So 'ight, a new patch is comin' out today, patch 3.0.3. It's going to change some classes and fix some bugs here and there. Apparently it's going to make warriors stronger and paladins slightly weaker. There are some changes for rogues; bug fixes really. So let's go over what it'll affect rogues...
Racial
- Shadowmeld: The cooldown will now start on use instead of on break.
Rogues
- Combat Potency: Now only works with auto attacks (no more Shiv.)
- Fan of Knives changed to be castable with no targets, further improved the visual affect and it no longer plays an impact on the caster. Now benefits correctly from the Find Weakness talent.Cooldown reduced to 10 sec.
- Killing Spree: Instead of making the rogue untargetable, now causes all players to lose targeting on the rogue and the rogue to be unstoppable during its duration.
- Riposte: Duration of this effect no longer reduced by other effects that reduce disarm duration.
- Shadow Dance: The cooldowns on Sap, Garrotte, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket, and Disarm Trap are no longer increased while this ability is activated.
So, first things is that shadowmeld, for all my night elf brethren like myself, is getting a fix. The cool down will start once you use shadowmeld instead of when you unstealth from shadowmeld (in other works, break shadowmeld). This is good news (means the cooldown won't be bugged or be longer than it should).
Change to combat potency, doesn't effect subtlety rogues...
Fan of Knives, our level 80 "AoE" (area of effect, splash damage attack) is gettin' a bug fix. Never used it before, but I realize this is important because it'll allow us to do an AoE attack regardless of being able to target enemies. This is important because, just like paladins and mages who use AoEs to concentrate the ground or to blast magic around them to break a rogue's stealth, we'll be able to do the same thing with fan of knives. So that's nice.
Killing Spree, the combat rogue thing... is getting a very important change. It says when a rogue used it, it made them untargetable... now I just dueled a rogue using killing spree and I was able to target her, but I also stayed on target. Now, though, when the rogue does it, it'll make you lose target, similar to a hunter's feign death, but you will be able to target the rogue by reselecting them, so keep that in mind if a rogue does that around you. And the next very important thing is that it makes them immune, like it does when a warrior is doing his bladefurry or whatever thing. This is important because I was able to stun a combat rogue in the middle of her doing her killing spree, effectively shutting her down. So, now when you're facing a rogue doing this, know that they're unstoppable. If you vanish (or shadowmeld), the rogue's attack should stop because killing spree can't target stealthed targets. If you do this, just stay stealthed until the rogue's killing spree is finished because you can't do anything to them, and if you tried, you'd unstealth and killing spree would simply retarget and attack you. (one their killing spree is over, though, they won't have you on target and will be pretty confused, so tha'd be the perfect time to kidney shot or ambush)
Riposte gets a cool down nerf. It's a combat spec so not really something that effects a subtlety rogue.
Shadow Dance apparently is getting a bug fix where it was increasing the cool down of stealth openers. I didn't really experience this... but there were times I'd experience not having enough energy doing the same exact things during shadow dance that I had done before, with enough energy. Not sure if this could be the bug fix they're talking about, but I do have a talent that gives me back energy during certain finishing moves (which I do use during shadow dance) so the differences in energy may not be from a bug. Either way, it'll either improve shadow dance or keep it the way it is.
There are some updates to some glyphs used by rogues (such as a tool tip fix for my Glyph of Sprint that I use), but the only other patch update worth mentioning is this.
Rogue: Deadly Poison Rank 8 will now do less damage than Rank 9.
Not a big deal really, I noticed it when the last patch first came out but forgot it. All it's doing is making deadly poison rank 8 do less damage than rank 9, simple enough.
So, in all, these are really good bug fixes for rogues... nothing getting nerfed. I think most rogues are still getting used to the new abilities and changes from the last patch. One thing I've noticed in battle is that I still don't see rogues using the new Dismantle ability yet enough. It's an amazing ability, so use it... and remember, it also prevents item use, such as trinkets, so if you experience your enemies using a trinket to get out of a stun or whatever, start using dismantle to lock them down from using it (especially when they're near death).
Jeaxx
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