Thursday
Feb052009
3.1 Rogue Changes Announced
Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 9:25AM | Zaltu
So we've gotten a glimpse of some of the planned changes for our favorite stabbity class in 3.1. I, for one, am extremely excited. I feel they are a step in the right direction all around. Granted these aren't all the changes and they may go away or be tweaked at anytime, after all 3.1 is still a ways away (I'm guesses 2 months or so, write it down: Zaltu says patch 3.1 in early April), but they still give me a warm feeling inside. Let's go down the list and discuss shall we? Yes, let's.
These are all a huge step in the right direction and I'm quite excited about them. You could say I'm feeling pretty giddy right now. Is giddy a bad choice of words? I suppose it sounds more like a school girl than a blood thirsty killing machine that is suppose to be a rogue...whatevs.
Bring on 3.1.
- Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.
- Adrenaline Rush – the cooldown on this ability has been lowered.
- Lightning Reflexes – reduced to 3 ranks. In addition to 2/4/6% dodge, this talent now also grants 4/7/10% passive melee haste.
- Killing Spree – while this ability is active, the rogue does 20% additional damage.
- Savage Combat – now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
- Mace Specialization – this talent now grants haste in addition to armor penetration.
A very nice buff for our Assassination brothers and sisters. Keeping HfB up, while certainly not impossible, is a pain in the butt simply for the huge loss you get when trying to work back up to 3 stacks. Granted you can only have it up when your target has a bleed (I see a lot of mutilate rogues possibly leading with a 1 point rupture unless they have someone else in their party that can provide a bleed effect) but it's much easier to keep up now and it gets a 6% damage boost. Win all around.
Wonderful! They haven't said by how much but any amount is great. My money is going on 4 minutes with the glyphed version taking it down to 3.
So your standard combat build has 4 "throw away" points (provided you're not combining weapons like fist/sword or mace/sword). Well 4 has become 1 because this new ability is just amazing. 10% haste! That's 10% increase to your white DPS, which is a major part of our DPS. This is a great change, a big boost to the combat tree and I want it NOW...now dammit...give me the box!
Why hello Killing Spree. Welcome to my rotation. I sure will enjoy those poison crits while you're active. This seems minor but don't forget that auto attacks continue while you're preforming a killing spree and this 20% will carry over to any poison or sword spec procs that happen during it.
What's this? An increase in our utility? Am I dreaming? Well it is early in the morning and I am only half awake but regardless this is a great little buff. An extra 4% damage for our fellow meleeing friends...oh and I guess hunters too. Notice this puts savage combat ahead of Blood Frenzy but I have a feeling that ability will be getting a similar buff.
Armor penetration is the bastard child of stats right now and in turn maces became the bastard child of rogue weapons, so this is a nice boost for them. Will this cause a sudden influx of mace rogues? Probably not, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless.
These are all a huge step in the right direction and I'm quite excited about them. You could say I'm feeling pretty giddy right now. Is giddy a bad choice of words? I suppose it sounds more like a school girl than a blood thirsty killing machine that is suppose to be a rogue...whatevs.
Bring on 3.1.
tagged haste, patch 3.1, talent points
haste, patch 3.1, talent points 
Reader Comments (4)
Is that 15% haste for mace spec? And global haste, or just the mace-hand? If it's global, a mace/x dual-spec sounds interesting. I'm a non-raiding combat sword rogue, and buying a crafted mace vs. opening 1000 more boxes looking for a Krol Cleaver sounds lovely.
They haven't said just how much haste mace spec will give.
I'm willing to bet it will only give haste with maces rather than a global haste.
Alright, for HfB getting a change! I think in a raid setting it's gonna be cake getting that in there, with all the Feral Druids, and Dps Warriors that are in many 25 man comps. Opening with a rupture isn't that bad an idea either, really... It'll take you just a little longer to get into the rotation, but for the amount (and the new ease) of the buff, it sounds pretty killer. Only real problem is what if there's a boss that doesn't bleed al la the Curator, will make that a wasted 3 (hfb, and the bleed 2 pointer...).
Wonder if lightning reflexes is gonna start eeking its way into assassnation builds...
yeah, I'm pretty excited about the ones in combat
and i loved killing spree as it was, this just makes it even better!