DF Rogue Sub and Assa Talent Trees Feedback

Classes Rogue
1

Hi,

I’ve compiled a list of suggestions for the Rogue and Subtlety trees. You can more easily view them at the following links:

Rogue Tree : https://i.imgur.com/KbtNhKz.png
Subtlety Tree : https://i.imgur.com/Vpz2U02.png
Assassination Tree : https://i.imgur.com/NQHjgh5.png

I have created a calculator in excel so I can play around with them, it is crude but works fine. You can see the entire file here and even download it to play around with it : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eA7lvNdiESH_9CaOmC8R0uDbVE7FAV2-/view?usp=sharing

There is of course a lot of room for tuning, but the overall idea is to provide more diversity and less forced choices. This is an opportunity to see many removed abilities return.

For those who prefer walls of text, here goes:

Rogue Tree Notes:

  1. Evasion, Blind and Cloak of Shadows on the first row. Garrote on the first row as prerequisite for Evasion is bad for Sub and Outlaw.
  2. Rupture and Slice and Dice not baseline anymore. Slice and Dice nerfed to not be absolutely required. Death From Above added and buffed to provide a burst alternative to Rupture/Slice and Dice. Sap and Feint baseline for all Rogues.
  3. Deadly Throw added. Iron Stomach and Leeching moved up. Goremaw’s Bite added. Additional connections added.
  4. Vigor and Deeper Stratagem moved up, with Leeching Poison and Iron Stomach respectively as prerequisites. Choice node between Improved Sprint and Rushed Setup on the middle. Removed Improved Sap. Moved Improved Garrote. Added Improved Goremaw’s Bite, somewhat similar to the removed Shiv which is only available to Assassination.
  5. Elusiveness, Recuperator and Cheat Death on the same row. Recuperator buffed as it is extremely weak.
  6. middle row now linked to left and right rows. Flat versatility replaced crit on bleeding targets. For clarity, Improved Ambush applies to Shadowstrike as well. Tight Spender buffed and renamed to Efficient Spenders or something.
  7. Master Poisoner, Acrobatic Strikes and Prey on the Weak same row.
  8. Gouge too strong to be closer to the start of the tree. Choice node between Gouge and Shiv. Shiv replaced on Assa tree with Kingsbane. Choice nodes between Improved Wound Poison and Cold Blood, and Subterfuge and Marked for Death. CB and MFD were too strong to be essentially free, being required to move down the paths. Subterfuge slightly buffed.
  9. Ruthlessness added to compete with Seal Fate and Find Weakness. Sepsis and Serrated Bone Spike added, gated behind 3 Talent points, Lethality and Alacrity respectively, same as the talents on the last row.
  10. Resounding Clarity removed, replaced by Echoing Reprimand, which moved down to make space for Ruthlessness.

Rogue Tree Talent Changes and Additions:

  1. Slice and Dice, 1 point talent : Finishing Move that consumes combo points to increase attack speed by 20%. Lasts longer per combo point.
  2. Death from Above, 1 point talent : Finishing Move that empowers your weapons with energy to perform a deadly attack. You leap into the air and Envenom/Dispatch/Eviscerate your target on the way down with such force that it has a 100% stronger effect. 30 second cooldown.
  3. Deadly Throw, 1 point talent : Finishing Move that deals damage and roots the target for 0.5 seconds per combo point consumed. 20 seconds cooldown.
  4. Goremaw’s Bite, 1 point talent : Lashes out at the target dealing X Shadow Damage and generating 3 combo points. 30 second cooldown
  5. Improved Goremaw’s Bite, 1 point talent : Goremaw’s Bite now dispels 1 Enrage and 1 Magic effect.
  6. Efficient Spenders, 2 point talent : Damage of finishing moves increased by 5/10% and energy cost of finishing moves reduced by 5/10%
  7. Subterfuge, 1 point talent : For 3 seconds after Stealth breaks, abilities that require Stealth can still be used, and all combat benefits of Stealth persist.
  8. Shiv, 1 point talent: Attack with your off hand weapon, dispelling an enrage effect applying a concentrated form of your active non-lethal Poison for 5 seconds. Atrophic - 4.5% dmg reduction, 5% with Master Poisoner, Numbing - 25% cast and attack speed reduction, 30% with Master Poisoner. Crippling - 75% movement speed reduction, 85% with Master Poisoner. 20 second cooldown.

Thought Process:

Abilities like Garrote, Rupture, Slice and Dice do not fit all spec fantasies. Many players for instance do not like Slice and Dice and would see it removed. This is the opportunity to make it a choice. Other players are asking for Death from Above to be brought back from the PvP talent pool. Deadly Throw and Goremaw’s Bite were pretty iconic before they were removed, so they can be brought back to compete against eachother. Furthermore, for players who complain about button bloat, there should be reasonably good passive options and not talents where you feel bad for spending points.
Gouge is also way to strong to be so early in the tree, and improved Garrote should at least have some competition. Improved Sap by comparison is extremely weak, especially with all the extra options for energy management. Tight Spenders suffers from the same issue, if the build has enough energy, it is useless. Flat versatility is universally good, but boring.
Shiv, being both an enrage dispel and a damage buff to Assa felt bad to some players. Added it to compete with Gouge as a choice node, and replaced it on the Assa tree with Kingsbane.
Sepsis is already in all spec trees, so it might as well be in the class tree. Serrated Bone Spike being the only covenant ability not making a comeback would be a loss for players used to it.
Echoing Reprimand being the only covenant ability to also have the legendary effect added is quite unfair. Since Seal Fate and Find Weakness have been cannibalized from Assa and Sub, it makes sense to bring Ruthlessness from Outlaw to compete with them.
Thistle Tea will either be useless, or it will be required for bursting, depends on tuning. Shadow Dance for all specs is interesting, but it is important to have other options to it as well.

All in all, more viable options and more connections are needed to ensure build diversity and cater to as many playstyles as possible. THere will always be a numerically superior build, but competing builds should at least have interesting choices.

Subtlety Tree Notes:

  1. Symbols of Death, Shadowstep and Shadow Dance on the first row.
  2. Left side more single target builder focused, right side AOE/Funnel focused. AOE talents optional, but strong funnel baseline on the right side. Premeditation changed and no longer tied to Slice and Dice. Still a strong opener talent, especially in AOE. Veil Touched same as Edge of Night Daggers, but tuned a bit better.
  3. Shadow Techniques and Relentless Strikes on the same row. Shadow Techniques changed to not be random anymore, and be disproportionately better for Backstab, increasing damage outside of Dance. Black Powder can be taken here instead of Secret Technique below, should provide sustained AOE instead of burst AOE. Night Terrors removed, mostly useless. Replaced with Quick Decisions. Added link from Shadow Focus (third row) to Shadow Techniques and Relentless Strikes (fourth row).
  4. Perforated Veins changed so that it affects more Backstabs, but not to the point that Backstab should be used instead of Shadowstrike. Added link from Master of Shadows to Planned Execution and from The First Dance to Finality.
  5. Shrouded in Darkness buffed to also give a personal benefit or no one will take it. Movement Speed is mostly useless as people mount up where they can anyway. Planned Execution and Finality should be comparable. Stiletto Staccato now uses Deepening Shadows mechanic.
  6. The Rotten moved up, too weak as a capstone talent. Fade to Nothing very slightly buffed.
  7. Smoke Bomb as utility for Sub. Dark Brew buffed, increases Find Weakness from 20/40% to 25/50%
  8. Invigorating Shadowdust is quite strong, especially in PvP and with 2 Vanish charges. Moved Shadowed Finishers down to compete with it and Lingering Shadows
  9. Hemorrhage, which is an improved version of Symbols of Death that affects the next Rupture cast. Combined with Replicating Shadows it should improve 2 target cleave. Balanced around maintaining Rupture on up to 4 targets with Replicating Shadows, but mostly affecting 2 target cleave. Shadow Mist reworked, size equal to the range of melee attacks.
  10. Finality changed to be an execute mechanic for finishing moves.

Subtlety Tree Talent Changes and Additions:

  1. Veil Touched, 1 point talent : Your attacks apply Veiled Touched, giving your finishing moves a 3% chance per combo points to deal X Shadow damage. Veiled Touched stacks up to 4 times as the target becomes more injured.
  2. Premeditation, 1 point talent : When used from Stealth, Shadowstrike is cast a second time after 1 second, hitting all enemies within 10 yards. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.
  3. Shadow Techniques, 1 point talent : Consecutive uses of the same combo points generator cost 5 less energy and generate 1 additional CP. Max 2 Stacks (5/10 Energy and 1/2 CP). Resets when any other ability is used. Backstab is affected more by this than Shadowstrike, because you could Backstab 3 times in a row, but 3 Shadowstrikes in a row for sure waste CP.
  4. Stiletto Staccato, 2 point talent : Deepening Shadows also reduce the cooldown of Shadow Blades by 0.5/1 second. Shadow Blades in already a rather weak cooldown, especially for 3 minutes. If the cooldown reduction is higher than with the previous version, fine.
  5. Perforated Veins, 1 point talent : Shadowstrike increases the damage of your next 3 Backstabs by 10%, stacking up to 6 times. Avoids having to Backstab during Shadow Dance.
  6. Shrouded in Darkness, 1 point talent : Shroud of Concealment increases the Movement Speed of all party and raid members within its radius by 50%. When affected by Stealth, Shadow Dance or Shroud of Concealment regenerate 3% HP every second.
  7. Fade to Nothing, 1 point talent : Movement Speed while Stealth and Shadow Dance are active increased by 20%. Damage taken reduced by 10% for 8 Seconds after gaining Stealth, Vanish or Shadow Dance.
  8. Dark Brew, 1 point talent : increases the damage of weapon poisons by 30%. Rogue Abilities that deal Nature damage now deal Shadow instead. Increases the effectiveness of Find Weakness on poisoned enemies by 25%.
  9. Hemorrhage, 1 point talent : Generate 40 Energy and increase damage by 10% for the next 10 seconds. Increases the damage of your next Rupture by 100%. Critical damage bonus against targets affected by Rupture is increased by 20%. Replaces Symbols of Death.
  10. Shadow Mist, 1 point talent : Gaining Stealth, Vanish or Shadow Dance expels Shadow Mist at your location for 10 seconds. While inside Shadow Mist, the Cooldown Recovery of Shadowstep is increased by 50%. Enemies caught in the Shadow Mist are slowed by 50% and take X Shadow damage per second.
  11. Lingering Shadow, 2 point talent : ach second spent in Shadow Dance increases the damage of Backstab by 10%, stacking up to 10 times. Each second spent outside of Shadow Dance lowers this bonus by 10%. This avoids the situation when you might need to cancel Shadow Dance.
  12. Finality, 2 point talent : Finishing moves deal and extra 15/30% damage to targets under 30% health.

Thought Process:

The Subtlety tree feels bad due to limited pathing options and forced choices which we otherwise would not make, for instance between ST and AOE builds. Even within a theoretical AOE build, there is no choice between Black Powder or Secret Technique, where the difference could be made between them, one proving more consistent AOE and one providing burst AOE.
Subtlety does not have raid utility, so the addition of Smoke Bomb should help with that, while maintaining the spec fantasy.
Many players have been asking for Hemorrhage back, so it would be nice to have at least a version of it that fits the current game design.

Assassination Tree Notes:

  1. Venom Rush buffed and now affects Fan of Knives. Moved up to help with the speed of the spec at lower levels, Fan of Knives moved down.
  2. Creeping Venom added to compete with Intent to Kill. Poisoned Katar moved down.
  3. Shiv moved to class tree. Tiny Toxic Blade moved up, but avoidable if Shiv is not selected as a talent. Atrophic Poison currently reduces enemy damage by 3%, 3.5% with Master Poisoner and 5% when Shiv is used. Connections added from Atrophic Poison to left and right nodes to further diminish the feeling that it might be a personal DPS loss.
  4. Nerve Strike added to compete with Iron Wire which moved up. Fan of Knives / Amplifying Poison choice node. Amp Poison was already a strictly Single Target talent. Changed a bit to interact with the other poisons. Maim,Mangle / Crimson Tempest choice node, again, AOE vs ST. Master Assassin and Exsanguinate moved down.
  5. Kingsbane added in place of Deathmark, which moved down. Vicious Venoms changed to also work with Fan of Knives.
  6. Poison Katar changed to interact with poisons and bleeds. Surge of Toxins now tied to Kingsbane, replacing the playstyle of Shiv with Kingsbane.
  7. Flying Daggers changed to provide increased damage based on targets hit, up to 8. Dragon-Tempered Blades moved up, replacing Poison Bomb, which moved down. Exsanguinate buffed.
  8. Capstone talents now Deathmark, strictly ST, Poison Bomb which works for both ST and AOE, and Indiscriminate Carnage which is strictly AOE. Poison Bomb slightly changed to have 100% proc chance from Kingsbane, giving some control over it. Also heals the Rogue for a bit if standing in it. 2 Capstone talents can be taken at the same time, so they can be optimized for all content.

Assassination Tree Talent Changes and Additions:

  1. Venom Rush, 1 point talent : Your Mutilate refunds 10 energy and your Fan of Knives refunds 5 energy when used against a poisoned target. limit 1 target for FoK
  2. Creeping Venom, 1 point talent : Envenom applies Creeping Venom, reducing the target’s movement speed by 5% for 4 seconds. Creeping venom is reapplied when the target moves. Maximum 18 stacks.
  3. Amplifying Poison, 1 point talent : Envenom can consume up to 10 stacks to deal 3% increased damage per stack and increase the poison application chance by 1% per stack, to a maximum of 20%. Max 20 stacks.
  4. Nerve Strike, 1 point talent : Gouge, Shiv, Kidney Shot and Cheap shot reduce the damage done by the target by 10% for 5 seconds after their effects end bosses are immune
  5. Kingsbane, 1 point talent : Deals X Nature damage instantly and Y Nature damage over 10 seconds. 25 Energy Cost, 30 second cooldown.
  6. Improved Kingsbane, 1 point talent : Each time you apply a Lethal poison to a target affected by Kingsbane, Kingsbane damage increases by 15%
  7. Surge of Toxins, 1 point talent : Kingsbane now also increases the nature damage done to the target by 20% for 10 seconds
  8. Poison Bomb, 1 point talent : Finishing Moves have a 4% chance per combo point spent and Kingsbane has a 100% chance to smash a vial of poison at the target’s location, creating a pool of acidic death that deals X nature damage over 2 seconds to all enemies within it and heals you for 3% HP per second.
  9. Exsanguinate, 1 point talent : Twist your blades into the target’s wounds, causing your bleed effects on them to bleed out 100% faster. Upon expiration, your Garrote, Rupture and Crimson Tempest are refreshed to their maximum duration. 1 minute cooldown. does not work with duplicated bleeds
  10. Vicious Venoms, 2 point talent : Your Mutilate, Fan of Knives and auto-attacks deal 25/50% of their damage as Nature against targets affected by at least one of your weapon poisons.
  11. Poisoned Katar : Fan of Knives deals 20% more damage to targets which are affected by both your poisons and bleeds and has a 5% increased critical strike chance.
  12. Flying Daggers : Fan of Knives’ radius is increased to 15 yards and deals 5% more damage per target hit, up to 8 targets.

Thought Process:

The same as with the other trees, with the current design there could be no clear distinction between AOE and ST builds. Some talents were gated behind others which were not really wanted for the chosen content. The new layout would make it easier to pick between ST and AOE, and allow for full specialization into one of the other, or a mix.
Deathmark is essentially Indiscriminate Carnage but for ST, so it makes more sense as a capstone talent. Both can still be taken at the same time.
Dragon-Tempered Blades should be more accessible to a specialization that focuses on poisons, and swapping it with Poison Bomb means that players who do not like Poison Bomb can skip it.
Exsanguinate was weak and was due what is both a buff and a quality of life change.
Poisoned Katar and Flying daggers were both weak, so they deserved a buff and some new interactions.
Nerve Strike should more readily compete with Iron Wire in certain situations.
Amplifying Poison is an interesting idea, but quite boring. Since it is a choice node between it and FoK, it remains a strictly ST poison, but changed to buff Envenom poison application change as well, if stacks are maintained.
Kingsbane was a great ability in Legion, and with the follow up talents can be made to function exactly as it did, as well as replace Shiv.
Atrophic Poison is excellent raid utility, but it is a dead end talent. Adding choice nodes to it merely increases the options of what you can give up in order to take it.

I haven’t really thought about Outlaw, but depending on the response on this i might.

Cheers

3 Likes
2

The Outlaw tree imo looks to be very well designed. With the addition of Shadow Dance in the regular tree, assuming it will be affected by restless blades, outlaw looks to be insanely fun. Sort of like a Sublaw Combo I supposed.

I think the sub tree has some flaws, mainly for pathing. Being forced to take AOE talents when you need the single target points below it. The tree itself is basically you go left middle or right it seems, which I do no like as it doesn’t give choice I think.

The one talent that makes bleeds and poisons to shadow damage is interesting to me. I wonder with even more emphasis on shadow damage, if the mastery for sub should be altered to also give a flat damage increase to shadow damage (and nerf the finisher portion maybe?)

4

The Outlaw tree is significantly restrictive compared to other class trees. If we simply look at the number of interconnecting pathing lines in the tree there are far fewer and many more linear paths with no real choice.

No matter how I fill in the tree I’m either forced to take a utility talent, that I may not want, to access a throughput talent or the choice is utility vs. throughput. Optimally it should be utility vs utility, or at least vs situational throughput talents.

I can end up with talents that modify a base ability I don’t have.

The modifiers for a base ability are just randomly mixed in the tree (very weird).

It’s pretty straight forward if we take evasion for example, the talent to modify it should be a terminal branch off the evasion node.

I feel like talents have been arbitrarily split up simply to fill the tree up, this leads to concerns above.

Blade Flurry has 4 talents (this is not at all exciting or enjoyable)
Roll the Bones has 4 talents.

No other talent tree has 2 terminal branches in the center of the tree from the first row.

So in summary we have replica talents in the class and spec trees, we have single talents split into multiple, highly restrictive pathing, this compounds the issue of taking utility vs throughput talents as instead of say a choice node or single terminal branch, its behind another utility talent of a terminal path.

Fundamentally I think there is far to much blending of utility and throughput across the class and spec trees. Foundationally I’d think keeping the class more utility and the spec more throughput talents would have led to better results.

These trees need significant rework or for a simpler fix combine the talents split in 3-4 and make it possible to spend the points on utility and not more throughput.

Thanks

1 Like
5

I disagree with the implementation of most of these changes.

This would be a bad change. The tree already includes a bunch of shadow damage buffs. The mastery already indirectly affects bonus shadow damage from finishers. Finishers are the bulk of our damage. Not shadow.

2 Likes
6

I think that a contribution would be, well, already mentioned by the people before that the garrote is not mandatory to be able to take Evasion, it would be good that line 2 of the rogue talents, are linked by arrows, so any spec can take Evasion, Feint and Cloak of Shadows that are of vital importance for raid or for plus, with an arrow that an Evasion with Feint and Feint with Cloak of shadows, in line 5 of talents the Improved Garrote would put it perhaps to the left changing places with Master Poisoner maybe, it doesn’t feel right to take Garrote in Outlaw since you’ll hardly ever use it, feeling forced to spend points just to get something later, shadowstep is weird too, but I guess you can live with that (especially for the outlaw). It would be nice if Cheat Death isn’t mandatory to have MFD, many people find it difficult to use the talent, maybe an Alacrity lane to Cheat Death could help. The Echoing Reprimand, I would have personally preferred the Serrated Bone Spike, is a lot of fun and interacts a lot with Sin and Outlaw. It is my contribution after seeing the talents from the page, I do not have the alpha, but I wanted to give my contribution to how I see it. Thank you very much

7

The tree needs more cross bars. That would address a lot of complains. Namely one going from Blind to Evasions and Cloak.

Virulent Poisons and So Versatile should be merged together into one choice node. Improved Ambush and Tight Spender should be merged into another. This lets people more easily hop to snother branch without starting from the beginning.

1 Like
8

Thank you all for the feedback. I have made some changes to the trees and edited the original post with new links and so on. Also added my take on the Assassination tree.

I haven’t looked at Outlaw yet, but I have read comments of people being concerned that it is too OP. If the interaction with Shadow Dance, or if the power of Restless Crew are too great, I suspect they will be nerfed to the ground, as history teaches us.

I will probably take a look over Outlaw as well.

is there anything in particular you would like to share, or at least your philosophy about how the trees should play out?

I think you are right, which is why I’ve made those suggestions as well.

You can’t really do this, because Blind as default for Outlaw would mean Outlaw has a skip that the other specs do not.

This would actually limit the choices. A simple connection does the same thing, but allows for both these choices to be picked if a player so wishes.

9

Man, I miss deadly throw interrupts. Would be nice to see it as a PvP talent, even.

2 Likes
10

sadly i doubt it. the way the game is now, if Deadly Throw would come back as an interrupt it would replace Kick…

11

They could do it.
Kick <-> Deadly Throw
Crimson Vial <-> Recuperate
SnD <-> New Alacrity (same as SnD but passive and with less vaule)
Backstab <-> Gloomblade <-> Hemo
Find Weakness <-> Expose Armor

and so on. This would be a next level of choice to the player.

1 Like
12

Correct me if I am mistaken, but rogue trees have 0 choice nodes. Does any other class have that? I’d like some of those added for sure.

1 Like
13

currently, they have 0 choice nodes, yes.

14

Trueeeee.

I think it’s weird how sub has talents to buff our bleed and poison damage… Not a very sub rogue thing to do. Can get 10% rup damage from Veiledtouched, 30% from replicating shadows, 15% from deeper daggers, 30% from finality, and another 30%+ flat damage from dance and nightstalker. Putting a little prerup and garrote up before running can be nice lowkey in pvp.

15

I do pvp mainly, and what I dislike most about the base Rogue tree is how they’ve funnelled abilities that were for one spec, into the clear path for other specs.

I don’t understand Shadow Mist, so I use Shadow Dance, mist appears, get a Shadow Dance charge back, repeat indefinitely? Why would any Sub rogue take anything else?

EDIT: Where is soothing darkness? Recuperator is not a replacement for that, it is weak.

16

Bro reread it.

Like what?

Agreed. Stick it in place of the stupid shroud talent.

17

Oh ok, missed that it was shadow step, no one is going to take that.

Marked for death specifically. I can still get to it, on a second look it’s not as bad as I thought.

Soothing Darkness needs to be lower than that, it’s pretty important for levelling as it heals you in stealth as well as in Shadow Dance. Maybe it should just be a baseline ability for all specs, and then you also get it to heal while in Shadow Dance.

18

even in the current talent trees you dont get access to it till youre more than halfway done with the leveling. Leeching poison is in the 8th row of the main tree.

19

Poison - no, bleeds - Sub was first, then devs took it to the Sin spec. So, yeah, it’s natural, and I still wait for my Sub Hemo, Sanguinary Veins and Serrated Blades.

1 Like
20

You can turn your rupture into pure shadow damage causing it to scale off deeper daggers and the +10% passive magic dmg talent. Dark brew also buffs shadow dmg by 20% too. It really seems like keeping finality ruptures up on your kill target in pvp can be a really nice, I just hope that since it turns into Shadow dmg that it won’t become a magical debuff. This would allow it to be dispelled :frowning:

I miss sang veins too though, I’d rather just go back to our mop/wod playstyle across the board for all specs.

21

These trees are confusing to me. I see the abilities I’m interested in actually choosing between, but they’re more often than not at the end of chains of other passive buffs or utterly unrelated abilities, and I have no way in game to really understand that impact, so will undoubtedly turn to people who have more time and inclination to figure it all out. Are those the people in the playerbase they’re actually interested in building this for? Because it feels like it.

I know people like trees, I know they’re tired of the existing talent system, but the existing system has an enormous advantage in clarity, and I think people discount that too much in their excitement for something, anything new.

I’ve played this game since 2008, I’ve grown as a player, dabbled in mythic raiding and have pushed pretty high keys, and this new system is just confusing and unfun to me. Really wish they’d focus more on creating fun things to do in the game rather than all this energy messing around with our characters that they are only making harder for them to balance.

I’m betting we could probably pull the things we actually want to use out of these trees, discard the rest, and put something together that is easier to understand and more satisfying. Do we really need multiple talents with multiple points required to buff Fan of Knives? Do we really need a row of pinnacle class-wide skills including a covenant ability, Thistle Tea, and sub’s signature ability? What does Marked for Death have to do with getting Thistle Tea, anyway? Blargh.