Encrypted Text: Cataclysm's effect on iconic rogue abilities
by Chase Christian 
Jul 14th 2010 at 7:00AM
A wild ride, indeed. Ghostcrawler, the lead systems designer for WoW, let us know in advance that we'd be seeing a deluge of new information about the plan for each class in Cataclysm. While much is still unknown, a large number of changes pertaining to rogues have been drawn out of the beta data. While the entire scope of Blizzard's plan for rogues remains to be seen, we've definitely gained some insight into the future of the class.
What's interesting is how they've arranged the talent trees, particularly when it comes to the passive bonuses that a particular talent spec will receive for choosing to focus on that specialization. Blizzard did some tweaking to each of our most potent abilities to make them fit this model, as well as completely killing many theorized hybrid specs. You're essentially stuck with whatever abilities your spec possesses, and you can only pick up non-ability talents from the other trees. Due to this rebalancing of the talent trees, our signature moves from each tree have also seen an overhaul.
Assassination
A deadly master of poisons who dispatches victims with vicious dagger strikes. Just a disclaimer before we get started: the patch notes already stated that assassination rogues still have a way to go before they're ready for prime time, so there's relatively little information about the changes headed their way. We know right away that we'll be picking up Mutilate immediately upon choosing the assassination tree at level 10, meaning that we'll be using daggers -only from a very early point in our development. I assume that means that poisons will be introduced at a lower level as well, if the damage bonus against poisoned targets sticks around. The second mastery bonus for the tree is the old Improved Poisons talent, so it's clear that the spec description is entirely accurate.
There's one talent in particular that I'm excited about, and that's Quickening. It's basically a mix of Quick Recovery and Fleet Footed, which is pretty great since I've always wanted to be able to pick up both. Kudos to Blizzard for designing a simple utility talent that gives us some separation from the other rogue specs. We'll also be picking up Assassin's Resolve, which appears to be a mix of Hunger for Blood and glyphed Vigor. An extra 20 energy at all times and a damage bonus that ensures that daggers will stay in our hands firmly cements the tree as a dagger-wielding spec. Blizzard obviously doesn't want to lock anyone into a particular type of weapon, but a 20% damage loss accomplishes the job for them without the need for force.
Combat
A swashbuckler who uses agility and guile to stand toe to toe with enemies. Combat definitely saw some love from the developers in the most recent beta build. Our passive spec abilities are Dual Wield Specialization, Blade Flurry and Vitality. DW spec will keep combat focusing on physical damage over poisons, while Vitality will give us more rotation possibilities due to the extra energy income.
Blade Flurry saw the brunt of the changes, with some pretty significant modifications. It used to be a single-target DPS increase via the 20% haste bonus, and then allowed us to cleave nearby targets to boot. Now, it actually lowers our energy regeneration by 20% while active, reducing our single-target damage but still maintaining the cleave effect. The plus side is that they quartered the cooldown to a mere 30 seconds. That means we can keep Blade Flurry up for 50% of a fight's duration, which is simply amazing on any multi-target fight. Combat has truly become the cleave build for rogues, with massive multi-target potential. If mutilate's reliance on the Deadly Poison stack continues, combat will truly be unrivaled when it comes to target swaps.
However, if you were worried that the loss of Blade Flurry's haste boost was going to cost combat rogues a ton of damage, have no fear. Adrenaline Rush picked up the bonus that Blade Flurry lost and will now grant an extra 20% haste while active. This buff to Adrenaline Rush simply strengthens the potency of the rogue cooldown set, meaning that our burst and explosivity are as strong as ever. Restless Blades, that talent that reduces the cooldowns of our cooldowns (that was confusing to write) is still present and actually buffed by 33%, so combat is still going to be the CD spec of choice. Plus, with the current talent trees, we can even pick up Quickening in a combat build.
Finally, it looks like combat is receiving some interesting abilities to help give a bit of spice to our rotations. The first is Revealing Strike, which looks like a Sinister Strike clone that grants our next finisher a 20% boost in effectiveness. It's a bit weaker than a proper Sinister Strike, so I imagine that we'd be using some sort of 4 SS > 1 RS > finisher rotation to maximize the effect of said finisher. Aldriana over at Elitist Jerks brought up some good questions about RS, like whether or not it will affect Slice and Dice or Envenom. I think it's designed to be a pure damage boost, as it's a target debuff and not a rogue buff. In addition, it looks like our SS and RS abilities will cause our targets to take up to 15% extra damage, via Bandit's Guile, for some period of time, which would be adding some ramp up to our DPS -- or perhaps it will be a pseudo-proc that simply gives us extra damage while active. We'll have to see what the final implementation looks like.
Subtlety
A dark stalker who leaps from the shadows to ambush his or her unsuspecting prey. Well, that's all I really have for subtlety. We know that Shadowstep will be the signature technique of the tree and that Preparation is now outside the reach of any other talent spec. It does look like it will favor heavy agility gear due to Sinister Calling's being one of the masteries, so it's possible that subtlety gear sets will differ from combat and mutilate in the future.
Tweaks and balancing
We have a ton of new data to review, and I'm looking forward to hearing any of your stories from the beta. I am hoping that combat will finally see a more engaging rotation via the new Revealing Strike technique, and that mutilate will be able to pick up some of those juicy utility talents that we've always wanted to grab but couldn't. More than any of that, I wish that they'd figure out a way to balance subtlety and have it be enjoyable to play, even if that means scrapping Honor Among Thieves for good.
Are you a rogue looking to up your game? Check back every Wednesday for the latest strategies in Encrypted Text! Get ready for Icecrown Citadel with our guide for rogues, part 1 and part 2 (Plagueworks), part 3 (Crimson Halls) and part 4 (Frostwing Halls). Just hit 80 and need information? Check out our rogue lessons: Combat 101 or Mutilate 101 for all you need to know to get started.Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dbodinem Jul 14th 2010 7:18AM
Don't know much about theorycrafting.
But totally curious to see what the PvP specs look like now with the Mutilate/Preparation build gone (since Prep. is so far up the Subtlety Tree).
zdave Jul 14th 2010 10:07AM
yep, bye bye mut/prep. actually i only used a mut/prep build for like a week to see how it was and i just like the mobility of shadowstep better. especially in battlegrounds.
Lemons Jul 14th 2010 11:48AM
Rogue pvp specs aren't really based on any theorycrafting, just on what works and what doesn't. I do think that sub will be very strong seeing as it's the only tree that still has access to Elusiveness and Preparation.
Augustin Jul 14th 2010 8:04AM
Definitely an improvement. Now we have straight down the middle choices for dps improvement and filler talents on the sidelines - looks like they are on the right track.
But a few things still poke me in the Eye:
Why do they give Armor Penetration to the tree with the bleeding Talents (Armor? what Armor?) which should be specializing - per design goal - in heavy hitting finishers?
And what goon came up with the Idear of rogues standing "toe to toe" with his enemies? If I wanted to play a fury warrior who enjoys hitting others in da face I would have rolled one.
Rogues do it from behind.
Period.
Artificial Jul 14th 2010 8:12AM
That's the combat rogue in a nutshell. You can't even use backstab when you're holding a couple of axes.
Understand that a rogue is not necessarily a stealthy thief. Your bandits who waylay travelers on the road have no need for stealth or subtlety. They're very much in your face, give us what we want or we're burying these hatchets... in your face!
TMTOWTDI
Kernelpanic Jul 14th 2010 8:36AM
This. The idea of a rogue standing toe2toe with mobs/opponents is a bit awkward, but the changes look nice. I have loved Assassination from the beginning, even when people said daggers were "broken" simply because it feels more sinister. I haven't played subtlety that much, but they have also really captured the rogue "essence" with it as well.
Shnissigah Jul 14th 2010 8:52AM
Agree w/ Artificial. There's more to the rogue archetype than sneaking around and stabbing. Pirates are part of said archetype and everyone knows pirates are loud, rakish drunks flailing wildly; highwaymen are rogues because they don't fight fair: they jump out, kick your arse any way they can or pull off a nut shot and run like hell; ronin fit the archetype, but they usually use katanas and wear heavier armor; hell, the Necromancer from D2 and Conan the Barbarian both fit the archetype because they don't fight fair and fight for the loot.
jordan Jul 14th 2010 10:28AM
Probably because of the serrated blades effect, so you'll mainly only be hitting eviscerate and rarely having to worry about rupture dropoffs.
Amix Jul 14th 2010 8:12AM
I'm changing my spec from Assassination to Combat
Fletcher Jul 14th 2010 8:30AM
With shadowstep at level 10, I'm going to have to level another rogue. BAMF! Stab! BAMF!
fearthefireblade Jul 14th 2010 10:08AM
Revealing strike means nothing but another macro:
/castsequence sinister strike, sinister strike, sinister strike, sinister strike, revealing strike
reset=10? reset=combat? Idk. Nothing exciting though.
dystopic Jul 14th 2010 11:44AM
Actually, a macro wouldn't really work well here. If you're using the Sinister Strike glyph (frequent procs of double combopoints on crits) or have any other talent/proc (T10 4piece) that gives extra combopoints it's going to throw your macro off.
Sehvekah Jul 14th 2010 10:38PM
Better Macro:
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift] Revealing Strike; Sinister Strike
/use 10
Boom, now you can SS however many times it takes to get 4 CP, then hold shift momentarily for an RS. Non-engineers can drop the /use 10, that's just there to hit the glove tinker any time it's off CD(and without having to edit the macro every time I get new gloves).
You're welcome.
jordan Jul 14th 2010 10:23AM
Assassination is clearly the least complete of the trees, as they have stated. At least 3 talent points need to be taken away to enable them to get all damage improvements. Even then, there is no room for the utility ones.
Lemons Jul 14th 2010 10:51AM
Why do people keep whining about assassination? It's not incomplete, at least all of its talents DO SOMETHING...if you want incomplete then look at subtlety. Somehow Enveloping Shadows and Initiative survived the culling, both of which are going to get passed over in pretty much any build that wasn't made by your 5 year old younger brother.
jordan Jul 14th 2010 11:20AM
Yes, it is incomplete. You may not like it, but it is "While this is a first pass on all of the talent trees, death knight, druid, paladin, warlock, Arcane mage, and Assassination rogue trees are not as far along as other specializations."
Lemons Jul 14th 2010 11:36AM
Who said I don't like it? I have two specs and they're both assassination, I'm glad their planning on putting more work into it, but I don't really think it needs all that much help. It's only real problem is bloat...you trim back a few talents, rearrange some things, and you're done.
Ecca Jul 14th 2010 1:25PM
@lemons
Which is exactly what they're aiming to do: get rid of bloat. It's damn obvious that most of the Assassination tree wasn't changed at all, just things moved around here and there, along with keeping the new talents introduced in a previous beta build. The tree looks and plays exactly the same, aside from Quickening being one talent instead of the two it was previously, and Murderous Intent showing the possibility of Backstab spam akin to an Execute phase.
Hoping Assassination gets another CD. They made Cold Blood a little less worthless but they really need to add the caveat of "only consumes CB if next attack wasn't meant to be a crit" otherwise it's a waste. Getting 20en back (from the updated talent) is nice but you get more than that guaranteed just from Relentless Strikes off a 5cp Envenom... it's not on a 2min CD, either. And while I do like Vendetta as a CD, it's essentially just HfB minus the constant need to refresh.
Eagerly waiting a full pass of the Assassination tree.
Lemons Jul 14th 2010 10:59AM
I like Quickening a lot too! This is exactly what I've been wanting, which is a Fleet Footed that's accessible to the other trees. I almost wish it was tier 1 and in place of Deadly Momentum, but maybe that's asking for too much. It would kind of make sense to make Quickening a prereq for Deadly Momentum though.
Jizul Jul 14th 2010 11:43AM
I feel like all specs should have dual wield specialization....just sayin.