Sub Rogue talent ideas for DF

[Chunkychod-kelthuzad]

Wasn’t a big fan of the current Sub Rogue talent tree that I saw for Dragonflight. Thought I’d share some that I came up with. I think they’re all original/new, if not whoever had the idea before me is pretty cool and smart and probably really handsome too.

Unraveling Shadow

• Critical hits with Gloomblade applies Unraveling Shadow, causing the target to take 2% additional shadow damage for 8 seconds, stacking up to 4 times. Critical hits with Gloomblade against targets with Maximum stacks of Unraveling Shadow take damage equal 35% of all bonus shadow damage dealt by the Rogue in this way, and the stacks are lost.

Crimson Signature

• Backstab critical strikes when striking from behind deal 15% additional damage over 6 seconds as Shadow damage. Can stack up to 3 times.

Ethereal Consumption (Replaces Rupture)

• Afflict your target with a shadowy curse, causing (same as rupture) Shadow Damage over (same duration) based on Combo Points spent. You deal an additional 1% shadow damage to the target for every 3 seconds that Ethereal Consumption has elapsed on the target.

Gift of Darkness

• While Cloak of Shadows is active, your Auto Attacks deal Shadow damage instead of Physical. Cloak of Shadows cooldown reduced by 8 seconds.

Beguiling Darkness (Replaces Slice and Dice)

• Your auto attacks deal %N (4% Per Combo Point) additional damage as shadow and have a 6% chance to restore 2 energy for %N (6s per Combo Point) seconds. Effect based upon number of Combo Points consumed.

Lethal Foray

• Shadowstrike increases the damage of your next Shuriken Toss by 125% and increase the Combo Points it generates by 1 for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times.

Delicate Demise

• Increases total Energy Regeneration by 10% for every 10 Energy missing while Stealth or Shadow Dance is active. Maximum Energy increased by 10.

Razorstorm

• Shuriken Storm has 10% chance per target hit to fire an additional projectile at them, dealing 85% damage.

Caustic Ignition

• Black Powder ignites the wounds of targets affected by your Rupture, causing Rupture to immediately trigger the Damage over Time effect. Critical strikes with Black Powder trigger this effect twice.

Exquisite Extermination

• Symbols of Death no longer generates energy, instead when activated, your next ability which consumes Combo Points has a 100% increased critical strike chance, if it’s capable of a critical strike.

Quicken The pace

• Using 3 Finishing Moves within 10 seconds grants you Dread Intent, increasing your movement speed by 15% and increasing your Shadow damage by 10% for 8 seconds.

Void Caress

• Shadow Blades duration increased by 4 seconds, but your abilities only deal 35% increased damage while active. Activating Shadow Blades grants you 12 seconds of Beguiling Darkness.

Door of Darkness

• Critical Hits with Eviscerate grant Shadow Dance for 2.5 seconds.

Shrapnel Hurricane

• Shuriken Toss energy cost reduced by 10 and causes your next Shuriken Storm to deal 250% increased damage, but only hit up to 3 targets in a 40 yard cone in front of you.

Fools Best Friend

• Shadowstep leaves a shadowy clone behind your target which will mimic your abilities for 8 seconds. The clone deals 20% of your damage, as shadow.

Eclipsing Dark

• Abilities used while Shadow Dance are active refund 3 energy. When Shadow Dance ends, gain Versatility equal to (1/2 Character Level) times the amount of Energy refunded this way for 6 seconds.

Macabre Virulence: (Replaces Instant Poison)

• Applies a shadowy infusion to your weapons, causing them to have a 20% chance to deal 10% additional damage as Shadow over 12 seconds, stacks up to 3 times.

Shadow Amplification

• Auto attacks which critically strike grant 1% increased attack speed for 6 seconds, stacking up to 15 times. Once you reach 15 stacks, your auto attacks cause an additional 4% damage as Shadow for 12 seconds, and the stacks are lost. Cannot gain stacks while affected by Shadow amplification.

[Darkolive-gurubashi]

This is a solid gold, my friend. You had to spend some time on this for sure.
Altought it’s very possible Blizz will make some changes to the tree before DF launch, I’m affraid devs wouldn’t turn entire tree upside down at this point.
Good ideas tought! Hope some dev will look at it at some point.

[Chunkychod-kelthuzad]

Thanks!

I have been designing complete talent, ability and profession overhauls intending for suggestions with Classic +, but I lost almost all the data. Was using OneNote and… it’s almost all gone now for some reason. There are some ideas I came up with the other day.

I just don’t see why Blizzard can’t come up with something new and instead just recycle the same stuff over and over lol.

Legion Legendaries turned into BFA Azerite turned into Shadowlands Conduits etc, it’s like come on, think of something new!

[Xæthron-stormrage (Xæthron)]

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Ethereal Consumption (Replaces Rupture)

• Afflict your target with a shadowy curse, causing (same as rupture) Shadow Damage over (same duration) based on Combo Points spent. You deal an additional 1% shadow damage to the target for every 3 seconds that Ethereal Consumption has elapsed on the target.

Definitely would be a much appreciated talent.

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Razorstorm

• Shuriken Storm has 10% chance per target hit to fire an additional projectile at them, dealing 85% damage.

Weaponmaster but for aoe.

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Caustic Ignition

• Black Powder ignites the wounds of targets affected by your Rupture, causing Rupture to immediately trigger the Damage over Time effect. Critical strikes with Black Powder trigger this effect twice.

Makes the aoe rotation more interesting. Much needed to get away from the shuriken, BP. Also gives us a presence in 2-4 targets.

These were just the talents i found most interesting and thought could realistically be added to the tree.

[Sef-wyrmrest-accord (Sef)]

Cool ideas. I always wanted an ability where you flip the daggers and strike down as a pure murder move. I think for DF, most new animations went into Dracthyr/Evoker. Maybe we’ll get some new stuff in the future.

In the past, beta forums have been pretty good in terms of ideas being listened to, or used to show that players want an idea that’s already on the drafting table.

Movement ability with targeting reticule was suggested in MoP beta. This actually made it into one of the test realms (idr if it was in game for a single patch or not). It was basically the Venthyr move.

Double jump was also recommended, though it wound up going to DH.

[Chunkychod-kelthuzad]

A “Death from above” style move would be sick

[Xæthron-stormrage (Xæthron)]

Already exists through secret technique.

[Obvioús-thrall]

Nice work here. I really like Caustic Ignition.

I worry about Rogues coming out of the gate hot and then getting hit hard with the nerf bat early on. Seems to always happen. The number of Sub Rogues pre SL leveling up was just nuts. Then they got hit pretty hard and MM Hunter didn’t (as much)

Also, watching JPC and Max talking about SubLaw sounds super crazy and fun. I’m just praying Blizz can keep the anti-fun bat off Rogues.

[Abject-proudmoore]

Hate to Hijack this thread for my own needs, and while this threads offers interesting ideas, I would love to see Hemorrhage come back as a sub option for using a MH sword/axe.

[Chunkychod-kelthuzad]

Same, hemo is dope!

[Darkolive-gurubashi]

@Abject-proudmoore

I would love to see Hemorrhage come back as a sub option for using a MH sword/axe.

For me the most “why it isn’t here” ability - first after “unpruning” thing, and second after new-old talent tree concept. Less beacuse blood dmg synergy (also nice), more beacuse 1h weapons wielding in main hand. I really don’t like taking something I like away from me, in place of giving me a choice.
I would even swallow transmog dagger to 1h weapon at this point, if devs really can’t tuned properly Sub rouge wielding 1h weapon again, after so many years. Non the less it would be nice after bringing it back to Sub, and weave this ability to some spells.

[Prophethood-stormrage (Prophethood)]

I was skeptical, but this is pretty good! There’s a LOT to unpack here!

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Gift of Darkness

• While Cloak of Shadows is active, your Auto Attacks deal Shadow damage instead of Physical. Cloak of Shadows cooldown reduced by 8 seconds.

This is not only pretty low impact, but it’ll also tie a damage amp to a defensive (classically not the best way to do things).

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Caustic Ignition

• Black Powder ignites the wounds of targets affected by your Rupture, causing Rupture to immediately trigger the Damage over Time effect. Critical strikes with Black Powder trigger this effect twice.

Reimagining of sub’s old rupture ticks advanced with multistrike, and I’m 100% for it.

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Door of Darkness

• Critical Hits with Eviscerate grant Shadow Dance for 2.5 seconds.

This talent is simple enough, but it’s actually insane. It would be a very big jump in sub’s dance capabilities in ST, and in aoe funnel in M+… it would be absolutely bonkers. If it added on to an existing dance duration you could conceivably with enough crit chance have an insanely long dance running. All in all it’s probably a talent that won’t work in reality, but something similar to this would be dope to give sub some funnel identity back after it was stripped in BfA.

How about: Eviscerate increases the shadow damage your target takes by 30% for 5 seconds.

@Chunkychod-kelthuzad

Fools Best Friend

• Shadowstep leaves a shadowy clone behind your target which will mimic your abilities for 8 seconds. The clone deals 20% of your damage, as shadow.

I think tying strong damage to our movement is not a good idea. It’s like the torghast power which increases our finisher damage w/ shadowstep, and this causes a situation where you’re using step as an offensive cd and have nothing to close distance.

All in all this is great! Keep it up.

[Chunkychod-kelthuzad]

Thanks

Hey anything’s better than the silliness that Blizzard seems to be unable to come up with lol. This took me like 10 minutes to come up with, surely blizzard in their 2+ years of development can think of something new eh?