Darlal

I'm a bit torn up by the loss of AR/Prep in 2v2, but I think what will replace it really depends on your team. I run with a shammy and we usually float in the 1750-1800 bracket. The big problem for us is that there are a TON of 1800ish warrior teams that just decimated us in season 1 and 2. Using enh. shammy/combat rogue we were able to get Pally/War teams to 50/50 and Priest/War teams to 60/40, but druid warrior is still 30/70 at best. Recently I've been rethinking a LOT of my rogue strategy and I'm starting to think that a rogue's strength in this comp is our ability to get ooc and restealth.

Given that I see 2 obvious ways to go:

Mutilate/Sub -
41/20 is the standard Mutilate spec, but with the increase in the number of Druid teams, as well as the large number of enemy rogues, MOD has become something of a necessity. Also, since my partner will be melee, I don't mind losing imp gouge and I have over 100 hit in my current pvp gear. I'll really miss improved sprint, but with 20% snare resist (changing meta gems/boot enchants to match spec) I hope to get by.

Overall I think this spec is stronger in 3v3 than in 2v2, I'll probably go with one of the following for 2v2:


A non-crit based build:
Shadowstep/Ass - This features full expose armor for that extra killing umpf

What will probably become the "standard" shadowstep build::
Shadowstep/Ass - If you're playing in a larger bracket, especially 5v5 you probably want to trade cheat death for enveloping shadows.

@ Tower

If that's your thought why not go with:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
You'll lose 1% crit and imp BS, but instead you gain imp Ambush--which is stronger in the situation you mention anyway--as well as initiative, which is almost a must-have talent for subtelty to help front-load combo points. Especially with the SS buffs you shouldn't have much trouble re-stealthing in arenas (again, this depends on your playstyle. I would also drop imp gouge, since you've got hemo you don't need to get behind them to hit hard, also I LOVE 10% extra physical avoidance in combat as well as riposte, but again, precision's valid also.

 

Tiiki

And that's the problem. Your CP gain is TERRIBLE. I raided with AR/Prep and you can keep SnD uptime at about 100% but that's all. It's very annoying!

More CPs = more rupture/expose up time = more sustained and burst -- it's more important than a lot of people think, IMO. As soon as I specced 11 in Assass again it was like "Wow, it's good to be back!"

Oh and you just don't need imp sprint and shs, imo. I've only played 5v5s as 20/0/41 but I really didn't miss it much. Maybe I only think that because I play with a Paladin, but I think you should try it first. Precision is NOT a good value PvP talent, really. You want to skew damage towards yellow as much as you possibly can...

 

Tiiki

I've noticed you talk a lot about openers-- they're very much a level 60 type concept though, when you'd stunlock people down.

I would never blow a CB that early on a target, or probably a KS. And yes, with mutilate you CB Muti.

The 'burst' sequence for Mutilate is: KS -> CB Muti -> Renataki Muti -> EV (with 6-7 CPs by that point

But you'd usually do that a lot later- get 5 Wound up, get SnD and Expose on, etc...

 

Tiiki

Another thing I'm liking about 20/0/41 is that yellow damage 'spiky-ness'. AR/Prep does solid, steady, AP powered white damage that resilience doesn't affect so much.

20/0/41 IS hit by resilience (though you tend to have around 35% crit with it), but when you get the crits, they're big 230%, 20% from Dirty Deeds perhaps, spiky crits. A few lucky ones and the target is down. This sort of spiky 'warrior' like damage is much preferable IMO, as it's much harder to heal through.

@Darlal:

Interesting point you make about restealthing. I do it so little maybe I should spec OUT of Initiative. In 2.3.2 a ShS opener will give 5 CPs with Premed anyway. Quite apart from the fact I never notice when Premed is back up, I'm hardly ever going to be in a position to re-stealth just to use it anyway. I'll be very interested to see what playstyles emerge out of the power of Ambush now. Weapon switching, needing to spend talents in non-fulltime skills (e.g. imp backstab or imp ambush) is a really difficult conundrum though. I think Backstab is still a write off unless you want to do it fulltime, since you need to think about Opportunity then as well.

Muti/Subt is interesting (though you linked it wrong, I think), but I do wonder if that spec can cope without Imp Sprint. After all, the reason that spec is popular as 41/20 is for the SnD and Sprint, NOT for the precision/DW, which Oppo covers admirably, IMO.

 

Tower

You linked the same build I did?

Not sure how you're restealthing, but I run a 2dps 2v2 and Rogue/Spriest/Druid or Shaman in 3v3, you restealth in 2v2 with anything other than Vanish and your target is healed to full and you lose, that's 5-6 of wasted dps and your poisons dropping.

In a build without AR and mace stuns, I would rather have Imp Gouge for control purposes, it's not about getting behind people. I don't see much value in Imp Ambush, I don't burn vanish for damage, I burn it to avoid cc or break cc, which is best followed by a Garrote or Cheapshot.

 

Tiiki

Agree in 3s and 2s, but you get a lot of re-stealth opportunities in 5s. Sometimes I get feared so far that I'm out of Combat by the time it wears off anyway. Then you can Stealth/Step back in to the fray.

Gouge I agree on too, and it is a loss. 5.5 sec gouge is an absurdly good peel. A 4 sec gouge->run->step gets you a long way away though, if it's you who is trying to escape, though. Still a shame gouge/sheep are on the same DR in those scenarios though.

 

Tower

I couldn't disagree more honestly. I may change my mind after I see the 70% speed increase WHILE snared, but I don't run with Paladins and I concentrate on 2v2 and 3v3, 5v5 is a dead arena to me for multiple reasons - being on a PvE server is one. Precision isn't a good PvP talent? Er, I'm aware of the hit cap on specials, but for 5 points in a tier 2 tree, Precision is still nice, and is a blanket of increased damage – white, specials when not capped or against classes that lower the cap and increased poison procs. With Deadliness and Sinister, you should gem to get more out of those bonuses, but not dimish the value of Precision.

I played Shadowstep a good deal in different setups, competitively at 2100+ in 3v3 (we faultered) and you still need snare breaks. Honestly, you've got vanish and trinket, using prep to vanish another snare off. 30 seconds is a looooong time to wait to get back into melee range. If you people think Shadowstep is good for focusing druids, you're in for a rude awakening. Pre 2.3 swift-shifting maybe, but teleporting over to a druid in travel form to shiv, only to have him bear > travel again while your hamstring stays on you is gonna make you go back into mid tier combat for that Imp Sprint.

 

Safid

As a long time Mutilate player one of the difficulties is definitely in staying on your target. Not having Sprint be a root breaker would be pretty bad unless you were teamed up with a Paladin to throw Freedom on you at opportune moment. Getting more poison talents can partially make up for this but it doesn't help you when you're simply crowd controlled off of your target.

The new ambush just seems to be a drop in the bucket. Blizzard doesn't seem to understand that daggers and dagger abilities relying so heavily on crits to be worth the energy you spend effectively makes them useless in arenas. Daggers are going to need more than 10% backstab damage for 40 points in sub for example.

 

• LodeRunner

I would think of it in the same way I use Intercept on my warrior against Druids: try to hold off on intercepts until they're in caster form or standing still. I'm going to have a few combo points on the Druid probably from Shivs trying to stay on him while he shifts around. If I can save up two, three, or ideally four combo points and a full energy bar then Shadowstep over when he's in caster mode I can immediately Kidney Shot and start laying into him. This is, of course, theory, and will be made easier with the new movement speed buff to Shadowstep. Losing Mace stuns, Precision, and Riposte is going to be a bitch though.

 

Rath

I love the idea of going 20/0/41, but the loss of improved sprint is a huge loss. Being snared is, in my opinion, the biggest problem of being a rogue in arena's. Now the speed increase after a Shadowstep may prove to be more useful than I initially believe, but giving up two snare breaks could be devastating in 2's and 3's.

 

Neeklus

Yes I definately think spec is going to have much more to do with playstyle and which bracket you're fighting now. Before it was typically dominated by one or two configurations that were adaptive to most situations. While I'm a bit peeved about the AR/prep nerfage, I'm liking the added finesse to our class.

Saying that I'm really concerned about the lack of damage lost due dual wield spec and still not overly wowed by ShS. The Sinister Calling buff is very juicy though. I've come up with two builds myself. Both focus heavily in the subtlety tree. The first still goes into combat. I'd imagine this is a lot more sustained white dps build. Lack of mace spec, AR, imp sprint and imp kick is of course (pardon the pun) a kick in the teeth. At least I won't have to regem and will still gain a lot of dps from SC.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The second has the 21 points in assassination and goes for the "spiky" damage Tiiki mentioned. Here CB replaces ShS.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Overall I might just continue to play with AR/Prep. I think it's a very solid build and grants a lot of control and sustained damage.

 

Tiiki

Consider though: the more you talent yellow damage, the less staying on target matters (except for poisons / control etc.). I'm just playing devils advocate here, but as long as you don't have a full energy bar, being off your target with a ShS build isn't as bad as with one that has 10 talents in precision/DW spec. Do you see what I'm getting at?

I agree it'll be annoying, but I'll see how it plays out first outside 5v5.

Hell, you can always use Rocket Boots Xtreme

Incidentally, the removal of one AR hasn't necessarily destroyed AR/Prep. I still reckon it's perfectly viable as the same 'Iron Man' spec it was before.

 

Tower

Well, there's a reason people bitch about warriors that is wholly surrounded by them dying from a intercept > stun> melee swing > mace stun > execute. That just doesn't happen with Shadowstep or with rogues, but yes your strats will have to evolve on using Shadowstep in succession of a stun combo for offense.

I reallllllly would like to see Shadowstep addressing snares somehow, like maybe on use has a 50% chance to remove 1 snare or on use it deceases the duration of all current snares by 50%. Only then I'd feel like I didn't just spend 41 points for a gimped Intercept on double the cooldown.

 

Tiiki

Neeklus:

Your 0/21/40 is interesting. I think it'll be dull to play, but pretty effective. It's a damn shame the 31pter in Subt is basically trash, otherwise 30/31 might be good, to get the Mace stuns back in there. As it is, I think Premeditation is one of the worst talents across all 3 trees

If it had a 10 second cooldown, it would still be rubbish- no one is in stealth enough for it to matter at all.

 

Neeklus

I do understand where you're coming from. ShS is a really good idea in principle. I think it's very...rogueish, but it comes at too great. Although come to think of it, I could replace Flurry with ShS. I was hesitant with that last point. I'm not a fan of low percentile based oppurtunity abilities such as 50% imp kick etc. I'm an all or nothing kind of guy.

Heh, how awesome would it be if Imp Sprint effected the ShS "dash"?

 

Tower

Coupled with the Hemo nerf, I'd say it's dead, particularly when compared to just going back 19/42. Hemo will still be powerful now that is uses it's own debuff, but Blizzard knew what they were doing when they changed Sinister Calling.

 

Tiiki

I'm in two minds, on the one hand I want more control in ShS - i.e. remove snares - though remember it does have a further advantage over intercept, you can go vertically up/down off the bridge in one of the three Arenas at least...

On the other, the one thing the spec needs is some burst, and the 20% extra damage on next move-but-the-only-big-move-is-ambush-and-requires-stealth doesn't wash !

I think at the very least, on the control front, they should've:

- Instead of the 70% 3 sec sprint, just remove it from the GCD- then you could Step->Shiv, Step->CS, Step->Kick, or whatever, with one button press. More finesse-y, more fun, no one gets away !

And/or

- As you say: make it clear snares.

 

Tiiki

Hmm, perhaps. As you say, now it uses its own debuff- doesn't that make it of about equal power to before in AR/Prep and more powerful with 40 points Subt, no?

 

Darlal

Sorry Tower, the build I meant to link was:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

As to dropping stealth in 2's and 3's, I abuse pillars. Seriously, abuse. Shammies, while they lack many things, have tons of snares and big burst damage. If our target survives the initial burst, we WANT them to get healed to full, especially through wound poison, this costs lots of mana. Ontop of that we have a ranged interrupt, which pushes healers to rely on costly hots that we can purge. The only team we've found to really destroy us (again, only playing in the 1750-1800 range) is Druid/Warrior, although Pally/Warrior is bad too. It's just unfortunate that our counter-comps are so common.

Since we're talking about subtlety talents, does anyone else feel like the major problem with the subtlety tree is that it's 21 and 31 point talents don't really do much anymore. Prep now resets evasion, vanish, sprint, shs, and CB (if you have it). This is great for a rogue being focus fired, and awesome for 1v1 dueling, but (with the exception of CB) doesn't help the damage. Premeditation was great when it was possible to stun-burst someone down, but combo point generation isn't really the issue anymore, damage is. I'd love to see these two talents addressed in a positive light (c'mon, let's not take MORE things off premed, it's a silly knee-jerk reaction).

 

berzerked

As a 41/20/0 Mutialte build in arenas I open with the following: CS->Shiv>SnD->Mutilate->KS for most cases (at least when the action starts). Once a few CDs have been blown and everybody has their targets I keep snd running while using Mutilates + KS for optimal dmg + occasional gouges to nearby oponents.

 

Tower

2.3.2 Hemo is weaker than 2.3 Hemo overall without 2.3.2 Sinister Calling. Hemo does hit harder in 2.3.2 when you have the Hemo debuff up, and at least 40 points into Sub. What I was saying is, with AR being removed from Prep and Hemo hitting weaker than it is now, it is very hard to reason staying 0/31/30. 19/42 would have more burst (harder instants, stronger AR) and more sustained. So if you're hellbent on grabbing Prep for the utility/mobility, Blizzard made it a clear choice that you pretty much have to spec into Shadowstep to retain powerful instants.

 

Halfdane

Thank you for setting me straight, I was looking at the DPS rather than the actual damage of the maces.

Here's what I have so far on the effect of crits:
Assume your target has ~400 resilience, or -10% crit, -20% crit damage
For the S1 case, assume you have 21.31 - 10 = 11.31% crit (or 31.31 with Backstab)
For the S3 case, assume you have 33.19 -10 = 23.19% crit (or 53.19 with Backstab)

S1 stats
Backstab:
((164 + 108.4 * 1.7) * 1.5 + 255) * 1.3 = 1010.50
Crit extra = 1010.5 * 1.1 = 1111.55
total damage/energy = (1010.50 + 1111.55*.4131)/60 = 24.49

Mace Hemo:
((237 + 108.4 * 2.4) * 1.2 = 656.12
Crit extra = 656.12 * 1.1 = 670.68
total damage/energy = (656.12 + 670.68*.1131)/60 = 19.16

With S3 weapon, 1900 AP, 33.19 crit
Backstab:
((185.5 + 135.7 * 1.7) * 1.5 + 255) * 1.3 = 1143.11
Crit extra =1143.11 * 1.1 = 1257.43
total damage/energy = (1143.11 + 1257.43*.4131)/60 = 30.20
Mace Hemo:
((268 + 135.7 * 2.4) * 1.2 = 712.46
Crit extra = 712.46 * 1.1 = 783.70
total damage/energy = (712.46 + 712.46 *.1131)/60 = 25.55


This doesn't model the Hemorrhage debuff. Any help on this would be appreciated.

Combo point generation and positioning are definitely problems. On the other hand, spiky damage is more difficult to heal through, if you're being crowd controlled often with short bursts of activity, you're better off with high damage moves. When you shadowstep behind your target, which would you rather hit them with, Backstab or Hemo?

 

Neeklus

"When you shadowstep behind your target, which would you rather hit them with, Backstab or Hemo?"

Well considering I just spent so many points on maces...

But seriously I haven't used a backstab in arena...ever I don't think.

 

Tiiki

Backstab is only SKIRTING viability due to sinister calling's effect on your crit chance and the propensity for Priests to be Disc.

Talents like Blessed Resilience, which stop crits altogether for a period completely kill things like Backstab stone dead.

 

Fold

A couple of thoughts and a suggestion:

Shadowstep still seems gimped to me, and always will, because it doesn't offer a snare, root, or stun on your target. That seems to mean that unless I want to settle for a short duration KS, I will have to use Shiv as my first attack after the ShS meaning the 20% damage bonus is wasted. Do you guys see that as being an issue? Maybe I'm not giving enough weight to the fact that you might already have CP's on the target and you could ShS --> 5 pt KS, or Deadly Throw and then Shadowstep. There could be a simple fix here mechanics-wise, just prevent Shiv from eating the damage buff.

Also, it seems (especially with Eyonix's questionable description and explanation of the Hemo nerf) that Blizzard is trying very hard to get rogues to spec full 41's in whatever tree they're most comfortable with. AR/Prep nerf is a huge hit to hybrid play which is mind boggling given that Warriors spec into Arms just far enough to get MS but apparently that's working as intended.

Given the nature of these changes, and the precedent set by Warriors getting Death Wish moved to Arms, I think that Mace Spec should be moved to the Subtlety tree. Put it into the Setup slot and either move that talent or dump it altogether. No rogue in their right mind is going to spec combat Maces if they're trying to maximize raid damage, and Mace spec in the combat tree is completely unreachable with heavy Sub investment. At this point I'm willing to spec ShS and try it for awhile since they're pushing it so hard, but why keep one of our best PVP talents (Mace Spec) in our PVE tree?