Assassination Rogue

Classes Rogue
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I want to preface this with I know we aren’t max yet and we don’t have the heroic talents yet and I don’t even have normal raiding experience for this expansion and I don’t have great gear.

That being said I ran a Heroic Dungeon last night and while my AoE damage seemed less my single target dps was higher than it was prior to the patch. Playing also felt smoother right now. I am also doing higher dps than I am simming without all of the buffs in the sim, so I recommend seeing in game what you can do.

After all of the posts I had read I believed rogues were in for a tremendous crash but it’s not that bad.

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You mean to tell me people on the forums might be a touch dramatic sometimes about change?

color me surprised.

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Almost like the issue was never if rogues did dmg. It’s the gameplay that was complained about. And since the only real changes rogue’s got was hero talents and those being bad (again bad doesn’t mean no dmg) not going to make anything better.

Rogue’s have been doing top dmg for long time but the amount of people playing them have been dropping off hard for years any guesses why?

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Because older players have quit WoW and newer players are bad and would rather play faceroll classes like hunters or DH?

Also just looking at the complaints and it is indeed mostly about damage.

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Guess you are talking about the people that just got the prepatch, I was talking to the beta feedback. As the prepatch nothing has really changed overall but few things.

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Yeah that is why I said it isn’t max level and no heroic talents so it’s a very incomplete assessment. I was mainly commenting on how the damage doesn’t seem as bad as some say or how it is simming.

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Yeah it is the game play flow and not the numbers.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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Weird comment since rogue has only gotten more and more complicated and bloated over the years.

What’s actually happening is older players are rerolling away from it to play simpler specs.

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You’re making my argument but limiting the outcome. Older rogues leave WoW in general and new players stay away from rogues because they are bloated and complicated now.

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You’re stating it from a framework of “those darn kids” when the problem is with the class itself.

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I simply stated new players are not playing rogues because they are playing easier classes such as hunter and DH(which is statistically accurate) and old players have left WoW(which is also statistically accurate)

I don’t mean old player as in elderly or new as in young. I only mean by the date in which they started playing.

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It is not the dmg that is the problem of TWW-Assa. It is a miss-design of Deathstalker hero talents that go against logical gameplay and rotation flow.

In the TWW beta feedback thread enough players have given specific feedback (no rants) regarding obvious issues with the new talents but Blizzard just increased the dmg each patch to paint over the problems instead of fixing them…“dmg rules theory” I guess.

You could write an entire page about the glaring problems of Deathstalker that could have been fixed, if Blizzard would really listen to feedback as they always say.

To recap the most problematic issues:

  • Deathstalker’s Mark applying from Ambush: Assa does not use Ambush (apart from Raid/Blindside), especially not in M+. Assa spreads Garrotes and Ruptures during its 6 sec. IC window to ramp up, do dmg and get energy. Wasting a global for Ambush that does nothing for the ramp up rotation is failed design. Taking away Shadow Dance makes it even harder to get an Ambush window to re-apply.

  • Singular Focus: Does not work with Spatter and Sanguine Blades (roughly 20-25% dmg of a whole M+ run). How good is AoE funnel, if it ignores two of our strongest AoE dmg sources to feed into this funnel loop.

  • Lingering Darkness: Cool, we receive +20% nature dmg AFTER we have blown all of our cooldowns where we practically do nothing but noodle dmg. This former tier set bonus was sh*t back then, people told Blizzard and they now double down on it and bring it back as a talent…smh

  • Misunderstanding from where a good rotation comes from: Current dmg tuning and co-relations of FoK with other spec tree talents and hero talents (Thrown Precision, Momentum of Despair) go in a direction where it cloud become a disgusting possibility that we need to use our AoE combo point generator in single target…yay!

The list goes on and on. I am still in strong belief that the hero tree was designed by a dev who normally plays other specs/classes but rogue and was assigned to design Deathstalker due to time constraints…not due to knowledge of how the spec works.

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That doesn’t flow and seems almost nonsensical.

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If these are the most problematic I think we will be fine.

Deathstalker’s mark being applied with ambush is making a big deal out of one GCD. You’ll use it once per pack and get re-applications (if stuff lives that long) on finishers. Target the prio kill target and viola. It’s not that rough.

If it was applied with garrote then honestly whats the point of ambush even being on the bar besides smoothing energy with blindside procs, if you even go that route? Having Mark be applied with a separate button is GOOD. You really want to be redoing your own Mark on something we’d necessarily have to apply to each target? That can’t even work.

It HAS to be on something besides garrote and rupture. Ambush is not only thematically fitting, but works well with the spec given our extended subterfuge timer and the aforementioned blindside procs.

Singular Focus? - Correct. It is a bug that needs fixing.

Lingering Darkness? Yes, it’s not great. But it’s really not what I’d call a “major problem.” It’s boring. It could be better. The end.

Your final point, while valid, seems to be a bit of a slippery slope fallacy of “where will it end?!” Until we are at the point of using aoe builders in single target, I don’t think some scenarios where there is overlap is a dire problem.

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The calculus has not changed for Rogues so far. The problems from DF festered and now are amplified heading into TWW.

Button bloat would not be that big of a concern if several of the talents were better balanced and the base kit for Rogues was strong.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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Assassination was the only rogue spec I played, and they butchered it on prepatch from my perspective.

  • no more shadow dance for indescriminate carnage to re-apply bleeds on tough trash packs
  • no more shadow dance for 50% garrote damage for death mark
  • can no longer use serrated bone spike as a ranged filler ability or to tactically generate combo points
  • crimson tempest does higher dps than rupture (138k damage over 14 seconds vs 138k damage over 24 seconds???)
  • kingsbane still bad design (synergies too strong/mandatory)
  • slice and dice still exists
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I miss shadowdance too. Extra vanishes simply do not cut it in M+

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If these are the most problematic I think we will be fine.

A reasonable view and I agree with you, if we look at rogues, specifically at Assa in isolation. With this pov Assa was fine in BfA, in SL, in DF and will be in TWW. There are quite a few other specs though which have, to use a car analogy, more direct steering, better handling/gearbox/transmission, more torque…for the same price tag.

Deathstalker’s mark being applied with ambush is making a big deal out of one GCD. You’ll use it once per pack and get re-applications (if stuff lives that long) on finishers. Target the prio kill target and viola. It’s not that rough.

Well beta m+ tests have shown that quite many situations during a run come up where you re-apply the mark at a dying mob/pack (e.g. lost 5-7 sec), go in to your opener rotation for the new pack and if timings go wrong you can’t get the capstone in time. So in order to get the capstone you need to alter the optimal opener rotation just to not lose out on the capstone effect.
And I’m not even talking about first boss in Tirna Scithe where you mark the tree which goes immune in intermission and your mark/capstone is being lost. Same with Last boss in necrotic wake when it selects you being sent down.
In essence, the whole mark/capstone design is flawed not taking existing boss mechanics and m+ pack design into account.

It can be argued, if Ambush is the right skill for applying the mark. I think it is problematic as you don’t have many possibilities to access it. Shadow Dance is gone, 2nd Vanish is not being played as pre-requisites Subterfuge is a dead 2-pointer and Soothing Darkness is outright bad for Assa. Three wasted points.
Blindside is an option but unreliable as you don’t know when the proc happens and if you play Bone Spike/bleed build you don’t have Blindside at all.

Singular Focus? - Correct. It is a bug that needs fixing.

Let’s hope so. It is currently not acknowledged as a bug by Blizzard.

Lingering Darkness? Yes, it’s not great. But it’s really not what I’d call a “major problem.” It’s boring. It could be better. The end.

Correct. What does it tell you about the design intent of the dev team, though? “Hey let’s bring back a universally disliked and bad tier-set effect bad instead of designing something worthwhile”.

Your final point, while valid, seems to be a bit of a slippery slope fallacy of “where will it end?!” Until we are at the point of using aoe builders in single target, I don’t think some scenarios where there is overlap is a dire problem.

Last tuning pass from July 31st brought FoK now firmly into ST territory. Before last tuning pass it was “just” a possibility.

My take is that boring, completely passive Fatebound looks more and more appealing than Deathstalker. Current numbers show it within 1% ST dmg margin and already way ahead in m+.

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Great job missing the point. Its 1 gcd added to about 5-7 others needed before youre able to pop cds. Ambush itself isnt even the problem. Its the fact that it has to be your first GCD when we are already constrained from the need to use garrote and ruptures. You realize mutilate/ambush is used already in aoe to keep up Spatter? No one complained about that when Spatter was added. Get with the program.

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I think the tooltip one for crimson tempest is off. It says it does higher damage but my rupture is still hitting twice as hard. Might be a diff story if u have the max target count for it

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