As this ptr cycle is coming to a close, I wanted to ask just a very basic question: what is the current design direction, if any, that is intended for subtlety? It’s been something looming in the wake of the initial blue post stating that the game is moving in a direction of shifting damage out of cooldowns and into the base kit, but that was subtlety’s major identity. Having flexible cooldown use to allocate damage where it was most meaningful, which was a fun and engaging gameplay niche. After seeing the changes that actually ended up increasing our resource generation during Shadow Dance, I just really don’t understand how subtlety fits the stated goal. We’re also entirely bereft of any communication about any of the changes made or design goals, besides the saying they’re aiming to reduce overcapping resources during cooldown windows which they ended up not doing anyways, and we’ll still be overcapping them. The spec has no strength or niche going into season 2, and just feels a bit aimless in terms of what Blizzard actually wants subtlety to be.
For next season it’s been kneecapped in single target (its previous strength) from the targeted 8% aura nerf and tangential Venomous Heart of Ula’tek trinket nerf, has some of if not THE worst low-target cleave in the game going into the upcoming raid which is also problematic as there are more of fights featuring that profile than in season 1, requires high-duration, high-target aoe to not even stand out among aoe specs, leaving it with really no real niche/identity/parity with other dps. It feels like its been slowly left to wither on the vine while other specs get clear, concise changes that establish what they’re supposed to be and are made to be actually good at.
We’ve been essentially aura nerfed into obscurity after the initial testing, and we were propped up by the pre-nerf omega strong 1.5min Venomous Heart trinket in the first place, so the context of that nerf was also just missed entirely. The only positive tuning the spec has gotten the entirety of this ptr cycle was the 125% Goremaw’s buff this week, which leaves it still as an overall mediocre/underwhelming ability, and subtlety laughably behind in an already-melee-unfriendly, notably low-target-cleave-prevalent raid tier.
Goremaw’s Bite was changed into a forced-take talent because our Tier Set-enabled talent Lingering Shadow is locked behind it; this ability now has an initial damage component, a 14-second bleed, and funnels 20% (actually less because the way it batches damage causes some of it to just not funnel) of all finisher damage during the duration into the 1-3 targets hit. Same 45 second cooldown, and ends up being a ~5% damage talent in single target and a bit more in aoe (depending on target count for finisher funnel).
If this was meant to make our low-target cleave competitive, it is woefully inept at doing so. It also encourages some potentially very cringe/griefing gameplay to try and aim it at only one target to avoid splitting the funneled damage, and you can be absolutely sure that will be taken advantage of if it isn’t addressed. The range is quite large, so even trying to get it to target one mob will be a huge pain, and you can’t really control which 3 which is another annoyance. Please, please do something with subtlety’s base kit to improve low-target cleave (and for rogue in general, its exceptionally poor at it if not the worst in the game as subtlety was on Paladins this raid tier), and just have Goremaw’s be the initial hit and bleed, with finishers either buffing the strength or increasing the duration of the bleed. A 45sec CD, 12sec duration ability that is tuned the way it is is just too poor if its meant to be even remotely competitive with something like Sweeping Strikes/Destro Havoc.
Going into Midnight, an emphasis was placed on Shadow Clones via our Apex Talents, as well as a few reworked spec tree talents; this was a very cool idea, and had some amazing potential to really build out the spec into something wholly unique, interesting, and rife with possible gameplay or damage profile implications. If you’d have told me the spec that can summon a multitude of Shadow Clones would be the worst spec in the game at attacking a few targets at once, I’d have a really hard time understanding why that would be a design decision. If you’d have told me that the spec that was previously able to flexibly shift its cooldowns to fit different fight timers would be stuck aligning everything to an ability whose cooldown is entirely dictated by haste (Secret Technique), I’d have a really hard time understanding why that would be a design decision. If you would have told me that the Hero Talent that made the spec competitive in cleave (Nimble Flurry) was going to be absolutely gutted going into the first season and undercut the spec’s cleave and aoe damage and leave it fending for scraps in those instances, I’d have a really hard time understanding that design decision.
It just really feels like design is a bit aimless and lacking when it comes to subtlety, and a very, very large amount of that frustration comes from a very, very obvious lack of development time and care allocated to it. This is not the first time a PTR cycle has come and gone and things are left in a state of what feels like abandonment. Goremaw’s Bite was changed 23 days ago as of this post, and it still has every single bug that it had when this version debuted. It still doesn’t properly funnel, it still acts as a builder (since its previous iteration was) and it can consume Shadow Techniques stacks to proc an Apex clone (even though the dev in Discord specifically reacted to my post saying that it couldn’t!)). Bugs are often in a state of being fixed on either retail or PTR but version merging causes them to persist, but other specs get notes weekly fixing the same kinds of issues, and get additional notes stating what’s on the docket for them or how Blizzard feels about their performance, design, etc. Its really hard not to ask “Why Not Me” but at this point, why really bother?
It all culminates in a feeling of just a general lack of development interest in one of the specs in the consistently lowest-player-population classes for quite a few years now.