I'm of the opinion (and I made a post about it on the forums) that if they're going to nerf Overkill for PvP and buff it for PvE, they should actually turn it into a real cooldown ability. With this change it shares the same tier, cooldown period, and basic mechanics of Adrenaline Rush but the benefit between the two couldn't be more different.

The Assassination tree is really lacking in a good cooldown and even after this change, Vanish/Overkill will still be fairly marginal in it's benefit compared to most cooldowns. Bumping the regen rate up a bit, or extending the time period would go a long way to making it a good cooldown for PvE without having a significant effect on the change it makes to PvP.

I would prefer if they keep the new overkill and do somthing with Cold Blood. It is lacking in power now and the 3 min CD wont let it match up well with other abilitys/trinkets. There was a time when it was a powerfull talent but now its just somthing we have pick up to move down the tree.

Cold Blood was never a great talent, neither was Overkill. This new change won't do anything about the fact that in PvE Mutilate lacks CDs for burst phases like Heart of the Deconstructor or Yogg's brain compared to Combat. Blizzard already said that they want to change some things in the Assassination tree because they didn't like how HfB is brutally overpowered in value in its current state (+18% dmg. Glyphed for 1 talent point). So I really hope they find a way to give Mutilate a few CDs in the future without ruining PvP balance, but I don't think they will.

The re-thinking of HfB will require a re-thinking of the entire Assassination tree. It doesn't suffice to say "let's just add more cooldowns" for Mutilate since it is already a superior single-Murderable-target spec that simply does high sustained damage. If Blizzard implements potent, short cooldowns it will have to come at the sacrifice of Mutilate's sustained damage, not in addition to.

This raises another issue that we throw around a lot, and that hopefully would get examined (or removed, as I'd suggest), which is Murder itself. It's high time we got rid of this talent and functionality. It's just a remnant of an older game. All it does now is make it difficult to properly balance Mutilate damage across multiple bosses.

Also, while Overkill's new incarnation is going to be nice, I'm going to add my vote to those that say it probably isn't nice enough. It occupies the same place in the tree as AR in Combat, and yet it's barely comparable. Glyphed AR gives the exact same duration as the new Overkill, on the same cooldown (as Vanish), but gives 70% more energy regen... and that's not even accounting for the already-improved rate thanks to Vitality (25%).

This tweak to Overkill definitely serves to give it a "less opening burst" feel, and don't get me wrong I think it will be a nice buff in PvE, but I don't think it's strong enough... and it just highlights all the more how poor Cold Blood really is a couple tiers below it.

I think that Blizzard would prefer to give Assassination cooldowns and that's probably part of the longer-term goal of drastically changing the Assassination tree. That kind of change will surely involve more than just the Assassination tree though. Outside of some HAT builds, everyone puts 15+ points into Assassination as it is and any changes there will require changes in the two other trees. It's a huge task and in the end we're probably talking about changing quite a bit more than just some damage modifiers. There will be attacks and abilities that need to be changed at their core I would think.

It's really too big of a job to do at the mid-point of an expansion. It wasn't done in the WotLK beta when it was possible and it probably won't be possible again until WoW 4.0.

In the mean-time we're probably just going to have to live with a build that fits poorly into the cooldown-centric game that is WotLK. That said, there's quite a bit that can be done to this pseudo-cooldown to make it more useful in PvE without affecting PvP greatly.

It is different, even if there are not multiple targets you can still use Blade furry for the haste buff.

True enough - but I meant that the ability to maximize use of a certain talent can easily tip the scales from one spec to another.

The difference there lies in that Murder is an all or nothing, while Bladeflurry is "OK" to "F*ing brilliant". I don't know if that's inherently a major class issue though.

Simple, Blade Flurry should be a trainable ability,available to all specs.

Actually, a very good solution.

Really, Blade Flurry is almost as bad a "1 talent wonder" as Hunger For Blood, really, which we've heard the blue posts moan about.

Um, no.

I mean, lets be clear, Blade Flurry is a good talent in certain circumstances, and there probably is some reasonable case to be made for it to be trained (although personally I don't see a whole lot of need to). However, it's nowhere *near* in the same league as Hunger For Blood.

Blade Flurry, on selected fights where there are two equally important DPS targets (which is the exception and not the rule) gives you a 75% or so DPS increase with 12.5% uptime - that works out about a 9% sustained DPS boost, in those rare situations when you can make full use of it - usually quite a bit less.

Hunger for Blood, on the other hand, gives a 15% DPS boost always, in all situations. It's benefit is almost twice as large, and works on 100% of fights rather than 10% of fights. The talents are nowhere *near* each other in terms of power.

That argument kind of cancels itself out, saying they're both great, but one is just far less than another?
Eitherway though, the point remains that they are not comparable.

While its true that some fights favour combats controlled use of cooldowns over mutilate, is making the two trees similar necessary?
Personally I prefer having two slightly distinct trees which are both capabale of very good damage output. This way people can chose the spec they prefer and the true mix/max'ers can take both and use the best depending of the fight.
Having two very similar trees would make one a much clearer choice, removing any decision from chosing a spec, that would be a bad thing in my oppinion.

I think another thing we should look at is the fact that in BC we only had 1 viable path to go with, in WoTLK we have 3 (yes im counting HAT). I think Blizzard has done a fairly good job at trying to balance mutilate and combat builds. The HFB mechanic is a very cheap solution to make Mutilate viable, but it works. Compared to most classes Rogues are doing very well and I doubt we'll have any major overhauls done anytime soon. I agree that both Murder and Coldblood designs are outdated and should be looked at, I just dont see that happening just yet.

In my opinion, Blizzard should focus on what they want each tree to really focus in. Currently Assassination focuses in Poison damage, I think they could re-design the tree to push this more. I really would like to see the old Deadly Brew mechanic re-evaluated. I think that got scrapped too early back when there were a lot of poison related bugs. Perhaps even infusing DB and CB, making CB a temp that increases poison crit rate for a period of time, this would also buff Envenom.

There are a lot of ways to enhance the Mutilate spec, but I dont really think its high on Blizzard's priority list, I meant they got more Druid models to make (lol). Mutilate is still very viable and while it may not win all fights in a BIS situation you will certainly win some. I'm not sure if its a matter of player skill or what but as Mutilate I top my guilds DPS on every run we do for every fight.

Rogue are doing well yes, but Blizzard has pretty clearly stated they plan to change HfB when a good opportunity arises. They very much dislike the fact that one talent point provided 18% DPS of a spec, but they also realize no changes would do the spec justice w/o completely overhauling the tree, and likely the other trees as well.

The problem isn't that it provides 18% damage for 1 talent point..it still calculates it to be equal dps as combat..while at the same time not making it OP in PVP.

That's why bleed requirement was added so hfb wouldn't be OP in pvp, but still be equal with combat in pve. I understand it's not very creative but the 18% damage isn't the issue because it does exactly it's job it creates balance in both specs as well as pvp.

The problem is trying to balance 2-3 raid tree, 3 pvp specs, all at the same time, when one of those specs (mutilate) builds combo points twice as fast as others..It's not possible without completely overhauling Mutilate's design.

Well, exactly. The problem is balancing 3 raid trees and pvp specs, and as a result you do get an "inflated" talent that provided you with a much larger chunk of your dps than other talents. And, actually, yes there are problems associated with that, even if it solves the balancing problem. Blizzard doesn't want one talent point accounting for such a difference in damage for a few reasons, some of which include a huge disparity between 2 having one talent and another in terms of damage, making people feel the need to drop other talents just for the 51 point talent in the tree. Yes, it solves the problem of balance, but it is rather crude and Blizzard has stated they would rather not have one talent point account for 18% dps (check this out)

Yeah, don't rely on CloS until they make it 100%

CoS + feint has worked extremely well for me in fights like mimron p1, IC, and VOA. Even thou it's only 90% for CoS the feint is kind of a safety net to help in the end.

One of those doesn't belong....


Mimiron P1, Shock Blast is 100,000 damage. Feint isn't a safety net - it won't reduce the damage to survivable levels.

On the other two, you're correct, feint is enough to keep you alive regardless of CoS, CoS just helps minimize the healing you force your healers to do.

Doesn't feint work on mines? I thought it did, but it's been a while since I tried it since I don't expect to hit them any more. Also regarding shock blast, CloS does not* (see edit) work on it, although I've run over hundreds of mines and I can't remember ever being hit with one through CloS.

While we're on the topic of Feint in this thread, it's also amazing for XT and Hodir (Frozen Blows).

****EDIT: CloS DOES work on shock blast. The few times I hit it in desperation while hoping to make range on it I died, but that could easily have been RNG or latency.

CoS DOES work on Shock Blast. At 90% it is sufficiently unreliable that you really ought to run out, but I can personally verify that it works.

Don't forget Freya, Yogg, Thorim and AoI hardmode,