Alright, let’s just lay it out flat. Subtlety is a gutted, bland and pathetic shadow of its former self. Its damage is lackluster, its control is one-dimensional and its rotation is utterly lame. The addition of the second charge of Shadow Dance created a multitude of problems. In order to compensate for that change, damage was nerfed across the board and we lost some of our iconic utility such as Gouge. Changes need to be made for 9.0, because I sure don’t want to have to suffer through this iteration of Rogue for another whole expansion.
One of the best possible changes Blizzard could make for Sub would be to take away Shadow Dance’s second charge. Doing so would give them room to buff Sub in other areas. We would be bursting less, so they could buff our damage across the board. We would be putting out less stuns, so they could give us other CC like Gouge back.
Secondly, Find Weakness absolutely needs to become baseline again. This ability has been an integral part of Subtlety’s playstyle for years, and it’s insulting that it’s been reduced to a talent. This ability is where Sub’s bursty performance comes from and it shouldn’t be gated behind a talent slot.
Another change would be to bring back poisons for Subtlety. We’re ROGUES. Rogues use a combination of poisons and shadow magic. We always have. In Blizzard’s attempt to emphasize individual class fantasy, they ended up harming class fantasy as a whole. A rogue should be using poisons, plain and simple.
Lastly, I would actually like it if Secret Technique became baseline. It’s a neat finisher that never sees play because Master of Shadows is better for single target, and Outlaw is better for AoE. With all the baseline rotational buttons Sub has lost over the years, adding one more wouldn’t harm anything, and it would make the rotation more interesting and nuanced.
I would appreciate if more experienced Sub players gave their feedback here. I think most of us can agree that BfA Subtlety is a joke of a spec and desperately needs a rework. Do you think another finisher in the same vein as Slice and Dice should be added? Do you think Marked for Death should become baseline? (Answer: yes, it should.) Share your thoughts below.
Thanks.
9 Likes
People need to stop trying to get gouge and poisons back for all specs. I like rogues to have 3 unique specs. Go play wow classic if you wanted rogues to have one homogenized spec (it’s combat dagger. You backstab 5 times then SnD, repeat, you will top meters and be bored out of your mind)
7 Likes
I’d love to have poisons back on sub and agree find weakness and secret technique should be baseline
11 Likes
Rogue is a class. A class is going to have shared tools across all specs. It’s fine for the three to have their own distinct rotations, but Sub should have poisons and especially Gouge. It’s supposed to be the control and burst spec, so why wouldn’t it have Gouge?
6 Likes
I’m not sure if you’re talking about pvp or pve, but I love the current sub rogue for pvp. It’s all I play these days.
4 Likes
@OP - rogues have not “always” had shadow magic as part of their class fantasy. The first that could technically be interpreted as shadow magic would be cloak of shadows, which wasn’t added until TBC.
The top spec was combat swords.
1 Like
They need to get rid of Shuriken Tornado. Seriously, that ability is a lazy trash heap. I really like Secret Technique and I feel like this ability should be expanded upon further. The idea of shadow clones is pretty cool as sort of a Noob Saibot-esque assassin. I’d like to see poisons return to sub and outlaw. Why not even introduce a new type of poison?
3 Likes
outlaw players are not rogues , they are more like skinny warriors , they just pop damage , constantly hitting , no skill needed , they don’t even need to reset so they barely are in stealth they have like only 5 keybinds and you still want to give them poisons ? are you insane bro ?
2 Likes
No, “bro”, I’m not insane. And just because I’m asking for poisons doesn’t mean I’m going to get them. They could just keep things as boring as they are now.
Your suggestions, while well meaning, are more of the same from folks who don’t play Sub and have no idea how to play it in BFA.
Gouge, Slice and Dice is your solution???
Play Subtlety for a few months at least, and then come back.
3 Likes
I played Sub for a few months at the start of BfA, then quit because I didn’t like it. These changes are meant to bring it more in line with how it was pre-Legion. More impactful Shadow Dance windows, Gouge, etc.
2 Likes
Subtlety in it’s current build can be hard to master.
In the first few months it was very good. Before the nerfs you could destroy players. Hence the overboard ridiculous nerfs.
Pre-Legion why? I don’t go to other class forums but I’m sure they have guys who want Pre-Legion also, why? It’s just not going to happen.
The only thing Blizzard will do (if they do anything) is make Sub easier to play so the masses play it.
Why do so many play Assassination, because it’s easy and destroys people without a lot of effort.
Sub is fun as hell. Take time to master it and you will have loads of fun.
4 Likes
I played it when it was very good and I hated it then, too. I don’t find it fun. At all. I don’t like doing miniscule damage outside of Dance and being a stunbot during it. Adding a second charge of Dance meant damage nerfs across the board and the loss of iconic abilities like Gouge. Wasn’t worth it.
Legion was the worst thing to happen to the class. BfA is no better.
Sub And Assassination need Gouge back. Outlaw and Sub need poisons back. Any other changes are fine but those suggestions are the two starting points.
2 Likes
Not every rogue spec needs to be identical, like I promise they don’t!
Let assassin rogues be the poison/bleed spec, let subtlety rogues be the finisher spec and let outlaw be the AoE/cleave spec.
If rogues were fighting game characters, outlaw would be the one with the really fast hitting but not high damage moves. Subtlety would be the slow wind-up-but hits-like-a-truck fighter and assassin would be the middle-of-the-road balanced fighter with both fast hitters (DOTS) and haymakers (envenom).
Making the three rogue specs different from each other was the greatest thing blizzard ever did for this class. It was no longer just the class you use to bully and annoy other players for minimal investment, it became a class with some strategy and builds that you could tune to your playstyle and preferences.
I see threads like this all the time “I want the other specs’ stuff back for MY favorite spec!”. Players like this can just go play classic, when all rogues were the same.
In the classic pen and paper RPGs that WoW descends from, rogues were the player class with the most variation. Rogues were more different from each other than they were from other classes even sometimes. If you want poisons, play assassin. If you want to play subtlety, play subtlety, even if it isn’t uber-tier right now. If you want to always have Slice and Dice up, play outlaw.
3 Likes
I never said the specs needed to be identical. Even so, a class is still a class. Do you really think there should be no overlap between the specs? Assassin being the dot-based spec doesn’t mean Sub can’t have basic poisons like it had for over ten years. That’s like saying “Subtlety is the Stealth-based spec, so it should be the only spec that gets Stealth.”
Pre-Legion Subtlety had more strategy than all three BfA rogue specs combined.
7 Likes
Why can’t stealth be the thing that overlaps between the specs, then they each do their own thing? The game is constantly improving. You must also think this or you would not still be playing it. The game had homogeneous rogues for over ten years then split them into three unique specs.
It sounds like you are trying to build a class that:
a) has perfect control with multiple stuns, and escapes (sub)
b) has the best dots in the game for a melee class (assassin)
c) has the most powerful melee attacks in the game (sub)
d) can gouge and tank anything (outlaw)
e) Throw in some ranged attacks and stun too (outlaw)
Going back to the thread title “How to fix subtlety” it sounds like the way you want to fix sub is to blend all the rogue specs into one, unbeatable, class so you can feel over-powered again.
1 Like
Ya know… he does have a pretty good point. I think giving him a shot as class dev could be worth a shot.
1 Like
Heh “This class I am designing will ALWAYS be the flavor of the month, it’s the perfect hard counter to anything another player might play. I will feel like the smartest, most-skilled player for having selected this class at character creation and it’s super easy to play.”
For all the talk about strategy some people seem like the kind of person who starts losing at a poker tournament and complains that they aren’t allowed to just add aces to their hand whenever they want.