throwing-specialization
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Encrypted Text: Rogue tips and tricks for Firelands, part 3
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 topics you'd like to see covered. Alysrazor is not an ideal fight for rogues. We waste a lot of time running around, and we spend hundreds of energy points on Kicks. We swap targets often, never spending more than a minute on any single enemy. We're often too far away from the rest of the raid to receive their buffs, and our targets are rarely fully debuffed. Due to encounter mechanics, even the tanks are dealing more damage than us. While it might seem like the odds are stacked against us on Alysrazor, the good news is that our damage here isn't nearly as important as our utility. Alysrazor is the official Interrupt Boss for Firelands. There's always an Interrupt Boss in each raid tier. Tier 11 saw us Kicking all of Maloriak's casts, while Lady Deathwhisper and Valithria Dreamwalker had us interrupting Scourge casters all night. It was almost impossible to defeat the Faction Champions without solid interrupts, and General Vezax's Searing Flames was deadly if not Kicked. Rogues have been the go-to interrupters for years, and the Alyzrazor encounter again challenges us to put our boots in some caster faces.
Encrypted Text: Patch 3.2.2 and the Great FoK Nerf
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about the patch 3.2.2 notes and what Rogues can expect to see.Fan of Knives, how I loved thee. If you haven't read the patch notes yet, you can find them in Alex's writeup. Rogues actually received a few changes this time (a deviation from the norm), and all 3 are nerfs across the board. One is a fairly innocuous change to Honor Among Thieves, which has actually be functioning incorrectly for the past few months. The other two are sweeping nerfs to Fan of Knives: directly by reducing the damage done by 30%, and indirectly by removing the Interruption effect from Throwing Specialization.
Encrypted Text: Combat in Wrath
Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses the Wrath Combat expansion tree.Ahh Combat. The cornerstone of the end (and mid-) game PvE Rogue. While not perfect, the Combat tree can be hugely satisfying and bears with it none of the positional damage dealing that the other two trees require, at least in part. Getting in people's (as well as creature's) faces and crushing them is all just part of the experience of the combat spec. Many a Rogue has popped a pleasing-sigh-inducing Adrenaline Rush to burn through the last tasty bits of, well, whatever stands in its way. Although things do tend to change quickly in beta, I'm going to take a look at the five new expansion Combat tree talents. The most important question I had when looking at them, as well as all the discussion surrounding them, is "are they worth it" and "do they reflect the kinds of changes or improvements that players have been asking for." This is especially important in raid settings where Rogue vs Caster DPS and overall damage done can mean the difference between getting another invite or not. I'd like to subtitle this column: "The Expansion Combat Tree, Now in PvP Flavor!"
