Encrypted Text: Combat in Wrath
by Jason Harper 
Aug 21st 2008 at 5:00PM
Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses the Wrath Combat expansion tree.Ahh Combat. The cornerstone of the end (and mid-) game PvE Rogue. While not perfect, the Combat tree can be hugely satisfying and bears with it none of the positional damage dealing that the other two trees require, at least in part. Getting in people's (as well as creature's) faces and crushing them is all just part of the experience of the combat spec. Many a Rogue has popped a pleasing-sigh-inducing Adrenaline Rush to burn through the last tasty bits of, well, whatever stands in its way.
Although things do tend to change quickly in beta, I'm going to take a look at the five new expansion Combat tree talents. The most important question I had when looking at them, as well as all the discussion surrounding them, is "are they worth it" and "do they reflect the kinds of changes or improvements that players have been asking for." This is especially important in raid settings where Rogue vs Caster DPS and overall damage done can mean the difference between getting another invite or not.
I'd like to subtitle this column: "The Expansion Combat Tree, Now in PvP Flavor!"
An eye opening experience
Eighteen new talents across three distinct talent categories. If you're like myself, and many of the players across every class, you have a mild case of GiG or "grass is greener" disorder. You're wondering if, after all this time in your one specialized build, your consistent Ol'Faithful, if maybe the new expansion will bring introduce something to truly introduce a significant change. The very first thing I thought to myself when I saw the new Combat tree talents was...is this for PvP? Wow, that is quite a significant change.
Player skill and gear aside, the Combat tree excels in white damage generation. Depending on what you choose, you can proc extra swings, negate all finisher dodges, increase energy generation by 100% every five minutes as well as increase melee attack speed by 45% for up to 21 seconds. You can now add to that our first new talent Unfair Advantage granting an additional 2% dodge and 2% crit chance for eight seconds every time you land a critical blow.
Wait, what? Two percent? Malice in the Assassination tree will get you a full-time (fully talented) five percent to critical strike chance, and 2% dodge and 2% crit for *forty points* seems a little deflating. However, the talent had been even less glowing previously when it only gave dodge. Overall I know I'd take what should end up being a full-time 2% bonus to crit chance on my way to the 51 point talent versus just skipping it, but when you consider the role that Rogues play in 5, 10 and 25 man encounters, and the competition they get from other DPS (especially those with more group utility...biscuits anyone?), why this doesn't bring more to the table is beyond me.
Adding more monkey to our wrench is the similarly expensive (at forty points) Stay of Execution. Much like explaining time travel paradoxes, this talent creates some interesting encounter issues and I'm not really sure where this would fit well in a group PvE encounter. To start with, a lot of classes have abilities that kick in once a target is below a certain health threshold (Execute and Kill Shot come to mind), but with Stay of Execution you are treated as if you're at full health. So you've just been saved from that massive crit Execute (but not Sudden Death) but I've been wracking my brain to figure out how this might be useful anywhere but in PvP? On the one hand I'd concede that PvE spec Rogues might not like having much comparative survivability in PvP, but when placed so deep in the tree I have to wonder why this wasn't a group buff, where a 15% damage reduction might actually be useful.
A little PvE love
Is your head spinning yet? Well hold on. Like an ice-road trucker in an emergency spin, we drop right back into PvE viability with Prey on the Weak. Previous top-end Combat talents eliminated a dodge on finishers, but getting an additional 25% on critical strike damage when the target's health is less (as a total percentage of health, whew!) than your own is actually quite nice. At least in terms of current encounters, a boss should almost always have less health percentage wise than you, which means this translates into a full time twenty-five percent boost to critical strikes. Combine it with the seemingly PvE lackluster Stay of Execution (just one point in it), and you've potentially got Prey running even below 35% health. This combination of both Stay and Prey is something that I'd have to watch, since I'm not completely confident the mechanic could work this way, but seeing as how they are so deep in the tree, I'd be disappointed if they didn't.
Feeling a little better about that raid spot? Well, allow me to hand you the blue pill. Our fifty-one point talent, Murder Spree, seems to have got lost on its way to the Subtlety tree. Frankly, I'm shocked and just a little dismayed that our most expensive talent is one that bounces you like a super-ball between multiple targets every half-second (or the same target), allowing you to hit with both weapons, until five assaults are made. Er, what? Sure, I like that I can now hit stuff with both swords, potentially critting with an extra 25% critical damage, and I'm sure the visual effect is cool (beware healers who click on targets to heal versus the party/raid box), but where is my group utility? Where is my haste buff or survivability increase? I just get to do a Sonic? Oh man.
Lemonade
In my mind, the talents in the Combat tree need some serious modifications before they go live. It would be easy for me to leave this column on a low note since what I had been hoping for in Combat (raid utility) isn't really there yet. However I'd like to give a few props out. Prey, for one, has some good potential and a 25% bonus never hurt anyone.
It's true that I feel that the rest seem misplaced, out of focus and mistargeted, but when I stand in front of that first boss in Northrend, I'm really looking to see how much I've delivered in both damage and utility to the raid. Perhpas the rubber-ball effect of Murder Spree will actually make a strong difference on overall group surviveability. Maybe being able to throw four more yards (a la Throwing Specialization, lol) will factor in greatly in more than specialized, one-time encounters. I'm hopeful that these changes are indications of a bigger change upcoming, possibly pre-expansion launch, possibly in a patch after, that will bring us 180 degrees and give us some of the things that will make us "more."
Encrypted Text is your source for Rogue guide goodness. From enchants for Rogues to Patch 2.4 gear guides to raiding as a Rogue.And, of course, our Rogue leveling guides for levels 1-20 & 21-40.Filed under: (Rogue) Encrypted Text, Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King, Classes, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Frank Smith Aug 21st 2008 5:05PM
rouges already own warriors... what do they need anti-execution for lol :p
wcd807 Aug 21st 2008 5:15PM
i fully agree about murder spree. while the damage would be nice in pve, it looks like it fell out of the sub tree. if anyone has ever played DOTA (defense of the ancients) on wc3 battlenet, then they will know this is very much like the orc blademaster's ultimate, which when used when only a single target is within the range, results in overwhelming ownage, and i suspect that the same would happen in WoW
Hamad Aug 21st 2008 5:24PM
I don't know...
but it seems that matilate will do more damege than the combat .. because of the "blood spatter" & "cut to the chase"
Nalbeb Aug 21st 2008 5:50PM
I agree that the combat tree could use some work and there are definite PvP talents at the bottom but murder spree isn't only a pvp talent. You don't have to ping pong from target to target. "Can hit the same target multiple times." Imagine you are on a raid boss. So you trinket up, equip a slow off hand hit murder spree. You basically stormstrike every half second for 5 seconds. Then you reequip your fast OH and go about your business.
Honestly though it isn't stellar, and it is useless on trash where everything is CC'd but one target at a time. I know blizz is trying to make all trees viable for everything but rogues generally acknowledge that combat is our PvE tree and sub and assassination are the PvP trees depending on your tastes. I wish Blizz would give us only PvP talents in combat.
One a side note, Sub looks great until shadow dance gets nerfed. Waylay and the other associated talents finally bring ambush/dagger rogues back in a big way. We'll have to see if its viable (I'm not in beta) but it looks fun.
Peter Ellis Aug 21st 2008 5:30PM
Why did you even bother to write this? Most of the rogue talents, including Murder Spree, are not even *implemented*, let alone tested or tuned. There is zero point discussing rogues at all until the developers start work on us. That's cool by the way, they can't do everything at once and someone has to be last. I've no problem with that. But there's no point moaning and whining about stuff that's not even in the *beta* yet.
Unmei Aug 21st 2008 6:06PM
I can!
QQ (magebtw) Nerf rogues!
Jaffarn Aug 21st 2008 5:35PM
From what ivcn so far mutilate is looking good.
Also with blizzard trying to make daggers the viable spec again i guess they will only improve combat dagger/mutilate specs in future patches when the raid encounters are released in the beta..
i hope so :D
games Aug 21st 2008 5:43PM
Your analysis of upcoming rogue combat talents is pretty much the same as mine. A rogue who consistently PvPs isn't going to be Combat specced. A rogue who is Combat specced is looking for talents that increase PvE viability. The new Combat talents are lackluster, and possibly the only upside is this will allow us to put more points in a secondary tree. It is a bit disappointing considering there are some other nice new 51 points talents for other classes.
Ithrandil Aug 22nd 2008 3:02AM
Rogues already dominate in PvP and PvE. They don't need anything overpowered while the rest of the damage classes are just trying to keep up.
QQ more
cilis Aug 21st 2008 6:14PM
Think of it like this,
Murder-spree plus bladeflury would hurt like a mother for AoE pulls, and from what I've heard blizzard intends to move away from CC fests in raids and allow more to be tanked and pet tanked.
So 5 hits with both weapons, pratically 10 hits bounced out for 20 hits, plus what bladeflury and adrenaline rush can already accomplish and you're looking at some surprise rogue DPS on AoE where you'd expect warlocks and mages to win.
Also on a boss you wouldn't ping pong, if its the only target you'd just hit with both weapons.
I can see people trying to lesson the impact by clumping up in PVP, so that the rogue bounces to the wrong targets... I think my response do that would be using bladeflury, now I'm shredding 2 or 3 people with crazy damage.
This all assumes bladeflury would spread the damage.
I have also heard that some old talents are changing, such as deadly throw's interrupt is going to be tacked onto a combat talent, so rogues can't use their pvp gloves for it at 80, only combat rogues will have it.
I've also heard that blade twisting is going from 20% of special attacks daze to all attacks have a 20% chance.
I think combat is getting quite a bit of nice PVP strength, but it is also getting PvE power ups.
I just hope it can compete with warlocks who can blink better than mages, warriors with random executes and such...
Now I know there will be some balance complaints but I want others to keep this in mind... Blizzard has yet to get to rogues and they left them for last in TBC.
As the last class to get their skills in TBC not only did we have a broken shadow step that didn't work by launch, we are also the only class who got 2 fewer new spells or ranks than any other class in the game. In TBC we didn't get new abilities for 2 of our levels from 60-70, while every other class got at least one, we also got the bum skill anastetic poison which no rogue uses.
So... Again, keep in mind they've not even made murder spree and other talents function correctly. Just hope they don't leave rogues til last because if they do it again we will either be screwed up and too weak, or we will be massively overpowered because they didnt have time to test things properly.
cilis Aug 21st 2008 6:18PM
I also want to add, combat is going to be hurting from itemization in WoTLK.
They're trying to make most of the non-set items work for multiple classes, druids and rogues will pretty much eat from the same table.
Druids always use enough hit rating to qualify at half as much as what a rogue uses, as a result for a good portion of leveling and even at 80 rogues will be starved for stats which are useless to druids, while druids will be slightly hurt as well, it isn't as bad.
(It isn't as bad because they have innate percentage increases from stats when shape shifting, which means items "custom-fit" themselves to their class better.)
So for a lot of us who grew up on "Hit rating, weapon skill, expertise!" mumbo jumbo, we're going to be a little confused and slightly neglected.
zappo Aug 22nd 2008 9:41AM
"They're trying to make most of the non-set items work for multiple classes, druids and rogues will pretty much eat from the same table."
This is starting to worry me more and more as I see it come up. Combat rogues will prioritize hit. Assassination rogues (which will be a viable raid spec now) will prioritize crit. Then on top of this we share things with the bears and cats? I have the feeling this is going to be too much to juggle in the end. Assassination rogues and cat druids can both use crit and expertise quite well at least.
Rogue Aug 21st 2008 6:30PM
This shows me that (as we have allready seen) like priests rogues are greatly unfinished. It seems like they just threw some stuff in there so people would get excited about the xpac and are going to work on it throughout the beta and hopefully like Jason says will do an 180 degree turn before the release.
glougloute Aug 21st 2008 6:35PM
Good article.
Beta or not, the new combat talents are dead boring. Ok, murder spree seems nice and fun for pvp but who is going to take it over shadowstep/shadow dance or mutilate/hunger for blood? I'm not.
And I highly doubt it's going to be great in pve: going crazy for 2.5 seconds every 2 minutes on a 10 minutes raid boss= meh... and that's assuming auto-attacks continue during murder spree which is far from granted.
The rest of the tree is either filler points (from a pve perspective) or powerful but boring passive abilities. The saddest thing is while assassination and subtlety rogues got new fun abilities with each expansion, combat rogues are going to do exactly the same thing in raid that they've been doing for months/years: sinister strike spamming to death... Unless drastics changes are made to the tree but I'm really not holding my breath on this one.
Calaana Aug 21st 2008 6:45PM
Lack of group buffs is very easy to explain: Your a rogue. No other class screams loner as much. Your only using those 24 chumps to get your latest haul, and who knows what would of happened if you hadn't poisoned the mages food table after getting yours?
Sure, hemo's nice.. but even then it's so quickly used up it's more group members are taking your buff than you giving it to them.
Not to say I'm against giving a rogue group buffs, but doesn't really suit the class. Maybe more target debuffs would go better..
jbarwick Aug 21st 2008 7:48PM
it should be noted that Prey on the Weak is currently bugged and affects both white damage and yellow damage. Calculations by Vulajin (a mainstay of the ElitistJerks roguecraft threads) predict this to be roughly a 16% increase in damage in its current state. Pretty massive.
We don't yet know if the talent itself is bugged, or if its state is intentional and the tooltip wasn't adjusted to account for it.
It's also pretty safe to say that Stay of Execution is meant to work in conjunction with Prey on the Weak.
nekoken Aug 21st 2008 7:47PM
Do you really think that Combat rogues really need much? They already totally outclass Assassination and Subtlety rogues in raids and 5 man. And they are just as effective in PvP due to their much higher, non-positional damage? If anything is done in the Combat tree, it ought to be to help dagger combat rogues compete with sword and mace rogues.
It isn't as though Cut to the Chase or Hunger for Blood are particularly awesome either. As an Assassination/Mutilate rogue I currently plan to spend my 10 points in Dagger Specialization, Blade Twisting, and filling in higher up in the Assassination tree.
cilis Aug 21st 2008 8:07PM
Nekoken,
Combat rogues are not the choice for almost any arena rogue outside of combat maces and even then it is a small margin.
By putting PvP fillers on the way to the end of the PvE tree they allow combat rogues to better defend themselves against ganking as they level up to 80, and also allow soloists who are not raiding to remain viable in more than one aspect of the game without a respec.
Blizzard has said many times that they intend for every tree to be at least somewhat function, even if they're not the best at the job.
Mutilate and sub are seeing a few PvE talents, and combat some PvP, I think its fairly obvious for most people to see that they're trying to encurage diversity, instead of every rogue respeccing before an arena match and then speccing back to combat for the rest of the week.
Also look at warriors, their DPS as non-optimal pvp specs is going up, and blizzard said this is to help them be less than a free kill out in the world and also to keep playing a tank somewhat fun.
I dunno about you, but when I want fun, I like being able to go have at it with pvp, not fly back to town and respec just to kill something.
Combat in its state today does not do well against any class that can kite, and is only good on other melee classes and to an extent, hunters.
What'll most likely happen is that a full combat build, especially with blade twisting being changed to work on all attacks instead of just yellow, silencing deadly throw becoming combat only and other such things, is that you'll see a more even split among rogue arena specs... in the end, that benefits us all, because each spec is good with a certain class, like mage shatter combos and mutilate, double melee or warlock rogue, every spec will have its place depending on your team makeup.
I'm extremely happy I wont have to respec twice a week, or more if I wanted to run battle grounds.
Hell, if it sucks that bad... there are a lot of combat / assassination hybrids you could use for pure PvE dps, quite a few of them look VERY promising, even if they don't incorperate any of our new lackluster gold star abilities.
cilis Aug 21st 2008 8:09PM
Also nekoken,
I forgot to comment on non-posistional damage.
I'd consider being in range a posistion, and I think shadowstep rogues have a huge advantage over combat in that regard, and last time I checked, shadowstep hemo is a sub build, and is non-posistional.
Helly Aug 21st 2008 8:04PM
Stay of Execution looks interesting. Given that many healer abilities get a big boost when their target is below, say, 50% health, wouldn't it be a giant nerf to rogues if that boost isn't applied to them?
A bad talent just got worse if that's the case