As far as Imp SnD goes: There's going to be a pretty big energy expenditure on Hunger for Blood. I think Imp SnD will still be an important talent as long as Hunger for Blood exists and bosses aren't spewing raid-wide bleeds.

Assuming HfB is 30 energy every 10 seconds, and Focused Attacks is 1 energy/sec, you're getting 110 energy/10 sec. And 221 every 21 seconds, or 330 every 30 seconds. Now you'll need to do 2.1 HfBs for the 21-second cycle, and 3 for the 30-second cycle.

A 21-second cycle leaves you with 221-2.1*30 = 158 energy for the cycle.

A 30-second cycle leaves you with 330-90 = 240 energy for the cycle.

In the former case, you have enough energy to do 2 Mutilates, 1 finisher at 10 energy (Evisc/Envenom) and finisher(s) at 28 energy per cycle -- essentially, using this setup, you'll be able to use *only* one Mutilate to build CPs per finisher, unless you get lucky and proc Relentless Strikes 4 times in a row, allowing you to use an additional Mutilate in your next cycle. That scenario seems highly unlikely, however, as you'll be much more likely using that energy to cover multiple non-procs of RS.

In the latter case you have enough energy to do 3 Mutilates, 1 finisher at 10 energy (Evisc/Envenom) and 50 left over. This will probably end up resulting in being able to do an additional Mutilate every once in a while.

Something that is striking me as odd with Fan of Knives is... it seems to be totally working like Dragon's Breath. It feels counter-intuitive as a rogue to hit an offensive ability and have ... nothing happen, because your current target was not in the 8y range of the ability.

It's bit off-topic, but I've recently seen a WotLK fight that favours melee a lot:

It's the second boss in Oculus. He stands on a circular platform with maybe 50y diameter and is mostly untanked.
He runs around for ~10-15 yards, turns towards a side (randomly it seemed) and casts a frontal arc AoE with 3s cast time or so.

Basically, everyone runs after him and tries to stand just behind his centre to avoid the AoE while still doing damage.
Melee can damage him on the run, while casters have to to resort to instant casts for a big part of the fight. Hunters with their deadzone are probably handicapped most since you want to stay as close to the boss as you can to chase him when he moves after his cast and get to the next safe spot in time.


It's not to whine or complain, I found the fight pretty funny.
It's just to show that fights can be designed to favour melee over ranged.

It requires some very out-of-the box design though. Just thought I'd let you know, as a heads-up

I actually thought this was one of the better (minor) ideas i have read. I made a post on the suggestions forums as well as the WotLK forums, obviously quoting you and giving you the credit. But non the less, you can read peoples feedback.

WoW Forums -> Sap Change for WotLK

I thought they wanted to make Relentless Strikes MORE attainable. They just made us waste 4 more points to get the same effect.

Combat is getting some serious pvp love, too. Evasion = retaliation and on a shorter cooldown! 2% physical damage increase if poisoned deep in the tree, I doubt this will stack with the warrior equivalent.

Assassination continues to get buffed even more. Hunger for blood buff is VERY nice, definitely worth getting over blade flurry now for a raid build.

Relentless strikes change makes me confused and pissed at the same time though.

Yeah, at first sight, the RS change looks horrible, but with the Serrated Blades change, I don't think it will end up being that bad, at least for Combat. We really need to wait for updated talent calculators though so we can get a good look at all of the changes.

General
- Cloak of Shadows cooldown changed to 1.5 min.
Well, I guess undoing their own silly nerfs can't be called buffing. It does reduce the impact on PvE, but its still a nerf to the ability in general.

- Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yds, cast time reduced to 1 sec, now requires stealth.
Well, silly change again. The range is great, the stealth requirement is not. Overall buff.

- (NEW – Level 75) Tricks of the Trade: The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time. 30 sec cooldown.
We knew of this for quite some time, and so far it proves to be exactly what we expected it to be.

Assassination
- Vigor moved to Tier 3.
I suppose to replace Relentless strikes, I guess nobody will take it now.

- Relentless Strikes moved to Subtlety Tier 1, made 5 ranks for 4/8/12/16/20% chance.
How utterly disappointing and discouraging! A supposed "class defining" change gets a huge nerf. First of all the Sub tree for this talent is completely inappropriate. Changing the talent to 5Pt is even worse.

- Murder moved to Tier 6, now increases damage by 2/4%.
Phew, just what the Assassination tree needs, more High Tier tree bloating! Wee...

- (NEW – Tier 7) Overkill: Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cost 10 less energy.
I guess this can find *some* use, however note that you can't Vanish all that much once or twice, MAX three times through a boss fight. Some marginal benefit.

- Focused Attacks and Turn the Tables have swapped locations.
Good.

- Master Poisoner moved to Tier 9, no longer increases chance to hit with poison attacks, now increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 1/2/3% and reduces the duration of all Poison effects applied to you by 17/34/50%. (This does not stack with the Paladin talent Heart of the Crusader.)
I don't want utility! I want to do dps, not get some silly not stacking buff.

- Hunger for Blood duration increased to 30 seconds.
Good change, however the facts are still unchanged that It is still a *bit* awkward to use, however the DpE of HfB has increased immensely due to this...

Combat
- Precision now also increases chance to hit with poison attacks by 1/2/3/4/5%.
Woot, a completely useless talent change for High end PvE where you always have over 17% Hit chance...

- Nerves of Steel will now reduce damage taken while stunned or feared by 15/30% rather than reducing duration.
I like this, but its useless... Why not move this to the sub tree..

- Improved Sprint moved to Tier 4.
This change from what I can see, forces Combat to take 2 filler talents *worse* then Imp. Sprint. So, a bigger nerf then predicted...

- Blade Twisting now slows movement speed by 70%.
Yey, irremovable Crippling poison for Combat rogues! We want more PvP utility, honest! Not like *anyone* is going to take it.

- Mace Specialization now ignores 3/6/9/12/15% of target’s armor.
As predicted, 15% seems a bit low if you ask me, a question arises, what happens to the *old* bonuses? Mace Stun got removed, but what about the 10% extra Critical damage?

- Throwing Specialization now also has a chance to interrupt target when Fan of Knives is used.
Useless much?

- Unfair Advantage: Whenever you dodge an attack you strike back for 50/100% of your main hand weapon’s damage.
Hooray, tanking rogues got a Huge TpS boost, hurray?

- Stay of Execution removed, replaced with Blood Poisoning.
- (NEW – Tier 9) Blood Poisoning: All physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 1/2%.
Hmm, another *mirror* buff we don't want! BF all over again!

- Prey on the Weak now increases critical strike damage of all attacks.
Woot! How... how could the blizz developers resist their urge to hit it with a nerf bat? I think they accidentally hit it with a buff bat... a Big, BIG, HUGE buff bat!

- Killing Spree is the new name for Murder Spree and should be working much better very soon.
O.K.

Subtlety
- Shadowstep will no longer be usable while rooted.
WoW more disappointments... We ask for ShS to remove roots, and they do the opposite.

- Elusiveness moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.
Urm... so now we have to choose between a TON of *solid/good* PvE/PvP talents in the low sub tree... Bloated anyone?
EdIT: Aha, after reading the below changes it is noted that it is not bloated, much nicer overall.

- Premeditation cooldown reduced to 20 sec.
I guess it is a buff, a useless one, but a buff nonetheless.

- Preparation no longer refreshes the cooldown to Premeditation.
O.K. Not like Premed is AR...

- Master of Deception reduced to 3 ranks.
Nice!

- Opportunity reduces to 2 ranks for 10/20%.
Hmm, also nice, I guess Mutilate love? How will the "from behind" part of Opportunity relate to Mutilate is still unknown though.

- Camouflage reduced to 3 ranks for 5/10/15% speed and 2/4/6 sec off the cooldown of Stealth.
Lovely.

- Initiative moved to Tier 4, increased to 33/66/100% chance.
Hmm, they really *did* do something good to the sub tree. Much nicer spread of talents in the Low Tier now.

- Improved Ambush moved to Tier 4, reduced to 2 ranks for 25/50%.
Is it just me, or someone RLY likes 2-3 point talents?

- Serrated Blades moved to Tier 3.
Nice! Easier for PvP Mutilate specs to reach it.

- Wrongfully Accused replaced with Filthy Tricks.
Wrongfully Accused was seriously OP in the PvP segment of the game, and it did need a tune, however it was a new and innovative talent, why remove it?

- (NEW – Tier 9) Filthy Tricks: Reduces the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 sec.
I don't think this will be taken all that much... Actually I don't think this will be taken at all.

- Slaughter from the Shadows now also reduces the energy cost of your Hemorrhage ability by 1/2/3/4/5.
Nice change, however people who go so far till Slaughter from the Shadows will not use Hemo as their main attack...

- Shadow Dance redesigned, now allows the use of Sap, Garrote, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket and Disarm Trap regardless of being stealthed. Those abilities all gain a cooldown of 2 sec. Lasts 10 sec.
Woot I am gonna spamm 35energy Ambushes!


Overall very disappointing changes. Some good( HfB, Prey on the Weak) A LOT of nerfs, and stupid changes though.

Hm, so combat gets Blood Frenzy. I can't say it's at all surprising that Rogues are getting the debuff, but the positioning of it *is* a surprise to me at least. Does Blizzard see Assassination as the primary raid DPS tree for WotLK with Combat as the support DPS tree, or is it once again "Combat or GTFO" for serious raiding?

One a brighter note, with it's effective energy cost cut by a factor of 3, HfB is looking really nice. One small question: is Overkill, which is clearly primarily a PvP talent, a requirement for Mutilate? Mut build would seem to require at least 5 points in combat and 7 in Subtlety, which means Dagger spec can't be maxed out. In general, deep Assassination has several talents whose relative strengths aren't clear to me at all.

Thoughts:
* The disarm trap change is presumably a pretty nice tweak for PvP; but I suspect traps will still be a minor part at best of PvE encounters.
* Relentless Strikes is now T1 subtlety, and 5 points. Well, being T1 is nice, but having to spend 5 points is pretty annoying. I suspect it still works out to be worth taking for almost all builds; we'll have to see if we can come up with any viable builds without it. I'm still hoping they'll change their mind and make it trained at some point.
* Murder is now a fairly essential part of all Assassination builds, but no longer useful as filler for the early parts of that tree.
* Overkill is basically only interesting in PvP, though I guess it lets us ramp up faster in PvE.
* I'm not sure the Focused Attacks / Turn the Tables swap really changes anything - I suspect Assassination rogues still take both, and no one else takes either.
* Master Poisoner is now a deeper-in-the-tree, not-as-good version of Malice. I'm underwhelmed. Edit: Oh, raid buff. Nevermind. Pretty good, then.
* Hunger for Blood can be kept up with 1/3 as much energy expenditure, which makes it a *lot* better. Between this and the CttC change, 51/x/x build are suddenly much more interesting; however, as the first 15 points in Combat and the first 7 in Subtlety are both fairly important for such builds as well, we'll have to run some numbers to see which 2 points get dropped. My guess is 2 points of Close Quarters Combat, yielding 51/13/7
* Nerves of Steel is now less useful for PvE, and... differently useful for PvP, but I'm pretty sure it's a net nerf. I suspect this is mostly designed to make it more of a PvP ability and less of a PvE one.
* Mace Spec is... interesting. It's now much better against high-armor targets than it is against low-armor targets. It's also going to be interesting to see if it applies before or after other ArPen effects; as 15% of 7700 is a lot more than 15% of (7700 - 2600 (sunders) - 800 (CoR) - any other ArPen you may have). If it applies before, Mace Spec is probably the top DPS spec now; if it applies after, I suspect it's still the weakest of the 3 SS Weapon specs.
* If Throwing Spec gives the same interrupt chance for FoK as it does for Deadly Throw, rogues now can get an AoE silence on a 30 sec cooldown, which is pretty nifty for PvP and almost useless in PvE. It also means they're unlikely to reduce the cooldown on FoK, which is a bit disappointing.
* Blood Poisoning. It's nice to have another damage talent in high-end combat, and it's reasonably flavorful, but it's certainly nothing you'll ever build your spec around - it's fillter on the way to 51 points, and not much else. Edit: Oh, it's raid damage, not just your damage. Okay, much more interesting, then.
* The Prey on the Weak change increases it's damage benefit by roughly 50%. On fights where you don't take much damage, this is definitely pretty good. Again, nice to have more damage talents in high-end combat.
* Opportunity down to 2 points helps mitigate the need to pay for Relentless Strikes in early Subtlety, and thus reduces the talent crunch on Mutilate builds. As previously noted, 51/13/7 seems reasonable.
* Initiative is still useless in PvE
* Serrated Blades is much more accessible; I suspect we start seeing non-Hemo builds dip into Subtlety. 7/51/13 seems potentially worth considering for Combat.
* Filthy Tricks reduces Tricks of the Trade to 20 sec cool. I'm sure there's a problem with this, but I'm not sure what it might be.
* Slaughter from the Shadows increases the viability of a deep-sub Hemo builds. But I'm still not convinced such things are any good - the rest of the tree is still somewhat weak.
* The new Shadow Dance is certainly much better than the old; I imagine this leads to all sorts of fun for PvP, and it's very interesting for PvE as well; if needed, you can use it to get extra stuns and silences; if not, a few extra ambushes every fight certainly doesn't hurt. Though again, I'm worried that the Subtlety tree is still too weak to warrant going that deep.

So, lets think about this for a minute. As noted, 51/13/7 seems pretty interesting as a Mutilate build; the Combat Swords/Fists/Maces build would appear to be something like 7/51/13 (or perhaps 15/51/5; we'll have to see how Lethality stacks up with Serrated Blades. Combat daggers really wants Lethality and Opportunity, hence can't reach the end of Combat; my guess is that that build looks something like 15/49/7 or 15/43/13. In terms of deep Sub builds... well, a deep-sub Backstab based build still has issues due to wanting 15 points in both Assassination and Combat. A deep-sub Hemo build, however, is probably achievable - 5/15/51 comes to mind. Also potentially of interest are Tri-spec hemo builds, which look something like 5/40/21+5 (meaning they should think about adding Hemo to Surprise Attacks).

The immediate thing that occurs to me that all of these builds are taking the first 5 points in assassination, the first 10+ in combat, and the first 5 in subtlety, which I'm not sure is entirely a good thing... though it's not immediately clear to me how to fix it, either.

Assassination

- Murder buff is pretty significant. Remains to be seen if they keep the mob type restrictions (I assume they won't, quote is ambiguous though)
- Vigor is not all that helpful in Tier 3, and the new 31-point talent is pretty useless from a PvE perspective.
- Can't see the Turn the Tables/Focused Attacks swap changing much
- Master Poisoner: I assume this only works for your poisons. A decent talent, although a slight hit to Envenom viability. It'll probably be up almost all the time.
- Hunger For Blood change nets you 60 extra energy/30 seconds, or one additional Mutilate per 30 seconds. On top of that you'd probably end up turning a 3-4 point finisher into a 5-pointer.

Combat

- I don't really understand the Deep Combat changes. Unfair Advantage becomes useless once again, Stay of Execution's bonus (for Prey on the Weak) is gone as well, and we get, essentially, Blood Frenzy?
- Prey on the Weak got approximately a 50% buff to the talent itself, but it's pretty fight dependent now. Any fight where you're taking a lot of damage (like Felmyst or Twins) you're going to have reduced uptime since Stay of Execution doesn't exist anymore. Overall this will be a buff, how big will depend on your healers and the fight.

Subtlety

- So we now have, in Tier 1, Opportunity (pretty much required for any dagger build) and Relentless Strikes (required for any build). Serrated Blades is a pretty good talent and is now in Tier 3. This makes things relatively interesting as far as Mutilate goes, if indeed 51/5+y/7+x is optimal, since both early Combat (if the Dual Wield Spec change goes through) and early Subtlety look quite enticing.
- Slaughter from Shadows still is much better for Backstab than Hemo. Hemo got ~ a 14% reduction in energy cost, Backstab costs 25% less.

I think I see a problem on the horizon related to "Master Poisoner".
Lets say you have 1 Combat Rogue keeping Wounding up, and 1 Mutilate rogue keeping Wounding up.

One of these 2 gets the first debuff, but what happens to the other one's raid buff...
So its either 2% dmg or 3% crit... Please note though that we have 2 poisons now, so this shouldn't happen.