Well we are far enough into the season and patch to start to get a real feel for PvP balance in general and specifically for our class. The first thing I can say without a doubt is that the class as a whole feels weaker than it did in the past. The resilience change did have a negative effect on us.
Our class design is not currently and has not been since WOTLK an “outlast” or “outmana” class. Right now this role can be better served in most cases by a warrior for the simple reason that warriors don’t become invariably weaker after using their cooldowns and if anything become stronger as a match goes on. Rogues have weak survivability and a set of cds that allow us to perform for the period of their use at a reasonably high level. This patch has slowed things down slightly and that is never a positive thing for us. We have less personal viability and our role as a support class feels more cemented in this era of the game.
Now before you get the impression I’m just here to cry, I’m not. I don’t think rogues are terrible and that we aren’t very much viable. Although weaker this patch, we still have our place, and it is a strong one. Our best bracket in arena is 3 v 3, and luckily that’s WoW’s most important and balanced bracket (as decided by the powers that be).
3.2 Rogue Comps
Our best comps still lie in the conventional rogue / caster / healer teams, especially RMP and RLS. Setups of this nature have been viable since the beginning of arena for many reasons, and work best when the healer has offensive dispels or purge and the ability to put out offensive pressure. The big reason an offensive healer is important is because, as always, rogue teams are most successful when games end quickly. Comps of this nature just have so much synergy through controlled burst, lockouts, MS effect, and a ton of crowd control on separate diminishing returns that you can expect rogue / caster / healer to remain strong this patch.
Rogues can also play in cleave setups (double melee + healer) and although you can say that any cleave will always have a chance to win through the raw damage of two physical dps classes, it seems as though priest cleave (specifically ret + rogue + priest) are the best bet for success as a rogue in a cleave. Once again, a priest’s abilities to remain offensive while keeping up their teammates best accentuate the rogue. The problem with running cleaves with a shaman as a healer is that they are far too viable a target to be trained when running a cleave that can’t really control or peel opposing dps classes. Shaman may be generally stronger this patch, but they also lost their bullet heals that were so fast one would have to guess to get an interrupt.
Rogue / Ret / Priest works because you have so many defensive cds that can be used while doing damage that you can drop other teams within the time frame of rogue cds, bubble, and pain supression. At the same time it’s a very difficult team to control with the rogue being slippery and the priest and paladin both having dispel.
Beast Cleave
A big trend thus far in 3.2 has been the presence of the EmG popularized “beast cleave”. The comp of Enhancement Shaman / Hunter / Paladin is named obviously for the fact that it runs a zoo on its target with a pack of wolves and a Bestial Wrathed Pet. This comp is taking some big hits in the next patch:
Hunter
Beast Mastery
- The Beast Within now reduces the mana costs of all spells by 50% for 10sec. (Up from 20%)
- The Beast Within: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds. In addition, hunters with this talent will do 10% additional damage at all times.
- Bestial Wrath: The duration of this talent has been reduced to 10 seconds.
Shaman
- Cleansing Totem: No longer pulses instantly when dropped.
- Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).
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I have to commend Blizzard here for promptly adressing the issues this comp had. It was too powerful and far too simple and this isn’t what anyone wants arena to look like. (Talking with Twix about a week ago, when I said how simple BM was he really couldn’t defend it, the only thing he could say was that “he didn’t always play BM”, which really has nothing to do with how simple and easy the comp is).
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Even with these changes, I expect this comp to still remain very much viable. Although it will be a big help to rogue / caster / healer teams to be able to control the hunter much sooner, at the same time a raw 10 percent increase in damage is nothing to laugh about. The Earthen power change should allow for a lot more control as well, but with the raw damage this comp can put out and the lack of a specificly viable target for other teams makes me doubt it’s going to disappear.
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3.22 Rogue Changes
- Envenom’s scaling has been increased from 7% to 9% of attack power per combo point.
- Fan of Knives: The damage done by this ability has been reduced by 30%.
- Talents
- Assassination
- Master Poisoner: No longer increases the Deadly Poison application rate following a successful Envenom and instead now provides a 33/66/100% chance of preventing Envenom from consuming Deadly Poison.
- Combat
- Throwing Specialization: This talent no longer causes Fan of Knives to interrupt spellcasting.
- Subtlety
- Honor Among Thieves: A 1-second cooldown is now enforced on how often a rogue can gain combo points from his party via this talent.
Most of this is old news but the above is the current official rogue notes for 3.22. The change to envenom should be a big buff for us in PvE, and in many encounters will mean a constant 100 percent uptime for 5 stack deadly poison and never having to wait to envenom.
