We’ve been giving feedback for years that we want Gouge back, that we didn’t want it pruned in the first place. It’s one of the most classic and iconic Rogue abilities of all time.
In 2015/2016 when they pruned it, Celestalon told me personally (via Twitter) “we are pruning some CCs to make up for the fact that you are going to make more frequent access to Cheap Shot with all of the Shadow Dance uptime”. I hated that idea at the time, I never wanted that awful change to Shadow Dance to begin with, and I told him so at the time but he didn’t listen.
Now he has left the WoW team and moved onto the Hearthstone team.
And another Rogue designer, John Yang (AKA Sephuz) has also left the WoW team and moved to Hearthstone, but previously I did have some positive discussion with him during Legion about why Find Weakness was so important for Subtlety and they later brought it back in BFA (as a nerfed talent though -_-).
Well, we need to keep up the pressure and get them to make a statement about Gouge and what is their current thinking on this ability.
It’s impossible to have any sort of real conversation about it when Blizzard wont even state their reasoning.
So, it’s time to start Tweeting the devs again. Here’s what you can do to help:
Make a Twitter account if you don’t already have one
Tweet at the following accounts: @WarcraftDevs @WatcherDev @holinka @HamletEJ
Keep tweeting at them every single day so that they can’t even log on to Twitter without seeing something about Gouge.
You can personalize it and share your own reasoning and the reasons you want Gouge back.
The key thing is that we need to get them to engage in a conversation and explain their thoughts about this ability.
After getting nothing worthwhile carried over from the Legion artifact, Sub in particular probably deserves to have Gouge and then some. Honestly don’t think anyone will be happy until we get back something around the same power level as Burst of Speed.
I feel like I’ve accomplished more via my Twitter feedback over the years than this forum, tbh. Sometimes (rarely but it’s happened multiple times) they even acknowledge/respond.
When we got Shadowstep and Blind back in Legion alpha, that happened like two weeks after I explained to Celestalon that Shadowstrike is way less versatile and skillful than Shadowstep, and Blind is so important to Subtlety because we are the Dance → Sap spec. He replied that I had made good points, and two weeks later they were back in a build.
I was never on Twitter either until that point. I made it specifically to give feedback about Legion Subtlety changes. I would say it’s definitely worth it and we can accomplish more if more people join up.
I think the only way BoS could come back is if it’s not usable in combat. Even then, it might be overpowered in a BG like Arathi Basin where you can zoom around in Stealth to harass bases.
Yeah, Shadowstep was the stronger talent choice in rated play due to being instant, being useful to Kidney through Evasion or Die By The Sword, etc, but in middle to lower tiers of PvP play, BoS as it existed was way too dominant.
It honestly doesn’t have to be BoS in particular, but we 100% need something just insanely overpowered in Shadowlands, just to make up for having to suffer through BFA. Legit, them killing DFA + Shuriken Combo and returning us to the crappy pre-Tomb of Sargeras Dance-spamming Sub is the most confusing and also upsetting thing ever.
Hopefully they will have Gouge pooling around in their minds now to bring it back.
Also hopefully they have confidence in the abilities they HAVE brought back so far.
Poison / slice & dice / shiv / rupture are all very welcoming returns to Sub/Rogue.
Hehe, I remember that twiter thread. He was all like "but tons off cheapshot is good cc isn’t it? Then pretty much everyone replied, in unison “until it DRs and we have no cross cc lol.”
I disagree with this, rogues are light footed and are meant to be quick. BoS only helps that but of course we’re speaking mechanically. While it does cost energy there was a decent CD in place where you couldn’t spam it.
I’d say just for balance sake, if need be, remove the snare cleanse and or increase the cost to 50 energy. After all at the very least rogues are supposed to be good escape artists.
Burst of Speed was fine for casual players doing world content or soloing old raids. For PvP though it was a crutch for players on the lower end of the skill spectrum.
There was a long time where nobody took BoS because it had a very high energy cost. Once the energy came down everyone took it. I think there’s probably a sweet spot somewhere with the energy to balance it.
I personally loved zipping around in stealth going about my business. It was a very fun ability.
There were times when it was low that people didn’t take it. I remember in MOP, it cost 15 energy at one point and Shadowstep was still the talent of choice. People didn’t freak out about it until that Combat deal in WOD.
But, yah. I loved it for the same reason you did! I had been using it since it launch and built a speed set of sorts with the JC gem, meta gem, cloak enchant, and boot enchant. Hit 245% at one point.
They should have left it as 50 energy root break. But Blizz buffed it because they wanted to move people away from using shadow step. If you think about it that is dumb because Shadow step is iconic to Rogues and especially iconic to Sub.
When shadow step went from being used in stealth to being used outside of stealth that opened up way more play interactions and creativity for players.
Sometimes Blizz is scared to let players experiment and play creatively by creating a controlled, and narrow player experience.
I mean, is BoS really that big of a deal anymore, when Demon Hunters can double jump + 10 sec cd dash + glide? I feel like after two expacs of mobility creep, BoS might actually be balanced now lol.
DH’s are also getting a mortal strike effect on their fel rush while rogue’s MS effect is getting nerfed by requiring stacks, adding a ramp up on swaps.