Osiris' Rogue Guide v3(New)
Stealth FAQ (EU)
Grinding Guide 1.0
2.1
The following are excerpts from the 2.1 Patch Notes, edited to show what will affect Rogues the most: (My comments in italics)
Glancing Blows have significantly less of a chance to occur during a player’s melee attacks when targets are near the player’s level.
-This is a significant fix, which many rogues (check out the Roguespot forums for much more chatter about the effects of these patches) believe will once again put rogues at the top of the damage meters. My question here is what will be the new "to hit" baseline proposed?
The "Shadow Sight" buff now allows players to see other stealthed players at a greater range.
-This is an arena change, and may have an impact on rogues, depending on how long a rogue plans on spending stealthed in an arena. Might have a greater effect when there are fewer players alive, and a rogue re-stealths later in a match.
"Flare" cooldown increased to 20 seconds, and duration reduced to 20 seconds.
-Hunters are going to go nuts over this, but let the Rogues, for once, rejoice! Of course, if you read it, what it really says is that Hunters can continue to spam flares on ice traps in arenas while just standing there. What this does help with is to reduce "surprise" re-flaring of different areas. So, once you know where the flare lands, if you can avoid it, you know the hunter can't send up another flare until the first one fizzles.
"Frost Trap": This trap no longer breaks stealth from its slowing effect.
-Did you notice this one? One of my biggest issues with this was when I would be stealthing about in BGs, and some ally would run over a frost trap and *pop*, I'm all of a sudden both visible and slowed. This is a superb fix.
Added a new double-attack animation for "Mutilate".
-Well, Mutilate rogues are cheering, right?
"Cloak of Shadows": The tooltip has been adjusted to indicate this ability removes hostile effects, rather than dispels them. "Cloak of Shadows" does not count as a dispel, and will not interact with dispel resistance or effects triggered by dispelling. This ability no longer removes the "Weakened Soul" debuff.
"Deadly Throw": This ability will now damage hunters and their pets when they are affected by "The Beast Within" or "Bestial Wrath". Those targets will still be immune to the movement impairing portion of "Deadly Throw".
Fixed a data error that caused "Ghostly Strike" and "Riposte" to generate more threat than intended.
Fixed a bug where the "Silence" effect on "Garrote" was getting resisted too often.
"Insignia of the Alliance/Horde" and "Medallion of the Alliance/Horde" now remove "Fear", "Stun" and "Polymorph" effects and no longer remove "Charm" effects.
-This is a major boon for rogues. What can we look forward to breaking with our insignias now? Mage: Impact, Priest: Blackout, Rogue: Kidney Shot, Cheap Shot, Warrior: Intercept, Charge, Concussion Blow, Druid: Bash, Paladin: Hammer of Justice, Seal of Justice, Warlock: Shadowfury. (Let me know if I missed any. I got that list from WowWiki). Of course, the drawback here is that it won't save rogues from Mind Control, Gnomish Mind Control Cap, or Seduction.
"Improved Sap" (Subtlety) renamed "Dirty Tricks": Increases the range of your "Sap" and "Blind" abilities by 2/4 yards and reduces the energy cost of your "Sap" and "Blind" abilities by 25/50%.
-I think most of us refer to this as "free points."
Increased the frequency and amount of "Blinding Powder" found in pickpocketed junk boxes.
-This just doesn't excite me. I wish they increased the frequency of better stuff, not poison ingredients and useless books.
"Mutilate": This ability will now always consume the "Cold Blood" buff when it strikes an opponent.
-From what I understand, this is a bug fix that forces CB to be consumed if the MH Mutilate strike kills an opponent, and the OH doesn't get a chance to strike. Prior to this fix, the OH would "keep" the CB.
Poisons: The difficulty of dispelling these is now based off the level of the player, not the level of the weapon the poison is applied to.
Reduced the reagents required to create most poisons.
-I've always hoped that once you max out your poison skill (which is about a worthless skill, anyway), that you could purchase pre-made potions directly without worrying about all those reagents. This patch helps a little, but I'm curious as to how much of a reduction there will be, and what effect this will have on the contents of pickpocketed lock boxes.
"Remorseless Attacks" (Assassination): "Hemorrhage" added to the buff tooltip. This ability will no longer trigger from killing totems.
Rogue poisons no longer have charges.
-One of the absolute best patch "fixes" that could have been made. I can see how charges might have been initially developed and thought of as a good idea, but instead of adding any "realism" effect, it was just tedious, annoying, and expensive, and also required that rogues carry more poisons than necessary in their bags.
"Sap" no longer removes you from stealth when used.
-Again, 2 free talent points, yay! This is the biggest combat rogue buff I've seen, and really doesn't "nerf" any other classes or specs (it really buffs combat rogues, and effectively gives other specs a few extra points to spend). Can't beat that!
"Shadowstep" (Subtlety): The cooldown has been reduced to 15 seconds.
"Stealth" will now be broken correctly by damage shield such as "Oil of Immolation".
"Surprise Attacks" (Combat): This talent now correctly prevents "Envenom" from being dodged.
-This is something I noticed when Envenom first became available. I'm one of the few rogues who actually took Surprise Attacks, and Envenom being dodged kind of annoyed me for a few minutes until I realized that Envenom mostly sucks, so it wasn't a big deal. Still, there are uses for it, so it's nice to know it's actually working with the talent that takes so many points to acquire.
Warrior: "Charge", "Intercept" and "Intervene" now suppress all Slowing effects while charging the target.
-Although this could be considered a Warrior bug fix more than anything, it still has a potential effect on rogues, and should be noted.
Warrior: "Insignia of the Alliance/Horde" and "Medallion of the Alliance/Horde" now removes "Immobilizing", "Stun" and "Polymorph" effects and no longer remove "Slowing" effects.
-Another Warrior "nerf" that has an effect on rogues. Pay attention, as it removes stun effects, but not slowing effects.
Items
Additional darkmoon cards can now be found on high level outland creatures. They can be turned in to the darkmoon faire to make powerful new darkmoon card trinkets. Look for Lunacy, Storms, Furies and Blessings cards.
-Still looking for what each of these will do, but I'm sure one of them would be suitable for a rogue.
"Khorium Lockboxes" will now drop occasionally off creatures over level 65.
-I'm hoping there might be some juicy stuff inside these.
"Netherstrike" armor has had it's socket bonuses changed.
PvP Set Bonuses: Set bonuses of 35 resilience rating will now stack correctly if received from two different sets.
"Assassination" Set: The haste bonus from this set will no longer be triggered if your attack does not land on the target.
"Defiler's Purpose" Set: The critical strike rating rom this set bonus will now be applied properly.
"Devilsaur Armor Set": The hit rating bonus from this set now stacks properly with hit rating bonuses from other effects.
"Devilsaur" Set: The hit rating set bonus will now stack correctly with hit rating bonuses from other items.
"Netherblade" Set: The set bonus giving a chance to gain combo points on finishers now works correctly with "Slice and Dice" and "Deadly Throw".
The "Stealther's Helmet of Second Sight" will now properly hide facial hair.
-Good for female dwarf rogues.
"Adamantite Weight Stones" now work on staves and fist weapons.
"Fel Weightstone" now works on fist weapons.
"Spymaster's Crossbow" can now be used by non-hunters.
"The Night Blade": The chance for the effect on this item to trigger has been reduced.
-Well, they certainly did what they could to bury this little fact.
"Searing Needle": The damage effect from this item is fixed and now works correctly.
"Primal Nethers" may now be purchased from G'eras for "Badges of Justice".
-Not rogue-specific, but how could I leave this out?
Dungeons and Raids
Creatures will no longer "Cleave" targets that aren't in front of them.
-Because, you know, rogues do it...
"Polymorph" spell duration has been changed from 20 seconds to 8 seconds.
Creatures will no longer perform "Sweeping Strikes".
Creature versions of "Hamstring" now deal 20% of the creature's normal melee damage, and is no longer tied to the creature's normal swings.
Creature versions of "Wing Clip" now deal 20% of the creature's normal melee damage.
-Since these things tend to annoy rogues, it's good to know how they've been affected.
Most dungeon boss creatures will no longer slow their movement speed when they are wounded.
-Not sure if this is talking about a talent or in general.
User Interface
Your current target will now display all of the duration based spells that you have cast on them with cooldown rings so you will know how much longer they will last. Very useful for warlock damage over time spells and druid healing over time spells as well as many others.
-Does this work for deadly poisons, kidney shots, saps, etc? If so, nice!
Okay. That's the lowdown. What do you think? A general boon to most rogues? Perhaps just a rebalancing? Comment here, or check out the discussion in the Roguespot forum.
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posted by Psyae at 4/17/2007
6 comments
Cerias Shadows
Szlice
Osiris
Khormid
