Rogue talent review (first glance)

[Slitty]

The 'normal' US rogue forums are down (due to large number of kids posting '1st' in Drysc's post), so go to check this for details:

beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12731419&pageNo=1

For those of you who are vaguely aware of rogue affairs let me assure you - personally I love the changes. After reading them twice I renewed my subscription an hour ago (yeah, it expired yesterday afternoon).

This is, I think, the first class review that majority (if not all) of the community approve of (though, we of course hunger for more! ) I went through the posts on EU normal and US beta forums, and everyone seem to have fallen in love with the improvements.

Right now, I'm more than anxious to get hold of a talent calculator, but without that I know for a fact that I will try Premeditation build (just cause I never tested it), and most likely stick with Hemo for pvp. Can't wait for PTR...

Oh yeah, as the post states, these are not final, but still... the right direction of the changes has been taken... and ZOMG, no nerfs! (seriously, there is not a single nerf Oo... )

Update 2:
the normal rogue US forums seem to be up again, with the thread reaching 12,125 views in 5 minutes. .... here's the link:

forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-rogue&t=1271292&p=1&tmp=1#post1271292

[Slitty]

Right, having nothing better to do at the moment, I thought I'll take some time and review the changes ... just for the heck of it

anyway, here we go:

The following talents have been removed: Improved Deadly Poison, Improved Distract, Throwing Weapon Specialization, Improved Vanish, and Rapid Concealment.
An expected change, so no point in going into detail. Won't miss those talents anyway (apart from Imp DP, 99% of rogue never used these, and RC is now merged with Camo, so no biggie)

Improved Instant Poison is now "Improved Poisons" and increases your chance to apply ALL poisons by 2/4/6/8/10%.
Finally a change rogues wanted to see. Don't see myself taking it anyway, but having one talent influence all kinds of poisons is really nifty.

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.
The only regret is that they didn't merge RC with Master of Deception. Still, having 10 points in tier 1 talents is an improvement over 15 previously.

Murder will now also apply to all finishing moves. The benefit this will provide to output and attack combinations is fairly straightforward.
A talent improvement now well worth at least 1 point. Although, if you have a loads of +hit from gear you can stay away from this.

Vile Poisons now gives your poisons a chance to resist dispel effects, in addition to increasing poison damage
So, if I understand it correctly, poison cleansing totems effect can be resisted now thanks to that talent. A gimmick I'd say, but it's a nice addition.
.
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.
To properly judge this I'd have to know the value of the increased damage. Anyway, it's a boost in dmg, as every rogue uses KS. What appears to be a downside (no cooldown reduction, KS is on 20s CD) is actually an improvement, mostly in terms of 1vs1 fights/duels. No more diminishing returns on KS

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.
Pretty cool, although only a choice if you're combat. Currently this talent is too deep into Combat tree for any dagger rogue to take it. This change makes all rogue want to have the talent, it's simply awesome

Improved Evasion renamed to Endurance, and will add a Sprint cooldown reduction.
A very good change for PvE rogues who choose this talent, 4 more secs on and Sprint cooldown reduction. Possibly a choice for combat rogues, but too deep into combat tree to be taken into consideration by seal fate/prep rogues.

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.
That's self explanatory. I would love to see all other weapon specialisation talents removed though (unless it's the case already) to free up more points (or at least a merge for talents that give crit [fists/dagger] and effects [sword spec/mace stun])

Initiative is being reduced to a 3 point talent, but resulting in the same 75% end chance to add an additional combo point.
This is major boost to this already very strong talent. I'd take this over Imp Ambush even for a Seal Fate/vigor build (yeah, you heard me right )

Elusiveness is being reduced to a 3 point talent, but resulting in the same 75 sec cooldown reduction to Evasion, Blind, and Vanish.
Not a popular choice, but having the overall talent points cost reduced this is a good change.

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.
I want to know the new energy cost. Anyway, currently it's 125% weapon dmg, but that's not the best thing about this talent – it's the increased dodge chance. A good change.

Improved Garrotes damage reduction will be removed. This is being changed as part of an overall improvement for Garrote.
To be honest, I have no idea why Blizzard is so hard trying to shove this ability (and talent) into rogue's faces. Currently, not a single rogue uses garrote (I have not used it once). It's a talent improvement all right, but the ability is totally useless atm.

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.
Never liked it, but having it higher in the tree is an improvement. A talent for rogues with high dodge chance, not a favourite in my book. I have no idea of which builds they thought changing this (none I know of use this), but still...
This is a major combo generator when combined with Evasion. Unfortunately, it's only good against melee classes

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.
Looks... queer. Realy, the combination of stealth detection and change of being hit reduction is.. a very surprsing and awkward setup.. This needs testing, right now I have my doubts.

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.
Hell yes! Someone in the rogue forums mentioned Seal fate/Hemo and yeah, it's gonna be possible. Alas, for a price. With 30/0/21 Seal Fate/Hemo is a nice combo, yet I wish it could go Seal Fate+Vigor/Hemo... The major downside of 30/0/21 build would be loss of Imp Gouge.

New talent Deadliness in the Subtlety tree, increases your Attack Power by a percentage.
Sounds promising, but without any detailed info I can't say anything beyond that

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.
A major boost. Now if only Premed had it's 10 secs combat engagement removed (or at least incread to 14-16 secs) this would make a truly powerful ability. I will test this for sure.

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

Garrote, Rupture, and Eviscerate are being increased in damage. More details to come.
Still unclear if it scales up with gear or has it's base dmg increased. Nonetheless, rogues have waited for this change.

Expose Armor will now reduce armor by a percentage.
Still unclear it if stacks with Sunder Armour (I doubt it, as I recall a blue post saying EA was never meant to stack with SA), and no info on the exact value, but still it's a nice boost. I hope.

ZOMG according to this forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-rogue&T=1273566&P=1
EA stacks with SA... *feints*


And that is all, atm. Subtelty tree, currently the weakest, is getting a major boost (this was to be expected anyway), with some nifty changes here and there. Now, all is left is to wait and see other changes. Almost all of the above changes are PvP oriented and that's a good thing. Well, in my point of view

[mard]

wow ... amazing. it's only a "preview", but still awesome.

most of the new talents / improvements would require me to spec out of seal fate daggers though ... *sobs*

[Slitty]

Well, not necessarily, you could go Hemo (which implies swords).... anyway, I'm definetly gonna try out Premed. Why?
Think me duel Tardon.. *grin*

Premed > CS > CB+Evis [all done within 100 energy mindyou] > Gouge/Blind/Vanish > CS/BS/Ambush > baai!... (well, in theory at least )

Had to drop CB out of the equasion after realising it's a 21 point talent, so not possible to have that and Premed. Still a very good combo

[mard]

yeah seal fate hemo sounds like fun, but pretty much for pvp / duels only.

with new combat talent (+10 weapon skill) combat will be pretty much the only choice for raid dmg build. non-combat rogues will be forced to get aged core leather gauntlets and mugger's belt now

and assasination - still any viable build will require to be 17/x/x, imp poisons and imp ks are nice (given imp ks was complete waste of points before), murder and vile poisons are still useless - pretty much everyone have enough +hit, and i'd rather take imp. chance to apply poisons, than chance for it being not cleansed/dispelled. depends on the % though.

[Tardon]

Holy **** 0.o I want the guy who did your review, to redo the mage one!
*goes off leveling his rogue*

[mard]

i guess we've been way too optimistic :

reality crits you for 454534645
you die

blue post :

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.

no scalling ! yay ...

edit : yeah, i can make some typos even in such short post ...

[Slitty]

well, rupture is situational, and disturbs stunlocks, but still, it could've used a little boost

As to evis not scaling.. I just don't get it, why are the devs so .. blind?

with 50% dmg increase, garrote will be similiar to rupture, but again, no stunlock with that. meh.. luckily, i never use it

Update: More bad news: EA will not stack with Sunder Armour.. oh well...

[mard]

i was hoping for that issue to be adressed at the very least, screw talents and whatnot - rogues desperately need scalling with gear, but this is just like a slap in the face :S

garrote was always utter trash, and it will continue to be. 50% dmg boost will be like ... 650 dmg over 18 sec ? and it cant crit, way to go - hell i cant see why anyone would use it over unstealthing and just bsing / ssing.

rupture ? i will continue to use it on onyxia fight and vs another rogues to prevent restealth, and thats about it. average ss crit, not to mention bs, does more dmg than this crap, and doesnt require 5cps.

evisc ? average evisc in raids, on fully sundered mob hits for what ? 600-900 ? 1700 with crit ? snd will continue to be finisher of choice of vast majority of rogues, cos its ONLY finisher that actually scales, and does more dps than evis / rupture :S
with gear like hungering cold i can easilly see rogues getting 1500 crits from ss's ... i dont know how devs cant see thats something wrong here ...

rerolling or quiting this game seems much more appealing with every passing day, especially with devs having no freaking idea about rogue class.

edit about EA : you know whats the best ? EA change is acually a nerf ! warriors, pallies, bear druids have obscene ammounts of armor and EA'ing them would increase dmg by a marginal ammount. It's fights like against shadow priests when EA in its current form shines - you can reduce their armor by a big chunk and get some significant dmg boost. now when it will be %change it will become pretty much useless - you will still be better with kidney shot vs warrior / drood, and there will be completely no point in using it against clothies.

[Slitty]

So, the new rogue talent tree has been released and now it's time to look closer at it.

Keep in mind that I'm highly subjective in this, and most of all – I look at it from PvP perspective, as PvE builds are not my cup of tea.

First of all, after the initial burst of joy it's now apparent that the subtlety tree is pretty messed up. Since this was the tree that has undergone the most changes I'll get to it in a moment. First, let's look at Assasination, and follow that with Combat.

Assasination

The pain here is the absolute must-have of at least 16 points. It's a pretty solid tree, but in order to get your criticals working, to have some nifty passive stuff working for you you have to invest 16 points here, no matter what spec you choose. But anyway, the poisons talents look interesting and may be even considered a viable filler (yes, still only a filler, not something you really want or crave to have) to get higher. Imp KS is indeed a boost, both in 1vs1 and group PvP (how many fights are there in end-game instances where stuns play a major role? 2? 3 at most I guess).

The conclusion is that Seal Fate/Vigor got a nice boost with +9% dmg and that's it. You could invest in Imp EA and one of two poisons talents (ditching remorseless). If you stop at 24 points here, you get a solid tree that goes along with Hemo build. More on hemo coming.

Combat

3 changes, Endurance, Imp Sprint and Weapon Expertise (it's missing fist weapons atm, probably a bug/it got overlooked).

The problem here is that the talents are really attarctive, but you only have so many talent points to spend. With WE being so low in the tree (it'a 'drool over' type of talent for any combat rogue) the tree pretty much forces you to invest many points here. Especially if you want to get Imp Sprint and Endurance. The more points you invest here the less you get out of Assasination. Anyhow, I'm not a great expert when it comes to that tree, so I'll just stop here

Subtlety.

First look at this tree and you go – ZOMG, looks neat, gief!.. and that was exactly they way I first reacted. But... upon closer inspection it becomes evident that the tree is messed up badly. Badly. Here's why:

When you look at Hightened Senses, Prep, Imp CS and Hemo, those 4 are just excellent (don't argue about the value of HS till you test it ). But, to get these talent you have to invest in some awkward places.

SF/Vigor is unchanged, still 12 points here. But Hemo or even old 21/8/22 are broken atm (Hemo actually has more choices now).

Starting to look for fillers: MoD is a must have, and the first dilemma. Camo, SoH or Elusiveness? Well, no worries, you'll end up with 2 of those anyway, as you will be forced to So let's say Camo and SoH. Let's go on. Next tier, and the choice seems clear – Initiative and Ghostly Strike.(Imp Garrote is more of a gimmick, not something you'll be using often, even with increased dmg. If they ditched completely I wouldn't cry). Imp Ambush is not even considered with Hemo. Right then, next tier – Setup seems a natural choice here. And again, you may want to take Imp Rup or Imp Sap (make it core ability ffs.. this talent is crappy, especially that it gives only 90% chance of restealthing for 3 points....)

So anyway, the tree now looks somewhat like this - 5/5 MoD 5/5 Camo, 2/2 SoH, 3/3 Initiative 1/1 GH, 3/3 Setup (with the possibility of not taking Camo and investing the points elsewhere), but at this point you find yourself unable to go deeper. You need to invest one more point somewhere.

Now, 1 point may not seem a lot, but there no talent/skill that benefits dramatically from that one point. So you are given the following choices – Elusiveness, Imp Garrote, Imp Rupture, Imp Sap. Bleh. I guess the best combination here would be maxing out Elusiveness and investing in Camo (or Imp Rupture if you like dots and don't really care about 1vs1 pvp encounters where Gouge stuns are vital). Either way you sacrfice something neat/useless (depends on point of view) for something useless/neat (depends on pov). Can't have everything. Nonetheless, let's say I invested in Imp Rupture (1/5), and we go on. So you get Prep, Imp KS (2/2, no less) and Hemo. You look at Heigthened Senses and drool... but you're out of combo points. Here's a potential solution – drop 1 point off Imp Gouge (yes, tough decision to make, but what else is there to do?) and put that 1 point in HS. But you want it maxed out... drop 1 point off Imp KS and you you get 2/2 HS.

The basic theme behind the review seems to be sacrifice. I can easily imagine the trees being very solid if only the talents were not placed by some random generator. And I can easily see the whining from other classes if the tree were properly designed.

Now, onto the builds.

First off. Seal Fate/Vigor 31 / 8/ 12

www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html?3453001050013513023000000000000000500050002000000000

(possible variations – Imp EA + Murder or Vile Poisons, basically dropping Remoreseless)

Hemo stuff

17 / 3 / 31

www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html?3053001050000003000000000000000000552103100300212141

(possible variations – multiple – dropping Premed for Deadliness 5/5 and basically changes in tiers 1, 2, 3 and 4)

24 / 3 / 24 (this one may prove to be the strongest build ever)

www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html?3053001251013003000000000000000000552103100300012100

(variations – multiple – subtlety variations same as 17 / 3 / 31, Assasination – Murder/ Imp EA, basically something to get you to CB/Imp KS)

All the build with 3 points in Combat could have only 2 points in Imp Gouge thus allowing one more point to be allocated in other trees.

I'll skip Combat builds, would love Felbane, Enc or Shinnjin (or perhaps Ragimaz) to give those.

That's it for now. I sure as hell that some changes are still to be made with the talents. As of now, the theory (Drysc's preview material) looked A LOT better than this. It's worth noting that today Drysc is said to be quite busy on rogue forums, so hopefully we'll get some explanations

[bugrum]

This will be my choice of PvE talents for 1.12 I believe.

www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html?3053031055010513203000000000000000500050100000000000

[Slitty]

www.wowphoenixrising.com/rogue/talents.html - this is how the talent placement should look like.. (ignore skill changes)

[mard]

im going to moan even more ! beware !

now ...

the real problem with dagger builds is that you have to take 16/8/10 talent base to get backstab on par with sinister strike in terms of dmg to energy ratio - and this stayed unchanged. No dagger build will be able to pick weapon expertise without severly gimping itself.


Placement of those new talents is kinda confusing :

imp sprint - now it's a talent that pretty much every pvp'ing rogue wants, and almost none can get it - unless you're combat swords - dagger builds dont really have spare points to get it.

deadliness is way too deep in subtelty - it looks like it is supposed to help hemo builds in raids but it wont make up for the loss of combat tree talents. 10% ? come on ...

weapon expertise is too deep in combat for dagge builds to get it without gimping in other areas, nuff said

hightened senses - dunno 4% doesnt seem like something to drool about, especially with the amount of +hit on hunters gear, maybe better against mages.

this patch pretty much killed daggers for raiding (i mean hardcore raiding here) Oo
especially 16/25/10 - there's no point in speccing into this to get only very slight edge (if any now, after combat swords will get wpn expertise) in dmg over other builds, for cost of much more work (positioning)

conclusion :
if you are combat swords or pvp rogue that dont care about pve that much - good for you !
if you are combat daggers - sorry you've just got owned !

oh well ... 31/8/12 for the life for me it seems, untill i can get cotbd ( yeah, some day i will damnit ! *sigh*)

[Guava]

After the patch i will go play my nelf and spend all his money to test new build :DDDDDDD


Anyways i am looking on www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/rogues2/talents.html?3053001050000003000000000000000000550303100003112151

Deadlyness will just own

[Slitty]

Deadliness will not own in it's current state - if you have 1000AP it'll increasse your AP to 1100.. that's nothing, well, not worth 5 points in it anyway.