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  1. #1

    Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue (Rogue Forums)
    Coming next: The Hunter , Druid, and Mage previews!
    Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker)

    In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we'll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. Here, you'll get a glimpse at what's in store for the rogue class, including a look the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the rogue's different talent specs.

    New Rogue Abilities

    Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue's current target, helping to ensure combo points aren't wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

    Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

    Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

    Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

    We're also planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you're already familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we want for each spec.

    • In PvP, we want to reduce the rogue's dependency on binary cooldowns and "stun-locks," and give them more passive survivability in return. One major change is that we'll put Cheap Shot on the same diminishing return as other stuns. The increase to Armor and Stamina on cloth, leather, and mail gear will help with this goal as well.
    • In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom, a very large portion of the rogue's damage is attributable to passive sources of damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we want to reduce the percentage of rogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special attacks.
    • We would like to improve the rogue leveling experience. Positional attacks and DoT-ramping mechanics will be de-emphasized at low levels and then re-introduced at higher levels for group gameplay. We are also providing rogues with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT).
    • To complement the change to combo points, non-damage abilities such as Recuperate and Slice and Dice will no longer have target requirements and can be used with any of the rogue's existing combo points, including combo points remaining on recently killed targets. This will not affect damage abilities, which will still require combo points to be present on the specific target you want to damage. To coincide with this, the UI will be updated so that rogues know how many combo points they have active.
    • Ambush will now work with all weapons, but will have a reduced coefficient when not using a dagger. When opening from Stealth, all rogues will be able to choose from burst damage, DoT abilities, or a stun.
    • As we've done recently with some of the Subtlety abilities, we want to make sure more rogue abilities aren't overly penalized by weapon choice. With a few exceptions (like Backstab), you should be able to use a dagger, axe, mace, sword, or fist weapon without being penalized for most attacks.
    • Deadly Throw and Fan of Knives will now use the weapon in the ranged slot. In addition, we hope to allow rogues to apply poisons to their throwing weapons.
    • We are very happy with Tricks of the Trade as a general mechanic and as a way to give rogues more group utility, but we don't want it to account for as much threat transfer as it does now.


    New Talents and Talent Changes

    In Cataclysm, the overall feel of each of the rogue's talent trees will change, as we would like each tree to have a clearly defined niche and purpose. The talent details below are meant to give you an idea of what we're going for.

    • Assassination will be more about daggers, poisons, and burst damage.
    • Combat will be all about swords, maces, fist weapons, axes, and being engaged toe-to-toe with your enemies. A Combat rogue will be able to survive longer without needing to rely on Stealth and evasion mechanics.
    • The Subtlety tree will primarily be based around utilizing Stealth, openers, finishers, and survivability. It'll be about daggers, too, but less so than Assassination.
    • In general, Subtlety rogues needs to do more damage than they do today, and the other trees need to have more tools.
    • Weapon-specialization talents (for all classes, not just rogues) are going away. We do not want you to have to respec when you get a different weapon. Interesting talents, such as Hack and Slash, will work with all weapons. Boring talents, such as Mace Specialization and Close Quarters Combat, will be going away.
    • The Assassination and Combat talent trees currently have a lot of passive bonuses. We plan to dial back the amount of Critical Strike Rating provided by these trees so that rogues still want it on their gear.


    Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

    Assassination
    • Melee damage
    • Melee critical damage
    • Poison damage

    Combat
    • Melee damage
    • Melee Haste
    • Harder-hitting combo-point generators

    Subtlety
    • Melee damage
    • Armor Penetration
    • Harder-hitting finishers

    The initial tier of rogue Mastery bonuses will be very similar between the trees. However, the deeper that a player goes into any tree, the more specialized and beneficial the Masteries will be to the play style for that spec. Assassination will have better poisons than the other two specs. Combat will have very steady and consistent overall damage. Subtlety will have strong finishers.

    We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.


    Death Knight - New Rune Mechanics (Death Knight Forums)
    Ghostcrawler explained the new rune mechanic in a blue post.
    Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler (Blue Tracker)
    I'll take a stab at explaining the rune mechanic. Once you see it in action, it's pretty easy to understand.

    Just focus on Blood Runes for the moment. The big change is that rune #2 will never start filling up until rune #1 is full. They always fill 1 then 2. Today 1 and 2 can both fill at the same time.

    In Cataclysm, when you're killing things, you use rune 1. Then any extra "red" in rune 2 will fill rune 1 back up again. If both of them are full, you can use 2 Blood Runes immediately. But after that, rune 1 will fill up first and then rune 2. If it helps, imagine rune 2 is the extra tank.

    This sounds like it will slow down DK attacks, and it will to a point. That's part of what we're trying to accomplish. We can then fill those extra GCDs with things like free abilities or runic power abilities or we have room to add talents that make runes fill faster. Remember, slow attacks can hit harder though. Instead of DKs hitting fast like a rogue, they'll hit slower and harder, like a warrior, which fits a lot of player's image of a DK anyway. Dual wield will hit faster of course.

    I'll try another comparison. Imagine that all rogue abilities cost 100 energy. They have to wait until they get 100 energy, and then immediately use an attack so that they aren't wasting future energy. That's how DKs play now, except they have 6 runes to watch. Now imagine the same rogue except all his abilities cost 50 energy. If he hits an attack when he has 60 energy, then 50 is consumed but he has 10 energy still left and a head start on the next attack. That's the way we want DKs to play.

    If that still doesn't make sense, then focus on what the experience will be, which is that you'll have more breathing room in your rotation and won't have to hit a button every single GCD. If you don't use a strike the second it's available, that's more okay because the extra tank will store extra rune resources rather than just wasting it. You'll still be hitting a lot of buttons though. We're keeping double rune strikes and Death Runes and disease multipliers and all of that. We'll have to make some changes in some abilities to accommodate the resource change, but it won't be unrecognizable to you.

    We're not sure DKs even need Rune Strike any longer. If it survives, we'll turn it into an instant swing. But if we turn it into an instant swing, then it really isn't that different from existing strikes so it's possible we can just make a tanking rotation without it.

  2. #2

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Damn that was fast Boub

    So tempted... but don't want the ban

  3. #3
    High Overlord Garrus's Avatar
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    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Smoke bomb...

    Omg. HOT!

  4. #4

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Smoke bomb seems really interesting.

  5. #5

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Seriously? Another 'Hard to target' spell? I guess being able to vanish isn't good enough.
    Lok'tar Ogar!

  6. #6
    The Patient Lastkaii's Avatar
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    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Kind of disappointed with the new abilities.

  7. #7

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    The consensus seems to be that smoke bomb looks mighty baller.

  8. #8

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    AWESOME SO WE CAN BE RIKIMARU FROM DOTA NOW ;D ;D ;D
    Cunning plan! :3

  9. #9

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    > Smoke Bomb. Oh lawd my priest is going to die even faster now lol.

    I'm glad I've got a rogue buddy! All this stuff sounds awesome.

  10. #10

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Hmm depending if I play in Cata i might stay with my Rogue. I really hope Sub will be PvP viable again and Smoke Bomb looks freaking sweet

  11. #11

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    The use of phasing in a player generated spell really spells good things for the future of the mechanic, looks good
    How much bone could a bonestorm storm if a bonestorm could BOOOOOOOOONESTOOOOOOOOOOOORM!!
    http://www.mmo-champion.com/character-bios/'almega'-nara-draconus/ - my RP character

  12. #12

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Warlocks get Green Fire and rogues does not even get any direct offensive attacks? Wtf is this ._.

  13. #13
    Deleted

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT). - omg yes, Ill be finally able to solo old stuff

  14. #14

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    God...finally! A smoke bomb.
    Now i can stop playing dota.

  15. #15

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Seems a little light on interesting, but not really much you can do with a pure dps class that's already pretty well balanced.

  16. #16

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Hhhmm too many pvp changes not enough PvE

    Although newb, newbie, noob, and n00b all have similar definitions, there are key differences amongst them. A newb or newbie is a new user who has an understandable lack of experience; a noob or n00b, on the other hand, is an unskilled player who is not a newbie and should know better

  17. #17

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Recuperate is sexy and so is Smoke Bomb and a but Cheap Shot on DR... boo.

  18. #18

    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    INB4 "AMG ROGUES OP LAWL"

    Oh wait

  19. #19
    High Overlord Garrus's Avatar
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    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Quote Originally Posted by Mudor
    Warlocks get Green Fire and rogues does not even get any direct offensive attacks? Wtf is this ._.
    Like they said there's a lot of passive talents in the Rogue trees. Most likely you will get new talents in those trees, new offensive attacks. Just the ones announced that are not spec dependant do not feature any.

  20. #20
    Pit Lord Shamslam's Avatar
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    Re: Cataclysm Class Preview: Rogue

    Sounds amazing. Smoke bomb seems like a huge developmental step in WoW...and awesome.
    I once had a character named "Clamslam" but Blizzard deemed it inappropriate.
    Retired from WoW: February 19, 2011. It was fun Blizz.

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