Cataclysm Rogue Changes - Page 72

Perforate-CC · 09/20/10, 3:31 AM

Gotcha, Ald.

It will be interesting to see how the synergy of Sub. works out. For a variety of things. IE, does one go 2/2 Elusiveness or 2/2 Intiative. HAT + all the combo point generating talents that take place during Shadow Dance actually wastes combo points. So I am not sure how clear cut that choice actually would/will be. I like the idea of Elusiveness for the utility it brings.

Also...

I, like most other raiding rogues go with the 18/51 build now. While raid awareness is the #1 means of staying alive, I do like some of the appeal Sub. offers. You mentioned possibly going into the Assassination tree to buff Backstab. I wonder if something like 0/10/31 will be solid (at 85). The benefit of 50% longer SnD, 3/3 Precision, then you get a buff to not only Backstab, but also Eviscerate by going 3/3 Aggression, then finally 2/2 Improved Recuperate makes for some extra healing/damage reduction while maintaining Energetic Recovery.

Just thinking out loud. Who knows, Sub. may be horrible when 4.0 goes live. IDK.

• Aldriana · 09/20/10, 3:50 AM

I will be very very surprised if Sub goes more than 3 points into Combat - while it's not necessarily obvious which of the talents in the first two tiers of Assassination and Subtlety are the strongest, the simple fact of the matter is that to get to the second tier of Combat you have to take two points in nonDPS filler, and it's very unlikely that Imp SnD or and/or Aggression will be good enough to pay for the wasted points. So my money is on the deep Sub build being 7/0/31+3. It's not at all clear where the 10 points go - Malice Lethality, Coup De Grace, Ruthless, Puncturing Wounds, and Precision all seem like reasonable options - but I will be very surprised if we do anything other than take 10 of those 15 points.

I suppose in very high raid damage situations you could argue for a combat subspec if the DPS difference isn't too large, as Improved Recuperate complements Energetic Recovery nicely; but it strikes me as somewhat unlikely that that situation will arise with any regularity.

As long as we're on the topic:

Combat probably winds up doing something of the form 7/31/3. Relentless Strikes is almost certainly better than anything in Assassination tier 2, and the rest of Subtlety has nothing worth taking. So my initial guess would be 3/3 Malice Lethality, 3/3 Coup De Grace, 1/3 Ruthlessness, and 3/3 Relentless Strikes.

Assassination, on the other hand, is probably 31/2/7+1. We can only spend 6 points (Precision and Relentless Strikes) before needing to take filler; hence, it sort of comes down to a choice of which tree we want Tier 2 talents from. And Opportunity is really the only Tier 2 talent that does anything for Assassination rogues, so we take 3/3 RS, 2/2 Camo, and then either 2/3 Precision and 3/3 Opportunity or vice versa. I suppose one could argue for Imp Ambush instead of Camo - its sort of a filler vs filler decision - but I suspect in practice almost all raiding rogues will find Camo to be more useful (particularly with the incentive to start from stealth if possible so as to maximize Overkill uptime).

Gabrield · 09/20/10, 6:20 AM

Just in regards to Assassinations sub spec talent allocation, i can't see any situation where Improved Ambush would be a worthwhile talent to take. With Garrotte now being tied into our energy regen via Venomous Wounds there won't be any situation where opening from stealth with anything but Garrotte is viable (Including Vanishing mid fight).

• Andeh · 09/20/10, 2:36 PM

Originally Posted by Gabrield

Just in regards to Assassinations sub spec talent allocation, i can't see any situation where Improved Ambush would be a worthwhile talent to take. With Garrotte now being tied into our energy regen via Venomous Wounds there won't be any situation where opening from stealth with anything but Garrotte is viable (Including Vanishing mid fight).

Does the Venomous Wounds effect from Garrote and Rupture stack? I.E. can you get double chances for the Energy regen tick following a Vanish->Garrote?

Soulvex · 09/20/10, 2:38 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

Assassination, on the other hand, is probably 31/2/7+1. We can only spend 6 points (Precision and Relentless Strikes) before needing to take filler; hence, it sort of comes down to a choice of which tree we want Tier 2 talents from. And Opportunity is really the only Tier 2 talent that does anything for Assassination rogues, so we take 3/3 RS, 2/2 Camo, and then either 2/3 Precision and 3/3 Opportunity or vice versa. I suppose one could argue for Imp Ambush instead of Camo - its sort of a filler vs filler decision - but I suspect in practice almost all raiding rogues will find Camo to be more useful (particularly with the incentive to start from stealth if possible so as to maximize Overkill uptime).

On the surface, would it not be easier to regain the 2% hit loss of going 2/3 Precision via things like reforging as opposed to taking the flat extra 10% of Opportunity? This is speculation since we have no raid gear yet and if hit is in shorter supply taking the full 6% hit might end up being the best course of action.

• Aldriana · 09/20/10, 2:55 PM

I think odds are very good that we will not be hit hardcapped in Cataclysm, any more than we are in Wrath. So it's not really a matter of "compensating", per se - it's whether an extra 2% hit beyond what we'd get on gear is worth more or less damage than a point of Opportunity. I mean, the analogous argument at level 80 would be: is it better to take 3 points in Relentless Strikes, and 2 points in Opportunity, or 2 points in CQC and 3 in Lightning Reflexes? CQC and LR just give crit and haste, which you can "make up for" by socketing crit and haste, whereas Opportunity/RS give stuff you can't make up via stats. And yet (at the moment), 51/18/2 is superior to 51/13/7. Why? Because of how much of each you get.

Milano · 09/20/10, 2:57 PM

Originally Posted by Andeh

Does the Venomous Wounds effect from Garrote and Rupture stack? I.E. can you get double chances for the Energy regen tick following a Vanish->Garrote?

Venomous Wounds didn't proc from Garrote ticks last time I checked. I'm not entirely sure if multiple seperate Ruptures is working correctly either. Haven't been able to log in since last build so can't check.

Docrev · 09/20/10, 3:41 PM

We can make some rough approximations to the amount of hit we'll be seeing on gear in Cataclysm. According to Frostheim ( Scattered Shots: Gear for Cataclysm leveling ), at 85, it's 121 hit rating for each percentage of hit, while at 80 according to WoWwiki it's 32.79. This means we'll need approximately four times as much hit at 85 as we do now at 80. For the gear comparison, I'll use Belt of the Tortured - Items - Sigrie from Naxx25 and Belt of Nefarious Whispers - Items - Sigrie which should be the Cataclysm equivalent of a 200 epic belt (I'm using a Naxx25 belt as I couldn't find any ilevel 200 belts with hit). Given that the Belt of Nefarious Whispers has a little under four times the hit of the Belt of the Tortured, it seems to me that, for the first tier of raiding at least, we'll be in a similar situation regarding hit as we were back in Naxx10/25.

Soulvex · 09/20/10, 3:50 PM

Originally Posted by Andeh

Does the Venomous Wounds effect from Garrote and Rupture stack? I.E. can you get double chances for the Energy regen tick following a Vanish->Garrote?

I just did a quick test and the rate at which i was getting 10 energy seemed to imply that they do in fact stack. If I'm reading the tooltip correctly, then there is a 60% chance to cause the nature damage as well as 60% chance to gain 10 energy. If this is the case then I think it would be prudent to time the vanish->garrote during a burn phase as the stacking is sort of a quasi-adrenaline rush (and I suppose the additional nature damage procs couldn't hurt either).

Also worthy of noting is that Blizz has finally incorporated a debuff on the target for Master Poisoner stating the magic damage increase of 8%.

Exdead · 09/20/10, 4:02 PM

Back on the topic of Cataclysm buffs/debuffs:

In addition to the issues that Aldriana posted, I have concerns about buffs received in Cataclysm. The game designers are likely to continue to balance dps classes around having full 25 man buffs. Given the likelihood that the majority of raids will be of the 10 man variety in this expansion, rogues are probably going to face composition disadvantages.

Windfury/Icy Talons Buff:
With the nurf of the 13% spell damage buff to 8%, I doubt that any dps class will be as significantly affected by the absence or presence of a single buff/debuff that they can't provide for themselves. I know passive damage is supposed to be lessened, but I doubt it will change the fact that this buff is far-and-away the most important to have. Since most competitive 10 man groups are likely to be composed of 2 melee and 3 ranged dps, a rogue will need to be paired with an enh shaman or frost dk or have 2 caster shaman to receive this critical buff.

Tricks of the Trade:
One of the major reasons why rogues end up towards the top of the charts right now is because of tricks swapping. Since very few 10 man comps have 2 rogues, this advantage will be rare. Given the change to how tricks works, tricksing a non-tank after the first one probably won't cause threat issues. In this situation, rogues will always be buffing a single target other than themselves. This may lead to the exacerbation of a perception issue.

Pyriana · 09/20/10, 5:27 PM

Originally Posted by Andeh

Does the Venomous Wounds effect from Garrote and Rupture stack? I.E. can you get double chances for the Energy regen tick following a Vanish->Garrote?

Yes, however it's not doubled, garrote ticks every 3 seconds, rupture every 2

thebitterfig · 09/20/10, 5:44 PM

The attack speed buff is also shared by Survival Hunters, which allows it to be brought by a ranged slot, and the second caster shaman won't necessarily be needed since the Wrath of Air effect is also provided by Moonkin and Shadow Priests, allowing a single shaman of any type to provide the buff if one of those two is present. Haste might not be as easily provided as the Sunder Armor effect, but it's not quite as bleak as you portray.

As to tricks, I think I'd be perfectly happy to see it's entire damage component go away. However, if we're talking about competitive 10m raiding, you're almost surely dealing with people who understand the perception issue caused by tricks, so I don't see this as an issue. Likewise, less competitive raids which don't really care about the specific class/buff breakdown min-maxing will take a (skilled) rogue as handily as any other (skilled) class.

Mazz · 09/20/10, 5:59 PM

Some interesting blue comments on some things recently raised here (source):

Passive damage -- While the combat log says that you are doing a lot of auto attacking, it's not telling you the full story. A lot of what rogues have to manage (say SnD and Envenom) then boost your autoattacks or poison damage. If we changed SnD to instead be a separate dot for the same overall damage, all of a sudden your combat logs would show less "passive" damage. As long as good rogues can do better damage than bad rogues, we think it's fine.

Combat's mastery -- The big missing piece of the puzzle was that Main Guache was supposed to proc Combat Potency. Without that (which it now has), it is pretty lackluster.

20% melee / ranged haste buff -- This is something we're evaluating. It's a really serious buff for rogues and warriors particularly, to the extent that your dps drops significantly without it. This suggests we need to nerf the buff (in the same way we changed e.g. Curse of Elements from 13% to 8%) and buff affected classes to compensate. We just don't want the swing to be that big when you don't have it.

Mana reducing talents -- We just disagree that rogues are singled out here, though if you see some dps classes that can spend all of their points on dps and skip anything utiltiy related, please bring them up so we can evaluate them. It's always possible that the community (correctly or incorrectly) perceives a talent we intended to be optional utility as mandatory dps.

Interesting here is that apparently Main Gauche is supposed to proc CP, we might get a buff in the magnitude of WF totem/Icy veins or those get nerfed and our base abilities get buffs and GC typos "Damage Reduction" as "Mana Reduction."

Thaela · 09/20/10, 6:06 PM

Originally Posted by Mazz

GC typos "Damage Reduction" as "Mana Reduction."

No, he was right, and I don't know what the confusion about it was. Rogue takes less damage = Healer uses less mana healing them. Hence mana reduction.

Still think that passive damage angle needs to be pushed more.

Speeder · 09/21/10, 5:50 AM

It would be interesting If S'n'D had raid wide component (especially considering focus o 10 man raiding in Cata,
where you may not have all essential buffs at your disposal)