Rogue feedback thread for patch 12.0.5

In Development 12.0.5 Public Test Realm
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It has been said that more class changes are planned for following builds. Also, we know tuning will commence before the season starts. However for the time being we can discuss some things that may or may not be covered with future planned changes on the PTR and hot fixes.

  • Assassination needs to be sped up to keep up with the rest of the game with better energy economy. Maybe the energy is improved in an upcoming hot fix. If not this should be addressed for patch 12.0.5.

  • Rogues are very squishy, especially Assassination and Outlaw. Assassination lacks a defensive talent option in its own talent tree when 20+ DPS specs in the game have a talent option. Outlaw is designed to stay in the fight longer to do damage and can not sustain long enough to stay in a fight.

  • Rogue cap stones need to be spiced up or the mandatory 2 point nodes leading to cap stones rebalanced or reduced to 1 pointers to offer more talent build flexibility.

  • Evasion should be available earlier for players leveling a Rogue as that is the lone physical and ranged defensive that does not use energy.

  • Sub Rogues having a DoT as a talent option would be welcomed.

  • Condensing down the multiple Blade Flurry talents of Outlaw down to 2 instead of the current 3.

  • Assassination bleed talents shuffled to be on the same side as the rest of the bleed talents and poison talents shifted to be on the same side as the poison talents.

  • Backstab does low damage and should be significantly better than auto attacks/poisons. Backstab should do more damage or the energy cost to use Backstab to be lowered.

  • Fan the Hammer for Outlaw should give one extra combo point when you put 2 talent points into it.

  • Energy cost of Distract and Cheap Shot must be reduced.

Thanks for reading.

:+1:

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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As someone who plays all 3 specs actively:
The spec in the direst need of help is Assassination. If you wanna keep the energy pooling style of playing, then give envenom some boost. Either give caustic a bit more aoe splash, or give envenom flat damage. Or you could give deathmark 1min CD instead of 2, would also solve a lot of problems.

Sub feels… meh, and not because of the damage, but the class pruning. Pressing 2 buttons is quite dull and outside shadow dance, you barely deal damage. BARELY. Like 3~4k per backstab and you generate like 2 cp per hit. I’d say it would feel better if we had a 5% nerf inside Shado1w Dance for a 15~20% buff OUTSIDE of shadow dance. I know the spec fantasy is that, but having a 10s downtime of NO DAMAGE inside a dungeon is really bad.

Outlaw is a good spec, but the lack of control over Roll the Bones is trash, because the only thing that the spec has for energy regen is Adren Rush. Even if you do spam AR on cd, if you get a bad RtB roll, you’re stuck for 15s with it until you can reroll. I think buffing RtB odds by 5% and removing some of the energy cost would balance the spec a bit more. I’d also buff Dispatch slightly, something around 5~7% so you get better single and not just aoe damage.

1 Like
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I have only played Outlaw.

Energy feels a little starved, but using Blade rush on cooldown I don’t have any downtime.

My main issue is survival. It’s crazy how good rogue survival abilities are for group content, but how bad they are for solo content. Maybe you would consider buffing crimson vial and then putting it on a choice node with feint. Both abilities could then receive the damage mitigation from elusiveness. Rogues need a way to choose between solo sustainability or group oriented tankiness with the feint AoE Dr.

Evasion needs to be better. Lower Cd in PvE, heal on dodge. Something. For outlaw specifically I would like Riposte back from classic wow. That spell is so crazy fun for solo content.

4 Likes
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I do like the idea of a DoT for Sub with how stripped down it feels. Considering the theme of the new expansion and Sub intentions to be a Shadow magic spec, something shadow oriented or void adjacent as a talent or finisher would be nice.

Is there any talk about what to do with Slice and Dice going forward? The passive upkeep from points spent is nice quality of life, but it feels like I never press it. Maybe for all specs a short cd to press when the buff is active for subclass passive procs to increase based on points spent to reactivate or since the buff started. Just something so the global won’t feel wasted and it plays into energy regen making down time outside of burst windows feel better.

1 Like
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SND when you cast manually creates a longer duration. Outlaw benefits from CDR using SND manually and Sub benefits from shadow technique.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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because theres no proper feedback thread, im going to post on here despite my better judgement. this is a list of things that will improve outlaw rogue thats agreed upon by the ravenholdt community that will benefit every type of player in terms of design and spec flow. this list is based on design/flow only not for damage, damage is something we cant control, which different damage modifiers for pve and pvp. non of this should negatively effect either game mode

ar haste tax removed: we shouldnt have to stack a specific stat for 22% to get full value from our main cd. please make it so that haste % is converted to more damage to give us a reason to want haste

bte damage number bug fixed

aces should be one talent point and instead of 4 combo points on proc, it should go back to 5 combo points per proc so we can shotgun the button without putting a generate between each cast

ks does more prio target on main target

prep should give you 2 charges of adren rush, bladerush, and ks. or just adren if thats to strong. prep as it is rn fights against the engine of the spec and is heavily disliked by the entire rogue community in all game modes. this isnt a fun button to press. its a button that makes you feel like you have to hold it and waste casts of it or you press it and waste cdr. either or it doesnt feel like a good button and its probably the worst button in the game rn

buff poisons,atrophic and mindnumbing poison should be stronger to give rogue a raid niche

blade flurry shouldnt cost that much energy when youl talent into it specific talent. give it a 10 energy reduction please

soft cap instead of hard cap, this was a qol request for years. i dont see why the spec needs to be hard capped when shadowpriest has the same ability and isnt hardcapped for the entirety of its existence.

vanish on restlessblades: putting it back on restless blades will give outlaw more defensive bulk and allows the vanish section of the class tree to have actual value. since it has not damage value anymore. it will be purely defensive and utility like people wanted.

kir adds level on your roll: rn the capstone is our only strong capstone. but its incredibly boring with the changes to rtb as a whole. this will give some warrent omph to it to make it capstone level

ho replaced with somethign else: theres no reason for this talent to exist, replace it with something that gives outlaw a execute. or something idk. it has no purpose now

make fast action a 6 second cdr, adds a charge to bte, bte ignores armor OR makes bte a execute (like havocs a fire inside capstone)

4 Likes
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Just to piggyback on to screaming into the void for outlaw feedback, I agree with basically all of Racheallas post. Our defensive kit could also use some love! I understand reducing outlaws passive tankiness, but outlaw is sold as the front line, no stealth toe to toe rogue spec. As it stands, it has identical tankiness to sin (which is less then sub which has several powerful defensives in its spec tree), but sin can potentially play deathstalker which has the best rogue defensive talent. This makes outlaw arguably the squishiest rogue spec in the game, something which makes no sense.

I think the amount of DR outlaw lost is more then enough to justify a buff to our active defensive kit.

Some general ideas, reduce or remove feint/vial energy cost, remove vial from the gcd. Something like refunding the energy cost of feint based on damage/hits taken during the buff could also work if you want to reward good active uses of your defensives.

Buff vial, either give it passive DR for its duration, or make its duration extend, up to max 8s everytime you take damage while its ticking. This would make this rather forgotten and mediocre part of our kit for a very long time be stronger vs the damage we are weakest against (hard hitting Single target DoTs).

Evasion is such a hit or miss ability, now with it having no CDR it feels extremely weak as outlaw. Give evasion 10% Dr baseline and make elusivness buff it up to 20%.

Shiv: This spell is now free from being part of sins PvE dps rotation. It has always had this cool thematic tie in of putting amped poisons on targets. Unfortunately, in PvE this has basically been worthless for 99% of its existence. I understood it before because it would be toxic to have shiv be a strong rogue utility ability while sin had to press it for dps, but those days are gone.

My proposal would be to add a shiv effect to atrophic for the rogue only. Something like shivved atrophic putting a damage absorb on the target that eats damage it would deal to the rogue, or just amplifying the DR of the poison for the rogue only.

Final honorable mentions: Fast grapple should make a comeback, there really was no reason to remove this and it makes the spell feel far more clunky. Outlaw now has the only mobility spell in the game with no instant feedback, once you press that grapple, you are waiting ~0.3-0.4s for your character to even start moving. That feels very bad.

There is now a delay in the combo points generated by the second hit of SS? This was not the case last expac and is not due to lag or anything like that. It is quite consistently a 0.4s delay before the game gives you the feedback on SS proccing. This can make the spec frustrating to play during AR/anytime theres even a little latency involved for the player.

Final musings: This one I’ve had in my head for awhile but its a pretty minor request so I figured it would never be considered. Still, the way fatebounds double grapple works is a bit awkward. You do not get the proc of the free grapple until you land from the first grapple. This means if you need to position mid grapple (far more likely now with fast grapple being gone), your choice is to land in the poop or waste both charges of grapple immediatly. If you changed this to proc on cast instead it would make it feel much smoother.

I hope we get some iteration sometime this season because we desperately need it.

5 Likes
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To highlight some talents I think need improvements:

Sub Rogue

Gloomblade - Should have its energy cost lowered to really offer a change of pace with the rotation to 35 energy.
Goremaw’s Bite - Add a DoT to Goremaw’s bite or a choice node of direct damage versus DoT.
Night Terrors - Should add an attack speed debuff to it instead of a physical slow.

Assassination

Blindside - Change from 35% under total health to 50% under total health.
Intent to Kill - Changed to give a bonus damage reduction to self when you have garrote on target.
Thrown Precision - Increased critical strike chance increased for all attacks by 5% and guarantees critical strikes applies poisons. Renamed to Murderous Precision.

Outlaw

Expert Duelist - Also reduces damage taken by 2%
Combat Stamina - Should also provide extra energy

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

1 Like
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I have posted about this on the beta forums since the beginning of beta and completely agree with you, Outlaw survivability is suboptimal in both PvE and PvP after the spec overhaul in Midnight. I had some posts on the Midnight beta forums that were well-received, but of course I didn’t save them and the forum is gone now…

TL;DR: Outlaw’s damage is not the main issue, its defensive kit is undertuned for its new “in-the-open” playstyle. Right now it feels too fragile across sustain, mitigation, and avoidance in both PvE and PvP. Instead of flat HP/armor buffs, Outlaw needs active, skill-based, thematic survivability tools (mobility, timing, luck/proactive mitigation) that fit the spec fantasy. Outlaw should feel slippery and lucky to fight, not tanky, so no HP/armor buffs.

Design pillars (survivability-only)

  1. Reward movement with active avoidance (skill windows, not passive stats).
  2. Give Outlaw a semi-deterministic anti-burst tool (not tanky).
  3. Tie Dodge/Parry to sustain and cooldown cycling (momentum-based survival loop).

TL;DR (Survivability Talent List):

First and foremost, Grappling Hook is Outlaw’s primary means of mobility, and with the nerf is too slow to mitigate or avoid AoE and CC effectively and reliably. Every other melee spec has a near-instant mobility talent, including the other two rogue specs with Shadowstep. Grappling Hook really does need to be near-instant again for parity with the other melee specs and to compete in both PvE and PvP high-level content.

  • Acrobatic Recovery (2 points): Grappling Hook grants a brief 100% Dodge window (1s / 2s) for skill-based repositioning/engage safety without permanent Evasion.
  • Cheat the House (capstone): Crimson Vial grants a short buff that reduces the next direct hit by 40% and gives +1 Combo Point - a timing-based anti-burst tool (optional small refund if unused).
  • Elusive Vitality (mid-tree): Dodge/Parry lowers Crimson Vial cooldown (2s, 1s ICD), creating an avoidance → sustain loop under pressure.
  • Riposte & Revenge (capstone choice vs Cheat the House): Offense-driven proc that parries the next melee hit, counterattacks for big damage + combo points, and reduces Evasion cooldown - a reactive defense option versus Cheat the House’s predictive defense.

All of these suggestions would reward quick decision-making, skillful timing, and rely on thematic spec elements rather than simply being tankier/sturdier.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

2 Likes
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No. We have a dot spec.. just play Assassin

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Breaking news!

Only dot centric specs are allowed to have any dots at all! End of discussion.

Let’s act fast! Remove all dots from every spec in the game except Feral, Assass, shadow, and affliction! Get moving!

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Sub is going to get a DoT back as a talent.

:surfing_woman: :surfing_man:

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Its not hated by all of the rogue community in all game modes. I like it and I know a few other rogues outside of Ravenholdt that also like it. In PvP, I can point my finger at someone, slam prep and decide they should drop to the floor now. It’s a wildcard that changes the game when I use it properly.

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Prep makes Outlaw less predictable ironically and is far better at it than RTB. Prep is indeed a wildcard and a nice ace to have up your sleave for all forms of content.

Prep has allowed me to solo elites where I had no business soloing for example.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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ill change it to “every game mode but pvp” then

but overal, i still feel like prep as a button just goes against the theme of outlaws engine as a whole. while yes i can recognize it has a use in pvp because sudden surprise buttons do, even you have to admit it being a long 4min cd just hinder its usage to just a “press this once per match” type of button.

i appreciate your addition but didnt think convo is allowed here. i simply hope that this thread doesnt derail from its initial point, not blaming you since your just giving me proper correction. im just disappointed that the constant source of misinfo is once again derailing another thread with misinfo because they mistook your helpful advice as ammo to spread more misinfo.

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Prep is also very good for PVP too. Lots of fun.

:surfing_man: :surfing_woman:

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Guess I’ll share my feedback. I don’t understand why Outlaw and a few other are still enemy target capped. Mythic plus is brutal for us because of the way most tanks pull multiple mobs (which is how they should). When you have a mage who can throw an orb its hits everything. Why not have diminished damage for the enemies beyond the usual cap. We don’t provide any utility other than shroud (rarely used) and some CC’s. They even took away using Blind with Blade Flurry.

When using Roll the Bones I can’t express how desperate we feel when only rolling a 1. I get it fits part of the playstyle and feel of the class, but at that point it feels like we are being punished for only rolling a 1. No class should feel punished for doing their rotation correctly.

As for the insane amount of Haste needed at 25% it feels awful to need that much just for it to hit diminishing returns past it. Especially when Bloodlust is popped. We gain the least benefit from it. Sure, we receive an insane amount of energy regen, but the GCD stops us from actually being able to utilize it. They tried fixing our energy regen with Thistle Tea, but that is such a lazy written ability that only puts a band aid over the energy problems.

There is a reason it’s one of the least played classes and has been for a very long time. It had its time to shine when it was Combat, but that has been over 10 years. Unfortunately, I really don’t think they care. They know people like me who main it will continue to play it regardless. Just sucks how Blizzards favorite class (Paladin) is always getting buffed and half their abilities are pretty much a ranged melee class. If outlaw doesn’t consistently hit targets with finishers our dps is at a loss from not reducing AR, RtB, and Blade Rush. But hey lets make a melee class like paladin where they can still hit from 10ish yards away while dodging crap and lets give them a buff in 12.0.5.

3 Likes
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Agreed, Feint and CV need to cost no energy.

Feels bad going from borderline DK tankiness in TWW from all the high Vers to glass bolt-action rifle in Midnight.

3 Likes
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Finally some new rogue notes !

The new Batch of changes is definitely a step in the right direction for Ace up your Sleeve, but it really needs to be changed back to 5 or even 6 combo points to match the behavior it had in TWW. Currently at 4 combo points you would not often cast 2 finishers in a row when it procs which seems to go against the entire point of resetting a finisher and generating combo points from it.

New Cloud Cover seems like a strange choice. Not sure it’s going to be that fun to play with a Rune of Power type effect that essentially locks you to one area during your cooldowns, but the small leeway on leaving the Cloud Cover preserving the buff for a short period might alleviate it somewhat.

Sanguine vial is a small and helpful boost to our solo content sustain, but probably not really strong enough to make a significant difference. It would be nice if it was a full reset and/or caused the vial to be free and offgcd as well.

5 Likes
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Wow, really excited to see outlaw changes make it into the notes. And all of these look like a decent direction! Theres some questionable things in here but thats to be expected for the first iteration of any changes.

Thrilled to finally be getting some real love for crimson vial, we’ve had it unchanged for so long. I do wonder why you are being so… restrained with it though? This talent is worded just like dks/warriors/monks/dh “on death self heal” style effects. These effects are generally not very good in raid or dungeons because they require literal killing blows to proc, something you cannot always guarantee… which is fine if the talent is meant to be primarily for solo play, but why is it not a full reset? The classes I just mentioned effectively get a 15-30% instant self heal for each target they kill, at no cost (in fact many of them get handed resources for the kill by these passives). Why is ours only a half cooldown refund? Would it really be too OP to give us a full vial?

Airborne irritant as an aoe stop back is welcome of course, its hard to sing it praises considering it was a strange design decision to make rogue the only class in the game with no aoe stops… again… but I’m glad you changed course. Would you consider increasing the CDR this talent grants back up a bit though? I feel like many classes aoe stops sit in the 30-45s CD range and it feels odd rogues is taxed so heavily.

Ace is the biggest mistep here, but its not too bad. Changing the talent point value to be proc rate and giving flat combo points is solid, the issue is this still doesn’t really… change our gameplay. Ace is a talent that should be adding a fun proc element to the rotation you immediately respond to. Instead, 90% of the time even with 2/2 ace you still just go BtE > builder > BtE. We don’t cast Bte unless we get to 6+ combo points, so even granting 4 you don’t get to chain them back to back.

Agree with everything lok said about cloud cover. Its definitely better then the original version but you guys moved away from RoP effects for a reason and I personally hope this talent remains not tuned to be the default option.

5 Likes