4.0 Specs

While it may be safe to say that patch 4.0 isn't coming tomorrow (you never know really), it is fairly close to the traditional time on when it would be be launched. We have in the past, had about 1 1/2 months to play with the pre-expansion patch. News today on MMO Champ says that via internal sources, the release date of cataclysm is being pushed to early December. The 7th-14th reportedly is their aim for release. Amazon apparently somewhat leaked a release date of the 23rd of November. However this doesn't mean anything. It was quoted that they intend on  us playing with some of the new things, including a zone apparently. This could mean we would get a full 2 months of playing with our new toys and systems. What does this mean? Well depending on what spec you PVP with.

-Folks who play Mutilate/Prep as their PVP spec will find that they can no longer spec into prep.

http://wowtal.com/search/?q=%23k%3DYs-Ql1Z.a0o.rogue#k=qkcPzzj.a2y.rogue
Is what I'm basicly looking at as far as Sub goes. It's entirely not a finished product but a rough layout.

http://wowtal.com/search/?q=%23k%3DYs-Ql1Z.a0o.rogue#k=Y_URDRv.a2y.rogue
Is a basic layout for mutilate.

Note that it says level 81, however when you have 1 point left it states required level as "79," you drop in your last point and it reads "81" so pay no mind, its a bug.

As a Shadow Dance rogue, you'll find a nice burst of damage at your fingertips. Find Weakness bypassing 50% of armor for a decent amount of time will open up our damage against plate wearers. Shadow Step>ambush (find weakness procs)>Shadow Step> AMBUSH OF DEATH. You see where I'm going with that Hemo will be a great talent to line up bleeds. I personally like to slap a bleed on a rogue when I open up on them in arenas. In all situations you favorably get a sap off. This might not always be the case but we'll play on through this next scenario.

You either sap the other rogue, or you cheapshot (it's my personal belief to not open with anything else.) Load a backstab and hemo into his ass. Then Bleed him. Yes you read right. 90% of rogue expect to have a Kidney shot coming right after cheapshot is about to wear off. In some cases you can trick them into trinketing becauase of it. Lets say he does trinket in anticipation, good stuff, he trinketed when you were only rupturing him. Pop another backstab or if he turns a Hemo into him. Get to 4-5 combo points and kidney. Now he's stuck in that full duration of kidney! Load him back up with backstabs and evicserate. If you followed the spec I listed at some degree you have the talent that provides a 20% chance to refresh your bleed. If it procs, great! If not, slap the bleed back on him. The rogue has a few options here. Disarm you, vanish or evasion. The best thing that can happen is he decides to vanish. The bleed yanks him out and away you go, to PWNSVILLE,USA. The name of the game against any rogue is to get them to blow their vanishes.  Control control control control. That's the entire fight.

Vendetta for Assassination rogues is a much better talent than Hunger For Blood was. Useful for both sides of the world (pvp and pve). In pvp it'll be a great tool for anything stealthing or just damage in general. If you know a rogue or druid is about due to stealth/vanish, slap it on them. If your team is hard focusing a rogue, if vanish and cloak are up, he's gonna use them. Perfect time to light his ass up with it. That vanish won't mean anything when you'll see him right through it.
 Rogue damage on PTR? Doin alright, I've had a much better time with DK's and other plate classes. In a showdown against another rogue recuperate gave me the edge. As I was at that time playing a premade (my character hadn't finished xferring yet) against a person with a live character in relent/wrathful gear, I was at a disadvantage. I was being lit up pretty bad with damage, I got him into a kidney and recooped. It filled my health and energy up enough that I was able to really battle it through and turn it around.
 I thought about the spell after the battleground and thought about how great it'll be for times that you get opened on by a rogue. Survive the initial burst and you have a way to get yourself back out of that red area where you're in danger of dieing.
 The game for rogues feels better. I don't dread having to plot out a course of action should shit go bad against a plate wearer. I don't mind going after a healer when I know I have a means to get my health back easily too.

All in all there's still the stress that will always be there. Mages controlling out movement, locks have a knockback now etc. But these are all things that are just part of gamedesign that just make a class a class. But I definitely feel more confident that when I get ahold of them I now have just as good of a chance of knocking them out as they do for me.

PS rogue is really fun again :)