WotLK beta update

A new beta build has been uploaded by blizzard recently, and MMOC as well as WoR and just about any other WoW news site out there has managed to come up with pretty much the same info that's been changed. Read one, and you've read them all, it never ceases to amaze me. At any rate, the interesting bits ye rogue and hunter lovers will want to know is that there's indeed some new stuff for us in this build. Just keep in mind nothing's final and totally subject to change in the near future. Doesn't mean it might change, but chances are extremely high that they will. Regeneration Firstly, the major selling point of this new build is the way energy and mana work. No longer will you need to wait for any silly things such as "ticks" which increase your energy by 20 every 2 seconds, or your mana by 150 (or whatever). The client will now "tick" every 1/10th of a second. Meaning us rogues now gain 1 energy every 1/10th of a second, in real time. Smooth and constant action, no longer having to wait for 2 seconds while you're on 39.9 energy and wanting to use a Sinister Strike. No longer waiting in stealth for your energy meter to tell you that with possible lag etc, if you ambush now, you'll immediately regain 20 energy after. Simply a constant stream of numbers regenerating energy. Yes this affects druids in cat form too. Interrupts Kick, pummel and shield bash no longer do any damage. But above all, are no longer affected by the global cooldown! So we can just continue to bash along (Reliquary of Souls for instance) and press the button when needed. Earth Shock is unaffected by this change. Some other stuff The hunter bear trap is a snare, much like druid roots. Hunters also get a form of "execute" shot. BM Hunters can tame Devilsaurs!! Crushing blow mechanics are being removed completely. Druids cheer! Rogues get to disarm without talents and without having to parry. All aoe healing, shouts and totems work raid-wide. Some buffs still apply to party only though. Shamans get to polymorph. Basically a little summary here. The guys over at the FragBite forums had a really nice mount shot I just had to share with the rest of you. Mind that this is "not" the death knight mount. It's pretty pimp, totally unlike the sad placeholder death knights have right now. Inscription There's a good few Inscription glyphs added in the latest beta build. Easiest to check them out here on MMOC. The majority is druid based. From the list I can pick a few that may correspond closely to rogue skills:

Glyph of Shred - Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

Glyph of Mangle - Increases the duration of Mangle by 6 sec.

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration - While Frenzied Regeration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful. Looking at the druid glyphs it would seem sensible that we'll be seeing some rogue glyphs like these:

Increases the duration of your slice and dice by 1-3 seconds.

Increases the duration of your garrote by 1-3 seconds.

Increases the duration of your rupture by 1-3 seconds.

Increases the maximum number of hemo charges by 1-4.

Increases the damage done by your backstab to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%

Healing effects on you are 20% more powerful while evasion is active.

Your blade flurry hits an additional target.

Your deadly throw slows the target by an additional 5%

While sprint is active you have a 20% chance to resist movement imparing effects.

The radius / distance of your distract is increased by 5 yards.

Your pickpocket has 5% less chance to fail.

Your (insert poison here) has 1-2% additional chance to apply. Obviously, there are no rogue glyphs in the beta at the time of writing this yet. But, there will be soon. I'll compare this list to the actual ones and see how close they are. Professions Some may recall that I've written about how professions can buff your raid performance. I figured it may be interesting to see how the WotLK professions are holding up so far. Here's a list gathered on the EJ forums. Alchemy

Crazy Alchemist potion, effect randomly unknown.

Alchemical Blood, increases the effect of elixirs by 14-26%. Elixir of Major Agility (+5 Agi / +5 Crit Rating) : ~14% Elixir of Mastery (gain +4 all Stats) : 26% Elixir of Major Fortitude (+50 health) : 25% Potions and flasks are said to work as well, at some point. Currently they are bugged and do not receive any effect off the blood. Potions also got nerfed as you may be aware, you won't be able to drink more than a single potion per fight and need to remain out of combat for 5 seconds to remove that debuff. Potion sickness it is called. You'll love it, or maybe not. Leatherworking

Drums. 95 haste rating for 30 sec every 120 sec. 95/4 = 23.75. Works on 5 party members, but only a single party member is able to use it due to the tinnitus debuff mentioned earlier. Discuss among your raid who will use it. Counts to up to 5*23.75 = 118.75 stat points.

Wyrmscale Leg Armor and Dragonscale Leg Armor are aparently bind on pickup leg enchants only available to the leatherworker. There was a list earlier which showed : * Nerubian Leg Armor - +60 AP +15 critical strike rating. * Nerubian Leg Chitin - +70 AP +18 critical strike rating. * Protoscale Leg Armor - +100 AP +36 critical strike rating. Aparently the Protoscale leg armor got renamed. The two epic leg armors show a total difference of : 30 AP and 16 Crit rating = 31 Stats. So even if more than one person in your party has leatherworking, and thus the drums are less useful you'd still be getting a pretty heavy 31 stats into the bargain from the leg armor. Skinning Skinning is pretty straightforward and only gives +25 Crit rating. Hardly worth mentioning, but still better than nothing at all. Crit is generally worth a lot less than hit rating as well. Mining Mining gives 35 stamina. Good for tanks, or pvp but pretty small if you look at the big picture. Again only 25 stats. Herbalism Herbalism is somewhat uncertain. Some speculations say herbalism might receive a flat stat bonus like mining and skinning will, spirit would be likely if it does. However, herbalists also get to pick these special plants:

Fire Leaf : 66 AP boost over time, at the cost of your armor.

Fire Seed : 33 Spell damage over time, but you take more spell damage.

Deadnettle : This one's somewhat useful Whether those will offset the 25 stats that skinning and mining get is up to you, but I doubt it. It'll also remain to be seen whether you'll be able to chain these since potions got nerfed, and these plants will likely share a cooldown with health stones. Speaking of which, health stones are now considered unique across all types. So, no longer will you be carrying one of each size health stone. Enchanting

Enchant Ring - Assault : 40 AP

Enchant Ring - Haste : 20 Haste

Enchant Ring - Greater Healing Power (Will be deleted / renamed to spellpower)

Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower : 23 spell power

Several BoP wands, which can probably be replaced easily with raid loot at some point. Two rings, 20 stats each for a total of 40 stats. Enchanting is pretty high on the power ladder. Jewelcrafting Only two BoP gems are known for jewelcrafting so far:

Bright Dragon's Eye

Solid Dragon's Eye 10 stats more than the Epic Gems. It's highly likely there will be more gems added soon, much like there are currently about 10 different TBC gems only available for jewel crafters. For rogues this would mean we'd get a crit gem, a hit gem, and an attack power gem. Far from optimal, but that would give +30 stat points in total. Add in the fact that the BoP gems are multicolor, and thus ensure you don't need to use purple gems to activate your meta slot, you'd free up to an extra 2x 10 stats which would otherwise have been used for stamina. In good faith we could consider there will be some new trinkets available as well, however these will likely be easily replaced by others much like in TBC. I've been wrong before though, so we shall see. Blacksmithing

The option to add a socket to a weapon. This blacksmithing special has not been seen in action on the beta servers yet, but it seems quite likely so far that this will be the unique ability only for blacksmiths. This would make room for up to two epic gems, and thus 2x 20 stats for warriors, rogues, hunters and death knights. It's not certain whether the sockets can be placed in weapons that already have a socket or not, nor is it known whether filling the socket will add +2 stats like most single sockete items currently do. Tailoring Tailoring will likely have leg enchants much like leatherworking. These haven't been implemented yet, but in good faith these will likely resemble a relatively equal stat increase compared to the leatherworking versions. Which would be about +31 stats. Engineering Engineering stuff is still not implemented. Chances are big we'll get a mote extractor again, but other than that, it's anyone's guess. A motor cycle is hardly worth sacrificing extra stats over. Inscription Inscription will gain an extra glyph slots aparently. Not much is known yet about inscription sadly, but an extra major glyph could be quite powerful in itself. It's also uncertain whether glyhps will be swappable or whether there will be any Bind on Pickup versions that only scribes can use. Time shall tell. In summary

Leatherworking : 31-149,75 stats + BoP armor

Enchanting : 40 stats + BoP Wands

Blacksmithing : 40 stats expected + BoP weapons or armor.

Jewelcrafting : 30-50 stats expected + BoP Trinkets

Tailoring : 31 stats expected + BoP Clothing

Mining : 25 stats

Skinning : 25 stats

Alchemy : ~10-20 stats + BoP Trinkets

Inscription : Unknown + Extra glyph

Engineering : Unknown + BoP Goggles? Linkage Anyone sending me links of interesting articles they wrote will (usually) get a link, and today is no exception. While my own mage is still only lvl 68, this little article is still pretty interesting. One of the new mage talents in WotLK will reduce the cast time on your pyroblast when your health is below 35%. Allowing you to reach cast times of 1.5 seconds without haste gear, or 1 second "with" haste gear. I imagine we'll see a world of pain coming from the familiar glass cannons. If you're planning to use this in PvP, expect me to kill you soon. On straightforward boss tank and spank fights with no AoE however this trick may help you do quite a lot of DPS though. Just mind the aggro. If anyone else has links to share send em over.