Yes, fear the reaper. My rogue hit 78 last night and although he isn’t the one-shotting-everything-that-moves powerhouse that he was through most of the leveling process, he is still a stealthy ninja-like force to be reckoned with. I can top the meters in instances in my combat spec, but what I really want to focus on today is the fun of the subtlety spec and the new PVP brackets.
PVP as a Subtlety rogue is fun. Sub is the spec that has always played the way I feel a rogue should. Sub emphasises effectiveness and deadliness from the shadows. We get the +30% to stealth movement speed in sub, which is absolutely essential to not being horribly frustrated trying to catch people in a battleground. Of course, we can’t forget to mention sub’s signature ability: Shadow Step. It is buckets of fun to teleport behind an unsuspecting victim and slash him with Ambush, using the increase damage bonus from SS. Further, SS gives a run speed bonus for a few seconds after it’s used, making it a mini sprint that talents to a 20 second cooldown. Not only does this make Shadow Step a great offensive skill, but it can be used when running away from a large pack of enemies by teleporting to the furthest player and then using the run speed to get away. Hopefully this gives you time for Vanish to come off cooldown. Sub rogues just have such a cool toolbox for pvp play, but they suck at PVE right?
Wrong…ish. Sub has gotten huge buffs in the past couple of months. That said, data still suggest that it lags behind Combat and Assassination in max dps for raids. Fortunately, if you were to show up in an instance in your sub spec, you probably wont be instantly kicked now. At 78, I’m only a little behind combats damage on bosses and can often do better dps on trash pulls as a result of the SS > Ambush burst damage.
I did also want to briefly touch on the new PVP brackets for battlegrounds. Instead of 10 levels in a match such as 20-29, they are now split in half. 20-24 and 25-29. This means you are at most 5 levels lower than the highest level in the battleground. Yes, you can bring your level x1-x4 to a battleground without just getting stomped by everyone. Admittedly, it’s still nicer to be the 29 in a 25-29 bracket, but all in all we’re living in a fairer world, for battlegrounds at least.