Project Lore

Love 'em or hate 'em, rogues have got to be sneaky. It's a good part of what defines the class, allows them, as leather-wearers, to deal melee dps without instant death, and sets them apart from other DPSers. So it's no huge surprise that Vanish, one of the key skills that rounds out that specialty, has long been debated because it's, as some players would say, "broken."

Just how is it or isn't it broken? Different players of different classes will give you varying answers. But the debate revolves around players/mobs/pets still being able to attack a rogue who has vanished, and a number of AoE/DoT effects that will immediately pull a vanished rogue back out of stealth. Personally, my main is a rogue, so I tend toward the side that vanish should allow a little bit of lenience to allow some time to get away, heal or regenerate some energy. But I certainly don't want it to be overpowered, either, because then it will inevitably get a nerf.

Enter Patch 3.3 on the PTR, and game developers announced hefty plans to unveil a Vanish fix. The hoopla began about a month ago, with blue poster Ghostcrawler announcing Blizzard's intentions on the WoW forums:

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After another drunken night of slaughtering Coren Direbrew repeatedly for his phat lootz and Brewfest tokenz, I thought it was time for something a little different. Up in the higher reaches of Blackrock Mountain rests more fun to be had (and a bit of a confidence boost for us rogues) for anyone who hasn't yet acquired the title of Jenkins. Actually, scratch that. Whether you have the title or not, it's still a good time. After having your (hopefully) multiple shots at Direbrew, head out of Blackrock Depths, back up the mountain and up another chain into Blackrock Spire. Take a left to head into the upper part of the instance, clear the entire first area and boss, and make your way into the rookery. Here lies the tricky fun. For the achievement and Jenkins title, you have to round up 50 Rookery Whelps and kill them within a 15-second time span. Some toons probably could solo this, but since other of my guildies also wanted the title we went as a group of three (the same group that ran through Classic Ony before the patch - FTW.) First try, each of us ran through smashing rookery eggs before we brought them to a central location to AoE. Bad idea. They didn't automatically aggro on the egg-smasher, so we hadn't gathered enough for the kill. Also, no heals and the cumulative attacks of so many little whelps at once killed me. Second try, we were getting ready to run out and reset the instance, but it turns out there was no need. The eggs respawn pretty quickly, and after just a couple minutes we sent in the tank to round up whelps for our second shot. This time, he made sure to get aggro on the way through and then pulled them all back for massive AoE. It worked! And, let me let you in on a secret. Pre-married life, I was a RL Jenkins. Yup. For Real! So I thought this was only appropriate. Now, onto the real juice. As it turns out, Fan of Knives, even after its massive nerf in 3.2.2 does a ton of damage when being inflicted on 50+ targets at once. So, for this rogue who, in the past few weeks, has upped her dps from a lowly 1,500 to a somewhat more respectable 2,800, I did a double take when my guildy popped recount for fun. 15k DPS?! Confidence boost! Now I just have to reach that high under more usual circumstances :D For the full details on what to do, make sure to check out Juggynaut and Dorkins' complete run through of the achievement that they did a while back. Now's the perfect time to make a shot for the title! Has anyone else detoured up to the top of the mountain to also partake in the fun?

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Blue Stew is a semi-regular column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. How Do You Separate Yourself? As a rogue, I absolutely never feel remorse for any of the actions that I perform. I play the game perfectly and I'm not afraid to Vanish and hide if I sense an impending raid wipe (don't judge me, you'd all do it if you could!) It would be so much easier if healers could just turn their fellow raiders into zombies when they died. so when Neonpeon mentions his "burden," I have absolutely no clue what he's talking about:

"I find I have a bad habit that I need to break. I'm hoping some of you have experience on something that worked. The bad habit is that when I heal I suddenly take on every life in the raid as if I'm the only one responsible for them. When someone dies, no matter what the cause, I feel guilty that I couldn't save them. Even with multiple healers in the raid I take every death as a personal failure. Over the course of a night it really affects me even when half the deaths were impossible for healers to prevent."

Guilt? Personal failure? I don't think I'm familiar with these concepts...

"It doesn't bother me that a virtual character ceases to live for a brief instant. The loss of a digital life is not worth concern. It's that people dying means the raid wipes and more and more time is wasted. The remorse comes from knowing that if you could have kept that person alive, somehow, that you could have downed the boss and moved on to the next. It's the time lost and the head bashing against the same encounter that is the struggle, not a virtual avatar changing states in a digital world."

Ohhhhh... OK. Now you're speaking my language! Who does like waiting around for wipe recovery. I may not understand the healer's plight, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to relieve them of it once in awhile. In all seriousness folks, while I can't say I've ever felt the same way as Neonpeon does, I do recognize who easy it is for us normally self-reliant DPS class players to forget who's keeping us alive during a boss fight, and there are always a few things that we can do to keep them from pulling their hair out. Rogues in particular can use skills like Feint to reduce predictable, incoming AoE damage or Cloak of Shadows to get rid of a harmful debuff before it causes any pain. But every one of us has the ability to be aware of what's going on around us. Be vigilant for void zones, fires, and other common raid hazards during a fight. You might just save your healer's life. It's the least you can do when they're saving yours with a well-timed heal every few seconds. As I haven't had much experience with playing healing classes or specs, is this something that's common amongst you guys and gals? What about the tanks out there? Do you suffer from a constant feeling of remorse, or do you just let it slide off your back and keep trucking along like nothing ever happened? While guilt can be a powerful motivator, it can also be a terrible burden that drags down your performance if you dwell on those feelings too much. Blue Nethaera abides:

"You do need to find ways to get yourself away from blaming yourself too much when someone dies. It happens. Shrug it off and unless you purposefully let them die or made some error in judgment, don't sweat it. If you do make an error, apologize but don't wallow in it. It's easy to get wrapped up in the concern of being excellent at what you're doing as a healer and a point of pride keeping everyone alive. The very best healers are concerned with these things, but the most important thing to remember is to have fun with it and if someone gets on you for what they feel you are doing wrong, ignore it. As long as you know what you are doing for the group and are doing your best, there isn't anything they can say to take that away from you."

Recent In-Game Fixes - September 2009 - 9/22 Even though the release of 3.2.2 caught all the attention today, Bornakk makes us aware that there were a few extra tweaks hotfixed into the game:

• The Faction Champions encounter in the normal 10-player and normal 25-player Trial of the Crusader instances have had a number of spells and abilities altered which should result in less overall damage.
• The Anub'arak encounter has been changed on all difficulties. Anub’arak now attacks faster, the Nerubian Burrowers should hit a little harder, and their Expose Weakness ability now caps at 9 stacks.
• Some season 7 arena weapons will now have a socket.
• Threat of Thassarian will now properly halve the damage of Rune Strike for the off-hand strike.
• Soulstone Resurrection now fades upon entering raid combat if the character who cast it is not present.
• The Idle/Inactive debuff is now cleared upon round switches in Strand of the Ancients.
• The Mistress of Pain will now target more accurately in the 25 man Heroic Jaraxxus encounter.
• The damage of Hunter’s Volley ability has been increased.

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about the changes to Faction Champions. While it's a slice-o'-pie on 10-man at this point, my guild has still run into a major wall while trying to take them down on 25-man. I agree that they should remain untouched for heroic, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in favor of at least a tiny nerf to their damage-dealing capabilities. We still haven't figured out how everyone suddenly starts dying after we take out the healers. The other changes to Trial of the Crusader seem less drastic, with Anub'Arak getting a small buff (and he really needed one on normal, he's way, way too easy as it is) and the Mistress of Pain being a little easier to control (as a melee DPS I can't stand how she jumps around all the time). Hunters should be happy with their Volley buff, even if it is only incremental. I'm still QQing about what they did to Fan of Knives (though I can't complain too much, as our single-target damage has gone up with changes to Envenom and Master Poisoner). Missing Brewfest Quests? Euro players like Sakhar have been wondering what's up with the absence of Brewfest quests like "Catch the Wild Wolpertinger!" and "Pink Elekks On Parade." They were completely removed from the holiday last year, Blizzard citing that tweaks needed to be made to them could not be completed in time. However, both made their triumphant return in the 2009 version of the beer-chugging event. Well, they did in the United Stats anyway. Sorry to say, friends across the pond, but for one reason or another, they chose to leave them out on European servers. Vaneras confirms it:

"The Brewfest quests ‘Pink Elekks On Parade’ and ‘Catch the Wild Wolpertinger!’ were removed to ensure that World of Warcraft contains content that complies with regional game rating requirements."

And fellow Blue Wryxian backs him up:

"This is unfortunately not correct. The Pink Elekk and Wolpertinger quests are deliberately not available in Europe. Though we would like to have them available here too, this isn't possible I'm afraid."

With the rest of Brewfest left, presumably, intact (not to mention that the real-life inspiration for the holiday, Oktoberfest, comes from the Old World), I'm left wondering why these seemingly innocuous parts of it were nixed. If I had to venture a guess, it's that, despite the theme of getting pissed, both quests run with the idea that your character can see things "under the influence" that they wouldn't be able to when stone-cold sober. As Vaneras said, this is a "game rating requirements" issue, which probably means that even if the drinking is OK, associating hallucinogenic properties with it is not. Otherwise, you know, all the little kiddies out there would be breaking into their parents' liquor cabinet and going three sheets under in order to find the horned rabbit hiding under the house.

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A lot of players don't seem to know about a very cool feature of Recount, the realtime graph displays. I can say this with confidence because I get a lot of questions about the red graph in the bottom right-hand corner of my UI that displays the current DPS output of the raid. So, to answer that common question I decided to write up a quick post about setting it up. First, you'll need to install Recount. Once that's done, either type in /recount config or click on the cog on the top of the Recount window to bring up the settings window. Next, navigate to the Window tab and choose which window you want to turn on. You can turn on a few different windows for the raid: damage per second, healing per second, damage taken per second, and healing taken per second. Now, these are all pretty simple and show overall raid performance. But what if you want to monitor just your own performance? You can actually turn on player specific graphs for each of those four stats (DPS, DTPS, HPS, and HTPS).  To do this, go to the main recount window and navigate to the stat you'd like to track. In my case, I want to watch my personal DPS during a raid, so I'll go to the Damage Done meter. Right click on the player you want to track and choose "Show Realtime Graph." Alternatively, just Ctrl-click on the player's name on the meter. Up pops an individualized version of the meter that will just watch one player's performance as a fight goes on. Handy! A lot of players have had recount installed and don't use it beyond the basic damage meter capabilities, so click around and check out what it has to offer. Also, if you're curious about my UI, check out the list of addons that I use.

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When good PUGs go bad. Up until recently, my participation in pick-up group (PUG) raids has been non-existent. However, I recently changed my death knight's spec to Blood to take advantage of the vast amounts of armor penetration (ArP) found on the gear in Ulduar. I was an Unholy death knight previously and cared little for ArP, but as Blood some of the items I passed up when we did Naxxramas and Malygos are suddenly huge upgrades. My guild exclusively raids heroic Ulduar at this point, so if I want to get my hands on items like Grim Toll or Melancholy Sabatons, I need to join PUGs. So over the past few weeks I've joined probably around a half dozen PUGs. While none of the PUGs I joined were disastrous, they certainly left much to be desired. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the top five people to /boggle at that I met through my recent pugging endeavors. #5 The Undergeared Complainer During one of my heroic Naxxramas PUGs, one of the women in the raid kept keying into vent to talk about all of the loot upgrades she needed. Every time we downed a boss, she would be very vocal about what item she wanted and would swear over vent when she lost the rolls. After losing her second roll she spoke over vent and complained that she couldn't believe people were rolling on these items when they already had purples equipped. That's when I inspected her. She was mostly in greens and a few blues. Her gear was so bad that the 24 other people in the raid were literally carrying her through the instance. She still had the gall to complain about other people rolling on gear. I believe I watched her lose every item she rolled on that night. Karmarific! #4 The Worst Ninja You knew there had to be a ninja story in here somewhere right? Well this one still has me baffled. A priest in our Naxxramas pug rolled need on an epic trash drop. It was bind on pick-up and it was a leather item, which of course a priest cannot equip. We asked him if he rolled need on accident and without a reply, he dropped offline and logged out of vent. He never returned. So this was either an accident or he is the world's worst ninja. If he meant to do it, what did he gain? He can't equip it and he can't give it to another player. At best he was an enchanter and could get a shard out of the gear. Otherwise, he can sell it to a vendor? What a score that was! More than likely, it was an honest mistake, which is fine. He should have, however, admitted it and then he could have put in a ticket to have the item transferred to someone who could use it. #3 The Backseat Raid Leader This is the guy who isn't leading the raid, but wants to be. It started off innocently enough. He was a hunter and used vent to coordinate misdirects with the other hunters. Fine. Slowly he started telling people where to stand and how his guild usually does this boss. The raid leader didn't stop him and by the end of the raid he was talking almost non-stop on vent, giving people advice about bosses we've all been killing for over half of a year. The part that really got on my nerves was he used the term "skaters" and "skating" when I believe most of the MMO population calls it "kiters" and "kiting". #2 The DPS Diva I was in a PUG in the Vault and we were about to face Emalon. Right before the pull, one of the warlocks interrupts the raid leader on vent and states that he needs someone assigned to help him mitigate his threat. He then goes on to explain that his DPS and threat are so high that even after he soul shatters he needs a paladin to cast salvation on him. He asks the raid leader which paladin will be assigned to him. Everyone was in shock. I couldn't believe someone would make 24 other people wait for this self-serving ego stroking session. So I sat up straight, moved my drink and snacks away from my playing area and put all of my focus on the encounter. I beat the diva in damage done and DPS for the fight. "IN THE FACE! IN THE FACE!" #1 The Lying Leader So as I mentioned earlier, one of the items I'm trying to procure in these PUGs is the Grim Toll trinket, which drops off of four different bosses in heroic Naxxramas. That's the only item I need in the entire instance and the sole reason for me to raid there. I joined a PUG with one of my guildmates and away we went. The loot rules were laid out to us in advance and they seemed very standard. Then my heart skipped a beat as the raid leader said something about wanting the Grim Toll. I got nervous and before getting saved to the instance I sent him a whisper. I asked him if the Grim Toll was reserved for someone or would we all be allowed to roll on it equally. He replied that everyone who could use it would be allowed to roll. Satisfied I zoned in and we began killing bosses. We got to Maexxna and sure enough, she dropped the Grim Toll. The raid leader asked everyone to roll and after losing says over vent that he's wanted that trinket for a long time and was going to take it for himself. Now I had lost the roll to someone else anyway, so that softened the blow a bit, but he downright lied to me. I was really angry. I told some of my guild members what had just happened and they all told me I should drop the raid. The issue was, I was already saved to his instance now and the trinket did have a chance of dropping off three other bosses. So it was either drop and have no chance at the trinket or stay and pray. So I stayed. Well a few bosses later, the raid leader cheated my guildmate out of a piece of loot that she had won fair and square. He altered the loot rules that he posted in chat at the beginning of the raid. Shortly after, I left the raid. I shouldn't be shocked. I know that kind of stuff happens all of the time. I guess I'm just used to raiding in the safety of a mature guild where everyone is happy when anyone in the guild receives a piece of loot. I can't stand liars and cheaters and that raid leader was both. Well in any case, I'm still searching for my Grim Toll and Melancholy Sabatons. Do you have any horror stories to share from your PUGs? Have you met any strange or amusing players that you would like to add to my list?

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Follow The Tips Or Be Eaten By Each And Every Maw Combat, Assassination, Sublety.  Backstab, Mutilate, Sinister Strike.  White, yellow, green damage.  These are all important things to consider when you are trying to maximize your DPS, but they aren't the only things.  Not by a long shot.  The stab-happy class (and all other classes) also needs to keep stats like Hit, Expertise and Critical Rating in mind as well.  Then there's the act of standing behind your target at all times, timing a Slice and Dice refresh, popping the various cooldowns to maximize total output, sharing the wealth effectively and dropping a Vanish at the most appropriate time.  In short, the class that many players believe to be incredibly easy simply isn't.  Maximizing a rogue's abilities is as difficult as any other class in WoW. Here's the thing, one's raw DPS isn't the only thing that matters.  Adding to the already complex task of DPS is other raid mechanics.  Staying alive, reducing the healing required, spreading out and minimizing incoming damage.  These are all highly important tactics that every raider should be trying to master.  PvE encounters will become far easier for each member that masters their basic role - DPS, Tanking, Healing - and these "secondary" tasks.  Achieving outside the box is exactly what separates the casual raiders from the hardcore, and I don't mean in time spent. It'd be impossible for me to discuss what every class can do outside their normal role, but here are a few for my favorite class.

• Minimization of incoming damage - Yes, yes, of course killing the target will reduce its DPS to the fullest extent.  By show of hands how many of us can kill an elite target inside 10 seconds?  No one?  Thought so.  In the midst of burning that mob down be sure to interrupt incoming damage as much as possible.  Kick spells - but prioritize which you kick - stun whirlwinds, Blind stray mobs.  Sap.  Every class has a handful of tools to make life easier on the healers, use them.
• Spreading out damage - You have to be careful with this one depending on your class. Especially considering that this mostly comes up during a breakdown in an encounter.  During these hairy times spreading the damage across multiple players can be the difference between a catastrophic failure and a messy recovery.  For a rogue the idea is to save any squisher class from being pummeled, while bringing the mob to a tank.  Liberal use of Evasion and Cloak of Shadows are key.  By reacting quickly you can save other raids members, give healers time to react and focus on the tanks while reducing the tanks incoming damage as the encounter returns to normal.  Saviors just need to watch our for their own well being, as heals won't likely be coming their way.
• Staying alive - Blaming the healer is a fun past time, but barring a complete wipe you could have saved yourself.  If you were one of a few deaths during an encounter it's on you.  Sorry.  Perhaps you should have potted, moved away from the pretty spell effects that were nearby or eaten some food for that extra stamina.  If all else fails Sprint or Vanish.
• Dealing with AoE - Previously rogues couldn't do much with AoE.  We'd just stand there and take it, interrupting when applicable.  And we couldn't return the favor.  Very annoying.  Now we have two new tools at our disposal.  For incoming AoE damage - as seen in numerous Ulduar fights - we should be spamming a tried and true ability, Feint.  A 50% reduction in AoE damage is a sweet buff to the old school spell.  For dishing out AoE we have Fan of Knives.  FoK is best used with slow weapons.  If your energy is going to be dedicated to FoK during an encounter then switch to your slowest, hardest hitting pair.
• For the love of all that is holy - Enchant, socket and fill out all of your glyphs with something!  None of this "waiting for a better piece of gear to enchant" or "need to find a good gem."  Get a placeholder at least!

With many experienced raiders part of the readership I know a fair amount already grasp these concepts.  But I hope each of you learned a new trick, or at least remembered how important these tactics are.  If you already knew this information, then I am sure you have something to add.  Let's hear it.  Examples for other class tactics would be appreciated as well. Remember folks, we each have roles, but we can all make raiding easier, more efficient and, most importantly, faster by performing outside our narrow view of the world.

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One thing I love about raiding is comparing the different raids to each other and seeing how boss fights and dungeons evolve from patch to patch. While leading raids I often catch myself comparing boss strategies to other bosses we have defeated in the past. When explaining Thaddius in Naxx the comparison is always made to Mechano-Lord Capacitus in the Mechanar, and when talking about Elder Ironbranch's root ability Illhoof's demon chain ability comes to mind. With all these similarities going on it is always refreshing to see new abilities we are not used to. It seems like as you progress through raid content each dungeon has a few key lessons that the raiders must master, and when they do they will be stronger players for the rest of their WoW career. In BC I always had the impression that Magtheridon was designed to teach us how to coordinate raid members and get everyone clicking at the same time, Tempest Keep was there to teach us how to CC trash and deal with adds during boss fights, and Hyjal seemed to teach us how to deal with trash and bosses when you couldn't control the pace. In more modern times Sartherion (with drakes especially) seemed to teach us how to avoid standing in things that would kill us, Malygos taught us how to use vehicles to defeat a boss, and Naxx taught us how to mindlessly AOE trash and zerg bosses (JK!). So this all brings us to the question. What is Ulduar trying to teach us? Besides being a bit of an introduction back into the world of real raiding, it seems to me the key lesson from Blizzard is this: DPS control. This means not only high DPS, but know when and where to apply it, and more importantly when to stop. We see it as early as fights like Razorscale and Deconstructor. For Razor you only have a short window in which to DPS the boss, and you need to make sure you hit her hard when you can. Deconstructor takes it up a notch with controlled DPS on his heart. Too little and the boss doesn't die fast enough, too much and you are looking at a double heart phase and too many adds. Down the road we see bosses like Mimiron and Freya when killing things at the same time are essential to winning the fight, so it is really important to not kill the head or that stormlasher too early. This entire lesson culminates with the big man himself, with controlled DPS needed in all phases of Yogg Saron. Making sure the guardians all die in the pool, and not when they are ferried over, then killing the right tentacles at the right times, while saving lots of burst DPS for the brain just seems to drive the lesson home. DPS is not about pure numbers but applying the right amount of damage to the right targets at the right time. Understanding this is what will separate the best raiders from the rest. With Ulduar Blizzard is making sure we are learning our lesson. How do you guys feel, what lessons have you learned in Uldaur, or even other raids?

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In the upcoming patch, death knights will be the only class to receive a talent point refund because, once again, they are getting an overhaul. Some of these changes are nerfs, some are buffs and others are redesigns of how the spells and abilities function. The death knight community is already analyzing all of the data and surmising why these changes have occurred. Let's explore some of these changes, but keep in mind that all of this is subject to change before this patch goes live.

Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.

This change is creating quite a stir in the death knight community. That's a huge buff to that ability and some folks are speculating that it's a typo and they meant to say "increased by 50% per disease", which would mean it increases from 12.5% to 18.75% per disease and not 50%. If the change does remain as written, then blood strike could replace heart strike in the blood rotation and some of the scourge strikes in the unholy rotation. The blue post found here seems to indicate that it's not a typo, however, it's already been reduced on their latest internal build, which would make it different than the patch notes.

Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.

This is a change for pvp and will probably come as a relief to many hardcore pvpers. However, I don't see DKs making much of a stink over it. Chains of ice is still amazing and has the same basic function.

Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina. Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes. Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes. Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.

Ouch! The death knight tanks take another heavy blow with the nerf bat. In patch 3.1.3 frost presence armor bonus was reduced by 20%. Now we see a 4% nerf to the stamina bonus and the doubling of the cooldown on the death knight's main survival ability. In addition, the armor and stamina talents in the blood and frost trees are also taking a hit. It seems that they are trying to make death knight tanks more like the other tanks. The original design felt like death knights would have more frequent cooldowns to push to offset the fact that they do not have a shield and cannot block. These changes, however, make them feel more like the other tanks and icebound fortitude is now more in line with other tank talents like last stand. If I'm being objective, I think the icebound fortitude change can solve some issues. Recently, my guild took down General Vezax using a paladin main tank. It was a little obnoxious knowing that we could survive the surges of darkness easier if our main tank was a death knight solely because icebound fortitude had a one-minute cooldown. Much of the screaming from the DK tank community seems to revolve around the fact that paladin tanks are getting a decent amount of buffing, including this hard to believe change:

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin's health to 10/20/30% of maximum.

If I'm reading that correctly, that's a passive guardian spirit every two minutes? I'm sure glad my guild often runs with two protection paladins!

Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.

Frost strike hits hard and it was probably viewed as too much burst in pvp especially considering it couldn't be mitigated. The slight reduction of damage is probably going to be a wash considering that blood strike is getting buffed. The blue post here, seems to indicate that the frost dps is being spread out a bit more and not consolidated on just one ability.

Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power. Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.

These are the 51 point talents for blood and unholy specs. The jury seems mixed on these changes. While I'm not sure if it's an overall buff or nerf to the damage of these spells, what I do know is these spells will be a lot easier to use now that they have a fixed runic power cost and duration. Currently, the timing of when you use these abilities can drastically affect the amount of extra dps they give you. Pop them at the wrong time and you have just wasted a precious cooldown. So I'm eager to see these changes in action.

Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.

Dual-wielding used to be one of the top approaches to take for a dps death knight. Recently, however, many of the changes have all but killed it. So in patch 3.2, the dual wielding death knights might make a comeback with this new talent in the frost tree.

Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent. Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.

Interesting. So the current desecration is being split into two separate talents. Desecration is now mostly a pvp ability. The good news is, the infamous desecration graphic will now be much less prominent in pve, which will make most raid leaders happy. However, the speculation is desolation may not be worth taking because the 12 second duration may mean that it is not active at all times with the current rotations. We'll have to see if this new talent gets modified at all before it releases.

Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates. Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.

There isn't much to comment on here. The talent points saved on blood of the north are probably meant to make room for the new dual-wielding talent in frost. The lichborne change makes it more dynamic since you can use it more often, but need to be more exact on the timing.

Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%. Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Last but not least, some big changes to the unholy tree. Scourge Strike is the bread and butter for the unholy DK. The nerf in damage seems partly pvp related. Since scourge strike deals shadow damage, it is not reduced by armor and can be a wrecking ball. Blizzard doesn't seem to like large amounts of burst coming from a single ability. The reduction in damage on scourge strike is offset by the buff to blood strike, which should see more use. This may also be a push for unholy DKs to get more benefit out of armor penetration. Items with armor penetration are rife in Ulduar and currently it's not a stat that does too much for unholy DKs who spend most of their time scourge striking shadow damage. The unholy blight redesign is one of the biggest changes for death knights in this patch. Unholy blight is the signature spell of the unholy tree and the main reason that this spec is normally associated with AOE damage. Well that all changes in 3.2. Unholy blight no longer deals AOE damage at all, in fact, it is not even a spell, it is a passive ability that adds a bleed effect to your death coils. This change really alters the flavor of the unholy death knight and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Don't get me wrong, this change may turn out to be powerful, but I thought it was interesting how each of the three dps specs for death knights felt unique. Blood was the heavy hitting single target crusher, frost seems to be evolving once again as the dual-wielding spec and unholy was the master of AOE damage. Well I guess we'll have to wait and see how unholy feels after the changes go live. In summary, death knights are looking at some tanking nerfs and a reduction to burst and AOE damage in 3.2. On the other hand, some abilities will be easier to use, dual-wielding should be viable again and raid members should no longer die by standing in fires that are obscured by spell effects. What do you think of the death knight changes coming in 3.2? Is there anything you're particularly excited or angry about?

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Now that 3.1 has been out for a while, and the dust is at least starting to settle, I think its time to take a step back and discuss how much impact the patch has really made on the game.

While the introduction of the Ulduar raid was obviously a big deal, I want to take a moment to examine how dual-specs has changed the way that we play. This feature, after all, changes the basic mechanics of how we play and will affect the game well past Ulduar and into future expansions.

At this point, I feel many of us have seen both the advantages and the pitfalls of this is action.

First the good, the increase is raid utility is undeniable. Instead of needing to sub people out for encounters because we need more heals, DPS, tanks or whatever we now just need to ask people to switch specs. I have found this to be particularly useful in 10 mans, where we can balance for 2 or 3 healers depending on the encounter.

Beyond that there are some unexpected advantages. For example the shaman who dual spec’d enhancement/elemental. While initially I thought this was the worst idea ever (great you can be DPS or DPS), it has turned out to be incredibly useful on several occasions. Sometimes having DPS at range vs melee, or having an extra buff can make all the difference in a close encounter.

There have been drawbacks too. As I think we all expected loot has been an issue. There are some players that are legitimately splitting their time between two specs. But does that mean they have a right to accumulate two sets of tier pieces while everyone else is working on their first? I certainly don’t think so, but they can make some convincing arguments. Additionally this added flexibility leaves some of the “bubble” players out of raids. Players that are used to being number 1 on the standby list are getting used less and less, as more people can fill more roles.

Personally I find myself changing specs much less often than I expected. While I can now go ret at anytime, I still find I am a tank 99% of the time, and often forget I can switch if need be. Although, being able to PvP whenever I want is certainly nice.

What do you guys think? Have dual specs been working out they way you imagined? Or are you using them much less or more than you expected?

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Ghostcrawler made an interesting comment on the official forums the other day which has sparked lots of conversation lately. In a thread discussing DPS among the different classes. He states:

Our logic is actually pretty simple. If hybrid classes can do the same dps as pure classes, then why have pure classes in the game? So we design the pure classes to do slightly higher dps.

He continues on to say that they define slightly as somewhere around 5%. The debate is around if this should be the case - should some DPS roles be higher than others by design? This is something I have debated with my friends on and off for years now. I remember one particular instance where a fury warrior friend went on a screaming tirade about how Ret Pallys need to be nerfed and how one class shouldn't be able to "do it all." As someone who plays a class that can "do it all," it is hard for me to say. In the end I do think I agree with GC. There should be a reward for giving up flexibility. It seems like the easy conclusion to make, but I do feel like I need to play devil's advocate a bit here. There are downsides to playing the hybrid classes, among them are having to collect and maintain all the gear sets (I think we all know a druid with 8 gear sets) as well as deal with all of the respec fees. After all, while hybrid classes can take on multiple roles, they cannot do them all at the same time! That being said if you want to do as much DPS as possible, it only makes sense that you should roll a pure DPS class. There is something to be said about a pure class with one designed role, and there are actually not many of them in the game. For me I enjoy the flexibility that hybrid classes allow. Where do you stand on the issue?

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