GOMTV Named Season 3 Grand Finals Video: Button Basher In Action! PTR 10835: Deadly Poison Change Won't Save Rogues From 344 DPS Legendary Two-Hander's

Video Link: http://ch.gomtv.com/407/26729/329238/4

Requires Internet Explorer and installaton of GOMTV plug-in, and yes you have to sit through some Korean ads as well, well worth the effort however!  Keep in mind the format is a mix of 1v1/3v3.  You can go to the 47 minute mark to skip intros.

The red hot Button Bashers aka HON, fresh off their super impressive MLG Anaheim victory fought fellow Koreans at GOMTV season 3 finals.  Unfortunately for them, they ran into a very unique team of protection warrior/retribution paladin/restoration druid in the grand finals.  

Game 1, the protection warrior sat on Orange most of the times, but BB demonstrated the same clean crisp swaps from MLG Anaheim, from druid to warrior to paladin, given the amount of survivability their opponent has, and Orange shut down most of the game by the protection warrior, it is amazing how much damage pressure they dished out.  Numberone continued to dish out heavy damage as priest and they finally brought down the paladin to go up 1-0.

Game 2 was 1v1 format with Orange as mage against opponent's feral druid (keep in mind GOMTV does not allow healer specs for its 1v1's).  By taking advantage of pillars, instant cyclones and of course unlimited snare breaks, the feral druid simply turtled whenever Oranged popped his water elementals.  Orange was forced to fight 1v1 and the feral druid was just too hard to get away from.  Series tied 1-1.

Game 3 was 3v3 again this time on Nagrand, the protection warrior and retribution paladin put out more pressure on the priest this time around to stop his damage, and both turtled better.  BB did the same amazing swaps and kept the warrior at 10% for a very long time, but a protection warrior is just too difficult to kill.  Orange eventually ran out of mana and died.  BB down 1-2.

Game 4 saw the super impressive rogue hero Hiren taking on the same feral druid who defeated Orange earlier.  Arena rules with feral druid having access to water + shadow sight, rogue without food, it is supposed to be impossible to win against a feral with instant cyclone.  Yet Hiren played so well with his keep aways, never got shouted out once, always landed his saps whenever the druid tried to grab shadow sight, bandaged behind LOS at perfect angles to avoid fairy fire, he managed to force a draw from one of the best feral druids out there as time ran out!  He even had the momentum advantage when the match ended.  Koreans have amazing internet connections, some of Hiren's surgical precision moves would be impossible with American pings.  Score still 1-2, from here all matches will be 3v3.

Game 5 was on Dalaran again and played similar to previous matches.  Protection warrior sat on Orange and really annoyed the hell out of him but BB caught the retribution paladin with a beautiful swap when he popped wings and brought him down.  Orange was at low mana but they had just enough left in the tank to win.  Series tied 2-2.

Final match on Dalaran again, as good as Orange is at avoiding insane beast cleave damage from X6, against the constant harassment of protection warrior he just couldn't get much hard casts going.  Long game and he went out of mana in the end, and down for the count.  Still a very good performance for Button Bashers but I think this protection warrior / retribution paladin and restoration druid should have no problem beating beast cleave and pretty much any comp that relies on sheer early pressure.  BB loses in a thrilling 2-3 series.

PTR 10835: Deadly Poison Change Won't Save
Rogues From 345 DPS Legendary

After watching BB losing to heavy armor, it was clear that as amazing as Hiren is, he just can't do enough damage to a heavy armor team like warrior/paladin/druid.  Blizzard gave rogues a superb PVE change with improved poison now offering 20% chance to proc deadly poison, up from 10%, and deadly poison procs at max stack now proc poison from the other weapon (instant or wound)!

Fully talented, a rogue will have 50% chance to proc deadly poison off a 1.4 offhand, and off envenom procs it goes up to 65%.  Cheap shot to kidney, spare combo points on slice and dice and you should be able to get 5 stack deadly in no time.  From there the target is taking 1200 damage from deadly poison every 3 seconds, your offhand deadly will now proc wound poison damage, throw in the big envenoms and we will finally do respectable damage against plate.  It should give rogue/affliction lock/shaman a nice boost although I would argue heavy armor was never that team's problem to begin with.

The new 44/2/25 spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0ecoIgoirR0uZ0bZebfbc0db

And remember, against hunter armor and above, a single stack of deadly poison allows envenom to outdamage eviscerate at equivalent combo points.

Of course, Blizzard can easily change their mind and make this a PVE only buff by limiting deadly poison proccing other poisons at max stack to instant poison only.  Although given how combat relies on wound poison, they will probably leave it as is.  To be fair, against druid/shaman teams it will be very hard to maintain 5 stacks considering how much you will be kited/cced.  The buff to improved poisons alone should give envenom the edge over eviscerate for good, as the biggest problem I had with full time envenom 44/2/25 was lack of deadly poison procs when I really needed it. 

Heavy plate teams are not that common these days compared to wizard cleave so this is not the huge PVP buff that makes rogues imbalanced, but it will finally make 44/2/25 the definitive spec.  I remember when no one wanted to use shadowstep, and Blizzard buffed it again and again and again until it became THE spec.  The same thing is happening to envenom here.  It was $hit, now it is the $hit.

Considering 3.3 will come out before season 7 ends, I am wondering if there may be an alternative to RMP for rogues looking for gladiator titles.  My rogue/ret/priest team is seriously feeling the ceiling right now, and watching Furious Gladiator Euneek out of gladiator range with this comp pains me.  They tried the ultimate rushdown rogue in Enforcer and even his sideway keyboard couldn't prevent a 100 point drop.

I don't have access to a quality mage or warlock who would choose rogue over wizard cleave at the moment, and it is really late in the season to make much roster changes.  I will see if I can find a quality feral but most likely I will have to stick to the same comp rest of the way.

Of course, none of this will matter once we are up against 344 DPS 2 handers.  I sincerely hope this requires beating Arthas on hard mode, difficulty equivalent of Yogg +0.  To be fair, the season 8 two-hands will be around 318 DPS, the legendary here is the equivalent of season 9 weapon with a crazy proc.  Imagine TSG with two of these?