4.2 Changes Discussion - Page 7

liftir · 05/27/11, 2:57 PM

It's a combination of all of the above and more. While a smaller DP stack size would help there are more things to consider. There's combo points, Deadly Poison stack and Rupture for Asn/BG for Combat but you also have to include what nextormento already pointed out, that most of our abilities/cooldowns are tied to a target (Vendetta, Find Weakness, Bandit's Guile etc) rather than something held personally.

We're pretty inefficient on any short-lived targets like the elementals on heroic Cho'gall or if something needs to be burned down quickly like Al'akir adds. The token nods Blizzard made towards us to improve these problems are the portion of the Venomous Wounds talent where if a Ruptured target dies you are refunded energy and then letting Redirect move BG around. While the VW energy on Ruptured targets death can be useful, it has limited application and it doesn't address the problem of ramp-up time but more of a mitigating factor - and a minor one at that.

Similar things can be said for Redirect moving BG around, it's only beneficial if you are switching to a target that will live a decent length of time. For example, if you're in Deep Insight while attacking Heroic Cho'gall and an elemental pops up that you need to kill, you have the choice of completey wasting your current Insight by attacking the add then redirecting back to Cho'gall or redirecting to the add and getting a few more seconds of Insight attacks. Either choice is a wash.

Synek · 05/27/11, 7:40 PM

Originally Posted by Andeh

to me, it seems like the ramp-up problem lies more in Deadly Poison than Combo Points on target instead of self.

Deadly Poison taking time to stack effectively means that we lose 5 IP procs and some DP damage. While losing damage is never a good thing, some sort of punishment for target switching has always existed and will probably stay in some form. Deadly Poison taking time to stack, while it definitely is a factor, isn't the main problem with our target switching in my experience, it's more to do with Redirect and it's long cooldown compared to the target switching demanded of us in fights such as Omnotron heroic.

Being able to Redirect every 30 seconds, for arguments sake, would mean a lot more when DPSing a low HP add down than DP stacking to 3, for example. While you would get some more direct damage from DP and some more IP procs, being able to Redirect 5CP->Envenom (even if a low stack one) would do a lot more DP/IP damage in those ~5 seconds than the extra procs from DP stacking to 3 and would greatly increase the speed with which we get DP to 5 stacks on a target.

That said, I do believe that there is an issue regarding Deadly Poison and a number of other debuffs, as others have said. A lot of fights this tier have melee moving away from the boss somewhat often, and while this affects all melee through the simple fact that they are limited by range, it takes particular advantage of Rogues.

Many of our important utility (note: utility, not necessarily direct damage) abilities, such as Bandit's Guile, Deadly Poison (it being at 5 stacks is the backbone of IP procs), Vendetta (although a long debuff) and Find Weakness, are in the form of short duration (or long duration in the case of Vendetta) debuffs on the target. With fights like Al'Akir heroic having us moving from the boss quite often, these utility debuffs are often partly or totally wasted. Considering only one of these debuffs can be controlled without hampering our rotation, we're often forced to 'suck it up', and move on and try to get our rotation back on track. Even Vendetta, the most controllable of our utility debuffs, often has no 30 second stretch to be used, so we must try to make the best of it despite having to waste some of it.

I don't want to turn this into a wishlist, but I would like to see Blizzard fix some of the core mechanics instead of simply increasing our modifier damage because, in my experience at least, Rogues lack of damage in T11 is more to do with punishing mechanics than simply Rogue under tuning. If anything was to be changed with Deadly Poison, I would prefer for it to simply be a longer duration and less damage/longer tick breaks to compensate, but overall I don't think that even that is a good idea as it somewhat hampers our already terrible burst.

• Aldriana · 05/27/11, 7:46 PM

To be fair, the DP problem can to some extent be considered more major as often you have a bit of control over when you switch targets, so you can make a point to dump combo points before switching if redirect isn't available, whereas DP stacking there's nothing you can do to mitigate. Both are certainly factors, though.

I'd also like to note that its not quite true that we've always had penalties for target switching - in ToC, for instance, Combat (using double-WP and Eviscerate as the only non-SnD finisher) could switch targets pretty easily with minimal penalty. And even if you assume we should have a penalty, its not like we don't lose damage from sources other than those 5 lost IP procs.

Synek · 05/27/11, 8:40 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

To be fair, the DP problem can to some extent be considered more major as often you have a bit of control over when you switch targets, so you can make a point to dump combo points before switching if redirect isn't available, whereas DP stacking there's nothing you can do to mitigate. Both are certainly factors, though.

While loss of damage due to DP is certainly an issue, some of the damage will be offset by the already existing DP on the old target (granted this is fight dependent). I do think I underestimate the fact that DP damage loss cannot be mitigated, but in terms of damage lost to the add (rather than overall damage loss) I don't consider it to be as important. I'm thinking from a purely logical point of view so math could prove me wrong.

I do think there is another perspective to this problem though (as I touched on above). Right now we are looking at the overall damage outcome of the various mechanics and how they affect us when we switch targets, but when considering the damage done to the add instead of overall damage, Combo Point usage becomes more important. While dumping CP is an efficient use of CP when switching with Redirect on cooldown and is certainly better than wasting those Combo Points, it still leaves us with the same problem - lack of damage on an add (generally one with a small health pool so burst is arguably more important) when switching. DP damage loss could well be more major in terms of overall damage output, but I would consider the CP issue more detrimental in terms of direct damage to the add (which is where the problem lies).

A Redirect change would also help the DP stacking on a new target issue too, in the sense that you can redirect 5 CP to a new target, melee while you pool energy, and then Envenom at low DP stacks. It will give you 5-6 seconds of the Envenom buff on a new target which is likely to get you to 5 stacks and then some. A 1-4 point Rupture after this would probably suffice (if not overkill) if the add has enough hp for Rupture to even be worth it, and Rupture is likely to be on the old target too if you are planning ahead efficiently.

Granted, this is mainly based on the way I see the problems and my own logical train of thought, so numbers could well prove me wrong.

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I'd also like to note that its not quite true that we've always had penalties for target switching - in ToC, for instance, Combat (using double-WP and Eviscerate as the only non-SnD finisher) could switch targets pretty easily with minimal penalty. And even if you assume we should have a penalty, its not like we don't lose damage from sources other than those 5 lost IP procs.

I probably worded it badly, the point I was trying to make is that penalties is something that has always been associated with target switching (especially with Rogues/melee since the very nature of switching affects us through melee attacks), so I would think it's safe to assume that there will always be some form of unavoidable punishment when switching. It just doesn't seem plausible to me to, for example, have DP proc your main hand poison regardless of DP stacks (effectively negating the damage loss when switching), but that's probably just my twisted way of seeing things. Edit: I read your blog post after posting this - slight surprise with regards DP proccing poisons)

Antiarc · 05/27/11, 10:09 PM

The problem isn't the Deadly damage, it's the lost Instant damage from not having the Deadly 5x stack. While you're stacking Deadly, you aren't proccing the extra Instant, which is very significant for Mutilate. The Deadly stack ticking on the mob you switched off of is some extra damage, but it's not enough to make up for the lost instant procs.

You can 1CP rupture an add just fine; you just want the energy and Venomous Wounds procs. Rupture's damage is pretty inconsequential for Mut. It's even less consequential for Combat. It's very important for Sub, but you'll probably just run the Hemo glyph if you're swapping a lot.

Deadly procs your MH poison because rogues were running weapon-swapping macros to swap in a second offhand once their poison stacks were at 5x. Someone wrote a macro to do it, then I wrote an addon that would do it while attempting to minimize white damage loss from swing resets, Blizzard said "Welp, the gap between the addon and non-addon users is too big now", baked the proc into Deadly, and locked down gear swaps from the Lua API. It's a band-aid on a kludge already, and while it was a nice buff at the time, it's certainly made swapping more difficult. I don't think anyone would be particularly upset if they demolished that mechanic and replaced it with something more elegant, so long as the net sustained single-target damage didn't drop as a result.

Rogues are not in a place where our mechanics are super-fragile and can't be played with without upsetting some huge balance, and given the fact that rogues are underperforming in PVE and are under-represented in PVP, in addition to being the least-represented class at 85, I'm not sure why Blizzard is so hesitant to tweak the class up a bit.

• Aldriana · 05/27/11, 11:17 PM

Well, lets be clear: the lost of DP ticks hurts too. Its 10% of our damage, and while (when switching between targets) you do get those ticks on the old target, in terms of bursting down the new one its less useful. Particularly since rupturing a target that's not going to live long anyway (see: Cho'gall elementals) is of questionable worth. My experience with that duty is that you wind up dumping your energy bar on a few Mutilates and an Envenom and then landing a hit or two on the boss before swapping to the next add, and as I recall my elemental damage was about half that of the DKs and Warriors on the same duty.

However: I do agree that the IP procs are the larger factor, and fixing that would indeed help quite a bit in terms of letting us perform some of the swapping type duties more easily as Assassination (not to mention diminishing the slow rampup on our AoE).

In terms of PvP: while its true that rogues are poorly represented in high-end PvP as a whole, its also true the RMP is still one of the strongest comps. Hence, what they need to do is buff rogue PvP in most situations without making RMP any stronger than it already is - and perhaps even weakening it a bit. And that, I submit, is a challenging problem to solve.

Antiarc · 05/28/11, 1:41 AM

Honestly, RMP is strong because of the control synergy between the three members of the team, not because of raw damage (and it's the mage that brings the primary control, not the rogue). You could buff rogue damage pretty significantly without affecting the general strength of RMP. I think that at the moment, it's particularly strong because it's a powerful counter to melee zerg cleave teams, which are all the rage right now. TSG (and variants) and DK/Ret/X are all very easy-to-play, very popular, and very successful comps that just get wrecked by a well-coordinated RMP. If something like Shadowplay or LSD were more prevalent, you wouldn't see RMP at nearly the same representation.

Golijov · 05/28/11, 1:46 AM

Even if rogues were overpowered in PvP, or whatever concerns exist about RMP, there's no reason whatsoever that rogue dps couldn't be buffed for PvE. It's fairly well established now that Subtlety is the pvp spec, Mutilate and Combat are the PvE specs, H:V&T aside. The system works best when this assumption is made, and balance changes reflect that design. The rogue trees right now are essentially set up in a manner that allows for easy isolated tuning. For example, if rogues are under performing on single target dps encounters, you buff mutilate. If they are behind on cleave fights, you buff combat. If they are weak in pvp, buff subtlety. Each of these scenarios is different enough from the others that one dial can be turned without messing the others up. Buffing mutilate won't affect the power of rogues on cleave fights or in pvp, and vice versa.

Beepbeeps · 05/28/11, 2:17 AM

Originally Posted by Golijov

Even if rogues were overpowered in PvP, or whatever concerns exist about RMP, there's no reason whatsoever that rogue dps couldn't be buffed for PvE. It's fairly well established now that Subtlety is the pvp spec, Mutilate and Combat are the PvE specs, H:V&T aside. The system works best when this assumption is made, and balance changes reflect that design. The rogue trees right now are essentially set up in a manner that allows for easy isolated tuning. For example, if rogues are under performing on single target dps encounters, you buff mutilate. If they are behind on cleave fights, you buff combat. If they are weak in pvp, buff subtlety. Each of these scenarios is different enough from the others that one dial can be turned without messing the others up. Buffing mutilate won't affect the power of rogues on cleave fights or in pvp, and vice versa.

If fights were as limited as "single target" and "cleave" (which they obviously aren't) then that might work, but iirc blizzard wants to diverge from that older mentality of this spec is for that fight or this spec is for pvp idea. This suggestion of tuning also doesn't affect the root problem (target swaps, discussed in detail by others) which needs to be resolved. Once the root problem is fixed any number tweaking for overall rogue dps can be done.

If Redirect functioned like Soul Swap and transferred all our active debuffs (DP, Rupture, Vendetta) that would really solve the problem completely. Make the cooldown 30-45 seconds, or keep it at a minute, and hope encounters are designed around the longer cooldown?

• Aldriana · 05/28/11, 2:19 AM

Originally Posted by Golijov

Even if rogues were overpowered in PvP, or whatever concerns exist about RMP, there's no reason whatsoever that rogue dps couldn't be buffed for PvE. It's fairly well established now that Subtlety is the pvp spec, Mutilate and Combat are the PvE specs, H:V&T aside. The system works best when this assumption is made, and balance changes reflect that design. The rogue trees right now are essentially set up in a manner that allows for easy isolated tuning. For example, if rogues are under performing on single target dps encounters, you buff mutilate. If they are behind on cleave fights, you buff combat. If they are weak in pvp, buff subtlety. Each of these scenarios is different enough from the others that one dial can be turned without messing the others up. Buffing mutilate won't affect the power of rogues on cleave fights or in pvp, and vice versa.

While that's a somewhat reasonable characterization of what's currently in place, its worth keeping in mind that its not actually Blizzard's design goal. In theory, they'd like to have all 3 specs viable for both PvE and PvP; in practice I suspect they'd be content with two of each (sort of like there was a time in wrath where Combat and Assassination were both valid in PvE, and there was both a deep sub spec and a Assassination/sub hybrid that were viable in PvP).

Also note that if they buff the "PvE" specs damage output too much, they could (in theory, at least) become PvP specs as a side effect - just because they're not viable now doesn't mean they wouldn't be if you buffed them enough.

Also, I'd personally prefer to see both Combat and Assassination be viable single target, and I suspect Blizzard would as well. It also probably needs to become significantly less good at cleaving and significantly better at AoE to be fully balanced in PvE, as right now its ludicrous on small numbers of targets and useless on large numbers of targets, but that's sort of a separate issue.

Silverdirk · 05/28/11, 2:58 AM

It's pretty clear Blizzard do not share the mentality of one tree for PvP and the rest for PvE. I guess that in the redesign of the talent trees, they envisaged that even combat would be viable for PvP. You only have to see that every filler talent in the combat tree is purely for PvP, and completely useless for PvE. They are worried that buffing these classically PvE trees could make them overpowered in PvP, and indeed it's not hard to see how a dps-buffed combat could be used to such effect. They need to rethink this strategy and return to Subtlety being the PvP tree and leaving combat / mutilate for PvE.

Golijov · 05/28/11, 3:47 AM

I wish they (Blizzard) would stop trying to steer away from a design that clearly works, at least for the pure classes. As for the target switching issue, I can't think of a fight I've encountered so far this expansion where it's really such a major issue aside from Omnitron. I disagree with this idea brought up that the root of rogue problems is target swapping, and that if we could just get that fixed everything else would be easy. We have a longer ramp up time, yes. The problem isn't really that, it's that our dps once ramped up isn't high enough relative to the classes that have little to no ramp up, combined with being melee makes us a less desirable choice for raid composition.

That said, I think at least for mutilate the reducing deadly poison stacks to 3 instead of 5 while maintaining the same dps from deadly poison would help a lot. Another possibility could an addition to master poisoner, vile poisons, or whatever that increases the chance to apply deadly poison from auto-attacks (or include specials if AoE ramp up time is truly an issue) against targets with fewer than the maximum number of stacks. This would allow for much faster initial application without overly buffing the instant poison damage.

As for combat vs mutilate and single vs multi target, I think that considering how boring mutilate is to play right now, if Blizzard wants us to play both specs in raids then mutilate needs to be noticeably higher in pure single target scenarios. Otherwise, there is no incentive to use the spec at all aside from possibly an extremely tightly tuned single target fight, the likes of which we really haven't seen in a long time.

Tinwhisker · 05/28/11, 8:21 AM

Quick question, in the interest of improving target switching, what would be the implications of altering Assassination talents so that all OH/DP procs could apply MH/IP rather than only when fully stacked? It seems to me that something like this would still require a ramp-up for full DPS but it would take a good bit of the sting out of it, it would also help AoE DPS on short lived targets.

Synek · 05/28/11, 10:01 AM

To get back to the DP stacking/CP issue regarding target swaps, I think that a change to both is equally necessary.

At the end of the day, regardless of overall DPS output, it's the damage to the add that matters when discussing target switching. Both Deadly Poison and Combo Points can have their damage loss on a new target off-set by damage to the old target (in the form of an existing DP or dumping CPs). I know that at least I was guilty of viewing it the wrong way.

DP taking time to stack (especially for Combat/Sub) means that not only is a static 5 IP procs lost to the new target, but direct DP damage is lost also. Needless to say, this is very bad, especially given the amount of target switching demanded this tier - Losing ~50k (very rough guess) damage to a new target (even if some is offset on an old target) is quite punishing.
After reading Aldriana's blog post, I must agree that, despite the fact that I find it hard to envision such a change, removing the "...at 5 stacks" part of the DP-proccing-Main Hand mechanic, and simply have DP proc your other poison, would absolutely work, from a PvE standpoint. It would leave us with a certain amount of lost damage when switching due to DP taking time to stack to maximum potential, but I will get around to my thoughts on that below.

The second issue (and one that I believe is more of a problem, but that's just my opinion) is with Combo Points and Redirect. Being in a position where Redirect is on cooldown and you have to change targets isn't a nice one. It leaves you with effectively one option - Dump CPs on your current target. While that's an efficient way to minimize damage loss, it still leaves us with the issue of lack of damage/high ramp up time on the new target. Reducing Redirect's cooldown to something like 25 seconds would largely remove this problem, give us more burst on a new target and help the DP stacking issue by means of a quick Envenom on a new target.

The third issue, one that has been largely unmentioned it seems, is the other target debuffs on which our direct damage relies. Specifically, Bandit's Guile, Find Weakness, Rupture (in the case of Subtlety), Deadly Poison (although discussed above) and Vendetta. I shouldn't need to go into detail, but there are a lot of cases right now where having our damage rely on target debuffs greatly reduces our ability to target swap and deal damage comparable to other melee, and that hurts a lot when those other melee are the ones we are competing with for raid spots. Reducing Redirect's cooldown would certainly help some of these issues, but Vendetta remains a downright stupid ability as far as I'm concerned. In a tier designed specifically against Patchwerk fights, having an ability that simply increases damage done to a specific target for 30 seconds infuriates me. Find Weakness is quite flexible, however, and actually helps with target switching damage - Shadow Dance is a great way to open on a new add, it's probably the only Rogue cooldown I approve of right now.

Another issue with target-debuffs is that, due to the nature of this tier, they drop off a lot, and are often wasted. Bandit's Guile, being virtually uncontrollable outside of short energy pooling, can easily be wasted by having to move away from the boss. The same goes for Deadly Poison and Rupture. Vendetta suffers a lot also since there's often no clear 30s stretch during which to use it to it's full potential. Find Weakness is somewhat controllable, however.

orderofmaken · 05/28/11, 12:54 PM

Have to agree with the BG situation, its one of the most infuriating mechanics in this current tier to manage with the amount of target switching fights and boss mechanics where you have to step away for a duration and in turn lose stacks of BG and DP.

Taking Cho'gall hc for instance, I find I might have a 20 or 30% BG on Cho when the two adds spawn and switch. I either have a choice of redirecting my current BG to the adds or using BG after the adds are finished and directing whatever stacks of BG I have left on the adds back to Cho'gall mostly due to the fact the adds die within a couple of finishers and haven't managed to get redirect back off cd with restless blades, unless I popped an AR on them or got incredibly lucky with CP procs. Never happened once though. Either way I'd be losing one cycle of BG I've built up.

Still unsure why they're increasing CloS cd as well by another 30s instead of resolving a lot more important issues..