Hello and salutations everyone! I wish to stake my thoughts and opinions out here on the forums to see what everyone (And maybe Blizzard as well but that’s like having Xy’rath drop his red saber cause you said pretty please with a cherry on top or “Insert your impossible drop chance here.”) thinks about these ideas that I had in mind to which, I look forward to read what everyone has to say, Both positive and down right heart rending negative! (P.S This post is also on a PTR Forums by my horde alt: Grokñar, Posting here for it to be at the right home as I should of done the first time.)
WARNING: This is a lengthy post! I’ll put a TL;DR at bottom for the wordy stuff, Skip to the bullet points for changes or additions, Thank you for choosing to read, voicing your criticism/critique and giving me your time! I hope you enjoy the post Below!
- To start, I think Outlaw should return to it’s roots in a way that it’s specialization describes it: “A ruthless fugitive who uses agility and guile to stand toe-to-toe with enemies”. Which screams to me “Once the Element of Surprise is gone, Time to fight dirty any means possible and up in the Opponent’s face, giving no breathing room in a Finesse and Agile way.” That or old school Combat in some terms.
Because to me, Outlaw is a broad title of describing the spec, In which changing to a pirate theme and having said themed abilities was awesome when it came out in Legion! But with the passing of time, some abilities were added then removed or shifted elsewhere I think we can add back, Modify and remove to fill out the other aspects that fill out the word “Outlaw” in a way or two.
Skills Changes/Buffs/Talents to just muddle around with:
- Roll The Bones. (Just me) But it’s an ability I wish to see removed or become a talent choice node that is shared with something that is a passive buff that you don’t have to maintain and not deal with the RNG of getting bad rolls and burning through the CD window for a new one in a PvP and PvE sense. (Again I just think RNG being an ability isn’t something that everyone wants to deal with.)
_ - Blade Flurry. Return it to the old one where it’s uncapped and toggleable. Or have it where for PvE it’s uncapped and it’s toggleable and in PvP it’s capped and it set to a 25 - 30 sec timer. (Possible PvP talent to increase it’s target cap amount.)
_ - Between the Eyes. Bring back the stun or have it act like Knockdown/Knockback/Mini Blind.
_ - Fan the Hammer. Change it back to the old one flat out.
_ - Crimson Vial. Revert back to Legion amount or Buff the amount of health restored by 30% - 45% for Outlaw. (Sub has Shadow Dance/Soothing Darkness.) (And Assassination gets a buff to Leeching Poison to 20% - 25% healing.)
_ - Iron Stomach. Becomes a PvP talent, Increases the amount of healing done by healing potions, healthstones and mage conjured food by 25%.
_ - Talent Tree. I’d give it a Reconstruction/Shuffle to where as it’s not so restrictive/ridged or “Clunky”
_ - Sprint. Give it a 1 Min CD with the same type of talent to reduce the CD to 40 - 45 secs that melds well in the talent tree. (Again just me.)
_ - Blind. Change the CD to 1 Min, With current peel/stun abilities and DR; Some Rogues are left with no CC in the PvP scene and as for PvE to have the target be blind for 1 min on a 2 min CD is lackluster for CC outside of Sap alongside the fact if the target can be sapped at all.
_ - Sap. On the follow up, It should be Baseline in the Rogue’s base spells/skills and perhaps maybe broaden the affected targets i.e. certain giants (Small ones unless they’re part of the humanoid family and treated as such) and Mechanical (I’m sure if you sap’em hard enough they’ll power down or explode…)
_ - Slice and Dice. (To me) it should be the only maintenance buff beside poisons that a Rogue should deal with but the attack speed at 50% it’s good but it could be better! So we bring back Energy-regen to where it’s 5 - 15 energy back every 2 or 3 secs like old school Energetic Recovery or refer to Alacrity (*).
_ - Cloak of Darkness. (**) It’s would be best to have it’s CD reduced by Float Like a Butterfly. (Just my thought.) And be able remove bleeds as is described to “Remove Harmful Effects”.
_ - Killing Spree. (**) Buff it’s damage to be a burst and should act like an execution if the target’s is at 15% - 25% health (Can execute other nearby targets if in health threshold and blade flurry is active).
_ - Riposte. (**) It should baseline and melded with Evasion it’s very useful to extend and Outlaw’s lifespan.
_ - Grappling Hook. I would give it an effect if landed near the target causing slowing or having it where if it landed near or on said target you pull the target to your location instead. (along with talent choice to have a Second charge. (**))
_ - Alacrity. (*) Melded into Slice and Dice.
- Mid-post: Quoting “Soupspoon-terenas, post:1, topic:1639161”
3.*“Outlaw is not built to hit from the shadows like Subtlety, or DoT opponents with hit and run tactics like Assassination.”**
To which post the link (link here: A Plea for Outlaw ) from an inspired post, Earlier I stated my vision or my kind of fantasy of what an Outlaw is to me and I agree with Soupspoon, With some of ideas above being theirs which I fully agree on, (being marked with a (**) as seen above) To which I implore the readers here to take a look at that post too! Great ideas in there! (Which you can do at the end of my post or if you chose now just c’mon on back once done.)
But for some of the changes I’ve stated above like for healing skills (I feel as making it where like LP, SD and CV should do more healing towards the corresponding spec if they have to share the abilities with one another.) I believe that overtime Outlaw started out as a pirate theme and then like it’s predecessor “Combat” has begun to go stale and dwindle down in some abilities to avoid bloating which may of lost it’s identity and begun to “Copy” some of the other spec moves or having them meld into just base rogue to keep Outlaw aloft. To be clear there is nothing wrong with that but we can be bit more Clever or Cunning going about the spec fantasy.
My ideas for Skills/Spells to add back or create for Outlaw:
- Death From Above. (Returning) As it is a odd niche ability (And in some cases for Blizzard a skull rending head-ache to deal with at times) “I believe” it was somewhat adds on to Outlaw as a good finisher, fits the toe-to-toe brawler-esque or nimble mercenary/hitman-for-hire fantasy. (For PvE that adds onto a bit of AoE along with the changes to Blade Flurry and in a possible addition given a damage reduction percent of 25 - 35 while in the air like Killing Spree for a little more survivability.) (An execute ability like as fore-mentioned Killing Spree
- Revealing Strike. (Old Removed Ability, New Effect) (Possibly named to something else) It could possibly replace Ambush in whereas is available outside of stealth but with half-cost uses of pistol shot will allow you to apply Find Weakness to the target, Outside of the half-cost uses it either decreases the damage the target does by fixed amount/increases your chances for Sinister Strike to hit for additional time or increase chance for off-hand to strike for 30 secs - 1 minute (kind of like old school RS) (And for a Talent PvP: slows the target movement speed by 35 - 50% when used outside of half-cost pistol shot for situational cases).
- Throat Punch. Throw a deft punch into target’s throat, Silencing and locking the school of spell for 5 - 10 sec. Cost 35 Energy, 45 Second Cooldown, Only usable in front of target. (New Spell along the lines of old school Garrote for Outlaw) (Original? No, Great for CC and memes I think.)
*Run Through (Old Removed Ability, New Effect) (Can be Named Differently) A Finisher where you plunge both weapons into the target, By-passing target’s armor and striking for high amount of damage and allowing the rogue to apply increased damage taken from all sources to target as well by 10% - 15% for 10 Seconds. (If another Outlaw applies the debuff it refreshes the debuff by adding on 3 Seconds) (This allows the Outlaw to have some burst potential along with small amount Party support.)
Base Skills/Spells For Rogues in General:
- Smoke Bomb. Have it act where if an enemy is not in the cloud of smoke does less damage to those inside, and enemies inside the smoke take more damage from the Rogue and possibly Party members for AoE damage increase for Party support.
*Dismantle/Plunder Armor. Convert Dismantle back to an all Rogue Skill or Bring back Plunder Armor cause it just makes sense for all Rogues to know how to disarm a target or Steal stuff off an opponent to weaken them.
- On the tangent with theme and fantasy of the spec:
The thing with Assassination and Subtlety is that they both begun to bleed (no pun intended) some of their abilities into Outlaw which I’ve no problems with but there was a point where Outlaw didn’t have poisons which it did fine. Again along with Outlaw not needing stealth and it was fine as well! Granted, Albeit that Poisons and Stealth is generic set of skills a Rogue had started with. But with the specs of Assassination stylizing in unique poisons and bleeds and accelerating said bleeds being it’s way of play and style. And with Subtlety using Shadows, Stealth and Darkness as it’s bread and butter of play and style. But with Outlaw; It would be beneficial of You as the Rogue with your sharp wits and cunning, With a trusty pair of swords/axes/maces and extreme level of melee prowess that let’s you reflect or riposte incoming blows and attacks right back to your attacker, In a nimble manner dodge everything that intends to harm you and with odds stacked against you… You managing to overcome the most Tanked-up and hardy combatants who know the in’s and out’s of melee just as well as you do, Going forth in at a blink-of-eye-speeds to close the gap and dispatch the mail-cladded sharpshooters and magically imbued spell-slingers with Guile, Speed and brutal underhanded tactics. Outlaw Rogues style of fighting and play should be that of fore-mentioned of agile and aerial form of underhanded fighting that controls the flow and ebb of the battle by stunning, blinding, discombobulating and throwing off the enemy as much as possible while still being apart of the fight in the light, not out of sight and with all your finessing might face-to-face, toe-to-toe with an adrenaline rush and the thrill of partaking a dance of life or death against your opponents.
Old General Rogue skills/spells/niche fantasy to bring back:
Disarm Trap and Detect Trap. To me that should of NEVER had been removed. Granted, it’s no longer used in over-world stuff and dungeons and so on but damn it! it still had a use for hunter traps in PvP and it’s what made us Rogues! It gave us class fantasy! I can’t speak for all my brothers and sisters of Rogues-in-kind for those who don’t miss it but I do speak for those that do! for those that remain and miss it that is… I’m sure there’s way to bring it back in, and again super useful and “fun” to have against hunters to play head games and mess with em.
Being able to Sprint on water. Simple solution to that is to make it as glyph for Sprint like the Smoke Trail one. Easy! Also it let us be Ninjas for a brief moment which in some way is part of class fantasy.
Pickpocketing. C’mon. I wish the Crimson Vial Idea made it into the game and it wouldn’t hurt to squeeze it in on the rework! Better late than never. If not that just throw us Rogues some crappy gray/grey toys that we can mess with! Keeps Pickpocket lively and give us some class fantasy! (Don’t see happening though, Refer to the beginning of the post on having Blizzard listen to us, but hey weirder stuff has happened! Ask me about that?)
*An odd Gimmicky thing to add:
A glyph to change Grappling Hook’s animation from that a hook to a acrobatic flip that of like a corkscrew front/back flip or a flip with spin in Agile fashion. (Yeah asking for too much here lol.)
The End of the rant/post:
Thank you, the reader so much! With putting up with my Post of ranting and raving ideas, (that is a mix of original and agreed upon, a.k.a stolen from a Rogue to another) that my ideas might be awful ideas or great ones but I do greatly appreciate your time given to this post! (And Blizzard if you happened to read this post for whatever reason be, I’m thankful and i hope that you’ll take mine and Soupspoon’s suggestions into consideration!) I’ll come back and edit this post if I can for future ideas or if there is any errors in spelling and so on!
again to Soupspoon’s post and their idea’s for a rework: A Plea for Outlaw
TL;DR, I wish and want for Outlaw to be more of a Beat your face in kind of theme and reflect that for being tough, dirty and yet have finesse and be a badass based class without relying on the other two other spec’s aesthetic/fantasy (I know, Don’t like it? Go play Warrior and cry else where. I gotcha.) I wish you all the best!
