Rogue buffs. Some of you had begun to doubt you’d ever see those two words next to one another again, unless they were preceded by the word “no.”
 
But lo! A new round of Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.0.3 hotfix notes has been published, and included among them are these upcoming changes (which, according to the notes, are still being tested and have not yet been implemented):
 
  • Assassination: Venomous Wounds’ damage has increased by 20%.
  • Combat: Blade Flurry now also strikes up to 4 additional nearby opponents for 35% of normal damage (up from 30%).
  • Subtlety: Backstab’s damage has increased by 20%. Hemorrhage’s damage has increased by 30%.
 
Theorycrafters have pounced on these changes like a starving lion pounces on an injured zebra, and determined that the Assassination and Subtlety changes translate roughly to a 2% overall increase in DPS on single-target raid fights, with a hike to Assassination’s AoE damage as well. (The boost to Hemo should primarily help the subtlety spec with questing, leveling and other forms of solo play.) The Combat changes don’t affect single-target damage at all, obviously, but amount to a roughly 17% boost to the spec’s AoE damage.
 
 
Initial reaction to the changes from rogue PvE notables has ranged from nonplussed:
 
 
To bemused:
 
 
To wry:
 
 
To annoyed:
 
 
To… um…
 
 
There are relatively few rogue PvPers who are strong public voices at the moment, so PvP reactions are less common. Sativ, who has generally expressed positive feelings about the overall state of rogues in arena thus far, offered this as a possible explanation for Combat’s single-target damage remaining untouched:
 
 
Of course, these changes didn’t occur in a vacuum; monks received a 5% across-the-board damage nerf, which should take a huge chunk out of the gap (if not all of it) between them and other specs on many Highmaul fights. The two deeply neglected hunter specs, beast mastery and survival, saw boosts that theorycrafters are loosely projecting will bring their raid DPS potential relatively closely in line with marksmanship (which has generally performed well — but not over-the-top well — in the past week since receiving a couple of nerfs on Dec. 8).
 
Got things to say? Sure you do! Forum it up, rogues. 🙂
 
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