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Warlords of Draenor: Combo points no longer on target for rogues, druids
Rogues and feral druids have had one very important change that wasn't announced in the recent patch notes for the 6.0 alpha build. Combo points, the bread and butter of every rogue and feral druid attack since the game began, are now on the rogue or druid, instead of on the target being attacked. This was confirmed in a tweet by Celestalon -- who was quick to point out that the change might not see live, but is being tested for now. @Vigilate_MW Oh, hah, that's a big oversight, my bad. Yes, Combo Points are 'on the Rogue' now. Could revert based on feedback, but trying. - Celestalon (@Celestalon) April 4, 2014 This is honestly a really big change for both classes. One of the unique frustrations of playing the class was spending the time and energy to build up enough points for a big finisher, only to see the target die before that finisher could land. Don't get me wrong, having a target die is always the name of the game, whether you're stabbing with daggers or skulking around as a cat. But once that target was dead, all combo points you carefully built up would simply vanish when the next target was acquired.
Encrypted Text: Are rogues truly an unpopular class?
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. It is a lament that we, the ever-beleaguered players of the ever-shunned, ever-maligned, ever-misunderstood rogue class, often turn to when we're feeling glum. Nobody plays a rogue. We're WoW's most-hated, least-popular class. We never get the changes we need, so the class just continues to decay, month after month, patch after patch, year after year. If Blizzard hates us so much, why don't they just remove the class entirely already? Monks and ferals already have all the stuff we want anyway. Nobody. Plays. A rogue. ... Right? You guys should know me well enough by now to know my answer.
Encrypted Text: The promise, and the peril, of Shadow Reflection
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and& subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. When a WoW game designer sends out nearly two dozen tweets in an hour about a talent, you know he's really excited about it. Such was the case last week with Technical Game Designer Chadd Nervig (@Celestalon), WoW's torch-bearer on class design issues since Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street's departure from Blizzard late last year. Celestalon treated us to an epic twitversation about the upcoming Level 100 rogue talent Shadow Reflection -- one of the most involved, intricate discussions any WoW designer has ever had with us regular folk on Twitter. "It has pretty crazy potential," he said at one point in the conversation. Celestalon is clearly psyched about what Shadow Reflection will bring to the rogue class. The question is: Should we be as pumped? In a word: youbetterbelieveit.
Encrypted Text: Shadowcraft, a raiding rogue's best friend
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. "Should I reforge for mastery or haste?" If you're a rogue player who raids, reading that question probably generated one of two emotional reactions: Curiosity, because you wonder that yourself. A seething, bubbling cauldron of hatred and violent fury, because questions like these are asked endlessly -- even though, for a long time now, the answer has consisted of two words. Shadowcraft it. What Shadowcraft Is Shadowcraft is a modeling tool for rogues. It takes a snapshot of your armory -- your gear, enchants, gems, talents, glyphs and everything else that affects the damage you deal -- and then it allows you to modify that snapshot in a host of different ways. As you tweak the snapshot -- for instance, swapping out one piece of gear for another, changing your reforges, turning on or off certain buffs -- Shadowcraft keeps track of each change you make, and assesses whether those changes will theoretically increase or decrease your DPS. You do the experimenting, it does the math. Two things in particular make Shadowcraft truly special as a resource.
Encrypted Text: The stealthiest stealth rogues ever stealthed
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. A couple of weeks ago, we all had a nice, long chat, you and me. I was all, "Hey guys, what's up with those rogues, amirite?" And you were all, "Totally!" And I was like, "Got questions?" And you were like, "You know it, Scott!" And I was all, "Whoa, whoa; since when are we on a first-name basis?" And you were like, "Hey man, I thought you were cool." And I ... may be digressing a little. Point is, we've had a couple of conversations now about the aspects of roguedom we're least pleased with, and would thus like to see change somehow in the upcoming expansion. Three of the key themes I've seen recurring in the discussion are: Many of us want stealth to be more interesting. Rogues don't feel unique enough. We don't have enough control over the damage we deal. Over the next few weeks, we'll talk about each of these issues in greater depth. This week, I'm all, "Hey guys, what's up with stealth? Eh? Mmm?"
Encrypted Text: What rogue changes should Warlords of Draenor bring?
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. The winds of change are howling through the mountain passes ahead. From the path on which we're walking, up a hill toward the mouth of the first pass, we can't see what's up there yet. But we know change is coming. We can hear it in the whoosh of air sweeping past those stone walls. The warlords are coming, the wind whispers. In the new expansion, rogues will not be the same. But how will our class change? Rogues aren't utterly broken, but they do remain consistently unpopular (they make up roughly 6.5% of all level 90 toons in the U.S. and Europe, according to the latest RealmPop figures; only the still-new monk class comes in lower, and not by much), and senior designers have repeatedly expressed a desire to do something about it. Not a Warlock-level degree of change, but something. Going into BlizzCon last month, many of us may have had hope that a solid look into our future would be offered at the convention. But we -- like most every other class -- got more of a teeny glimpse. Some of the key questions we have about the future of roguedom remain unanswered. But, wait: What are those key questions?
Encrypted Text: The thankful rogue
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. Let's do something crazy, guys: Let's be unabashedly positive. Just this once. Here in the world of public WoW commentary, we love us our complainin'. Be it on forums, Twitter, videos, podcasts or blogs, we enjoy chewing on the game, swishing it around in our mouths a bit, spitting it back out onto our plate and then lamenting how disgusting it looks. Now, to be fair, we do so with good reason. If we don't let WoW's designers know what we think is wrong with the game, how else are they gonna find out? (Besides, you know, analyzing mountains of data and talking to players themselves.) But sometimes -- just every now and then, mind you, we don't have to make it a habit -- it can be just as helpful to talk about what we do like. Not just for the designers, to help them understand what parts of WoW we appreciate and regard as shining examples of the game's successes; but for us as well, to give us a healthier perspective on this e-world we call a virtual home. In honor of Thanksgiving in the U.S., here are a few of the things that I'm grateful for when I play my World of Warcraft rogue. Join me in the comments (or on Twitter with hashtag #thanksroguing) and let me know what I've missed!
Encrypted Text: The first glimpse of your future rogue
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. Although there was no grand unveiling of mind-blowing class changes at BlizzCon -- for rogues or any other class -- we did learn a few juicy tidbits that will intrigue, delight and (possibly) confuse/fluster/enrage you. Let's take a look, shall we? Optimizing Gear Will Get a Whole Lot Simpler No longer will anyone ever have to answer the question, "What's my stat priority?" by saying, "First, get to the hit cap." For Patch 6.0, Blizzard plans to remove the hit and expertise from our gear, and make it so we are automatically at the caps we currently strive to reach.
Encrypted Text: Has dual spec ruined the rogue experience?
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. Four and a half years. To many of you, it may feel like a lifetime ago -- and to most of the rogues we play, it probably was. My own stealthy toon, yet to encounter a certain rouged chapeau that would change her (and her humble puppetmaster) forever, was only at level 50, tripping and tumbling her way through Tanaris, oblivious to the game-shattering changes that had just been introduced. By the time she reached max level, almost half a year later, she took for granted the existence of something that many players were still hailing as a miracle. Dual spec. Oh, how it shined! How its siren call beckoned! Never more must a beleaguered rogue trek to a faraway NPC and back again to swap from their Hunger for Blood/Mutilate raid build to their Mutilate/Preparation PvP build. So much hassle removed! So much freedom gained! A win for everyone ... right? Let's take a closer look at how dual spec changed rogues forever -- and whether it was truly as much of a boon for our class as we might think it was.
Encrypted Text: 8 pointers for leveling your lonely rogue
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. There comes a time, in the lives of many WoW players, when they realize they can no longer delay the inevitable. Their primal urges call out to them. Though they had resisted so strongly for so long, they know, deep down in their hearts: It's time to give in to that sinfully sweet siren call. It's time to level a rogue. To those of you who have recently elected to join the rogue legion -- and to those of you who are contemplating this devious journey -- I have some guidance to offer as you embark. I have seen many of your ilk level rogues before you, and will see many more do so after you. I have seen the questions they ask, and the myths they wrongly believe. I am here to stab you with truth. Let us begin.
Encrypted Text: Combat and Subtlety under Siege
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. When we last left our devious, poison-festooned heroes, they were assassinating the heck out of every raid boss in sight, much as they have been this entire expansion. Assassination has been the spec of choice for raiders of all stripes in Mists -- but might Patch 5.4 change the balance? The answer may depend as much on you as on the gifts that WoW's designers wrapped up and handed us for the new patch. Combat and subtlety both are looking like perfectly good options in almost every situation. Unless you're with a group that is seriously trying to squeeze every last drop of damage out of its DPSers, and you're already playing your spec perfectly, your main criteria for which spec to use should rely on 1) whether you enjoy it and 2) whether you've got the right gear for it.
Encrypted Text: Siege of Assassination
Every week or two, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. Alright, then. Now that introductions are out of the way, let's roll up our sleeves, sharpen the knives we've got hidden within them, roll our sleeves back down again, and get to business. As you may be somewhat aware, some patch or other happened a few weeks ago. All's I know is, my rogue passed out on a Monday night and when she woke up on Tuesday, her strikes felt suspiciously more sinister. In all, nearly three dozen class-specific changes greeted us when Patch 5.4 went live (and a few more drifted down from the Azerothian heavens in the form of post-patch hotfixes). Nearly all of them were buffs, bug fixes or quality-of-life improvements of some sort. That sounds pretty outstanding. But the real question is: What will all of these changes actually alter about the experience of playing a rogue? How many of these differences are noticeable?
Encrypted Text: Enter the Darkness
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Scott Helfand (@sveltekumquat) will be your shadow on this treacherous journey; try not to keep your back turned for too long, and make sure your valuables are stashed somewhere safe. We are a strange (and deadly) brew, we who play a World of Warcraft rogue. Perhaps more than any other class, each day we log in, we face a basic truth: We can never be what we truly desire. As a class, we spend our days in WoW defined by the terror of our stealth and the bite of our poisons. But at night, our dreams are of slinking up behind our enemy, unleashing a single, devastating, mortal attack, and leaving only silence in our wake. Sadly, this is an MMO, and we're no Desmond Miles.
Encrypted Text: Rogue Is
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. Word on the street is that the old rogue finally hit the dirt. Nobody is exactly sure how it happened. Did he get a little too cavalier in a duel with Rossi and eat the wrong end of a two-handed Overpower? Did Frostheim land a lucky Flare/Freezing Trap combo after seeing him slinking in the shadows? Did some hotshot mage get lucky and land the ultimate Shatter bomb while his cooldowns were recharging? Or did he simply Vanish into thin air? Did anyone actually see the body? Were they able to identify his daggers by comparing the multitude of scrapes and scars? Was there a trace left behind to prove he was ever really here? That's the funny thing about rogues: you never know when they're dead, or just in repose.
Encrypted Text: Readiness gone, Preparation next?
As part of the pre-Mists patch 5.0.4, in August 2012, hunters were given Readiness as a baseline ability. Readiness is a carbon copy of Preparation, which has been a rogue workhorse for years. While I am typically hesitant to give hunters any more ink, there's something interesting for them in the patch 5.4 PTR notes. Readiness is being removed from hunters entirely, and their cooldowns are being rebalanced to compensate. An ability that was considered so crucial that it was made baseline is being pulled completely just a year later. Cooldown management has been an integral part of the rogue class since day one. Preparation has been our go-to PvP ability since its inception. The entire World of Roguecraft video series was predicated by how amazing Preparation is. A rogue with full cooldowns is a deity, a rogue without cooldowns is a pushover. When Preparation was made baseline in patch 5.2 (January 2013), I was certain that the once-optional ability would be a permanent part of our arsenal. Now, I'm wondering if Preparation's next on Blizzard's chopping block.
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: Combat and the GCD
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 three rogue specs share many common mechanics. They all follow the same formula: generate combo points, use finishers, activate your cooldowns when they come up. The real differences between the specs only show up once you start playing them. Assassination is well-known for being more relaxed and favors pooling energy over spamming attacks. Subtlety rogues have a knack for massive burst damage via their complex cooldown, Shadow Dance. Combat is arguably the simplest of the three specs, and is often characterized by its fast-paced gameplay and high actions-per-minute rate. Adrenaline Rush, which has been combat's signature cooldown for years, is designed to let you push buttons even faster. Assassination's Vendetta lets you hit harder, subtlety's Shadow Dance lets you use openers, and Adrenaline Rush doubles the numbers of buttons you can push. Unfortunately for combat, the concept of "push more buttons" can't scale forever.
Encrypted Text: We'll always be the bad guys
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. I remember the first time I ran into a warlock in vanilla WoW. We were both around level 40, and I met him in an Uldaman run. I didn't even know the class existed until he responded to my advertisement in trade chat. During the dungeon, he was constantly Fearing mobs into other groups, accidentally tab-targeting and tossing DoTs on patrols, and letting his pet steal aggro from the tank. My first impression of warlocks was a negative one, and it took a long time for that prejudice to subside. Most players' first experience with a rogue will be on the receiving end of our daggers. Whether it's in a battleground or in the open world of a PvP server, rogues are killing thousands of players per hour. If a rogue gets the opener on an unsuspecting player, it's not a pretty sight. The target will be ambushed from nowhere, stunned, slowed, interrupted, poisoned, and bled to death. Being killed by a rogue isn't a fun experience. You're hit with the shock of surprise, denied control of your character, and incredibly restricted. It's easy to see how a player's first experience with a rogue could leave a bad taste in their mouth.
Encrypted Text: Rogues and RPPM
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. If you have any questions about what gear you should use or about your specific DPS stat weights, you should use Shadowcraft to get the answers. WoW is a game with dozens of different mechanics and complex intersections. There's no way to guess or intuit what's right for your rogue. Every rogue has different access to gear, and you're always limited by what actually drops. You shouldn't focus on trying to theorycraft in a gear vacuum, because the gear you currently have is important in planning the proper upgrade paths. That said, there's no reason you shouldn't understand some of the underlying mechanics that determine what gear and stats are good for you. The newest mechanic in WoW is the Real Proc-Per-Minute (RPPM) system, which affects several proc-based effects like our weapon enchants, trinkets, and the legendary meta gem. RPPM is a very different system for procs than we've seen in the past.
