You’re the one that made this into a skill based argument, not me. Also, where did I say that a +16 is high end? I just find it awfully funny that this is clearly your main content and your highest is a 22…and that’s just one of them. Most of your completions are 20s, and this is after augvokers came in and inflated everyone’s io ratings and keystone levels.
My point was mainly that I picked this stuff up in one day and could already do a 16 with absolutely terrible gear. Around a third of my pieces were 411 ilvl. I mean, I literally don’t even have trinkets. And my stats were all wrong, because outlaw is supposed to play crit in pve but mastery is BiS for pvp right now. Completing those dungeons at +16 was, for a lot of them, my first ever exposure to the dungeon’s mechanics. I’m clearly not a player that struggles with the basics of playing my class.
I’m also currently #5 on the 2v2 ladder as outlaw in all of North America. Literally, our entire region, not just some arbitrary server group or whatever, like that means anything. Also #13 in 3v3, even though I would not consider my 3s performance crazy impressive at the moment. And that’s with my spec being considered by many to be at the absolute bottom of the barrel in pvp. And last season I was rank 18 in solo shuffle (haven’t bothered with it this season, I don’t really like the shuffle format personally).
SnD is clunky. Even the best rogues agree there’s nothing great about upkeeping two separate buffs on a timer.
Nobody likes sweeping strikes being a global on arms, and SnD and RtB are far worse with horrible, unimpactful upkeep and rng effects. Bring combat back.
Eh less skill, more intelligence. Something you clearly lack. Dude, you literally just bragged about doing a 16. My highest is a 22, mid-season, and I’m currently still pushing? On a spec that has been ignored? Yep, I’m awful. Check my previous season before Augvoker. I had 22s and 21s there too, and I was still rated around top 100 world.
Your point is weak. 16’s are a joke, and you clearly have no concept of what is hard in PvE so maybe stick to what you do know? You don’t have any idea of what is or isn’t difficult. You sound ignorant tbh.
I mean, I’d love to see you try PvP right now. I’d be amazed if you could make it past 1400, in any bracket, with any rogue spec, much less sin or outlaw, which are both absolutely terrible right now.
So is pressing slice and dice once per fight, doesn’t stop you from treating it like a badge of honor around here.
You’re questioning my intelligence when you’re the one that said pressing slice and dice is part of rogue’s complexity. Just. lol.
That isn’t necessarily contradictory. Just because something is easy, doesn’t mean it doesn’t contribute to complexity. In a vacuum, SnD is very easy to maintain, but you still require mental and physical input to sustain it; slightly more than simply pressing Dispatch again. With Dispatch, you need only know your combo points and energy are ready to be spent, but with SnD you also need to track its buff/aura; adding a third layer. Removing SnD as an active ability is objectively dumbing down the priority/rotation, despite its ease of use.
I appreciate its presence on Outlaw, as it’s very functional and thematically appropriate. As much as I appreciated the old GM, I find myself increasingly attached to SnD now that it’s more intimately, even classically, woven into my priority. Pressing that one button asks several things of me and I’m grateful for its place in my toolkit. I would rather not see it become passive or done away with.
I do like some niche benefits that slice existing brings. For example, in pvp if I need evasion back and it’s only a few seconds away I can kite and press slice to spend combo points from far away and reset the CD of evasion. If slice was gone I wouldn’t be able to do that.
And I have seen some rogues struggle to maintain slice, so even if it’s easy for me it might not be so easy for others who aren’t used to rogue.
That’s why I’m fairly neutral on slice personally. I don’t hate it, but I do find it annoying that it adds more to my list of things I need to do to ramp up damage. This is much more bothersome in pvp, where sometimes you really need on-demand damage, and things like slice and roll get in the way of that.
All my problems with slice would disappear if it went off the GCD at least. Losing that global feels really bad in the rotation and especially in pvp for the reason I stated above.
I actually find I have the same problem in dungeons. Sometimes you just really need damage now and maintaining yet another buff can be a sore spot. You hit the nail on the head and I feel that’s one of Outlaw’s most critical flaws. However, I fear removing SnD actively won’t properly address this and amount to little more than a bandaid.
The spec’s become overburdened with small, numerous damage sources and auras; it needs more on-demand burst. I think Outlaw should get more out of cooldowns, somehow. Despite Restless Blades creating impressive windows of uptime, you still get almost nothing out of any individual ability. The “death by a thousand cuts” game play is fun, but it needs to amount to more, regardless of our varying tastes.
Literally every ability on the GcD can be described as “something that helps you deal more damage”. Thats literally Blizzards philosophy on why stuff should be on the GcD.
We could say this same thing right back to you. If anything, this analogy only serves to clarify why we hate SnD as an ability. I actually cringe more thinking about the ability this way.
Agreed completely. I do really like that outlaw isn’t heavily dependent on CDs, but the huge glaring downside to that in both pve and pvp content is the lack of on demand damage. I do feel like there must be some kind of middle ground that can be achieved. Like having solid sustained damage, with maybe some sort of short CD mini burst. And then, hopefully streamlining some of the maintenance buffs/debuffs to lessen the burden in that area as well. I think those things combined would be really beneficial to outlaw.
There’s definitely room for choices or happy mediums. I wouldn’t mind having a talented option, such as Cut to the Chase tailored for Outlaw, especially if it means trimming down on lesser nodes like Improved Between the Eyes, which should be made baseline, once more. Many talents in the Outlaw tree dedicated to Roll the Bones need to be trimmed too, especially Sleight of Hand. Overall, I think Roll the Bones probably needs more attention than Slice and Dice does, and it’d be great to further inch Outlaw away from it, while still keeping it as an option.
One thing I’d personally love is access to a proper cooldown, perhaps off of the Restless Blades list, with tremendous power potential or have the Killing Spree/Dreadblades node patched up to be less detrimental and made stronger. Truly curious as to what’s cooking for the Rogue specializations behind the scenes, though.
Sure just keep mentioning those 2 (dead) games and an unintentional gimmick that was fixed decades ago over and over again as if that will ever make the idea of a rogue tank less stupid.
Yes, absolutely. That and riposte should both be made baseline. They used to be, and I’d like to have them back, but there is simply not enough talent points to afford taking them, which is a shame.
100%, yes. We have 6 talent points devoted just to roll the bones - roll the bones itself, sleight of hand, count the odds (2), loaded dice, and keep it rolling. I can see making count the odds 1 point, deleting sleight, and maybe baselining loaded dice. One idea I saw before was that AR baseline gives 2 matches on roll, but then loaded dice could make it 5 matches. That would make AR feel more impactful at least. Right now it doesn’t feel very strong, even with the high uptime we have on it.
I’d also love to see roll become entirely optional or just go away completely, but I seriously doubt that will happen, so I don’t really bring that up much.
Yes, I was thinking that dreadblades could come off restless blades and be made into a more impactful CD. Get rid of the health penalty and do something to make it stronger. Perhaps combining it with the affects of flagellation or something similar, or maybe while dreadblades is active your finishers do more damage. I don’t know, just something to make it feel strong.
I’d love to see something done with killing spree too, but I also understand pve players tend to not like that ability too much because losing control of your character for 2 seconds can cause you to fail a mechanic or be dragged into aoe damage unintentionally, so I get why killing spree isn’t favored much. Even in pvp I could see killing spree being frustrating. There’s a lot of classes that can kill you in 2 seconds if you don’t react appropriately.
what would turning this on me do? This is basically what we currently do for SND, and im not the one complaining. Its clear SND is one of the many things making u guys not able to play the game.
Jumping back to Slice and Dice for a sec — the problem with the ability is that it’s a 95%+ uptime keypress with minimal perceptible interactions in the rest of the kit, zero ramp or skillshot, and effectively zero feedback feel in gameplay. In fact, the only real “feel” associated with it comes by way of its absence before you activate it. We’re tuned with the idea in mind that we have it up as much as we possibly can. It’s a problem.
And technically, yes, to acknowledge the cynics, the ability does translate to damage, but something translating to damage does not inherently qualify it as a good combat ability. Imagine bringing up the Options menu mid-fight to toggle your interact key on and off if it meant +10% damage by doing so. There’s a line for what constitutes fun vs. unfun gameplay somewhere. Slice and Dice sits squarely across that line, no question. No one presses it without thinking about the other finishers they’d rather use.
Making it baseline would be the simplest, brute-force solution. Otherwise, Sliding the numbers around to lower it’s expected uptime while increasing its activated power would be interesting as a start. Passive vs. Cooldown is the spectrum upon which most abilities sit. If you move Slice and Dice even 15-20% toward the Cooldown end of things, it would land better re: gameplay feel and allow for more strategic uses.
It could also stack. Why doesn’t it stack? Imagine a situation where you’re effectively Mechagnome racial’ing the longer you’re in combat. Interesting in PvE and PvP, with the former serving as a nice ramp for long fights and the latter serving as an interesting risk-reward for rogues that stay in fights longer before resetting.
Not really suggesting one change over another. The ability in its current form has gotta go, though.
I played Rift and classic. Still don’t think a rogue tank makes sense thematically. Tanking from the shadows or even being a duelist (1v1 specialist) don’t really vibe with the class fantasy of what a rogue is.
There could be an argument for an evasion-based tank in the form of a rogue, but that would encroach more into territory of a fighter than a rogue because rogues are focused on dirty tactics, stealth, exploitating weaknesses in armor, etc.
Tanks are all about drawing attention to them and stonewalling the offensive in order for others to catch them off guard. How does a rogue, the master of cunning and stealth, performing the polar opposite duty in combat make sense?
