Since Blizzard is cherry-picking some miserable changes, I wanted to add some commentary to the patch notes, and toss my ideas on actual fixes into the ring so maybe they can do something positive before this trainwreck hits.
- New Talent: Thrill Seeking – Shadowstep(Assassination/Subtlety)/Grappling Hook(Outlaw) has 1 additional charge.
Remove this, immediately. Hook and Shadowstep serve two different purposes and Hook is still insanely buggy, with obviously zero fix incoming to pathing. This is going to net hurt us.
- Thistle Tea now automatically triggers when energy is reduced below 50.
Convenience, great for the other two specs, but basically zero impact on Outlaw, if we can keep ADR up that is.
- Cut to the Chase now grants Slice and Dice duration, instead of requiring an existing Slice and Dice to extend.
One entirely positive change, no comments. Do more of THIS.
- Soothing Darkness now heals for 30% of max health over 6 seconds (was 15%). Effect no longer triggers from Shadow Dance.
Net nerf to the other specs, and barely acceptable even as outlaw. Our self-healing is 1/10th that of other classes, even if you factor in cleansing damage from KS and our mitigation. It’s not enough. Leech needs to be brought back up.
- Fatebound
- Inevitability renamed to Inevitable End.
- Inevitable End/Double Jeopardy effects now indicate they can match any flip outcome (including ‘edge’), not just one face or the other.
- Delivered Doom now provides bonus damage when more than 1 target is nearby, with the bonus reducing by 6% for each nearby target beyond 1.
Small changes, and entirely forgetting Trickster and Deathstalker. So you’re content with ignoring both of the other hero trees? Why did we even get 3 in the first place if you’re just going to focus on one the entire expansion?
Outlaw
- Crackshot now also refreshes the cooldown of Between the Eyes upon gaining Stealth.
Cool? No fixes to the bugs that make the skill a nightmare? I guess it’ll refresh to immediately go on CD or be unusable for the entire window. Can’t wait to be twice as angry.
- Precise Cuts now increases Blade Flurry’s damage by 4% per missing target below its max (was 2%).
I want to be happy about this but the current tree set up barely lets you even consider this as a viable option, no matter how much you buff this.
- Keep It Rolling cooldown reduced to 6 minutes (was 7 minutes).
Still too long honestly. 5 minutes would probably be perfect.
- Blade Flurry’s area-of-effect range increased to match the same distance it was when the previous version of Acrobatic Strikes was talented.
Lol. Lmao even.
We can’t keep our uptime where it was because you removed the range extension from the builders and spenders. This does almost nothing beyond allowing me to tickle some random caster mob occasionally. I still can’t hit things to maintain my rotation for 30% of Brewery, and for large swathes of half the bosses.
Stop with the half measures. Give the range extension back. It wasn’t game breaking on Outlaw in the first place, and you’ve just made life miserable for the class entirely without it.
Oh and fix all of the stealth and ability bugs before you do any of this. The class will see zero benefit from half these changes as it sits, since half the changes interact with abilities that are maybe half functional at the moment. It’s ridiculous.