The Problem With Tricks
Posted 05/15/11 at 11:15 PM by Aldriana
As many of you may have noticed, one of the currently planned T12 set bonuses for rogues is a stat bonus that applies whenever we cast Tricks of the Trade. And while its a very good bonus in terms of power level, I must say I'm not a big fan of it. As I observed in a forum post shortly after it came out, "Am I the only one who's generally not a fan of Tricks-linked set bonuses?"
Now, at the time I didn't have a lot of basis for this commentary - I couldn't have told you what I didn't like about the set bonus, I just knew I didn't care for it. But having thought about it for a while, I think the answer is in one of the replies I got:
Its a gentle way of reminding rogues to hit Tricks on cooldown; and that's exactly the problem. Doing so is brainless, so why do we have to do it at all? When Hunger for Blood was a button that we had to hit every 30 seconds to do 15% more damage, that was stupid; how is Tricks, a button that we hit every 30 seconds to do 2% more damage any less stupid because someone else does the damage for us? Admittedly there is also a threat component, but realistically, if your usage patterns are anything like mine, using it in that capacity happens on the pull and maybe once or twice more on a few selected fights, but a solid 90% of the time its used in a DPS capacity instead. Hence, I have no problem with characterizing it as primarily a DPS ability, and a very boring one at that. Hence, the question I feel obligated to ask is: why does Tricks have a DPS component at all?
To answer this question, we have to look at the history of the ability. When the ability came out and threat transfers were permanent, it was presumably to stop us from simply using it on the tank every cooldown. As we have free GCDs (unlike Hunters and Misdirect), there isn't a lot of motivation not to use it on cooldown, and if it were purely a threat transfer, there'd be no reason not to just unload all our threat into the tanks, thus largely trivializing threat generation. In an effort to avoid this, they also gave it a DPS component, so we had meaningful decisions about whether the tank needed the threat, or whether we should use it on someone who'd get more DPS benefit out of it.
And this logic, as far as it went, was correct. The problem is, threat generation was *still* trivialized. Even if we weren't mindlessly chain-tricksing the tanks, we did have the ability to thoroughly fix bad tank threat whenever it was necessary to do so, thus significantly reducing the burden on the tank significantly. Hence, for Cataclysm, in an effort to more thoroughly fix that problem, they introduced the temporary threat transfer, thus largely neutering the benefits of chain-tricksing a tank. It's still useful for helping them establish initial aggro, but ultimately tanks need to be responsible for their threat gen. And that's a good thing. However, it also obsoletes the need to give Tricks a DPS bonus. Even without the damage bonus, we'd have little reason (by which I mean, none) to continuously Tricks the tank all fight; instead, we'd unglyph Tricks and only use it when it was needed - which strikes me as, on the whole, a far better usage pattern than making people hit a button every 30 seconds to do more damage (see the HFB debates of mid-Wrath).
Thus, I see little need to have a damage bonus on Tricks. It made sense back in Wrath, but with the mechanics changes of Cataclysm, it no longer does. Its merely an annoyance - a push this button periodically to not suck mechanic, made worse by the fact that you don't even do all the damage yourself. Also stupid is the fact that it makes the Glyph of Tricks basically mandatory. While you may reasonably rotate through half a dozen other major glyphs depending on the fight (Feint, Sprint, Gouge, Blade Flurry, etc.), you *never* drop Glyph of Tricks. Its not really a choice anymore - its just something you have to have as a PvE rogue. And that's stupid.
Hence, rather than a set bonus to further shackle us to a mechanic that's stupid and poorly designed for the modern game, I'd rather see them fix Tricks. Drop the damage bonus on Tricks and make it a purely threat management ability. Rebalance our DPS to compensate for the 2% we're no longer giving via Tricks (and a few percent more, to at least make us competitive with the top meleers - but that's another story). And then give us a set bonus linked to an ability that's actually interesting. Pushing a button every 30 seconds to get a purely percentage-based damage boost is boring and stupid, particularly when it wastes a Glyph slot as well. Blizzard realized that HFB was a stupid mechanic and fixed in in Cata. I'd like to see them do the same for Tricks.
Now, at the time I didn't have a lot of basis for this commentary - I couldn't have told you what I didn't like about the set bonus, I just knew I didn't care for it. But having thought about it for a while, I think the answer is in one of the replies I got:
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I love the Tricks-based set bonuses, as it's a gentle way to teach rogues to use the spell. It's free for most specs/builds and can only do good things. The new 100-yard range on TotT makes this pretty brainless.
To answer this question, we have to look at the history of the ability. When the ability came out and threat transfers were permanent, it was presumably to stop us from simply using it on the tank every cooldown. As we have free GCDs (unlike Hunters and Misdirect), there isn't a lot of motivation not to use it on cooldown, and if it were purely a threat transfer, there'd be no reason not to just unload all our threat into the tanks, thus largely trivializing threat generation. In an effort to avoid this, they also gave it a DPS component, so we had meaningful decisions about whether the tank needed the threat, or whether we should use it on someone who'd get more DPS benefit out of it.
And this logic, as far as it went, was correct. The problem is, threat generation was *still* trivialized. Even if we weren't mindlessly chain-tricksing the tanks, we did have the ability to thoroughly fix bad tank threat whenever it was necessary to do so, thus significantly reducing the burden on the tank significantly. Hence, for Cataclysm, in an effort to more thoroughly fix that problem, they introduced the temporary threat transfer, thus largely neutering the benefits of chain-tricksing a tank. It's still useful for helping them establish initial aggro, but ultimately tanks need to be responsible for their threat gen. And that's a good thing. However, it also obsoletes the need to give Tricks a DPS bonus. Even without the damage bonus, we'd have little reason (by which I mean, none) to continuously Tricks the tank all fight; instead, we'd unglyph Tricks and only use it when it was needed - which strikes me as, on the whole, a far better usage pattern than making people hit a button every 30 seconds to do more damage (see the HFB debates of mid-Wrath).
Thus, I see little need to have a damage bonus on Tricks. It made sense back in Wrath, but with the mechanics changes of Cataclysm, it no longer does. Its merely an annoyance - a push this button periodically to not suck mechanic, made worse by the fact that you don't even do all the damage yourself. Also stupid is the fact that it makes the Glyph of Tricks basically mandatory. While you may reasonably rotate through half a dozen other major glyphs depending on the fight (Feint, Sprint, Gouge, Blade Flurry, etc.), you *never* drop Glyph of Tricks. Its not really a choice anymore - its just something you have to have as a PvE rogue. And that's stupid.
Hence, rather than a set bonus to further shackle us to a mechanic that's stupid and poorly designed for the modern game, I'd rather see them fix Tricks. Drop the damage bonus on Tricks and make it a purely threat management ability. Rebalance our DPS to compensate for the 2% we're no longer giving via Tricks (and a few percent more, to at least make us competitive with the top meleers - but that's another story). And then give us a set bonus linked to an ability that's actually interesting. Pushing a button every 30 seconds to get a purely percentage-based damage boost is boring and stupid, particularly when it wastes a Glyph slot as well. Blizzard realized that HFB was a stupid mechanic and fixed in in Cata. I'd like to see them do the same for Tricks.
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I realize this is largely a smaller point but personally, I have never been a huge fan of dual-purpose cooldowns that include a DPS-purpose as what happens for *most* is that either half of the ability is obsolete or you have to make a tricky decision on when to use a DPS and utility/defense ability and/or for which purpose (a philosophy that Blizzard for the most part removed from talent tree decisions).
As you already described, the modern tricks falls under the former category and as a result is just a button you hit on cooldown unless your tanks need more then what your hunters can offer for front-end aggro. Similarly, Assassination’s Vanish is something you generally hit on cooldown since Rogue threat is largely a non-issue. Shadow’s Archangel is also generally hit on cooldown since for most encounters mana is a non-issue through other talents (admittedly Archangel is arguably a much more interesting cooldown then a flat damage boost). On the other hand we have the mesh of DPS and utility/defense which naturally clash because DPS abilities are generally used on cooldown and utility/defense involve thought on timing and usage. Elemental Mastery’s glyph comes to mind for this, time it to a boss ability for a reasonable shield wall or just use the ability for DPS on cooldown? (it’s true you still get the DPS half of the ability in this case and glyph of Stoneclaw provides a regular defensive ability but what is the purpose of this mesh?). While I understand that some will argue that type of decision differentiates good and bad players I think decisions between two separate abilities such as a DPS-finisher OR Recuperate does this better. Deciding between using Maelstrom Storm stacks for a DPS OR a heal, utilizing the Selfless Healer talent, Tranquilizing OR some focusing-costing DPS shot, and Death Strike OR Obliterate in my opinion do a better job defining good player decisions then abilities that are plain two meshed into one (yes, there’s only a couple of these still in the game and tricks isn’t one of them). I would much rather see tricks either become more like (identical) to Misdirection or abilities like Focus Magic or Dark Intent (while they may be push and forget, they are more interesting then plain damage boosts). I should point out that I am in no way an expert in other classes and if I made poor references, you’ll have to forgive me for making bad examples to communicate my points. |
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I had a similar conversation about this recently.
Granted, I was saying I like the new set bonus because it at least makes Tricks something that we're personally invested in. However my main complaint is that Tricks shouldn't need a set bonus to help "fix" it. The ability should stand on it's own. The time is long past to teach rogues to use the spell. The spell itself should give you a clear incentive to use it when you learn the ability, and the fact that some players still need encouragement this far into endgame indicates a deeper flaw with the design. Additionally, Tricks requires a rather large amount of babysitting for an altruistic buff. Other single target raid buffs are either of the "cast and forget" variety (such as Dark Intent) or function as a longish cool down that is used only a couple of times a fight (Unholy Frenzy, Innervate). The latter are far more interesting from a game play perspective because they require some level of choice and/or planning. As opposed to Tricks which is quite literally a "mash every 30 seconds" button. |
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The threat point that ieatpaperbag raises is actually a bit of an interesting one, as I think that would also be partly fixed - or at least, reduced - by removing Tricks as a DPS ability. A big reason why our threat is low is because we offload 20% of our threat onto someone else, and after 30 seconds it disappears; hence, we really only generate 80% as much threat as our DPS might indicate. So if Tricks weren't something we just mashed on cooldown, we'd also generate more threat and managing it might be a bit more interesting.
Probably not enough more interesting to prevent assassination rogues from vanishing (nearly) on cooldown, but more interesting nevertheless. And, honestly, the longer cooldown on abilities like Vanish means there are some optimizations to be performed around waiting a few extra seconds to use it at a better time provided it doesn't cost you a usage over the length of the fight. The fact that its also positionally dependent (or at least, it is if you want to Garrote out of it) also adds an element of needing to pay attention to how you use it. Really, though, Assassination's cooldowns are sort of their own can of worms; Cold Blood and Vanish are too small, and Vendetta is too long (and is boring). In a more thorough redesign of the class I'd like to see these things fixed, but I suspect doing so gets a bit beyond what they'd want to attempt mid-expansion. |
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function as a longish cool down that is used only a couple of times a fight
The threat transfer is perfect at 30 seconds. It's up 'enough' when helping to push adds onto a tank in raids and it's also up regularly to keep things stuck to a tank in 5 mans. The dps component, at it's current level, just feels cheap. I push the button on whoever is doing the most damage or is buffed by a raid mechanic and that's about it. The button doesn't feel powerful or fun to push because due to the low cooldown, it cannot be very powerful. If it was a minute plus, I could plan around boss mechanics to make sure I dropped it on the mages during engulfing magic or when they are 100% corruption, etc. Personally though, the dps part has been so unfun, I'd prefer they just dropped the damage part and kept it 100% a threat ability like misdirection. |
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Personal threat is a non-issue. If you find yourself somehow unable to offload your threat via tricks or vanish, just use glyphed feint on cooldown - or, more likely, two or three times and then you'll be completely in the clear. And if you'd like to argue that you then run the risk of not having feint off cooldown when you need it, that necessitates that you're already using feint during the encounter and it's a wash either way. There is realistically no way that rogues would have issues with threat. On the flipside, I'm more inclined to use my tricks on a hunter because I can be entirely sure that adding my threat generation to theirs isn't going to backfire and get someone killed. It may seem like abilities that force you to choose between defensive or offensive uses are more compelling gameplay, but in reality they're just more complex. I have always found excess complexity to be one of the biggest turnoffs in the gaming industry, and Blizzard's track record shows that we're on the same page.
Tricks is an extremely useful tool for giving your tanks breathing room on the pull and being able to go full-bore and get your cooldowns running from 0:00. Mages have a similar tool in Mirror Image and I think it's fantastic design. The dps component feels like it's just around because it's been around for a while and they don't really have any reason to dump it. Or like it's a way for it to be useful in pvp. They could streamline rogue play and solve quite a few issues if they just simplified the design. Standalone rogue dps should be competitive (moreso) without having to factor in something like tricks. It's plenty functional as a misdirect. |
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Removing it from set bonuses is a great idea. It allows for more unique and interesting set bonuses. Removing the damage component I have to disagree with though. I know most of the threads on the rogue forum do not take pvp implications into account for obvious reasons. But I'd have to say that removing the damage component would make it one of the very few rogue skills with absolutely no use in PVP. A quality that is currently only shared with Pick Lock and Pick Pocket.
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While invalidating the move in PvP isn't completely ideal, I admit I'm not hugely worried about it; I mean, there are a number of moves that don't get used in PvE, and quite a few more that only get used very very rarely. Not all abilities are going to be useful in both PvE and PvP, just like not all talents are useful for both; and provided that the balance between them isn't too unreasonable I think that's sort of fine.
A larger concern that has arisen since this was written is the fact that Blizzard has more or less removed threat as a mechanic from the game; hence, under the proposal above, Tricks would be pretty marginalized even in PvE; you'd use it at the start of the fight just to cover for tank dodges/parries, and then pretty much never again. If threat is not going to be a mechanic anymore, they need to find a new role for this ability (as they've done for Feint) or remove it entirely. And the new role for the ability can be as a DPS tool, but if that is going to be the case they need to find a more interesting mechanism by which to do so. If they're going to give us a mechanism where raid DPS is increased through our working with a member of another class, the could at least make it work more like Dark Intent - provide some personal benefit as well, and don't require recasting every 30 seconds. Of course, I question how appropriate such an ability is for rogues in the first place - it doesn't seem entirely thematic - but if its going to exist it should at least be made to do it well. |
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Just spit-balling here but...
What if the ability worked in a more similar to the name itself? You grant another party member the "tricks of the trade", i.e. attacking enemies like a rogue would. Basically it would be applied like a warrior's Vigilance (long duration, no cooldown, affecting only one party member at a time), and while its active they have a chance to proc extra damage for the rogue on whatever it is they are targeting (melee attacks only). The damage could be based on the rogue and spec-specific: assassination gets a poison proc, combat a MG proc, and subtlety a short-duration bleed (that functions similarly to the 2pc t12 bonus). It might be easier to just make it just a straight damage proc, but if this could be balanced reasonably for the 3 specs, I think it could add a nice bit of flavor and play more specifically to each one's strengths. Additionally, I think it would make the ability more dynamic if its effectiveness increased the longer it was on the target; something like a buff that stacks every X seconds while in combat--up to 3. Initially the chance to proc extra damage would be rather low. The longer your tricks target is in combat, the chance to proc increases at a rate such that in most cases it is preferred to leave it on one target for the majority (if not the whole) encounter--rather than bounce it around constantly. It would probably be cast on the tank most often, due to their high uptime on the boss, but there would likely be circumstances where its more beneficial to cast it on another dps or change tricks targets once or twice a fight. This makes sense from a logical perspective as well: the more time you spend teaching another player the "tricks of the trade", the more adept they are at doing rogue-like things. |
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Updated 09/28/11 at 8:39 AM by wuffles |
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