Patch 1.12: Scaling Rogue Skills
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 15th 2006 at 10:30AM
One major rogue complaint has long been the fact that several core rogue abilities did not scale as the rogues' gear and stats improved. Thus, the eviscerate damage you did right after hitting level 60 was the same eviscerate damage you would do when decked out in full epic gear. Come patch 1.12, this will be changing - albeit slightly. Drysc has posted some specific numbers explaining how the abilities rupture, garrote, and eviscerate will scale with attack power. The increase in power looks fairly minor to me, but some increase is better than none. For druids, Drysc has confirmed that the cat form abilities that mirror these rogue skills will also scale based on attack power, but there are no specific numbers on them.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sacri Jul 15th 2006 5:48PM
To save the a bit of time from reading the trash-talking that is the WoW forums: The new scaling don't scale very well. They do stand as an improvement over the existing skills, especially for garrote and rupture. However, rather than scaling with standard damage output (as say a mage's spells do, or backstab) they now scale purely based on Attack Power.
Many people are very thankful for this change, as it will come into being more help once we get the expansion out and can move beyond level 60. However the improvements mean that you must have high AP. If you have under 600 ap, your skills will suffer versus the damage they do now. Also the increased scale on skills from 600 ap to 1500ap is very minimal. For 2.5x the AP you get a measly 120-ish dmg increase on a (without talent improvement) 5-point eviscerate. They forumlated that it is roughly .15*(AP above 600) damage that is added. If below 600, start subtracting by that formula (but this isn't fully confirmed)
Short in simple, this is a definite improvement for most end-gamers. However many in the community consider it to be such a weak improvement that it amounts to little more than a slap in the face. Those who are not end-gaming can be prepared to recieve a bit less damage than they are used to.
Dahlaine Jul 17th 2006 8:51AM
I feel its actually a nice bump up in damage. With things like battle shout, trueshot aura and improved grace of air/strength of earth totem, my Ap can quite easily hit around 1500. The goal of this scaling was not to actually add a significant amount of damage to the rogue abilities. That is what the eviscerate book is for. The purpose was to create a system in which a significant increase in your white damage (usually when raiding) is now accompanied by an increase in your finisher damage. I and the other rogues in my guild have absolutely no problem topping the damage meter for fights where sustained melee dmg is possible. Any significant increase in finisher damage could quickly trivialize many more battles as the increased threat is easily dealt with by a rogue.