Initial notes on September 6th 2024
3 Likes
This is a W at this point, with Cut being on all specs, pressing SnD was quite meaningless to begin with. Good change.
This is bad, there are plenty of reasons why we would not want to use Tea at 50 energy, so many situations that donât call for it and would waste both the energy regen and the mastery buff.
Forcing a pooling strategy to avoid going down to below 50 energy is not a good change.
Charged CP still donât work with Deathstalker, would be nice to have a word on if this is intended or not, or a bug like many think.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know shadowdust had its fans, but it was strangling Sub spec by its existence, it can now be tuned around its current kit and not around how often it might or might not get its bursts.
Please align the CDs so they work with each other better, and weâre looking at a better world for Sub rogues.
4 Likes
The Outlaw changes are so nice. Do I correctly understand that we will have two grappling hooks which both can be recast within 3 seconds if we run the right hero talent? So we get 4 hooks to RP as Spiderman? Count me in. RIP shadowstep, though.
Crackshot refreshes BTE with stealth which means we no longer need to hold BTE for our vanish windows which is such a nice change. Accidentally hitting BTE at the wrong time felt awful for scrubs like me.
We donât get full long-arms of acrobatic strikes back but at least Blade Flurry will have the old AOE range back, making positioning easier and the AOE more reliable, nice change.
4 Likes
Agreed I think this change is a very good middle ground that should solve some of the headaches.
So it seems, shadowstep is now Sin and Sub only, which I wont complain as I donât play outlaw, but hook is definitely great to have and will be huge mobility.
2 Likes
what a great news for rolling to hunter. every single patch they are keep ruining rogue
4 Likes
Hard pass on Thistle Tea automatically triggering. You want the Mastery buff during your cooldowns. A) I donât want to be energy starved in my CDs and find that all my tea charges were automatically used up and B) I donât want to be hoping for a nice Mastery stat stick at the end of Kingsbane only to find that all the tea charges were automatically used up. Please do not implement this change.
7 Likes
The new talent that gives Symbols of Death extra charges will go a long way towards aligning cooldowns. That one was always the odd one out, the rest pretty much align themselves.
2 Likes
The biggest issue with removing Invigorating Shadowdust isnât the nerf to Subâs damage cooldowns, itâs really the fact that you wonât be able to reset the cooldown on kick anymore. Being able to reset the kick cooldown is something that really separates sub from the other specs and keeps it viable. I think making a change like this hurts the depth of the spec, and I find it hard to believe this design choice was made by someone who actually plays subtlety in arena at itâs full depth.
I think saying this talent is âstrangling the specâ is quite the exaggeration. Whatâs strangling the spec is constant changes and an overcomplicated burst rotation. They need to bring back the days where Ambush and Eviscerate carried weight without all the other modifiers and spells, and stop messing with the toolkit so heavily. This is why people stop playing retail. It seems like they really over correct things or overlook how heavily they will affect the spec overall and the enjoyment of not only the people who play the spec but everyone who plays the game.
Are these changes going live in the middle of a ranked arena season? If so, thatâs honestly ridiculous. People dedicate a lot of time and effort to push rank and get titles etc., just to have all the mechanics changed up in the middle of the season? That means someone can get rank one with great rogue mechanics, and then nobody will ever be able to reach their spot on the same ladderâŚ
I feel like Sub Rogues are in a decent spot right now, but this one nerf might hurt the spec so bad that it becomes unplayable.
3 Likes
our regen lacks too and being able to get crimson vial back with vanish is another major thing. To nerf this heal AND remove the healing during shadow dance might really throw things out of wack. When they put Invigorating Shadowdust into the game obviously they were going for some mechanic similar to the old Preparation ability. I donât see why they donât just put prep back into the game and have it reset just a few good cdâs like vanish, kick, shadowstep, and crimson vial - or maybe just allow vanish to only apply CDR to those abilities.
2 Likes
This is a problem only because Thistle Tea also grants Mastery.
If Thistle Tea was only energy, great, go for it, play the game for me.
But because Thistle Tea grants Mastery, I do not want the game deciding when to use it. Not even once. I want to always decide when to use it.
You can fix this in three ways:
- Move the Mastery buff somewhere else.
- Make this a choice on the talent tree so those who want it can choose to take it and those who want control can avoid it.
- Remove the autocast entirely; stop trying to play the game for us.
Thanks!
10 Likes
I might have a controversial opinion but Iâm happy to see shadowstep leave outlaw.
-
it never made sense that outlaw had grappling hook and the other specs didnât. Now at least mobility between all three specs will be a lot more even.
-
Outlaw still has 15% faster move speed and blade rush. Itâs still the most mobile rogue spec, or at least close with sub.
The thistle tea change is iffy. Iâm for removing redundant hotkeys but you do not want a dps ability auto firing. *edit: apparently this is still a hotkey - then to me this change is pointless and actually bad. You want control of when you gain the mastery buff. I vote for just removing the mastery buff. Make this ability strictly energy regen.
Cut to the chase is good now. Slice and dice has never felt good to manually press.
Blade flurry range increase is nice!
Ultimately what outlaw needs is alternate playstyle options that donât rely on stealth uptime. Stealth windows as a mechanic are very restrictive and frustrating when solo and while in a groups that pull back to back without dropping combat, or dungeons have downtime due to RP, boss transitions etc.
Also, Adrenalin rush really needs to become a burst cooldown again and not a maintenance buff that is frustrating to maintain due to stealth windows.
4 Likes
Iâll just note something; energy cost on Crimson Vial and Feint is kinda absurd to still have considering the slow down of the energy economy.
I donât mind having to manage energy, but defensives probably shouldnât double dip on it.
3 Likes
Some great changes here, BtE resetting, automatic SnD for all specs, and the rest of outlaw and sub changes are goated.
But please, please, take another look at the thistle tea change, auto fire under 50 energy doesn:t feel right. Maybe could be a choice node somewhere between automatic and manual trigger?
Quick note that the change doesnt make Tea passive, it adds a passive trigger but you can still use it manually.
So the real issue is that this could force us in a extremely weird pooling scenario where we avoid dipping below 50 at all costs to save tea for actual good usage and timing.
1 Like
What now triggers SnD? Is the first Envenom or Eviscerate?
I really didnât understand that based on their wording. To me if youâre not trying to eliminate a hot key then this change seems pointless and actually has potentially very minor upsides but major downsides as you described. Not a fan.
1 Like
Highly against the Thistle Tea change, there are times where we are better off pooling energy rather than using tea. At the very least make it a choice node option to have or not have the passive trigger.
Just make SnD purely a passive, I swear itâs the same nonsense philosophy that was behind Conduit Energy of trying to rework and adjust the same unpopular thing over and over again because yâall insist on its existence for no good reason. It wonât break the game for Rogues to just have naturally faster auto attack speed.
Need a new Deathstalker talent along the lines of âIf no target is affected by Deathstalkerâs Mark, Throw Knife/Shuriken will consume extra energy to deal extra damage and apply Deathstalkerâs Mark.â
Particularly for Assassination, you can end up in situations where your Hero talents are practically disabled for up to two minutes if Vanish is on CD and you donât get the stealth ambush off for whatever reason.
6 Likes
To add onto that for possibly solutions:
- Have a choice node with 2 Thistle Tea versions (like Earthquake and Shadow Crash) where one auto triggers and one doesnât.
And/Or - Remove the mastery increase from the use of Thistle Tea and have the talent also provide a passive for a static increase to mastery (say 5% hypothetically).
2 Likes
Cut to the chase and Crackshot changes are quite amazing, if not over due. Getting Slice and Dice to basically a passive form is a huge win to me, while crackshot resetting BtE is a huge quality of life increase.
Tea should not have an auto trigger. I agree with the idea of making a choice node with some passive proc tea as an option. While most of the power of the talent is in the energy, at least for assassination, you still want the energy and mastery for cd windows like shiv, not randomly in the time between windows.
I am hoping that the fact trickster and deathstalker did not receive any changes means they will get some. For trickster, coup de grace really should not have an animation lock. It can range from annoying to detrimental (it locks you out of cloak for example). On a related note, the actual animation broke sometime in beta to not proc while within melee range, only if the charge goes off.
For deathstalker, assassination NEEDS a more reliable way to apply the mark. If the mark is not applied on the first attack, or the mark is somehow removed by a boss mechanic, assassination only has vanish, a 2m cd already earmarked to pair with deathmark. The talent for a second charge really shouldnât be thought of a fix either, since that is like one extra vanish in a fight or dungeon. My opinion is just tying it to garrote is a decent idea. You normally would apply that from stealth, outside improved garrote it has a small cd so it isnât spammed, and normally outside carnage you really do not multidot with it, rupture is more the thing focused on. Obviously reapplying it with the Darkest Night is the ideal thing, but assassination needs a backup plan. I do think subtlety is fine with this since subtlety has dance, which is available often enough, that say missing the first cast is not detrimental.
4 Likes
Anything that spends combo point, aka any finishing moves will now grant 3s SND per combo point. So if you have no SND active, it will give it to you automatically.