World of Warcraft: Forever Class Deep Dives — Rogue and Warlock

Rogue: Every Advantage Counts

Rogues excel at creating opportunities and turning them into decisive advantages. These updates give them more ways to prepare for an encounter, adapt once combat begins, and shape a build around the methods that suit them best.

Baseline Abilities

• Poisons
  • Charges increased on all poisons.
  • Poisons can now be applied to weapons at the same time as temporary enchantments like Weightstones and Sharpening Stones.
• Feint: Threat reduction doubled.
• Sap: Using this ability no longer breaks Stealth.
  We want Rogues to have a crowd control benefit they can provide to parties and raids that requires their unique skills to set up (Stealth, Distract, etc.) but which can be used tactically when there are too many monsters in a group to be safely tanked.
• Distract: This ability now also causes affected enemies to have reduced Stealth detection for 10 seconds. However, this debuff also means player enemies will now know there is a Rogue nearby to look for.
• Expose Armor: Armor reduction increased to match the armor reduction caused by 5 applications of Sunder Armor at approximately the same level.
  Expose Armor no longer prevents Sunder Armor from being used on a target, but Sunder Armor will still not overwrite Expose Armor, unless its effect is weaker. This allows Warriors to generate threat from Sunder Armor without Expose Armor interfering.
• Axes: Rogues can now learn to equip one-handed axes. This increase in itemization choices lets us make a more diverse offering of weapons and know that Rogues will still benefit. Rogues as an archetype include brigands and outlaws, who often make use of axes in fantasy and medieval storytelling.

Talents

Assassination

• Improved Gouge: Moved to row 1 of Assassination from Combat.
• Remorseless Attacks: Now also affects Mutilate.
• Malice: Now increases your critical strike chance with all attacks and Poisons, instead of just melee attacks.
• Murder: Now also applies to Giants but no longer applies to Beasts and Dragonkin.
• Improved Expose Armor: (Redesigned.) No longer increases the effectiveness of Expose Armor, instead reduces the Energy cost of Expose Armor and Expose Armor now refunds Combo Points when used with 5 Combo Points.
• Lethality: Now also applies to Mutilate. Bonus to critical damage also lowered some.
• Cold Blood: Moved from 21-point gold medal talent to 16-point gold medal talent. Now also applies to Mutilate.
• Improved Poisons: Now also grants a large chance for Poisons not to consume charges when triggered. We want Assassination to be a Poison-focused playstyle, so this helps their Poisons last much longer without needing to be reapplied.
• Vigor: Now a 2-point talent on row 5 instead of the 31-point gold medal talent. Same total effect.
• Mutilate: (New 21-point gold medal talent.) This 60 Energy Combo ability strikes with both hands as weapon damage from each weapon, but both must be daggers. This damage is increased against Poisoned targets and awards 2 Combo Points. Each hand has a chance to trigger various procs.
• Improved Kidney Shot: The increased damage from this talent now applies only to your own attacks and Poisons.
• Seal Fate: No longer requires Cold Blood as a pre-requisite. Note that Mutilate will trigger this exactly once if either or both hands generates a critical strike.
• Venom: New 31-point gold medal talent. This new 25 Energy Finisher ability grants 30% increased damage to your Poisons and 10% increased chance to apply Poisons. Duration determined by number of Combo Points spent. Our expectation is that Assassination focuses its finishers on maintaining Venom and Slice and Dice, and damaging finishers like Rupture and Eviscerate are a lower priority. Other Rogue builds would put more emphasis on those damaging Finishers.

Combat

• Improved Eviscerate: Moved to row 1 from Assassination . Damage bonus increased.
• Puncturing Wounds: (Formerly Improved Backstab.) Now also increased Mutilate damage but a lesser percentage, and gives Backstab a chance to grant an additional Combo Point.
• Deflection: Now grants twice as much Parry chance per point.
• Precision: Now increases chance to hit with all spells and attacks, including Poisons, instead of just melee weapon attacks.
• Endurance: Now reduces Sprint and Evasion cooldown by a percentage, resulting in a larger total reduction for both.
• Flawless Execution: New 16-point gold medal talent. Reduces the Energy cost of Eviscerate by 10.
• Dual Wield Specialization: Increase to off-hand damage reduced.
• Hack and Slash: This new row 5 talent combines the benefits of the removed talents Dagger Specialization, Mace Specialization, Sword Specialization, and Fist Weapon Specialization, and also adds a bonus for Axes. Axes gain the same benefit as Swords, a chance to make an extra attack. The bonus for Maces causes attacks to ignore some of the target's armor, rather than provide a chance to Stun.
• Weapon Expertise: (Redesigned.) Now reduces the chance for a target to Dodge or Parry your attacks.
• Aggression: Now also increases Backstab damage. We wanted the Combat specialization to support a Backstab-oriented build as well as a Sinister Strike-oriented build. So, this and several other talents gained more Backstab support.

Removed talents: Dagger Specializaton, Mace Specialization, Sword Specialization, Fist Weapon Specialization have all been subsumed into the new talent Hack and Slash.

Subtlety

• Camouflage: Moved from row 2 up to row 1.
• Master of Deception: Reduced from 5 talent points to 3 talent points for the same effect. The tooltip has been clarified to state the exact impact of the improvement to Stealth.
• Opportunity: Now also affects Mutilate.
• Setup: Chance to trigger increased so that 3 points grants 100% chance.
• Dirty Tricks: Formerly Improved Sap. Moved from row 4 up to row 2. (Redesigned.) Sap never breaks Stealth now baseline. Instead, this talent reduces the Energy cost of Sap and Blind by a substantial amount.
• Improved Ambush: Moved from row 3 to row 2.
• Initiative: Chance for this to activate increased so that it has a 100% chance with 3 talent points.
• Ghostly Strike: Percentage damage done increased while a Dagger is equipped instead of another weapon.
• Improved Distract: (New row 3 talent.) Increases the radius of effect of your Distract, and Distracted enemies now suffer an increased penalty to their Stealth detection.
• Heightened Senses: Moved from row 5 up to row 4. Tooltip clarified to describe the exact effect of the increased Stealth detection.
• Premeditation: Moved from 31-point gold medal talent to 16-point gold medal talent. Duration increased to 20 seconds.
• Serrated Blades: Now ignores a specific percentage of your target's armor, instead of a flat value-rising per level.
• Dirty Deeds: Now also allows Garrote to be used when not behind your target.
• Hemorrhage: Percentage damage done increased while a Dagger is equipped instead of another weapon. Now also increases your Rupture damage to the target for 15 seconds.
• Quietus: (New row 6 talent.) Pre-requisite Dirty Deeds. Your Sinister Strike, Ghostly Strike, and Hemorrhage abilities cause more damage to targets below 35% health.
  We wanted the Subtlety tree to support playstyles with both Sinister Strike and Backstab, so this talent supports the Sinister Strike oriented build.
• Cutthroat: (New row 6 talent.) Your Backstab has a chance to cause your next Ambush to not require Stealth.
  This talent supports the Backstab oriented build as well as creating an exciting alternate flow where Ambush can be used during combat.
• Thousand Cuts: New 31-point gold medal talent. Each time Rupture deals damage, the Energy cost of your next Hemorrhage or Backstab ability is reduced by 3 Energy, stacking up to 5 times.

Removed talents: Sleight of Hand, Deadliness.

Rogues remain the masters of Stealth, with unique abilities useable from Stealth like Pickpocket, Distract, Sap, and Garrote. They alone have access to Poisons and can now use them alongside temporary weapon enchantments. However, different varieties of Rogues specialize in different weapons and tactics. Assassination specializes in daggers and buffing themselves with Finishing moves. Combat and Subtlety have support for all weapon types, with Combat focusing on hard hitting direct damage and little bit of cleave damage with Sweeping Strikes, and Subtlety focusing on combat tricks and Bleeds. Whichever specialization they choose, Rogues are welcome in any party or raid for their Stealth and control abilities, as well as the highest potential single-target melee damage in the game.

Warlock: Power at Any Price

Warlocks bend forbidden powers to their will, turning every resource-from lingering afflictions to bound demons-into another means of defeating their enemies. These updates broaden how they manage those powers and create new connections among their spells, pets, and specialized tools.

Baseline Abilities

• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom are now Banes. Only one Bane can be active per Warlock on a single target. All effects that interacted with Curses now also interact with Banes.
• Curse of the Elements now applies to all magic damage.
• Curse of Shadows removed.
• Firestone and Spellstone now apply Weapon Imbues, that can be stacked with other temporary enchantments like Wizard Oil. Firestone grants increased Fire damage and critical strike chance. Spellstone grants increased Shadow damage and spell haste.
• Life Tap now scales with Spirit, and the amount of Mana from Spirit is correctly stated in its tooltip.
• Drain Soul now has a progressive chance per tick to grant a Soul Shard (chance increases each time it doesn't happen, until guaranteed).
• Pets now scale from their summoner's stats.

Talents

Affliction

• Convection: Now also reduces the Mana cost of Lava Burst.
• Concussion: No longer applies to Frost Shock or Flame Shock.
• Reverberation: Moved from row 3 up to row 2.
• Call of Flame: Now also increases the damage done by Flame Shock, Fire Nova, and Lava Burst.
• Elemental Devastation: Moved from row 4 up to row 2. This talent is intended primarily as a reason to entice Enhancement Shaman into spending points on Elemental talents, and so was made more accessible.
• Elemental Focus: Chance to trigger reduced when casting low rank spells.
• Elemental Alacrity: (Formerly Lightning Mastery.) Moved from row 6 up to row 3. Now requires only 3 points for maximum rank and reduces the cast time of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by only 0.5 seconds at max rank but also reduces the cast time of Lava Burst. This talent was both very deep in the tree previously, making it unavailable to Shaman leveling up, and was twice as strong as similar talents with other classes, causing a spell power scaling problem. To account for this, its potency was reduced and it was moved much earlier in the tree.
• Improved Fire Nova: (Formerly Improved Fire Totems. Redesigned.) Now increases Fire Nova's damage and reduces its cooldown.
• Eye of the Storm: (Redesigned.) This talent now grants resistance against spell pushback from damage while casting Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Lava Burst. Formerly it was only effective after being hit with a critical strike. This talent was previously only really useful in PvP. It is now useful broadly in the game.
• Call of Thunder: Moved from the row 3 down to row 4, and now has Elemental Alacrity as a pre-requisite. This talent is now the 16-point gold medal talent, granting 3% increased critical strike chance to Lighting Bolt and Chain Lightning.
• Elemental Reach: Now also increases the range of Fire Nova and Lava Burst by up to 6 yards and increases the range of Flame Shock by up to 15 yards.
• Lighting Overload: This new row 5 talent grants a chance for every cast of Lightning Bolt or Chain Lighting to instantly cast a second copy of that spell at no Mana cost but for half damage and no threat.
• Earthbound: This new 21-point gold medal talent causes Earthbind Totem to instantly immobilize nearby targets for 5 seconds when cast.
• Elemental Fury: Moved from row 5 down to row 6 and requires Call of Thunder as a pre-requisite.
• Lava Burst: This new 31-point gold medal talent grants the Lava Burst spell. This 2.5 second cast spell deals Fire damage to a target, increased by 20% if the target is afflicted by your Flame Shock. 10 second cooldown.

Removed talents: None.

Demonology

• Improved Imp: No longer effects its Blood Pact spell.
• Demonic Embrace: No longer reduces your Spirit.
• Unholy Power: Moved from row 4 up to row 1 and damage bonus to pets decreased.
• Improved Health Funnel: Moved from row 2 up to row 1. Health transfer bonus increased and now also reduces the threat your Health Funnel generates by up to 100%. Also allows Health Funnel to be used regardless of your demon's health.
• Demonic Aegis: (New row 2 talent.) Increases the effectiveness of your Demon Skin and Demon Armor spells by up to 30%.
• Fel Vitality: (New row 2 talent.) Increases the maximum health and Mana of your Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Incubus, and Felhunter by up to 15% and increases your maximum Mana by up to 15%.
• Demonic Energies: (New row 2 talent.) You heal your pet for up to 15% of all spell damage you deal. When you gain Mana from Life Tap, your summoned demon gains up to 100% of the mana you gain.
• Fel Domination: Now the 16-point gold medal talent and requires Master Summoner as a pre-requisite.
• Master Summoner moved from row 4 up to row 3.
• Demonic Sacrifice: (Redesigned) Now the 11-point gold medal talent. Sacrifice effects last 2 hours and effects from each sacrifice have shifted around: Imp increases Shadow damage, Voidwalker restores mana, Succubus/Incubus increase fire damage and Felhunter restores Health.
• Decimation: (New row 4 talent.) Reduces the cooldown of your Soul Fire spell by up to 90%. When you cast Shadow Bolt or Searing Pain on an enemy below 35% health, they deal increased damage and your Soul Fire spell for the next 10 seconds has its cast time reduced by up to 40% and costs no Soul Shards.
• Demonic Brand: (New row 4 talent.) Your Searing Pain generates less threat and brands the target, causing your pet's next 2 attacks to deal Fire or Shadow damage depending on the pet. If using Shadow damage, it is high threat.
  We made a recent change to the threat component, so a non-tanking pet like the Warlock's Imp does not gain extra threat, but a tanking-oriented pet like the Voidwalker does.
• Soul Link moved from row 7 up to row 5.
• Improved Felhunter: (New row 5 talent. Increase the Attack Power reduction of your Felhunter's Tainted Blood, the healing of its Devour Magic, and the detection level of its Paranoia by 10% and reduce the cooldown of its Spell Lock by 2 seconds.
• Soul Link: Now the 21-point gold medal talent instead of the 31-point.
• Demonic Knowledge: (New row 5 talent. Increases your spell damage and your Demon pet's spell damage by up to 33% of your level while you have a summoned Demon pet active.
• Master Demonologist redesigned: Bonuses provided by each pet changed. Imp increases Fire damage done, Voidwalker reduces Physical damage taken, Succubus/Incubus Increases Shadow damage done and Felhunter reduces Magic damage taken.
• Demonic Pact: New 31-point gold medal talent. Requires Soul Link. Your Demonic Sacrifice effect is no longer cancelled by summoning a different pet. Resummoning the sacrificed pet will still cancel the effect.
  This exciting new talent allows Warlocks for the first time to benefit from Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist at the same time. How a Demonologist Warlock decides to stack these two effects will have a large impact on their combat abilities.

Removed talents: Improved Healthstone, Fel Intellect, Fel Stamina, Improved Subjugate Demon, Improved Firestone, Improved Spellstone.

Destruction

• Destructive Reach: Moved from row 4 up to row 1. Now applies to all damaging spells, not just Destruction spells. This talent now benefits every Warlock specialization and is in easy reach of them all in the first row.
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Now only applies to your own Shadow damage but no longer has charges that can be consumed.
• Bane: Moved from row 2 to row 1. Now also applies to Incinerate.
• Cataclysm: Moved from row 1 down to row 2 and now reduces mana cost of your Destruction spells by up to 10%.
• Molten Skin: (New row 2 talent) Reduces all damage taken by up to 10%.
• Aftermath: (Redesigned) Increases the initial damage of your Immolate spell by up to 50% and your Conflagrate spell has up to 100% chance to Daze the target, reducing the target's movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds.
• Ruin moved from row 5 up to row 3 and is now a 5-point talent for the same effect. This makes it more accessible for Demonology and hybrid builds that would benefit.
• Agonizing Flames: (Formerly Improved Searing Pain) Now only 3 talent points. Increases the damage of all of your Destruction spells in addition to increasing the critical strike chance of your Searing Pain.
• Conflagrate: Moved from row 7 up to row 4. Now the 16-point gold medal talent.
• Intensity: Now a 3-point talent instead of 2 and gives resistance to cast time loss from taking damage to all Destruction spells, not just Rain of Fire, Hellfire, and Soulfire.
• Pyroclasm: Wording improved to make effect more clear.
• Fire and Brimstone: (New row 5 talent) Requires Conflagrate. Increases the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate.
• Bane of Havoc: (New 21-point gold medal talent) Afflicts the target for 5 minutes causing 15% of all damage done by the Warlock to other targets to also be dealt to the cursed target. Limited to 1 target and only one Bane per Warlock can be active on any one target.
• Shadow and Flame: New row 6 talent.) Hitting an enemy with Conflagrate increases all Shadow damage you deal for 20 seconds and hitting an enemy with Shadowburn increases all Fire damage you deal for 20 seconds. In addition, Conflagrate has up to 100% chance to not consume Immolate and Shadowburn has up to 100% chance to instantly refund a Soul Shard.
• Incinerate: (New 31-point gold medal talent.) Requires Bane of Havoc. Deals Fire damage to your target and an additional 25% damage if the target is afflicted by Immolate. 2.5 seconds cast, 30-yard range.

Removed talents: Improved Firebolt, Improved Lash of Pain, Devastation, Improved Immolate, Emberstorm.

Warlocks are gaining new exciting combat options for WoW: Forever. With Affliction, they can concentrate on damage-over-time and draining effects, now with full viability from dealing critical strikes and competitive damage, and with the ability to sustain their own health via powerful health draining effects. With Demonology, they can specialize in empowering themselves and their pet in all new ways with Demonic Brand, Demonic Knowledge, and Demonic Pact, keeping foes focused on their pet while they decimate the enemy with Soul Fire. And with Destruction, they can now mix powerful Shadowburns and Conflagrates with the new Incinerate spell, and the new Bane of Havoc allowing them to continue damage on a primary target while dealing with lesser foes. Warlocks are still physically weak themselves, depending on their demon pets for protection, but they now do damage to compete with any other spellcaster, with three completely different styles to conduct that competition.