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Encrypted Text: The evolution of rogue PvP
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. During the lull between WoW expansions, I've been trying out a few action real-time strategy games like League of Legends and Dota 2. One of the things I've been learning about A-RTS games is that there are several different roles that the characters can fill. While WoW typically revolves around the tank/healer/DPS trinity, these PvP-only games have much more diversity. For example, there's the nuker role, which focuses on quick bursts of damage, and the disabler role, which focuses on controlling enemies to set up a kill. If you look between the lines, some of these roles are present in WoW PvP as well. Rogues have been relied upon to provide the stuns and snares to control targets, as well as to provide the burst needed to eliminate our enemies. We've worn a lot of hats over the past few years, and we've found ways to excel in each niche.
LotRO's (re)writs of the Rune-keeper
Considering how effective the Rune-keeper class is, the developers at Turbine have made a lot of changes to its skills. This class' strength lies in damage and healing -- a nuker/healer, if you will. This fit the plans for Lord of the Rings Online quite well, but there were some things missing in the flavor of the advanced classes. As Designer Brian Aloisio explains in the November Developer Diary, "The Rune-keeper currently sits at top tier in both damage and healing output. Because of this, the goals we have set for this update did not focus on increasing or decreasing net effectiveness, but on adding variety, customization and more dynamic skill interaction to achieve these results." He adds that the changes are adding more "advanced" to the advanced class. Aloisio also confesses that the Trait Set bonuses were bugged, and instead of fixing bonuses, team has reinvented the Trait Sets. To give you an example, the Words of Grace-traited Rune-keepers were capable of healing in any instance, but they lacked non-healing options. So the advanced class' skills were extremely flat. To spice things up, heal-based RKs will now have a slightly different power rotation and have a couple of non-healing abilities, yet they are still an efficient healing class. Be sure to catch the full Developer Diary to see the specifics about your favorite advanced class changes.
