One Rogue's Journey

Well, that didn’t take long. The undocumented changes to rogues in 3.1 have been dug up and some of them are quite interesting. As always, these are just on the PTR and undocumented at that, so have your salt shakers ready. Let’s get right too it, yes?

Envenom now gives an additional 15% chance to apply Deadly Poison and a 75% increased frequency of applying Instant Poison for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point. (Previously gave a 15% chance to apply both deadly and instant poison)

Wow. Increased 75% chance to apply instant poison for 6 seconds after a 5 combo point Envenom? This is going to be a huge damage boost I’m thinking if it goes in like this.

Improved Poisons (Tier 4) changed to increases the chance to apply Deadly Poison to your target by 2/4/6/8/10% and the frequency of applying Instant Poison to your target by 10/20/30/40/50%. (Previously increased chance to apply Deadly and Instant poison by 2/4/6/8/10%)

More instant poison buffing. As you saw in my previous post about wound vs instant poison, the extra 10% chance to apply was enough to push Instant poison to be used, now imagine a 50% increase to apply! We’re looking at instant poison having a proc rate of 70%. That is simply amazing! I may have to go assassination.

Expose Armor now reduces armor by 20%, lasting longer per combo point.

This is a wonderful change and rogues have been clamoring for it for a long time now. If you’re in a group that doesn’t have a warrior for Sunder Armor, it can make a big difference for a rogue to keep up Expose Armor. The problem was, that expose armor reduced an amount of armor per combo point meaning you had to use a 5 point expose armor for it to be the most useful and that was a big pain to fit into a cycle. This change suddenly makes it viable not only for a rogue to use expose armor but to keep it from dropping off without being a determent to their DPS.

Savage Combat (Tier 9) now increases damage caused against poison enemies by 4%. (Previously increased damage by 1%)

The wording on this one is what confuses me. Savage Combat is currently a two point talent that increases damage to poisoned targets by %1/%2. The original patch notes stated it was changing to 2%/4%. It is possible that this is still the case, but the way this is worded makes me think that A) The talent is now 4%/8% or 2) it is now a one point talent. You can file both of those under “interesting if true”.
Edit:

Glyph Changes

Ninja glyph changes FTW. Here we go.

Glyph of Sap – Increases the duration of Sap by 20 sec. (Old: 10 sec.)

10 more seconds? I’ll take it. Actually I won’t, I’ll continue to pass on this glyph.

Glyph of Deadly Throw – Increases the slowing effect on Deadly Throw by 10%. (Old: Increases the range on Deadly Throw by 5 yards.)

Nice little PvP Buff.

Glyph of Adrenaline Rush – Increases the duration of Adrenaline Rush by 5 sec. (Old: Decreases the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush by 60 sec.)

I guess this answers my question about AR syncing up with BF (read: it won’t). This is a nice glyph but I still don’t think I’ll take it over the current 3 “must-have” combat glyphs.

Glyph of Sprint – Increases the movement speed of your Sprint ability by an additional 30%. (Old: also reduced the duration by 5%)

That’s just really nice. The reduction to duration was a pain.

Glyph of Crippling Poison – Increases the chance to inflict your target with Crippling Poison by an additional 20%. (Old: 10%)

A buff, but I still don’t see anyone taking it. After all, you can just Shiv.

Glyph of Pick Lock – Reduces the cast time of your Pick Lock ability by 100%. (Old: 75)

Convenience, nothing more to say.

Glyph of Hunger For Blood (new) – Increases the bonus damage from Hunger For Blood by 1% per application.

Well well well, does assassination finally have a third glyph? You bet and it’s a nice one. That per application phrase is weird though, I thought they were doing away with HfB applications.

Glyph of Killing Spree (new) – Reduces the cooldown on Killing Spree by 45 sec.

Nice, but can it beat out the glyph of Sinister Strike, Slice and Dice and Rupture? I doubt it.

Glyph of Shadow Dance (new) – Increases the duration of Shadow Dance by 4 sec.

Maybe we’ll see something beside Mut/Prep in Pvp??

Glyph of Fan of Knives (new) – Increases the damage done by Fan of Knives by 20%.

Great for those AOE situations but I don’t expect a lot of rogues to take this in the long run.

Glyph of Tricks of the Trade (new) – Your Tricks of the Trade grants an additional 10% bonus damage to your target.

That’s neat. Looks like they really did expect rogues to be sharing tricks with each other. Does anyone else wish they had more glyph slots?

Glyph of Mutilate (new) – Reduces the cost of Mutilate by 5 energy.

Look like our assassination brethren and sisteren are going to be having a choice in glyphs come 3.1

Glyph of Cloak of Shadows (new) – While Cloak of Shadows is active, you take 40% less physical damage.

I love you Cloak of Skill. That is all.

So there you have it. That’s A LOT of love for Assassination and poisons. Hopefully there is more to come and combat won’t be left out in the cold.