I know a lot of you are curious about Burning Crusade, and it can seem like a lot to absorb. So here is a ranking of all the new talents and skills for rogues come patch 1.13 and Burning Crusade. They are all ranked from 1-3, with 1 being poor and 3 being awesome.
First, a quick bit about me. My name is Slycne 60 undead rogue on Mug Thol, and the rogue class leader for Shadow Syndicate. I love playing my rogue, my only 60, actually.
Assassination Talents
Fleet Footed
Requires 20 points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/2
Increases your chance to resist movement impairing effects by 5% and increases your movement speed by 4%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Rank: 2/2
Chance to resist is 10% and speed increase is 8%.
Score: 2 - A decent pvp minded talent, frees up your boot enchant and the chance to resist is a nice bonus even if it is a small amount.
Quick Recovery
Requires 20 Points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/2
All healing effects on you are increased by 10%. In addition, your finishing moves cost 40% less Energy when they fail to hit.
Rank: 2/2
Healing is 20% and Energy return is 80%.
Score: 3 - One of the best new talents. The healing increased EVERYTHING bandages, healing pots, heal over times, all of them. The energy return is great against other rogues and protection warriors, in addition to being nice overall.
Master Poisoner
Requires 25 points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/2
Reduce the chance your poisons will be resisted by 2% and increase your chance to resist Poison effects by an additional 15%.
Rank: 2/2
Chance reduced to 4% and your chance increases to 30%.
Score: 1 - Nice for rogue v. rogue ... and that's about it, maybe for heavy poison builds looking for a little more bang in their poisons so they are less likely to resist.
Deadened Nerves
Requires 30 points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/5
Decreases all physical damage by 1%.
Rank: 2/5
Decrease by 2%
Rank: 3/5
Decrease by 3%
Rank: 4/5
Decrease by 4%
Rank: 5/5
Decrease by 5%
Score: 1 - Hey, someone put a protection warrior talent in my rogue assassination Tree! Would only be worth it if it was all damage and a lower amount of points.
Find Weakness
Requires 35 points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/5
Your finishing moves increase the damage of all offensive abilities by 2% for 10 sec.
Rank: 2/5
Increased 4%
Rank: 3/5
Increased 6%
Rank: 4/5
Increased 8%
Rank: 5/5
Increased 10%
Score: 3 - This only affects your skills/abilities (yellow damage), however this is still a very powerful talent. Works very well with Imp Kidney Shot. Mutilate rogues will have this up most of the time.
Mutilate
Requires 1 point in Vigor
Requires 40 points in Assassination Talents
Rank: 1/1
60 Energy; 5-yd range; Instant; Requires Daggers
Instantly attacks with both weapons for an additional 44 with each weapon. Damage is increased by 50% against Poisoned targets. Must be behind the target. Awards 2 combo points.
Trainable Ranks Listed Below
Rank 2: 63 with each weapon
Rank 3: 88 with each weapon
Rank 4: 101 with each weapon
Score: 3 - OK ... this is a hard one. The best way to look at mutilate is to compare it to hemorrhage, in my opinion. The combo point and poison proc generation is amazing. Mutilate can proc both your poisons at once. However the target has to be poisoned so make sure to pick up Improved Poison with it.
Combat Talents
Blade Twisting
Requires 25 points in Combat Talents
Rank: 1/2
Gives your Sinister Strike, Backstab, Gouge and Shiv abilities a 10% chance to Daze the target for 8 sec.
Rank: 2/2
20% chance
Score: 2 - Opens up the ability to mainhand a damage poison. Blade Twisting with crippling poison offhand and shiv should be enough to keep someone snared and in range.
Vitality
Requires 30 points in Combat Talents
Rank: 1/2
Increases your total Stamina by 2% and your total Agility by
1%.
Rank: 2/2
Increase Stamina 4% and Agility 2%.
Score: 2 - Not enough in my opinion, not a horrible talent though.
Nerves of Steel
Requires 30 points in Combat Talents
Rank: 1/2
Increase your chance to resist Stun and Fear effects by an additional 5%.
Rank: 2/2
Chance is 10%
Score: 2 - Once again the amount could be a little higher, but a resist at the right time could be key. Orcs might like to stack this on top their racial resist.
Combat Potency
Requires 35 points in Combat Talents
Rank: 1/5
Gives your successful off-hand melee attacks a 20% chance to generate 3 Energy.
Rank: 2/5
6 Energy
Rank: 3/5
9 Energy
Rank: 4/5
12 Energy
Rank: 5/5
15 Energy
Score: 3 - Must stack more chance to hit ... great talent.
Surprise Attacks
Requires 1 point in Adrenaline Rush
Requires 40 points in the Combat Tree
Rank: 1/1
Your Sinister Strike, Backstab, Shiv and Gouge abilities can no longer be dodged, and damage caused by those abilities is increased by 8%.
Score: 2 - Another hard one, a decent pvp talent (ever had a mage dodge your backstab at low health, yeah it sucks). The problem is due to the way WoW rolls hits/misses/dodges/crits, without the 8%, this is actually a dps decrease for combat daggers. It's better to have a dodge for less energy and a high chance to crit your next backstab, than to just have that dodge only hit. Coupled with the damage increase, it comes out to a pretty decent talent.
Subtlety Talents
Master of Subtlety
Requires 25 points in Subtlety Talents
Rank: 1/3
Attacks made while stealthed and for 6 seconds after breaking stealth cause an additional 4% damage.
Rank: 2/3
Additional 7% damage
Rank: 3/3
Additional 10% damage
Score: 3 - Just what the subtlety tree needs some damage coming out of stealth - could lead to some big hits.
Enveloping Shadows
Requires 30 points in Subtlety Talents
Rank: 1/3
Increase your chance to avoid area of affects attacks by an additional 5%.
Rank: 2/3
Resist 10%
Rank: 3/3
Resist 15%
Score: 2 - 15% is a good amount, also think beyond just Arcane Explosion ... warrior fear, priest fear, piercing howl, etc.
Cheat Death
Requires 30 points in Subtlety Talents
Rank: 1/3
You have a 10% chance to completely avoid any damaging attack that would otherwise kill you.
Rank: 2/3
20% chance
Rank: 3/3
30% chance
Score: 2 - A little over-rated I think, sure it sounds great but chances are you are going to be dead in the next few seconds anyways. Could still lead to some clutch wins, imagine some priest hits you with shadow word death...
Sinister Calling
Requires 1 point in Premeditation
Requires 35 points in Subtlety Talents
Rank: 1/5
Increase your total Agility by 3%.
Rank: 2/5
Increase 6%
Rank: 3/5
Increase 9%
Rank: 4/5
Increase 12%
Rank: 5/5
Increase 15%
Score: 3 - Right now with my 400 agility this would be 60 agi, and I expect that number to go up.
Shadowstep
Requires 40 Points in Subtlety Talents
Rank: 1/1
10 Energy; Instant; 20 sec cooldown; 30 yd range; Requires Stealth
Attempts to step through the shadows and reappear behind your enemy. Your next Ambush, Backstab, or Garrote ability is increased by 20%. Lasts 10 sec.
Score: 2 - A good idea, it is certainly a fun talent to have. The problem is that after that first ambush, backstab, etc you suck for the rest of the fight because you have to give up either imp bs or lethality. And with fights lasting longer now....so the only thing it will really be good for is stealing killing blows.
New Skills[/span]
Deadly Throw
8-30 yd range; Instant cast; Requires Thrown
Requires
Level 64
35 Energy
Finishing move that reduces the movement of the target by 50% for 5 sec and causes thrown weapon damage plus additional damage per combo point:
1 point : 132-228 damage
2 points: 216-312 damage
3 points: 300-396 damage
4 points: 384-480 damage
5 points: 468-564 damage
Score: 3 - What every rogue wanted for Christmas. A ranged snare with decent damage, and combined with the pvp gloves it interrupts as well.
Garrote
5 yd range; Instant cast; Requires Stealth
Requires
Level 70
50 Energy
Garrote the enemy, Silencing them for 3 seconds and causing 978 damage over 18 sec, increased by Attack Power. Must be stealthed and behind the target. Awards 1 combo point.
Score: 3 - Finally, rogues who don't use daggers have a real opener against mages. Might even be worth using it over ambush.
Evasion
Instant cast; 5 min cooldown
Requires
Level 66
Increases the rogue's dodge chance by 50% and reduces the chance ranged attacks hit the rogue by 50%. Lasts 15 sec.
Score: 3 - It's about time. This will help greatly against hunters. Also, blind is no longer the guaranteed fight restart it used to be.
Envenom - 2
5 yd range; Instant cast; Requires Melee Weapon
Requires
Level 69
35 Energy
Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage. One dose is consumed for each combo point.
1 dose: 204 damage
2 doses: 407 damage
3 doses: 611 damage
4 doses: 814 damage
5 doses: 1018 damage
Score: 2 - Good but very situational, it does crit as a melee attack but counts as nature damage so it ignores armor. Probably best for mutilate rogues, as they need poisons on the target.
Shiv
5 yd range; Instant cast; Requires Melee Weapon
Requires
Level 70
33 - 49 Energy
Performs an instant off-hand weapon attack that automatically applies the poison from your off-hand weapon to the target. Slower weapons require more Energy. Awards 1 combo point.
Score: 2 - Very good new skill, the guaranteed proc really opens up some new poison combos. You can quickly get crippling back on people who trinket, slap mind numbing on a caster right at the get go, I have even seen some theorycraft of using shiv as a main ability (think guaranteed Instant Poison with Imp Poison talents).
Anesthetic Poison - 1
Requires
Level 68
Coats a weapon with poison that lasts for 30 minutes. Each strike has a 20% chance of reducing threat by a moderate amount. 120 charges.
Score: 1 - Close to useless at present, a well-timed vanish is more than enough for most fights. Might be worth using it on very close aggro fight, this poison plus shiv vs feint? The cap is 67 at the moment, so no word on the actual amount reduced.
Cloak of Shadow
Requires
Level 66
Instant; 2 min cooldown
Instantly removes all existing harmful spells effects and increases your chance to resist all spells by 90% for 5 sec.
Score: 3 - This is what rogues needed in order to stay alive in these longer caster fights in expansion. It must be cast so it doesn't break any crowd controls, but still very good especially now that it is trainable.
