No More AR/Prep and More!

New PTR notes include some interesting news:

• Hemorrhage: This ability now correctly does additional damage when its debuff has already been applied.
• Preparation now resets the cooldown of Shadowstep and no longer resets the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush.
• Shadowstep now adds a 3 second, 70% movement speed increase.
• Sinister Calling now also increases the percentage damage bonus of Hemorrhage and Backstab by 2/4/6/8/10%.

So, my 0/33/28 build is dead. Many things remain, but the ability to pop Adrenaline Rush twice on a target really was what not only made this build viable in PvP, but also allowed me to use it in PvE. Now, I foresee me definitely having to change my build multiple times a week.

Blizzard wants every 41 point talent in each tree to be useful enough that people will use them. I'm sorry, but Shadowstep and the rest of the Subtlety tree just still isn't there. With such a huge penalty from dual wielding, Rogues are pretty much forced to pick up Precision and the middle of the Combat tree to be effective in groups.

We've gained back some of our Hemorrhage damage if we pick up Sinister Calling and Shadowstep. With 110% from Hemorrhage and an extra 10% from Sinister Calling, we will be back up at 121% of normal weapon damage.

Shadowstep is getting nicer, but I'm curious how big a tooltip can get in World of Warcraft as they keep adding more and more things to it to try to entice us to take it.

I'm filled with rage and I'm not a Warrior, so it's pretty useless. I feel like Blizzard is showing that they really have no clue where they want our class to go or any type of foresight as to how their changes might affect their own game.

I'm eager to hear what other rogues think of the changes. So, please chime in and let me know what you think of this. Is it just minor, or is it as monumental as it feels?

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I Feel Naked in the Arena

...and not in a good way. No, I'm not talking about ERP. I'm talking about craptastic armor values of my Arena gear!

After reading about Season 3 gear and armor penetration over on Phaelia's Resto4Life, it made me start thinking about the armor value I have now compared to the armor value of the cloth wearers.

With a little digging, I discovered the following:

• For Tier 5 gear pieces that correspond to Season 2 gear (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs), cloth wearers get about ~1k in armor, leather wearers gets about ~2k in armor, mail ~4k, plate ~7k.
• For Season 2 gear pieces that correspond to Tier 5 gear, cloth wearers get about ~2k in armor, leather wearers gets about ~2k in armor, mail ~4k, plate ~7k.

Uh... what? In our Arena Gear, the gear that is supposedly designed toward survivability against those who would rather we not continue stabbing them in the eye, we have as much armor as a Priest. Yeah. Priests and all other clothies got a 100% boost to their armor from Season 2 gear. Meanwhile, Rogues (and to a lesser degree the various Druid specs) get virtually no armor boost.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the various classes and their abilities designed around the type of armor they wear? A Warlock has Fear and other tools to help compensate for his cloth armor. A Mage has Polymorph and Frost Nova and other abilities. Every cloth wearer has already been balanced for their armor type.

Now this is probably the result of them already giving the cloth wearers the +910 armor that will be partially negated by the armor penetration of Season 3. However, why should Rogues (and Restoration Druids) be penalized by not getting any armor bonus? No wonder why in a 5v5 match, our team met with a Priest who seemed to have more armor than me. Add on Inner Fire and all their other abilities, she had way more armor than me.

Therefore, since the beginning of Season 2, cloth wearers have gotten tougher, while melee characters and healers in leather have received zero compensation. Even next season, it will take weeks for melee players to get Season 3 pieces. Meanwhile, cloth wearers will continue to enjoy their day in the sun.

All of this and rogues still get to stand toe to toe with their opponents to do damage. Cloth wearers already have ways to distance themselves from melee characters and now they have twice the armor as they did before as well!

It seems to me that the entire idea of armor penetration is flawed and this solution is even more flawed. Even a proposed solution of giving all characters 910 more armor just seems like a bad fix because PvP characters will have an advantage over PvE characters.

I'm under no illusion that game mechanics are easy to balance for PvE and PvP, but there has to be a better solution.

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Possible Changes in 2.3

Ok. I'm a bit slow on this. I was kinding hoping for some more so I wouldn't be incredibly redundant.

Stickied by Drysc in the Rogue Forums!

These are the announced changes we're planning in 2.3 for the Rogue class.

• Blind is now a physical attack and the reagent requirement removed [link]
• Fleet Footed changed to increase movement speed by 8/15% [link]
• Shadowstep usable at any time, not only while stealthed. Threat caused by next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab is reduced by 50% and cooldown increased to 40 seconds [link]
• Dirty Deeds specials cause 20% extra damage against targets that are below 35% health [link]
• Deadly Throw missile speed increased significantly and snare duration increased slightly [link]
• Ruthlessness only affects melee finish moves [link]
• All poisons now last for one hour [link]

Honestly, I think these are token changes. None of them are going to help Rogues in PvE or arena, except maybe the change to Deadly Throw.

Now, if you use Shadow Step, I'll give you the gold to respec. You certainly don't need threat reduction on your abilities.

Nice buff for Dirty Deeds, but I still think the Subtlety tree is broken until it can either give Rogues a new essential role in raids or allows them to come close to the DPS of the other two trees.

The changes to Blind are nice, but making it a physical ranged attack will remove its ability to affect hostile arena opponents with Blessing of Protection or Paladins with Divine Shield.

Poison change is good, but really, let's just get rid of the entire poison creation system. It's slow and it's really just an unnecessary step.

Yeah, no picture for this one. =P

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Blizzard Nerfs Wisp Spirit

WowInsider reports today on new graveyards coming in Patch 2.2. What they fail to cover is the severe nerf to every Night Elf in the game!

Examine Wisp Spirit, the Night Elf racial ability that gives us the edge in PvE:

Wisp Spirit Racial Passive Transform into a wisp upon death, increasing speed by 50%.

"Wait a second, Valenna!" you say, "You're overreacting! You get to run to your corpse from a closer spot as well." Well yes, but if they make closer graveyards, Wisp Spirit becomes less useful versus the other races. If the graveyards are 50% closer to where we die, Wisp Spirit becomes 50% less effective.

WTT Wisp Spirit for just about anything else!

Continue reading 'Blizzard Nerfs Wisp Spirit'

Haste Nerf Confirmed!

Well, apparently, you all are fully aware about how we Rogues are so OP when it comes to PvP and PvE lately. So, as a result, Blizzard decided to nerf to haste rating to melee and bring us down to the caster's haste rating conversion.

I'd like to thank Blizzard for correcting this heinous indiscrepency.

=P

source: MMO Champion post on PTR 2.2 notes.

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PTR Haste Nerf?

It was reported on the european servers that ratio of haste rating to haste percentage has changed:

Live: 10.5 haste rating for 1% haste
PTR: 15.7 haste rating for 1% haste

If true, this is a 33% reduction in the amount of haste given for all haste items across the board. This is a direct rogue nerf as these items here are considered to be at the top of most rogue lists:

Abacus of Violent Odds Binds when picked up Unique Trinket Requires Level 70 Equip: Increases attack power by 64. Use: Increases haste rating by 260 for 10 sec.

Dragonspine Trophy Binds when picked up Unique Trinket Requires Level 70 Equip: Increases attack power by 40. Equip: Your melee and ranged attacks have a chance to increase your haste rating by 325 for 10 sec.

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2.1.0 Patch & Tier 6 Armor

Well, let's start with the armor. I'm going to pretend I didn't see it. OMFG, who am I kidding? I've seen it. Apparently, they were running out of time and decided to alter the Nightstalker armor rather than come up with something cool. We also apparently have forever been assigned the colors red and black. I'm beginning to know how the druids feel with their brown and green. HA! Whatever. At least red and black are cool. Poor druids. T_T The patch includes the introduction of more Darkmoon Faire cards. I think this may be the rogue card:

Wrath (Furies)

Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec. This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike. (Stacks up to 20 times)

That's a maximum of 15.38% increase to critical. Wow. It may be trinket slot-worthy.

Rogues changes in the patch, categorized with comments

• LAME! Added a new double-attack animation for "Mutilate".
  I'm sure rogues everywhere were dying for this one.
• NERF! "Cloak of Shadows": The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate this ability removes hostile effects, rather than dispels them. "Cloak of Shadows" does not count as a dispel, and will not interact with dispel resistance or effects triggered by dispelling. This ability no longer removes the "Weakened Soul" debuff.
  Ever since I've read this I've wanted to try this out before it gets patched.
• BUFF! "Deadly Throw": This ability will now damage hunters and their pets when they are affected by "The Beast Within" or "Bestial Wrath". Those targets will still be immune to the movement impairing portion of "Deadly Throw".
  Hmm. Maybe I'd care more if I mapped this ability.
• BUFF! Fixed a data error that caused "Ghostly Strike" and "Riposte" to generate more threat than intended.
  Awesome! But I don't have either, so "meh".
• BUFF! Fixed a bug where the "Silence" effect on "Garrote" was getting resisted too often.
  The Man is always trying to put the Rogue down.
• NERF! "Insignia of the Alliance/Horde" and "Medallion of the Alliance/Horde" now remove "Fear", "Stun" and "Polymorph" effects and no longer remove "Charm" effects.
  Boo. This is one of the three reasons I equipped this trinket. Rather disappointing.
• BUFF! "Improved Sap" (Subtlety) renamed "Dirty Tricks": Increases the range of your "Sap" and "Blind" abilities by 2/4 yards and reduces the energy cost of your "Sap" and "Blind" abilities by 25/50%.
  Alright, apparently all the gold I've slipped GMs is finally paying off.
• BUFF! Increased the frequency and amount of "Blinding Powder" found in pickpocketed junk boxes.
  OMG!! OMG!!!! So lame.
• NERF! "Mutilate": This ability will now always consume the "Cold Blood" buff when it strikes an opponent.
  Hmm.. Another one of those "doesn't affect me why should I care" changes.
• NERF! Poisons: The difficulty of dispelling these is now based off the level of the player, not the level of the weapon the poison is applied to.
  Makes sense, but it doesn't make it cool to nerf.
• BUFF! Reduced the reagents required to create most poisons.
  Sweet!
• NERF! "Remorseless Attacks"(Assassination): "Hemorrhage" added to the buff tooltip. This ability will no longer trigger from killing totems.
  Yet they still allow warriors to generate rage from totems and critters. h8 warriors
• BUFF! Rogue poisons no longer have charges.
  You had me at "Rogue poisons no longer have charges."
• BUFF! "Sap" now automatically gains the full benefit of "Improved Sap".
  2 free talents points for damage. w00t!
• BUFF! "Shadowstep" (Subtlety): The cooldown has been reduced to 15 seconds.
  Someday, I'll have 123 Talents points to be able to take advantage of all of these buffs.
• NERF! "Stealth" will now be broken correctly by damage shield such as "Oil of Immolation".
  What IS the reasoning behind a rogue unstealthing when damaged? Total crap I tell ya.
• BUFF! "Surprise Attacks" (Combat): This talent now correctly prevents "Envenom" from being dodged.
  I wonder why no one cared before. Let me think. Oh yeah. Envenom is useless without Mutilate which is at the bottom of the Assassination tree and Surprise Attacks is at the bottom of the Combat tree. *sigh*

Well, there you have it. We got a few Buffs, but mostly, Nerfs. Obviously, Blizzard hates Rogues. Please lobby for more Rogue buffs.

Hmm.. Wait... There's more:

• Creatures will no longer "Cleave" targets that aren't in front of them.
• "Polymorph" spell duration has been changed from 20 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Creatures will no longer perform "Sweeping Strikes".

These changes were obviously placed in the game for feral druids. =/ So disappointing.

the end

Continue reading '2.1.0 Patch & Tier 6 Armor'