Assassination rogue - Problem with vanish and deathstalker hero talent

In Development The War Within Patch 11.0.5 PTR
1

I dont know if this is the right place to put this, but, since it’s a change sugestion…

Let me explain.

Deathstalker’s mark is only applied when you’re in stealth mode. If you lose the chance to reapply it with envenom, you have to vanish to gain stealth status to apply it again.

The problem: when you’re in solo fights with delves bosses or legacy raid bosses, the moment you use vanish, the fight, most of the times, just reset. So, to avoid the fight reset, you can’t use vanish, turning most of your hero talents useless for the rest of the fight.

Could you please do something about it?

some suggestions are giving us the choice between vanish and shadow dance in the talent tree, or adding extra conditions outside the stealth for us to apply deathstalker’s mark on targets… =/

thanks in advance.

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2

I don’t think Blizzard wants Vanish to be considered a DPS cooldown, as it likely originally was meant to be a survivability “drop out of combat” button. The fact it can be used offensively in group content feels like they can’t really decide which one it should be.

I think of such mechanic (CD that allows using Stealth abilities) exists for group content, it should be available for solo too. Maybe make Vanish not grant access to Stealth abilities for the duration of improved Stealth it grants, and either grant another CD that enables it in combat or tie it to different CD (spec offensive 2min ones, for example).

3

Just change Deathstalker’s mark to be applied by garrote or Shiv for assassination. Problem of bad design solved.

4

It’s not bad design, as it works well in a lot of situations. The problem lies in prolonged combat with multiple targets switches that does not drop out of combat. Also, if Sub has an alternative way, Sin should too.

There are few simple solutions to fix the issue:

  • Allow any Ambush to apply Deathstalker’s Mark if no target has your Mark applied:
    • This would enable Blindside Ambushes to cover for mistakes.
    • More frequent way to apply the Mark (even than Subtlety), but it’s not a problem anyway since the Mark can be present only on a single target.
  • Allow Kingsbane to also apply Deathstalker’s Mark:
    • Gives another way to apply the Mark with similarly short CD as Shadow Dance for Subtlety.
    • Removes Vanish as the sole way to reapply Mark in combat.
    • Allows for seamless alignment of KB with the Mark for burst DMG.
  • Allow Serrated Bone Spike to also apply Deathstalker’s Mark:
    • Similar to Kingsbane option, but even shorter CD and not tied to capstone ability.

Either would solve issues that are primarily faced in difficult group content such as raids, caused mostly by mistakes that more casual players are more prone to, therefore punishing the general playerbase more.

Darkest Night already covers reapplying the Mark when no mistakes were made, so having easier way to reapply the Mark is not really a big deal.

5

No, its a bad design, because:

  1. it forces assa spec to use Ambush, which isn’t even part of core rotation.
  2. Can’t be applied without stealth, which is another design flaw for assassination.
  3. if your stealth drops, before you attack (which is very often situation in TWW), you’re screwed and whole hero talents are useless, unless you burn out 2 min. vanish cd for that.
  4. Can’t swap targets during combat, unless you burn out 2 min. vanish.
  5. Same issues apply for PvP.
  6. its a bad design for assassination.
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6

Ok, you convinced me, it is a bad design. While I don’t think it is necessarily wrong to make it tied to Ambush (1), but it’s bad if it’s only Ambush from Stealth (2).

Point (3) is indeed a major issue, and while Sub has an alternative to alleviate such mishap, Sin is definitely screwed. Vanish shouldn’t be considered a DPS CD (even if it is a DPS gain), at least not the way Deathstalker’s Mark sees it.

Sin and Sub need to have same access and similar frequency activating the hero keystone talent, and Shadow Dance is effectively usable less than every minute. That’s why I suggested as per my previous post.

Most classes hero talents require certain talents to be picked in their spec trees and it’s fine, so asking Assassination to pick Blindside or Serrated Bone Spike, or at least Kingsbane, should be fine.

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7

The 11.0.5 changes will alleviate some of those Ambush issues as taking Subterfuge would give you an extra 6 seconds to use it, however that still requires taking Subterfuge. Something else that would help is having any Blindside Ambush act as if it was from stealth.

Shadow Dance needs to be put back into the class tree.

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8

Nah, Shadow dance should stay for sub only. Its good it is gone, it was only bandaid for the spec, not solving any problems.

9

You saying this made me realize Deathstalker was designed before class tree was redesigned, when all rogues had Shadow Dance.

I’m gonna guess that Blizzard might have realized that already and are working on a fix, question is if they can release it with 11.0.5. Unfortunately, development takes time and effort, so I would’t keep my hopes up, same as I lost his Demon Hunters will see their due rework before 11.1 or even later…

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