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Encrypted Text: Answering your post-5.0.4 rogue questions
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. Patch 5.0.4 might not have brought all of Mists of Pandaria's content, but it did contain all of its mechanics and class changes. Our new talent trees are active and Swirly Ball has finally returned. As with all of the pre-expansion patches, we are given a few weeks to cope with the new changes before the actual expansion goes live. While we're still missing out on our level 87 abilities and our level 90 talents, we still need to be able to deftly control our rogues for a few more weeks. The majority of our rotations have remained intact, and you should feel right at home after a few cycles. Most of the changes that rogues are seeing are passive or quality of life improvements. Other classes are faced with relearning major facets of their playstyle, but combo points and energy continue to hold steady.
Encrypted Text: Preparing your rogue for patch 5.0.4
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 upcoming patch 5.0.4 only contains part of Mists of Pandaria's content, but it does bring all of its class changes. Our new talent trees and glyphs will be in place, and our specializations will be dramatically revamped. While rogues are receiving fewer changes than any other class, we will experience a shift. Our new mechanics will be in place following patch 5.0.4's release on Aug. 28. We will have nearly a month to learn our rotations before Mists' official launch. That should be plenty of time to get our gear and glyphs in order in preparation for leveling in Pandaria. Poisons and talents will be at the forefront of our effort to adjust.
Encrypted Text: Deftly handling your dual-spec rogue
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 you have or awesome screenshots you'd like to see featured. Dual talent specialization used to be an expensive upgrade reserved for players with good money management. As time has passed since its inception, its level requirement and cost have decreased dramatically. Everyone can afford dual talent spec now, and the benefits are easily recognized for hybrid classes. What once was a 30-minute trip to a capital city to respec between roles has become a short cast that can be performed anywhere. Pure DPS classes can still use dual spec to their advantage, and rogues are no exception. I'm going to be honest and tell you that subtlety is still not competitive in PvE. While its unrivaled survivability does come in handy on a few heroic encounters, its damage output is simply not strong enough to warrant regular use. Combat and assassination are our two most potent talent trees, and so most rogues will be sporting these specs in raids. While assassination still holds the DPS crown on most encounters, combat's Blade Flurry can be useful for dungeons and even raid bosses like Halfus Wyrmbreaker. By properly planning our rogues, we can play both specs with a deadly efficiently.
Encrypted Text: The rogue guide to gear customization
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. Email me with any good screenshots or questions you have! Back in the good old days, rogues were stuck with whatever leather gear that happened to drop. It didn't matter if it had spirit or strength on it, as we really had no other options. We could augment our pieces with a few different enchants, but even those were better suited for warriors. While sometimes it seemed as if there were a random number generator churning out tier loot, we happily scooped it up anyway. The class, and everyone else, was at the mercy of the itemization gods of Blizzard. Times have changed quite a bit since those days. While we're still not able to craft custom pieces of gear tailored to fit our every need, we're not stuck with caster stats anymore. With the number of dungeons and bosses available, combined with the addition of justice points, there are a ton of options for nearly every slot on our character sheet. Enchanting has grown to encompass most of our gear, while reforging and the gem system have taken gear customization even further. Not only is there more gear to be had, but the gear we do get is much more malleable, allowing us to pick the perfect combination.
