The window of opportunity for mechanical changes to the specs still exists so we must maximize our feedback.
There is always initial tuning but real tuning is wide sweeping and happens with the last few builds before release.
Still have time to submit feedback for Rogues.
I will address the major issues that as a Rogue community seems to come up pretty often.
Rogue general class tree:
Too many energy talents makes each talent dedicated to energy feel weak.
New Acrobatic Strikes is utility(moving speed bonus) and damage (auto attack) which I think may be too hard to balance.
The healing talents are already very lackluster in terms of individual performance. Adding ShadowHeart Leach may complicate this.
Assassination Rogue
Does not have a true dedicated defensive talent in its own spec tree like the two other specs
Deathmark can be dispelled and it forces Assassination to tunnel when the spec is about target switching to spread poisons and bleeds.
Base energy regen is the worst of the three specs but retail game has evolved to be faster paced due to M+.
Iron Wire is the only defensive talent that Assassination has and it is tied to situational use with Garrote silence.
Subtlety Rogue
Shot in the Dark and Shadow Focus can be merged at this point.
Sub has a lot of CDs out of sync.
Symbols of Death necessity in question.
Sub still needs improvement toward more damage outside of stealth and cool down and/or modifier stacking.
Outlaw Rogue
Killing Spree often fails to work in AoE cleave situations when BF is on and stops animating if the primary target dies. Kspree should attack all targets from behind when BF is up and not just the primary target This might be a coding limitation or change back to how it used to be as it would track all the targets from behind.
Blade Flurry being capped doesn’t make sense with how M+ is balanced for all other specs in the game.
Base energy is not good for a spec that requires to fill every global to do damage.
Too many RTB talents required to make RTB useful. Loaded Dice should be baseline by default.
Roll the bones either needs a UI, or to be removed and it’s buffs added to the current RtB talents scattered through the tree.
It’s not fun to constantly sit there with one buff knowing i’m doing no damage until the RNG gods decide to grace me with a rare 2 buff proc. Ontop of the other buffs we have to keep going, procs to pay attention to, it’s to much mental stack. No other class has that many variables they HAVE to pay attention to, much less with no UI to help.
At this point i’m so fed up with these dice i miss Combat, and i’m playing anything but my rogue to actually have fun. In fact, i havn’t been subbed most of the expansion because of it.
(I also don’t get along with the dagger specs, but that’s because i like real 1 handed weapons and not daggers. Can we just have Combat back as a 4th spec and make it AGI fighter?)
I think it’s a design decision for Assassination to have less defenses because it technically doesn’t need to fully stay in a fight to do damage. This is especially true in pvp. It can attack, run away while its damage is ticking and come back again at the next opportune moment. The other specs don’t have that luxury so they need a bit more defense to stay and fight.
Yea, in my green pvp gear the difference can be over 60k dps depending on whether or not I get the right roll. At least in pvp, I can stay stealthed when I get the wrong roll, but in pve it’s obnoxious.
Sitting there in pvp waiting for the next roll is just as bad because you might need to make a play now.
CDs out of sync are done on purpose to make people pay attention. that isn’t a problem in a mature way of looking at it. The player should be actively looking to line things up regardless of specialization or class if they CHOOSE to pick multiple active abilities. That is up to the player and encouraging many actives to stand around doing jack out of it is the player’s decision to talent that way and look like a lump. That shouldn’t be encouraged.
Shot in the Dark + Shadow Focus among other talents are separated on purpose and combining them or other types would mean they would be reduced and gain nothing as that is how balance works out. Both talents are choices but aren’t mandatory or “in the way” as some lesser minded heathens like to put it. Pathing creates different tools and is a good thing.
Symbols is not an issue and should stay as is.
Standing around waiting on energy when we have on demand interactions flat out sucks and shouldn’t be encouraged.
Not everyone is a tea spamming 2/2 vigor as builds have different strengths and different emphasis which is healthy and good design.
Certain bonuses are attached to it (if chosen and should be choices to encourage different playstyles as is while not being restrictive because of agendas and groups of interest as they commonly do.) Ex: Planned Execution cannot become a permanent thing or tied to dance which led to the mess that legion started and the over saturation of dance itself. We are nudging in the opposite direction to be able to breathe outside of CDs without being full swing which is healthy.
Symbols in that regard is very much so needed as it serves a big purpose much as our other parts of our kit. I dig the perforated + Lingering Route along with Rotten etc, I choose to make symbols a big part of what I do along with my other tools. Others will go into what they will with finality and yadda yadda and that is good as that is their CHOICE in doing so.
The developers discuss as a whole as they mention many times and I like to think that wisdom and fairness is shown and the maintenance of
Playstyles through diversity in talents (which they do well)
Choices to emphasize in abilities and strengthen kits in different ways. (which they do well)
That they Take to heart of lessons of the past and maintain that moving forward instead of over fixation on CDs and rat packing shadow dance further. Someone can do that on their own as choices by picking up several actives, they do not need to enforce that nonsense on everyone else. Subtlety is more than shadow dance and shouldn’t ever be reduced that that ever again, the “1 shot” circus has to end and we are moving well into a healthy series of scales in TWW and moving forward.
It is because of small talents that add to a cumulative effect instead of a large swing dependency that abilities and styles are able to breathe. That shouldn’t be tampered with at all. A handle of a knife is just a handle, it isn’t until we add the other parts that truly make that custom blade (skinning , for cooking , for hunting , gathering , fileting a fish, cutting wire many uses as a loose example but you get the point.)
They developers are doing well; people need to zoom out and find their styles instead of playing “game 2” and messing stuff up with over obsession on performance and stuff. DF is / was within 10% in all classes and talents were within 2% of each other where one (within reason) can pick whatever they want, and it can do well. metaslaving has to end and the devs at some point have to save people from themselves and disregard the kids going “mah fun hur hur”.
Yea, at this point, it might as well just be a passive modifier talent for dance.
Instead of just being one of eleventy blanket damage mods, it might be neat if using it cause the next N backstabs do something extra. Like summon a pair of spectral runeblades to duplicate the hits maybe, or cause a shadow cleave/AoE like Lillian Voss does in Scholomance? Either would be somewhat fitting since the name of ability seems inspired by Voss basically being the patron saint of sub rogues since Legion. And it would move some damage outside of dance/burst window.
