How are you (dual)speccing in Cata?Follow

The way it looks like, I doubt it. A) That would kind of ruin the point of the ability (lets you see through stealth... rogues are the main class you'd want to be using this on) and B) the debuff looks exactly the same as, say, Weakened Soul. I doubt anything can remove it.

I'll check once I get a chance, though.

But for something different; slap me silly, but you don't even want to know how effective bleeds are as subtlety. I just learned my mastery (apparently they were implemented last night) which is a 23% damage on my finishers right now, and get this; mobs have 30-34K health. Hemo is hitting for 1400. A 5 pt Eviscerate crit is around 10K. A Shadowstepped+Hemo'd Garotte is going for 4500 damage a tick. Rupture is on about 4000. Two Garotte ticks do more damage than a 5pt Evis does on average. I am literally killing mobs in 6-7 seconds with a bleed rotation right now. Using Eviscerate over Rupture and Cheap Shot + Backstab over Garotte kills slower than using DoTs.

That was unexpected >.>

It might've been a case of both my trinkets proccing; still though, sub bleeds are effective beyond what we've seen. Now that I'm closing in on 82 I've gotten more chance to play around with both specs.

Assassination is actually quite fun. In the average 'grinding session' you waste all your combo points on putting up S&D and Recuperate on the first mob. Then you kill the rest of the mobs with a CS>Mutilate>Rupture>MutiX2>Envenom. The energy regeneration Venomous Wounds gives matches up so that you leave the fight on around ~50 energy, just short of Mutilate, and fill up just as you pull the new mob. That, the additional damage the talent gives, and the fact that you won't have 5 Deadly Poison up yet after a CS>Muti opening seems to make Rupture worth it.

Subtlety is... haywire all over the place. The main pro of the spec in Vashj'ir is Shadowstep as it really shortens your pulling time. As for a 'rotation'... bleeds and Evises tend to be of similar speed now. I've found that alternating between ShS>Premed>Garotte>Hemo>Rupture and CS>BS>BS>Evis/Rupture tends to work well as you'll find yourself waiting for the ShS and Premed cooldowns to constantly go with the first. I've got a feeling that Garotte+Hemo+Rupture is a little bit faster than going BS>BS>Evis, but the difference between using or not using bleeds really isn't more than one or two seconds at most. Unless you're using Garotte without ShS - then your kill time is noticeably longer.

All in all Subt isn't a lot slower or faster than Assassination, it's just... unrefined. As long as you don't waste combo points on Recuperate or S&D it seems to matter little what you actually do, you'll still kill stuff fast. Because of this, I do prefer Assassination for pure grinding right now - everything just times up so nicely that you can keep on going with your permanent Recuperate and S&D up.

I've also unlocked Redirect, but haven't had a chance to learn it yet. It doesn't seem like a particularly interesting ability though - just makes our lives a little bit easier.

As far as I know, it doesn't even *trigger* on Rupture/Garotte in the first place.

The Dirty Tricks change is pretty awesome. Gives Assa more room to breathe in PvP and allows Subt to pick up Energetic Recovery, which as it looks will be a kick *** talent.

Will have to puzzle with builds again...

It sucks, but there is no point discussing how much damage stuff does on beta because of all the bugs. Some abilities like aimed shot and templar's verdict are hitting for 30k+ because crit modifiers apply multiple times to random abilities.

edit: Also wanna say i predicted the sprint change ages ago, mobility abilities should all be short duration on a moderate to low cooldowns. Like frost nova and blink.



Edited, Aug 15th 2010 7:54am by ArtemisEnteri

I think all Rogues that did PvP talked about this constantly during S2-S4 and agreed that Sprint needed to be on a 1 min cooldown to promote mobility.

It was either that or make ShS a baseline ability. Since they're in no hurry to give Rogues something that powerful, this is the next best thing.

Certainly makes Combat a more powerful spec in PvP (with Imp Sprint).

I'm assuming that the wowtal VW is an incorrect (or level 1) interpretation of the talent in regards to the nature damage?

1 damage isn't much.

Sounds excellent for PvE. Hell, I may just play straight mutilate all of Cata and just respec to Sub from time to time.

Edit: actually if rupture is as powerful as you suggest and we're using envenom anyway, might as well put up rupture and get some added poison damage and some energy.

Edited, Aug 15th 2010 5:36pm by Theophany

Just wanted to touch on some new stuff I haven't mentioned yet.

Combo points, as you may or may not know by now, no longer fade when your target dies. They stay there. This is a huge improvement because A) it makes Redirect usefull while leveling or fighting adds (assuming the corpses don't despawn) and B) combo points are rarely wasted - this new system allows you to easily put up a new S&D or Recuperate.

Which brings me to my next item: Recuperate. Before I got in the beta I saw it as 'a finisher you probably won't ever use, safe for when leveling or such', but it seems now that I was very wrong. This isn't just another pretty ability Blizzard added that's so underpowered it's mostly useless. Right from the get-go, Recuperate has been a pretty internal feature of my class. It heals for so much and it is so easy to keep up that I often really find myself wondering whether I should use those CPs for damage, stun, or Recuperate. It's a pretty tough choice.

Which leads me to my last item: in the last beta build, mobs have been boosted into NPC heaven. I'm not sure about the exact formula anymore, but it's something like "a mob's damage and HP doubles for every level". Aka level 82 mobs at level 82 are pretty fightable, but level 83 mobs will kill you if you don't perfect a stunlock. Either way you'll need to eat after every fight, even with Recuperate up - which even adds to Recuperate's value. My gear is still far from perfect (I'm nearly 83 and on 40K hp, I've seen people on easily 45K upon dinging 83), so it should balance out a little more, but the way it is now, questing and grinding is actually pretty damn hard. Mobs cast spells that do 23K damage - if you don't interrupt them, you're dead. In return, kill quests seem slightly toned down - I've yet to kill more than 8 mobs for a single quest. I've not seen any "kill 10/12/16 of X" around.

Obviously it's still something completely new and they've asked for feedback on it, so we don't know what will make it to live, but as it is, just leveling to 85 is a pretty bad challenge, Recuperate is pretty damn awesome and survivability is absolute king over any sort of DPS. They're not joking when they say Cataclysm will change the world (of warcraft) as we know it.

To be fair, there isn't a lot of theorycrafting that's worth doing yet as stuff is constantly changing. The way it currently works though, Assassination is the most effective leveling build, at least when starting from 10 - simply because it has Deadly Momentum.

For 80-85, you'll probably want an Assassination build as well, as Combat nets you too much damage, as stupid as it sounds. Like I said earlier, mobs level 83 and up hit for obscene amounts, and you cope with that as Assassination by throwing the ocassional stun and bursting the mob down. If you were playing Combat, you'd be taking too much extra hits. The style is too warrior-like for it to currently work in 1v1s with mobs.

'Cookie cutters' are at the moment straightforward, because pretty much every talent is actually 'good', which means that for 'optimal damage' you simply grab all the talents that say they increase damage. Only theorycrafting I'm interested in here is subtlety daggers vs subtlety swords/maces, but that precisely is still a moot point as subtlety simply just doesn't work yet.

Next patch we'll be getting addons, which should mean recount - I can provide some numbers then.

So basically, I'm thinking three builds for PvP with how the new trees are set up.

One is mutilate, which is pretty standard, and looks pretty sexy.

Two is Sub daggers, which looks like it has potential, but I hate Backstab.

Three is sexy awesome omgomgomg Sub, which looks like it will be lollercoasters full of fun. Obviously not using daggers, and the fact that Ambush doesn't need daggers anymore obviously makes this a far more attractive build than it is currently.

And yes, Opportunity is an obvious filler talent (though it does help Ambush damage, which will help burst), but there's nothing else to take.

Blackjack looks like an incredibly sexy talent, btw, especially in PvP. The potential for abuse is ridiculous if the debuff still applies even if you purposefully take Sap off by applying it to another person.

70% reduced damage for 8 secs is A LOT. A LOT.

New changes in the latest beta build.

CloS change is kinda making me scratch my head, but hey, if they want to make us immune to spells for the duration of CloS, I'm all for it.

FoK change is awesome, and I couldn't care less about Combat Readiness/Redirect.

Meh, basically makes it how it is right now for PvP rogues (gloves reduce kick energy cost by 10).

Yes, being completely immune will be nice, rather than still getting feared through CloS.