Rogue talent changes

[caladein]

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?

[squirrel]

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?

Ok since druids can tank in bear form, be a 'rogue' in cat form, heal, nuke and buff, i don't think your comparison is particularly valid. If you're going to compare finishing moves the most valid comparison is with fury warriors or arms who have rage using instants. Those scale btw.

Eviscerate counts for almost no raid DPS. Because it doesn't scale good rogues don't use it. Seal Fate rogues might throw out a 3 point evisc sometimes just to burn off points before a mob dies. But mostly Slice and Dice is the best DPS finisher. Or kidney shot if the situations warrants. Past level 55 or so eviscerae sucks. My 5 point evisc used to hit less than backstab crits or even the occasional sinister strike crit. On well armoured mobs evisc crits hit for less than a backstab crit. Pointless.

[squirrel]

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

Fuck you, blizzard.

Yeah no doubt. Way to miss the point. I don't play my Seal Fate rogue much anyway due to other games but this review does nothing to make that character fun again.

[Ironwood]

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

Fuck you, blizzard.

That's asstastic.

Sigh.

[Chenghiz]

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...

[Ironwood]

Sounds like it.

[bhodi]

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...

You are correct, sir!
Actually, no, scratch that. Combat swords has always been about even with combat daggers, pulling ahead slowly based on itemization, and the clear victor if they're human.  Now, with the latest patch, combat swords gets more of a slight buff and combat daggers gets nothing, pretty much solidifying them at second place. Add the requirement of being behind the target on top of that, and there really isn't a reason anyone would want to spec daggers for PvE.

[Chenghiz]

Ah, I see. What changed?

[bhodi]

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.

[Xanthippe]

On an almost-unrelated topic, why do people say that hunters are rogue killers?  Rogues almost always own me.  I hate the sneaky bastards.  Seems to me that paladins are the rogue killers.  This patch is going to make rogues even sneakier as far as hunters are concerned.  If I can get off a FD/trap, and run away far enough (usually can't), or if someone else comes along and kills it, then I survive.  Otherwise it's stun stun stun die.

Tangentially, my 49 human shadow priest owns almost everyone.  Beginning to really enjoy playing her, whether in pvp or soloing.  (Grouping is ok as long only as it's a non-ninny group.  WTFWHY'DYOULETMEDIE gets to die again.)

You know what I really hate about rogues?  That 30+ second sap.  Bastards!

[Ironwood]

Look, I love you dearly, but :

You're Not A Very Good Hunter, Are You ?

Hunters just ARE Rogue killers.  It's obscene.

[Xanthippe]

You're right, I'm not a very good hunter.  I'm not very good at pvp either, although I enjoy it.  Nor am I good at healing people before they die (hence, the shadow part of priest) which is why I didn't want to play a priest for a long time.  I'm also not a very good rogue, because hunters just owned me.

(I'm seeing a pattern here).

I guess I should hotkey flare and scattershot, huh?  Macro FD/trap?  That sort of thing?

I have 300something agility, and I never hit for 894738294 points like the hunters in the videos. :(

[kaid]

Yup hotkey flare and scattershot if you have it and the fd/ice trap macro. Hunters with their track hidden/flare/huntersmark are some of the best at detecting lurking rogues and have the power and dps to do something about it when they do find them.

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. I like my dwarven hunter as well because I can fd ice trap a rogue and use stoneskin if they managed to poison me to get distance aimed shot them and let snuffles the killer piggy man handle them.

[Chenghiz]

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.

[bhodi]

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.

I'm just tired of you claiming you know about a class and then forming and expousing bad opinions about said class when it's clear that you don't even know what you're talking about, despite having "raided as a rogue".

Having a conversation requires a little bit of background reading, you know, on the conversation topic. Had you LOOKED at the preview talent tree and had ANY INKLING WHATSOEVER of common rogue builds (pro tip: I spelled them out for you a few posts ago), you would have answered your own question. It's clear you didn't even do that, which is why I said, as I said a while ago, we're done. That post was so inane, however, I just had to belittle you some.

It's becuase I care.

[Chenghiz]

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

In your opinion.

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

I did, and I do. But thanks for the concern.

you would have answered your own question

I did.

[Morfiend]

As a long time Rogue player. First hardcore PVPer and now a raider, im gona have to agree with Bhodi on most of this thread. Cheng, not to insult you, but the majority of stuff your posting is wrong. You keep saying you know what your talking about, but then you post some thing else, and prove you dont know what your talking about.

[Ironwood]

As 30/8/15, Bhodi gets my 'Kill Them All' Seal of Approval.

This respec sucks for Dagger Rogues.  It's like a kick in the crotch.  We get a better kidney shot. And that's it.

[caladein]

I'm just a Druid that likes doing this...



I have no idea what I'm taking about.

[Threash]

You think dagger rogues got it bad? im a raiding fist rogue, this review basically boils down too "get a fucking sword, oh yeah and vanish clears hunters mark" for me.

[Xanthippe]

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.

I was thinking more about this today.  I'm not as gimp as I led you to believe - I'm not terrible at killing rogues from any sort of distance really, but I just have nothing I can do to them up close - especially if they hit me with crippling poison.  I'm just dead if they get the jump on me.  I tend to stay stunned and die very quickly.  (My spec is 5 beast/30something marksman/very low survival, which is sort of a problem, plus I'm a nightelf not a dwarf so no stoneskin).  I guess I should give Track Hidden another go; I haven't found it very useful but maybe I haven't given it enough of a shot.

So how do I handle rogues?  If I hit them with serpent sting, then I can't FD/ice trap because I can't get out of combat with FD.  But then if I don't, they can vanish and stealth away and come back and ice me, since hunter's mark is going to disappear.

Tell me sekretz plz.

[Threash]

Scatter shot --> fd  ---> trap should really win you the fight 99% of the time.  In the unlikely scenario that you are fighting a rogue capable of stun locking you from full hps to death without giving you a chance to do that then stick your pet on him, no full stun lock can work without restealthing at some point which will be impossible if your pet is chewing on their ass.  Your pvp trinket should be on if you expect to do any pvp at all, i have seven epic trinkets and i still wear mine anytime theres a chance ill get in a fight.

[Paelos]

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.

[Ironwood]

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.

What the fuck has this got to do with Anything ?

[bhodi]

Ignoring Paelos who seems to be deliberately trying to troll, here's some interesting math puilled from here, which will be broken by tommorow:

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?

[bhodi]

Another decently evolving new-build thread based on the talent trees:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-rogue&t=1323606&p=1&tmp=1#post1323606

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.

[Righ]

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.

[squirrel]

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.

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

[Paelos]

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.

Ironwood, my point was about this exact post since you asked. It was about the idea that changes somehow make rogues completely useless in raids, that they were useless before, and they will be useless after. Hell it's even in one of those huge posts that Bhodi posted at the end where the dude is whining about "Why Bother?" This is all coming after a HUGE discription of how the dagger and sword gap is closing.

I agree that your abilities should scale. I agree that expose armor should stack. That's all well and good. HOWEVER, all this sky is falling bullshit over this review by the community is ridiculous.

[bhodi]

You might as well have said "its fine, learn2play."

You're saying to either play the hand we've been dealt or get up and leave the table. That's fine. I don't go around fagging up every thread constantly about how much I feel inferior to other classes, or how they are doing the job better than I can, or how there's no point to bringing along as many rogues anymore.

But when it's class revision time, all of those problems are supposed to be addressed. That's when you bring up concerns. That's what this thread is about.

[Merusk]

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 your 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. 


Edit: Damnit Paelos I just caught my your/ you're error and you've gone and quoted me.

[Paelos]

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.

[bhodi]

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.

How much, do you think, warriors would bitch if for some reason naxx gear gave paladins the ability to tank better than them?

It's the same idea. Other classes doing our thing better than we can do.

[Chenghiz]

An interesting suggestion I saw was to make Expose Armor simply increase physical damage taken by the mob, similarly to Curse of Elements. This would of course minimise its PVP usefulness but it would neatly sidestep the Sunder Armor issue.

[squirrel]

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.

Yeah. And noone can outheal a disc/holy priest. And noone can out-tank a protection warrior. And noone can outdamage a combat rogue - oh wait, sure they can. GET IT? Priests and Warriors are THE BEST at what they do in a raid. Rogues aren't. Fury warriors can out DPS rogues, so why bring a melee fighter wearing leather? The fact this needs to be explained to you casts a lot of doubt on your credibility regarding the reality of the endgame in WoW.