rogue-cleave
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Encrypted Text: Blade Flurry math in patch 5.2
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. The new Blade Flurry that's on the PTR is by far the most exciting update for combat rogues in at least a year. The current version, which still isn't finalized, allows 40% of our melee damage to be cleaved onto up to 4 targets at once. It's a significant step up from the old Blade Flurry when we're facing a handful of targets, but what about in a regular cleaving situation? In order to do the math for Blade Flurry, you have to figure out what you're gaining and what you're giving up by activating it. Blade Flurry increases our melee damage by 40% per target, but not all of our attacks are replicated. Our autoattacks, Shadow Blades, Main Gauche, and most of our other abilities are all affected by Blade Flurry. Notably, BF doesn't apply to Deadly Poison or Rupture. While many combat rogues are ignoring Rupture today, it will likely be worth using once we have our 2-piece tier 15 bonus, which extends its duration.
Encrypted Text: Santa Ghostcrawler kills Blade Flurry
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. Apparently rogues haven't been getting the message. Year after year, as punishment for our evil deeds and shady dealings, we've only received coal in our Winter Veil stockings. We were not deterred, as we simply pickpocketed good presents from everyone else. A frustrated Greatfather Winter, tired of our shenanigans, finally turned to his manager. Santa Ghostcrawler, with the rumored Naughty List tight in his grasp, set about enacting a Winter Veil surprise that rogues would not be able to ignore. A 75% nerf to Blade Flurry in patch 5.2 did the trick. Melodrama aside, Blade Flurry was broken. While I would've preferred to see the ability spread to all three rogue specs and balanced appropriately (back to a cooldown?), Blizzard went in a different direction. Blade Flurry remains firmly a combat-only ability, but the edge it held over assassination and subtlety has waned significantly. Combat is no longer shackled to purely two-target gimmick fights, and assassination and subtlety rogues no longer need to respec and reforge multiple times per night to flex for Blade Flurry. The net effect is incredibly positive for rogues as whole, and we should be embracing this change.
