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Encrypted Text: Fresh rogue rotations in Cataclysm
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 new rotations that rogues will be using. After Blizzard's latest press release, we know that Cataclysm will be released in early December. We already know that there will be at least one patch that precedes the expansion. The period of time between patch 4.0.1 and the expansion's actual launch is a time of transition, and it's rapidly approaching. The transition phases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath were rocky to say the least; it's safe to say that that we're looking forward to exciting times. Many classes are hurting pretty badly on the PTR for patch 4.0.1 right now. Blizzard had the great idea of temporarily granting rogues Cloak of Shadows as our 31-point subtlety talent back in patch 2.0 to help us deal with the souped-up casters of that era. A similar change could be used to give retribution paladins access to Inquisition (at the cost of Zealotry) to bolster their damage until Cataclysm. Luckily for rogues, we were on the receiving end of the latest "damage pass." Several of our core abilities were granted significant damage and scaling bonuses to keep us competitive in a pre-Cataclysm world.
Encrypted Text: The rotation system
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 rotation model of DPS, and how it defines our class in every way. Blizzard has a long history of taking popular addons and rolling their functionality into the game's base user interface. The first instance of this that I can remember was when Blizzard introduced its own quest objective tracking overlay, nearly copying MonkeyQuest's original configuration. The dev team also inserted dungeon maps for the various instances, taking a page out of Atlas' book. Their latest invention is a replacement for Power Auras, the popular notification mod that displays custom graphics when a specified event occurs. Looking at the list of spells for which Blizzard created custom "spell activation" effects (thanks BB!), we see mostly random and reactive abilities on the list. Paladins will enjoy the art for Art of War, and every mage spec has a particular proc to watch patiently for. What intrigued me was that there is actually a spell activation effect for rogues, an orange lightning bolt that represents Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice, as any rogue will inform you, is not a random proc; it's a core part of our DPS and should be up at all times. While having a lightning bolt on my screen at all times sounds like fun, it got me thinking about the rogue DPS model. I utilize Power Auras extensively on every other character I play, yet I don't even have it enabled on my rogue.
Encrypted Text: The subtlety rogue of tomorrow
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 future of subtlety rogues. Last week, Blizzard released the Cataclysm talent preview for rogues. If you read my coverage of the changes, you noticed that I mentioned that Master of Deception is missing from the subtlety tree. While I praised the change due to the removal of the frankly dumb mechanic of stealth levels, many rogues were worried that this meant all rogues would be left with simply basic stealth and we'd be sitting ducks against any competent opponent. Luckily, Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler chimed in on the issue, and informed us that all rogues would gain the benefits of Master of Deception, and for free. It's clear from looking at the previewed talent trees that Blizzard's design intent is to try to give each rogue tree some PvP viability. By removing three filler points that any rogue serious about PvP was forced to take, they allow us to explore other talents deeper in our core trees. Subtlety had the reverse problem, though, where the tree was too PvP focused and didn't have enough damage talents to let it compete in a raid environment. Aside from one broken talent for a few months, sub rogues have been stuck in battlegrounds and arenas in Wrath. The new subtlety tree looks to have several new DPS talents available, but will it be enough to bring this spec back to life?
