It's not that I don't agree with you about symbiosis. It's just that I don't see rogues getting given the ability unless there's a very gimmicky mechanic that we can handle. Especially in 10mans where you have maybe 1-2 druids in the entire raid.

Consider that if the druid uses symbiosis on the tank, the tank gets another tanking cooldown. Which makes it unlikely that said tank will die, so there's no point in giving us the ability to offtank.

That being said, in 25mans you might get symbiosis from a boomkin since they'd get Cloak, which is generally fantastic, but again that would depend on the encounter.

That being said, symbiosis has some interesting possibilities for 5mans/challenge modes, so we'll see.

From MMO-C tutorial style things from the spell book.

ROGUE_COMBAT_CORE_ABILITY_1 - Use when you have 40 Energy to build 1 combo point. Primary combo point builder.
ROGUE_COMBAT_CORE_ABILITY_2 - Keep applied to the target.
ROGUE_COMBAT_CORE_ABILITY_3 - Keep applied to yourself when you have 5 combo points.
ROGUE_COMBAT_CORE_ABILITY_4 - Use for damage when you have 5 combo points. Primary finishing move.

ROGUE_SUB_CORE_ABILITY_1 - Use when you are behind your target to build 1 combo point. Primary combo point builder.
ROGUE_SUB_CORE_ABILITY_2 - Use to build 1 combo point when you can't get behind your target.
ROGUE_SUB_CORE_ABILITY_3 - Keep applied to the target when you have 5 combo points.
ROGUE_SUB_CORE_ABILITY_4 - Keep applied to yourself when you have 5 combo points.
ROGUE_SUB_CORE_ABILITY_5 - Use for damage when you have 5 combo points. Primary finishing move.

Based on how I'm reading this combat isn't designed to keep up rupture. Whether this is how things actually work is up in the air but ruptureless combat does appear to be the design intent.

I'm not sure it would be an advantage to trade Cloak for a spell that we use only if the tank is dead and we are already on the way to a wipe. Even then, we are usually just below the tank in the aggro list and we can use our Evasion skill to stay alive if something happens.

I cannot think of a single fight in the current content where it would be a good trade of skill, but who knows what will happen in Pandaria.

You don't lose the spell that the druid gains. If they use Symbiosis on you, the balance druid gains Cloak; we get Growl, but still have cloak.

I just don't think there's likely to be a fight where you only need an offtank every 3 minutes.

As Fae mentioned it'd be more useful in a 10 man, in place of a feral cat/bear swapping tank, but it does depend on the current fights,

For Cata I think on Raggy Heroic it'd be a good trade off, you gain a class that can taunt in P4 incase you mess up the trapping and have to kite him for a bit, in return the Boomkin gets CLOS, which is useful in every phase to mitigate the damage. I have to mention that from your wording, you imply we lose Cloak, we don't they gain it, and we gain the taunt.

well, it kind of was the case with the nefarian skeleton adds in phase one in the T11 fight, where there had to be an offtank, who wasn't needed in P3 anymore, so easiest either a dd-warrior with shield-swap and defstance, blood-dk with blood presence or a feral who switches into bear for that time - similar case would also fit for a taunting rogue, just designing for a shorter period because of the 30sek. symbiose-effect (and after that, the dmg-reduction effect also wears off, which cuts the rogues to shreds !)


concerning the core-abilities: here also for assassination (mmo-c):

ROGUE_ASS_CORE_ABILITY_1 - Use when you have 55 Energy to build 2 combo points. Primary combo point builder.
ROGUE_ASS_CORE_ABILITY_2 - Keep applied to the target when you have 5 combo points.
ROGUE_ASS_CORE_ABILITY_3 - Keep applied to yourself when you have 5 combo points.
ROGUE_ASS_CORE_ABILITY_4 - Use for damage when you have 5 combo points. Primary finishing move.
ROGUE_ASS_CORE_ABILITY_5 - Use when your target is below 35% health or when Blindside occurs to generate 1 combo point.


in general, I welcome the core-ability-description for the classes a lot, that should help a lot reducing the "I don't do damage - help me"-threads in several forums and give the new/unknowing/casual-people a good idea, how and when they should use these skills.

Just because they're dealing shadow damage doesn't necessarily mean that your attacks will be using the spell hit cap under Shadow Blades (Envenom doesn't either). Nevertheless, with the new spell hit/exp system capping the spell hit cap is probably going to end up the default choice anyway.

But it might also be confusing. What if using SnD at whatever combo points available when it runs out (Basically 1cp is worth more than clipping). Then the tooltip will be wrong. Will blizzard always be up to date with changing the tooltips based on different gear and scalings?

I guess it will be moot if the difference is quite minor. But in the end, it feels like something that might feel smart to implement but if left unmaintained it might hinder new players more than it helps them because they feed that they do not need to seek out more information than provided.



Edit:

Seems some new changes in this batch:

The HaT change is a bit unfortunate, but in the end it was quite frustrating. The Sanguinary Vein is kinda a buff single target, but will nerf AoE damage a bit due no ruptures or garrotes on them, might make us want to open with garrote at the start of the fight.

The Cheap Shot glyph must be either an error (Increasing duration to 5 sec instead of by 5 sec) or just work in PvE. It's a nice leveling glyph, but I VERY much doubt they give us a 9 sec stun pretty much on demand, esp for PvP

Subtlety just got a nerf to it's AOE, as Sanguinary Vein won't work off of Crimson Tempest:
Also looks like the Hemo bleed won't count, so they'll need Rupture in their rotation still.

I agree, making Sanguinary Vein not count Hemo will make target swapping horrible for sub rogues. And moving energetic recovery to slice & dice is puzzling. The occasional use of hemo and the use of recuperate was what differentiated sub from the other two specs, with these two changes, they just made all 3 spec play exactly the same. Keep S&D and Rupture up and use Evis/Envenom otherwise.

Warlocks get 3 specs that play quite differently, yet they are making all 3 rogues spec play exactly the same, it boggles my mind. We literally press the exact same buttons in all 3 specs, a cp generator (Mut/SS/BS), s&d, rupture, evis, and a CD (Vendetta/AR/SD).

Sometimes it makes me wonder if they had intended the rogue class to be just a hunters's melee spec.