Outlaw rogue changes

In Development Midnight: Curse of Ula'tek Public Test Realm
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It is nice to see that outlaw is at least getting some attention. The spec didn’t launch in a good state, but several changes along the way brought it to an acceptable state. In its current state some of the issues of outlaw are the following:

  • Undercooked talent trees (both class and spec tree)
    • The class tree still has a capstone that will never be picked up (vanish talents) because vanish is no longer on Restless Blades
    • The spec tree has some questionable node pathing and weak capstones
  • Energy isn’t in a good state
    • The spec is heavily reliant on haste and Thistle Tea to make up for the poor energy
    • Tea is simply a bandaid to bad design and it’s very noticeable when you get unlucky and use your charges
    • Our “passive” energy gains were nerfed compared to TWW. Combat Potency went from 30% to 16% and Fatal Flourish is 40% as effective as it used to be
    • Deft Maneuvers increasing Blade Flurry energy cost by 30 made this exceptionally bad in low target cleave (previously a niche of the spec that is now gone)
  • Blade Flurry is in a weird state
    • Outlaw is one of few target hardcapped specs with only one ability being softcapped (Blade Rush)
    • In TWW low target outlaw cleave was exceptional because of Precise Cuts which has since been removed, and now all rogue specs do poorly in low target cleave (see paladin boss in Voidspire). Strangely other classes were allowed to be good at low target cleave.
    • Blade Flurry punishes you when you are hitting just 2-3 targets because Deft Maneuvers makes the cost too expensive for the combo points you gain from it, yet you cannot just skip it
    • With low target cleave being so weak the spec no longer has something it excels at. It didn’t gain any niche for Midnight

Changes in 12.1

Thistle Tea gets a lot of hate… and that’s mostly deserved. This change is welcome in that you will no longer need to pool energy to not proc tea when an m+ pack is about to die, but that won’t make tea a fun button to press.

Having to rely on tea to fix your energy is a design problem, and it’s a problem that is very obvious in dungeons. For raids it’s less of an issue because you always start with 3 charges. The existence of this talent just feels forced for historical reasons without any engaging gameplay. If you don’t want to fully redesign it, at least provide a way to gain charges faster in dungeons. Optimally though I’d rather (as do many other outlaw players btw) to see the talent gone entirely and our energy to be more skill based. Currently our energy can feel rough even with Adrenaline Rush running.

Theses goals sound sensible. It’s true that in S1 some of our talents were just dead and unpickable.

I have to admit that Between the Eyes losing more of its big crits identity doesn’t feel nice. It does make sense based on the goals explained above, but the ability has gone from x4 crits in TWW to x2.5 already.

Zero In being normalised is a good thing but people will use daggers anyway because our poison procs aren’t normalised. Buffing Heavy Hitter and Fast Action is good. Fast Action’s buff is a bit… unimaginative? I would expect something more unique from a capstone.

Well would you look at that we’ve gone full circle with KS again. Ever since KS was reworked there has been a refusal to address its problems and it has only been handled with damage tuning. It’s good that KS will be a better button to press, but its random targeting is still a very annoying aspect of it. I don’t think the ability deserves such a drawback. It already has a high cost, it stops your auto attacks so you cannot gain energy through Fatal Flourish, it slows you down (without mentioning it in the tooltip btw :slight_smile: ), and it’s a mandatory pick for Trickster.

The new node pathing introduced is a good change. It helps go around the very annoying 2 pointer nodes, although in reality this only has an effect for Find an Opening.

The buff to HO is simply not enough. You need to give HO/Audacity something more to make it viable. You nerfed HO from TWW to Midnight in 3 ways:

  • No more Subterfuge with Restless Blades not affecting Vanish, meaning you lose a lot of Ambush casts
  • No double strike means you cannot fill your combo points with one Ambush. Fatebound can occasionally get 5cp through Deal Fate but Trickster is doomed to always get 4.
  • The chance to proc Audacity is way lower because Fan the Hammer pistol shots only have 1 chance to proc it instead of 3

Now you buff the proc rate of HO which is a step in the right direction, but simply not enough. Here are some ideas: Bring double strike back, and/or make audacity make the Ambush cheaper or free, and/or make audacity make Ambush generate +1cp. Even with the suggested extra changes it might not be enough but it might be closer. On live HO builds have similar damage dealt between Ambush and Sinister Strike, while Ambush only generates slightly more combo points per energy point. For investing 2 talent points I would expect more.

HO builds are essentially unable to pick up aoe talents without giving up too much. At least make the build good for single target dps.

Last but not least let’s look at our new set bonuses. First of all 2p goes against your goal of making the bonuses more cool and complex. The 4p is a good idea, but its proc chance might need some tuning. Outlaw has several builders other than SS/Ambush. You have Pistol Shot, in AoE you have Blade Flurry, if you have KS that technically also generates combo points. 4p only proccing from our lowest priority generator feels shortsighted. Either allow more abilities to proc it or increase the chance for SS/Ambush to make it a bit more frequent.

4 Likes
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And it has a range that is basically melee range still for it to go off properly and requires extreme positioning. Kspree damage tune up is nice but the problem is it has too many utility draw backs as a channeled ability. Channeled abilities on melee tend to be shorter in duration for many reasons like balance and also being more fun and intuitive to use.

This is true which is why it still feels good to play around with FB if you pick up audacity while Trickster using audacity is like swimming in the mud.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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There are currently a few issues with the new 4p for outlaw (Fang Strike proc)

  1. in what looks to be a bug the free dispatch casts don’t proc Scoundrel Strike or Fatebound coins
  2. Fang Strike can trigger from SS extra attack procs. That makes the proc rate significantly worse for HO since you removed ambush double strikes (xd). So if you are serious about making HO somewhat viable it would make more sense to increase the proc chance but only have 4p proc from the main spell id of SS
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The buff to Hidden Opportunity while interesting still has issues as it lacks the extra punch as a cap stone talent. Similar problem with Fast Action. I do think that Hidden Opportunity buff helps lean into more Ambush play but there has to be a reward for going in that direction. Fast Action is fun to play with but a stacking damage modifier on BTE makes it feel like you have to take Improved BTE and Fast Action in 12.1 to just get back what you had on live with Improved BTE alone. That feels bad for players that want to build around BTE as they have one less talent point to work with.

To me Fast Action is about saving a global and also providing better energy economy for Outlaw so that is the direction I would have went with Fast Action to mean more agility and flexibility. Another damage amp that stacks seems like it is a lot to keep track of.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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Outlaw has way too many CD’s as is. Get rid of Preparation and Keep It Rolling and buff the baseline abilities.

In fact, get rid of restless blades all together and balance the other CD’s appropriately.

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Removing CDs and removing CDR would make it basically Combat from TBC. But Combat in TBC also had varied finishers with expose armor, and rupture. And BF was an actual CD along with AR.

That is why it would not work for the modern game.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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Very good changes this build.

The changes to 4p are both great. Equalizing the proc chance for Ambush & SS builds was necessary.

The changes to ambush are a step in the right direction. It’s unclear where it stands numerically yet, so it might need more tuning to be competitive. HO sacrifices a lot of things to grab Audacity and HO (with HO being locked behind Summarily Dispatched). I still find it clunky that Ambush only generates 4 CP (often 5 as FB). Unless your intention is that it is played only as FB, I think +1 cp on each Ambush attached to HO would go a long way. With the current tuning you either have to finish at 5 very often or you have to overcap a lot of cp (since both PS and Ambush give you 4). Good stuff though, don’t abandon it if it’s not strong enough yet.

Lastly, the KS changes are a bit confusing. It is welcome that KS will hit your main target more often, but why not just make it always hit it? The rng on which target it hits doesn’t add any engaging gameplay, and sometimes it is even worse and it hits immune or 0 hp undying mobs.

2 Likes
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its a nice change to killing spree. but i question the logic behind it. why make it hit your primary target 50% more when you can just make it always hit your primary target and cleave from it. i understand you want to keep the original spirit of it like bladestorm. but even bladestorm for arms hits the primary target with 2 mortal strikes which is alot of st damage.

ho needs more frankly, it needs to be one more combo point granted so we can just ambush finisher to make the spec flow better with it and to make it worthy to being a capstone.

also if you can connect the path betwween find a opening and ho, that would fix how expensive this talent is to take.

remove prep or change prep, this button does nothing but throws a wrench into the flow outlaw has rn in this expansion. make prep grant a change to adr/bte/ks/br or a mix and match if its too strong to grant a charge to everything it effects

if you can fix these 3 things then frankly the spec would be in the best state it can possibly be in in terms of rotational flow/damage profile.

1 Like
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Removing Prep is a bad idea. Prep is great protection from bad luck and it is fun to use. Prep is very popular talent for Outlaw Rogues and far more so than Keep it Rolling. Keep It Rolling feels bad to play without Count the Odds now.

Kspree logic is fine as it is with this new patch notes because they do not want it to be that powerful if it always targets the main target for so much damage.

The buffs to HO and Audacity are more than sufficient. Adding more to either or would make them over powered. Adding a combo point to Audacity would mean it would become the dominant build again.

There is a reason why the Fan the Hammer nerf from DF was not reverted. They don’t want Outlaw to have the flow of Sub’s style of game play.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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its not tho, every outlaw that ive talked to dislikes it heavily.

again im not asking for something thatr doesnt already exist. bladestorm hits your primary target with 2 mortal strikes which is a ton of prio damage. they can easily do something like this for killing spree and it wouldnt make it op

no it would, it would be 4% behind the normal build if they did that. right now its to expensive and does way to little damage to be warrant as a viable choice.

stop talking about stuff you clearly dont know about

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Prep is a great addition to the Outlaw Rogue tool kit and keep the spec from being stagnant and ultra reliant on fishing for buffs and then being stuck with bad RNG.

Kspree can not be a direct single target anymore with how it is designed because it would be over powered. I agree with the devs logic that the 12.1 version has better targeting but it still requires selective use.

4% difference is trivial given that final damage tuning is not finished as this is not even week 2 of PTR so far.

In summary Outlaw is perfectly fine as it is on the PTR and needs some slight tweaks to numbers at this point. Also the new nodes help with build flexibility as you can move talents around now instead having to go down paths to reach nodes right before capstones or the capstones themselves.

Outlaw’s issues were addressed going into this patch cycle which were the following:

  1. Capstones that were underpowered are now stronger on the 12.1 PTR
  2. Kspree has better logic targeting but still requires selective use
  3. More freedom to traverse the talent tree nodes

Those are all solid wins for the Outlaw Rogue spec. And Sub has received some good news as well with this PTR cycle.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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thats 4% IF they make ambush generate another combo point

its like you dont even read my post, you just regurgitate your same poor points and pray theyre correct this time.

imgurcom/a/94bIOuo

its 14% behind in ptr rn

this reads as a half measure that tells the community that they see the problem but they only willing to fix it half way.

the only thing it does for bad rng, is give you another cast of bte for bte window memes. thats it. thats also on a 4min cd. so y ou only get to cast it once or twice depending on encounter length. this isnt a good cooldown. especially in a world where no other 4min cooldowns exists. not to mention if prep existed in the past where other 4min cds exist, it would be the weakest non impactful 4 cd in the game during that time.

alot of these changes are solid and good, but they can be better. we should always give feedback for things that can be improved. especially when theyre very close on making outlaw very solidly designed.

you’re the only person in this community that actively discourages people sending feedback, especially when its against your own subjective opinion. like the rtb thread. literally no on in that thread agrees with you.

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More combo points for Ambush would be overpowered beyond DPS which is why that would never happen. Especially paired with Fatebound. And it would create a huge gap in terms of balance with Trickster too.

Kspree is perfectly fine as it is on the PTR. It does more damage which is it should as a major cool down, and it has better targeting logic which is fantastic. Advocating for anything more would be over powered at this point and Kspree would be nerfed again into no one using it which would be sad.

Prep guarantees two buff rolls via Loaded Dice and when KIR is on CD AND it gives you another BTE to stack. That is extremely powerful and fun game play to leverage for veteran players.

For new players to the class Prep is a great protection button for them if they did not time using AR properly between packs and can have AR again with two guaranteed buff rolls.

That is why Prep is very versatile for all type of players while KIR is really ultra niche for veteran players trying to extend multi buff rolls.

I encourage people to provide feedback that is within the realm of reason. Asking for removal of important tools or making something overpowered is not reasonable.

Hidden Opportunity and Audacity are both fanastic talents on the PTR. We as the Rogue community and Outlaw players do not want a repeat of where one talent like Crackshot has so many things baked into it that it becomes so powerful and overwhelms all other talent choices.

Outlaw talent tree layout and potency of talents are really good right now on the PTR as they are well balanced.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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again rn in ptr according to sims

ho is 14% behind

trust me, buffing it again wont make it op

again, im not asking for naything that doesnt already exist in the game, blade storm does 2 mortal strikes on its primary target and thats alot of prio damage. rn as it stands killing spree hits its main target 50% of the time while the rest is random rng targeting. you have a fight like mugzee where any adds are immune to damage. this begins to feel really bad really quickly. that is unacceptable for a capstone

its not fun gameplay or leverage. your using words you dont understand in an attempt to make you sound like a good player. the rng gain is from the second bte it grants. rtb is so lilttle in outlaws rng variance rn due to our apex, bte windows, tierset, ss strikes, ho procs. that focusing on rtb in any caliber just highlights your ignorance with the spec.

its not really tho, cause it they fumble using prep then theyre locked out of the button for 4minutes.

you cant mess up adren rush or bte or killing spree because you’ll get them back fiarly quick viva restless blades. but you can 100% measure up prep and then not have it for 4 minutes.

nothing youve said is reasonable. all youve done is brown nose bad changes

also hypocrite much? your actively advocating for the removal of rtb in another thread. by your own words, you are being unreasonable and trying to silence me. i forget who im talking to, this isnt surprising. you got caught editing peoples qoutes so they look less reasonable when talking to you. the community seen your colors and you are a liar a cheat and a hypocrite. you are not a lead of the rogue community, stop speaking for us.

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Final damage tuning has not started but they are not going to buff HO beyond what they outlined as their goals for this PTR patch cycle is my best guess. They may choose to buff Ambush itself for example as the PTR continues.

Kspree is not bladestorm and as a result it can not be balanced this way. Kspree 2.0 is designed to be spread pressure of extra attacks or an extension of Outlaw’s ability to hit multiple targets. Kspree 2.0 isn’t designed to be single target focused.

If a new player mis times use of AR and then mis times use of Prep then that is a learning lesson. CDs have cool downs but at least they are able to try a second time if they miss AR the first time. Prep also exists to promote game play outside of stealth and that is what makes it a fun addition in Midnight expansion IMVHO.

Further buffs to HO and asking for cool down reduction of Vanish is just going to lead to stealth oriented game play dominating Outlaw again which was the whole point of the Outlaw Midnight rework which was to simplify game play and move away from stealth dominate game play flow and loop.

Also adding an extra combo point to to Audacity/HO builds via Ambush use would create a large gap between Fatebound and Trickster builds. Fatebound already has quadruple grapple hooks and the CDR from the extra combo point would be hard to balance over a long period of time as well as the CDR on Sprint.

Fundamentally it is easy to say add an extra combo point to promote a game play loop that mirrors Sub rogue of one Ambush into a finisher. But there has to be a difference between Outlaw and Sub Rogue specs in terms of game play flow and loop.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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HO is too far behind to just save it with some numerical tuning. The spec only has 3 unique tuning knobs which won’t affect the other builds (ambush and the two ambush talents). More drastic changes are needed for it to be viable. I’ll just leave it at that. My original message already explains how HO was overnerfed (for no reason) for midnight. No point making changes if the spec is still ~15% behind on ST where it should excel (it will never be good in aoe because it cannot even grab aoe talents).

2 Likes
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Numeric tuning can bridge the gap but it does not mean it has to be closed. In other words if it is close enough that would be good enough. Because one of the goals of this update was to make the capstones better for Outlaw and that has been achieved so far.

The concern in making HO powerful again to the point it starts to dwarf everything else is that it would shift and promote game play that isn’t core to the spec but rather an alternative. HO is fine as an alternative and with final tuning if the gap is closed that is more than sufficient.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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Sorry about derailing your thread, I forget magic can’t be talked to normally

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Really wish they would connect Find an Opening and HO. Would make the build around Ambush much smoother.

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Possible but then again they did a round of connecting nodes but maybe they do not want to do another round until they see how it is on live.

Good suggestion though.

:+1:

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman: