Rogue 5.2 PTR Observations

[Linneth]

I didn't see any thread about this, so I'll post some clarifications about our changes on this patch. Everything is subject to change. Feel free to ask or try by yourself by copying your character to the PTR realms or making a lvl 90 premade on the login screen.

- Hit and Run is our level 60 talent in the current build. Cloak and Dagger is supposed to be our new level 60 talent, as GC says:

EpyonTV: "I thought the rogue 60 talent was Cloak and Dagger? Where is it on the PTR? We got "Hit and Run". Late change?"
‏Ghostcrawler: "It's Cloak and Dagger. The targeting reticule and time teleport for Hit and Run weren't popular internally."

Thanks Jaquiny for pointing that out.

- Assassination does get 170 energy with our new 4p PvP bonus. Rejoice!

- Marked for Death can be used while Stealthed, has a duration of 60 seconds on the target and has a new? animation. Can be used without pulling the mob you marked.

Want to see more Warlock stolen animations? Then check this thread! http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...gue-Animations

- Hit and Run works as it seemed. It's a ground targeted ability that places a beacon on your previous position (it looks exactly like Glyph of Decoy), allowing you to move freely up to 10 seconds before returning to the beacon. It seems that you can't outrun your previous position, getting pulled back regardless of how far you moved. It seems it can be used anywhere (it isn't limited by ground levels like Heroic Leap would) and ignores LoS.

- Preparation as a baseline ability remains completely unchanged from its live version. It still resets what the tooltip says (Cloak of Shadows included, which could lead to some nasty combos on casters).

- Shuriken Toss autoattacks procs both kinds of poison. Autoattack is not enabled by using Shuriken Toss, so you need to macro a /startattack to the skill. WARNING: This was by using some generic field testing by killing some mobs, so don't take it as fact: It seems that you autoattack with both weapons; weapon speed affects Shuriken Toss autoattack frequency; I was hitting for 2/3 of the damage my melee autoattacks would.

[Deleted]

- Hit and Run (...) It seems that you can't outrun the range of your previous position. (...)

What does that mean? Are you blocked by an invisible wall spanning a 30 yard radius around the beacon?

[Chult]

Hey, a bunch of PvP changes only 1% of a class which is played by sub 10% of the entire playerbase gives a crap about.

How about some actual PvE changes, rather than just nerfing our class as a whole?

It's rather tiresome being middle of the pack until end of expansion every time. And they wonder why Rogues are underplayed?

[Gurg]

I saw some info that max range that you can get to without breaking the buff is 100y. Havent had chance to test it since im on work now, but will see it later during the day.
Also, even so it does look good, i can hardly see my self (and probably a lot of more people) dropping ShS for HnR as they share same talent tier and ShS is on lower CD, thus more usable. I see good usage in concentrated AoE fights, but also in PvP, but ill hardly drop it for ShS.

Have you had chance to test Blade Flurry nerf and Vitality buff for Combat? Is it bad as it looks like and does Vitality buff finally brings up Combat close to Assassin in Single Target Fights?

As much as i saw and followed discussions on EJ and several other forums, it looks like they are trying to bring up combat close to Assa/Sub in ST fights, nerfing down BF which was a serious issue since 4.0
Also, that new lvl 90 talent, Marked for Death, how does it look like? Personally i like keeping Anticipation as my choice in that tier for un-predicted CP procs, but it does look like DPS increase, and solid tool for fast rump up of opening CPs in which we build our buffs.

[Koji2k11]

i dont think hit and run is good news for pve its a bad skill i dont see myself using it over Shs

[Gurg]

I saw some info that max range that you can get to without breaking the buff is 100y. Havent had chance to test it since im on work now, but will see it later during the day.
Also, even so it does look good, i can hardly see my self (and probably a lot of more people) dropping ShS for HnR as they share same talent tier and ShS is on lower CD, thus more usable. I see good usage in concentrated AoE fights, but also in PvP, but ill hardly drop it for ShS.

Have you had chance to test Blade Flurry nerf and Vitality buff for Combat? Is it bad as it looks like and does Vitality buff finally brings up Combat close to Assassin in Single Target Fights?

As much as i saw and followed discussions on EJ and several other forums, it looks like they are trying to bring up combat close to Assa/Sub in ST fights, nerfing down BF which was a serious issue since 4.0
Also, that new lvl 90 talent, Marked for Death, how does it look like? Personally i like keeping Anticipation as my choice in that tier for un-predicted CP procs, but it does look like DPS increase, and solid tool for fast rump up of opening CPs in which we build our buffs.

"Cloak and Dagger was the one scrapped after all" personally i expected this, even on paper it looked far to OP to enter the game, i mean, ranged Ambush/CS followed by porting behind target is far to much abusive and OP. Using CS as ranged opener you can pretty much break and AoE (for instance Mage spamming Arcane Explosion in attempt to decloak us), toss in MoD, kick and his stunned for 7 sec in opener

[Deleted]

i dont think hit and run is good news for pve its a bad skill i dont see myself using it over Shs

It could be very potent on fights like Elegon: a quick H&R to the outside rim and back on the boss in a whiff. Godly.

[Reaped]

any news on how blade flurry seems to be performing? what kind of numbers are you able to get up to with shadow blades/Adrenaline rush popped.

[Linneth]

What does that mean? Are you blocked by an invisible wall spanning a 30 yard radius around the beacon?

You can't avoid getting pulled back to your previous position even if you go nuts and run on a straight line with Nitro Boosts. I suppose that using some kind of teleport would work, though

I edited the first post for clarification.

i dont think hit and run is good news for pve its a bad skill i dont see myself using it over Shs

Being able to trigger the teleport sooner allows to some (limited) creative uses that exceeds what ShS would be able to do. You'll still use ShS for most fights, though.

any news on how blade flurry seems to be performing? what kind of numbers are you able to get up to with shadow blades/Adrenaline rush popped.

That will need addons to provide some kind of useful data to the discussion, I'll try to do it as soon as I can.

[Koji2k11]

lets see do we ever get a fight like elegon again ? i dont think so maybe some similar fight but still this 45s CD makes me dont want to choose it :/

[Deleted]

You can't avoid getting pulled back to your previous position even if you go nuts and run on a straight line with Nitro Boosts. I suppose that using some kind of teleport would work, though

Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks

[Koji2k11]

well i didnt test BF yet but if this nerf goes live why dont they add a skill witch improves eviscerate if u use it at 5 cp your eviscerate applys a bleed debuff on the boss like 50% of the initial dmg or more over 5-8 seconds ? that would be totaly awesome and would push single target dps further a bit

[Linneth]

any news on how blade flurry seems to be performing? what kind of numbers are you able to get up to with shadow blades/Adrenaline rush popped.

I tested it on Orgrimmar's boss dummies without using Killing Spree or Stealth. I got similar results, 108k with Blade Flurry and 105k with single target (both results are taken when Shadowblades faded). I did 17.5% of my damage with Blade Flurry, but I lost 2 Sinister Strikes and a Eviscerate because of it. Without dwelling further, I would say that Blade Flurry is a slight DPS increase during CDs (where energy isn't a concern) and a DPS loss without CDs (where Energy starvation will lower your Bandit's Guile cycles).

[Ryme]

Maths done on simulated perfect setup environment have BF still giving you around a 7-9% dps increase over not using it, but patchwerks don't exist anymore of course.

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 10:50 AM ----------

Shame about hit and run, was hoping for a new pve toy.

[Gurg]

I tested it on Orgrimmar's boss dummies without using Killing Spree or Stealth. I got similar results, 108k with Blade Flurry and 105k with single target (both results are taken when Shadowblades faded). I did 17.5% of my damage with Blade Flurry, but I lost 2 Sinister Strikes and a Eviscerate because of it. Without dwelling further, I would say that Blade Flurry is a slight DPS increase during CDs (where energy isn't a concern) and a DPS loss without CDs (where Energy starvation will lower your Bandit's Guile cycles).

Seeing what they did with BF i expect that number will be tuned in future updates and be a little more buffed, around 40-50% damage. From discussions on EJ and math done there and on several other forums, having slightest downtime window while using BF can really fast produce DPS loss.
Now.. i see two options here:
1) 20% slower energy regen will be tuned down to 10-15%, this can still force you to turn it off, and by leaving it to 25% damage transfer they will be able to control it more easy from stepping overboard, as it it now. (which is less likely, seeing that 20% energy cost was applied from start)
2) current number of 25% BF damage is a base damage which they saw as a default value to start tuning BF more.

My personal opinion is that 75% nerf with leaving it on 20% energy cost is insane nerf (prolly one of the biggest that i ever saw in wow), taking in concern that its only 7-9% DPS gain in perfect, patchwerk, conditions, which are not possible any more. Even so, i do think that Combat rogues need some attention, buffing a little ST damage and tuning down BF, where BF is taken in as +40% of our total damage done on cleave fights, but i find far to big of a nerf to leave it as it is now.

[Coldkil]

BF is an awful lot of damage - negated by the nerf. While i could agree to the fact that BF + Cleave Fight = 40% more dmg is too much tied to a single ability, there will be only 2 scenarios available:

- BF will still be a dps increase (while much minor than before): every rogue will play Combat for every cleave fight which is basically what happens now, just we will do less damage.

- BF becomes a very very thin dps increase (think Cata's Rupture usage for Combat) or a dps loss: most people will stick to the best single target spec, making the class actually mono-spec.

Neither of the 2 is a good thing, basically the only change is for the worse.

[Gurg]

I agree, being that were one of pure DPS specs, and on top of that only melee pure DPS specs this is not solution what they did, but even more beating up already dying class. From what i read, rogues are in drop since cata by 5% (Legend weps which spiked up rogue population), 3% since firelands, 1.9% since 5.0.4 went live.

Cruel reality is that ranged DPS is now favored in raids, they move less and they are always stacked on healers, so they are pretty much far easy to heal. Every other class can bring our buffs with ranged hunter which can bring pretty much any raid buff, and two hybrid classes, DK who is plate and far "harder" than us and Shaman, who have ranged/resto OS.
My rogue is mine "up-to-date alt" (on pair with ilvl as my main) of my wind monk and decided to switch to rogue since monk bored me. Im not a perfect rogue, but my DPS as pure DPS spec cannot compare to the one which i can dish out as monk, even in zerg phases and cause of that, my Raid leader forced me to choose, either ill go back to monk or ill be replaced with someone else, fDruid or wMonk. Till now i was kept in raid cause of our insane cleaves, being that my raid leader is following notes, he dont see any reason to keep and gear class which will not be so useful in future.

Its far obvious that blizz dont know that they want to do with us, and were thorn in their side for a long time, they did manage to patch us up with a pair of shiny daggers, but that will not help here.

I like, somewhat cleaving, mechanic of Assas rogues, where you pile Rupture on all targets, and finish with GT, its fun to use and maintain so i would like to see similar solution to, dull, combat spec.

Lets hope that those numbers (and changes) are not final, otherwise, i see no point in using combat any more, i used it only for cleave fights, since thats nerfed to the ground, i see no point in playing it any more.
ill be honest and say that i really dont know why rogues were not reworked pre MoP as every other class was (well, most of them).

They are now experimenting with us, no realizing that they can easily kill class which is close to death.

Linneth, when you have a little time, can you post how well is now Combat? Being that Vitality is buffed for 5%, does it bring us close to Assa/Sub single target damage?

[Ryme]

- Shuriken Toss autoattacks procs both kinds of poison. Autoattack is not enabled by using Shuriken Toss, so you need to macro a /startattack to the skill. WARNING: This was by using some generic field testing by killing some mobs, so don't take it as fact: It seems that you autoattack with both weapons; weapon speed affects Shuriken Toss autoattack frequency; I was hitting for 2/3 of the damage my melee autoattacks would.

Any chance you could paste in some combat log info for this showing both normal auto attack and shuriken toss auto attacks?

[Linneth]

Any chance you could paste in some combat log info for this showing both normal auto attack and shuriken toss auto attacks?

Yeah, I'll edit this post when I have gathered the information.

EDIT.

And here is it:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/e...kbt/details/2/

Done as Combat, completely naked except for 2x Acolyte's Dagger. Melee autoattack was done for around 5 minutos, Shuriken Toss was done for around 4 minutes. "Lanzamiento de Shuriken" is Shuriken's Toss normal damage, while Shuriken Toss and Suriken Toss Off-hand are Shuriken Toss autoattack damage.

[Deleted]

Thank you for this thread, I was hoping someone would do it.

1. Please elaborate about hit and run. It seems great from the wowhead description:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=137642

100 yards, is that true? Meaning you can teleport to any visible spot in 100 yards for 10 sec? And no cooldown?

2. About the 150 energy - can you give an example of what sequence becomes possible in shadow dance with this much energy? What did you experiment with? 150 energy seems to fit anticipation quite well, leaving shuriken a bit behind i guess?

3. Can you activate hit and run while in combat, then stealth, and then return to your previous position without losing stealth? Or the opposite - can you activate it in stealth?