Broliant Writes…

Single Minded Focus is an occasional series of articles offering players an insight into the supposed master of the single-target melee DPS classes. Today we take a brief moment to perform a sofa-analysis of the proposed rogue changes announced earlier today due to appear in the Cataclysm expansion.

Thus far, we’ve not paid too much attention toward Cataclysm since our focus remains firmly upon progression through the current content, Wrath of the Lich King and Icecrown Citadel. However, we now know that very few changes are likely to come out between now and Cataclysm’s release therefore our thoughts naturally have the chance to begin wandering towards the future developments being discussed.

As we already know, Cataclysm is an expansion that is spending the greater resource of its development effort on replacing the ‘classic’ content that was present in the game before the first expansion (The Burning Crusade, aka: TBC) appeared as much of that content is now so dated in tone and style that new players struggle to enjoy it and older players are loathe to repeat it.

The degree of focus on the old-world renovation means that Blizzard are only offering a further five levels of new content for existing players versus the customary ten levels that the previous two expansions have taught us to expect. It is a strange conundrum – on the one hand, Blizzard notes as defence against detractors that would rather see more high end content that players find having to play through ten levels tiresome when they have multiple characters yet at the same time are essentially encouraging all players to consider creating entirely new characters to experience the bulk of the new/revised content being generated with the old world update meaning that players would have to progress through a full eighty-five levels for each new character.

In fairness, five new levels at the max-level is understandable when the expansion’s focus is on renovation of the original game but would be a large disappointment in a subsequent expansion should Blizzard not provide some other similar diversion.

There are no new classes for Cataclysm but all existing classes are being overhauled in terms of their repertoire of existing spells and talents with the talent-trees receiving the majority of the changes. The degree to which the talent-trees are being changed in tone and focus means that most players will need to undergo a significant amount of relearning simply to play their existing class or classes with the same degree of proficiency.

Over the past week, Blizzard has begun to release the core ideas they are working on per class with regard to spells, talents and basic mechanics. Today saw the release of the proposed rogue changes which we’ll discuss below.

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New Rogue Abilities:

Three new rogue abilities have been announced. We’ll cover each one in turn and give some instant reactions and thoughts.

Redirect (Level: 81)

Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cool-down and no other costs.

Thoughts: Switching targets is a problem that surfaces far more obviously on encounters where the rogue is working on targets in a team (read: party/raid) environment that die quickly before the rogue can complete or maintain a rotation cycle. Such situations reduce the DPS output of the rogue significantly. (Example: The trash killing on the Valithria Dreamwalker fight in Icecrown Citadel or the add killing on the Lady Deathwhisper fight in Icecrown Citadel.) If the ability to ‘transfer’ combo points from a previous target to the rogue’s current target has either a low or zero energy cost, this could be a very much appreciated tool for keeping rotations running in a busy raid environment.

Questions: Will the rogue also be able to maintain CPs on prior targets whilst doing damage to another target or will the current mechanic that CPs on prior targets are lost once the rogue begins doing damage to the new target remain? If so, the rogue will need to ‘Redirect’ their CPs onto the current target as their first action.

Conclusion: This could be a fairly solid ability and one that is frequently used. Energy cost and whether it is included on the GCD table will influence its attractiveness. On balance though, it sounds like something a rogue could find good use for.

- Good for PVE levelling and questing. (Regular usage.)
- Good for PVE partying and raiding. (Frequent usage.)
- Good for PVP. (Regular usage.)

Combat Readiness (Level: 83)

Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Thoughts: In a PVE party or raid environment, rogues traditionally should not be taking damage. That’s what the mentally-challenged (err, we mean ‘battle hardened!’) tanks are for, being smacked about a bit! Thus, this ability is more likely to see use in a levelling and questing scenario where the rogue has to manage their own adds.

In PVP, this is likely to be quite a handy ability to pop. Rogues will need to go toe-to-toe and manage their incoming damage and this provides something toward that goal.

Questions: Is the trigger for this proccing and stacking limited to special abilities of other classes or also their ‘auto-attacks’? Does the 6-second timer refresh upon each subsequent hit or is it 6 seconds of protection from the first hit to the last, meaning it’ll rarely get to stack to the full 5-stacks and fifty percent damage reduction unless the rogue is being attacked by multiple enemies – in which case, this probably won’t save the rogue.

Conclusion: Damage reduction is damage reduction. A rogue could always find a use for it and it is a PVP inspired ability. Personally, it’s of little interest to me beyond very situational circumstances and we need more info on how a 2-min CD, 6-sec ability actually works in practice. Feint provides about the same level of protection from some types of damage already and has a 10-second CD. Cloak of Shadows provides a 90% level of protection against magical damage and is on a 90-second CD. (It also ‘almost’ fixes Vanish.)

- Average for PVE levelling and questing. (CD too long.)
- Mostly superfluous for PVE partying and raiding. (Limited usage.)
- Good for PVP. (Regular usage.)

Smoke Bomb (Level: 85)

The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional game-play, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cool-down.

Thoughts: The most interesting ability by far. None of the new abilities really offer interesting and exciting ways to do DPS, which frankly is the main thing most ‘normal’ rogues would want to see most. This ability however does offer the sort of cool “interesting” promise that rogues do also greatly appreciate. There would seem to be more potential here for finding creative uses of the ability.

In a party or raid environment, it could serve to assist with “line of sight” pulls in open territory. Get a hunter to MD the tank (or ‘tricks’ the tank yourself), drop a smoke bomb on the tank and then pull. The mobs should run to the tank in order to be able to target him or her.

Questions: Does a player that has a rogue targeted ‘lose’ their target when the rogue drops a smoke bomb on them self or does the rogue remain targeted and is simply ‘un-attackable’ via ranged single-target abilities for the duration? This question will probably inform a great deal on how the PVP rogue makes use of the ability.

How will the ability be manifested graphically? It’s unlikely to graphically shield the players within it so we can more likely expect some form of transparent or translucent shell akin to the DK’s anti-magic shell. Something we can see but are not visually blocked by.

Conclusion: Want to bet that a boss can target the rogue with any ability regardless of the bomb? This is really just another PVP ability that the PVE rogue will find occasional utility use for but will rarely find ‘front-line’ use for – front-line use being perhaps abilities key-bound to the most commonly used keys for sake of argument. Something for the ‘toy-box’ but otherwise not much more than a novelty.

- Okay for PVE levelling and questing. (Utility pulls.)
- Average usefulness. (Utility pulls, occasional oh-crap moments.)
- Good for PVP. (Regular usage.)

New Abilities – Summary Conclusions:

Overall, Blizzard have announced three new abilities of which two are defensive PVP-oriented abilities with perhaps only limited occasional appeal to end-game PVE players. The ability with most appeal in a PVE context is an ability which one might almost wish was a standard feature of the game anyway. Consider how one might “explain away” the mechanic of combo-points at a story level anyway. Discrete levels of a rogue’s heightened ability as each subsequent ability increases the rogue’s potency? Why then, if that potency can be transferred should it be a manual process that likely costs the rogue energy or time?

There are no new directly damage-dealing abilities – the last ‘proper’ damage-dealing PVE ability for a raiding rogue was probably Mutilate that came out in the last months of 2006 prior to the release of TBC. It’s now 2010 and we have Shiv and Fan of Knives, situational poison applicator (PVP mostly) and energy-intensive AoE, of no real usage outside of the Onyxia “Many Whelps!” achievement.

The new abilities therefore are probably going to feel quite underwhelming for the PVE raiding rogues out there. PVP rogues may be more intrigued by the potential for these new moves but only time will tell.

Let’s move onto the changes being made to the rogue abilities and mechanics next.

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Changes to Abilities and Mechanics:

Here’s what Blizzard has announced.

In PvP, we want to reduce the rogue’s dependency on binary cool-downs and “stun-locks,” and give them more passive survivability in return. One major change is that we’ll put Cheap Shot on the same diminishing return as other stuns. The increase to Armor and Stamina on cloth, leather, and mail gear will help with this goal as well.

The defining characteristic of a rogue was to stun, debuff and control an opponent. Arena PVP (frankly: the cancer that ate the best features of WoW from the inside out) has forced Blizzard to remove all “rock/paper/scissor” relations and homogenise all classes. Stun-locks have been difficult for them to accommodate because Blizzard had to give all classes the means to escape a stun-lock (because it’s not fun to be stun-locked, clearly) and the means to create a stun-lock of their own. Perhaps not ‘quite’ as good as the rogue but enough that rogues don’t get to define themselves by their stuns to the same degree.

This change will affect PVP only with the exception of the third fight in the Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader raid instance because DR only exists in these PVP environs. Thus, if you play PVE, it’s hardly going to notice and if you play PVP, you’ll notice your early and mid-fight rhythm will need to change slightly to accommodate the reduction in your stun-lock duration.

In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom, a very large portion of the rogue’s damage is attributable to passive sources of damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we want to reduce the percentage of rogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special attacks.

Blizzard are driving towards a model where most of the damage comes from a player’s “special abilities” instead of their passive abilities. Currently, one of the most notable differences between an average Assassination rogue and a good one in PVE raids is the awareness they have of the power of the Envenom buff and their success in achieving the maximum uptime of that buff. It is rather surprising how many rogues are outperformed due to this by players of lesser gear.

This is one for the ‘wash’ – we need to see how they balance their mechanics to understand the impact of the change and what avenues are then opened for more skilled or knowledgeable players to differentiate themselves.

We would like to improve the rogue levelling experience. Positional attacks and DoT-ramping mechanics will be de-emphasized at low levels and then re-introduced at higher levels for group game-play. We are also providing rogues with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT).

The biggest slow-down for a questing and levelling rogue is downtime needed to regain health. If this helps reduce that, it’ll be welcomed across the board. Let pots, less bandages, just CPs!

In PVP, the value of this will depend on the size of the heal but it’s likely we’ll still need to foster good relations with our healer friends!

To complement the change to combo points, non-damage abilities such as Recuperate and Slice and Dice will no longer have target requirements and can be used with any of the rogue’s existing combo points, including combo points remaining on recently killed targets. This will not affect damage abilities, which will still require combo points to be present on the specific target you want to damage. To coincide with this, the UI will be updated so that rogues know how many combo points they have active.

SnD almost worked this way in the past. If you had (say) three CPs on a mob and it died, you could use up those CPs with SnD before attacking the next mob. It appears we’re going to get that type of ability back which is a nice-to-have as far as rogue mechanics are concerned. Will rogues be allowed to ‘store’ CPs on multiple targets other than the one they currently attack or just on one other target? Guess the latter, hope for the former!

Ambush will now work with all weapons, but will have a reduced coefficient when not using a dagger. When opening from Stealth, all rogues will be able to choose from burst damage, DoT abilities, or a stun.

Excellent. It was inconsistent with the ‘rogue story’ not to be able to ‘ambush’ a target with any weapon. Much like being able to “Mutilate in the face”, this is essentially Blizzard correcting an oversight.

As we’ve done recently with some of the Subtlety abilities, we want to make sure more rogue abilities aren’t overly penalized by weapon choice. With a few exceptions (like Backstab), you should be able to use a dagger, axe, mace, sword, or fist weapon without being penalized for most attacks.

Again, this is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with having abilities be able to be more weapon agnostic nor is there anything wrong with an ability becoming empowered if one specific weapon is used. A backstab with a sword should be possible for example, but one might imagine daggers would be faster when used to stab. Let’s see how Blizzard models this ambition.

Deadly Throw and Fan of Knives will now use the weapon in the ranged slot. In addition, we hope to allow rogues to apply poisons to their throwing weapons.

Could this be the end of rogues carrying bows, crossbows and guns? It depends how much we want to use those two abilities – in a PVE raid rogues are still more likely to favour stats over those PVP-centric abilities. Some rogues have a little fun with FoK on trash. In a boss fight, it’s incredibly rare to waste energy on FoK. FoK with DP on both hands in Onyxia was the one exception when killing ‘Many Whelps’ thanks to the energy-regenerating properties of certain talents and DP combined. The ranged weapons will need to be able to have poison applied to them otherwise rogue functionality will be diminished. In ways most PVE rogues won’t be too bothered about.

We are very happy with Tricks of the Trade as a general mechanic and as a way to give rogues more group utility, but we don’t want it to account for as much threat transfer as it does now.

Since classic end-game WoW, only Gurtogg Bloodboil in Black Temple has challenged rogues to watch their aggro versus the tanks. In all other situations, a good tank has been able to generate way more threat than the rogue meaning rogues did not need to feint. An occasional ‘tricks’ plus the ubiquitous Vanish, which rogues have been using anyway in an offensive capacity, has been enough to manage threat.

If TotT transfers less threat, the ability will be less appealing to use – without a T10 2-piece bonus the energy cost for some rogue specs means it won’t get used – it’s DPS increase for the target is over-mitigated by a greater DPS loss for the rogue.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics – Summary Conclusions:

It’s very early days and some of these changes are interesting whilst others are more or less “change for change’s sake”. There seems to be more focus on PVP again but that’s hard to judge until we see final updates.

We’ve now looked at ‘New Abilities’ and ‘Changes to Abilities and Mechanics’. Finally, let’s look at what Blizzard has announced for rogues regarding ‘New Talents and Talent Changes’:

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New Talents and Talent Changes:
The following quotes were made by Blizzard at the close of this early preview:

Assassination will be more about daggers, poisons, and burst damage.

Combat will be all about swords, maces, fist weapons, axes, and being engaged toe-to-toe with your enemies. A Combat rogue will be able to survive longer without needing to rely on Stealth and evasion mechanics.

The Subtlety tree will primarily be based around utilizing Stealth, openers, finishers, and survivability. It’ll be about daggers, too, but less so than Assassination.

No word on whether there will be any effort by Blizzard on pushing certain trees towards specific activities, such that one tree favours PVE, another PVP and so on. Subtlety got to go raiding via Honor Among Thieves (aka: HAT). Personally, I’ve really enjoyed being able to go raiding with an assassination build and daggers and HAT was a huge amount of fun in a raid environment (and horrible outside of a raid!) but the variety was appreciated. Let’s keep fingers crossed that all tastes can be accommodated to a reasonable degree here. It has been done before.

In general, Subtlety rogues need to do more damage than they do today, and the other trees need to have more tools.

Ideally, I want to be able to go PVE raiding with investment in each talent tree and have comparable potential performance (ie: super-high DPS!) but a distinctly different flavour and play-style through different abilities. If I spent a lot of time PVPing, I’d want the same for my arena and BG play, such that my enemies would react quite differently depending on which tree I’d most heavily placed my points into.

This could help that as part of the overall ambition.

Weapon-specialization talents (for all classes, not just rogues) are going away. We do not want you to have to respec when you get a different weapon. Interesting talents, such as Hack and Slash, will work with all weapons. Boring talents, such as Mace Specialization and Close Quarters Combat, will be going away.

As noted before, the only real problem for rogues with weapon specs came with ranged weapons. Levelling any melee weapon was incredibly easy and the concept fitted well with the story of a rogue, or any melee class character for that matter.

Blizzard have stated that they strongly dislike the “power dial” effect of talents like Hunger for Blood that they’ve created and used to help balance the trees and the class. Need to nerf the class because it’s a bit overpowered? Dial down HfB from 15% to 9% and it’s job done. Rogues return into the pack from their earlier loftier position.

In Cataclysm, we’re losing these power-dial talents because they’re boring. Now, every tree just gets one single un-selectable power-dial. It looks like class balance in Cataclysm will be achieved by tweaking the mastery stats. There’s no shame in that.

In light of this, how about we replace the ‘boring’ talents with super-fun ones instead then? Let’s see some real imagination brought in.

The Assassination and Combat talent trees currently have a lot of passive bonuses. We plan to dial back the amount of Critical Strike Rating provided by these trees so that rogues still want it on their gear.

This point is academic. If we get it passively, we won’t want it on gear. If we don’t, we will. Unless another stat benefits us all. You could pontificate on this point all day long. We won’t.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Assassination

Melee damage
Melee critical damage
Poison damage

Combat

Melee damage
Melee Haste
Harder-hitting combo-point generators

Subtlety

Melee damage
Armor Penetration
Harder-hitting finishers

That all appears as one might expect. Poisons are the speciality of assassination rogues, speed of attack of the combat rogues and finishing moves of the subtlety rogues. Not sure on the last one but it’s acceptable. We’d have thought subtlety’s main feature was … subtlety, which a big finish pretty much is the opposite of.

New Talents and Talent Changes – Summary Conclusions:
Overall, we like the seeming ambition to remove dull damage-boosting talents from the trees and only wonder if Blizzard have the imagination left to come up with some good fun replacement talents instead. It is starting to feel like they have begun to reach the end of their creative well-spring on this subject.

There are plenty of things to be interested in from what we’ve read in Blizzard’s announcement and very little of such note that we should have any real concern. The talent changes represent the largest sea-change on how we’ll spec, equip and play our rogues in whatever endeavours we prefer, be that PVP or PVE. All classes are in a boat like this one though so we are not alone.

For players at the end-game, it would appear that Cataclysm will offer them about 50% of the content that previous expansions brought plus the ability to fly around the continents of the original game. (Question: Will we be prevented from flying in the content zones for levels 80-85 as per Blizzard’s preference to keep us grounded for levelling? No idea yet, but we’ve never objected to the concept in the past, only the silly prices.)

For those players willing or keen to run through the whole levelling experience once more, the newly revised levelling process may be suitably new and rewarding to make the journey worthwhile. From a PVE raiding rogue’s perspective though, there’s not too much to be excited about just yet.