Anub'Rekhan you would be able to get a little bit more time on the boss, yeah. But with the fight as trivial as it is honestly it doesn't matter.
If your tank is moving Faerlina when the rain is on the melee, you should have nearly 100% uptime.
Gluth does not fear anymore.
Noth does not blink in 10-man, and the strategy is typically to AE adds. On 25-man he does blink, but it's not that much of an uptime loss IMO.
Loatheb does have a little bit of time off target, but overall you'd maybe save 5s of boss uptime per spore.
4h without a doubt Shadowstep is a huge advantage, though less so in the 10-man version if you're employing a "burn down Thane first" strategy, as in the 10-man they don't shield wall. It still matters though, and really the only fight in Naxx where I'd see Shadowstep greatly increase uptime.
For Obsidian Sanctum, I'd suspect it's a non-factor (but hard to say certainly as I haven't tried it on hard mode yet).
For Malygos, I could see Shadowstep being rather useful in Phase 2 (assuming you can use it while on the discs), but I wouldn't be surprised if that fight gets redesigned to a degree given its current mechanics.
Anub would see the benefit as well, as I distinctly remember sprinting in that fight to get more time on the boss.
Faerlina uptime would be helped during the transition from killing the first adds to getting on her, and getting back on her when you run off to avoid fire, etc.
Gluth running back after a fear (though did they remove the fear in Wrath?)
Noth after a blink or to get to different packs of adds faster.
Sure, you gain a few seconds here and there, but none of those are you running a full 25 yards in a stretch once a minute. Yes, you run out of fires on Faerlina, but you rarely travel more than 10 yards to do so; yes, you have to run from adds to her in the first place, but you can Sprint that since it's a one-time cost. Gluth, sure, sometimes you'd get feared that far away, but as I recall I wound up 5 yards away as often as I did 20.
My point is this: yes, there are some fights where you do a little running. But when it's just 10 yards here and there, that's not going give SS any meaningful advantage. It's only repeated *long* runs that allow you to manifest the full 5% advantage.
Originally Posted by teiglin
I notice that you (and most people talking about shiv builds) used 23/43/5 or similar, which I assume includes 5/5 improved poisons in assassination. I don't understand the need for 5/5 imp poisons when we're talking about a shiv build. Is the additional uptime on the MH deadly really worth losing, say, 3/5 Prey on the Weak?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: keep in mind that you're also gaining significant IP procs on the OH, as even though your shivs have a 100% proc rate, your white attacks do not. The benefit of Improved Poisons on a Shiv build is only marginally smaller than it is for, say, a Mutilate build.
apart from nerfing Shiv, can we simply buff SS for combat, like increase its ap modifier or base dmg? Some testing done so far seems Combat Shiv dmg is almost same as Multilate now, if we want equal dmg Combat and Assa, buff up SS seems a logical choice?
Didn't they also give it a large buff in the form of a glyph that gives it a 40% chance to get another CP? Wouldn't that become almost as good as if you had seal fate?
The damage implications of 2 points of Seal Fate on an attack with no crit rate boosts like SS are going to be relatively minimal. I mean, it's better than nothing, but the actual realized benefits are definitely smaller than you get from, for instance, the Shiv glyph.
One of the banes of rogue dps is high mobility fights. Now suppose, that for subtlety builds, the dps gap between it and the best single target dps build is fairly small for a stand still and dps fight. In game testing shows that a character runs at approximately 6.15 yards per second. With a run speed enhancement of 15%, this is 7.07 yards per second. Shadowstep provides instant coverage of 25 yards every 30 seconds.
In a Subtlety build meant for PvE, with the Subtlety tree designed as it is now, there is absolutely *no* reason to pick Shadowstep. Not for a sub-dagger build, not for a sub-hemo build and not for a sub-weaponswitch build either.
To reach Shadowstep, you've probably filled out 5/5 Sinister Calling already.
Next, you'll put 3 points into Honor among Thieves, since that's the definite winner on the tier.
2 more points needed to get to Slaughter from the Shadows, your options are Waylay, Filthy Tricks or Shadowstep + 1 point into one of the other two. We're talking raiding here. Filthy Tricks is probably first choice, since Tricks of the Trade is the best "oh shit, tank is losing agro do something" button in the game. If Waylay affects bosses, than we have another strong contender there, since it can give healers a good breather to sort out their mana. Then why would you take Shadowstep, if it's of little consequence in most of the fights available?
Anyway, I'm afraid Sub still won't cut it for raiding. A sub-dagger rogue will probably best option available, but there's just still too little scaling in the sub tree overall (I'd like a hemo debuff affected by AP, for example).
Though I am definitely looking forward to premed no longer needing Stealth, it will make our rotations a lot more interesting. 3s/5r or 5s/5r/Xy? I'm sure it's useful somehow.
Last edited by Ashere : 09/24/08 at 10:26 AM.
Reason: infraction
Fast dagger mutilate only works if they give us fast daggers to mutilate with, which, to date, they haven't. Hopefully they'll fix this either by making more 1.5 and under daggers, or by making slow daggers comparatively stronger - I'm not really picky as to which, but there's a definite need to do one or the other.
If Blizzard wants to control the effect of weapon speed on poisons, wouldn't the cleanest solution be to switch poisons from a chance on hit to a procs per minute system? I haven't seen any indication they're thinking in that direction (not that I follow rogue changes as closely as you guys...), but it seems like the logical way to go. It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to have SnD and/or BF increase poison ppm if necessary to keep it in balance.
I really feel like HfB needs some kind of self-refreshing mechanism, (ie. Cut to the Chase), and/or to be reduced to one stack. Stacking to three really doesn't do anything except penalise the Rogue for allowing it to fall off. It uses up almost an entire energy bar to refresh it from 0. The alternative would be to reduce it's energy cost per stack; kinda like a reverse version of the original Arcane Blast. So the first stack costs 30 energy, the second stack costs 20, and the 3rd stack costs 10. At least it's not quite as painful to refresh; and anyone will argue that 60 energy is adequate penalty, as opposed to the current 90 for a full restack.
But didn't you say that it only penalises rogues who let it fall off? This adds an element of skill to the class, one that's nontrivial but not too intensive to keep up. I liken it to pre-LK Find Weakness, except with a 30 second duration and no CP requirement to put it up. Letting it drop is akin to letting SnD drop, it is a dps loss which you really want to avoid but unlike SnD it has a large cost to put back up. The cost isn't punishing to someone who keeps it up from the start of the fight (stack+regen before combat begins) but is to someone who is less skillful (i.e. that fails at keeping track of the buff duration). I can see the stacking cost being annoying IF some boss encounter(s) caused all 'enrages' to be removed from all targets but that part of the talent is for PvP balancing anyhow.
The 30 energy 'upkeep' cost every 30 seconds determines how good it is. Reducing the 'upkeep' to 10 energy will mean they'll have to balance it differently, which would probably mean lowering the effectiveness of the talent.
It penalises any Rogue who allows it to fall off. It heavily (overly?) penalises in it's current state. There's no question about how trivial it is to maintain, but it just feels far too expensive for a 51 point talent. I don't see why a reduction in upkeep would require rebalancing. If it were a base ability, I would agree with you 100%. With other passive % based modifiers available earlier in the tree (and other trees), this one feels particularly frustrating to manage. Whilst not directly comparable, we have the following talents. Now I know some of them are a real stretch because they apply to specific abilities; (unlike HfB which applies to ALL damage) but nonetheless, they provide substantial % damage increases in one passive form or another.
Intentionally left out Blood Splatter, Improved Eviscerate, Vile Poisons, Improved Kidney Shot, Prey on the Weak, Dirty Deeds, Master of Subtlety & Shadowstep because they don't quite qualify from the same angle of comparison; but anyway - to the point.
We have so, so many abilities; which passively increase our DPS in one form or another. Whether it's a specific ability, a range of general abilities, combo attacks or finishers; they're all located amongst the various trees. Here we have a 9% increase to all damage; however we need to activate it, and maintain it for extended periods of time. I entirely agree that this is a great way to increase our micromanagement, however straying from the same old DPS cycles by adding an extra button to press once every 30 seconds really doesn't come across as groundbreaking new mechanics. I guess what I'm saying here is two things:
1) For an 11th Tier ability, it seems like more of a bother than a buff. I know that I personally tend to let it fall off during trash, and only stack it up before a boss is incoming. Other Rogues might be particularly anal and maintain 100% uptime during combat, but I guess that's a choice of efficiency. For this reason alone; you could effectively state that we have a 51 point talent that we use less than 1% of our total combat time. Of course, comparitively, this could branch off into a dozen other arguments that various other classes' high-tier talents are used to a lesser extent; but I'll leave that stone unturned for now. Anyway, if it were simply a passive 9% damage buff (or even 5%), with the Bleed-removal component on the side, I'm sure it would "fit" it's position at the top of the Assassination tree a lot better.
2) If they want to encourage us to "mix up our rotation", then they need to implement more facilities like Sword and Board, Bloodsurge, Sudden Death and Taste for Blood. Not just feed another Global Cooldown into the cycle. Abilities such as these really, really do create a more dynamic style of play; giving the player an opportunity to enhance their performance by reacting to triggered events; rather than mashing the same macro or following the same rotation for 6 minutes straight.
Even something ridiculous like refreshing our Rupture each time we use HfB would create a very interesting style of play; or allowing our HfB to cost nothing if the target is currently bleeding. There are so many directions they could take with this talent.
Fact of the matter is though, HfB is a tremendous DPS boost. Yes you have to maintain it, but honestly you should have it up way, way more than 1% of the time. If they made it more of a passive buff or less costly to maintain, then it most likely wouldn't be 9% buff to all of our damgage..
I gotta agree with Chalon, given the choice between the three 51 points HfB would be my number 1 choice. The increase to the duration for the change in total percentage of damage added makes it much more versatile. We can keep it up pretty much for the entire duration of a fight. Scale wise, wouldn't this work out to be superior to Killing Spree or whatever new talent the 51 sub is? It's one more button to push in combat, but I'd rather refresh it than have to wait the 3 - 5 minutes most of the combat tree talents have. As it stands, Assassination has 18% increase to damage, half passive and half active, if anything HfB is the new "finisher" replacing SnD for me in my rotation.
I gotta agree with Chalon, given the choice between the three 51 points HfB would be my number 1 choice. The increase to the duration for the change in total percentage of damage added makes it much more versatile. We can keep it up pretty much for the entire duration of a fight. Scale wise, wouldn't this work out to be superior to Killing Spree or whatever new talent the 51 sub is? It's one more button to push in combat, but I'd rather refresh it than have to wait the 3 - 5 minutes most of the combat tree talents have. As it stands, Assassination has 18% increase to damage, half passive and half active, if anything HfB is the new "finisher" replacing SnD for me in my rotation.
I personally find it funny that Blizz removed the timer Find Weakness because it was "detrimental" for Assassination builds to try and keep it up. So now we have to keep up a 3 stack of a different buff and, we're punished if it drops mid fight. But really what annoys me the most is the new way that buffs stack on your HUD; the icons of buffs cover the timers of any buffs above them. Try to find the time remaining on HfB while dps'ing in a raid setting without using add-ons.
Hunger for Blood was originally designed as a PVP ability that was intended to "reward" a damage buff after dispelling a debuff. However it has just changed far too much over the past month, it needs to be redesigned into a PVE ability.
It penalises any Rogue who allows it to fall off. It heavily (overly?) penalises in it's current state. There's no question about how trivial it is to maintain, but it just feels far too expensive for a 51 point talent. I don't see why a reduction in upkeep would require rebalancing. If it were a base ability, I would agree with you 100%. With other passive % based modifiers available earlier in the tree (and other trees), this one feels particularly frustrating to manage. Whilst not directly comparable, we have the following talents. Now I know some of them are a real stretch because they apply to specific abilities; (unlike HfB which applies to ALL damage) but nonetheless, they provide substantial % damage increases in one passive form or another.
Intentionally left out Blood Splatter, Improved Eviscerate, Vile Poisons, Improved Kidney Shot, Prey on the Weak, Dirty Deeds, Master of Subtlety & Shadowstep because they don't quite qualify from the same angle of comparison; but anyway - to the point.
We have so, so many abilities; which passively increase our DPS in one form or another. Whether it's a specific ability, a range of general abilities, combo attacks or finishers; they're all located amongst the various trees. Here we have a 9% increase to all damage; however we need to activate it, and maintain it for extended periods of time. I entirely agree that this is a great way to increase our micromanagement, however straying from the same old DPS cycles by adding an extra button to press once every 30 seconds really doesn't come across as groundbreaking new mechanics. I guess what I'm saying here is two things:
1) For an 11th Tier ability, it seems like more of a bother than a buff. I know that I personally tend to let it fall off during trash, and only stack it up before a boss is incoming. Other Rogues might be particularly anal and maintain 100% uptime during combat, but I guess that's a choice of efficiency. For this reason alone; you could effectively state that we have a 51 point talent that we use less than 1% of our total combat time. Of course, comparitively, this could branch off into a dozen other arguments that various other classes' high-tier talents are used to a lesser extent; but I'll leave that stone unturned for now. Anyway, if it were simply a passive 9% damage buff (or even 5%), with the Bleed-removal component on the side, I'm sure it would "fit" it's position at the top of the Assassination tree a lot better.
2) If they want to encourage us to "mix up our rotation", then they need to implement more facilities like Sword and Board, Bloodsurge, Sudden Death and Taste for Blood. Not just feed another Global Cooldown into the cycle. Abilities such as these really, really do create a more dynamic style of play; giving the player an opportunity to enhance their performance by reacting to triggered events; rather than mashing the same macro or following the same rotation for 6 minutes straight.
Even something ridiculous like refreshing our Rupture each time we use HfB would create a very interesting style of play; or allowing our HfB to cost nothing if the target is currently bleeding. There are so many directions they could take with this talent.
HfB reminds me of the imp scorch talent for fire mages. That takes at least 7.5 seconds to ramp up and it has to be cast every 30 seconds to be refreshed.
We at least have HfB as a self buff, so we can ramp it up before hand with idle energy. If it gets any energy reduction cost, it should be no more than 5 energy, since that would bring it in line with s&d that we would have been using without CttC, and it would make the time to regen the energy needed for a full stack 7.5 seconds as opposed to 9.
Blizz removed the timer Find Weakness because it was "detrimental" for Assassination builds to try and keep it up. So now we have to keep up a 3 stack of a different buff...
As I understood the patch notes the timer on Find Weakness was removed because of the way it synergized with the [Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality] and presumably would have synergized with similar trinkets added in WotLK. Not because it was 'detrimental' to keep it up.
Actually, the larger concern for me in terms of weapon speed is the apparent disconnect between class balance and the people doing the itemization. For instance, the current balance situation is that fast daggers are better for Mutilate, which I think is fundamentally okay - I don't see that it matters in the grand scheme of things whether we use fast daggers or slow ones. The part that's concerning to me is that the majority of epic daggers seem to be 1.8 speed. Fast dagger mutilate only works if they give us fast daggers to mutilate with, which, to date, they haven't. Hopefully they'll fix this either by making more 1.5 and under daggers, or by making slow daggers comparatively stronger - I'm not really picky as to which, but there's a definite need to do one or the other.
I think there are certain issues with the former concept, from a design point of view.
First of all, that would mean slow daggers would only really belong to Backstab oriented rogues (or PvP enthusiasts, more of that later), i.e. probably a very small portion of the raid. Fast daggers, on the other hand, would be very much needed: 2 for every Mutilate rogue, and they wouldn't be out of the question for Combat rogues either. Now, you will obviously have raid drops for both purposes, but considering that daggers of any speed cannot just drop off every other boss, either part of the equation is bound to be lacking the drops for their flavour (read: Latro's Shifting Poniard) or just the opposite (Shard of Azzinoth). That in mind, having most rogues prefer a combination of a slow and a fast weapon - or just make the gap between them trivial - wouldn't offer much change from the BC, but would even out the need for both and lead to a smoother gearing up -process (or more precisely, easing the designers' job to make that happen).
In addition, I'd argue that it would also slightly offend against one of Blizzard's main policies when talking about PvE and PvP balance: abilities work the same way in both fields. Granted, nothing dramatic happens there, but somewhere between those two lies the breakpoint between 'use a fast dagger to increase the chances of poisons/FA proccing, it also deals moderate damage with specials' and 'use a slow dagger to deal heavy damage with our tree-defining ability'. Add in the needs of solo play, this potentially eclipses the changes to Thieves' Tools and making Poisons.
There was not a single mention of any Rogue changes in the most recent "Quotes from Blues" on MMO-Champion, and using the Blue Tracker I realized that there hasn't been a developmental post by a Blue about rogues since the 13th.
This tells me one of two things:
1) Blizzard doesn't care about the effects of weapon speed on Mutilate Builds with Focused Attacks, and doesn't care about Shiv Spec having the highest raid dps.
OR
2) Blizzard doesn't know about using 1.3 speed Daggers in both hands of Mutilate Builds, and they don't know about the results of testings Shiv Specs.
Has there been talk about those two issues on the beta or ptr forums, someplace where devs would be more likely to notice other than sifting through the class forums here?
Has there been talk about those two issues on the beta or ptr forums, someplace where devs would be more likely to notice other than sifting through the class forums here?
Yes, and no. It's mentioned in several places (sometimes jokingly) but it's not a prominent as some of the QQ'ing.
If Blizz reads the rogue beta forums (and I know they do), they've seen talk of fast daggers and Shiv builds. Whether or not they've taken good hard looks at it is up for debate.
There was not a single mention of any Rogue changes in the most recent "Quotes from Blues" on MMO-Champion, and using the Blue Tracker I realized that there hasn't been a developmental post by a Blue about rogues since the 13th.
This tells me one of two things:
1) Blizzard doesn't care about the effects of weapon speed on Mutilate Builds with Focused Attacks, and doesn't care about Shiv Spec having the highest raid dps.
OR
2) Blizzard doesn't know about using 1.3 speed Daggers in both hands of Mutilate Builds, and they don't know about the results of testings Shiv Specs.
I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.
Ooor, they both know AND care but are extremely busy trying to get our class balanced, which is of much much more immediate concern to them.
We have 3.0 hitting soon, then another month or so before WotLK to hit then another few weeks before anyone is running 25 mans at level 80with any regularity. That's plenty of time to tweak weapon stats/speed if they see fit.
Last edited by Professor Hurt : 09/24/08 at 1:29 PM.
Which is the larger contributing factor to the "faster is better" issue at the moment, poisons or Focused Attacks? If it's FA, that could be worked around somehow by having the energy regened be based off of the speed of your weapon (similar to Shiv's cost mechanic). If it's the poisons, well, I am afraid to consider how Blizz would balance that further.
On the other hand, if neither is really that much more imposing, and it's the combination of the two that really push the limit, couldn't they somehow normalize FA and thus solve a large part of the problem? Blizzard has shown before that they want stats other than speed to be the bigger determining factor. They'll need to address this soon with the way the Mutilate spec is functioning.
Focused Attacks means both hands want to be fast. Poison means one hand wants to be fast. If FA were somehow adjusted to remove the heavy speed dependency, we could go Slow OH/Fast OH and be fine.
The thing about poison is that whichever hand has fewer attacks is going to be using DP anyway. When weapons are of equal speed, this means IP MH and DP OH, as the fact that finishers are considered MH gives it marginally more attacks. But once your OH gets faster than your MH, you put IP there, and MH is just keeping DP up for Mutilate. Now, a faster weapon gives you somewhat better uptime, but the DPS benefits are relatively small; hence, poison is not a strong motivator in the push towards fast MHs; that is due almost exclusively to FA.
or if we can let both FA and poison proc rate adjust as weapon speed, slower weapon has a much higher proc rate, can't that make weapon selection easier?
09/23/08, 6:54 PM
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