WotLK beta updates for Rogues

[Lynette]

Remember, this is beta...

* Rogue Update (Part 2) 09/02/2008 10:11:59 PM PDT

General
- Cloak of Shadows cooldown changed to 1.5 min.
- Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yds, cast time reduced to 1 sec, now requires stealth.
- (NEW â€" Level 75) Tricks of the Trade: The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time. 30 sec cooldown. (Surprise!  Yes, this is the new group/raid utility ability. We haven’t put any stacking protection on it yet but we’ll need one type of solution or other to prevent the need for 5 rogue Trick rotations. Note also that you cannot use this ability on yourself.)

Assassination
- Vigor moved to Tier 3.
- Relentless Strikes moved to Subtlety Tier 1, made 5 ranks for 4/8/12/16/20% chance.
- Murder moved to Tier 6, now increases damage by 2/4%.
- (NEW â€" Tier 7) Overkill: Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cost 10 less energy.
- Focused Attacks and Turn the Tables have swapped locations.
- Master Poisoner moved to Tier 9, no longer increases chance to hit with poison attacks, now increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 1/2/3% and reduces the duration of all Poison effects applied to you by 17/34/50%. (This does not stack with the Paladin talent Heart of the Crusader.)
- Hunger for Blood duration increased to 30 seconds.

Combat
- Precision now also increases chance to hit with poison attacks by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Nerves of Steel will now reduce damage taken while stunned or feared by 15/30% rather than reducing duration.
- Improved Sprint moved to Tier 4.
- Blade Twisting now slows movement speed by 70%.
- Mace Specialization now ignores 3/6/9/12/15% of target’s armor.
- Throwing Specialization now also has a chance to interrupt target when Fan of Knives is used.
- Unfair Advantage: Whenever you dodge an attack you strike back for 50/100% of your main hand weapon’s damage.
- Stay of Execution removed, replaced with Blood Poisoning.
- (NEW â€" Tier 9) Blood Poisoning: All physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 1/2%.
- Prey on the Weak now increases critical strike damage of all attacks.
- Killing Spree is the new name for Murder Spree and should be working much better very soon.

Subtlety
- Shadowstep will no longer be usable while rooted.
- Elusiveness moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
- Premeditation cooldown reduced to 20 sec.
- Preparation no longer refreshes the cooldown to Premeditation.
- Master of Deception reduced to 3 ranks.
- Opportunity reduces to 2 ranks for 10/20%.
- Camouflage reduced to 3 ranks for 5/10/15% speed and 2/4/6 sec off the cooldown of Stealth.
- Initiative moved to Tier 4, increased to 33/66/100% chance.
- Improved Ambush moved to Tier 4, reduced to 2 ranks for 25/50%.
- Serrated Blades moved to Tier 3.
- Wrongfully Accused replaced with Filthy Tricks.
- (NEW â€" Tier 9) Filthy Tricks: Reduces the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 sec.
- Slaughter from the Shadows now also reduces the energy cost of your Hemorrhage ability by 1/2/3/4/5.
- Shadow Dance redesigned, now allows the use of Sap, Garrote, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket and Disarm Trap regardless of being stealthed. Those abilities all gain a cooldown of 2 sec. Lasts 10 sec.

[usonian]

- Cloak of Shadows cooldown changed to 1.5 min.
- Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yds, cast time reduced to 1 sec, now requires stealth.
- (NEW â€" Level 75) Tricks of the Trade: The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time. 30 sec cooldown. (Surprise!  Yes, this is the new group/raid utility ability. We haven’t put any stacking protection on it yet but we’ll need one type of solution or other to prevent the need for 5 rogue Trick rotations. Note also that you cannot use this ability on yourself.)

Boo to 1.5 minute CoS.  At least we'll be able to bring it back down to 1 minute in the Subtlety tree which makes sense since that is considered the best PvP tree.  I might actually use Disarm Trap now that the range is increased and it only takes 1 sec.  It's not worth trying now with a 5yd range and 2 sec cast.  Tricks of the Trade sounds amazing for raiding.  No more waiting to attack for the tank to get aggro or sitting with auto attack on to fall behind in threat.  This will actually make rogues more desireable since we can open up full throttle and actually help the tank keep aggro.  We'll also be able to make better use of Adrenaline Rush if we can pop it right as the fight starts and allow it to cooldown again before the boss dies.  Pretty much any of our burst cooldowns / trinkets can be married with this talent to keep aggro on the tank.  It's like a Misdirect every 30 sec:)  What I don't understand is why they put Filthy Tricks (reduced cooldown of TotT by 5/10 sec) into Tier 9 of the Subtlety Tree if Combat is the best raiding spec...

Assassination
- Vigor moved to Tier 3.
- Relentless Strikes moved to Subtlety Tier 1, made 5 ranks for 4/8/12/16/20% chance.
- Murder moved to Tier 6, now increases damage by 2/4%.
- (NEW â€" Tier 7) Overkill: Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cost 10 less energy.
- Focused Attacks and Turn the Tables have swapped locations.
- Master Poisoner moved to Tier 9, no longer increases chance to hit with poison attacks, now increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 1/2/3% and reduces the duration of all Poison effects applied to you by 17/34/50%. (This does not stack with the Paladin talent Heart of the Crusader.)
- Hunger for Blood duration increased to 30 seconds.

Moving Relentless Strikes to first Tier of Subtlety shouldn't hurt anyone since it's a Tier 2 in Assassination now.  Combat rogues will have easier access and Subtlety rogues will be able to get down the Sub tree quicker.  What sucks is that it now takes 5 points to get to 20% instead of 1 so that is going to sting a bit.  A lot of these talents are working towards improving Mutilate which was fun when I tried it but not quite powerful enough and lacking in mobility.

Combat
- Precision now also increases chance to hit with poison attacks by 1/2/3/4/5%.
- Nerves of Steel will now reduce damage taken while stunned or feared by 15/30% rather than reducing duration.
- Improved Sprint moved to Tier 4.
- Blade Twisting now slows movement speed by 70%.
- Mace Specialization now ignores 3/6/9/12/15% of target’s armor.
- Throwing Specialization now also has a chance to interrupt target when Fan of Knives is used.
- Unfair Advantage: Whenever you dodge an attack you strike back for 50/100% of your main hand weapon’s damage.
- Stay of Execution removed, replaced with Blood Poisoning.
- (NEW â€" Tier 9) Blood Poisoning: All physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 1/2%.
- Prey on the Weak now increases critical strike damage of all attacks.
- Killing Spree is the new name for Murder Spree and should be working much better very soon.

I'm seeing a lot of changes to how poisons affect damage in all trees which doesn't bother me too much unless they start filling the game with poison immune mobs.  Nerves of Steel will make rogue vs rogue fights much more interesting and remove some of the pressure of lock fears, but they have it in Tier 7 of the Combat Tree which isn't going to help in PvP much if Subtlety remains the best PvP tree.  Same with Unfair Advantage; this would be a great PvP talent but it seems misplaced in the Combat Tree, you don't do a lot of dodging in a raid.  Blood Poisoning meshes well with the change to Precision and it will be nice to have that increased poison damage without going deep into Assasination.  Killing spree sounds fun, but I would be scared to death using this in a raid which makes me wonder what it's for.  I don't want 5 mobs coming after me after I break sheep/trap/shackle etc:(

Subtlety
- Shadowstep will no longer be usable while rooted.
- Elusiveness moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
- Premeditation cooldown reduced to 20 sec.
- Preparation no longer refreshes the cooldown to Premeditation.
- Master of Deception reduced to 3 ranks.
- Opportunity reduces to 2 ranks for 10/20%.
- Camouflage reduced to 3 ranks for 5/10/15% speed and 2/4/6 sec off the cooldown of Stealth.
- Initiative moved to Tier 4, increased to 33/66/100% chance.
- Improved Ambush moved to Tier 4, reduced to 2 ranks for 25/50%.
- Serrated Blades moved to Tier 3.
- Wrongfully Accused replaced with Filthy Tricks.
- (NEW â€" Tier 9) Filthy Tricks: Reduces the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 sec.
- Slaughter from the Shadows now also reduces the energy cost of your Hemorrhage ability by 1/2/3/4/5.
- Shadow Dance redesigned, now allows the use of Sap, Garrote, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket and Disarm Trap regardless of being stealthed. Those abilities all gain a cooldown of 2 sec. Lasts 10 sec.

IMO Shadowstep should remove roots but I guess this change makes logical sense.  It's kind of dumb the way it is now being able to shadowstep when rooted and end up 30 yards away still in roots, although it can still work if you react fast enough and catch a mage after a blink with kidney shot.  The change to Elusiveness brings our CoS back down to 1 minute for Sub rogues who use the tree for PvP so the new 1.5min CoS cooldown isn't a big deal.  Premed going from 2min to 20sec cooldown is huge for combo point generation, especially out of stealth when paired with Initiative.  When I use Premed (with Initiative) now out of stealth the target is usually at 5 CP in about 2 seconds and can be hit with a huge expose armor/rupture right away.  Imagine that every 20 sec instead of 2 min.  Again, Filthy Tricks in Tier 9 of Sub makes no sense to me.  Shadow Dance is going to be nasty in PvP, especially if Blizz is supposed to be buffing dagger rogues.  Stealthing 4 times in 9 seconds and being able to ambush at least 3 of those times could get scary.

The changes to the rogue trees are definitely getting interesting even though some of it is a little confusing now.  Why put so many PvP talents in Combat?  Why put so many PvE talents in Subtlety?  Maybe Blizz is trying to spread specialties out more so there isn't 'THE' raiding build or 'THE' PvP spec.  I guess we won't really know until WotLK actually goes live, but I'm looking forward to playing with all the new toys regardless:)

[Belandand]

I hate unfair advantage. If combat is supposed to be the ideal tree for raids (which it is), why include an ability that benefits from us dodging? Wouldn't that be a bad thing if we get hit enough to dodge an attac? I suppose it has limited use in pvp coupled with evasion. I am VERY glad they took out unfair advantage...it reminded me of cheat death. At first glance, I disliked throwing specialization as well but I guess it's in there to boost our thrown dps- the only kind we have on "moving" fights. I would have loved to have seen tweaks to the weapon specs similar to how they tweaked maces (though I can imagine it's a logical and much-anticpated change). Maybe for swords they could have added a chance to do a rip that ticks like a weaker rupture (since swords are sharp). **Shrugs** I dunno. It would be interesting.

As for the increased CD of Clos- Noooooooooooooooooooooo.  That move has saved my ass so many times- especially in raids. That's a big disappointment.

[Belandand]

Oh and as for the death/murder spree concern, I'd imagine that it would work like the pally tank shield. From reading the tooltip- which says it can strike the same mob multiple times- I would guess that the move would be smart enough to bypass cc' mobs and repeatedly attack the live mob.

[Lynette]

A recent trip to RogueSpot suggest to me that daggers are coming back to the forefront via an enhanced mutilate built (no longer need to strike from behind the target).  If this is indeed the case, I will respec mutilate when the new talents come out and give it a try.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?rogue=005005005000000000000000000000532310535210002210332113510020000000000000000000000000

[usonian]

Oh and as for the death/murder spree concern, I'd imagine that it would work like the pally tank shield. From reading the tooltip- which says it can strike the same mob multiple times- I would guess that the move would be smart enough to bypass cc' mobs and repeatedly attack the live mob.

I don't know a single DPS ability that is smart enough to avoid CC on it's own (perhaps I'm missing something).  I remember when Blizz was considering making shaman chain lightning able to avoid CC but they shot it down because it would be too OP.  I would think if they give one class AOE that avoids CC they would have to give the same functionality to all AOE classes and that might be a mess.  When it says it can strike the same mob multiple times I think they mean that you can use it in a solo situation to burn down a mob if no others are near.

I wish I had a Beta account to test all this stuff and report back:P