From here: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 1)

• Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.
• Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.
• Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.
• Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.
• Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
• Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.

RIP Fist/Sword.. fine with me though. I secretly hoped they'd make Killing Spree 1m cooldown because it was so fun with that bugged glyph =/ but not very realistic.

The HFB change is interesting and not really 100% clear. I'm curious if there is still a duration on it.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> GC, Questions about Rogue Preview notes

Just to confirm.

Wow, are they so out of touch that they think we're speccing HfB for PvP burst?

Wording is a little awkward if it's a debuff applied to the target or what. I think what he meant was it'll no longer be a "freebie" self-buff and be conditionally activated, but it's not certain of course. Maybe an invisible aura effect like the old Expose Weakness for Surv hunters? Definitely makes a big difference for AoE.

Keep in mind that the patch notes are probably far from finished and we should still see many tweaks and adjusts; give it some time before getting to hasty conclusions.

Not sure what they are trying to accomplish here with HfB. Still something to press, no info on the timer, no info on whether it cancels if the victim stops bleeding, kinda junk for farming PvE where you just keep HfB/SnD up without really restealthing. Also, I imagine you can no longer clean off your own bleeds?

Killing Spree, so no more ninja storm? Or is it buffed by 20% during the ninja storm? Might have to break out the old maces again combined with lightning reflexes.

Since this discussion has moved here I though I'd (re)post my own thoughts in the right discussion.

I get the feeling that rogue DPS in PvE is headed toward the "better if someone else armor debuffs" "better if someone else poisons" and "better if someone else bleeds".

Ie, a while back there was talk about cases where IP/IP was better than IP/DP if you could get the hunter to debuff the target with poisons for you. Looks like Blizz is taking this idea further. It's an interesting way to keep PvP damage low while buffing PvE; I suspect we'll see this continued elsewhere for us when more is revealed.

Still crossing my fingers for changes to Expose Armor.

Anyone got any numbers on the amount of haste in mace spec?

GC clarifying the KS note. The way it's worded leads me to believe there might be a mechanic change, perhaps allowing the use of specials?

Edit I mean the wording of the patch note, not GC's statement on it.

Clarified by Ghostcrawler MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Logic behind the Killing Spree change? : buffs 20% during the ninja storm.

I can't imagine that a mutilate rogue will pick up LR. You would have to sacrifice HfB, Opportunity, or Relentless Strikes to find the points for it. It seems to be a buff solely for combat rogues.

Since it's not a self buff, perhaps it's a debuff on the target who must be bleeding to activate it. So priority will be to keep S&D up and Rupture (which is already in the mix). I'm guessing the duration is the same but that the penalty for having it drop off is far less severe as long as you can keep a rupture up, or a druid or warrior has a bleed effect on your target. It will still cost energy to renew it, so no major energy savings there but an additional 6% damage from the way it is now.

I don't really have any issues with HfB dropping off now, the damage boost is nice but with this change I have to prioritise rupture uptime as well. Not sure if it's going to be easier or harder.

Slice and Dice up
Rupture up
HfB up

I'm going to be watching all three tick down.

As it stands I'm watching S&D < 12 seconds and rupturing if HfB doesnt need refreshing, I'm not really watching rupture uptime, just using it when the other two don't need to be refreshed.

Ye Furien, the thing is that all other bleeds will count for HfB purposes, and if you have ANY warrior, it shouldn't be too hard to find a bleed. Let alone a feral druid.

Well, my initial comment is that how this works out in practice is going to depend a lot on the details. If HFB works out to be a straight 15% DPS boost in PvE, that's basically a 6% buff over current - perhaps a bit more, depending on what the energy cost looks like. Meanwhile, Combat is getting 10% haste (sort of - more on this in a minute), which, is probably an overall buff of comparable magnitude (~6%), plus some improved cooldowns - KSp and AR. So depending on *how much* they're reducing the AR cooldown, and the exact details of new HFB, Combat could gain anywhere between 1 and 5% on Mutilate... which, depending on how they do at addressing some of the other issues and what itemization looks like in the next patch, may or may not work out about right. It's too early to say for sure.

I would assume they're going to buff Mace Spec to be competitive to the other weapon specializations, but, again, without exact numbers, it's hard to say for sure.

Now, all that said: this is certainly an early drop, and there are certainly more changes coming, but in terms of immediate issues that spring to mind:

First, Combat is even more overcrowded than it already is. Mixed-weapon builds already can't take every DPS talent in the tree, and we're getting another 3 points of DPS talents, such that even single-weapon builds only have 1 point free, and mixed-weapon builds now are over by 4. Now, it could be that they're trying to force us out of mixed-weapon builds to make it easier for them to balance. Or perhaps they're planning on merging talents elsewhere - I don't know. But it is something to watch.

It also seems to me that 10% haste for 3 talent points - that also gives dodge, which isn't precisely uselss - is a pretty powerful talent relative to a lot of what's out there. Unless I quite miss my guess, it's going to prove to be one of the strongest talents out there on a point for point basis - on a par if not superior to things like Relentless Attacks and DW Spec. I wouldn't totally dismiss the notion of Mutilate builds going 51/18/2 - it's not at all clear that such would be inferior (though we'd need to run the numbers to be sure). And it does seem to be a bit of a break from their typical model where 1 talent point ~= 1% DPS. So that strikes me as a likely candidate for some tweaking.

I'd also note that I'm not sure the increased cooldown-reliance of Combat is necessarily a good thing. Like, for pure average-case DPS, it will be fine, but I suspect the heavy reliance on burst cooldowns is going to make combat rogues very good for some fights and very bad for others, which isn't precisely ideal either. For, say, Patchwerk, it doesn't matter so much - but there are fights where it would.

Also note that there's still a few conspicuous omissions - little done to increase the value of haste (as they've asserted), little done to address the value of ArPen (likewise), nothing done re: the cost of Master Poisoner, and nothing done with debuff application as Mutilate. Thus, I think we can expect fairly significant additional changes, and until we see all of them it's going to be hard to get a feeling for what the whole picture looks like.

I am not sure if I like this part - I am in a 10-man raiding guild and we can't always bring a hunter to the raid, and we don't even have a hunter in the guild. One class shouldn't be "dependant" on other classes, imo.

And we wouldn't be, even in the case presented. You could still use your own sticky poisons -- having a hunter do it for you would make you better; not having a hunter do it for you wouldn't make you useless.

I'm guessing its still a self buff but more in the way off deathknight's runestrike where it can only be used if it meets the criteria. I do see trouble with the way hunger for blood will be in heroics and for soloing. Unless we open with garrote everytime there really won't be a way to keep it up while soloing or in heroics especially if it drops when the bleed fades.

I think one of the ideas behind the new HfB might be that it isn't really used on trash, or while soloing. I know I don't use Rupture while soloing. I kept HfB up before all the time, but that's because I have developed a nervous twitch from refreshing it every 30 seconds for the last three months.

It might be intended to lower our AoE DPS on short AoE trash - which is insane right now, if you haven't noticed. Also, it makes it harder to use in PvP, buffs our DPS some, and shouldn't be any harder to keep up than before. All that said, there is still a lot of information missing.

Well, I may not be interpreting this correctly, but if we assume HfB becomes a useable buff once target is poisoned, has a 30 sec duration, and costs 30 Energy, it will obviously reduce burst damage, as most of us will use garrote as opener, then HfB, SnD and then go to work. The start of the fight will be a time of "get the buffs up" even more than it already is. I admit Ambushing clothies in BGs is alot of fun, but it is hardly a valid point to nerf HfB Burst damage for Arenas. Who in their right mind would specc HfB for serious PvP ? It does seem as the "remove bleed effect on you" has to go, unless you can pop HfB from a bleed on yourself AND remove it at the same time.

Furthermore, I dont see how the "user friendliness" or how this is supposed to reduce the whining about how hard it is to keep HfB running smoothly and not drop off between mobs etc, but this depends on how the new HfB is modelled.

Id also like to know if the 15% damage increase works only on the mob with the bleed effect or if it is a buff you get for 30 seconds after being in melee range using the ability of a bleeding mob.

Like on Sartharion, where there is some ToTT / enrage assistance on AoE tank(s), using Anesthetic poison etc, or on trash. Losing 9/15% damage on your FoK spam is quite a blow to overall damage done (Maybe important for those who care).

Combat looks very strong with these buffs. Thankfully I have capped expertise from gear, so after some min/maxing around gear to reach exactly 19 expertise, taking 1/2 Weapon expertise, if the talent tree looks equal to now, Ill have 0 filler with a one-weapon specialization. If you went Fist/sword, the time to farm webbed death is now.

If it's still a self buff my guess is it will work for all targets. I think their idea wasn't to make HfB easier to keep up but instead make it less penalising when it does drop. Instead of having to us 60 energy and 3 GCD you can now get it back up for 30 energy and 1 GCD.

it may work like savage combat where it is automaticly put on the target when there is a rogue bleed. we do have awhile before the patch hits ptr so we'll have to wait and see