So True…
The Class Fantasy for Sub is really good.
But unfortunately for a Spec to be good/worth playing it would at least need to have two of the three points below:
Class Fantasy
Enjoyable & Intuitive Rotation/Playstyle
Viability
As is Sub only has Class Fantasy.
The return of hemorrhage applying a bleed and giving it a buff to evisc dmg could help solve some issues witu Sub. Having hemo in a 8 sec cd or something with an 8 sec debuff could add some fun into the rotation. Ideally you would have nightblade, find weakness and hemo up on your target - then be ready to dance + symbols for a huge controlled burst window.
Also, give us Premeditation back.
All I will add to this conversation is that if there are changes I really hope they keep the fantasy to each specialization. I remember doing the Mage Tower for each specc in Legion and it was so fun and immersive to see the three different themes. One of the reasons Legion was so amazing for me is how it gave so much identity to each specc…
How to fix Subtlety…
Revert to any iteration between Cata and WoD, literally. Tweak until single target comparable to Sin and has a reasonable AoE/cleave talent build, again, comparable to Sin. Do not buff it’s AoE to be ahead of Outlaw.
It’s almost as if Sub was great for a long time, but instead of expanding on it, they gave us Naruto shadow ninja garbage in Legion, then proceeded to make it worse because it was heavily trait reliant (especially the artifact ability - that thing was actually great in PVP for extra burst).
Probably the most well-rounded version was in WoD, strangely enough, but that’s because Sub scaled insanely well with multistrike, which is no longer a stat in the game. If they could average the amount of damage multistrike contributed to a Sub rogue’s overall damage in WoD, then dispense that damage toward buffing abilities, we’d probably be on the right track, to where at the very least, Sub would have great sustained damage, though I’d rather see modest sustained, with high burst that required good setups, than just above average sustained.
The way Subtlety is right now, when we are not in Shadow Dance (Which isn’t much) we do about as much dps as a healer… Then we pop Shadow Dance to become an average DPS for the duration.
Pre Legion we did OK? DPS while not in Shadow Dance (All to setup our Huge Shadow Dance Windows), but after Poping Shadow Dance Subtlety was the Highest DPS in the game for that window by far.
Single Target of course.
IMO Subtlety should be designed to be one of, if not the best Single Target Spec on the Game. It should be the best Single Target Spec for Rogues.
Assassination should be the Cleave/Mutli Dot Spec with Decent Single Target and Viable AoE
While Outlaw as the AoE/Cleave Spec it is now.
All they need to do to fix sub is remove all the talent nerfs that are active in pvp.
You’re not wrong, they felt the need to do this for warlocks (Affliction being Cleave/Multi dot (especially after all of the whining that they were good in Uldir), Demo for AOE and Destro for ST) but for whatever reason they never bother to nerf Sin aside from the SS nerf and the 3% damage nerf at the beginning of the xpac.
It’s ridiculous how they’ve nerfed specific talents in pvp, Dark Shadow only does 15% damage instead of 25%, Prey on the Weak only does 5% damage instead of 10%, I’m sure there’s more, but those are just examples. Make it so these talents aren’t reduced in pvp and you got yourself rogue spec that has incredible burst and would actually be viable in rated pvp, why is this even a thing?
sub’s damage is fine if you play the spec right lol, it could definitely use a small buff but it’s not in the gutter like people think it is. outlaw and sin provide similar or higher throughput for less effort which is its own issue, but sub is fun and completely viable
the spec needs a few things made baseline (sectec and find weakness at least, and either DS or ES). gouge would be lovely as a pseudo-interrupt. slightly reduced baseline cd on cloak or vanish would be nice, and personally I’d like to see the nightblade damage amp become a buff on the rogue instead of a debuff on the target. might make target swapping less clunky.
They said that they are going to tone back on the whole “mini-class” deal and makes specializations actually be specializations again. So, we’ll see how that goes. Kind of excited to see what happens. What abilities go global again.