5.2 Changes Discussion - Page 7

• Aldriana · 01/12/13, 2:49 AM

My quickly hacked-together estimates comes up with about 700 EP for Assassination, in... whatever gear I happened to last model. That said: I don't entirely remember how good the model is at handling overlapping Envenom uptime, so - particularly with Shadow Blades up - it may be overestimating the amount of envenom uptime you actually gain from the set bonus.

I will further note that I have it showing ~60% of the benefit from rupture and ~40% from envenom.

Verain · 01/14/13, 4:28 AM

I'll take your math for it, and stand corrected. It isn't intuitive to me that the envenom uptime would be such a poor addition, but maybe we put a lot of emphasis on envenom uptime because it's something we can actively work on and improve, not because it has much inherent magnitude.

The 4 set bonus, on the other hand, offers a bit of something that currently none of our specs are top tier at- burst over a medium sized window. We may see a whole expac of shadow blades related bonuses (being that it is a thing that all our specs have), and, after seeing a lot of tricks bonuses and rupture bonuses, something tied to a reasonably powerful cooldown should be a lot more interesting.

kindath · 01/15/13, 12:29 PM

During Shuriken Toss, your auto attacks are replaced with throwing Shurikens, which do 80% weapon damage, but are on the 'yellow combat table', meaning they don't glance, and don't suffer the Dual Wield miss penalty. The 80% number was chosen because that approximately offsets those other benefits.

If the shuriken autoattacks from shuriken toss don't suffer from the dual wield miss penalty, it might be a DPS increase for assassination to shuriken toss once every 15 seconds even if you can stay in melee 100% of the time. Your Attack damage might go down a bit, but you would gain ~19% more poison procs from attacks that would have otherwise missed.

Granted, if that becomes the standard way to DPS, Blizzard will probably nerf Shuriken Toss in some way.

metzli · 01/15/13, 1:18 PM

Hmm, I guess the question to ask is do you still get these modified melee swings if you go back into melee range, or only if you stay out of melee range?

Rfeann · 01/15/13, 3:42 PM

Players in the PTR have reported that the yellow swings continue for the full 10-second duration even when the rogue returns to within melee range of the target. It'd be cool to know whether the design team intended this, though.

Regardless, within the context of a "real-world" raid fight, could it ever truly be anything other than an inefficient pain in the rear end to run out to >10 yards every X seconds in order to refresh Shuriken Toss's autoattacks? Under what circumstances could it truly be optimal? How would it not entirely disrupt a rotation via Rupture/Envenom potentially falling off, potentially wasted GCDs during high energy-regen periods (which will become more of a concern as gear progresses, particularly given our upcoming set bonuses), or potentially wasted CPs due to reaching 5CP (sans Anticipation) while out of melee range?

Kindath, why would once every 15 seconds be the time frame? If the buff persists for 10 seconds, we'd need to begin running out to range *before* the buff expires to refresh it, no? If so, what would be the best means by which to do so -- Shadowstep an ally who we think is right around 11 yards from the boss? Backpedal/strafe away so we can continue to hit ST between 5 and 11 yards for the continued damage/CP generation while we can't use Mutilate/Envenom?

I'm probably missing some really obvious solutions, but on the surface, this theoretical approach feels super-inefficient to me.

metzli · 01/15/13, 6:06 PM

Really obvious solution is that mutilate is expensive and at least 80% of the time you can easily empty your energy bar, run to range, and be just fine. I think it's probably farily obvious that the "enhanced" ST melee's are probably better than the regular ones, so the math should be if a melee range ST (half damage on ST) to keep the buff up would still be a dps gain. And then after that if it's competitive with anticipation.

Rfeann · 01/15/13, 6:47 PM

Fight mechanics will intervene, though: Boss movement, target switching, the need to avoid bad things on the ground, phase transitions, cooldowns, etc., will all make this more complicated in practice than "just run out to 11 yards every 8-9 seconds and then jump back." This isn't just about math.

Vikken · 01/15/13, 7:57 PM

I should probably note this here since I haven't received any response on the official forums, but the autoattacks during st appear to be behaving strangely. I don't believe that I have messed up the analysis, but confirmation would be nice.

[BUG] Shuriken Toss full autoattack damage - Forums - World of Warcraft

Subtlety doesn't appear to have an offhand damage penalty, and/or combat doesn't appear to be doing 80% auto attack damage as intended, but my understanding of the mechanics could be wrong.

Rfeann · 01/15/13, 9:14 PM

GC just made the whole should-we-consider-incorporating-ST's-ranged-autoattacks-into-our-rotations thing (SWCISTRAIOR for short) moot with this forum post:

As previously mentioned, we chose 80% as the damage for Shuriken Toss, as that made it balanced with white attacks, to offset the dual wield miss penalty and glancing. However, that neglected to consider that it also triggers poisons more often due to not missing 19% of the time. So we’re lowering its damage slightly, to 75%. That’s intentionally under-compensating, so that the extra poison procs are still a gain, rather than just neutral. Additionally, to make absolutely clear that you do not want to run out, Shuriken Toss, and run back in, to get the Shuriken auto attacks, we’re making the auto attack override end when you get back in melee range.

Aaand that's the end of that chapter.

shadowboy813 · 01/16/13, 8:33 AM

I really don't think it was ever viable. Yes, you'd get more poison procs during that 10 second window but without sprint it would take you at least 2.4 seconds of not attacking at all just to gain those poison procs should the buff fall off. At most what the extra poison procs would be doing is compensating for the loss of procs from running out if the buff fell off at any point. I'd be surprised if it broke even at all. The ST auto attack buff is very useful to "gain lost ground" on the return when having to move out for some boss mechanic, but I don't think it would have ever been worth using rotationally. Let's not forget having to run out every ~7.5 seconds would be tedious. Then there's seal fate. Every energy point spend on shurikan toss is an energy point spent on most definitely not getting a seal fate combo point.

metzli · 01/16/13, 9:10 AM

No one is even considering here that you did not have to be out of melee range to shuriken toss. The ability itself would do half damage, but this discussion was never about shuriken toss's dpe anyway.

Rfeann · 01/16/13, 10:21 AM

Huh? I'm not following. You have to be >10 yards away to activate the ST autoattacks. You could never "refresh" them from within melee range. There's virtually no practical purpose to using ST within melee range (an admission I've made previously despite the fact that I loooooooove it), which is intended by design.

But again, GC's post makes this entire discussion moot and thus not worth continuing.

kindath · 01/16/13, 1:15 PM

I mentioned 15 seconds earlier because I had thought the buff lasted 15 for some reason, and yes, my suggestion was just to shuriken toss in melee range to keep up the ST buff (and generate cheap combo points). Shuriken toss did proc the autoattack buff even in melee range, but it no longer will, and will drop off any time you go to mutilate, rupture, envenom. Moot point.

Enzo90910 · 01/17/13, 5:01 AM

The new Smoke Bomb is up on the PTR and seems to work as intended, 20% dmg reduction to allies within the Smoke Bomb. Friends, we have a raid CD.

EDIT: in addition to the current targeting properties of Smoke Bomb, of course.

Zujamar · 01/17/13, 6:03 AM

Regarding Smoke Bomb: I think getting a raid CD would be in order. Given the utility of other melee, especially in the plate-wearing category, it felt hard to justify my own raid spot at times (speaking as an officer). On a side note, this would leave our Windwalker buddies to be the odd one out, though. Immediate quality-of-life issues I can think of include the fact that the visual effect is (thematically fittingly) a bit too subtle to be seen from all the more flashier effects going on in raids, and that the SB glyph in its current form would be pretty much mandatory.