Feedback from ptr

already posted on the ptr forum. I urge everyone to download ptr and test it out

The 1 charge Shadow Dance feels so great. GG on that. Find weakness is up a crazy amount of time though. I can’t tell if this is good or not. If it is meant to be up 80+% of the time, why not just make it so skills hit harder and change the way it works. (Maybe only from stealth skills or during SD?)

Outlaw feels really fun imo. I love the change to RTB. It feels good to not have to constantly fish for buffs. You play the rotation and go from there. RTB now affects the rotation instead of forcing one. I like this change a lot.

Sin feels bad atm with SnD. We need a way to refresh it. Having toxic blade built into shiv feels bad too. You have to choose dps or utility for it while all the other rogues can just use it for utility.

Let’s talk about talents.

We are still missing talents for sub and outlaw…
That being said there are a few talents that just feel bad or are wasted.

SUB

Alacrity for sub feels out of place here. Sub doesn’t benefit much with haste compared to the other specs with how the passives work. Especially true with SnD coming back. The other 2 on this row affect shadow dance, *dark shadow and enveloping shadows. I think something should replace alacrity for another modifier to SD.

Night terrors feels like it sorta doesn’t fit either now that we have poisons back. 30 percent slow? We already slow 50 percent from crippling. The other 2 choices here affect cheap shot. Maybe replace it with making cheap shot give 2 combo points again? Or honestly make Cheapshot go back to 2 in general. I am not sure why it was nerfed after all these years.

Final talent for sub I want to talk about is secret technique. I am not sure how this will play out now that sub has a real aoe spender. *I have yet to test out. Just theory on this one.

Sin

Honestly, talents for sin a good for the most part.
The new blindside feels really really fun and it feels nice to have it proc. GG blizz.

Master Assassin feels sorta lack luster now that mantle is coming back as a legendary. Maybe change this talent in some way?

Venom rush is such a useless talent. No one picks it and it is boring. Please change this.

Outlaw

There are a couple talents here I want to point out.
First, maybe it is just me, but I think all rogues should have access to Subterfuge. (this would be really great for anyone playing outlaw and going venthyr for the slaughter skill)

Iron Stomach I think needs a change. With the nerf to crimson vial, it doesn’t add much at all to the heal. Feels like this is a niche pick at best. I rarely seeing this used at all.

Like I said, we are still missing a talent, but I would like to see loaded dice baked into the spec. Having this talent just feels really good to play with, but not as good if you don’t have it. But I guess that is where player choice comes in.

Final talent line, KILLING SPREE. Please replace this. This should be baseline. In pve you never get to pick it. In Mythic plus dancing steel is almost always picked, or you have blade rush which is just better on single target. Killing spree has been such a cool skill for combat for years. Please make it baseline.

Overall I like the changes I have gotten to test. I have played Sin for so long, I am looking forward to playing outlaw and sub more in SL.

While on topic, please look at our covenant abilities. Bonespike is far overturned and seems like it would be the default choice by a large margin.

Please change slaughter. Allow it to be used out of stealth similar to the warrior ability, or something. Atm this skill is useless for outlaw, has very little use for sin (could be useful if blindside affected it) and does have some use for Sub.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

And make gouge baseline for all :]

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I think they should make killing spree blade flurry the way it used to rather than 100% damage to all targets, and increase its base damage. Dancing steel and blade rush are already good on aoe.

Alacrity is the most boring talent alive but haste is real nice for sub rogues

However if you think I’m taking that over 30% more dance damage you’re crazy

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I seriously doubt there will be changes for rogues. We got a few abilities back that never should have been removed and Blizzard seemingly called it a day.

Combat and Sub have been an awful debacle since the ‘Class Fantasy’ changes. (which included the ‘class fantasy’ of rogues not knowing how to disarm traps, and randomly forgetting how to use poisons for a few years because why would rogues do that?) And short of them sucking it up and saying, “boy, we really dropped the ball” both combat and subtlety will forever be a shadow of their former selves.

Anyway, I guess its nice subtlety won’t have a slow effect tied to a dot that gets dispelled easier than stealth itself. And we got Slice and Dice, which is nice and awkward without pre-med.

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Its actually 15% more as dance already has 15% baked into it. That talent just adds another 15%

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Jesus why did they word it like that

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Blizz is terrible at wording. It wouldn’t surprise me if enveloping shadows is better than dark for the second charge for longer fights. Having the 15 percent baked into Dance now though feels great.
Still waiting for those other talents blizz!!

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My guess is that dudes who end up making video games probably weren’t the same dudes getting A’s in English class.

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I only wish that they went in harder on the “Ninja” style of Rogue with Sub, instead of stopping halfway and calling it a day. Using stealth and subterfuge to take out your target instead of swarthy flamboyant slashing or amplified poisons.

I agree with you on that. Sub to me was meant to be the Shinobi of the rogue specs. The new skill added for the aoe finisher needs a new animation badly. Just adding the death from above flip to it alone would make it cool imo.
Some of the conduits confuse me on what they are going for, but maybe it is cause I haven’t tested beta out yet and only PTR. Sub atm seems like a ninja in training. I would love to see secret technique changed to be single target only. It feels out of place now that we have more aoe options. Having it be sorta like a super eviscerate, but each ninja version of yourself hits for less and less damage. Maybe the second hit is 75 percent damage, then 35 ect. It be a cool button to add to the rotation that would feel fun and good to press, cause A, it looks really cool. B, it is a new finisher on a CD that could add some fun gameplay, especially in burst windows, and C, if they actually changed it to be single target and buffed its damage, it just be really fun imo. But that is just me.

To note, on ptr eviscerates are hitting harder than ST.

Sub’s original fantasy was stronger than a ninja fantasy. I think WoD Sub was a combination of stealth, control and menacing damage from stealth openers when lined up.

To me right now I don’t know what to make of high uptime on find weakness. Is BlizZard concerned that Sub Rogue damage will drop because of target switching? But then again Find Weakness is very easy to apply to multiple targets. So it doesn’t make sense to me!

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Wait have they gone back to vanilla blade flurry 2 min CD 20% haste +100% damage to second target??

Now I gotta have a loooksee at combat again.

EDIT: Oh never mind, gross, I just felt sick looking at that, GG Blizzard on some straight mindless AE, can kiss the single target damage of combat goodbye with that abomination.

I don’t get why it’s 9s instead of 10s tho

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BlizZard is being stubborn about GCD so their solution to BF on the GCD is to attached damaged to it for the lost time. But that cause more balance problems IMO because now Blade Flurry can be used far more than just in cleave situations.

BF back in vanilla was balanced by the fact it was a 2 min CD. Current BF in Sls benefits from CD reductions which means it is up often. Not sure what Blizz was thinking to be honest!

In vanilla, only defensive CD tend to be off the standard GCD,but there are some exceptions.

Having it off the GCD would feel a lot nicer in classic, also it not costing 20 energy would feel one better.

But, I knew what I was getting, just an observation comparing some older retail things to classic.

Realistically, I get why it’s on GCD, and it makes sense, but it just feels bad because well it does.

Maybe the solution was to some how kill off scripts, macro mouse and macro keyboards with better class designs, nah that can’t be it.

The problem is Blade Flurry as designed in BFA is a non damaging CD and what they have done to solve that GCD problem in SL is adding damage components to it which I think is wrong.

There is a reason why Frost DKs are not fun to play in BFA because of the GCD. If BlizZard wants to slow down macros and PVP burst there are other ways to do it IMO. PVP balancing can be achieved without impacting PVE.

We were using macros, in game macro on pve also to shave fractions off the reaction times in older expansion, just for a lil more DPS, and it was a teeny bit a pve problem too.

To also give credit, blizzard has killed off quite a lot of macro automation, just that some of it is so darn handy and it would be painful to give up.

I wouldn’t quit over macro elimination, but I wouldn’t be happy about it either.

Yeah but the OG devs balanced around that so it wasn’t a big deal. Current devs don’t know how to balance the game around macros so they basically have neutered them all.

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It’s so unfortunate, I have old play from pre wod recorded, and in some places im wondering HOW THE HELL I managed such plays, but remember how much more effective and powerful macro were. Some of it was just insane me being much younger and faster reaction times…

Man I wish I was that fast again, but instead I make up for it now by playing way smarter.

I think MoP was the height of macro usage because there were more abilities to use in combinations. But you still had to have separate keybinds for each ability too. That type of decision making isn’t with retail WoW anymore.

Sensus videos were very popular back then too. Good times! :+1:

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