Mists of Pandaria: All Specs
 

Please use this thread to discuss Rogues in the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Avoid excessive wish-listing and whining. Constructive criticism is fine. Make sure you are making a useful post. "I like X" is not useful. "I like X because it allows this or that" is useful. Common sense applies, if you're not sure feel free to PM a moderator or administrator. Thanks.

Has anyone put in any serious thought on how our choice between Vendetta and KS will turn out as they stand right now? Will it vary between specs?

Most likely it will vary between fights

"We want players to be able to change their talent build independently of their specialization, and without visiting a class trainer. This new system is designed to provide players with hundreds of distinct and meaningful options for tailoring their character’s gameplay to their specific desires and situation."

How I read that is we can change individual talent choices on the fly, outside of combat of course, though there may be some sort of cool down associated with it.

So if there is a fight where we stay full on one target or the boss is often out of melee range we would pick Vendetta, if there is a fight where we need to avoid mechanics or there is a very mobile boss we would pick KS, and if there was a fight where it would be helpful to be able to spam cheap shot, like for Valkyries, we would pick shadow dance.

Actually now that I think about it, assuming I am interpreting the ability to change specs correctly, there will be many talent setups which would work very well together in certain situations. Some choices would be obvious, like for example if using shadow step on a boss kills you but you need mobility you would likely prefer burst of speed or prep. For a more advanced choice you could have deadly throw at 30 and KS at 90 for a moving boss where you would alternate between each ability for the 5 second period. If you have multiple adds which do a lot of damage and the fight is not a dps race you could pick Shadow dance at 90 and Nerve Strike at 30 so you could stun 3-4 of them and cut their damage in half when they get out of the stun. Your normal spec might use Night Stalker at 15 and Shadow Step at 60 but if the fight does not require mobility you could switch to Prep and Subterfuge.

Sub would still want shadow dance instead of KS/Vendetta if Find Weakness is gonna be in the game.

I feel like these changes are gonna buff rogue utility more than the other classes. We've always had a ton of awesome talents that were out of reach in a PvE spec like Cheat Death, Prep and Shadowstep. The way the talents are set up right now we could get 2 out of those 3 and still be a max DPS spec. That's gonna be huge for our mobility and all around utility.

I also saw them talking (in the Q&A part) about putting more fights in the game that are gonna require stuns and poisons. If they stick to that rogues are gonna be the class to be next expansion.

Note that the description of both Killing Spree and Vendetta have completely changed, so basing the choice on current functionality is invalid. Killing Spree seems a bit clunky in implementation but will offer instant access to a few 5-point finishers, Shadow Dance didn't really change, and Vendetta offers us a way to do a combo-point generating range attack.

Edit: for clarification, the strike Vendetta enables is new, and can also be used in melee.

Disregarding the random teleportation stuff, the new killing spree looks like the proc from our upcoming legendary daggers - giving us five instant combo points for a finisher. However, the new wording suggests that it will strike each target only once (I assume with MH weapon only), and there's no mention of a damage buff while it's active. In comparison to the current implementation, it would probably still be an overall buff, with 3 free finishers and (for combat) reduced cooldowns. I don't really see it being too good for assassination, though, mainly due to clipped envenoms.

Killing Spree
 

The Killing Spree tooltip sounds a bit misleading yet. I wonder if it applies a 5 combo point at the first KS usage only or each KS usage so we would go like KS > Finisher > KS > Finisher > ...

I believe it should be only a 5cp at the first usage only but.. Let's see.

My interpretation on KS' tooltip: We will use it, and we will be able to hit it again for 5 seconds before triggering the cooldown. Each time we hit it, we'll deal damage to a random enemy and get 5 combo points.

I don't like it. Unless the hit doesn't triggers the GCD we won't be using it five times along with a finisher. If it does not trigger the GCD we will have to macro it to something like Eviscerate and mash buttons like crazy to get 5 hits. Latency would make this talent not worth it if the other two are similar in power.

I commented this on Aldriana’s cooldown blog but to restate some of it here, one thing I can certainly appreciate about the last tier of cooldowns is that all three require some attention rather than fire and forget (the way KS and Vendetta are currently). I am particularly interested in if Blizzard plans to apply this philosophy to other cooldowns such as AR and Cold Blood or at the very least “improve” them and maybe make them interactive as well. The removal of the DPS-aspect of Shadowstep is also a plus in my mind simply because the ability can be used for the sole purpose of utility.

Picking out abilities I think could afford a better design because I can not imagine very many people ever choosing them for PvE or PvP. First looking at Leeching Poison’s tier, Cheat Death does not sacrifice DPS to use and ideally happens when you need it. Improved Recuperate does sacrifice DPS (unless you have Energetic Recovery) but only when you need it. Dropping an entire poison for Leeching Poison to heal all the time regardless of need seems like a poor tradeoff for most of the current encounters (this of course could change). Paralytic Poison is in my mind “interesting”, at the moment it seems like once the 5th application has happened, the poison either continues to stun as the poison is refreshed or does the stack need to fall off? We already have to manage stun DR I am wary about another stun not to mention it sacrifices a poison as well; I think most will find a snare or a more durable gouge more useful (the other two talents of that tier).

This is pure speculation, but given that Leeching Poison and Paralytic Poison both appear to be player-cast spells requiring no consumable reagents, we may find that our other poisons are converted from consumable items into player spells like shaman weapon imbues.

That's what I thought when I first saw it too.

On the other topic, I think if Paralytic Poison shares DR with other stuns, it'll be pretty much useless. Seems like they are bringing mace spec back with it.

Honestly my expectation for the "poison" talents is that they will be an additional poison on top of our dps/utility poisons.

Otherwise we just won't use them except on very specific encounters. Blizzard has talked about how dps classes, when given the choice between utility and X% damage, will always take the damage option, so if leeching poison is instead of instand/deadly...well as I said, we just won't use it.

I also expect that paralytic poison will change. I ran an arms warrior in pvp with mace spec and Deep Thunder, and there's a reason why Blizzard took random stuns out of the game.

As to the current top tiers, I have trouble thinking of a time when Vendetta won't be the default choice. Looking at them you get the choice of:

1) Killing Spree: Hit KS, port to an enemy and generate 5cps. You can do this multiple times within 5 seconds of the initial activation.

So I read this as follows: Hit KS, Finisher, Hit KS, Finisher, Hit KS, Finisher. So basically Killing Spree gives you between 3-5 finishers depending on if its on the GCD.

2) Shadow Dance: No real changes from live

3) Vendetta: Which now not only gives you bonus damage to a target, it also lets you keep generating combo points if you have to be at range (which, combined with Deadly Throw means you could dps during air phases)

So the choice to me is between 5 full combo point finishers versus 20% damage for 15 seconds, with the added bonus of a ranged strike that might be competitive damage on its own.

Add in the randomness of Killing Spree, including the "and then you die" nature of its use on some fights, and barring encounter specific mechanics, Vendetta is the winner for me.

I don't think you want to give up the "20% increase to all damage" portion of the cool down merely to continue to damage during an air phase. Unless of course the air phase lasts more than 2 minutes and you literally have nothing else to do... If for some reason you have to be at range the CD is probably going to be best used the same way it is now: you save it until you can get back on target and you will want to time it to ensure you get full use.


The ranged attack strikes me as more of a PvP addition. For PvE it seems like more of a consolation prize than anything else. If you get terrible RNG and for some reason have to leave the boss right after you activate Vendetta (e.g. Countdown) then at least your cool down isn't completely wasted. Even then shortening it to 15 seconds will make it easier to plan in advance and avoid issues like that.

Killing Spree itself will still do damage, in addition to putting 5 combo points on the target. We don't yet know what kind of damage that strike will deal, so it's difficult to speculate on higher potential damage output. As far is it being random goes, hopefully they'll change that. That aspect isn't working now, so I don't really understand why they'd want to keep it in the future.