Rogues have been worrying about the supposedly huge buffs to mutilate that if they go live will render Combat obsolete as a raiding class. Numbers are being touted of Mutilate rogues on the public test realms doing up to 3000dps more than combat rogues in a raid setting. Encrypted Text had an interesting post last week on the new patch notes. With the changes to Deadly Posion outlined in this post, even Christian admits that Mutilate will absolutely destroy every other rogue spec out there. Now I didn’t really worry too much about this as I was sure that such an unbalanced situation would be quickly fixed by Blizzard before the patch going live. What’s the point about getting worked up or worried before the fact? No reason at all, unless of course Mr Ghostcrawler opens his stupid fat face.

Check out this link from MMO champion to some blue posts from yesterday. It starts out with a quite reasonable post from a poster called Warrant outlining the current inbalances with rogues on the public test realms wondering if this crap is going to go live. In steps Ghostcrawler to calm down the situation. I mean, if it’s this obvious to everyone else it must be freaking slap-yourself-in-the-face obvious to Blizzard, right? Right …?

” … Yes, there would be a change. The goal is not to get every rogue to go Assassination. The goal is to give you options. If Combat totally out-performed Assassination even on a target as simple as a static dummy then we can’t see why anyone would try Assassination. I know some of you are concerned that the Mutilate buff was too high. We’ll have some better real-world (not that it is a “real world”) soon ™….”
Ghostcrawler
Lead Systems Designer

What is this shit? I’ve heard less jumbled jargon from an inept politician. And he sure hasn’t done anything to concvince me that things will all be well. In fact, I am getting the uneasy feeling that things will be decidely shit. Why? Well, right now combat outperforms mutilate if you have top spec gear. I don’t have time to get top spec gear, so in my raids I’m sitting a bit below mutilate. I can live with that, but not with Mutilate getting a buff on top of that becuase, “combat has higher dps in end game raiding.”

But the real problem is summed up in this post from the same thread:

” … I guess i dont understand the uproar.

When arcane was buffed, every single mage switched over to it from fire and didnt QQ about it.

When BM was gutted, all hunters shifted to surv and didnt care.

The only QQ thats sort of comparable is affliction doing alot less than destro and not having as good of buffs as demon.

But all that happens is the stronger spec gets nerfed, and nobody is happy.

im not saying its ok that trees like combat(and sub/frost/bm) are “dead”, but all it means is you have to respec and press different icon buttons (make macros that make mutilate have the SS icon if it makes you feel any better :/)

and for those that actually pay attention, combat is right there with pures, mut is just way ahead, doesnt mean combat is non viable (yet every single rogue will spec mut because its better lol like right now with combat)…”

Apart from the fact that there was a good deal of crying from mages when arcane was over-buffed, they didn’t have any problems swithcing over. Why? Because mages don’t have any fucking weapons that’s why.
‘Spec for your weapon’, is what every newbie level 80 rogue is told and it is good advice. We are our weapons. And weapons can be very hard to get. When I get a new weapon upgrade it’s like having Santa’s hot sexy female helpers come and rub me all over. I don’t even have a dagger. You don’t just run out and pick up some daggers. They can be very tricky to get. There is a mutilate rogue in our guild who has been running Ulduar for months trying to get some new daggers. It’s like a sad joke with him now.

“How did the raid go last night? Did you get any new dagg …?”

“Just don’t talk to me, okay?”

If this new buff to mutilate rogues goes through, that is going to be me. Only nobody in their right mind will be running ulduar once patch 3.3 drops. Who would put themselves through that torture? And don’t tell me that combat has better cooldowns. They might be better, but either they’re screwed over by bad luck or I can’t even use them. There was a nice list on that thread that points out all the things that stuff up Killing Spree or Blade Flurry, among them, posions/worms, Ony & Tail whip, and Koolagarn. Honestly, how can they be seriously waiting until the patch goes live to look at this? Oh, I know – they’ve been spending all their time designing $10 vanity pets and a new holiday which nobody outside of north America gave a crap about.

Seriously, the only winner out of all of this will be enhancement shamans. They will now get free dibbs on every single sword, mace, fist and axe out there.