Shadowstep Over Mutilate In European 5v5 Finals, New Heroic Badge Loot Announced For 2.4

I haven't really talked about the 2.4 pre-release notes but there really haven't been anything worth writing about. The one change I noticed was haste rating reducing spell casting global cooldowns, and I really wonder if they can take it a step further and have mind-numbing poison / curse of tongues increase the same GCDs. It would be nice if rogues have a way to deal with instant spams and it would certainly increase the warrior/rogue synergy. I expect warrior/retribution paladin to completely phase out warrior/rogue in 3v3 once more and more paladins get their retribution set. It is a much, much more satisfying style of play for paladins who are sick and tired of being healbots. It is already spreading like wild fire in China (thanks Nick!), with many BG-leading teams playing the set-up, even their 3v3 nationwide tournament (with half of world's WOW population) has top teams using that comp.

On the other hand we will have additional heroic badge loots in 2.4. As much as I hate grinding for badges, any new loot is better than no loot. I am praying for a new trinket to replace bloodlust brooth with, a DPS ring to replace the aging season 2 ring doesn't hurt either. Item level topped out at 136 for Dory's Embrace in 2.3, I am hoping for 141 this time around which will be very close to T6 counterparts.

If you haven't be sure to check out Serennia/Neilyo's quick 2v2 clip. I find it hilarious that they run the exact same comp (shadowstep rogue and 34/0/27 balance druid) and exact same strategies as Jamoro, and have a 90% win rate on their way to top 5 of BG9 the very second day they played the comp. Even if we give Neilyo benefit of the doubt in skill over Jamoro, he doesn't have the sharingan and most definitely doesn't have the warglaives. As good as Serennia is with his warrior, it is hard to imagine his druid being better than Blizp who has been playing the class since the beginning. So with a weaker team they have almost the same winning percentage of Jamoro, is BG9 really as strong as advertised? Looking at the clip they posted I really can't tell the difference between a top 20 BG9 warrior/druid team versus the no-name European BG. You can play the "2v2 is dead on BG9" card but what makes you think people from other BGs play it seriously after all this time?

In any case, the Cyclone 5v5 tournament finally came to an end. ZOM's team managed to get out of the loser bracket with wins over Cherekee's Nihilum, and it was a clash between two European rogue heroes for grand finals. On paper, with a druid on both teams, ZOM's euro-style 53 assassination spec with 12 points in poison should have the edge against abolish poison. In reality, even without a single point in poisons, shadowstep's mobility allowed Adrasill to stick to the warlock much better and took a 2-0 lead in the one bracket people thought mutilate had an edge on shadowstep. A time out later, ZOM went combat maces but perhaps more importantly, his warlock took a page from Kintt's earlier comments on "how to deal with rogue 3DPS teams) and went SL/SL. The increased durability of a SL/SL warlock over felguard allowed ZOM's team to tie it up before losing the final game.

It is pretty amazing that shadowstep is now the best spec for every bracket if you are playing the right comps with it. The increased 8% sustained damage of combat and CB mutilate burst combo do not compare to the superior mobility of shadowstep. There are many, many ways to increase damage and deep subtlety's scalability is tremendous, but mobility (and survivability) is something you can't get anywhere else. Going forward, barring dramatic buffs on combat or mutilate, shadowstep will most likely have at least 60% market share of the top rogues. Shadowstep really opens up a whole world of opportunities that even the 2.3 AR/Prep didn't have.

For people who compared the Cyclone tournament videos to Inactive's 5v5 video, let's just say it is much easier to look good if you play 20 matches and release the one you like the best. If someone ever released the CLC vs Shuttle***** series that triggered Clicker (CLC paladin)'s retirement, especially from Shuttle***** perspective I don't think CLC would look very good at all. Heck even the WSVG tournament matches are considerably lower quality than high rating games played in most battlegroups. There is a huge difference between casual matches with nothing to lose where you can do all kind of fancy stuff without worrying about losing. BG9 was late on 4DPS, 2345 and 2346 comps, perhaps eventually they will catch up to the rogue 3DPS comp that is tearing it up in every BG. Perhaps Serennia/Neilyo with the new SK sponsorship would bring this style of play to BG9?