As somebody considering Subt Rogue to main in Midnight, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the changes. Full disclaimer, I’m currently a Frost DK main (casual mythic raider, 6/8 atm) but I do not profess to be an expert on Rogues.
- I really like the changes to Weaponmaster and Shuriken Storm. I’ve always felt Subtlety should lean more into shadow clones and shadow damage as a spec identity rather than simply being ‘Rogue but sometimes you stealth’.
- Haste providing a duration boost to Shadow Dance rather than a CD reduction is the right move. It didn’t work before as Rogues had to get 50% haste in order to squeeze in an extra Shadow Dance outside of Shadow Blades.
- Going off the last point, Subtlety still has the issue of needing to save up two charges of Shadow Dance for our Shadow Blades window, creating a big stretch of ‘famine’ in our rotation. I still strongly recommend that Shadow Blades grant us Shadow Dance in some way. There are a few possible options to do this: have it grant Dance implicitly, make it so Shadow Dance does not lose duration during Shadow Blades, or have Shadow Dance just immediately refund a charge of Shadow Dance when activated.
- Dark Brew is now very underwhelming with Rupture gone. Weapon poisons are simply too weak for this bonus to be appealing. My suggestion is to tack on a bonus to proccing weapon poisons, i.e. giving applying a lethal poison a small % chance to trigger Shadow Techniques or a small % chance to strike with a shadow clone.
- There remains a point of design conflict for Trickster as to whether the Trickster Subtlety Rogue should be using Nimble Flurry to deal AoE damage or Shuriken Storm and Black Powder. It seems odd to me that Subtlety essentially gains access to Blade Flurry by going Trickster.
- Veiltouched and Deeper Daggers remain redundant, as both are essentially just “you deal more shadow damage”. I think it would make sense to just keep one and change the functionality of the other.
- Goremaw’s Bite sadly remains a dead talent. I know a lot of specs are clinging on to our old Legion artifact special abilities, but Goremaw’s really needs some functionality revamp if it is to be a competitive talent in our tree.
- Subtlety Rogues still do not value the Subtlety lane of our class tree (Soothing Darkness, Subterfuge, and Without a Trace). This is part of a larger gripe I have with our class talent designs but I won’t go down that rabbit-hole in this post. Instead I just want to stress that the Subtlety talent lane should have high value for Subtlety Rogues so long as each of the three lanes are spec-coded. Perhaps we could see Without a Trace replaced with a talent that provides a large combat boost to the Rogue while stealthed that also provides a mini version to Subtlety Rogues while they are Shadow Dancing?
