Dispatch is by far the weakest spender in the game. Ambush deals more damage, making Dispatch feel dull and unimpactful.
RNG-based mechanics feel awful. It’s frustrating to hit Sinister Strike once and barely generate combo points, especially when even healers can outdamage you during that window.
Using Vanish as an offensive cooldown is terrible and not enjoyable. That should be a Subtlety feature, not Outlaw.
Fatebound is the most boring Hero Talent in the game—just another version of Roll the Bones with no real excitement.
I think outlaw needs total redesign. How would you improve the spec? Here some ideas
Make dispach to hit at least 30% harder
Make blade rush viable to pick up. This is an interesing ability but it does crap damage.
Make killing spree interact more with our abilities, like for example: Makes your next 5 sinister strike or ambush hit twice after it’s used
Get rid of crackshot mechanic. Its awful and not fun to use. Instead, replace it with a talent like “Reduce the cooldown of BTE and makes the crit damage hit 6 times harder instead of 4.”
I certainly wouldn’t object to this, but keep in mind that a good chunk of Dispach’s value is in the CRD; the whole pace of the spec being determined by how fast you can spend
I enjoy Crackshot window because they change up the rotation for a time, but they DO add extra cognitive load, which is really high as Outlaw. It’s much easier to just play Sub and be able to pay attention to mechanics better while not losing out on much damage so long as you get your CDs aligned.
If Crackshot is gone, maybe, but with all of the spinning plates there currently, the rotation doesn’t need to get more cramped.
Dispatch being a weak spender is okay if they buff Sinister Strike to compete with Ambush. Dispatch is about CDR so your heavy hitter finisher is BTE. Which leads to the next point that Sinister Strike damager is lowered, because it has been balanced around MG procs which is an old design paradigm from Cataclysm expansion. Best solution is to up the damage of Sinister Strike and MG.
Anyways, the problem is non Crackshot builds have no way to leverage BTE more frequently.
Vanish has always been used as an offensive CD in PVE and PVP for experienced Rogues. So I do agree it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Which is why Crackshot is fun but it should not be the only viable build. KIR is okay but it still doesn’t fill the gap.
Fatebound is definitely bad. Trickster isn’t far behind but Trickster actually you can work around some of the issues. Fatebound has too much RNG and no visual cues to help you out which is even worse than RTB. RTB is hard to manage without addons and Fatebound is way worse in that regard.
Blade Rush is fun to use and it was viable when it was first introduced. It is a shame it wasn’t buffed to keep up with the rest of the game and the talent tree change over. Long overdue buff for Blade Rush indeed!
Kspree interaction with haste I think is kind of a failure. I feel the same way with haste stacking and AR. So, I agree that Kspree should do more which is what Trickster provides to an extent but it should be baseline for the spec IMO.
Agreed, I feel like forum feedback isn’t super visible to the developers, but in-game method for feedback isn’t showing.
The DPS of outlaw has been consistently outclassed by the other rogue specs pre-/post- 11.1 patch. Even according to IcyVein. It might seem higher on their raid lists relative to other classes pre-11.1 patch, but that’s because it performs as a single-target spec that’s suitable for raid bosses. Other classes/specs below it, have access to better and reliable AOE damage. Post 11.1 patch, the damage gap is even greater, which is concerning considering like mentioned previously, it’s predominantly a single-target class. The flaws in the spec are more obvious in the lens of battleground.
In battlegrounds, it’s severely underwhelming. The 6% DPS buff was appreciated from the 11.1 patch, but that has been offset with the removal of the “stamina brawler” PvP spec. This caused no significant change in damage post 11.1 patch release. The AOE buff from 11.1 patch showed barely any difference. In AOE damage still pales in comparison to the superior assassin spec. In comparison, to the assassin spec, it surpasses the class both in single and AOE damage. It has an AOE ability on no cooldown, stronger baseline damaging abilities, and has access to stronger toxins. Outlaw rogue’s Blade of Fury has a small range and is on cooldown, and when you even invest in AOE talents, it takes away from the single-target damage that’s already suboptimal as it relies on crits that can only reach 1 million damage (Between the Eyes) maybe 5% of the time with debuffs.
I saw the March 4th update won’t provide outlaw rogue with any changes. However, the already superior spec, assassination, will be getting one. With the conservative meticulous buffs from 11.1, it makes me concerned that outlaw is being appraised higher than how it actually perform.
My honest taken is that the damage buff for Outlaw is noticeable using Trickster because the aura buff along with Trickster buff does allow you to pump out more damage.
The problem is that it is physical damage still and the tuning might need to be a bit higher. Fatebound has some damage components that are not physical damage which is why it will continue to sim better for PVE and also preferred more so in PVP.
Plus, Kspree is very unpredictable to work as even the smallest of micro CC can stop it from functioning.
It needs a complete redesign from top to bottom. I mean like, throw it all out and start over, not “let’s make this hit harder”. Roll the Bones has to go. Delete it from the game. The Between the Eyes Vanish dance has to go. Replace it with a real rotation that doesn’t constantly change your action bars and depend on RNG to do anything worthwhile. Spells need visual flair. Whatever Pirate theme 2 or 3 spells have don’t mean anything. If you can’t come up with Pirate things, rethink it. There’s plenty of Ninja stuff you can use as inspiration, like Ninja Turtles, Ninja Gaiden, Naruto, and even Batman. I’d love to see a more acrobatic style that mixes in some kicks and movement skills along with weapon attacks. I don’t care if it steps on the toes of Monks or Demon Hunters. It’s not like Rogue spells weren’t copied to use on them.
