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=10020

The beta boards aren't bad either (but no stickies), but yeah... just read the stickies if you'd like to maintain any faith in humanity (especially on the Rogue boards).

[Chenghiz]

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.

[Ironwood]

Rogues gaining utility as Dungeons are released is an arsehole way to do it.

Really, really arsehole.  It doesn't happen to other classes.

[Jayce]

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.

[bhodi]

Rogues have plenty of aggro dumps, as long as you don't count the on-again-off-again vanish relationship. It's on again, working properly, FINALLY. At least until next patch.

The problem is generally with two situations:

1. We aggro and don't have time to use any of our aggro dump skills becuase we are flattened almost instantly, within the latency window (often in one or two hits)
2. On bosses and trash where aggro doesn't matter, or can't be pulled, DPS warriors can easily overcome rogues.

The first is our vaulted survivability problem, and the second is when the mob isnt very aggro sensitive (golemagg, garr for instance) and the warriors can pull 700dps.

[Fabricated]

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.

Vanish counts, but it doesn't work very well or so I hear. My rogue alt is only at 31 so I have no right to speak on that.

At melee range though a boss can pretty much instantly whack you where a cloth wearer is usually far enough away to buy a second or two.

[bhodi]

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

Fuck you, blizzard.

[caladein]

(Disclaimer: This is purely from a PvP perspective.)

Well, it looks pretty hot from here, and with some of those nice buffs in Subtlety, it seems a lot less dependant upon Assassination to own people. Actually, Subtlety/Combat looks pretty sweet.

Only problem I see is that you'd really have to get at least 32pts. to get all the really nice things in Subtlety at the bottom. I'd still be able to pick-up Imp. Kick and Sprint though with 32 in Subtlety... *drool*.

[Chenghiz]

Yeah I just whipped up something I think would work pretty well in PVP with swords: http://tinyurl.com/fcler

Clearly they didn't address the survivability/utility issue though, and it's disappointing. I just hope that that message gets through the shitstorm that is rogue forums right now.

[bhodi]

Drysc went on a "business trip" and is out of town this week, and I'm fairly sure that the forums are creating their own gateway to hell from the churning, frothing masses screaming out to an unhearing and uncaring dev team. I expect him to come back sometime next week, sit down, and have the black morass of concentrated hatred spew from the monitor right into his face, engulf him, and drag him down to his horrible, screaming, death.

Quick summary for those playing the home game:
PvP builds got a slight to moderate buff, now you can pvp and not COMPLETELY suck in raiding
PvE dagger builds (combat, seal fate) got nothing
PvE sword build got a slight buff

No real PvE concerns (damage scaling, daggers being inferior, survivability, raid utility, humans being widely better at endgame than other races) were addresed at all, and for that I am sad. All the decent talents they added are deliberately put too high in the sub tree for raiding builds to take. Many (most) builds won't even change and aren't affected by this patch.

[Morfiend]

Pretty much 17 assassination is still required for 95% of builds, nothing as far as finishing moves scaling.