Posts with tag assassination

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

If you start looking into the history of the rogue class, you end up reaching several dead ends. The reason is that a rogue who's easy to track or trace isn't much of a rogue at all. We specialize in disappearing, which makes rogue family trees notoriously difficult to map. Garona Halforcen is often considered to be the mother of the rogue class, executing one of the earliest and most daring acts of assassination and regicide in Azeroth's history.

The truth is that if we want to find our spiritual beginnings, we have to look back even further than Garona and even further away than Azeroth. The true ancestor of today's rogue class first found life eons ago, in another realm, known only as Sanctuary. There, the assassin class stood against the three Prime Evils, defeating the Burning Hell's greatest powers with elegance and subterfuge. The rogues of WoW were inspired by the assassins of Diablo II, and that influence can still be felt today.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any rogue questions you may have, like how to get yourself out of a straightjacket with only your mace.

With just one month remaining until Cataclysm's release, everyone is getting ready for WoW's latest installment. I have been working on refining my leveling builds for my characters, preparing heirloom gear for my upcoming goblin shaman, and solidifying my guild's roster for January's inaugural raids. Cataclysm will be the biggest expansion yet, and there is no lack of work to be done.

Many of you are doing likewise, adapting to the changes introduced in patch 4.0.1 and planning for the future. I have been receiving a ton of great questions via email about best practices moving forward. While some things are still up in the air (like combat's viability), most of the changes are settling down, and we can really start to make plans knowing that it's unlikely we'll see any new major changes.

Zach thinks rogues are dastardly, sneaky and will backstab you at the first opportunity. Take this guide, for example. Rogues just ambushed Zach with a ton of useless information. I mean, they're just stabby little things, aren't they?

This final part of our exceptionally long introductory guide -- who would've thought rogues could be such a long subject? -- we'll talk a little more about rogue playing styles, the different specs, and ways on how classes can counter them. I mentioned in the very first part of this guide that taking away a rogue's opener is important. If you have means to detect rogues in Stealth, make sure to use it and have instant cast abilities ready to quickly break them out of it as soon as you do.

An obvious fact that bears mentioning is that rogues are a melee class. They can't do you any real harm when you're outside of melee range, so the obvious strategy would be to kite them. Rogues have some abilities that allow them to break out of roots and snares, but these are all on relatively long cooldowns, so don't be afraid to reapply them. Even as a melee class, you'd want to keep applying a movement-impairing effect such as Hamstring or even Judgement of Justice. Impaired movement takes any PvP player out of their groove, and it disturbs rogues who must always have the ability to chase or flee.

The class Q&A series continues with Rogue, the stabbiest class. Look for a more complete analysis later; for now, here's a quick summary, with the full Q&A after the cut. Priest is now the only class left, but don't despair, my clerical friends – I'm sure they saved the best for last. I hope.

• Rogues are for DPS. Historically, they have been "selfish" - little group utility. Right now they have better utility and synergy.
• They've always been strong in PvP, because of stealth, stun, and burst.
• The devs are happy with the way the combo point/finisher system is working right now.
• A proposed solution for Vanish! "...Vanish puts you in stealth for 1 second minimum no matter what else happens."
• Hunger for Blood is meant to boost PvE damage without doing much for PvP, and as such it works, but is boring. Changes are in store for the long run. They want it to be more reactive, and also put it back into PvP.
• They would like to make Subtlety competitive in PvE, but if they make it too good players will all switch to it because of the utility. Long-term, some Sub utility might become core, or some damage from other trees might become core so the choice is utility vs utility (not utility vs damage).
• Rogues underperform in dungeons, as a consequence of scaling so well in raids. If you're not doing good DPS in raids, "the problem exists between the chair and the keyboard."
• Rogues are too survivable when they can use all their tricks on one target, and too squishy when they can't. Long-term, they want to move some survivability to passive abilities.
• Combat Daggers is dead because Blizzard thinks that it was clunky and unfun.
• Don't expect more class-specific content any time soon - they would like to do it, but it's low on the priority list.

The full Q&A from Ghostcrawler and friends is below.

All right, rogues. So by now some of you have likely read our list of 3.1 changes for our bloodthirsty class, and if not, you should! Right now! Make no mistake, these are some very cool changes, and even if this is the whole list (it's not), I'm pretty happy with how things are shaping up--not just for rogues, but for all the classes mentioned so far.

If you haven't read through them yet or if you're not a big theorycrafter, you can take a moment and read through our analysis of how 3.1 will (so far) affect you, the rogue.

Let's have a look!

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. In this special edition, we cover the top 10 changes of 2008.

We've been through a lot in 2008. I hit 70 on my current Rogue last January, and so I have paid keen attention to the patch notes and blue posts right alongside many of you. I was excited to reach the level cap on my blood elf; Rogues were at the height of their power. Season 3 and Season 4 of the arena season saw us demolishing every non-healing class in representation. None even dared to consider rivaling a Rogue with a pair of Glaives in any DPS contest.

However, due to Blizzard's hesitance to drastically change any balance issues before WotLK's release, we essentially had one PvE spec (20/41/0 Combat) and one PvP spec (20/0/41 Shadowstep). While there were always Rogues experimenting on the fringe with new specs, 90% of Rogues fell into one of these two buckets.

Both were brute force builds, designed to smash things with very slow maces or swords; and not even very creatively with that. We excelled in the arena due to our mobility and infinite energy pool, we ruled in PvE due to the overbudgeted weapons and leather in the Tier 6 dungeons. There was no finesse, no grace, no elegance outside of flashy moves (like vanishing a Death Coil). We were around to spam Sinister Strike until the boss died and spam Hemorrhage until the Druid finally ran out of mana.

WotLK has fixed all that. Read on as we cover the top 10 changes that helped us move from mindless button smashers into the deadly swans we have become.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how troublesome Assassination's new rotation is.

During my regular readings of the Rogue forums, I often heard complaints regarding our Assassination 51-pointer (Hunger for Blood). The main issue is that people find with it comes from the fact that it takes our required button-pushing amounts from manageable to annoying. I was skeptical at first, as I had not been having much trouble with it in heroics and the odd Vault of Archavon run.

I initially figured Mutilate would be a more interesting rotation than the old Rupture/SnD spam that was TBC Combat Swords. With Mutilate generating way more Combo Points than Sinister Strike, and simply replacing SnD with Envenom in my raiding DPS rotation, I figured it would be business as usual. I trade off using Mutilate less than Sinister Strike by having to keep HfB up. Easy enough, right? Wrong.

Over the last two days, the WoW Insider team has been busy reviewing and gathering all of the still-current class information to bring you up to speed for your first steps into Northrend. You've probably had a chance to get a handle on your class since most of the changes were pushed through in patch 3.0.2, but you have an extra ten levels ahead of you, an extra ten talent points, and a whole bunch of new skills and abilities you're going to need to learn. Don't know what to expect? We're here for you. If you do know what to expect? Well, I guess you can keep reading if you want. We'll let it slide just this once.

• Death Knight - Being the new class on the block, there's certainly been a lot to talk about in the recent months. Daniel Whitcomb points you toward much of it, including leveling builds, in-depth looks at their core abilities and mechanics, as well as some sage advice from Allison Robert.
  
• Druid - Speaking of Allison Robert, she'll be your guide today if you're looking for more on the Druid class. Talent builds, a glimpse at raid healing as Restoration, the rise of the Moonkin and much more can be found within.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll be talking about how Rogue weaponry is changing with the upcoming WotLK expansion.

With a sharpening stone in one hand, he begins to hone the dagger to a fiercely sharp point. Sparks of metal and chunks of dried blood fall from the weapon with each stroke of his trained hand. Once satisfied with his work, the Rogue raises the blade high above his head; the edge catches a ray of the Sun's light and shines with a deadly glow.

The dagger is lowered, and solemnly wrapped in a piece of black mageweave. The assassin hands the dark bundle to his apprentice, who is bowing in reverence. The neophyte takes the gift, and promptly places it in her backpack. Outraged, the elder Rogue demands to know why his student would insult him by not even admiring the gift. She sarcastically replies: "Sorry pops, nobody uses 1.8 speed daggers anymore! Read the patch notes." As she skips off to hunt down a rare panther, the master shakes his head in confusion and shame.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we explore two of the new 51 point talents coming soon.

If you ask 75% of the top Rogues worldwide what the premier PvP spec is, they'll tell you Subtlety. If you ask an even greater margin of raiders what Rogue spec pumps out the most DPS, you'll get a solid shout of "Combat, duh!" And if you should ever feel the urge to pick up a pair of daggers, every brother of the shadows will direct you towards Assassination. These three trees have been neatly defined by Blizzard, and it's fairly obvious what each is designed for.

What separates Rogues from every other class is our nearly unilateral use of 41 point talents. A dagger Rogue without Mutilate is gimped while a Sub PvP Rogue without Shadowstep is the laughing stock of the arena. And don't bother stepping into Sunwell without Surprise Attacks, unless getting trashed on the damage meters is your idea of fun. We've gotten so used to the comfort in knowing that dumping 41 points into any of our trees will yield a viable build. Now that 51 pointers are on the way in 3.0.2 and Wrath to follow, I've been asked by many Rogues "Will the bottom of our trees continue to be the anchors of our builds?" Find out after the cut.

The Rogue class is going to be the target of a vast array of smaller and larger modifications in the LK beta. We saw a set of these changes already, and last night Gamnin came by the forums to post another set. The interesting changes (and there are a lot of them):

• Cloak of Shadows cooldown down to 1.5 minutes, from 2 (1 in live). Elusiveness will now reduce the cooldown of CloS by 15/30 sec as well as its previous effect.
• Tricks of the Trade confirmed; they note that "we'll need one type of solution or other to prevent the need for 5 rogue Trick rotations."
• Assassination:
  • Vigor moved to tier 3. It's long been a sub-par talent, so this is sensible.
  • Relentless Strikes moved to Sublety tier 1, and raised to five ranks (from one) for the same effect (4/8/12/16/20%). Fair, but a little difficult to stomach too. This does somewhat achieve their stated goal of making it more accessible, but quintupling the cost and putting it in my least favorite tree is not what I had in mind.
  • New tier 7 talent that I assume is taking Vigor's place: Overkill: Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cost 10 less energy. I'll need to play with this, but it looks pretty great.
  • Master Poisoner has been moved and redesigned. It's now in tier 9 and has three ranks, and instead of increasing chance for poisons to hit, it now increases everyone's crit chance against targets you've poisoned by 1/2/3% and lessens the duration of poisons on you by 17/34/50% [fixed, thanks].
  • Hunger for Blood's effect increased to 30 sec, from 10.

Isn't this fella cute? Sooo cute? Adorable!? No? He isn't? Yeah, i don't think so either. We'll get back to these horrible abominations a little later, because Meethan asked...

Is Hunger For Blood, the 51 point Assassination talent, at all useful for solo leveling?

I asked a friend of mine about this since I don't personally play a Rogue, and he says popular opinion is that Hunger for Blood is mostly going to be a PvP talent. Keeping the damage buff up constantly while questing isn't worthwhile, and the debuff clearing it provides will be highly situational while soloing through Northrend. You can take it if you're gung ho about Assassination, but you'd be better served picking up something else until you start PvPing often.

Drewcast asked...

Are there or will there be any Aldor vs. Scryer type factions?

Rogues were one of the last classes to get new talent trees for LK; in general, it seems like they've been a bit behind during the beta. However, today another blue I've never heard of, by the name of Gamnin, dropped a lot of information about what's in store for the most stabbity of classes. Here are the changes that jump out at me:

General:

• All reagents and tools (such as Thieves' Tools and poison reagents) are being removed.
• Poison skill is being removed. Poisons can now be bought from vendors.
• Evasion, Sprint, and Vanish cooldowns reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes (2 minute with talents).
• Cloak of Shadows cooldown raised to 2 minutes (1 minute with Elusiveness).
• An unspecified new level 75 ability is coming, which will "add some much needed group utility." The previous level 75 ability, Dismantle, will be trainable at level 20.

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 Assassination expansion tree.

The Assassination tree, home to the deep dagger Rogue, is a major part of Rogue specifications for both PvP and PvE play styles. While the Combat tree is focused on increasing white damage overall, and Subtlety about survivability and burst, Assassination is all about the liberal application of consistent damage through a repertoire spells and damage application modifiers (a la poison). Burning Crusade talents and spells like Cold Blood, Lethality and (Improved Poisons assisted) Envenom are amazing non-positional damage sources, with Mutilate being the positional coup de grâce to a fight.

All that said, it should be noted that while Assassination Rogues do benefit from three times the combo-point generation potential, white damage is reduced in comparison to other builds, most mobs in end-game are poison immune (and in situations where you need to change targets, you have to build back up your poison stack on them) and Find Weakness does not apply to white damage.

Knowing all this, what's new that might make wayward-but-dagger-longing Rogues want to go deep into the tree?

I love what Kre's doing on the forums: he's calling for NPC assassination targets. And he's not all talk -- when he gets asked to take a target out, whether it be Katrina Prestor herself or the Ironforge bread vendor (who will not... shut... up!), he and his assassination crew get the job done.

My choice for a kill has already been done (Die, Fandral Staghelm!), but there are all kinds of great requests in the thread -- unfortunately, due to the code of the assassin, Kre can't kill the little kid who stole that dolly in Stormwind, as children are not viable targets. But even Drysc has been sent to meet his maker by these guys. Hilarious. If an NPC has been giving you trouble lately, they'll make sure there are no more problems, if you know what we mean.

Not all the war in Warcraft can be fought on the battlefield -- some of it has to be fought in the back alleys and in the shadows. Glad to see that Kre and his crew (Aelas has pulled off some excellent kills here, too) are going a little guerilla in the constant fight against NPCs.