Blizzard increased player health and enemy damage by 25% to [checks notes] basically nerf healing by 25%. That’s a very round-about way to do it.
Blizzard, if you’re going to do this, then stop making DPS cooldowns so friggin’ mandatory or unavoidable in terms of talent tree pathing. Many hero talent specs have at least one talent that is rendered completely worthless if the player doesn’t pick up their major DPS cooldown. Though otherwise, I’d be glad if build options without a major DPS cooldown became viable across all DPS classes/specs.
Thistle Tea expanding into a choice node (auto vs. manual) is an improvement.
Atrophic Poison buffs are appreciated, though minor.
Dragon-Tempered Blades is now more mandatory for Assassination.
Assassination energy regen doesn’t look like it’ll get much better, mostly just different.
Outlaw feels like it’s moving in the opposite direction from everyone else (DPS cooldowns more important).
Subtlety energy regen was the best of the 3 specs, so it got nerfed.
I have given enough time to think about this and also did some testing here is what I found.
Thistle Tea as a choice node is a MAJOR victory for the Rogue community. It really opens up flexibility for players to choose between what they want or prefer.
Atrophic buffs are more than minor in certain situations which is situational but still a buff and a W because it means it is on their radar to improve Rogue tool. Two thumbs up here too.
DTB I agree that you can not really play without like Outlaw and Loaded Dice they are too integral to the core of the specs.
On the PTR I have tested Assassination energy is actually very good in multi target situations. That is why it led to a nerf to a situational talent like Blindside on the PTR as well in conjunction with the buff to energy.
I agree that Outlaw is going in the wrong direction with damage profiel, but that is why I suspect Kspree 2.0 is going to have its damage nerfed to be in line with other specs for patch 12.1 specs and classes. And Outlaw’s damage profile will be smoothed out to be stronger outside of CDs and RTB buffs. That would be the best case scenario and very likely with how tuning is going for other Rogue specs and classes.
Sub energy is still the best on the PTR between the three, but they had to dial down the energy to put into the framework of where they want Sub to go if Lingering Darkness is to be a core aspect. That is to be determined along with Goremaw’s bite. Also, the current WoW team really like the pooling aspect of game play but for pooling to really matter is that the damage numbers of abilities outside of CDs need to be increased IMVHO!
Increased player health and NPCS health just means for PVE Sub can not rely on using Dance+Secret Tech +shadowblades for short encounters and must rely on non Dance windows too.
Assassination has no problem dealing with increased health of NPCs due to the nature of poisons and bleeds. Downside is that Assassination heavily relies on Leeching poison to keep afloat as it still does not have the energy economy to consistently use Feint (Elusiveness talent).
Outlaw Rogue like Assassination has no problem dealing with increased health of NPCs due to how the spec is designed. And with Sanguine Vial and use of Feint (Elusivness) and increased HP from talent it comes out the best spec on the PTR right now for small encounters in PVE and PVP.
Good post by the way and you are a valued member of the Rogue community.
you want them to design specs without cds. i feel like you never understood the point of talent trees and instead bought into the “100% customizable!! and viable” larp they paraded in DF
this is a good thing. also not really because outlaw is still a consistent damage specs because its “cd” has cdr reduction to get them more often.
To be fair, Outlaw was never meant to have spec defining DPS Cool Downs since it has CD Reduction, so it’s going in the right direction.
Might be going a little bit sideways, though; I don’t think the buffs to Ambush and its connected talents are really going to shift current talent choices. Killing Spree definitely will since it has teeth now (though it STILL doesn’t prioritize damage) and takes advantage of Super Charger (FINALLY).
