Project Lore

Feint, the forgotten skill My fellow raiding Rogues, we've been neglecting one of the biggest buffs to our beloved class that we've had in a while. No it doesn't improve DPS, directly at least, but falls in line with the number one rule of being a raiding rogue, staying alive so you can still DPS! Patch 3.0.8 released on January 20th which is coming up on six months old now. The buff (or change depending on your view) on this skill that generally has been laughable, has now been made a very viable skill, especially in high-end raiding.

Feint: Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects.

Now, go back and read that again; reduces damage of AoE attacks by HALF for 6 seconds. To be honest I had forgotten about this skill until a few weeks ago, it has been on my bar of course but has been on the further side of the keyboard away from more important skills. Now while this may not be a huge deal even in heroic Ulduar, once you start hitting the hard modes this redone skill really shines and a really great example of great use is on XT-002 Deconstructor. I was running normal Ulduar (10 man) with my guild and we went for the hard version of XT-002 Deconstructor. Basically once you activate the hard mode the damage put on the raid (and thus stress on the healers) is increased by 40%! The spell from XT you should be most be worried about is the Tympanic Tantrum, which everyone in the raid needs to be healed from; if you can cut this in half you reduce the stress on your healers and they can worry about getting other people (tanks, other healers) topped off before you (and if you have healing potions and healthstones, you should be using those too). Giving your healers an extra 4-6 seconds to worry about others before you, can be invaluble in a healing intensive fight such as hard mode XT. The skill only has a 10 second cooldown which is very nice as it's only four seconds that you are without the 50% damage reduction, although it is highly recommended to NOT put this into your rotation as it is merely a situation skill at this point. With that said though, am I the only one who forgot about this spell? Have you raiding rogues been using it for a while? Or did it take something drastic like not wanting to stress out your healers during a hard mode? What other fights do you find this to be a good fit for?

Click to read more ...

[caption id="attachment_3267" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Don't let those bars fool you! I only use like three or four of those buttons!"] [/caption] The Rogue is, by magnitudes, my favorite class. I've played one as my main (Amatera) for over 4 years now and enjoyed every second of it. Out of all my alts, not one has yet convinced me to give up on the master of melee combat. Or at least what should be, considering the lack of other roles for a Rogue to fill. No doubt that the class has seen its ups and downs. I was pretty excited by the new abilities and talents introduced with Wrath, but, like many others of my ilk, came away disappointed with a pretty significant (and unexpected) drop in playability caused by the new mechanics. Raid DPS went down the tubes and, on my server, level-capped Rogues were a scarce lot. Heck, I was (and still am) the only non-alt Rogue in my guild. And I'm surprised that I stuck through it, considering that towards the tail end of Burning Crusade I was regularly in the top 3 for damage and was now struggling to break 10. Things have taken a turn for the better since 3.1. I've reclaimed my position in the charts thanks to the modification of Hunger for Blood and a slight respec back into Improved Poisons. But it did something else that makes me wonder whether or not playing a Rogue is too easy -- it made my core rotation reductively simple again. Now, it takes skill and a keen reaction time to play any class well, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm tailing a boss spamming Mutilate and Envenom whilst our healers have their hands full playing whack-a-mole with raid frames. There is a certain sublimity, a zen-like state if you will, about punching only two or three keys and outputting the insane amount of damage that a Rogue can, but I think people get excited about simplicity until they start to feel the guilt of not putting in the same amount of effort as others. Or, at least I do. Maybe not all those chumps riding coattails for gear. Before 3.1, my rotation was a lot more complicated than it is now (or was when I was playing Combat in BC), but my damage clearly suffered. Having to maintain three stacks of Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice was a pain, between expensive Mutilates and the occasional Rupture where I could fit it. The thing about Energy is that, even though you may never run out, your cap is always fixed. So when your pool of the good stuff is being sucked dry by a few expensive skills, it destroys your DPS. With a duration of only 30 seconds, Hunger for Blood was the main culprit: easy to let drop, and far too expensive to get running again. Considering I needed the skill's buff to even compete on the damage meters, leaving it out was not an option. Thus, it seems, that the smaller a Rogue's rotation ultimately is, the more efficiently they can utilize their Energy, and the changes made to the class reflect that. Hunger for Blood now lasts a full minute and need only be triggered by a Bleed effect. In a raid situation, those are going to be a dime a dozen, so unless you're off tussling with some off-tanked mob, you rarely have to worry about it (and it frees you from having to queue up Rupture, as well). Slice and Dice? Well, that's refreshed by Envenom, which an Assassination-specced Rogue should be dishing out relentlessly anyway. Like a Showtime Rotisserie, all you need to do is "set it and forget it!" Sure, I've found a few ways to improve my utility, even if only by a tad. I'll throw an Expose Armor up on a mob if there are no Sunders to be had, I'll use Feint to ignore some of the crazy Area of Effect damage most of the new Ulduar bosses dish out. Heck, Cloak of Shadows is as useful as ever, especially for those pesky light and gravity bombs XT-002 is fond of afflicting players with. These skills aren't ever in my regular rotation, but I'd be more than willing to take a slight hit to my DPS if it meant giving the class more raid-enhancing utility skills. Then again, that might go against the selfish, dirty-dealing, throat-slitting, gold-stealing spirit of a Rogue! Considering these dynamics, must we be crucified for sins we did not commit? My "Damage-Dealer's Burden" aside, is there some way to stop the general populace from slinging bawdy insults our way and sermonizing about how over-powered our class is? I don't know. Blizzard has stated that they, too, are unhappy with the ease with which a Rogue can obliterate their opponents (especially in PvP). The changes made to Hunger for Blood, after all, were a bit of a hot fix. It's a fundamentally broken skill, once detrimental to the Rogue itself and  now detrimental to everyone else (at least in their eyes). Makes you wonder why it was even incorporated as a new talent in the first place if it was going to cause so much trouble. For now, we wait impatiently for an answer. We have been told that it is not the right time for a total rehaul of the class and Blue posts concerning Rogues have dwindled since the raid damage output issue was finally "addressed." But there must be other Rogues out there reading this. Let me know what's on your mind! Does "easier-to-play" equal "overpowered?" Do you feel some deep sense of personal guilt when your healers and tanks are yelling at each other as your raid falls apart in front of you, wondering if there was anything you could've done to help? Or do you go stealth and wait in a corner until the smoke has cleared? Rogue or not, what are your feelings on the ethics of rotation complexity? Do you feel as if the game is at its best when it gives you a lot of skills to manage at once, or is a simple hotbar better and more fun? Does it make certain classes more "fair" to play than others?

Click to read more ...