killing-spree
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Encrypted Text: Patch 5.4's new Killing Spree and rogue glyphs
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. Killing Spree has been killing rogues since 2008. While assassination rogues are discussing the best opportunities to use Vendetta and subtlety rogues are planning their Shadow Dances, combat rogues are just hoping their cooldown won't throw them off a cliff or into fire. I remember when rogues simply didn't play combat when fighting Magmaw. Killing Spree on Garalon? Only if you had a death wish. The Glyph of Killing Spree fixed most of these errant deaths, but didn't fix the root problem: Killing Spree takes away control from the rogue. We're not capable of choosing our targets or our destination when using Killing Spree, which makes it a liability in high-stakes situations. The new PTR version of Killing Spree looks to change that. The normal Killing Spree will turn into a powerful nuke on a specific target, while Killing Spree under Blade Flurry's influence will result in the random attacks we're used to.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tier 16 set bonuses reviewed
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 or tweet me with questions or suggestions of what you'd like to see covered here. Set bonuses are the perfect time for Blizzard to experiment with fun class effects. They're in use by a limited set of players, they can be tuned specifically for a particular tier, and the bonuses are ephemeral. Class changes are much harder to implement quietly and they're even more difficult to roll back if undesirable. Tier set bonuses are a cultured petri dish for new ideas to grow, or to be sterilized. Our new tier 16 set bonuses are just such an experiment. The two-piece bonus saves us energy on our combo point generators, and has some very interesting interactions with each talent spec's mechanics. The four-piece bonus also changes based on our spec. Killing Spree's damage ramps up significantly, which will pair nicely with its new Blade Flurry interaction. Vendetta's mastery-stacking bonus will add some teeth to assassination's burn cycle. The Backstab/Ambush combo pack, however, is easily the star of the show, and the start of an important conversation.
Encrypted Text: BlizzCon news for patient rogues
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. This week, I'll be sharing my report from BlizzCon 2010 for rogues. As a member of our shadowy brotherhood, my duty to investigate and report on the rogue class is never over. Even though I was enjoying the festivities at BlizzCon 2010 and testing out the new demon hunter class in Diablo 3, I still made time to take care of business. The class Q&A panel is one of the best places to communicate directly with the WoW development team, and so I staked my place in line before the prior panel had even ended. When my turn finally came, I had to first pay my respects to the developers. I had asked them at the prior year's BlizzCon if we would ever see a Vanish fix implemented, and Ghostcrawler avoided promising anything. Fast-forward a year and we finally have a Vanish that I'm proud to call my own. I opened my time by giving them their much-deserved thanks. I then took the opportunity to ask about something near and dear to my heart: off-hand weapon speeds. Axes and daggers were simply never meant to be used at the same time. Their art styles don't even match!
Encrypted Text: The cooldown class
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 our shared reliance on cooldowns, and how to break the cycle of being overpowered and underpowered at the same time. Rogues have somewhat of a paradoxical standing amongst the other classes, in both PvP and PvE. At times, we're unparalleled, and we become the goal that everyone else can only chase. During other times, we are frail and vulnerable, barely capable of holding our own against our opponents. Rogues have a toolbox of active abilities that were designed to give the class flavor, but have the unfortunate side effect of leaving us bland without them. We are intensely hot peppers with all of our moves ready to go, and we are simply plain rice when they're not. Are our cooldowns so powerful that they really define the class? Absolutely. Are we so weak without them that our raid leaders and arena partners are looking to recruit wet noodles instead of rogues? Probably not. However, the place we're in right now isn't necessarily where we want to be either, where our CD addiction restricts us from having a more engaging time playing the game. While being demi-gods for 20 seconds every three minutes may seem enjoyable, it still leaves quite a long stretch of impotence for us to deal with. What we need to do is find the middle ground where our CDs are still meaningful, but we're not sitting ducks for the majority of our time outside of Stealth.
Encrypted Text: New Year's Resolutions
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 discuss the list of the things you should accomplish before 2011. With 2009 fading quickly and Cataclysm on the horizon in the upcoming year, the WotLK chapter of our lives as rogues is coming to a close. Preliminary numbers from Icecrown Citadel show rogues performing admirably, especially on fights like the Deathbringer, where we truly get to focus on a tight rotation and maximum single target DPS. While much of ICC has yet to be unlocked, I am confident that we'll find the best way to tackle the challenges it will place in front of us. Arena season number 8 (and likely Wrath's final season) is to be released shortly as well, which will see rogues vying against the plate classes for the top melee DPS honors. Cataclysm is bringing some of the most sweeping changes the game has ever seen, and so this is our last chance to experience the WotLK rogue before it disappears forever. Between the talent tree rebuild, the complete stat overhaul, and the massive world disruptions that are planned, we are running out of time to finish all of the items on our rogue to-do lists. Whether you're a new rogue, or a grizzled 5 year veteran of the Horde-Alliance war, I'd suggest knocking out these rogue-specific objectives that may be disappearing forever.
Encrypted Text: Fan of Knives mechanics deep-dive
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 Fan of Knives, and how to get the most out of it.One of the great Rogues on my server recently released a video, showcasing some unique world PvP clips. All of them involved aerial kills using Killing Spree and engineering items to blow up a target on a flying mount. I showed this video to a few of my friends who also play Rogues, and many of them were surprised that you could successfully kill opponents in midair, and that Killing Spree was even usable while moving.The conversation that followed revealed that they were unaware of several other Rogue mechanics that aren't typically covered in your average "how to Rogue" guide or even completely understood by veterans who've been playing for years. I decided to do some intensive testing and exploration into a few of these mechanical anomalies that still elude even experienced raiders and arena combatants alike. I focused on Fan of Knives in particular, as this is the newest spell added to our arsenal.
The Daily Quest: Making your own items, Killing Spree, and more
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. RP Made Simple takes a deep look at an up and coming RP mod, Gryphonheart Items, which allows you to create custom vanity/flavor items to trade and share with others using the addon. Alterac Volley has added another Daily Quest Guide to their site, this time tackling the Midsummer Fire Festival. World of Snarkcraft reviews Wowhead's new Profiler feature. Blessing of Kings breaks down the patch 3.2 emblem changes, and gives some thoughts of their own. Should Rogues pick up Killing Spree in their PvE raiding spec? Slice and Dice says yes! Elemental Shaman extraordinaire Binkenstein is hard at work rounding up all of the applicable patch 3.2 changes. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
Encrypted Text: Rogue videos from Patch 3.1 PTR
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 look at some of the new animations coming in patch 3.1.Since the departure of BigRedKitty from our site, we haven't had many new videos for you to watch while idling at work. I decided to step up to fill this gap in programming by FRAPS'ing some of my adventures on the patch 3.1 PTR. With several changes to Rogues in this latest content release, I wanted to stay ahead of the curve by testing the modifications out before they are deployed to live servers.There were reports of new animations for several spells, as well as moves that had been changed mechanically. Catching any bugs that had slipped through QA was also a top priority. I copied my Rogue over to the PvP PTR realm and started shooting, and the results of that labor follow after the cut. A few caveats: all videos were shot without UI addons or keybindings, and so I do click quite a few of my abilities. I tried out five specs in about 30 minutes, and so my action bars are also disheveled. That said, let's review the videos.
Analysis of stated 3.1 rogue changes
All right, rogues. So by now some of you have likely read our list of 3.1 changes for our bloodthirsty class, and if not, you should! Right now! Make no mistake, these are some very cool changes, and even if this is the whole list (it's not), I'm pretty happy with how things are shaping up--not just for rogues, but for all the classes mentioned so far. If you haven't read through them yet or if you're not a big theorycrafter, you can take a moment and read through our analysis of how 3.1 will (so far) affect you, the rogue.Let's have a look!
Breakfast Topics: 37! In a row?
Yesterday I was out tromping around Nagrand with my Shaman leveling her up, killing mob after mob. There was a point that when I killed about 10 mobs in a row, and I thought to myself "Killing Spree!" Harking back to the days of yore and Quake 3.This got me thinking. There is one critical achievement that is missing in the game. A killing spree achievement, ideally reached when you kill 37 mobs in a row without stopping. In fact, there's a great title for it featured as the name of this article. Go ahead Blizzard, take this one idea for free. To you, from me; your friend Adam.But oh wait, there's more. I was twittering last night about this, and there were some good suggestions that came across the feed. More after the break!
The Queue: Punching our way to greatness
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Yesterday we were talking about the Bros Before Ho Ho Ho's achievement a bit. Specifically, do you need to be level 77 to get it if you're a Horde player? Most of us thought yes, you do, but stacy (one of our readers) popped in with some pretty creative instructions on how to do it. Check that out, then we'll get on with the Q&A!Classy asked...Anyone know a good place to fall to get the "Going Down?" achievement?
Rogue changes in patch 3.0.3
Although not a ton happened to Rogues in this latest patch, we at WoW Insider like to keep our coverage well-rounded, so let's run down the Rogue patch notes. Combat Potency now only works on auto-attacks (i.e. not Shiv). I think we can agree that all the shivving was getting pretty silly. Fan of Knives is castable if you don't have a target, looks prettier, and no longer plays an impact on the caster. It also benefits from Find Weakness, and its cooldown was reduced to 10 sec. Instead of making the rogue untargetable, Killing Spree now causes all players to lose targeting on the rogue and causes the rogue to be unstoppable during its duration. Riposte's effect duration is no longer reduced by effects that reduce disarm duration. Shadow Dance no longer increases the cooldown on various abilities that require stealth (Sap, Garrote, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pick Pocket, and Disarm Trap). Feel free to Ambush as much as you have energy for, but don't get too attached to cooldown-free swirly ball Disarm Trap; that's getting nerfed for sure. Overall, it's buff time in Rogueville, as it seems to be for nearly everyone else. The Combat Potency change is essentially a bug fix. FoK's cooldown was cut by two thirds, and you can't argue with a prettier effect. I'm not really sure what to think about Killing Spree's change. I guess it means you can still take damage, if the opponent can manage to target you, but I don't see it as a big deal. And I hear many players are still not particularly impressed with Shadow Dance, but I would expect Ambush's numbers to add up pretty quickly. Have any beta players played with this new version?Update: missed one: Glyph of Shiv replaced with Glyph of Vigor, which gives 10 more extra energy if you have Vigor.
Encrypted Text: Dough for your cookie cutters
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. In this special 3.0.2 edition of Encrypted Text, we'll be talking about the new talent trees that are coming this Tuesday with the release of the patch.With 3.0.2 right around the corner, all three of our precious talent trees are about to get shaken up. Talents are getting moved around, point costs are travelling in both directions, and a lot of rebalancing is taking place. Blizzard has been removing bloat from certain areas, and also adding some very cool new abilities for our class.With all these changes, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. (Get it? Talent trees? Haha!) For a detailed analysis of all the changes, I recommend reading the patch notes. I am going to give my readers (you) exactly what a busy Rogue wants: what's nerfed, what's buffed, what's good when the dust settles?
Encrypted Text: Trunks of the Trees, Assassination and Combat
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 explore two of the new 51 point talents coming soon.If you ask 75% of the top Rogues worldwide what the premier PvP spec is, they'll tell you Subtlety. If you ask an even greater margin of raiders what Rogue spec pumps out the most DPS, you'll get a solid shout of "Combat, duh!" And if you should ever feel the urge to pick up a pair of daggers, every brother of the shadows will direct you towards Assassination. These three trees have been neatly defined by Blizzard, and it's fairly obvious what each is designed for. What separates Rogues from every other class is our nearly unilateral use of 41 point talents. A dagger Rogue without Mutilate is gimped while a Sub PvP Rogue without Shadowstep is the laughing stock of the arena. And don't bother stepping into Sunwell without Surprise Attacks, unless getting trashed on the damage meters is your idea of fun. We've gotten so used to the comfort in knowing that dumping 41 points into any of our trees will yield a viable build. Now that 51 pointers are on the way in 3.0.2 and Wrath to follow, I've been asked by many Rogues "Will the bottom of our trees continue to be the anchors of our builds?" Find out after the cut.
