Official BC rogue talents/skills

Well, basically the leaked stuff I posted earlier was mostly right. The 41 point talents in Combat and Assanination were incorrect, here are the correct versions:

Talents
Mutilate Assassination- 41 point talent
60 energy
Requires Daggers
Instantly attack with both weapons. Has an additonal 30% chance to critically hit Poisoned targets. Must be behind the target. Awards 2 Combo points.
Very nice ability for Dagger rogues. I would imagine that this can almost replace Backstab a lot of the time, would have to run the number to find out for sure. And since I'm not a dagger rogue, that'll be unlikely. Kinda makes up for the lackluster Vigor.


Surprise Attacks Combat - 41 point talent
Your Sinister Strike, Gouge, and Backstab abilities can no longer be dodged.
Ummm... This seems to be a really poor talent to me, well for PvE that is. PvP it could be very nice. However unless they're going to introduce a bunch of mobs with higher than a 5% chance to dodge, this seems like a wasted talent point. Guess I can go 21/40/0 and pick up Cold Blood.

Skills
Couple of things I'm excited about here:

Disembowl-a buffed version of Eviscerate that requires, for maximum effect, 5 applications of Deadly Poison, which happens to be my primary poison. Hopefully they'll adjust Improved Eviscerate and Aggression as I think with the +21% damage to Eviscerate, it may out damage Disembowl.

Shiv - It's an off-hand instant attack for 40 energy and a 100% chance to apply poison. Slower weapons require more energy. I know I'll use this, I just am not sure how I'll use it. It could go well with Deadly poison on the off hand and simply substitute Shiv for SS whenever there are less than 5 application on the opposing Mob. Or you could use it with the new Anesthetic poison as a secondary feint. I'm just not sure what is better. Off the top of my head I'm leaning towards keeping Deadly on my main hand and having Anesthetic on my off-hand. One could then write a macro that would incorporate SS and Shiv into one mashing button. You could either SS whenever fewer that 5 Deadly Poisons were up or Shiv after 4 SS. Could make for some very interesting decisions. You could keep up the 5-5-3 rotation without having to worry much about Aggro, which is always a good thing. Currently I feint quite a bit just to make sure I'm not getting too high on the hate list.

Things I'm not as excited about
Garrote - now silences the mob for 4 seconds. Could be nice for pulling casters.
Deadly Throw - really don't get this one. Guess you can use it to finish off mobs who are running from you. Could mean fewer uses for Crippling Poison.
Evasion - New rank decreases the likelyhood of getting hit by ranged attacks. Nice for PvP, limited PvE application.

Leaked Burning Crusaded Talents and Skills - Rogues

Okay, found this at Curse-Gaming. I'll focus on Rogue stuff as that's what I'm most interested in. My comments are in red.

Assassination Talents
Tier 5

• Fleet Footed 0/2
  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.
  PvP talent. Nice, but nothing spectacular.
  
• Quick Recovery 0/2
  All healing effects on you are increased by 10%. In addition, your finishing moves cost 40% less Energy when they fail to hit.
  First off, you shouldn't be missing finishers, so the second half isn't worth talent points. That leave upto 20% increased healing effects. Could be nice but I really don't see this as worth talent points.
  

Tier 6

• Master Poisoner 0/2
  Reduces the chance your poisons will be resisted by 2% and increases your chance to resist Poison effects by an additional 15%
  I primarily see this useful in PvP vs. other rogues. Though it could see merit in certain PvE zones **cough** Sithilus.
  

Tier 7

• Deadened Nerves 0/5
  Decreases all physical damage taken by 1%
  Nice concept, but with all the +dodge a good rogue will have, I see this as curious damage mitigation. Could be very nice when grinding to 70, but in instances we shouldn't have aggro and if we do I'd count on dodging attacks rather than damage reduction.
  

Tier 8

• Find Weakness 0/5
  Your finishing moves increase the damage of all offensive abilities by 2% for 10 sec.
  What I find most interesting here is that it states nothing about the number of CP used in that finishing moves. Interesting to see how it would work out to SS, SnD, SS, SS, Rupture. Without really sitting down and looking, it appears that you could constantly maintain this with decent damage output.
  

Tier 9

• Surprise Attack
  Requires 1 point in Vigor
  30 Energy, 5 yd range, Instant, 15 sec cooldown
  Requires Melee Weapon
  A strike that deals 100% weapon damage. This attack cannot be blocked, dodged or parried. Awards 1 combo point.
  Interesting, but not what I could expect to see from a 41 point talent. I'd at least expect to see some +damage or something. But then again, Vigor is hardly a standout 31 point talent.
  

Combat
Tier 7

• Vitality 0/2
  Increases your Stamina by 3%
  Huh. 6% stamina bonus. I guess more HP is nice, but not what I expect to find in the Rogue Combat tree.
  
• Nerves of Steel 0/2
  Increases your chance to resist Stun and Fear effects by an additional 5%
  PvP talent. I'd really only see it in a PvE build as filler.
  

Tier 8

• Blade Twisting 0/5
  Gives your Sinister Strike, Backstab, Gouge, and Shiv abilities a 5% chance to Daze the target for 8 sec.
  Very nice. Could keep a mob Dazed for a good percentage of the time. 25% off a SS is nothing to frown at. You can get two SS every 8 seconds, and it's probable (>50%) that you're get one daze off once per three SS, which translates to around mobs being dazed ~66% of the time.
  

Tier 9

• Shadow Strikes
  Requires 1 point in Adrenaline Rush
  All melee attacks against Poisoned or Dazed targets cause an additonal Shadow Damage equal to 10% of weapon damage.
  Very little reason that a Combat rogue should ever have a mob unpoisoned or undazed (with Blade Twisting that is). Deadly poison on MH should always be in effect and unless cleansed will likely stay on the mob the length of the battle. You're effectively looking at a 10% increase to your white damage which is not insignificant.
  

Subtlety
Tier 7

• Enveloping Shadows 0/3
  Increases your chance to avoid area effect attacks by an additonal 5%.
  Nice, gives rogues a chance to avoid some spells, which is sorely needed. But why spend points here when you have:
  
• Cheat Death 0/5
  You have a 4% chance to completely avoid any damaging attack that would otherwise kill you.
  This is major. Basically you have a 1 in 5 chance of not getting killed. That can mean all the difference in the world with laggy heals. Sure you're still going to die a lot but 20% reduction is major! Now if you're DOT'd you'll probably just die on the next tick, but hey, still nice!
  

Tier 8

• Sinister Calling
  Requires 1 point in Premeditation
  Increases your Agility by 2%
  Grrr.... Not only does this tree have the +AP talents, but they need +AGI as well... I'd respec, but I'd too attached to Swords :P
  

Tier 9

• Cloak of Shadows
  Instant, 2 min cooldown
  When activated, you become immune to all spells for 4 sec. This will not remove existing effects, though you will be immune to the effects while Cloak of Shadows is active.
  I can see this as useful when you know the mob/boss is casting something big and it'll take you out. If you don't have an interupt handy this'll keep you alive. My end-game experience is limited, but I'm sure it'll be most useful on raid bosses.
  

Skills

• Deadly Throw
  Ranged finisher. 5 CP deals thrown damage + 468-564
  Okay, if there is no ranged way to get CP, why do we need a ranged finisher?
  
• Mutilate
  60 energy, daggers, instant attack with both weapons gives 2 combo points.
  Nice, but I imagine that Backstab will still out damage this, but for CP generation this is tops. I am assuming it will deal straight weapon damage.
  
• Shiv
  Instant attack with off-hand weapon. 100% chance to apply off-hand poison. Energy cost varies with weapon speed.
  Three things I want to know, 1) is there a cooldown, 2) Energy cost, and 3) does it award CP? Depending on those answers this would be nice to mesh with off-hand use of Anasthetic poison below as a second feint (always up).
  
• Anasthetic Poison
  30% chance to reduce threat by moderate amount. 120 charges.
  If it works as advertised this will easily be my off-hand poison for groups.
  
  

Current 'heavy' selection

Okay, I'd posted on the COTL forums a list of some 'heavy' bands that are worth checking out. I'm reposting that list here, along with links to those bands sites as many of them have free tracks to download.

• Demon Hunter
• Day of Fire
• Living Sacrifice
• Decypher Down
• Disciple
• Flyleaf
• P.O.D.
• Pillar
• Subseven
• Underoath
• Zao

I know it's not a complete list, but it's what came to mind while typing.

First Post (original title FTW)

Okay, here's the deal. I'm going to post my random musings about WoW here. When I find cool addons I'll post them. When I do something cool in game, I'll post about it. Basically this'll be my WoW diary. I'm fairly certain that very, very few people will actually look at this, which is fine by me.

A bit about me. I'm 25 years old, married with kid, mortgage, two car payments. I'm born/raised/presently live in NE Wyoming and work in the Juvenile Justice area. I'm a left wing Christian (no, not an oxymoron) who is unfortunately registered as a Republican (only way one can have any say in local politics). I enjoy gaming (duh), camping, contemporary japanese culture, ancient chinese culture, and spending time with family.

In game I would classify myself as an obsessive casual. I guess that would mean that I play a lot, but can't really commit to that much uninterupted play time. In spite of appearences my family does come first. I've recently committed myself to less time in game as I was letting it get out of hand. That being said I am trying not to get on the game before 7:30 and to only raid once a week. I play almost exclusively on Stormrage (PvE).

My main is Sakuran a 60 NE rogue (combat swords). I just hit 60 on July 26th so I'm still trying to run Scholo/Strat/UBRS for my Tier 0 gear. I'm impatient and have a lot of time in game without a group, so I've upgraded the BoE pieces (gloves, belt, bracers) to Tier .5 already. I really like the rogue and top the DPS charts on most all the runs I'm on, but everyone and their dog has a 60 rogue to bring on runs.

Creations of the Light, my guild, is short priests, so my primary alt is Repentant. A Human Priest (didn't realize that dwarves were more needed till I dinged 25) currently at levle 31. I'm grinding him when I'm not playing Sakuran. He is currently shadow spec as it's about the only way to grind a priest. I'm thinking I'll start trying to get into SM groups for xp as I abhore STV.

If we weren't short priests, I'd be working on Laic, my NE hunter, currently 23. I find him very fun to play, in large part to high DPS and the pet. However I've noticed that I get pretty cocky with him and try to take on too many or too high of levels.