Rogue changes.

[Holyssa]

News on the class has been hush-hush, but here's a bit of good & bad on you fellas for the next build, plus the "surprise" utility spell:

By Gamnin:

Here’s a quick update on some additional changes we’ve made over the weekend. Most of these, but not all, will be in the next beta build.

General

* Cloak of Shadows cooldown changed to 1.5 min.

* Disarm Trap range increased to 20 yds, cast time reduced to 1 sec, now requires stealth.

* (NEW – Level 75) Tricks of the Trade: The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time. 30 sec cooldown. (Surprise! Yes, this is the new group/raid utility ability. We haven’t put any stacking protection on it yet but we’ll need one type of solution or other to prevent the need for 5 rogue Trick rotations. Note also that you cannot use this ability on yourself.)

Assassination

* Vigor moved to Tier 3.

* Relentless Strikes moved to Subtlety Tier 1, made 5 ranks for 4/8/12/16/20% chance.

* Murder moved to Tier 6, now increases damage by 2/4%.

* (NEW – Tier 7) Overkill: Abilities used while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cost 10 less energy.

* Focused Attacks and Turn the Tables have swapped locations.

* Master Poisoner moved to Tier 9, no longer increases chance to hit with poison attacks, now increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 1/2/3% and reduces the duration of all Poison effects applied to you by 17/34/50%. (This does not stack with the Paladin talent Heart of the Crusader.)

* Hunger for Blood duration increased to 30 seconds.

Combat

* Precision now also increases chance to hit with poison attacks by 1/2/3/4/5%.

* Nerves of Steel will now reduce damage taken while stunned or feared by 15/30% rather than reducing duration.

* Improved Sprint moved to Tier 4.

* Blade Twisting now slows movement speed by 70%.

* Mace Specialization now ignores 3/6/9/12/15% of target’s armor.

* Throwing Specialization now also has a chance to interrupt target when Fan of Knives is used.

* Unfair Advantage: Whenever you dodge an attack you strike back for 50/100% of your main hand weapon’s damage.

* Stay of Execution removed, replaced with Blood Poisoning.

* (NEW – Tier 9) Blood Poisoning: All physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 1/2%.

* Prey on the Weak now increases critical strike damage of all attacks.

* Killing Spree is the new name for Murder Spree and should be working much better very soon.

Subtlety

* Shadowstep will no longer be usable while rooted.

* Elusiveness moved to Tier 3, now reduces cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 sec.

* Premeditation cooldown reduced to 20 sec.

* Preparation no longer refreshes the cooldown to Premeditation.

* Master of Deception reduced to 3 ranks.

* Opportunity reduces to 2 ranks for 10/20%.

* Camouflage reduced to 3 ranks for 5/10/15% speed and 2/4/6 sec off the cooldown of Stealth.

* Initiative moved to Tier 4, increased to 33/66/100% chance.

* Improved Ambush moved to Tier 4, reduced to 2 ranks for 25/50%.

* Serrated Blades moved to Tier 3.

* Wrongfully Accused replaced with Filthy Tricks.

* (NEW – Tier 9) Filthy Tricks: Reduces the cooldown of your Tricks of the Trade and Distract abilities by 5/10 sec.

* Slaughter from the Shadows now also reduces the energy cost of your Hemorrhage ability by 1/2/3/4/5.

* Shadow Dance redesigned, now allows the use of Sap, Garrote, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket and Disarm Trap regardless of being stealthed. Those abilities all gain a cooldown of 2 sec. Lasts 10 sec.

Ouch. Shadowstep got struck by the nerfbat. As if Warriors and Druids didn't have an easy time with rogues as it is...

The Disarm Trap change is neat, but sucks that it requires stealth now. Giving rogues a pseudo-Misdirect (Tricks of the Trade) looks like fun.

"* Relentless Strikes moved to Subtlety Tier 1, made 5 ranks for 4/8/12/16/20% chance."

...

*slugs a punching bag with Kalgan's picture on it* That's NOT funny! >

[Perthes]

A rogue with MD ? sounds fun

[Scryll]

I'm kinda sad that they've already moved back on their nerf to Cloak. It was 2 minutes in the beginning, and it never should have been buffed to 1 minute, IMO. They should have kept the 2 minute nerf and the ability to spec it back to 1 minute.

As for Relentless Strikes. They said they were going to make it more accessible. I suppose it IS more accessible now. Technically. In a way no one but ShS PvPers would like. I guess Subtlety was the only tree without an energy-return talent and they wanted to change that. Too bad they couldn't have switched out Focused Attacks instead. It'll make it easier for all the people who insisted they couldn't live without a 1-minute Cloak to spec deeply enough into subtlety to get Elusiveness. Ditto with the Serrated Blades change. If I stay combat rather than switching to a mutilate build, I can easily see using something like 5/51/15, only taking Malice from Ass. I'll miss how Ruthlessness and RS work together though.

I'm curious about Disarm Trap though. When did they change it so it DIDN'T require stealth? I remember not being able to do jack to those traps the engineers in Blood Furnace put down except when stealthed.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Scryll

[Holyssa]

I'm curious about Disarm Trap though. When did they change it so it DIDN'T require stealth? I remember not being able to do jack to those traps the engineers in Blood Furnace put down except when stealthed.

I believe it's been like this for a long time, albeit somewhat bugged. During Hex Lord in ZA, I'm able to disarm traps (assuming a hunter is in the raid) from about 10 yards away merely by clicking the hotbar icon, then the trap itself while in mid-combat.

[Waldonnis]

I believe it's been like this for a long time, albeit somewhat bugged. During Hex Lord in ZA, I'm able to disarm traps (assuming a hunter is in the raid) from about 10 yards away merely by clicking the hotbar icon, then the trap itself while in mid-combat.

I don't recall exactly when, but it's been a long while now. I've had the same experience with traps and the ability icon, but strange results when clicking on the traps themselves...

The changes are curious and I'm iffy on a few of them, personally. Moving Vigor continues to make me laugh (hell, maintaining it as a talent continues to make me laugh) considering the long history of debates that have surrounded the talent. Shadowstep continues to float in duration, but I agree with Scryll at this point...if they want to do something about its duration, do it with talents rather than trying to find a balance point with the base skill. I also think that Shadow Dance likely needs a bit more work since I'm hearing that it's a bit confusing at times and hard to predict for the rogue.

As for the utility spell, it's odd and I'm not sure how well it will fit quite yet. While I've never been one to raid as a rogue, I see this as being of limited value, depending on the energy cost and cooldown, not to mention threat mechanics changes that are going on in the tanking classes. I guess we'll have to see how this all works out in practice before really passing much judgment on the ability, though, and I agree that it's a tricky one to tune while also avoiding "required rotations".

In all, most of it does look interesting and a bit fun without having altered the class mechanics significantly (which is a good thing, since it means rogue changes will be quicker to implement and tune than some of the other classes).

[Orcala]

News on the class has been hush-hush, but here's a bit of good & bad on you fellas for the next build, plus the "surprise" utility spell:

Ouch. Shadowstep got struck by the nerfbat. As if Warriors and Druids didn't have an easy time with rogues as it is...

The Disarm Trap change is neat, but sucks that it requires stealth now.

Shadowstepping in arena while rooted is kinda funny, gives me enough time to shiv them with crippling poison, but i'm still stuck in place unless cos is up.

oh and how else are you going to disarm traps? If the hunter lets you disarm a trap while unstealthed he has issues.

[Kailand]

oh and how else are you going to disarm traps? If the hunter lets you disarm a trap while unstealthed he has issues.

it's not like flare is of anyuse (as if it is useful now), as rogues will be able to disarm traps without moving into the flare, plus shadow dance means that they can use abilities that require stealth when they are not stealthed.

[Waldonnis]

it's not like flare is of anyuse (as if it is useful now), as rogues will be able to disarm traps without moving into the flare, plus shadow dance means that they can use abilities that require stealth when they are not stealthed.

Flare is definitely useful...as long as the hunter uses terrain wisely and doesn't stand in the middle of it and in-range of a shadowstep. Trust me, it may not seem so from the hunter perspective, but I've been thwarted by more flares than I can count, even recently. Anticipating a rogue with a flare is VERY powerful, even in live.