I am glad the Devs know that the 41 point talents suck as is.

I don't see why they got released in their current forms, given that they're more or less complete jokes.

Also per the BS buff, I really don't see this NOT happening. Going from 150% weapon damage + 225 to 150% + 262 is a pretty small jump compared to the LEAP that Sinister Strike has. Isn't it weapon damage + 162? or something huge like that. To me this screams "bs needs help" which means 175% + 262... add in oppo and you're at 210% damage, which is better than mutilate besides CPs, given that you can't offhand a sword.

Honestly, Mutilate will need to do a LOT more damage for it to be worth a 41 talent... I'm thinking make it a backstab mainhand (150% damage) plus an instant offhand attack which would go a long way towards trying to improve things.

Even then, I hope the devs continue to do some math for once and make SURE that mutilate absolutely blows away backstab once you get full talents... I don't want to be stuck with the same skills as before the expansion because Blizzard is dumb.

Now, to fix the damned 36-40pt talents.

Honestly, I could live with Stamina, cherry-pick lower talents to get to Blade Twisting, grab that, and go for the 41-point. If Blade Twisting helped out the 41-point like it was originally designed to.

Stamina will be ok. I guess even if the daze effect doesnt assist us I may pick it up, assuming more raid mobs can be effected. Hopefully though the daze effect can be capitilized on by rogues in PvE.

I just wish they'd buff Aggression. Its still pretty bad for where it is on the tree.

Heh, I like how Drysc carefully "dodges" (har har) the question of whether crit is calculated over all swings (atomic/table-based). I really wish there was a detailed CM response to this I could link to every time this debate came up. It's really hard to convince people of this for some reason.

Careful what you wish for?

Yeah, preferably something that made actual sense instead of just made up on the spot. ;)

I'm not even sure Drysc plays the game TBH.

All of the CMs play the game, at least for personal enjoyment.

Now they sometimes are a confused about things or make a mistake, but they are human just like us (but with blue text).

I think the idea is to have the daze effect synergize with warrior's new heroic strike. They've said they'd like to re-evaluate how daze impacts the raiding game and some mobs/bosses will not be immune anymore. I'm not sure how that's going to be balanced since a daze effect would have a pretty big impact on a fight like Sartura.

I think what I'm struggling with is that as a combat/swords build the direction for me is probably to pick up 5/5 seal fate, which means I probably lose 2 points in imp kick and 2 points in aggression. I've really gotten used to the 2 second silence as a tactical move in pve and pvp. Also, the 5 seconds of silence as an opener with the new garotte + kick looked pretty darn good as a caster killing move in pvp (possibly also in pve with a well-timed vanish). I'm still not sure if ~32 energy per combo point justifies making a change for me. Here's hoping they make some changes to the 41 point talent before they go live.

Has anybody done the math on Quick Recovery yet? It seems like another +energy talent (which are always good), along with the additional heal effect, it might be worth going for.

The energy bonus on it is *really* minimal for PvE, since it only applies to finishers and the primary PvE finisher can't be missed, dodged, or parried. The major benefit is really the healing effect, and in PvP the energy would be nice.

5/5 Imp Poisons will be a lot less worthwhile in TBC, because you can pretty much assume you'll be getting WF on your mainhand.

I hope they give us some way to captilize on blade twisting as well. (Edit: ala old shadow strikes)

Poisons scale with talents now, and moreso with the new Poison Master.

Prot warriors don't scale? As they get more avoidance (dodge/block/parry), they can proc Revenge more often (which gives a lot of threat). Also as they get more block, Shield Slam hits harder (again more threat).

There is lots of scaling, in fact, Prot scales better than Fury for threat generation (assuming proper gear and Shield Slam, and of course Defiance scales with all that other stuff scaling).

Drysc's posts don't look particularly promising, but I'm really hoping there are additional synergies. I'm sorta annoyed that he tried to characterize asking for meaningful synergy as selfishness (this thread) - 2 abilities do not validate 5 points. :(

Hopefully the deseigners dont share his sentiments. I was very sad to see shadow stikes go. It should have been nerfed (5%?) Not removed entirely.

On that note on synergies, I always miss Assasination for all the lovely synergies. Part of me hopes the mutilation change overcomponsates and makes it a viable build for raid dps. *crosses fingers*

5% shadow damage on a poisoned target
5% shadow damage on a dazed target
(stacks to 10%)

Just an idea.

That's why something like old Shadow Strikes being better for swords shouldn't have been a concern - really, in an ideal situation a 41 assassination dagger build and a 41 combat sword build will both be more or less equally capable builds.

Since the Rogue talents haven't changed yet (I know it is still early) when do you think we should openly and massively offer our cirticism on the WoW boards?

I still believe that the constructive posts of Wodin, Kalman and the others helped to get us a decent 1.12. review, so maybe Blizzard will listen again. Unfortunately I "only" have access to the EU boards, or I would try to do that myself.