Rogue changes from WotLK beta

Well the Alpha has closed and people have been sent beta keys and as of writing this, I haven't received mine. However the patch notes for the beta have been published all over t'internet so let's have a look at the Rogue changes.

• Blade Twisting (Combat) now cause all damaging melee attacks to have a 10% chance to daze for 4/8 seconds.
• Deadened Nerves (Assassination) now reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Fleet Footed (Assassination) now reduces duration of movement impairing effects by 25/50% rather than increasing resist chance.
• Gouge is now only 1 rank and causes damage based on attack power.
• Kick is now only 1 rank and no longer causes damage.
• Nerves of Steel (Combat) now reduces the duration of all Stun and Fear effects by 15/30%.
• Pick Lock and Disarm Trap no longer require Thieve's Tools.
• Premeditation (Subtlety) duration increased to 20 seconds.
• Riposte (Combat) now slows the target's melee attacks by 20% instead of disarming them.
• Setup (Subtlety) chance to gain a combo point increased to 33/66/100%.
• Vanish no longer requires the reagent Flash Powder.
• Vile Poisons (Assassination) reduced to 3 ranks, now increases damage of poisons and Eviscerate by 7/14/20% and increases dispel resistance by 10/20/30%.

My initial reaction is that they're pretty underwhelming. The changes to Gouge and Kick seem interesting, Kick never really did a huge amount of damage, critting for just over 100+ and the damage increase to Gouge is interesting but looks to be a PvP change again rather than something that'll be used during raiding. Having thought about it though, it will be good to be able to go and interrupt a caster mob in a dungeon without stealing aggro using Kick.

The change to Vile Poisons should really read Envenom which ties in with the talent found in the talent tree found at wowhead, and is appears to be the big change for PvE and a key part of the build I reckon will be used once Crash hit's level 80. Other than that the rest of the talent changes have more of a PvP feel to them.

The really big changes appear to be the lack of reagent for Vanish and no need to carry Thieves Tools around to open lock boxes, doors and disarm traps. Now in my levelling up to 70 I have used disarm trap once in Blood Furnace but lock boxes and doors have been a staple part of my roguery and having a set of tools to do this seemed appropriate. The extra bag slot will come in handy but it will be slightly sad to have to get rid of something I was given whilst questing in Ghostlands all those levels ago. Having flash powder was never a problem when using the Hemlock addon which automated the purchasing of said reagent every time I visited a poison vendor.

Having seen some of the big changes that other classes have coming for them in the patch notes, we can only hope that there are some more exciting PvE related changes coming for us sneaky poisoners.