Let's talk rogue changes

Community General Discussion
1

These changes should keep Outlaw Rogues very strong at multi-target cleave, but no longer significantly ahead of other specs.

Every rogue in my guild, and we have 6 who raid, swaps to assassin spec for raid fights, outlaw just doesn’t cut it for single target damage and the only reason we take outlaw in M+ is due to how much stronger the AOE is compared to OUR OWN SPECS.

I can hit around 37-38K DPS overall as outlaw rogue at 437 iLVL. I don’t know if this is good or bad, I really don’t, but I do know I get beaten regularly even at that DPS by other non rogues with a similar iLVL. Like the monk in my guild posting a screenshot of his 41.8K DPS overall at 437 iLVL.

It is not our AOE that is strong that’s the problem, it’s the fact it is so easy to use outlaw that makes it top higher than other classes. Classes like spriests and warlocks who struggle for AOE due how their class works, paladins who spec wrong, classes who just under perform.

But at the same time those same classes hitting harder than me when they actually know what they are doing. Like when I first took my DK in a raid as DPS I had no idea, I was hitting 12K DPS on boss fights (unknown on trash), 2 weeks later with barely any new gear, just different traits and more knowledge, all of a sudden I was hitting 32K boss and, yes, topping 500K on trash.

Instead of nerfing our blade flurry and wits trait, you need to look at us overall and try to allow us to manage our RtB a bit better, a complete RNG around our main spell doesn’t really make a lot of difference in AOE, but it does mean the difference between topping the DPS or being beaten by a tank in single target, and by changing this it would make it much easier to balance us.

TL;DR
Outlaw rogues top DPS meters because they are easy to use, not because they are the best AOE there is, and not at all due to our single target damage. Unless we roll 5 on our RtB, or a good 2 combination when lust or adrenaline rush is up, they do quite bad single target DPS.

1 Like
2

Your tldr really summed up why outlaw is fine

Its very good of you roll a 5 or a good combination of buffs

It’s gambling, if you only roll a 1 it sucks

3

Sin rogues are supposed to be the king of single target and Outlaw is supposed to be the king of multitarget…

2 Likes
4

Problem with Outlaw is both ease of use and potential damage.

Blade Flurry is broken on a conceptual level, it is absurdly strong and needs to go back to a form with a target cap.

  1. without a target cap Blade Flurry leads to the current situation of completely broken AoE that is absurdly easy to accomplish.
  2. Blade Flurry actively harms the spec design overall as Blizzard can’t buff individual abilities without indirectly buffing Blade Flurry. This leads to poor ST damage because you can’t have decent ST damage without causing BF to completely explode.

With a target cap, both of these are reigned in considerably. The design space is freed up so more attention can go to individual abilities and it keeps Cleave in check. The target cap doesn’t have to be as low as it was in the past, but it needs to be there.

Outlaw’s Potential Damage is also a huge problem due to Roll the Bones, and it only stacks with BF. Outlaw can output great ST damage if they are lucky due to how the dice rolls…and this translates into more obscene BF damage. Like the prior point, this limits design space as, if you have ridiculous potential damage, you can’t have high base damage, as high base damage boosts an already insane potential damage.

By removing these two massive design roadblocks Outlaw has room to be tweaked and worked on across the board. Without? Expect to either be completely broken or nerfed into oblivion.

5

How much are they using focused azerite beam in the MDI?

If I’m aggressive with it on my rogue, that 4.5 seconds every minute and a half can be 15% of my damage. My theory is that with Tricks of the Trade it really lets you come in and nuke the hell out of everything.

Melee range, mobility, and a head start in understanding when and how it’s best to use it and work it in to the rotation and suddenly outlaws re-coup resources down time is it’s huge burst time.

6

I wish they would focus more on Sub before touching Outlaw and Assassin

6 Likes
7

Just abandon the spec or switch to another class!
It’s what many will do anyway!

Don’t wait for a solution that fits all!
Outlaw has to go through this, for the sake of the other classes and specs!

Now that our ST will be as relevant as our AOE, I’m sure devs are going to look for some other spec or class that is doing better than the others at something and equally makes them mediocre!
Lowest common denominator!

Just conform and get on with your life!

8

If you pull about 37-38k overall as an Outlaw at 437 ilvl, you’re clearly doing it wrong. As an outlaw fotm in 8.1, i can easily tell why this spec is so popular. They bring the best utility kit, have a great aoe potential and meanwhile, they’re not rely too much on their cooldowns to deal damage, just a RNG based spec. People saw unholy pulled more than 1mil damage with reaping in mdi and demand UH must be nerf, but in the end they still get a buff and no nerf has been seen since then. Because, most people who doesnt play uh and they didnt know they’re the most cooldowns reliant spec, and also the one of the hardest class to play with overall. With CDs fully up with a big pull, UH is second-to-none in aoe, but when CDs are gone, even a rdruid can faceroll them easily in dps.

9

The 3k ( season 2) rogue that i run with sometime finished a fh 16 at 49k dps.

Rikitian who finished over 4k io last season did an 11 fh with a guildie of mine and he did almost 60k.

These numbers suggest me you arw doing it wrong. I wish i could point you what to improve but lol, to give you an idea, my holy dps is bettter than ret dps. But I know how to interrupts on cd.

10

Potential, that is all it is, potential.

Your tank pulls no more than one group at a time, your DPS is going to be low. Your tank pull 4-5 groups at once, your DPS will be high, a cap and a rework on our RtB is more of a fix, but this is Blizzard who cannot balance but instead just buff and nerf like no mans game.

Exhibit A: Their latest buffs and nerfs.

Thank you for pointing out the worlds second best rogue and comparing them to someone who is ranked 54,000 in the world on the same class. Maybe you should go work for Blizzard since this is the exact same mindset they seem to have when it comes to balancing.

“Hey guys, let’s invite the worlds best players to a dungeon event and than nerf classes based on what we see.”

We need to look at the bottom end of players and not just the top, I am currently looking through the M+ warcraft logs, finding some rogues sitting around 430 iLVL pulling 20K.

11

i agree with rogue being easy to use compare to everyone else

adding a cap ti blade furry is not only unfair its stupid. essences are the real issue of why everything scaled out of wack.

imagine if they add a cap to people using aoe talents in st doing half damage if less than 2 target is hit. just killed off monks/dks/warriors/warlocks and few others .
thats how stupid blade furry cap sounds. if your gonna cap rogue aoe ‘‘cap’’ anyone beating them in single target

nerfing a class based off literally 1percent is beyond dumb pretty sure MDI gets perfect statsthe chances of someone playing live not having wasted stats on a piece of gear is so low. and can easily be the difference between you doing what the top rogues are doing. there just so many factors to consider (the dps ability to survive if you pull multiple packs) i dont want to get really deep into but once again blizzard destroyed a spec in raiding for a stupid reason.

yet they wont buff people doing poorly outside of raiding because ‘’ they too strong in raid’’ and that my friends is why im prob done with this xpac

12

Keep in mind overall damage, especially on a spec with uncapped targets, is only as high as your tank lets it get. You will never reach numbers like 60k overall when your tank pulls 2 mobs at a time.

13

A majority of AoE abilities have a cap…blade flurry is actually an exception.

14

We had a cap previously and didn’t have this problem

I’d gladly sacrifice a bit of our insane AoE with a cap if it means we get more single target damage

1 Like
15

except they wont buff st they will straight up gut AOE and leave st as is because (roles and what not) i have zero faith in blizzard to actually do well… anything

16

Like some dude referencing a rogue called Rikitian, who can pull 60K DPS so I must be doing something wrong. Not taking note that this rogue is number 2 ranked IO in the world during S2 and running +26 keys on time, just telling us that if one rogue can do it, we all can.

And this is pretty much it, if your tank does what some low key pug tanks do and pull one ‘pack’ at a time, including pulling one enemy at a time up to the second boss in UR, an outlaw rogue is going to have the lowest DPS of the group.

You cannot expect everyone to pull what the top % pull, we don’t have tanks who can pull 6-10 mobs at once and a healer that can heal through all the damage. We can’t expect players who sit less than 1K even surviving long enough to get half that DPS and we certainly cannot expect pugs to go over one mob at a time and do over 20K.

Our guilds healing leader stated the bleeding obvious, all you need is 20K DPS on 3 DPS to pass an M10, that means 1-2 mobs at most depending on the week and dungeon and that means no rogue is going to ever get high enough DPS to make it look like they are better at AOE than others.

It’s not rocket science, the average playing group has no issues with beating a rogue in DPS, I pug a lot of keys around +12 with players at my iLVL to top the DPS meters, you know, players who know how to play and thanks to outlaw rogues ST damage being rubbish.

17

i dont even know who that is as i dont watch streams but im guessing this 1 rogue is reason the class was nerf owell

18

I had no idea either, but it is not one rogue that’s for sure, it is a combination of the fact a rogue, like a DK, has no upper limit on the amount of AOE they can get aside from what the tank and healer can handle.

No small time groups are going to pull big enough for a rogue to get that high DPS.

And I guarantee you an unholy DK would beat a rogue hands down in AOE, I should know, I have a DK also, but a rogue is more prominent as they are easier to use with AOE that follows them around. I really do think I should have stuck with my DK, they have better ST damage and look, now a 5% buff to everthing.

19

this is true i had groups that would pull bosses and trash while reap was up and i end up doing like 200k finishing like 30-40k overall in 18 keys at the same time i run a 10-12 with my friends to help them cap for a week and only do like 20-25k