New rogue talents and other rogue buffs coming in patch 5.2

If you follow rogue news, you know the class is in a bit of a funk. The developers are certainly aware of the class's low representation and they're aiming to fix it. Two new rogue talents have been datamined from patch 5.2: Hit and Run and Marked for Death. Where these new talents fall in the talent trees, we aren't yet sure. One of them is surely replacing Preparation, which has now become a baseline ability.

In addition to the new talents, great changes have been made to select existing talents and abilities. For example, Deadly Throw no longer requires a full 5 combo points to interrupt an opponent's spellcasting, but rather only 3. Shuriken Toss, when used beyond 10 yards, turns all of your auto-attacks into ranged shurikens with a 30 yard range for 10 seconds. Do keep in mind, however, that this is the PTR. So sayeth Ghostcrawler:

Dylan@DylanRogue

21 Dec 12

@Ghostcrawler ive always loved playing a rogue and its the only reason i play, are you looking into our survivabilty in pvp? itl make my day

Greg Street@Ghostcrawler

@DylanRogue We have had the discussion about whether we're buffing rogues too much in 5.2. Give it a spin on the PTR and let us know.

21 Dec 12

 

Everything on the PTR is subject to change. Get excited, but cautiously so.

Encrypted Text: Leveling a rogue, level 71-80

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the rogue class. This week, we talk about leveling a rogue from level 71 to level 80.

Your goal is firmly in sight: your rogue is ready to being his or her assault upon the Lich King's lands. With only a fleeting few levels between you and the level cap, these last few minutes are among the most important in your rogue's development. With nearly every trick available and our DPS rotations fleshed out, your rogue will be feeling more and more like the level 80 you are about to become.

All three talent trees are fairly viable for leveling, and so this is by far the most flexible period of the leveling process. As I mentioned in the last installment, experimenting with different specs, rotations, and playstyles will only become harder and harder to do once you reach level 80. During these important formative levels, max out your respect costs and give every build a fair shake. You'll be a better rogue for it in the end.

New abilities:
While there's only really two new moves between level 71 and level 80, one of our earliest spells gets a complete makeover. Feint, which we learn at level 16, finally becomes the spell we always knew it could be. If used, it reduces all AoE damage that a rogue will take for 6 seconds. This spell alone will save you a hundred times while raiding, as there is plenty of AoE damage being thrown around. You won't pick up Rank 8 (the version with the bonus) until level 78, but be sure to use it in any dungeons you explore while leveling up.

Prior to that, you'll be receiving one of, in my opinion, our "signature moves". Tricks of the Trade is our threat redirection / damage boost combo, which sees extensive use in both PvE and PvP. In a raid or dungeon environment, it becomes the tank's best friend, and can really make your dungeon experiences much smoother. In certain fights where DPS gain significant buffs (like Hodir), Tricks of the Trade is crucial to a tank being able to maintain aggro on a mob. It can even be a DPS buff to share with another rogue during "burst phases" of certain fights. Tossing this to your partner in PvP can often be enough to score a kill, as the damage bonus is significant.

One of the reasons I see TotT as so integral to the WotLK rogue is its integration into the new T10 set. The 2 piece set bonus makes TotT yield energy instead of costing it, resulting in a significant DPS boost for everyone involved. We want to cast it more often, it allows more threat to be redirected due to increased energy, and it results in a higher uptime on friendly DPS classes. Imagine it as a poor level 80's Renataki's Charm of Trickery: pop it when you're low on energy to give you just enough juice to extend that stunlock a few more seconds.

If you're leveling with a partner (either a tank or DPS), be sure to toss them TotT every time it's up. It takes the pressure off of you for incoming damage (and rogues are pretty frail in that regard) and boosts their damage, making the entire leveling process much quicker. You can check out my guide to macros to find a great TotT macro that will let you set it to an easy keybind and forget about targeting someone to cast it on.

The final move a rogue receives on their journey is also their just reward for reaching level 80. Fan of Knives has become a true game-changer for the way that rogues play. We're no longer relegated to throwing grenades or making campfires in the back of the raid during AoE phases. Fan of Knives has been one of the top AoE abilities in the game today due to its unique scaling and properties. If you want to learn more about this ability, I wrote a full article dedicated to all of its intricacies. Let it suffice to say that if it weren't for FoK, rogues would be nowhere near our current spot at the top 10% of the damage meters. Yogg+0 and Anub'Arak hard mode are two fights where FoK simply outshines every competitor, and resulted in both world first kills of the last two "end bosses" seeing rogues at the top of the meters.

Posterity:
While I strongly recommend you go crazy experimenting with specs while leveling, I would also caution you that due to the repetition of leveling and grinding, bad habits will eventually work their way into your subconscious. If you start letting Slice and Dice drop while you're farming the Scourge, it will work against you later, when it's actually pretty important. Start reading up on raiding rotations and playstyles, and try mimicking those as much as possible.

If you're playing as Mutilate, it's a great time to work on keeping Hunger for Blood up full time, while trying to maintain a good Slice and Dice uptime via Cut to the Chase + Envenom or Eviscerate. As Combat, keeping Slice and Dice up full time should be your goal, while also using your cooldowns wisely to take out 2+ mobs when Blade Flurry is available and destroying elites with Evasion and Killing Spree. Subtlety rogues should be looking out to also keep Slice and Dice up (I told you it was our most important ability!) and keeping the Hemorrhage debuff active while also using good energy management to maximize your finishers.

By doing the little things like keeping the right poison on both weapons, using the right gems (even if they're just green quality), and starting to work on your end game rotations, you'll be building the foundation for a long and prosperous life as a rogue. Take pride in your achievement of nearing level 80, and focus on refining your playstyle to the point that it becomes second nature. I talked about a few combat opener / sequences last time, and finding out how to go from an opener to a dead opponent in the most efficient way should be your objective.

Reputations:
While this will certainly change once Cataclysm is released, the message is still relevant today: focus on reputation quest hubs. There's several reputations you'll want access to once you hit level 80, and working on their quests while they still give experience is simply making them twice as awesome. The Sons of Hodir are key for their shoulder enchants (and decent starting weapons), while the Knights of the Ebon Blade will sell you a great helm enchant if you perform enough of their dirty deeds. Read up on which reputations yield what gear, and then go to their areas and quest your heart out. Anything that you can do while leveling to give you an easier time at level 80 is like pure gold.

Level 70 gear:
One last tip for the leveling rogue, you can often find level 70 gear that players had stashed in their banks available on the AH for mere fractions of their original price. Level 70 BoE gear, epic gems, and consumables will greatly increase your leveling speed, so check the AH for any relics from level 70 that are left over that you can score for yourself. I find that the old DPS flasks and BoE level 70 blues are typically only a few gold total, which should be affordable with all of the questing and grinding you've been doing.

Conclusion:
I know that many of you are already level 80, and you're interested in reading about the things that are affecting us now. However, there are still a ton of rogues that are leveling up, and we honestly need the fresh blood as the "great rogue to death knight reroll exodus" of WotLK left us pretty decimated. Look at the bright side, you won't have to read another leveling column until Cataclysm! To those rogues who are just entering the fold at level 80, we welcome you with open arms, and we look forward to stabbing those cursed cloth-wearers and praying for Armor Penetration trinkets at your side.

WoW Leveling a new rogue, character creation

I've heard a lot of statistics from various sources stating that the rogue population has been dwindling since Wrath of the Lich King was released. Whether our decline is due to former assassins deciding to try out the new death knights, or rogues simply moving on to greener pastures, we may never know. I do, however, know that there's also a lot of newly minted rogues, working their way up through the levels and lowbie zones. And if there's not, there should be!

There's a lot of fights that are absolutely amazing for rogues, with Yogg-Saron hard mode (no keeper) and Anub'Arak hard mode being two of the most prevalent and important encounters currently in the game. I have seen guilds beg their inactivate rogues to resubscribe with promises of gold, crafted epics, and endless heroic runs to gear them out. I know of a rogue on my server who went from newly 80 to better geared than myself in about a month with a ton of help from his guild and friends. Many of the world's top guilds are looking for solid rogues to fill the shoes of those who have given up the mantle of shadows in the past year.

We've also got a lot of new rerolls who are working on getting a new class to 80 for Cataclysm's upcoming release. I have been working on a guide for those rogues who are new to the class (and possibly the game) who are looking for tips and tricks for getting the most out of their roguish experience. I would also ask that any veterans or novice rogues alike add their own tips in the comments, if you've got a personal anecdote or bit of info that made your time leveling easier.

What does it mean to play a rogue?
You are DPS. That may sound fairly uncomplicated, but it actually goes far deeper. We are so focused at DPS that we are completely helpless in every role besides pure damage. A rogue cannot off tank an add in a pinch, we can't add support healing, and our raid buffs / debuffs are all purely damage boosts. All other DPS classes have traditionally been balanced (intentionally or unintentionally) around the rogue's DPS capabilities. The more utility or buffs another class brings over the rogue, the further they fall behind on the damage parses.

With Fan of Knives giving us a true AoE and one of the most robust toolkits for dealing damage in every environment, if a raid wants to maximize their DPS, they will always have several rogues on their roster. The downside to being so focused on damage is that you will never be capable of accomplishing anything else. You can't tank for a heroic or heal your raid when your priest is sick. You have no other options than DPS, and for many players this is a deal-breaker. You have to love doing DPS to the point that you can live without being able to even taste any of the other roles. Our 'purity' of DPS is both a blessing and a curse: what you make of it will decide if the rogue is the right class for you.

What's more important than damage?
Rogues in both PvE and PvP environments will always focus on damage output above all other statistics and values. We're not interested in stacking Stamina for more survivability or Dodge gems to give us the edge against random AoE attacks. Our goal is to output as much damage as possible and to annihilate our opponents before they get a chance to return the favor. We're not the type to string our enemies along, to kite them around, or to attempt to outlast them. We're short, dirty, and quick killers with one goal: the destruction of our opponents.

As you level up, this should be one of the key points to remember. If you've got the choice between bracers with Stamina and bracers with Agility, you should take the Agility bracers every time. Your goal is to do as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, and to win the fight so quickly that the extra Stamina you sacrificed wouldn't have even come into play. While being survivable enough to stay alive can be an issue if you're soloing higher level mobs or group quests, rogues are typically able to simply increase their damage (instead of their life) to compensate for the added difficulty.

Starting a new rogue:
With these thoughts in mind, if the rogue sounds like the class for you, then I suggest you go start one immediately. Patch 3.3 is bringing a very welcome change, in that all rogues will be able to dual wield weapons from level 1. This will make the 1-10 experience much quicker and more painless, though it's already pretty easy and can be handled in one sitting. You'll save more time by starting your rogue now (without all the commotion surrounding Icecrown happening) rather than waiting. But before we even can get to level 1, we have to create our rogue.

On the topic of races, all races are having their starting stats balanced soon. This means that no particular race holds an advantage over another in terms of starting statistics (such as life, agility, etc). The only differentiator becomes the racial abilities and aesthetics. I would suggest focusing on which race you believe you would enjoy playing the most. With the upcoming "Race Change" feature, if you find out down the road that you're not happy with your choice, you'll be able to easily swap to another race at will. This really prevents the issue of choosing the "wrong" race. Whether your focus is PvE or PvP, there will always be the "best" racial based on the situation that you're in. Think about what you plan to use your rogue for, and pick the race that aligns best with your goals.

If you've got a main on the same server, you can send yourself some starting gold and a few bags to make inventory management a breeze. You probably won't reach a mailbox on the rogue until around level 6-10, so if you want it earlier, see if you can find a way to get the gear to your alt such as a portable engineering mailbox or walking to town extra early. If you have some Stone Keeper's Shards or Emblems of Heroism/Valor/Conquest to spend, feel free to send yourself a few heirloom items to make your leveling process even easier than normal. Here's a list of heirloom items for your upcoming rogue:

Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders or Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders (10% EXP, stacks with Chest)
Stained Shadowcraft Tunic (10% EXP, stacks with Shoulders) Swift Hand of Justice Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge / Venerable Mass of McGowan or Battleworn Thrash Blade for your main hand. I'd recommend taking Swords as this is a common leveling weapon specialzation.
Sharpened Scarlet Kris for your off hand Charmed Ancient Bone Bow for your ranged weapon
Conclusion:
If you've read all of the pros and cons of playing a rogue (you can only do damage, but you do it the best) and you're still interested, go start your rogue today. Plan out any heirloom or starter gear that you can afford, with bags and a few gold for skills being the top priorities. Next week, I'll be going over the type of gear you'll want to acquire, and what to expect for you first few levels of roguish goodness!

wow rogue mod RSwapper

This is an update of RogueSwapper by Morfin. It has been completely rewritten, but performs the same function. I used it to learn how to write Ace2 mods and decided to submit it since Morfin hasn't updated his mod for the 2.0 patch.

The original idea is completely from Morfin. All credit goes to him.

In a nutshell, this mod swaps your main-hand weapons when you go in/out of stealth or when your target might be susceptible to a backstab (gouged, stunned, etc.). You specify which weapon should be in your main-hand when stealthed (your dagger) and when not stealthed (your sword). Please note that despite being called dagger and sword, these weapons could be anything; RSwapper doesn't care.

Important notes:

a. RSwapper requires the WeaponQuickSwap mod to work properly. It is NOT included; you'll need to download and install it separately if you don't already have it.

b. RSwapper is an Ace2 mod. Type '/rswapper' to see what the options are.

c: RSwapper is incompatible with RogueSwapper and any other mod that performs weapon swapping, such as StanceSets. Please make sure only one of them is enabled.

WoW Patch 3.2.2 and the Great FoK Nerf

If you haven't read the WoW Patch 3.2.2 notes yet, go and check out! Rogues actually received a few changes this time (a deviation from the norm), and all 3 are nerfs across the board. One is a fairly innocuous change to Honor Among Thieves, which has actually be functioning incorrectly for the past few months. The other two are sweeping nerfs to Fan of Knives: directly by reducing the damage done by 30%, and indirectly by removing the Interruption effect from Throwing Specialization.

While I am sure we will be feeling the loss on trash pulls in late-night Ulduar runs, the fact is that there's no trash in Trial of the Crusader anyway. Rogues do bring some pretty potent AoE to the table, but I believe that as long as our single target DPS remains intact, we'll still find ourselves with dedicated raid slots. The loss of FoK interruptions will really only be a hit on fights like Yogg-Saron hard mode, and other niche cases. Ghostcrawler even acknowledged the nerf, admitting that if a fight became too hard without Throwing Specialization and Fan of Knives' intricate synergy, they'd nerf it to accommodate.

AoE DPS is a perk, not a feature. I have felt like our AoE DPS has been insanely good, especially when used properly (two instant-damage poisons, two slow weapons). I'm honestly not surprised to see it being curtailed a little bit. We're still going to be potent when using FoK, but we'll have to wait until it's a true AoE situation, with 3-4 mobs that need to be taken out. Right now, FoK is so strong that there's not much pushing it all the time. After the patch, we'll have to actually make the decision of whether the AoE is worth using FoK, or whether or not to just continue single-target DPS.

I've been talking about the dominance (and sillyness) of the 'FoK spec', in which a Rogue specs into Throwing Specialization and rules the 5v5 arena by spamming FoK at every available opportunity. Between the FoK interrupts and the illegal interruption macro floating around, Rogues had become pretty powerful at locking down casters completely. The removal of Throwing Spec's interruption was necessary, though I will be sad to see it go. It was really a great ability that gave us a really unique niche in the PvE world, but I can agree there's no way to balance it in PvP.

The HaT change, on the other hand, was simply an adjustment to force the spell to work as intended. Limiting it to a single Combo Point per second makes its DPS far more reliable and easier to model, and as our party members' crit rate skyrockets with better and better gear, HaT is now incapable of exploding into new DPS territory overnight. It's a nerf to Subtlety PvE, though Blizzard has already expressed that they have no immediate interest in making Subtlety viable. As long as Mutilate and Combat both remain viable, I don't think that Sub is going to see any sweeping changes.

Ghostcrawler recently talked about Mages having two viable PvE specs after wow patch 3.2.2: fire and arcane. He mentions that frost is not going to be revamped any time soon. I look at this as writing on the wall, Rogues have two viable PvE specs (and pretty different ones at that), and so asking for a third is really reaching for the stars. I will be attending BlizzCon (and I'll be at the reader meetup) and I'll be sure to ask GC and the crew what their plans for Rogues are in the future.

All-in-all, I am okay with the changes we're seeing in wow patch 3.2.2. If I really, really want my trash DPS to scream, I have the option of swapping in the Fan of Knives glyph real quick. And if I really, really wanted to play Subtlety PvE, I'd have to accept that I was making poor PvE talent choices. Our bread and butter role, single target DPS, was completely untouched. We can let the Mages and Warlocks take care of Arthas' waves and waves of undead drones. We've got a higher calling, to stab our daggers and smash our maces so far into the Lich King's face that he cries for his mommy.

WoW Rogue Q&A in review Patch 3.2

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we talk about the Rogue Q & A recently released by Blizzard.

Last week, Blizzard released the long-awaited (at least by me) Rogue Q&A series. Ghostcrawler and the rest of the community team answered many of our long-standing questions, and gave us some insight into where Rogues are headed as a class. You can read the full details of the Q&A that Eliah posted for us.

After reading the questions and answers, I breathed a sigh of relief. No hints or indications of any nerfs coming our way, and Blizzard actually acknowledged several longstanding flaws with the class. Not only that, but they actually provided possible solutions; I'll be taking them with a grain of salt. New Rogues are excited about our class' complexity and diversity, while experienced Rogues are proud that we are now respected as damage dealers instead of being seen as second-class DPS.

"Vanish isn't working properly"

This sentence alone sealed the deal for me. A very straight answer from the development team, admitting that us shadow warriors haven't been making it up all along. And they're not giving us the same line about "it's server side so it will always be broken". GC actually gave a suggested fix that I would love to see put in place. It's something simple enough that even latency and spell resolution would be unable to interfere with Vanish keeping us in stealth for longer periods of time. The idea of "guaranteed" functionality from cooldowns is a topic I've harped on enough already, and I'm really excited to see the team at Blizzard look into providing Rogues with some reliability.

"Both abilities are largely where we want them"

While talking about Overkill and Mutilate, the two most-nerfed Rogue abilities in WotLK, GC confirms that the spells are relatively balanced and that our current PvP standard of Mutilate / Prep is here to stay. Our burst at the launch of WotLK was insane, and the toning down of our crazy out-of-stealth salvo came with the tradeoff of increased sustained damage via poison normalization. All in all, Mutilate has it pretty good in PvP right now, with Rogues seen in some of the most popular comps in all arena brackets. In addition, I find Mutilate to be refreshing to play in the new Isle of Conquest BG, where launching yourself over the wall via a Catapult allows you some sneaky assassination work.

"Rogue damage is sufficient now"

I agree completely. I was able to run a quick Trial of the Crusader (10 man) this week (and scored the sweet Acidmaw Treads!). My damage was at the top of the meters, and with clever use of Blade Flurry to clean off Snobolds from my allies and Cloak of Shadows to help me through some of the twin Jormungar debuffs, I was able to contribute nearly 100% of my time to slaying the Northrend Beasts.

Rogues have seen a lot of PvE buffs, especially in unforeseen ways, such as the new Feint and the oft-heralded Fan of Knives. I love the fact that my class is not immediately judged as inferior before I even get a chance to show my skill. The general WoW populace knows that a Rogue is capable of incredible damage and can minimize their incoming damage to ensure survival. That gets our foot in the door to impress even the most skeptical of critics.

"It's meant as a tool that's part of a toolkit, not an I-win button"

When talking about Cloak of Shadows, GC confirms what I had suspected: that CoS is 90% on purpose. It forces us to run out of things like Shock Blast (as mentioned) while still providing decent PvP utility (especially in the dispelling current debuffs portion). I will simply have to stop leaning on it as "preventing magic" and instead use it more as "possibly preventing magic", the same way that it's still dangerous to run up to a Bladestorming Warrior.

"A slightly more tanky rogue that can survive more damage"

This is something that I know many of my fellow Rogues have been asking to see for quite some time. I always felt that the idea of Feint is great: short duration damage reduction, incredibly potent, with a short cooldown. It encourages a very predictive playstyle, and forces the Rogue to take active steps to defending themselves. I believe that Ghostly Strike was a step in this direction, but 15% dodge is simply not enough to make it a real defensive CD. Perhaps if Cloak of Shadows simply reduced magical damage and debuff duration by 50%, but had a 30 second cooldown? I enjoy the idea of a very flexible Rogue who's cooldowns are more like presences or stances instead of short-lived OP ownage with long-term weakness once used.

"Ultimately, we settled on axes for rogues."

Raise your hand if you've already ground out the weapon skill to level 400 for Axes. I picked up a pair of the blue axes that you can buy from the Sons of Hodir at Revered reputation. They're not going to top any DPS charts, but they look so cool when I'm cutting up a group of mobs using Blade Flurry and Slice and Dice. Some of the BIS Combat weapons may even turn out to be axes, depending on what other items we find in the Trial of the Crusader's loot table.

"We could see making it a major feature"

GC is referring to "poison swapping" here, where a Rogue will switch weapons to apply a particular poison, and then swap back to their "real" poisons and weapons. While there is definitely no promise or even hint that this is being worked on, if it did make it to live, it would bring back memories of playing the Assassin class in Diablo II. The ability to switch weapons and poisons in a quick and simple way (and effectively 50% of your character) would really bring a lot of smoothness to what is now a very macro-driven class. I've got macros to swap to slow weapons for FoK and Killing Spree, weapons to swap so I can quickly apply Mind Numbing or Anesthetic Poison to a mob, and even more crazy macros. Having some of that built into the UI would be a godsend.

Conclusion:

Rogues are in a great place. Blizzard agrees. This is probably one of the few times that a class can really see eye-to-eye with the developers and not have any real outstanding issues to complain about. I'm very happy with the insight we received in the Q&A, and I am tickled pink about the incoming fix to Vanish (whatever it may be). Let's just hope that nothing breaks until we're done with Arthas!

WoW Rogue and Shaman Tier 9 sets

The Mighty Battle continues! Today we'll took at another pair of mail and leather sets, this time for the Rogue and Shaman Tier 9 sets from the Crusader's Coliseum. For the past three days, we've pitted suits of armor against each other in an all-out brawl determined by the armor design's faithfulness to its class, representation of its faction, and overall badassery. It's the first time we're seeing faction-based PvE Tier armor in the World of Warcraft, so we'll see who comes out on top.

While I've outlined my criteria for judging the armor sets, we've spiced things up with a reader poll to see which armor you guys like and from the results thus far it looks like the Horde have gained a good edge in the voting. Is it a result of faction-bias? Are the armor sets really that much better for the Horde? Hit the jump to find out!

Rogue tips for raiding Ulduar, part 3

As a break in the boss-by-boss breakdown of Ulduar fights, I wanted to go over a few general raiding tips for Rogues. Some of them may be very old ideas that you've been using since level 60, while a few others are new tricks that we've learned in WotLK. Hopefully you'll be able to glean a few good bits of information to take with you the next time you zone into any raid. There's nothing more important than properly preparing for a new fight, but knowing the general tactics for any encounter will make understanding new fights much easier.

First, however, I would like to comment on the new Overkill. Its new form is a significant buff when looking at total energy generated, and also for PvE Mutilate Rogues. However, it is a nerf to our 6-second burst window during a Cheap Shot -> Kidney Shot combo. I feel this will end up being a net buff for Rogues, as relying solely on the first 6 seconds of a fight in PvP has become far to gimmicky for us to rely on.

Feint:
I'll never forget the day that Feint first found its way to my hotbar. I was duo'ing Razorfen Kraul with another Rogue, trying to kill the pig boss (Agathelos the Raging) for his infamous Swinetusk Shank. After stealthing through most of the instance, we finally reached the boss. With creative use of Sap and Blind, we were able to conquer the guards outside his gate. That was the first time I actually used Sap!

After we engaged this gigantic boar, I picked up threat. I obviously used Evasion to reduce my incoming damage, but I had blown Vanish on the mobs outside and was unable to use it to wipe my threat once Evasion had ended. The boss was pounding me, I was sure to die in a few more hits. My friend began yelling furiously in party chat: "USE FEINT USE FEINT USE FEINT!!!!!"

I found it in my action bar just quick enough to press it before I died, and the boss turned to assault the other Rogue. I had exactly 1 HP left after the boar's rampage on me, and was lucky to have survived. So my partner used his Evasion, and the boss died. The Shank even dropped for me!

Feint has come a long way from its humble beginnings. Completely removed from every Rogue's hot bar in TBC, it's finally found its way back to our precious key bindings. By reducing all AoE damage by 50%, Feint is now both useful in PvP (think Bladestorm) and PvE. I've mentioned using it in a few of the specific encounters in Ulduar, but remember that taking less damage can be valuable on nearly any fight with AoE damage. This is especially true for hard modes, where you are often short on healing classes.

Feel free to think outside the box as well. There is so much raid / AoE damage in Ulduar that you can use Feint to some benefit on nearly every fight. Just make sure to remember that you must be in melee range of something in order to activate it, and that moving out of the AoE and taking no damage is often better than staying in and taking 50% damage. Don't use it as an excuse to play sloppy, but rather a buffer to ensure your mistakes don't kill you.

Deadened:
General Vezax, along with a few other mobs and bosses in WotLK raids, has some very important spells that he casts that must be interrupted. Most often this task will be assigned to a team of interrupters, with Rogues being the primary candidates. I would suggest using the mod Deadened to both highlight the spells you will need to interrupt, as well as reporting your interrupts to a particular channel. This will greatly reduce the amount of communication needed between you and the other interrupters in your rotation.

On fights where you will be doing a lot of interrupting, it may make sense for both your DPS and simple logistics for you to use a pair of the PvP gloves. These essentially yield 10 energy every time you have to Kick (and you HAVE to Kick) and so they can provide a ton of value in a long raid encounter. Don't forget that they also allow you to be more reactive with your Kicks, as you are now only waiting 1.5 seconds for the energy to kick (if empty) instead of 2.5 seconds. Just don't log out in them, or else face the wrath of Armory trolls everywhere!

Trade Tricks:
I mentioned this in my key binding article, but I think it bears repeating. Tricks of the Trade is great for generating threat for the tanks, but if you're in a situation where the tank is safely ahead in threat, feel free to use TotT on your highest DPS class (that's not near stealing threat!). You can significantly improve your raid's DPS by assisting your fellow DPS classes in this way. Just be sure to ask for other Rogues to throw their Tricks back to you. It's not typically worth Glyphing for improved TotT, but even the normal version is a valuable additional to your arsenal.

The boss' back is huge:
I have seen quite a few melee classes die to silly things like a spot of fire on Razorscale or a gas cloud on Grobbulus. Their normal excuse is that they need to be behind the boss to maximize their damage. While this is true, remember that you can be ANYWHERE behind a boss, which leaves you with a fairly big arc to work with when attacking. Even though it looks like you're attacking the mob's hip, as long as you are in the 180° arc of his back, you will still benefit from the reduced dodge/block/parry chance of the boss from this position. This is especially important on fights like Mimiron, where knowing exactly where you can stand, in relation to the boss, is half of the fight.

The second half of positioning is to stay as far away from the boss at all times as possible. You want to ideally be just on the outside edge of where he's attackable from. This gives you an advantage in running away from AoE damage or effects, and also gives you a clearer image of the fight. If you are hugging the boss' ankles, you are obstructing your view and exposing yourself to unnecessary problems. This is especially important on Phase 2 and Phase 4 Mimiron, where if you are too close to the center of the boss, you can be instantly killed by his laser attack. For more info on positioning, I would recommend checking out TKoE's article on the topic (PvP focused).

Conclusion:
Next week, you will be able to put all of these tips into action, as we talk about the final two bosses between you and the glory of conquering Ulduar! General Vezax and Yogg-Saron are basically Loatheb and C'Thun (with applicable twists), and I will go into the grainy details of how to defeat these two remnants from the days when the Old Gods walked Azeroth.

Encrypted Text: Tips for Rogues in 2v2

An old friend approached me last week with the prospect of playing some 2v2 arena with his mage, who had recently hit level 80. Luckily his rolls are amazingly gifted, and he already had a pretty nice set of gear to play with. I equipped my Sinister Revenge and switched one of my dual specs to Mutilate, and that night we entered the arena to play as one of my favorite comps (behind Rogue+Rogue of course!).

Because of my high ratings in Season 5, we were instantly matched against 2000+ players in our very first games. While 2000 isn't quite 'Gladiator' status yet, we were definitely playing teams with some experience under their belts. I had a great time playing, as it was my first set of arena games since the end of Season 5. Mage & Rogue is a comp with some very potent synergy, and a fast-paced playstyle that brings out the best in our class.

When I first started Season 5, I was playing with a Holy Paladin partner. Our goal was to run the opposing team out of mana while using our defensive cooldowns to prolong a match. What a switch when playing Mage & Rogue! Most of our fights are over in 60 seconds or less, unless something has gone terribly wrong. This bursty style of play seems to favor quick damage over all else, but in reality it's not about the damage.

Crowd Control:
Rogues in 2v2 are defined completely by their ability to effectively crowd control one target for long periods of time. Between Sap, Gouge, Kidney Shot, and Blind, our CC capabilities are the best amongst any of the classes. The key to playing any successful Rogue combo is to coordinate CC with your partner, and to execute on those CC opportunities.

Against a traditional DPS and healer combo, there are two approaches to CC. One method is to CC the DPS class, which will allow you easy access to the healer without being "peeled" by the DPS. The alternative is to CC the healer, which gives you the ability to kill the DPS class before they are able to be healed. Which you choose to use depends greatly on the partner you are playing with, along with the enemy composition.

Trying to CC a Death Knight's healer and kill the DK is a mistake in most cases, as the DK will be able to use defensive cooldowns to survive your enslaught. However, if you are able to crowd control a Rogue's healer, they are typically able to be killed in just a few seconds of focus fire. Similarly, it may not be the best approach to try CC'ing a Druid if you have a Mage partner, as the Druid is immune to most of the Mage's CC and will be able to easily trinket out of your Blind (as they are also immune to our Sap in tree form). Knowing who is vulnerable to which of your CCs is a key ingredient in using your cooldowns wisely.

Tunnel Vision:
One symptom of a novice Rogue in the arena is the tendency to "tunnel vision" a particular target. This refers to the idea of focusing solely on the target you're DPS'ing, while ignoring your partner as well as your opponent's partner. This will cause you to lose opportunities to CC the enemy or assist your partner, as well as possibly forgetting to watch your own health meter. I suggest playing a few skirmish games for fun, and practicing simply watching the health, mana, and cast bars of both teams. Don't worry too much about your particular target, simply do your best to "watch the field" and see how you do.

Focus Macros:
A great way to get away from the idea of tunnel vision is to start making use of a few Focus macros. These take advantage of a new "target frame" of sorts. Basically, you choose your Focus target by selecting any NPC/player and typing /focus. This will bring up a new unit frame window for that NPC, which is similar to your target window. You can then write macros that will automatically cast spells on your Focus target, without ever needing to switch from your current target. Here's a sample formula:

/cast [target=focus] Blind

This will automatically Blind whoever is in your Focus target window. I find that Focusing the healer/caster of any given team is the most efficient, as they are typically the class you will find yourself Blinding or Kicking or anything else you choose to bind to a macro. By using these macros, you'll get yourself used to watching two targets at once, and observing the situation with a bird's eye view.

Clutch Plays:
The defining trait of any great Rogue is the ability to make a quick call and a great move with miraculous reaction times. Seeing a healer casting a spell, knowing that the healer's PvP trinket is on cooldown, and knowing that your partner is in a position to assist with a kill of the DPS, and using your Focus macro to Blind the target mid-cast: key plays like these are what set us apart. In order to truly excel in the arena, quick reaction times to CC and interrupt your opponents are vital. There was a time where the mark of Rogue excellence was "kicking a Fel Dom", which was simply a spell with a 0.5s cast time.

Watching your own abilities and actions are not enough in a PvP environment. If you're spending time looking for a button to click (which you shouldn't be) or worrying about which of your abilities are on cooldown, you're wasting time that could be used to monitor your opponents actions. This sort of "full court" observation is the most crucial skill to develop and exploit. Playing a lot of skirmishes and simply observing is a great way to learn these talents.

Ghostcrawler reiterates the DPS hierarchy

I don't want to invoke BTPNTC again, but it's a common perception that one of the goals in class balance in Wrath has been to bring the damage various DPS specs more in line with each other. This, in turn, has raised questions like "if a feral druid does as much damage as a rogue, what's the point of the rogue?" This question is arguable, but fortunately, that lovable crustacean Ghostcrawler has laid bare the developers' goal for how the classes should be positioned relatively in terms of DPS.

Here it is:

Hunters, mages, rogues, and warlocks.
Everyone else.
It's important to note that the gap between 1 and 2 is meant to be quite small, and that it will probably be swallowed up by gear, player skill, and the particulars of individual encounters in most cases. As GC puts it, "If you know your class cold, I mean really know it, then there is no reason you can't be topping meters."

I think this is a good design goal. The pure classes have a slight edge, but skilled players of any class should do well. Of course, we're not quite there yet, class balance being a perennially moving target, but they're working on it.

Patch 3.1 PTR Patch Notes update

The official patch notes have been updated for the Patch 3.1 PTR. You can see a complete list of changes after the break, or take a look at the fully updated notes.

This update is much more substantial than the one we posted a couple nights ago. Nonetheless, it has been added to our Patch 3.1 patch notes archive. Via the archive you can also view other iterations of the patch notes to see how things have changed.

As always, these notes should be considered incomplete (it's in bold because we can't say it enough). A number of things that are on the PTR are not reflected in the patch notes, and several things that will eventually be on the PTR aren't in the notes either (many of the class changes, for example).

General

• New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added. Players can enable this feature by setting Player Textures to High in the Effects Panel of the Video Options.


• Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.


• Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.


• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

Death Knight

Blood

• Abomination's Might: This effect can now also be caused by Death Strike.
  
• Magic Suppression: Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.


• New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.


• Outbreak: Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 15/30/45% and Scourge Strike by 10/20/30%. Scourge Strike: Damage increased.

Druid

• Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.


• Maim: This ability is now considered a stun, and shares a diminish category with all other stuns. It no longer has a chance to break from the target taking damage. Duration lowered to 1 sec. per combo point.
  
• Heart of the Wild: Stamina bonus changed to 2/4/6/8/10%.
  
• Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Hunters

• Ammunition: All types of gun and bow ammunition now stack to 1000. All quivers and ammo pouches no longer provide haste. 15% ranged haste is now built in to Hunter Autoshot.


• Call Stabled Pet: This new ability lets the hunter remotely access the stable. 30 min cooldown.


• Cunning, Ferocity and Tenacity pets now all have +5% damage, +5% armor and +5% health bonuses. This should make more pet families feel viable, while additional talents have been added to distinguish a pet's abilities based on its specializations.


• Disengage: Cooldown increased by 5 sec.


• Pets now inherit more spell hit from the hunter. Pets with magic attacks should not require a player to stack additional hit compared to pets with physical attacks.


• Viper Sting re-designed: Stings the target, draining 4% of mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 8% of the caster's maximum mana), and energizing the Hunter equal to 300% of the amount drained. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.


• Explosive Shot: Base damage lowered by 10%. Attack power scaling reduced by 12.5%.

Hunter Pets

• Bullheaded now adds 20% damage reduction for 12 sec along with its current CC-removal effect.


• Cornered: The crit reduction when this ability is active has been increased.


• Feeding Frenzy increased to 8/16% damage up from 6/12%.


• Furious Howl (wolf special ability) now stacks with Battle Shout and Blessing of Might, however, it only affects the wolf and hunter. Its effect and cooldown have been doubled so that it provides the same benefit but isn't up 100% of the time.


• Gorillas now have a new family ability, Pummel, which works like the warrior ability and has a single rank.


• Grace of the Mantis and Roar of Sacrifice are now also available to Cunning pets.


• New Talent: Shark Attack: This new two-rank talent is available to Ferocity pets. It increases pet damage.


• New Talent: Silverback: This new two-rank talent is available to Tenacity pets. It heals the pet when Growl is used.


• New Talent: Wild Hunt: This new two-rank talent is available to all 3 pet trees. It increases the stamina and attack power inherited from the hunter.


• Roar of Recovery cooldown decreased to 3 min, down from 6 min.


• Thunderstomp is no longer a gorilla-specific family ability and is now available to all Tenacity pets. It has been reduced to one rank.

Mage

• Mage Armor: Now grants 50% of mana regeneration while casting.
  
• Arcane Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.


• Pyromaniac: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting.

Paladin

• Improved Concentration Aura: The resistance to silence and interrupt granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Concentration Aura.
  


• Improved Devotion Aura: The additional healing granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Devotion Aura.


• Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.


• Sanctified Retribution: The bonus to damage done granted by this talent now becomes active when any Aura is used, not just Retribution Aura.

Priest

• Meditation and Improved Power: Word shield have changed locations with each other.


• Meditation: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting


• Renewed Hope: This talent also now allows you to proc the Renewed Hope buff on all party/raid members every time you cast Power Word: Shield, reducing damage taken by 3%. Lasts 20 sec.
  


• Psychic Horror: Has been redesigned and is now a 1-pt talent. You terrify the target, causing them to tremble in horror for 3 sec. and drop all weapons (disarm effect: including bows) for 10 sec. 1 minute cooldown. Instant cast. The horror effect can be dispelled, but the disarm cannot.


• Improved Spirit Tap: Now grants 17/33% of mana regeneration while casting.


• Spirit Tap: Now grants 83% of mana regeneration while casting.

Rogue

• Shiv: This ability can no longer generate a critical strike, and the poisons it applies cannot be critical strikes either.

Shaman

Enhancement

• Unleashed Rage: Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. Each point now also increases your total Expertise by 3/6/9%.

Warlock

• Drain Soul: Each time Drain Soul deals damage to a target which can grant experience, it now has a chance to generate a Soul Shard.


• Soul Shard: This item now has a maximum count of 32 in inventory.

Warrior

• Charge: Duration of stun effect now lasts 1.5 sec. This effect no longer has diminishing returns.
• Last Stand: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.
  

User Interface

• Spell Effect Level setting has been split into Particle Density and Projected Textures. Previously, Spell Effect Level controlled both of these features.


• Added new Video Mode Ultra (should only be used on the highest-end systems).

Items

• Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 min. down from 60 min.

Glyphs


Death Knight

• Glyph of Blood Boil: Now only applies a snare to diseased targets.


• Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon: Increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 10 sec.


• Glyph of Death Coil: Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.


• Glyph of Disease: Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.


• Glyph of Howling Blast: Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.


• Glyph of Hungering Cold: Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.


• Glyph of Plague Strike: Bonus lowered to 20%.


• Glyph of Unholy Blight: Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.

Druid

• Glyph of Berserk: Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec


• Monsoon Glyph: Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Nourish: Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.


• Glyph of Savage Roar: Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.


• Glyph of Wild Growth: Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.


• Glyph of Shred: Now increases remaining duration on Rip by 2 sec. each time it is used, up to a maximum of 6 sec.

Hunter

• Glyph of Chimera Shot: Reduces the cooldown of Chimera Shot by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Explosive Shot: Increases the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot by 4%.


• Glyph of Explosive Trap: The periodic damage from your Explosive Trap can now be critical strikes.


• Glyph of Kill Shot: Reduces the cooldown of Kill Shot by 6 sec.


• Glyph of Raptor Strike: For 3 sec. after using Raptor Strike, you take 20% less damage.


• Glyph of Scatter Shot: Increases the range of Scatter Shot by 3 yards.

Mage

• Glyph of Arcane Barrage: Reduces the mana cost of Arcane Barrage by 20%.


• Glyph of Deep Freeze: Increases the range of Deep Freeze by 10 yards.


• Glyph of Ice Barrier: Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.


• Glyph of Living Bomb: The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes.


• Glyph of Mirror Image: Your Mirror Images gain the Winter's Chill talent, granting their Frostbolt spell a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

Paladin

• Glyph of Beacon of Light: Increases the duration of Beacon of Light by 30 sec.


• Glyph of Divine Plea: While Divine Plea is active, you take 3% reduced damage from all sources.


• Glyph of Divine Storm: Your Divine Storm now heals for an additional 15% of the damage it causes.


• Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous: Your Hammer of the Righteous hits 1 additional target.


• Glyph of Hand of Salvation: When you cast Hand of Salvation on yourself, it also reduces damage taken by 20%.


• Glyph of Holy Shock: Reduces the cooldown of Holy Shock by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Shield of Righteousness: Reduces the mana cost of Shield of Righteousness by 80%.

Priest

• Glyph of Dispersion: Reduces the cooldown on Dispersion by 45 sec.


• Glyph of Fade: Now reduces cooldown by 9 sec.


• Glyph of Guardian Spirit: If you Guardian Spirit lasts its entire duration without being triggered, your Guardian Spirit cooldown is reset to 60 sec.


• Glyph of Holy Light: Can no longer crit and has had its range updated.


• Glyph of Hymn of Hope: Your Hymn of hope provides 2 times the normal amount of mana per time, but its duration is 50% shorter.


• Glyph of Mind Sear: Increases the radius of effect on Mind Sear by 5 yards.


• Glyph of Pain Suppression: Allows Pain Suppression to be cast while stunned.


• Glyph of Penance: Reduces the cooldown of Penance by 2 sec.

Rogue

• Glyph of Backstab: Now increases remaining duration on Rupture by 2 sec. each time it is used, up to a maximum of 6 sec.


• Glyph of Cloak of Shadows: While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.


• Glyph of Fan of Knives: Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%.


• Glyph of Hunger for Blood: Increases the bonus damage from Hunger For Blood by 3%.


• Glyph of Killing Spree: Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec.


• Glyph of Mutilate: Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy.


• Glyph of Shadow Dance: Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec.


• Glyph of Sprint: No longer reduces the duration.


• Glyph of Tricks of the Trade: Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target.

Shaman

• Glyph of Earth Shield: Increases the amount healed by your Earth Shield by 20%.


• Glyph of Feral Spirit: Your spirit wolves gain an additional 30% of your attack power.


• Glyph of Hex: Increases the damage your Hex target can take before the Hex effect is removed by 20%.


• Glyph of Riptide: Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem: Your Stoneclaw Totem also places a damage absorb shield on you, equal to 4 times the strength of the shield it places on your totems.


• Glyph of Thunder: Reduces the cooldown on Thunderstorm by 7 sec.


• Glyph of Totem of Wrath: When you cast Totem of Wrath, you gain 30% of the totem's bonus spell power for 5 min.

Warlock

• Glyph of Chaos Bolt: Reduces the cooldown on Chaos Bolt by 2 sec.


• Glyph of Demonic Circle: Reduces the cooldown on Demonic Circle by 4 sec.


• Glyph of Haunt: The bonus damage granted by your Haunt spell is increased by an additional 3%.


• Glyph of Life Tap: When you use Life Tap, you gain 20% of your spirit as spell power for 20 sec.


• Glyph of Metamorphosis: Increases the duration of your Metamorphosis by 6 sec.


• Glyph of Shadowflame: Your Shadowflame also applies a 70% movement speed slow on its victims.


• Glyph of Soul Link: Increases the percentage of damage shared via your Soul Link by an additional 5%.

Warrior

• Glyph of Bladestorm: Reduces the cooldown on Bladestorm by 15 sec.


• Glyph of Enraged Regeneration: Your Enraged Regeneration ability heals for an additional 10% of your health over its duration.


• Glyph of Last Stand: Now reduces the cooldown of Last Stand by 90 sec.


• Glyph of Shield Wall: Reduces the cooldown on Shield Wall by 3 min, but Shield Wall now only reduces damage taken by 40%.


• Glyph of Shockwave: Reduces the cooldown on Shockwave by 3 sec.


• Glyph of Spell Reflection: Reduces the cooldown on Spell Reflection by 1 sec.


• Glyph of Vigilance: Your Vigilance ability transfers an additional 5% of your target's threat to you.

Bug Fixes

• Leaving a group while in an instance will now port you to the nearest graveyard rather than your Hearthstone location.


• Mace of Unending Life is correctly a 2H weapon.

Death Knight

• Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.

Hunter

• Savage Rend (raptor special ability): Fixed a tooltip error to correctly note this ability boosts damage rather than attack power.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Rogue changes

After a bit of testing, and reading over the unofficial patch notes, I've seen quite a few changes for Rogues coming up. Ghostcrawler had given us a few ideas on what to look forward to, and for the most part they delivered exactly what we had been expecting. Combat has had several changes designed around the idea of making it a PvE viable tree in more situations. Hunger for Blood had its mechanic altered.

However, there are more than a few unexpected changes, including significant rebalancing of our poison system and some new glyphs. After the cut, I'll cover the basics of what's changed for Rogues in 3.1: for the good, and for the worse.

Poisons:
-Poisons are now based on a PPM model.
-Envenom increases your chance to apply Instant Poison by 75% (up from 15%) for 6 seconds.
-Improved Poisons now increases your change to apply Instant Poison by 50% (up from 10%).

Blizzard has decided to nerf the double Webbed Death combo that was currently topping the Mutilate charts. A PPM system for poisons heavily favors slow weapons, and so it will remain to be seen what specs and weapon choices will shake to the top of the pile. Blizzard still wants us doing poison damage, but we'll see what turns out for us. What poisons are proc-per-minute based and what those PPMs have changed to are still under investigation.

Hunger for Blood:
-Hunger for Blood is now a single-stacking 15% damage buff, but requires there to be a bleed on the target.
-Glyph of Hunter for Blood: Increases damage by 1% per application.

It looks like Blizzard forgot to proofread the Glyph on this one, as it is suited for the old version of HfB. We'll see what it looks like later. However, I see this change as a slight nerf, since we will no longer be able to pre-cast HfB for trash, etc. The pain of losing HfB is significantly reduce, though.

Expose Armor:
-Expose Armor now reduces armor by 20%.
With the low value of Armor Penetration, I don't see this as a buff in any way. Expose Armor previously helped us to destroy low-armor targets, whereas this new change removes that ability.

Combat Buffs:
-Savage Combat now increases damage by 4% (up from 2%).
-Adrenaline Rush now has a 3 minute cooldown (down from 5).
-Lightning Reflexes is now a 3 point talent for 6% dodge and 10% melee haste (yay!).
-Killing Spree increases all damage done by 20% while in the spree.

With the possible nerf to Mutilate/poison builds and the prevalence of Shiv builds currently, we may all be speccing combat very soon.

Glyphs:
-Glyph of Killing Spree (45 seconds off cooldown)
-Glyph of Adrenaline Rush (AR lasts 5 seconds longer)
-Glyph of Shadow Dance (lasts 4 seconds longer)
-Glyph of Fan of Knives (FoK does 20% more damage)
-Glyph of Tricks of the Trade (adds 10% additional bonus damage, so 25%)
-Glyph of Mutilate (Mutilate energy cost reduced by 5 – about time!)
-Glyph of Cloak of Shadows (while Cloak is up, 40% less physical damage taken)

With the buffs to Killing Spree, Adrenaline Rush, and Fan of Knives, Combat has become a serious contender for PvE powerhouse. I am personally going to be investing in a slower main hand weapon to give this spec a shot (once I'm able to get onto the PTR). Adrenaline Rush + Fan of Knives spam will become the AoE build that other classes dream about.

The Mutilate Glyph is insane, as with the 4 piece Tier 7 bonus and Overkill, you'll be throwing 40 energy Mutilates for 6 seconds. Unfortunately it does little to help our sustained damage: Mutilate has never been a high percentage of our overall damage. The Cloak of Shadows and Tricks of the Trade glyphs will be very useful for PvP, especially on teams without a healer.

Wrath of the Lich King Class Changes Roundup

I will bring you some of the still-current WoW Classes information for your first steps into Northrend. You've probably had a chance to get a handle on your class since most of the changes were pushed through in patch 3.0.2, but you have an extra ten levels ahead of you, an extra ten talent points, and a whole bunch of new skills and abilities you're going to need to learn. Don't know what to expect? We're here for you. If you do know what to expect? Well, I guess you can keep reading if you want. We'll let it slide just this once.

• Death Knight - Being the new class on the block, there's certainly been a lot to talk about in the recent months. Daniel Whitcomb points you toward much of it, including leveling builds, in-depth looks at their core abilities and mechanics, as well as some sage advice from Allison Robert.


• Druid - Speaking of Allison Robert, she'll be your guide today if you're looking for more on the Druid class. Talent builds, a glimpse at raid healing as Restoration, the rise of the Moonkin and much more can be found within.
  
• Hunter - Yeah, yeah. You're probably just going to go off and tame a Core Hound or something if you haven't already, but there's so much more that's new to the class! Michael Grey is manning the show here, pointing you towards things such as BigRedKitty's previews of the many new pets and pet abilities in Wrath of the Lich King, as well as other new skills. Oh, did you hear a Hunter pet tanked Gruul? It's true.


• Mage - The only thing that really, truly matters when it comes to the Mage class is that you can now polymorph things into Penguins. I suppose there are some other things coming around (like Mirror Image and Arcane Barrage) so you may want to take a look at Eliah Hecht's guide.


• Paladin - The Wrath of the Lich King beta was a wild ride for Paladins as the class rubberbanded in and out of being overpowered or underpowered. Many aspects of the class were changed completely from what they used to be, so if you haven't seen it in action yet, Zach Yonzon will point you in the right direction.


• Priest - Clearly the best class in the game. Clearly. This statement is not at all tainted by the fact that my main is a Priest. Alright, maybe it is, but that doesn't much matter. Priests have had a few major changes such as the removal of racial abilities and the addition of a few of them to our baseline repertoire, and there's also been controversy over the usefulness of talents such as Dispersion and Divine Providence. Interested? Matt Low will take good care of you.


• Rogue - Resident ninja master Chase Christian offers up some leveling tips, insight into new abilities, and dabbles in some of the other changes like scaling poisons. I'm not sure what else there is to say here. I mean, they're rogues. Pointy end of the sword (or dagger) goes into the other guy, right? That's pretty straightforward. Wait, what do you mean Rogues can use maces? Those aren't point at all. That doesn't even make sense.


• Shaman - The grizzly bear in human form, Matthew Rossi, will be your spirit guide. Whether you're Enhancement, Elemental, or Restoration, nothing you can do will ever be as epic as the Shaman who took out an entire raid group solo. With a single spell. There's some other stuff in there, but really, it all pales in comparison.


• Warlock - Zach Yonzon gets tired of all of that Light crap and jumps from Paladin to Warlock, rounding up all you need to know. Did you know DoTs can crit now (sort of)? Did you know the Infernal can be used indoors now? Do you know how Haunt works? If you answered yes to all of those questions, you win a great big bowl of nothing. If you answered no to any of those questions, there's probably some other stuff you don't know. Click the link! Go! Hurry!


• Warrior - Matthew Rossi is back, drooling all over the WoW Insider team as he rants and raves about the sheer awesome that is Titan's Grip. There's plenty of other new things on top of that as well, such as a revamp of the Protection tree, a close look at a few new abilities, and more.

That's all, folks! We hope you find these guides useful, and we can't wait to see you in Northrend! I guess we can't see you if we're not on the same realm, but we'll be there in spirit. The next person that steals the tap on a quest mob from you? Yeah, pretend we're that guy. We hurt you because we love you.

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