As the title suggests, Killing spree for Outlaw rogue is killing me. Both Literally in the game and a little bit mentally too. After seeing the intended changes for 11.1 i was hoping a dev could see this and post their thoughts and goals for this particular ability, but aside from reinforcing the roll the bones rng nothings really changed.
First off, i love hitting this button. It’s satisfying to have a big bursty spender that breaks up the two finishers we have. But holy hot damn is it dangerous. I really appreciate that during your spree your incoming damage gets turned into a dot, that was a great recent change that solved a big danger of it… but it felt like a solution that addressed a symptom of what i think the bigger problem with KS is; the (albeit brief) loss of control of your character. Even with conscious planning the use of it, to make sure you’re not casting it in something that’ll kill you in the next couple of seconds, with the amount of stuff on the floor in dungeons recently, chances are that something will spawn there for you to come out of KS and land in. But honestly, this isnt the biggest gripe i have with it.
The most frustrating part is the amount of effects on the floor that will make you lose control of your character, and stop KS instantly, dropping the damage mitigation and killing you. Eg: Tentacles on last boss of Grim Batol last season, the wax statues on second boss of Darkflame cleft, last boss of floodgate, etc etc. So not only do you miss out on the full use of the spender but it stops the important flow of outlaw and or will get you dead.
Another fairly common, but just as incredibly frustrating part of the ability actually moving your character is that it can really bug out your character and kill you in other silly ways. If i used it in Dawnbreaker on a moving ship, i will regularly fall through the boat to my death. Or in Necrotic wake if i get targeted by Dark exile (last boss) mid spree, i have been propelled directly down through the floors to my death. First boss of rookery drops you into the pit. Gallywix sometimes puts you on the other side of the room.
SO while i like the flavor of bouncing around, i think there are ways to keep it without actually losing control;
1 - Make it similar to blade dance with demon hunter. there you still have a flare of movement, but it appears to be just a visual and you dont actually change position or run the risk of hitting things you have no control over.
2 - Honestly i feel you dont have to move us at all. Theres a world where you can have a dope animation (i like the idea of something like Secret tech where you see a clone bounce around instead of you) without actually moving us.
3 - outside of reworking the actual skill, a better ‘remedy’ for me would be to not only have the damage reduction last a second or two after KS, but to make us immune to loss of control effects too. However this still wont save me from being catapulted through the planet.
4- and maybe simplest - don’t make it an essential part of trickster. Instead of building talents around an obnoxious button, put it on something else we can choose to talent into. Ghostly strike for example or blade rush.
At the end of the day killing spree is a talent, and therefore optional. So all this can be avoided if i just dont pick it. But to me, thats not the fun way to go… and if you play the Trickster Hero Talents, which i really like, you actually do have to take it for full use of the talent tree.
Either way id be happy to hear from any Dev how they feel about it; or from any other outlaws that could change how i feel about it too.
