[Update 7/19: Official patch notes updated just a few hours after I originally posted this confirm that basically everything is actually happening the way it was datamined.]
There have been a pair of datamined Patch 5.4 PTR builds this week, but no official patch note update yet — although we should expect to see one later today or tomorrow. As such, take these new hints of incoming rogue changes with a certain amount of salt until officialness occurs.
Let’s dip right in.
Ability and Talent Adjustments
- Evasion appears to be getting a substantial buff: It’ll increase our dodge chance by 100% instead of 50%. From a PvE standpoint, this is flat-out super for questing and soloing. From a PvP standpoint, there’s been some back and forth in forums over this, but it looks like the general view is that this is a fair change, but the 15-second duration (which is currently unchanged) may be a little too long.
- Paralytic Poison appears to be getting a buff: The 4-second stun will kick in on the fourth stack of the poison, rather than the fifth.
- The buff to Sinister Strike and addition of Ruthlessness for Combat rogues appears to be in place on the PTR (as of Monday).
Changes to Existing Glyphs
- Glyph of Shiv appears to be getting a buff: It’ll reduce Shiv’s cooldown by 3 seconds instead of 2.
- The Glyph of Blind fix that was included in last week’s official patch note update (see paragraph 5 of this bloggy post) appears to be in place on the PTR
The Circle of Glyph: New Glyphs Are Born, Old Glyphs Die
Earlier this month, many avid PTR stalkers were abuzz after datamining first caught glimpses of a whole mess of new glyphs for all classes, rogues included. We should very shortly see the official 5.4 notes catch up with all the datamining, which currently suggests two things:
- We may be slated to get up to six new glyphs, four major and two minor.
- Three of the four major glyphs appear to be replacing glyphs that currently exist in the game — glyphs that either felt required for some rogues or that most rogues never used.
Here are the six, along with their current tooltip text as of the latest datamine.
- Major Glyphs
- Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins: Your Saunguinary [sic] Veins ability now also increases damage done to targets affected by your Hemorrhage.
- This appears to be replacing our Glyph of Sap, which basically nobody ever uses.
- Glyph of Recovery: While Recuperate is active, you receive 20% increased healing from other sources.
- This appears to be replacing our Glyph of Debiltation, which has been used by extremely few people (either in PvP or PvE).
- Glyph of Redirect: Redirect no longer has a cooldown. (Note: A tweet this week from WoW PvP Brian Holinka may imply that this glyph isn’t truly happening, that he thinks it’s a huge rogue buff, or that he just likes callously and viciously toying with people’s emotions.)
- This appears to be replacing our Glyph of Adrenaline Rush, which has been pretty much a requirement for every PvE Combat rogue at end-game. The AdRush glyph’s effects will become baseline for all Combat rogues. (Thanks for your comment with the heads-up on that tweet, Ben.)
- Glyph of Sharpened Knives: Your Fan of Kinves [sic] also damages the armor of its victims, applying 1 application of the Weakened Armor effect to each target.
- This doesn’t appear to be replacing anything, though I’ve seen players report that it’s meant to replace the Glyph of Crippling Poison, which basically nobody ever uses.
- Glyph of Hemorrhaging Veins: Your Saunguinary [sic] Veins ability now also increases damage done to targets affected by your Hemorrhage.
- Minor Glyphs
- Glyph of the Headhunter: Your Throw and Deadly Throw abilities will now throw axes regardless of your currently equipped weapon.
- Glyph of Improved Distraction: Distract now summons a decoy at the target location.
For reference, here are the info sources for the latest datamines:
- Monday’s PTR build (#17191): MMO-Champion; Wowhead
- Wednesday’s PTR build (#17205): MMO-Champion; Wowhead
I based my “nobody/everybody uses this glyph” claims on the latest data from WorldofWargraphs. (They’re not perfect — I believe the numbers are based on people’s armories when they log out, not when they’re actually playing — but they suffice for the purpose I used them for.)
GC confirmed on twitter the AR glyph is going baseline.
Thank you! Looks like I didn’t catch up on the last few days of Blizztweets as much as I’d thought.
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