Oddly, it looks like the PTR actually went up with the supposed-to-not-be-there ability Hit and Run in the level-60 talent tier, just as had been datamined (and despite Ghostcrawler essentially confirming in a tweet that the idea had been scrapped). Cloak and Dagger, which is in the official patch preview notes, is apparently nowhere to be seen on the PTR at the moment.

Wavefunctionp has a quick video of H&R in action on his Youtube mawhozie.

The issue I'm having with that reply of his is the lack of a reference point. Apparently he/they believe BF to be too strong, but in what regard? Compared to the other rogue-specs? Compared to other melee-classes (Howling Blast - nuff said)? Other DPS in general?

Obviously they're trying to get all three specs in line on their singletarget damage, with SV and Vitality percentages being buffed slightly, but the major problem that both the playerbase aswell as blizzard acknowledged isn't the damage. It's that neither of the three specs is very fun to play, being rather punishing (rogue being the only class to date that has to deal with both their primary resources overcapping/expiring while also having extreme windows of "no button to hit for the next few seconds"), and now that BF is nerfed - and if the numbers stay that way basically not worth it at all - there is no ability whatsoever that distinguishes the specs from each other. After dropping the ball like that with MoP regarding our general gameplay, I didn't expect them to enhance our gaming exprience via a content patch, but declining the identities of the specs even further just seems... wrong.

The whole passive-damage situation still hasn't been touched either, even though it basically is just number crunching. Our single-target DPS still splits into 5 to 7 small (10-15% each) compartments while we only have direct control over 1 or 2 of them, our AoE still relies in spreading our poisons via Fan of Knives and our cleave, no matter how small or big its is, still is as simple as toggling an ability on or off. And this isn't fun at all. Why not give assassination a pestilence-like ability for our poisons with a second ability to blast the applied poisons for increased effect, like an AoE Stun with paralytic, AoE slow with crippling or simply having an AoE nature-damage damage burst? To me it's about the feeling of the class, and not just about the numbers, but maybe that's just me.

At least in PvP we're going to get some sweet new stuff that certainly will be interesting and fun to play with. One can only hope that they will use that as a foundation to increase on our core gameplay and maybe give each spec a distinguishable feel in the future.

edit: As far as combats AoE goes, it isn't completely abysmal. Building up to medium insight, keeping it for like 60 seconds by refreshing it with SS/RvS right before it expires and using only FoK/CT as other styles/finishers can produce somewhat decent numbers. Of course just hitting BF and using your singletarget rotation is almost equally or more efficient, depending on the amount of targets hit. At least the first variant involves a minimal amount of skill though.

I think you raise some valid points, but we've gotta keep in mind that we're in the middle of an expansion now. It's pretty remarkable as it is that we're seeing rogue changes on the table that are as massive in scope as what we appear to be getting -- one talent removed from the game entirely, another talent made baseline, two new talents added in (even if they are somewhat repackaging existing abilities), Blade Flurry eviscerated, significant PvP balance adjustments. The design team is really testing its "we're not comfortable making major adjustments mid-expansion" limits here. Though, on the flip side, there's arguably not a whole lot for them to lose by doing so, given how sharp the rogue population decline has been this expansion.

But I think a revisiting of the passive-vs.-active equations -- as well as the extent to which rogue AoE should be made viable across all specs -- is the kind of thing that needs to be dealt with in 6.0. I'm no theorycrafting wizbang like some of you in here are, but I'm pretty sure that adjusting the passive/active proportions and still ensuring proper balance -- not only between rogue specs, but between rogues and other classes, including in PvP -- is a far more daunting task than many of us would like to instinctively assume. You can't just nerf white attacks or poisons and buff specials, because none of those things exist in a vacuum; there's a synergy between elements of our damage that can get pretty nuanced, and that can also get screwed up right quick by getting too anxious about making changes for the sake of triage.

On the one hand, yes, a lot of our problems are more substantive than can easily be addressed mid-expansion; on the other hand, most of them have been around for an expansion or two already. its fine to say "they should fix this for 6.0", but for a lot of these issues, we said the same thing about 5.0 (and, in some cases, 4.0). So its absolutely fair to acknowledge that these are complicated problems that they're not going to fix with an afternoon of work; but its also fair to note that they've had years to work on most of these problems already and wonder when they're going to get around to fixing them.

I think in a lot of ways 5.2 is stuff they might have liked to get into 5.0, but for whatever reason didn't have time for. So as long as they're doing "5.0 cleanup work" I think its totally fair to discuss other things we might have liked to see make it into 5.0, just in case they have the time and inclination to work on them as well.

Shuriken Toss sure sounds interesting for dailies and stuff like that. Loving the change.

As far as not wanting to change stuff mid-expansion, I totally agree. I'm guessing it's also one of the main reasons why blizzard is trying to ramp up our dps via talents/abilities that increase our damage in general like Vitality/Sanguinary Veins, instead of trying to find ways to increase the portion of "active" dps, if you want to call it that. What bugs me though is what Aldriana pointed out already - it's not like the problems were encountering nowadays have suddenly appeared out of thin air with the Mists of Pandaria release.

As I already stated though, I'm really hoping for blizzard to take the really interesting changes they've brought to us with 5.2 as a foundation for future changes.

*EDITED*


Just went up on datamined PTR changes:

Talents

Increases movement speed by 70% for 4 sec and removes any movement-slowing effects. Does not break stealth. 30 Energy.
Cloak and Dagger (New) Your Ambush, Garrote, and Cheap Shot abilities can now be used from 30 yards away, and will cause you to appear behind your target.


Combat

Blade Flurry While active, your attacks strike an additional nearby opponent up to 4 additional nearby opponents for 25% of normal damage, but Energy regeneration is reduced by 20%.


Subtlety

Sanguinary Vein Increases the damage of your Rupture ability by 50% and causes you to deal 20% additional damage to targets afflicted by your Rupture, Garrote, or Crimson Tempest.

Just to clarify: Those are not patch notes, they're the latest batch of PTR build datamining notes from MMO-Champion. They lose a little in the translation if you copy-paste them like that without any formatting. (For instance, the datamined tooltip for Blade Flurry has removed the "an additional nearby opponent" text, making the new bit about "up to 4" make a lot more sense.)

Gonna edit this to add that of the changes listed above, only the Blade Flurry adjustment (to make it hit up to 4 nearby targets instead of just 1) is *new* new; the Cloak and Dagger thing suggests it's finally in the level-60 talent tier instead of Hit and Run, the Burst of Speed changes actually bring the ability in line with what was already in the official patch preview notes, and the Sanguinary Vein changes also similarly are just an execution of what was already in the official notes.

The imediate implications that I see are:

- The autoattack speed increase from AR increases the damages from SB (we can simplify SB as an autoattack with no glancing and mitigation from the armor). This 20% damage increase for SB is lost if you use AR and SB back to back.

- The GCD reduction to 0.8 second and double energy regen ensure a nearly optimal CP generation for the whole duration of SB. During the 12 seconds of SB we have 15 GCD with enough energy (that should be around 10-11 SS and 4-5 finishers). Around 10-11 CP are gained from SB. Without AR but with the 4P bonus from the T15 that is only 12 GCD at most so around 8-9 CP gained from SB (if we can assume that the 40% bonus allow us to make a full use of our damaging abilities during SB. If it is not the case the amount of CP gained will be even lower).

- If we have enough energy regen to be limited by our GCD for the duration of SB (with the bonus), the energy gain from the bonus will be around 180 energy per use. I hope this will offset the previous loss.

But in any case this bonus doesn't seems strong for the combat spec.

Not to mention the waste of restless blades finishers during AR with sb not on cd :/

A little confused on the new 2 set... does this mean that it effects JUST duration finishers e.g S&D, Rupture? If so... the benefit assassination will gain won't be much as it keeps s&d up automatically. As for the 4 set... it could lead to envenom clipping during SB, even with anticipation...

Perhaps it is their way of pushing people toward Sub in 5.2? I'd love to see some rough EP values between the specs based on those bonuses.

If it does effect envenom's buff duration as well, that would be sweet, but cause even more trouble for clipping envenom uptime with the 4pc as you said.