Thief's Bargain: a constructive feedback

Classes Rogue
1

Hello, guys. I would like to propose a relevant discussion about the state of Thief’s Bargain.

Whoever knows this talent from the Legion era, knows it used to do what it does today (decrease Vanish cooldown by 45sec and your HP by 15%), but it also used to increase your damage by 10%. Nothing new here. The problem is that this long loved talent is lacking behind almost any other PvP talent right now.

Without the artifact trait Flickering Shadows, it leaves Vanish with a 1:15 minutes cooldown, what, in my opinion, makes it pretty much useless compared with the utility of any other PvP talents, mainly because the 15% HP loss seem very unfair for a “trade” for 30 seconds reduction on Vanish. It simply is not worth wasting a PvP talent slot if you get that kind of punishment.

I think this talent could be brought back to life if we could just tweak it a bit, here are some possibilities:

  1. No more HP loss
    Leave the Vanish cooldown reduction as it is, but get rid of that HP penalty. Do we really have to lose that much HP for that? Losing a PvP talent slot is not enough? I don’t know, but it looks like the talent got an unfinished redesign… It asks for some adjustment in values. How about a 5% HP loss? Maybe I could live with that.

  2. Lower the Vanish cooldown more
    What about giving us a 45 seconds Vanish cooldown again? The talent made sense paired with Flickering Shadows, but 1:15 is a strange number. It does not give me time to use Vanish as a defensive and offensive ability. In the end, it doesn’t really make a difference if Vanish it’s on a 2min or 1:15min CD through a fight… specially if we get 15% less HP. Make Thief’s Bargain reduce the Vanish cooldown by 1:15 seconds. Too much? How bout 1 minute?

  3. Give us some very well needed damage bonus
    What if you just leave all the numbers as they are now, but give us some damage output in exchange? Look, I understand the new state of Subtlety that Blizzard wants. But not everyone wants that. Most people, I guess. It is now a “control” spec, and just that. I’ve been playing sub since Classic, and I’ve been doing 2x2 with a Healer friend since TBC. Now I feel forced to play as Assassination, because sub simply does not do enough damage in PvP to win a fight. You must play with another DPS. I think I should be able to opt for a more damage oriented PvP build, but since I am the king of control, I have to lose something in return. Take away the Vanish reduction then, and give 10% damage and the 15% HP reduction. That seems like a better Bargain: You wanna do damage? Ok, but you better watch out cause you’ll get wrecked if you screw up. I guess some people will tell me to go Dark Shadow + Nightstalker + Deeper Stratagem to solve that problem, but even so, it lacks. You know it does. Thief’s Bargain is an excellent place to try to fix that. Seriously… Who is using this talent nowadays? Give us some love, Blizzard.

Personal reflection:
Sometimes I feel like sub is still paying for the abuse of triple stacks of Sharpened Blades at the beginning of the first season. I was ridiculous, I know, I didn’t agree with that and I never did use that. But the sequential nerfing that followed was too much. Was it really our fault? I don’t even want to touch on the Phantom Assassin subject. After all, who asked for their beloved spec to become a CC bot? Do you really think this is “balance”? Serious question, no flaming.

Let’s make this thread relevant, fellow rogues. Constructive discussion. :wink:

3 Likes
2

I have an alt rogue and I can relate to that. Used to play as sub the last two expansions… I liked the style of sub in Legion very much, but being so tied to Assassination/Outlaw to actually do damage made me lose interest in the class. Those suggestions are a good start, I guess. But I don’t discard some core buffs to the spec, like a flat damage increase, maybe.

3
4

There are lots of things I don’t understand these days in WoW… Like why someone flames a serious topic using a lvl 20 alt, or even the average player base age. Trolls will be trolls, I guess. At least you’re bumping. :hugs:

1 Like