The Blue Post Thread: Cataclysm Edition
 

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From GC's blog post at Upcoming Class Changes - World of Warcraft. I've edited out the parts that are not relevant for rogues.

On PvE damage
On underused stats

On Combat Mastery


On Combat weapon itemization and upcoming changes for next pass

Edit:
My thoughts on the changes: Its good to see that combat is possibly getting some love through buffs to our mastery as well as Revealing Strike. Perhaps it might lead to some cycle changes depending on the extent of the buff to Revealing strike. Even Assassination might be slightly buffed, depending on the changes the spec to make better use of the crit on gear. However in its current state, I see no talents that are directly affected by crit rating apart from Seal Fate, so its hard to speculate where the changes might occur (if they do).

I find the comment about crit for Assassination rogues sort of odd - its not like crit is any worse for assassination than it is for Combat. Its certainly our worst stat, but not by a completely ludicrous margin. So it seems sort of odd to single it out like that.

That said, there is a reasonably obvious way for them to address it. If they gave us - either as a rogue baseline ability or as part of Assassin's Resolve - 200% spell crits like most DPS casters (and DKs) have, that'd boost Assassination's crit EP to be more competitive with the other stats (ahead of Expertise but behind Haste). Whether this is the change they actually intend to make I couldn't say, but given that Assassination rogues get close to half their damage from spells (as in, effects that crit using spell crit mechanics), I'd be shocked if they hadn't at least considered giving us some caster-DPS style talents for it.

The other interesting/slightly contradictory part of that is how they're going to buff Main Gauche while also increasing the importance of a fast OH, as currently those goals sort of work at cross purposes. It will be interesting to see what they come up with to achieve both of those at the same time - it seems like they're almost going to have to rework the Combat mastery in a fairly fundamental sort of way to make that work, which doesn't really align with the claim that they like the mechanic and just want to buff the efficacy.

It seems contradictory, granted. I suppose their interest in stressing the importance of fast off-hand weapons is a desire to maintain both Combat Potency and poison damage as integral parts of Combat damage. Being fundamentally opposed, they'd have to tinker with either Combat Potency and poison damage on one side, or Main Gauche on the other.

It's purely conjecture at this point, of course, but right off the bat, I'd think it unlikely for them to alter poison mechanics or Combat Potency too much. That leaves getting Main Gauche to hit harder or more often. I reckon one way could be to regulate the damage of Main Gauche based on attack speed of the off-hand weapon. A bit like the alteration Fan of Knives went trough to make it a more appealing ability to dagger wielders. Either that, or simply increase the proc chance of Main Gauche. I admit, though, I haven't done any math to outline the ramifications of such changes; for one thing, increasing proc chance might increase energy regen too much.

What if they made MG more like a shiv effect? That everytime it hit it would add a combo point. How much value would it add to the mastery then?

They also really need to add some fast OH weapons, I miss having matching weapons. :)

Making the MG attack normalized would let combat potency push combat into a fast off hand, while allowing them to buff proc rate/damage bonus as needed for balance.

The Cataclysm Mechanics Testing Thread already confirmed Main Gauche to be a normalized, special attack. In that sense, simply increasing proc chance could see Combat's energy regen becoming even more disproportionate compared to that of the other trees than it already is. To this end, I suppose the simple way to balance Main Gauche is to increase its damage. However simple, it doesn't really go any lengths to make Combat Mastery more interesting.

Patch 4.0.6 deployed on PTRs

Combat

* Combat Readiness now lasts 20 sec, down from 30 sec. Now expires after 10 sec, up from 6 sec.
* Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 75% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.
* Revealing Strike now increases effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on the target by 35%, up from 20%.

Also on PTR:

Subtlety

* [Smoke Bomb] now lasts 5 sec, down from 10 sec.

I didn't see this listed above about Main Gauche, from the 4.0.6 post in the PTR Forums:

Main Gauche (Mastery) now provides a chance to deal an attack for 75% of main-hand damage. This attack can trigger Combat Potency.

Please delete to consolidate as necessary.

A new meta gem named Agile Shadowspirit Diamond (Agility/3% critical damage) will likely be added next patch. The recipe will be a random world drop from any cataclysm creature and will require 3 red gems to activate. Link to post here.

Patch 4.0.6 - PTR Build 13482 MMO-Champion



Combat

* Vitality now increases your Attack Power by 25%, up from 20%.
* Restless Blades now also affects Redirect.


Subtlety

* Preparation no longer affects Evasion
* Sinister Calling now increases total Agility by 30%, up from 25%. Now increases the percentage damage bonus of Backstab and Hemorrhage by an additional 40%, up from 25%.
* Find Weakness now causes all your attacks to bypass 35/70% of that enemy's armor, up from 25/50%.
* Sanguinary Vein now also gives your Bleed effects a 50/100% chance to not break your Gouge.

Some additional datamined changes:


The days of Leatherworkers Uber Alles are at an end it seems.

And yet another buff for Combat. Between the Mastery changes and the addition of Redirect to Restless Blades, Combat is shaping up to be very strong in 4.0.6. Restless Blades should allow you to redirect anytime you have an insight level worth moving - 3 finishers brings the CD down by ~30 seconds - it takes about 20-25 seconds to get 3 finishers off, minimum, and that's about how long it takes to build to Deep Insight. If we're swapping targets more often than that, odds are we should be relying on Blade Flurry instead anyway.

Concerning the leatherworking part of your post, don't you think this could only be one new enchantement ?

For the buff on MG, are we sure the potency proc is kept along with the 100% MH damage ?

I'm currently hitting a dummy on the PTR with my faithful wildflowers in offhand, have 35 MG procs and 0 CP procs seems they might of removed it.