Among excitement about player housing, I was most looking forward to any hint or suggestion of a rework or even redesign for rogues (and any other classes!). Is anyone else similarly disappointed that the limbo continues?
In one interview Jade Martin, Lead Combat & Systems Designer, suggested that some classes had reached a “tipping point” when the interviewer suggested that Weakauras are mandatory for specs like Outlaw. While it’s baffling that any class or spec would be allowed to reach whatever that “tipping point” is, because broader reworks and redesigns apparently cannot happen “within expansion boundaries” for fear of significant disruption, I took this as an indirect nod at the work that’s being done.
I’m pessimistically hopeful that Alpha build and upcoming news may reveal more, but I remember being genuinely enthusiastic about Hero Specs being an opportunity to bring flavor and experimentation to the rogue playstyle, only to find myself disturbed by the lack of creativity and the seemingly last-minute animations.
As a side note, it was interesting to hear that Jade loved the old Breath of Sindragosa playstyle, and I suspect that influenced what will be a very similar, from the sounds of it, playstyle for the new DH spec. I wonder how deeply personal preferences influence the class & spec design and development philosophy at Blizzard; does the loudest, biggest, most persuasive voice in the room win?
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They know that Outlaw is a mess when you need tons of addons to make it work properly.
Dratnos who was a high level Rogue in PVE in WoD and even our favorite Canadian Venruki said it is the same in PVP.
So when highly respected players in PVE and PVP like Dratnos and Venruki bring it up to Watcher aka Ion they know they have to fix the spec.
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Is that what it takes to fix the spec? High-visibility players calling out the issue which many of us are roughing it through. 
Holding out hope that the rogue hero talents might get the Hunter treatment, with the hero talent visuals and mechanics at least reconsidered.
Edit: And I know it isn’t just rogues that could use both visual and mechanics updates, but it feels especially glaring for rogues.
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For non Rogue players all three specs are hard to approach right now. But for even experienced Rogue players Outlaw is very clunky. Addon reliance is the highest with Outlaw compared to many other specs in the game. That is why Dratnos brought it up with the interview with Watcher.
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HELLO!!! we get 3 more talent points for spec tree, that’s going to fix EVERYTHING.
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Extra talents point or not the fundamental flaws are the core of the spec for Outlaw due to over reliance with addons.
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And then there’s Subtlety feeling like you’re attacking with wet noodles rather than stealthy daggers.
I thought assassination had some good concepts and interesting attempts in the Dragonflight rework that haven’t seen much cleanup.
All three specs have loose ends to clean up but for Assassination it isn’t crippling. Sub needs a little more refinement while Outlaw needs a lot of refinement.
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Class reworks are also something they wouldn’t bring up at gamescon because that playform is used to showcase new things about the Xpac to get people to want to come back or pick up the game for first time.
We will see rework stuff closer toward the launch of 11.2.7
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Yeah they do not view it as an important selling point of the expansion but for existing players it is a major selling point to them.
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it is a huge selling point for me.
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i mean all honestly if we get three more talent points in the class tree making it so we can pick up vigor and thisle will do wonders for outlaw cause thats one of its biggests cons is high energy consumption with not enough energy regen
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Is it confirmed to be in the class tree the three extra talents? Also what is the future of hero talents and respective talent trees like?
ya having 3 more class trees, if the class tree isnt reshuffled. will fix alot of the energy problems outlaw has. picking up vigor and supercharger as kir would do wonders
very much so and also being able to pick up summerly dispatched and greenskins in spec tree will giga boost are damage too
i mean, idk about that part. cause the apex talent has to be super bad if you dont want to take it. that would be a terrible gamedesign failure
i aint holding my breath on the apex talents but we’ll see though
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its probably gonna involve pistolshot or bte
That would make Crackshot over powered.