why not make the killing spree node a choice and put in shadow dance?
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I think making (new) Killing Spree a choice is a good idea (I strongly suspect new Killing Spree is going to just not get taken in PvP, which will be a huge PvP nerf for Outlaw overall).
I also think bringing Shadow Dance back would be overall a good idea (but a lose for spec identity and so on).
I do not see any reason that they should be mutually exclusive, so Iâm not sure why you suggest they should be on a choice node with one another.
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This os only because Sub has so many talents that are either dead or unintuitive. Many things could be done to double down on theme while adding some gameplay changing choices.
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Shadow Dance would be OP which is why BlizZard removed it.
Please no, we already got that crackshot cancer ability
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BlizZard didnât give up shadow dance easily. They started by removing Find Weakness from the general tree first.
That didnât work so they went and removed shadow dance too.
Canât say BlizZard didnât try the experiment but this did not work out.
I really just wanted a viable build that wasnât crack shot. Tried everything I could to make a âcombatâ build work. now with the incoming change to killingspreeâŚ
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Well Iâm 100% with you there, a viable alternative to Crackshot would be great. Iâm just not sure I understand why bringing back Shadow Dance would help with that. What are you envisioning?
Dreadblades + a talent to empower Dispatch (Death from Above?) stands out to me as a potential choice node / âcombatâ build replacement for Crackshot + Ace Up Your Sleeve. But I havenât thought it very much, maybe thatâs a bad idea for some reason thatâs not immediately apparent to me.
The design problem for me with Crackshot is just the reaction-test nature of it. It loads too much of your DPS into dependency on your ping (and your age, lol). Reaction tests are one thing; reaction tests that demand better reaction times than the average human seem like bad design in a game aimed at average humans.
I donât personally mind the theming, but I understand some people strongly dislike it. I also think being locked into one build is a design problem in itself (compare Enhancement).
Something that:
- Separated DPS from Vanish
- Gave us at least one viable alternative build
- Distinguished thematically from guns-guns-guns, and
- Gave us a more predictable (if lower-output â harder gameplay should deliver better results) rotation
All at once would be elegant and extremely welcome.
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Iâm assuming the intention here would be a choice between Killing Spree or Crackshot, as I am assuming Shadow Dance would replace Restless Blades affecting Vanish in this instance.
If this could be balanced, I would be okay with this. Although they just as easily make it a choice node between Killing Spree and a talent that enables Vanish benefiting from Restless Blades.
I personally do not like the whole âShadow Danceâ aping that Outlaw does as I feel thematically Outlaw should be the least stealth-focused spec of the three for Rogues. Crackshot + Ace up your Sleeve is also absurdly high-speed-reflexes-demanding to the point where a lot of people physically canât execute it perfectly, which I feel is a problem.
Even still, I feel like Outlaw needs some big changes and talent tree tweaks. It still suffers from having some really bad talents (Riposte, Ambidexterity, Improved Main Gauche, Deft Maneuvers, Blade Rush), and is still in a bit of an identity crisis.
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make no mistake, Iâd rather play a viable build thatâs not reliant on stealth windows for damage. It is clear that isnât happening this xpac.
also I donât know why everyone hates on blade rush, itâs a charge with built in energy regen. mobility is important.
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No one hates it
Alot of outlaw mains like it, itâs just criminally undertuned to the point that itâs probably a dps loss to press it.
I miss blade rush
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I never really looked at it as a dps ability, to me it is a mobility talent. secondarily it is energy regen when Iâm out of my stealth haste window
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I mean thatâs the thing tho, the energy provided is not worth the global rn either
Which kinda weirdge
Blade rush mobility is strange idk I have grapple hook for it, and sprint, but like it reminds me of felblade for havoc and I was never a fan of it
I understand but BlizZard doesnât understand Outlaw fantasy so right now Outlaw has no real identity.
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Raises hand.
I, for example, am too old and bad to execute Ace + Crackshot perfectly. I think thatâs broadly okay, though. Perfect play is supposed to be really really hard.
Whatâs more significant in my mind is that Iâm too old and bad to execute Ace + Crackshot very well at all. And Iâm not that old and bad. I bounce around 2k rating in shuffle and Blitz on Outlaw and Resto shaman. If 1800 is where an approximately average player is meant to end up, Iâm at least average if not very slightly above.
Loktark was kind enough to sim for me that if Iâm missing half of my Ace procs (i.e casting Ambush despite having enough combo points for BtE during a Crackshot window, because Iâm old and bad and my reaction time sucks) Iâm only facing a loss of fractions of 7% of my DPS. Which is kind of comforting, I guess. However:
- I was too embarrassed to ask Loktark to also sim the equally frequent case where I hit Between the Eyes despite only having 1-3 combo points, because my personal 330ms reaction time means my Ace proc response is essentially random: I Ambush by mistake but also BtE by mistake, doubling the frequency of lost DPS. So Iâm losing more than 7%.
- âYouâre only losing 7% of your DPS to the spec being designed so hard as to be physically impossible for an average playerâ is not a good design outcome anyway.
So yes, strongly agree with you there Plunderpaw.
Can you help me by deconflicting the ideas here?
I understand that people feel Shadow Dance (and now Vanish-weaving) makes Outlaw too much like Subtlety.
I understand also that people feel Shadow Dance / Vanish-weaving make Outlaw feel too stealthy.
And I understand (see above) that the gameplay of current Vanish-weaving and previous Shadow Dance design (i.e Ace + Crackshot) feels bad.
But itâs never clear to me where each problem ends and the next one begins. Which isnât to say anyone is wrong, just that itâs unclear to me what peopleâs suggestions are designing for.
So:
- Would we be okay with a cooldown which enabled Ace + Crackshot but didnât put us in Stealth? Which is to say, literally Shadow Dance with another name? That would seem to me to make Outlaw less âaping Subtletyâ, but maybe not enough less?
- Would we be okay with a cooldown which enabled those interactions but didnât put us in Subterfuge, so thereâs nothing Stealth-adjacent involved at all? That would seem to me to reduce the Outlaw stealthiness as a whole.
- Or is it the âwindowsâ gameplay that people donât like and people just want a total rebuild (i.e. Crackshot + Ace are the problem and we donât really care how itâs dressed up)?
Obviously I realise everyoneâs different, but itâd be cool to get a clearer idea of what people have a problem with, where.
I wouldnât say I hate it, it just feels a bit useless to me. The damage is not very meaningful (Iâd like to see it made a competitor for Between the Eyes maybe?), 25 energy over five seconds doesnât strike me as having much impact, and the combination of:
- short range (Charge, Wild Charge and Feral Lunge are 25% further),
- not stopping the thing you rush to so theyâve walked away by the time you get there (Charge roots, Wild Charge dazes, Feral Lunge is detested for the same basic flaw), and
- weâve got oodles of mobility between Sprint and double Grappling Hook and Killing Spree breaking roots (i cri) anyway
Just means that overall itâs extremely unappealing. If Iâm out of Grappling Hooks and Sprints and still need to close a gap, itâs probably not a 20 yard gap. Even if the stars do align like that, whomever I Rush to has probably stepped out of melee range by the time the animation finishes.
So itâs a pretty undertuned DPS ability and a pretty poor mobility ability. Iâd love to use it more, but it just feels weak. As a finisher that helped us stick to a target, though (for example) itâd be pretty cool.
âI donât like Outlawâs identityâ â âOutlaw has no identityâ.
Outlawâs identity is speed, guns(?), leg-up buffs to get an underhanded upper hand, and giving up the rogueâs customary stealthiness for more pewpew. I donât love it, but itâs not not there.
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I feel getting rid of the stealth component would definitely be a step in the right direction. As I have mentioned before elsewhere, one of the big issues of using Vanish is that if you are in combat solo, it just resets combat so you canât even do the rotation in solo combat.
Personally, I think Outlaw should distance itself more from having a giant go window that is Crackshot. Class design in the game has increasingly tilted in direction of go-windows, leading to most classes increasingly relying on cooldowns to do damage. Subtlety is already the burst spec for Rogues, and Iâm okay with this (although it has gotten a little too extreme in my opinion but thatâs an argument for elsewhere). I donât think Outlaw needs to be hyper bursty either. I mean, it already has Killing Spree.
I think part of the issue is that Adrenaline Rush just isnât that impactful these days, and I feel it needs to be juiced a little more.
However this is a divisive issue, as there are Outlaw Rogues who live and breath the high speed of Crackshot.
At the very least Outlaw should have a viable alternative to Crackshot fro those who donât like - or physically canât play - the Crackshot style.
Is it really crackshot/ace specific though. There are a few other procs that are on outlaw and rogue in general that demand the same degree of reaction time. For example our core 2 generators basically require this reaction time on every global between whether you Finisher, SS, or potentially pistol shot after a generator. Maybe outlaw is too fast, and maybe itâs not, but it is certainly not an ace specific reaction time requirement.
4.8% To always use at least 2 BTE in a row regardless of combo points or ace procs. This caused the sim to cast BTE 21 times in situations where it otherwise should not have out of 91 total casts. If itâs particularly common to be doing something like this and the previous test I ran ace might be losing almost all of the 7% that it provides.
Making vanish actually behave consistently is something Blizzard needs to do pretty much regardless of whether they adjust Crack/subterfuge. The fact that it can sometimes drop combat nearly instantly requiring you to press 2 keys in very quick succession or rely on a dedicated open world Vanish macro, and sometimes fail to drop combat for a few seconds is just ridiculous.
I think outlaws âgo-windowsâ donât really fall into the same kind of category as all the other cooldown focused specs in the game including sub. Subterfuge is up for over a third of the encounter and doesnât really provide the same burst that the comparatively low(5-15%) uptime cooldowns do on other specs. It feels to me more like the sustained damage that outlaw has had for a long time instead of the bursty nature of some of these other specs.
Despite all of my defending of Crackshot I do think they need to replace/rework/buff some of our dead or uninteresting talents(Triple threat, Blade Rush, Improved Main gauche, Greenskinâs, Cold Blood, Thistle Tea, Ambidexterity, Thiefâs versatility) with new stuff to deliberately mix things up. Give people that want to avoid Ace+crack at least something to pick, and maybe add a new fun build along the way for everyone to pick.
I miss Blade Rush.
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you need to touch some grass or something. RELAX GUY! whatâs got you so triggered?
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That is a great question.
I donât mind Crackshot and vanish game play but it should not be the only game in town. KIR has its moments but it needs the stars to align.
If anything it would be better to have Sin and Outlaw, SPECIALLY Outlaw stay away from Stealth combat.
Thats Subâs thing.
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