Ghostcrawler just added this set of rogue changes to the massive, ongoing “PTR Class and Set Bonuses” thread in the official WoW forum:
- Blind – cooldown increased to 2 min (from 90 sec).
- Preparation – no longer resets the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows.
- Cloak of Shadows – cooldown reduced to 60 sec (from 2 min).
Keep in mind that, prior to patch 5.1, the cooldown on Blind was 3 minutes. This change will revert part of the cooldown reduction introduced with 5.1, but it’ll still be lower than it was when Mists launched.
I haven’t been reading up on the discussion that led to the Prep changes. I’m also far from a PvP maven, so I can’t even really make an educated guess. Seems like this’ll increase the versatility of Prep by not “forcing” a rogue to use it solely to reset Cloak, but it’ll also mean we lose the ability to “chain-Cloak” in order to double the length of our immunity and spell resistance.
These three changes were included among a batch of class adjustments that GC said were “mostly for PvP purposes and were based on a lot of PTR feedback, much of it from high-end PvP players.” He noted that they “are not set in stone.”
CoS change will definitely affect rogue utility in some raid encounters.
OH, true — thinking back, it actually may have impacted my old guild’s progression speed on H-Ultraxion by allowing me to be a backup soaker in situations where someone in the rotation had died.
sigh, the blind nerf..destroys cc ability of a rogue in arenas, all i have to control a healer is to redirect a kidney shot when not in shadow dance.