3.1 Rogue Changes - Early Preview
 

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.

Yeah, it remains to be seen what counterbalancing measures they're going to take - I have a feeling that something unfortunate is going to happen to Sunder & Expose. Still, a pure 6% DPS buff and playability improvement off the bat, plus enormous across-the-board buffs to the Combat tree (and DEAR GOD THEY FINALLY DID SOMETHING WITH LR) is an extremely hopeful start.

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.

Killing Spree
 

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

There had been a lot of fretting about the over-simplifying of the Assassination rotation, but as far as I can see it will remain generally the same. The only definite difference is that you won't be as heavily penalized for dropping your stack as you were before.

As far as Lightning Reflexes comes out for Assassination, it's roughly a 3 point talent for 328 Haste Rating. Is it worth it to shift our points around and pick it up and in what way should we consider the shift?

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.