Rogue 1.12 Preview

[Quark]

Imp KS is damage from all sources though, assuming more things can be hit by KS in raids that means 9% damage for the raid. Not much for the rogue, but maybe a little better than a meh. I agree with the opportunity cost issues it looks to still have though. But might it still be something that having one in raid would be good for? I hear that stuff in AQ and Naxx can be stunned. If you go into ZG or AQ20 with end game blues that extra damage seems it could come in pretty handy on the trash (once you get over geared for those instances it doesn't matter of course but if you've never been in ZG or AQ20 with a raid that is in all end game blues without any purples the trash is a lot harder than it is even if you only have one person in the raid with MC gear).

More damage needed on trash has never really been an issue, though, has it? It's almost always more healing, less incoming damage, or simply playing the mob fight better. DPS can help you end a fight soon, but DPS concerns only really arise on bosses. Sure, it's nice when they're stunnable, but to date the only boss fight I can see this talent being significant in is Sartura. It's a PvP talent.

Also gotta wonder what the base expose armor will do since they change the mechanic. It could still be a help if it will end up being more than sunder, if and only if, you can still apply sunders with talent on and the stronger of the two is what works. One of the issues with expose armor had been that if it was applied first the warrior couldn't sunder (a more poweful effect, this was a problem with the old improved sunder talent as well). I'm wondering if the change to the expose armor mechanic will let both debuffs sit up there even if they aren't helping each other reduce the armor.

I highly doubt it, given the way Drysc backed down from his "raid friendly" Expose Armor.

But even with that it could still be mostly meh. But if the mechanic worked that way and it ends up say knocking off 50% armor the mob only needs to have more than 4500 armor for getting this talent to help the raid damage more than sunder will.

One good point I've seen about the Expose Armor change -> it severly hurts versus shadow priests. Shadow Priests get amazing damage reduction, but since a chunk of it is not from armor, the old Expose Armor is very good for weakening the damage reduction. The new expose armor will more effective versus warriors/paladins, mostly, and less effective versus everyone else.

Hmm is a rupture that does 1215.5 (30% improvement) damage over 22 seconds worth it? If you do a deep Subtlety + Assassinatin would you be alright?

Improved Rupture isn't bad, but again you're not getting damage talents to get to it. Getting Improved Rupture means you already sacrificed damage elsewhere.

But could working rupture into the cycle along with hemo work? It almost seems like if you go that deep in assassination you want to go down subtlety not combat and go with swords or maces for a weapon not daggers. Something like a 19/2/30 where you get imp slice and dice, lethality, relentless strikes. The 2 points in improved sinister strike still seem to be pretty much required for any rogue build.

Quick Hemo build I came up with. It's very PvP-centric, though. As noted elsewhere, no SS. But grab Improved Gouge for bandage+restealth. Maybe not awesome, but not awful. Premed becomes "worth it" because Deadliness is good enough to actually get there, now.

Is giving up the backstab damage and dagger spec and the +hit and off hand damage going to hurt that much? Agian I don't know the class well enough so I might be missing the obvious.

Assuming going Ass/Sub instead of Combat? Cheating off the sheet ... at ~575 dps, losing ImpBackstab costs me about 40 dps (~7.1%), ImpOffhand about 49 dps (~8.7%), ImpDagger (4/5) about 18 dps (~3.1%), Precision 17 dps (~3%). Lose them all, plus Blade Flurry, and I'm looking at 450 dps (lost about 22%). Nothing in Ass/Sub can make up that 22%.