#46 - Aug. 15, 2009, 4:27 p.m.
It's hard for me to imagine this is really out of the blue.
We sat on a change for awhile because we hoped FoK spam was a flavor-of-the-month thing. We thought there was a chance the community would come up with a way to counter it, and since it's pretty much a one-trick pony, there would be no reason to keep trying it. The community absolutely comes up with counters on its own -- the answer to every new strategy should not immediately be for us to nerf it. We also hoped the resilience changes would chill out the damage enough that rogues would stop pursuing FoK spam. That doesn't seem to be happening.
It is a nerf in PvE, but honestly it's probably a nerf that was also needed. We wanted to give rogues some AE damage, and we were okay with the big numbers for a long time because they were big when fights were short, but not as good over longer AE fights. (Protip: AE doesn't just equal trash these days.) Few people would argue that rogue single-target dps on most fights isn't amazing ("jaw-dropping"? ;) ). As long as rogues can still contribute meaningfully to AE fights, which they will be able to do, they shouldn't be in any danger of being sidelined.
It's possible some select fights, notably Yogg 0, may be too difficult without the interrupt, but the encounter designers are prepared to make changes accordingly, and everyone will have access to better gear in the new raid tier anyway.
I asked a rogue in our guild if she thought Blizzard would nerf Fan. She said "They probably need to, but it was fun while it lasted."
The greatest casualty is probably the loss of so many FoKing puns.
