Sorry for the lack of updates this week, I’ve been pretty busy on the personal side, but I should be back for the next while.
Before I had time to make another post whining about balance, the 3.1 official notes came out. I took a look at the rogue changes and glyphs, and there is some things to be excited about.
Rogue Glyphs
Rogue (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
- Glyph of Sap — Increases the duration of Sap by 20 sec. (Old: 10 sec.)
- Glyph of Deadly Throw — Increases the slowing effect on Deadly Throw by 10%. (Old: Increases the range on Deadly Throw by 5 yards.)
- Glyph of Adrenaline Rush — Increases the duration of Adrenaline Rush by 5 sec. (Old: Decreases the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush by 60 sec.)
- Glyph of Sprint — Increases the movement speed of your Sprint ability by an additional 30%. (Old: also reduced the duration by 5%)
- Glyph of Crippling Poison — Increases the chance to inflict your target with Crippling Poison by an additional 20%. (Old: 10%)
- Glyph of Pick Lock — Reduces the cast time of your Pick Lock ability by 100%. (Old: 75)
- Glyph of Hunger For Blood *new* — Increases the bonus damage from Hunger For Blood by 1% per application.
- Glyph of Killing Spree *new* — Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec.
- Glyph of Shadow Dance *new* — Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec.
- Glyph of Fan of Knives *new* — Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%.
- Glyph of Tricks of the Trade *new* — Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target.
- Glyph of Mutilate *new* — Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy.
- Glyph of Cloak of Shadows *new* — While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.
PvP Perspective
Well these are a nice surprise to say the least. The Cloak of Shadows glyph has a ton of pvp potential, if you pop CoS preemptively you might even be able to live through a stun! If you play any mutilate spec, the 5 energy glyph should help offset some of the damage we’ve lost with these recent nerfs. The tricks of the trade glyph is somewhat tempting but IMO isn’t extraordinary for PvE or PvP.
The shadow dance glyph will be a must have for anyone playing the spec, an extra couple of ambushes can huge. This should give the spec more versatility and lasting power.
The crippling poison glyph may be worthwhile as a non-deadly brew spec.
The deadly throw glyph remains trash.
PvE
If there’s an AOE fight, the new FoK glyph might be worth using, but glyphing for trash damage isn’t worth it imo.
The hunger for blood glyph is simply amazing for pve.
With the glyphs of Killing Spree and Adrenaline rush added to some big pve combat buffs, expect combat to be back in a big way for PvE in 3.1.
Assassination
Skills
- Envenom now gives an additional 15% chance to apply Deadly Poison and a 75% increased frequency of applying Instant Poison for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. (Previously gave a 15% chance to apply both deadly and instant poison)
- Expose Armor now reduces armor by 20%, lasting longer per combo point.
Talents
- Hunger For Blood (Tier 11) changed to: Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 15%. Requires a bleed effect to be active on the target. Lasts 30 sec. (Previously increased damage by 5%)
- Improved Poisons (Tier 4) changed to increases the chance to apply Deadly Poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% and the frequency of applying Instant Poison to your target by 10/20/30/40/50%. (Previously increased chance to apply Deadly and Instant poison by 2/4/6/8/10%)
Combat
Talents
- Savage Combat (Tier 9) now increases damage caused against poison enemies by 4%. (Previously increased damage by 1%)
- Adrenaline Rush (Tier 7) cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
- Lightning Reflexes (Tier 4) is now a 3 point talent and Increases your Dodge chance by 2/4/6% and gives you 4/7/10% melee haste. (Previously just increased dodge by 1/2/3/4/5%)
As stated above, combat is really getting attractive for pve. 10 percent passive haste? 3 minute AR? 3 percent more passive damage from savage combat is amazing.
At the same time, assassination got some nice buffs. No more refreshing HfB will increase our damage and allow a lot of rogues to turn the T.V. back on while raiding.
All in all, rogue PvE concerns, primarily our weak damage compared to utility classes that can bring buffs, looks like its being remedied.
Other Big Changes This Patch
Death Knights, Hunters and Holy Pallys didn’t recieve huge nerfs, but it looks like the adjustments are beginning. Death knights have been cleaned up a bit, no major damage nerfs but they will no longer remove hots, which was basically keeping druids out of endgame arena.
Hunters have TnT removed and Wyvern Sting duration cut to 6 seconds in PvP. Both of these were obvious and necessary, but at the same time hunters actually received a damage buff, which is just stupid. Hunters need more drastic changes to be brought back into balance, but at least Blizzard is getting started. Hopefully this is looked at more closely before the patch goes live.
Holy Paladinss got buffed as well. A huge glyph, reducing the cd of holy shock by 1 second, is really nice for them. At the same time, ret damage was nerfed slightly, as they lost a lot of crit.
All in all there’s a lot of interesting stuff, and it looks like things are gradually moving in the right direction. There are still a lot of changes I’d still like to see, but for now let’s say this is better than nothing.
We’ll keep you updated as the PTR progresses.
Tournament Realm is Up
To those of you interested, the blizzard tournament realm is up. Best of luck to all those intended to compete, for more info click here.
For the rest of the patch notes you can check mmo-champion.com
Related posts:
Thanks for the update Akrios. Not sure if it’s still applicable, but are we gonna see a shadowdstep/shadowdance spec review still? Also, I was just wondering how much of a difference weapon dps makes on mutilate damage. I’m at 1900 on my 2’s and I’m still using the Sons of Hodir rep daggers. Will a wep upgrade be a big improvement for me? No problem if you don’t answer, as your articles are still helpful, but thanks ahead of time.
Comment by Cadel — February 24, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
OH REALLY NICE =D really good news about the Mutilate and the Cloak of shadows Glyph XD looking forward to the patch get out.
Keep doing the good work its really good what u guys do
Comment by shaddyd — February 24, 2009 @ 4:22 pm
I like the updates but im curious, will HfB be stackable or not because the glyph says 1% damage extra per application? Am i missing something?
Comment by Nickostick — February 24, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
Yes, what does it mean by ‘per application’? Also, you mention that we won’t have to refresh HfB — but it ‘lasts 30 sec’. That seems to indicate we
will have to refresh. Perhaps I am missing something too?
Comment by kkeeiitthh — February 24, 2009 @ 4:37 pm
Probably means bleed or something, not sure. Just have to wait to see.
Comment by Aggrø — February 24, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
Ehm… is it just me or do Druids really got a stun à la Kidney Shot?
- Maim now stuns the target instead of incapacitate.
Source: mmo-champion
Wait, this must be a joke. Aprils fool, right?!
If this is becoming real, what’s then the difference between a rogue and a druid?
We have then only vanish. And cheap shot.
A catid has poisons, a copy of our lolstep and all his other known catid stuff… and gets Savage Defense, which allows, after the cat made a crit, the next damage incoming will be reduced by 25% of the cats AP. Wait… sounds nearly like Cheat Death.
Ok… but I’m happy that every druid gets this, because this is a skill that can be bought by level 40. WTF><.
And we have to use skillpoints to get the better version.
And we have to use Resilience rating to let cheap death really work, but a druid has only use his AP.
Ok, just relax… a feral druid still gets Primal Gore, a Tier 10 talent. This little skill grants the periodic damage from his dots the ability to crit… aha.
Ok… slowly, I get it… rogues are the first class which will disappear.
Ok… why?
Is a new Hero class incoming?
The Warden?
Assassin?
Reroll to an other class?
But hee, I’m happy.
I’m still pissed off because I feel like that I’m the last sheep in the flock which is left over.
I don’t know how to express my feelings that I have in the moment…
Well… criting dots, a really cheap cheap death for every druid and they stun us… well, that’s what I really wanted to see for 3.1.
Oohh Blizz, I’m currently sooo happy, let me hug you *preparing a backstap*
Comment by Dante — February 24, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
whining about feral druids ? Lol. Ferals are very strong, but really, classes that destroy rogues at the moment are paladins, hunters and dks, not ferals.
Comment by xt — February 25, 2009 @ 12:39 am
more glyph choice.
nice.
sprint also looks sexy – they removed duration penalty as i understand.
but the most powerfull for me is mutilate glyph and Clos ofc.
Glyph of Sap is nice too.
as for me i’ll replace glyph of garrote and glyph of eviscerate on glyph of Muti and glyph of Clos (if they r all Major)
Comment by Kross — February 25, 2009 @ 2:45 am
im happy to see we have gotten survivability throu the CoS glyph, Thanks a million blizzard, its really needed ; thou it seems weird that this where give to CoS as it would be just plain stupid to actually waste CoS cd`s on survival vs melee`s when this skill is more like a “get wrid of diseases,magic,dots etc” to safely vanish. i would actually rather see a nerfed version of this added to evasion instead. ( like 10%-20% psycical damage reduction on Evasion instead, even less if 10%-20% is too high, wich it probably is with the duration being so much longer)
but what the heck, no mather its finally some good news on the survivability front, and im grateful for that.
and especially also given the 5 energy less glyph on Mutilate is a nice compensation for the 50% too 20% dmg nerf , eventhou its a small compensation.Since burst was the real problem i would actualy traded the muti nerf for overkill,vigor glyph,4 set bonus nerf instead, as the mutilate nerf directly nerfs our substained pvp damage way more than the burst ( wich is pretty weak compared to most classes the way it was)
this is ofc just my opinions ofc. and some of this is also a whole other topic, sorry about that.
Comment by Nyluh — February 25, 2009 @ 4:44 am
Savage defense only works while in dire bear form, not in cat form. It’s also nothing like cheat death.
They don’t get a copy of our poisons, they can only slow melee and movement speed. Rogues can do two of either slow movement, healing debuff, slow casting. All three at once if you’re mutilate.
Also, feral druids have nowhere near the cc capabilities of rogues.
Rogues have more over ferals than just cheap shot and vanish. Rogues have blind vs druid’s cyclone that requires caster form and has a cast time. Druids also don’t have cloak of shadows. Rogues also have expose armor, which reduces a lot more armor than feral faerie fire.
Comment by omegatrigun — February 25, 2009 @ 5:51 am
Ferals also can’t sap.
Comment by omegatrigun — February 25, 2009 @ 5:57 am
I’m pretty sure the HfB glyph is a typo; it should read 3% overall boost. As for the not refreshing HfB, I think as long as you have a bleed on your target HfB will stay up, it’s only if your target drops all bleed effects that you’ll need to refresh HfB. The 30 second cool down is for targets without a bleed and after combat; I’m not 100% sure about this however.
Comment by Martineau — February 25, 2009 @ 6:47 am
Looks like Rogues are making a comeback! I am excited for some of the new glyphs that will be specific to certain specs, and I am glad Blizzard decided to give Shadowdance its own bar when used which was much needed. No more macros for that
Hopefully hunters get nerfs later on, but as you said it is betetr than nothing.
Comment by Evolas — February 25, 2009 @ 7:13 am
Posting on my iPod at the moment. Looked briefly over the patch notes and saw our nerf but I do like the glyph buffs everyone is getting. Maybe the need for the cookie cutter glyph/spec won’t be around anymore. I run ret/rogue for my twos and I really enjoy it. But seeing the nerfs makes me want to just want to reroll a class that seems reliable and not broken. Then again, double melée twos is the only fun I can find in twos anymore. Guess it’s time I geared my DK =(
Comment by Lavz — February 25, 2009 @ 8:19 am
The changes seems quite nice, I’m undecided whether to go Shadow Dance or stay as Mutilate :S
Shadowstep is so useful, and ShS Backstabs with the right talents and a crit will be insane
It’s just the positioning that could get a bit annoying in quite a lot of situations, since it’s going to be harder to get behind the target than it was back in vanilla when we played backstab.
I’ll probably give it a try though, I mean 5 min prep, HaT and a ‘working’ Shadow Dance will make it pretty tastey.
I still think I prefer the original ShD though, where it re-stealthed you every 3 seconds, would be nice if they did that and removed GCD for Ambush and etc whilst in ShD, imo it wouldn’t be over powered vs resi targets, especially if the nerfed Lethality doesn’t work with it during ShD; as Ambush is after-all, a stealth skill.
Comment by Toragami — February 25, 2009 @ 9:14 am
No more having to refresh HfB via mouse button 5 is going to leave my thumb twitchy…lol
However, these changes for rogue are not only going to be insane for regular WoW, however, the ARENA tournament realms for this Season are going to be RETARDED! All the new experiments will be happening on Arena!!
Comment by Faeyna — February 25, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
Combat is back?
Comment by Wigg — February 25, 2009 @ 6:53 pm
Im happy Survival hunters being nerfed a bit. but this patch really doesnt give us that more balance after 3.1 im afraid, take a look into this link http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=66011
(its from The test results of 3.1 beta and DK changes )
And if this changes are a compensation for the Hot Removal then bite me , seriously…DK`s will still pwn a druid or make it oom in 3 mins, and i doubt the Druid encounters will be “That” much harder , but these changes will truly effect everyone of us that doesnt use Hot`s for a living in a very very very very negative way.
Holy Palas being buffed will also just make the top tier of the arena brackets the way they are,most likely even more dominating.
what is the World (of warcraft) coming too?
Comment by Nyluh — February 25, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
Yeah, COS is definitely most useful to remove dots so we can vanish right now. However, think about all the times vanish doesn’t work and we get pulled out of stealth along with some nasty damage? Ever try cos/vanishing running from a pally? This is huge in that respect and I think goes a long way with addressing some sort of work around for vanish being so buggy.
Comment by Roarck — February 26, 2009 @ 6:25 am
How many extra ambushes can we get in with the buff to shd? 2? And before I respecced Mut for pvp because of the lethality nerf I was able to do 3 or 4 ambushes in a row depending on how the target was cc’d. So that’s potentially 6 ambushes? If they’re all critting for an average of 5k, give or take depending on gear… I’m thinking of going back to the shd/hat spec.
Comment by Roarck — February 26, 2009 @ 6:33 am
Looks like Blizz is making a definite difference in rogue pvp and pve specs now. Up until now, a pvp mut rogue with good pve gear could still do 2.5-3k dps in a raid. Now there’s a significant difference in taking more pve talents. Maybe this is preping us for when the patch in the dual spec ability.
Comment by Roarck — February 26, 2009 @ 6:37 am
Shadowdance seems interesting. Is Backstab glyphe still bugged?
Comment by Roque — February 26, 2009 @ 7:12 am
Subtlety
* Shadow Dance now opens a new action bar when used.
Comment by drago — February 26, 2009 @ 9:29 am
hey Akrios and Nition are u gonna go to the tournament? if is that way can u put some live streams? it will be really nice
and tell us the hour and day if u decide to do it
Comment by Voruc — February 27, 2009 @ 3:02 am
I also have heard that Poison is going to a PPM (Proc per minute) other than a chance on hit as it is now. This change favors slow daggers much more than the fast ones that many Mut rogues are using now in raids. (So no more off hand Librarian Paper Cutters anymore). If this is true the only thing that would keep fast daggers in play would be how much energy return you are getting from focused attacks but that might be hard to quantify.
Comment by Edondia — February 27, 2009 @ 3:12 am
Which glyphs are you and Nition using?
Comment by Kraxkrax — February 27, 2009 @ 4:48 am
I’ve been a combat rogue all my life and I’m glad to see that they’re getting some well-deserved buffs.
Comment by Anonymuzz — February 27, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Improved Poisons (Tier 4) changed to increases the chance to apply Deadly Poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% and the frequency of applying Instant Poison to your target by 10/20/30/40/50%. (Previously increased chance to apply Deadly and Instant poison by 2/4/6/8/10%)
Are they serious? 50% increased chance to apply Instant???
THAT is forking awesome.
Comment by Kizlyar — February 27, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
Blizzard change whith 3.1 the Poison Proccs to a proc per minute system. So slower Weapons like Sinister Revenge become more attractive to us. The Instant Poison procs will be the same as with Webbed Death. Just in case, if both Weapons got the same PPM for Instant Poison. Only Deadly Poison don’t have a PPM System.
Comment by Noc — February 28, 2009 @ 7:45 am
Sooo I’ve been following your advice on mutilate in pve and it has served me very well indeed! Now I wonder if I’ll be forced to spec combat to keep up with the other rogues? Atm I’m yearning for the dagger from Kel – but maybe in the end it’ll be the fist I’ll need?
In my experience assas spec has definitely given the higher dps on single targets – Now I wonder: Will this change with the new buff to combat?
Comment by Sahar — March 3, 2009 @ 5:21 am
Looks good to me, i agree, its not perfect but definately in the right direction! looking forward t oit
Comment by Insolus — March 3, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
Glyph of Cloak of Shadows…awesome!
Comment by Rahziel — March 4, 2009 @ 5:55 am
On the PTR Lightning Reflexes changed, its not 10% melee haste but 10 haste melee point…
Comment by Ørco — March 5, 2009 @ 3:34 am
Just saw this on MMO Champion:
Glyph of Envenom — Your Envenom ability no longer consumes Deadly Poison from your target.
Interesting glyph change but I am not sure if anybody will take it over some of the other available ones such as mutilate glyph or HFB
Comment by Edondia — March 6, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
Wait I just thought a little bit more about that. This could be a big deal in the battle of Envenom vs Eviscerate. If envenom no longer consumes the DP then you are almost guaranteed to be able to get up to the 5 stacks for max Envenom damage every rotation. combine that with CTTC refreshing SnD and it could be a nice additional DPS buff in Raiding. Also making damage more consistent as well.
Comment by Edondia — March 6, 2009 @ 5:43 pm
Another thought on this (my apologies for the sporadic posting) when glyphed does it still give the same IP damage as it did prior or does it trade that off for keeping the DP on target? The tool tip doesn’t really specify that part. That would greatly affect this glyphs popularity. I would guess that it still would because other wise what would be the point but sometimes Blizz does surprise me.
Comment by Edondia — March 6, 2009 @ 8:05 pm
Hi there guys, just a quick question which may not be relevant to this stuff on glyphs
….can rogues disarm hunter traps in arena anymore? i was trying the other day and it didn’t seem to work…is it just me?
Comment by Bladeangel — March 8, 2009 @ 4:30 pm
Don’t you think that rogues need a bit of a nerf 2? I mean yeah they got mutilate nerfed but that is one ability from a talent tree that not everyone is using. Rogues were always OP, always are Op, and probably always will be OP. This simply sucks. I have a rogue and i find no chalange in beating up everyone in my path all the time.
Comment by Kain — March 14, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
I agree with Deally Throw it blows, They really need to put it back where it silence people for 3 sec. But do you have a prediction when the patch is coming out?
Comment by Whatsgood — March 17, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
Oh yea and does the sap glyph make oppenents stay sapped longer too?
Comment by Whatsgood — March 17, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
Rogues are not overpowered, and the only time rogues were overpowered was with 4xtier6, which most rogues never had, and mutilate at the start of s5.
I am shadowdance at the moment and the spec has renewed my enjoyment of the game. Some comps/classes are unbeatable no matter what spec, but 3.1 should help and at least shadowdance lets me play to my potential more than mutilate.
I am just worried that the backstab glyph change will kill shadowdance daggers since the only real pressure outside cooldowns is backstab spam during a stun. The glyph change will be as much as a nerf as mutilate received. They really need to buff backstab to be more competitive with shred.
Comment by nzgs — March 17, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
I WANNNA WLK!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by Ash — March 22, 2009 @ 12:03 am
I have a question, I have heard that Adren rush will be learned at lvl 30, I think this is just a rumor and would like it to be clarified,
Second the Glyphs I would choose for PVE Assissination spec are gonna be tuff,
Glyph of Mutilate
Glyph of Hunger o’ blood (1 time of 15% damage 18% w/ glyph)
Glyph of Tricks of the trade.
or Glyph of Rupture
Let me explain my reasoning behind the tricks of trade, In my Guild there will always be more than one rogue raiding so if you simply make a macro for your tricks that include a whisper to your tricks of trade target and if u both time it together at right times you are talking about a 25% increase in damage, not bad even if you only get in 5 secs (enough time to coldblood envenom)
plus its only a 30sec cooldown
PVE Combat (all specs)
Not sure if this spec will beat out assissination but it certainly got some nice perks
(Misc) (Must) (Weapon)
G of Killing spree G of Adren Rush G of backstab
G of Blade flurry G of Sinister Strike
Comment by Shadowfox — April 14, 2009 @ 9:50 am
Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
Comment by Corpus — February 14, 2010 @ 4:08 pm