I Could Really Use a Cloning Device, if Any of You Has One

I’ll try to keep this relatively quick-ish, because it’s not about any form of actual rogue news, and who the hell wants to just read me blather on about myself? Besides me, I mean. I could read my blatherings about me for DAYS.

It may or may not have recently come to your attention that a certain red hat is now appearing on WoW Insider. This is arguably a pretty big deal, and I’m arguably still having trouble entirely accepting that 1) it’s actually happening and 2) I won’t spectacularly fail at this now that I’m obligated to regularly produce content for a very large audience. (It’s always one thing when you do something as your own personal project; now there’s all these wacky “expectations” that I will “create” articles that are “good” so that “people” can “enjoy” and “learn” from the”m.”)””

But here we are.  And a few of you have rightly asked, “What of Red-Hatted Rogue Reporter/RHR/RRR/R^3? Is it doomed?”

This is a post to unequivocally inform you: Psh, heck if I know.

Here’s what I want to have happen: I want to write my WoW Insider column every one to two weeks, in which I pick a topic to explore and then spew forth with 800 to 1200 words on the subject, after which I shall soak up all the interesting things you all have to say in hopes we’ll all ultimately understand the issue a lot better than we did when we started.

Meanwhile, I want to keep R^3 here very close to what my original intent for it was: To act as a repository for news and information on developments impacting WoW’s rogue class. In other words, an incredibly dry and boring resource for anyone who isn’t into the day-to-day details of what makes rogues tick — or, maybe more accurately, the details of what the watchmakers are doing to our tickers.

What this would mean in practice is that you see fewer rants on here, since I’d be more likely to post those as WI columns. And you’d see roughly the same amount of news posts, of which there have generally been fewer over the past couple of months — ever since I stopped creating a new post basically every time a Blizzard person tweeted about rogues, and instead just dumped them directly into the collection.

But we’ll see how things shake out. After all, this blog is a hobby — as is my actual WoW playing time, and my time playing other games, and all the other things I like to do with my spare time. I’ve got this cool WI gig now, but I also have an actual full-time job that at times can be all-consuming (next week, for instance, I’ll be pretty much away from WoW and blogging entirely), so juggling it all properly without turning myself into a quivering mass of neurotic goo is something I’ll need to work through.

On the plus side, whether it’s my “real-life” job or my new WI column or this blog or gaming in general, I am doing things that I love to do. That there are those of you out there who appreciate what I’m able to give back, and who enjoy reading words that I fling on the page just because I like doing so, is still pretty extraordinary to me. So thank you, each of you, endlessly for the support. Your feedback — praise and criticism alike — is always warmly welcome, so please fling it whenever you’ve got it.

Now let’s get out there and see what kind of havoc we can wreak. TEAM ROUGE.

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New Hotfixes Nerf Assassination, Buff Subtlety and Fix a Set Bonus

Well, this’ll probably make a few people unhappy. :)

A new batch of hotfixes was just posted on WoW’s official site, and it includes a whole mess of balance changes to nearly every class.

These are the rogue bits:

• Assassination: Assassin’s Resolve now increases the Rogue’s damage by 20% (down from 25%).
• Subtlety: Sanguinary Vein now causes the Rogue to deal 35% additional damage to targets afflicted by Rupture, Garrote, or Crimson Tempest (up from 25%).
• Subtlety: Tier-16 4-piece set bonus should no longer incorrectly activate from attacks other than Backstab.

I realize the Assassination nerf may instill within you a deep desire to wail and gnash your teeth, but before you grind those molars down to nubs, let me show you these:

These are Raidbots’ DPS graphs (top 100 average; 25-man normal mode). That line up at the top is Assassination. On these three fights, it’s not even close — we’re talking a 10%-20% gap between Mut and the next-best spec.

Now, Raidbots’ trend lines and DPS averages always need to be taken with a healthy dose of salt, because any number of biases can potentially come into play that skew the data and make gaps look larger than they are. Our theorycrafter extraordinaire Fierydemise, for instance, offers that Mut’s quicker learning curve compared to most other specs/classes may be partly to blame.

But also keep in mind that the new raid has been out for two weeks now. Blizzard’s designers have access to a far deeper, far more informative array of data on raid performance than we do, and are notoriously (and understandably) reluctant to nerf specs after a patch has launched. It takes a *lot* for them to decide it’s worth it; clearly, in this case, they felt the cumulative evidence showed that Mut was blatantly overperforming — and that its overperformance was consistent, if not increasing, as more and more players began to progress through the new raid.

If the charts above hold true, the nerfs about to hit the spec (which likely won’t actually take effect until Tuesday’s restarts) won’t seriously affect its dominance on fights like Norushen. They’ll just temper it a bit.

Meanwhile, as you can also see in the above charts, Subtlety continues to be dragged through the mud in end-game PvE. The spec’s horrible performance overall may be less about its actual DPS potential and more about the fact that most raiders still won’t touch it with a ten foot e-pole, but regardless the designers clearly felt something had to be done to encourage folks to give Sub a shot. (Personally, I’m increasingly feeling like removing Backstab’s positional requirement would go much farther toward achieving that goal than any DPS adjustments would.) I’ve also seen a handful of complaints that rogues’ sustained damage in PvP feels a little low, so this may well help on that front as well.

Lastly, the final hotfix note refers to reports from players that the new Tier 16 four-piece set bonus for Subtlety — in which every Backstab has a chance to turn your *next* Backstab into an Ambush you can use outside of stealth — wasn’t just proccing off of Backstab, but off of all sorts of other abilities, including Fan of Knives and regular Ambushes. That issue should be cleaned up shortly.

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New-and-Improved Killing Spree Has Range Issues (UPDATED 9/19)

[UPDATE 9/19: An official hotfix note posted late on Sept. 18 suggests this problem has been fixed. My original post appears below.]

Patch 5.4 brought with it a huge quality-of-life improvement for Combat rogues: the ability to ensure that Killing Spree deals all of its damage to a single target, even when other enemies are within melee range. Unfortunately, it’s not yet Spree-ing as well as intended.

Since the patch landed, a number of folks have taken to the Interwebs (e.g., MMO-Champion, official forums) to point out moments when they’ve tried to use Killing Spree and have been unable to — not because of traditional reasons, like sudden horrible terrifying death, but because the game was telling them they were too far away from their target. A few players have reported seeing this error on the Galakras fight in the Siege of Orgrimmar raid, even though they’re close enough to the boss to be actively stabbing it in its bodily areas with their autoattacks.

The bulk of the complaints appear to stem from attempts to use the single-target form of Killing Spree, which occurs when Blade Flurry is turned off. This makes sense, what with that mechanic being new and all. I did a smidge of testing on the PTR during today’s maintenance, and found that I had to move closer to a target dummy in order to activate KS if Blade Flurry was off. (My personal theory — shared by a few others — is that single-target KS isn’t correctly handling a target’s hitbox, a.k.a. the distance you can be from the target and still hit it with melee attacks.)

A few players have also reported seeing errors when they try to use single-target KS on a target that’s slightly above or below them, though claims of this have been more spotty (probably in part because raid fights take place on level ground).

Fortunately, the Big Guns appear to be working on at least part of the problem:

@SvelteKumquat Yeah, looking into that.

— Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) September 17, 2013

Clearly, single-target KS wasn’t nearly as simple a mechanic to implement on the back end as it might seem to many of us on our side of the game. (“What? Just make it hit our current target. How hard could that be?”) Hopefully these teleport issues won’t prove too much of a beast to address.

Combat has long suffered somewhat as a raid and PvP spec due in large part to Killing Spree’s fragility, though before now those problems tended to revolve around either 1) the inability to focus on a single target (now resolved) or 2) the teleport mechanic itself leaving a rogue dead or trapped (not-so-resolved). Between these issues with the new KS and the issues I mentioned earlier with Ruthlessness, the Combat spec isn’t getting any favors as it strives to reach equal footing with Assassination in the final raid tier of the expansion.

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Hotfix: Pallies’ New Fear Won’t Penetrate Killing Spree

Really quick note on a Patch 5.4 hotfix posted this evening:

Evil is a Point of View should no longer incorrectly cause Turn Evil to affect targets that are immune to loss of control effects.

This refers to the new level-30 paladin talent that allows pallies to join the ranks of classes with an option to use a fear against enemy players. Since Patch 5.4 went live yesterday, pallies with that talent were able to use Turn Evil to fear rogues (among others) at any time — including while they were in the middle of a Killing Spree, an ability that should be impossible to stop.

And now, assuming the hotfix works, it will be impossible again.

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Combat Rogue Raiders: Your Combo Point Issues Ain’t Just Your Imagination

This one’s primarily an issue for players who are raiding in Combat spec at the moment.

A few folks have taken to various forums (e.g., here) since Patch 5.4 went live to note some oddness with combo points in Combat spec. I’m still a little bit unclear on the details, and I haven’t seen anything official from Blizzard on it. But there appears to be an odd interaction happening between Anticipation and the new Ruthlessness passive for Combat rogues, especially those with the Tier 15 four-piece raid set bonus.

The gist: If you have Anticipation stacks and hit a finisher, Ruthlessness is guaranteed to proc a combo point. That combo point is generated on your target. But you still have Anticipation stacks — which are on *you*, not your target. It takes a moment before those Anticipation stacks get “transferred” from you over to your target, where they become regular combo points.

I don’t know how long it takes for that transfer to happen. I also don’t know how much server lag can play into it, or how much of it is a display issue vs. an actual gameplay issue. But the end result appears to be that, especially for Combat rogues who have Adrenaline Rush active (and thus have their global cooldown on many abilities reduced by .2 seconds) — and ESPECIALLY-especially for Combat rogues who have AdRush + Shadow Blades active and still have their Tier 15 four-piece bonus (which reduces the cooldown by another .3 seconds) — it appears possible for them to have a total of 10 combo points available (5 regular, 5 Anticipation), try to hit Eviscerate twice in a row, and end up hitting a 5-CP Evisc followed half a second later by an unintended 1-CP Evisc.

So, that can be a little frustrating. :)

If you’ve got any additional info, evidence, video examples, etc., please comment here or over on the Combat EJ thread (where the most discussion around the problem is happening right now); hopefully Blizzfolk are watching and can address the issue if it’s actively causing the sorts of problems it appears to be causing.

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A Couple of Early Tips for Rogues in the Timeless Isle

I’m gonna have fun with a blog post for a change. Sue me. :)

Although there’s a part of me that craves the life of a hardcore raider, at heart I am an explorer. So when Patch 5.4 went live yesterday and I got home from work, I didn’t head into Siege of Orgrimmar; I struck out for the Timeless Isle.

This place was MADE for rogues, guys. This is how I know:

1. It is an island.
2. It has pirates.
3. It is swarming with elite mobs up to level 92 that can be a pain to fight through.
4. It is absolutely FILTHY with treasure. Just lying around. For you to take it.

Our ability to move quickly while stealthed (and to incapacitate many mobs with Sap) allows us easy access to shiny objects that most other classes have to, yknow, actually WORK for.

Plus, if you leveled a rogue in Cataclysm, you get a special backstage pass to Ordon Sanctuary (the plateau in the north that you can’t simply tread onto with your or your mount’s feet):

I arrr droppin’ in for ye treasure.

The recipe for access:

• one (1) rogue
• one (1) set of legendary daggers
• one (1) flying mount
• one (1) awareness of the dividing line between the Timeless Isle (where you cannot fly) and the Time-Lost Waters beyond it (where you can)
• one (1) (optional) Spectral Grog kindly provided by a now-extra-dead ghost pirate.

I realize you can do this sort of thing with most any object or spell that slows your fall speed, but it’s way cooler doing it as a rogue. And as a winged ghost pirate.

If you go this route, keep in mind that you don’t actually want to float down into the central square (as I am in the photo above), unless you 1) can manage to land on a rooftop or 2) have the legendary cloak that prevents you from being auto-teleported back to the starting area.

Far more preferable would be to float into the area on the right edge of the image above — that’s the section where two big ol’ honkin’ 92 elites are flanking a massive treasure chest (image not available — there, um, was a “no photography please” sign up) that, for me, contained a Burden of Eternity, among other more typical goodies. And if you’re stealthed, you can just trot right up to the chest and loot it without getting those elites’ attention.

Or you can float in on the left, where an elevated pond is home to an elite water spirit that can be (carefully) soloed by a crappily 5.3-geared rogue.

Have you guys done any fun new roguely activities in 5.4?

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On the Eve of Patch 5.4, One Final Buff for Rogues

The number of changes incoming for rogues in Patch 5.4 is… lots. It’s a lots number. If you grab a bottle of vodka, flip through my full summary of rogue changes and drink every time you see a buff, you will be in a hospital having your stomach pumped by the time you’re done.

And just for good measure, it looks like we’re getting one more buff before the patch goes live: This time, Ambush gets in on the fun.

Quietly folded into the official 5.4 patch notes (there’s no red to indicate updates to the latest version because it’s technically an entirely new set of notes — this is now the “live” notes instead of the PTR notes) is this new rogue change:

Ambush damage has been increased by 12%.

This buff is almost certainly intended to avoid a problem that Haileaus, our class’s most prominent expert on PvE Subtlety spec, noted in a recent post in the official forums: Backstab had been buffed so much for 5.4 that it was actually looking *better* than Ambush as a stealth opener in many some cases. Presumably the Ambush buff will ensure that doesn’t happen.

This buff will also make rogues of any spec who open with Ambush just a little more deadly — though I should point out that, at this point, I don’t know of any in-depth theorycrafting that’s been done (and haven’t done any myself) to see whether Ambush is actually going to be the best option to use as an opener if you’re raiding as Mut or Combat in 5.4.

Regardless, this buff to Ambush raises the final tally. Let’s take a look at the big board:

• Rogue Buffs in 5.4: 20
• Rogue Bug Fixes and Gameplay Improvements in 5.4: 4
• Rogue Nerfs in 5.4: 2

Don’t never let nobody say Blizzard doesn’t love ya, stabbers.

For All Your Roguely Patch 5.4 Needs

• General recap: My breakdown of all class changes.

• For raiders: Fierydemise’s excellent summary and FAQ.

• The horse’s mouth: Blizzard’s official 5.4 patch notes.

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