Hello! I’m Mathris of Exodar. I’d like to take a few lines to say hey to the readers of roguerogue.com. I started playing WoW around the time Blackwing Lair was released on a gnome warlock and raided mostly until the middle of Ahn’Qiraj. I was convinced by some friends to pick up the game again shortly after the release of BC and started playing an undead rogue right after 2.1 was released and haven’t looked back since. I do a bit of raiding here and there but stick mostly to all aspects of PvP gameplay. I’m looking forward to sharing my gaming experiences with you guys!

Cataclysm Class Changes:  The Rogue Perspective

Short Disclaimer: Since only bits of information are known about most classes I’ll only be talking about facts and not speculating too much since things are subject to change during betas and testing and all that jazz.

So here we are with 9 out of the 10 classes having some of their changes previewed. We’ve already gone over the rogue changes (CS on DR the sky is falling!!!) so it’s time to go over the other 8 classes and see how they might affect game play from the Rogue’s point of view be it worst enemies, best friends or how it will change popular arena comps such as RLS or RMP. With that in mind let’s begin. I’ll be going in the order the classes were previewed for organization’s sake.

Shaman (Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038611737&sid=1)

Let’s get the big one out of the way. Spiritwalker’s Grace. Now I don’t know how this is going to be implemented but assuming it works the way it was previewed being able to cast on the move seems very impressive. The ability for a resto shaman to start a heal, duck out of danger and pop back out as the heal concludes to cast seems like a huge boost for shaman comps of all flavors. The phrase ‘ cast uninterrupted by movement and possibly by their own attacks’ means enhancement shaman might also be able to cast while still hitting you with stormstrike and such. This spells seems to be one of the most interesting changes for the shaman class.

So what does it mean for us? For starters it makes shaman healer comps for rogues (e.g. RLS) more attractive as it allows shaman healers to be much more mobile. One of the weaknesses of RLS is the shaman since the class, without a defensive cooldown, is very vulnerable to good switches and well played zerg comps. This might give them the edge they need to work without having a defensive ability. Hard to say for certain but it looks to be pretty exciting.

One of the other big changes for shaman that rogues care about is the removal of Cleansing Totem. While applying poisons in Wrath hasn’t been terribly difficult due in part to their increased proc rate the complete removal of this totem and for shaman to dispel poisons in general might tip things in the Rogue V Shaman fight in our favor since they can no longer hinder our damage by removing deadly stacks and no longer remove our MS effect to heal themselves with full force. This seems like kind of a strange change to me but we’ll have to see how it plays out in the new dispel system. For now though this is definitely an edge for us in the fight against Shaman.

Warlock (Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038461679&sid=1)

The biggest change for Warlocks is the revamp of the long hated Soul Shard system. If you’re out of the loop Warlocks now have a new spell called Soul Burn which empowers their other spells. So far, only some have been spoiled. The big one is the removal of Fel Domination since Soul Burn + Summon demon now accomplishes the same thing. This is a huge change for arenas since killing pets and stopping Fel Dom summons has been a very possible way to deal with Warlock teams. From the sounds of things it may be uncounterable if they decide to insta-summon a new pet. Again, this is only speculation based on what’s been previewed so far.

The other warlock spells seem handy in situations such as Fel Flame (green fire or not) being an instant cast that refreshes Immolate or UA on the target. Dark Intent gives a new Focus Magic type effect for DoT classes and healers. Demon Soul is hard to judge since its exact effects haven’t been revealed just yet and we don’t know what demon will do what to the locks.

Lastly a big change in the Warlock V Rogue dynamic is the change to the Succubus. While it isn’t widely used in high level arenas it’s still the pet of choice for duels. Its ability to chain seduce and knock back if you manage to get to the lock in Cataclysm tips the scales in the locks favor slightly in 1v1 situations with rogues. It’s already a pretty dangerous pet and this only makes it more valuable against rogues and perhaps might make it arena viable. Time will tell.

Priest (Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038432151&sid=1)

First and foremost for priests is Leap of Faith AKA Life Grip. This looks to be the biggest impact for PvPing with and against priests in Cata. The exact dynamics of the spell aren’t known yet but judging by what’s been previewed being able to pull your rogue partner out of danger in 2v2 or any partners out of danger in 3v3 seems like a pretty massive change to PvP game play for the class. There are obviously ways to use it badly just like Death Grip but I feel when used right this particular ability will be an incredible boon for Priest/Rogue teams and RMP.

Mind Spike finally gives Shadow Priests an alternative to Mind Flay in given situations such as being interrupted or locked out from Shadow Spells. This makes it just a bit harder to shut down Spriest damage as a rogue but it feels like a needed change for the class as it lessens their vulnerability to lockouts leaving them unable to do damage. This change should definitely help Spriest/Rogue comps in 2s as it gives them a quick nuke on switches and even helps Disc/Rogue adding another burst spell when the priest needs to go offensive.

Warrior (Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24038612592&sid=1)

The major topic among rogues concerning warriors has been talk of Gushing Wounds. A bleed that refreshes on moving and stacks 3 times. It was already very hard to gain a re-stealth and vanishes against good warrior teams and this will make it that much harder. I don’t buy into ‘the sky is falling’ hype of the ability just yet since it isn’t clarified if it continues to refresh its duration once it reaches 3 stacks. Between Rend, Deep Wounds and Gushing Wounds it will be pretty difficult to get good Vanish Re-opens against good warrior teams but since it’s always been this sort of case against our bleed happy plate friends I wouldn’t be too concerned about this yet. Best to wait until Beta and see how it really plays out.

The other big change is Heroic Leap. This is the one that kind of makes me wonder what Blizzard is thinking sometimes. They’ve said a baseline Shadowstep for rogues isn’t in the cards yet warriors and our counterpart druids now have a variation of it. Seems kind of silly. This one thankfully shares a cooldown with Charge so there won’t be any charge → leap → intercept craziness going on. It still gives warriors amazing mobility and another stun type effect for us to be careful of.

The biggest bombshell dropped from the warrior preview isn’t necessarily class specific but the announcement that Mortal Strike has been reduced to 20% healing reduction and the additional announcement that all other similar debuffs have been reduced as well since healing is supposed to be less huge and bursty in the next expansion. This is the one that may take Blizz some tweaking to get right and it could mean good or bad things for warriors, rogues and hunters alike.

Check back for my next article which will cover the classes not mentioned here!

Related posts:

1. Cataclysm Class Previews: The Rogue Perspective, Part 2
2. Rogue Cataclysm Class Preview! Update – Looking for Additional Contributors!
3. A Close Call, Cataclysm: My Rogue Wishlist
4. Rogue: the Class that Never Changed, How we should Evolve
5. TR is Up! Will Cataclysm make things less Sloppy? Looking at Blue’s Thoughts