Cataclysm Rogue Changes - Page 44

jonnnney · 08/02/10, 2:23 PM

Originally Posted by StoicRoivaS

As far as our masteries being passive and lame, I don't think there was ever any doubt that rogues got the most boring masteries by far. With this slight change to the combat mastery, we're just about where locks are in terms of nothing remotely interesting. That said, I'm sure all specs would love a crazy mastery that actually changes their play, but balancing 30 of those is probably just as much not worth the dev time as they're already said. I do think that one interesting mastery per class is a fair request though, and rogue/lock is a bit behind in that respect.

Honestly its more than just the locks that have masteries that are just a dps increase and not a change in game play. Arms warriors, elemental shamans and Marksman hunters have a nearly identical mastery to combat.
Frost and unholy dks, Enhancement shamans, feral druids, ret pallies, and survival hunters have nearly the same as mut rogues.

While I would like something that could change gameplay with different mastery levels honestly the only dps that have interesting masteries are:
mages (not sure about the normal frost rotation so they might not be interesting)
Shadow priests and fury warriors

• Aldriana · 08/02/10, 2:42 PM

While a lot of masteries are to some extent "boring", most of them are at least somewhat active. A frost DK has control over how much frost damage he does - not necessarily a lot of control but some. Hence, it's among the reasons a good frost DK does more damage than a bad one.

Similarly, rogues get to control their use of finishers - a good rogue can do more finisher damage than a bad rogue, which means that, again, the mastery helps differentiate them.

The problem with combat is not that it's boring - mechanically, it's actually one of the more interesting ones. The problem is that there's no earthly thing you can do to affect the amount of benefit you gain. A good rogue and a bad rogue both autoattack, hence get the exact same benefit from the talent. And given that they've said they're trying to increase the skill gradient for rogues, having a significant passive source of damage like this feels like a step in the wrong direction.

For that matter, Assassination, while better, still gets a lot of the benefit from it's mastery via passive means. It feels to me like proper maintenance of envenom uptime should be a larger contributer to poison damage, such that it matters more how well you do it - not just for the mastery, but in general as well. It's not at all clear how to do that, but it does seem like the obvious way to make the tree more skill-dependent.

Pyriana · 08/02/10, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

For that matter, Assassination, while better, still gets a lot of the benefit from it's mastery via passive means. It feels to me like proper maintenance of envenom uptime should be a larger contributer to poison damage, such that it matters more how well you do it - not just for the mastery, but in general as well. It's not at all clear how to do that, but it does seem like the obvious way to make the tree more skill-dependent.

The problem with this is, even at 80 in bis gear I'm not getting more than say a 50% envenom uptime adding rupture to the mix, this is of course without mods or anything, but envenom buff is not nearly as "micromanage-y" as it currently is in live, as long as you do 2-3 4-5 point envenoms per rupture you're gonna get the most out of it you can (this is with an exceptionally large amount of haste, even, 1300+) at 83 where my leveling rogue is now, with nearly the same gear (though I didn't re-gem for haste so I think I have 700ish) I am lucky if I get 1 envenom off per rupture on mobs that are same level or lower level than me, and not because the mob dies, but because I have NO energy and barely enough hit to cap my yellow attacks and only 7 expertise, iirc.

I think that if the mastery system were to be in live right now for mutilate rogues it would make the good and bad rogues a lot more distinguishable.

Edit: If they wanted to make mut rogues need more skill to play to separate the good from the bad making shiv extend the duration of Envenom might possibly do that and vary our rotation (possibly significantly depending on what finisher we were going for for that set of cp)

Zaniel · 08/03/10, 11:23 AM

I like the idea of making Envenom's buff longer, especially if they are expecting us to weave an extra finisher in. However, i don't like Pyriana's suggestion of using Shiv to do that. It feels like overburdening an already situational ability (remember that Shiv is going to be our default Enrage dispel).

I do think making the buff longer is something Assassination should be able to do, though. Whether that be through the additional change to Improved Evis (since they're adding something to Envenom there) or by revamping something else to lengthen the buff. Heck, if they wanted to, they could revamp Murderous Intent to make it so that Backstab instead of becoming an Execute-type ability could lengthen the duration of Envenom's buff. That would make the cycle actually a cycle, and something we'd have to balance (do I Mutilate or Backstab here?, etc).

But that might be too big a stretch. Maybe Blizz doesn't like that we have such high Envenom uptime, and this is one of their solutions. It's hard to know without a blue poster really telling us.

Saweni · 08/03/10, 1:01 PM

I don't think extending envenom buff's duration is a good idea. Of course with quest/dungeons/first tier gear energy regeneration may be poor enough to make envenom become some kind of a filler between ruptures so that the "skill" parameter might be quite insignificant in the way mutilate main mastery works.

But extending envenom's duration might reverse the issue at high tiers gear. While it seems obvious that energy generation still will scale with gear (as it scales on haste), the amount of shivs (in the example you gave) needed to maintain envenom may decrease and then "required skill" would drop two.

The skill needed to really take benefit from the mastery bonus the way it is designed right now is strongly dependant on energy regeneration rate so that it surely will fluctuate a lot all along the extension no matter what Blizz does to balance it.

As usual there might be huge grammar mistakes as english is far from being my main language. Sorry for that.

Beepbeeps · 08/03/10, 2:51 PM

I think the point is to actually reduce envenom uptime because it was stated early that they wanted to reduce passive poison damage. I think that adding rupture into the mix is what keeps Assassination doing good damage but reduces the passive/no-skill style of play. Adding a way to improve the envenom duration would be cool, but would ultimately put Assassination the same as it is today where bad players still look pretty good because of passive damage.

Passive damage is exactly what the complaints were about regarding the combat mastery proc, why would we want that same design back into assassination?

Lumen222 · 08/03/10, 3:13 PM

Originally Posted by Beepbeeps

I think the point is to actually reduce envenom uptime because it was stated early that they wanted to reduce passive poison damage. I think that adding rupture into the mix is what keeps Assassination doing good damage but reduces the passive/no-skill style of play. Adding a way to improve the envenom duration would be cool, but would ultimately put Assassination the same as it is today where bad players still look pretty good because of passive damage.

Passive damage is exactly what the complaints were about regarding the combat mastery proc, why would we want that same design back into assassination?

Then envenom buff is not passive. Sloppy game play can lead to clipping it and reducing the total potential up time. A person who is skilled at min/max will be able to squeeze more damage from the buff than a mediocre player who blindly spams envenom the second they have enough points.

By "passive poison damage" the developers were probably commenting on the damage gained from standing around and auto attacking. Not the additional damage gained from the envenom buff.

Saweni · 08/03/10, 4:27 PM

That's what seems really odd with mastery bonuses, blue posters stated they wanted to nerf rogue passive damage. But Mutilate and Combat main masteries both are heavily focused on passive damage.

Beepbeeps · 08/03/10, 4:41 PM

Maybe more of what I meant was that with haste and increased energy regen, a 80% or higher uptime for envenom would be possible if rupture was not thrown into the rotation. I don't really think that takes a skilled rogue if energy regen is high and our rotation doesn't improve past two buttons.

Pyriana · 08/03/10, 4:59 PM

Originally Posted by Beepbeeps

Maybe more of what I meant was that with haste and increased energy regen, a 80% or higher uptime for envenom would be possible if rupture was not thrown into the rotation. I don't really think that takes a skilled rogue if energy regen is high and our rotation doesn't improve past two buttons.

The problem is, that as it currently stands on my level 83 rogue with ~700 haste, it takes absolutely no skill to rupture once and envenom once, because that's about all I get, if I get really lucky I can get 2 envenoms off but it's not even possible for me to clip the envenom buff, even @ 80 with 1300 haste on my test rogue getting 2-3 (or 4-5 with cold blood) envenoms in per rupture, so with 2-3 envenoms, that is enough time that you can wait a half second for envenom to drop before envenoming again, which takes very little skill. When it begins to take skill is when you have the possibility of spanning the entire duration of rupture with envenom with the proper energy pooling, sadly energy pooling is a lot more difficult with higher energy regen and with the new talent that makes rupture ticks give 6 energy it can be VERY bursty when you get 3 ticks in a row giving 6 energy. (time between ticks @ 60% haste is very small)

Basically I feel like the "most skill" required is when we are getting enough envenoms off to sometimes, but not always cover the duration of rupture.

Lumen222 · 08/03/10, 6:06 PM

I definitely agree that the rotations should be challenging enough that the difference between skilled players and more casual players is highlighted. However I wonder if we are focusing too much on Mastery as a vehicle for this. A complex and challenging rotation can be attained through creative talent design, Mastery bonuses are not really needed to accomplish the goal.

I'm somewhat inclined to think that having a "boring" passive mastery could turn out to be an advantage in the long run. It seems that in many cases the passive Mastery will be easier to tweak and balance, and since it scales with gear it becomes quite useful indeed when balancing classes across several raid tiers. If we view Masteries as the 'knob" that developers turn in order to adjust our damage, and look to the talents to provide the interesting rotation then I think we have a model that could be quite useful for the long term. Ultimately so long as the end result is an interesting fun rotation, does it really matter if Mastery plays an active roll?

The conversation about creating an active skill to adjust envenom uptime was interesting because it adds needed complexity to the rotation which I think is what many players would like to see.

On a side note,
How does working Expose Armor into the rotation feel? At the moment I am wondering if the rotation is being balanced around the idea of an assassination rogue needing to also provide this debuff. I also wonder if giving Imp Expose an additional effect that makes it a standard part of the rotation could be the key to making the assassination rotation all that we desire. This assumes that it would no longer conflict with sunder armor.

Beepbeeps · 08/03/10, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by Lumen222

On a side note,
How does working Expose Armor into the rotation feel? At the moment I am wondering if the rotation is being balanced around the idea of an assassination rogue needing to also provide this debuff. I also wonder if giving Imp Expose an additional effect that makes it a standard part of the rotation could be the key to making the assassination rotation all that we desire. This assumes that it would no longer conflict with sunder armor.

Refresh envenom to it's maximum duration?

• Aldriana · 08/03/10, 7:43 PM

Originally Posted by Lumen222

I definitely agree that the rotations should be challenging enough that the difference between skilled players and more casual players is highlighted. However I wonder if we are focusing too much on Mastery as a vehicle for this. A complex and challenging rotation can be attained through creative talent design, Mastery bonuses are not really needed to accomplish the goal.

I'm somewhat inclined to think that having a "boring" passive mastery could turn out to be an advantage in the long run. It seems that in many cases the passive Mastery will be easier to tweak and balance, and since it scales with gear it becomes quite useful indeed when balancing classes across several raid tiers. If we view Masteries as the 'knob" that developers turn in order to adjust our damage, and look to the talents to provide the interesting rotation then I think we have a model that could be quite useful for the long term. Ultimately so long as the end result is an interesting fun rotation, does it really matter if Mastery plays an active roll?

Fundamentally, the answer is no; however, both the question and the answer sort of miss the point. Yes, every mastery doesn't need to play an active roll in increasing the damage of the class. But rogues are already amongst the classes that derive the most benefit from passive sources, so adding more isn't necessarily good.

Briefly stated: all classes get some of their damage through passive sources, and some from active sources. Skill dependence can only be added to the active sources of damage - and they can only be made so skill dependent before they seem convoluted and stupid. Hence, the more passive damage you do, the harder it is to reach a given level of skill-dependence.

The problem with rogues is: we gain one of the highest amounts of damage of any class from passive sources (autoattack and poisons), and quite a bit more from very very easy active sources (if you keep SnD up and spend your energy on *something*, you'll probably do a decent amount of damage almost no matter what the details are). Hence, they can either make that last little bit of our damage really *really* skill dependant... or they can work on reducing the amount of damage we get from passive sources so as to make the existing active sources more important. And I suspect the class will maintain more of its "feel" if they focus on the latter rather than coming up with bizarre means to make that last 10% of our damage really really hard to get. As such, I'd like to see them working on *removing* passive damage sources instead of adding more. And the masteries work counter to that goal - they give us very significant chunks of passive damage and thus move us further from that goal of skill-dependent play.

So no, not all masteries need to have active benefit... but if not here, where?

Zaniel · 08/04/10, 12:26 AM

I've got to agree with Aldriana here. The major problem, which Blizzard recognizes, is that rogues get so much from passive sources. Slice and Dice, auto-attacks, and poisons are an enormous part of our damage.

One potential solution I saw came from an awesome post on the Beta forums, from Pinch of <Premonition>, where he reminded me of the OLD Find Weakness, and how that really helped Mutilate rogues define themselves. That was the time period where I absolutely fell in love with the spec, too, so I was sorry to see it go, but here is the post:

Murderous Intent: I still have a problem with this talent. It only serves to give us a small DPS increase but requires us to spam a button really hard. Mutilate has never really been about "spamming" buttons, but more about well timed button pushes. In my opinion, you should scrap it, and in it's place, give us the old Find Weakness back. Make it something like +20% damage on your special abilities for 3-4 seconds after performing a finisher.
2.1 Mutilate was probably the most fun spec I have ever played, because it wasn't reactive, it was extremely proactive. You got to plan out what you were going to do well ahead of time, and it felt rewarding when you had it down to an art.

He suggests scrapping Murderous Intent, but I could see this Find Weakness-based idea even taking the place of our Poison Mastery if they really wanted to make Assassination a more skill-based benefit. Just make the scaling % from Mastery be how much bonus damage we get for X seconds after using a finisher. And boom, just like that we see a huge difference in output based upon active methods and skill.

Fnar · 08/04/10, 3:28 AM

Originally Posted by Zaniel

I've got to agree with Aldriana here. The major problem, which Blizzard recognizes, is that rogues get so much from passive sources. Slice and Dice, auto-attacks, and poisons are an enormous part of our damage.

One potential solution I saw came from an awesome post on the Beta forums, from Pinch of <Premonition>, where he reminded me of the OLD Find Weakness, and how that really helped Mutilate rogues define themselves. That was the time period where I absolutely fell in love with the spec, too, so I was sorry to see it go, but here is the post:

He suggests scrapping Murderous Intent, but I could see this Find Weakness-based idea even taking the place of our Poison Mastery if they really wanted to make Assassination a more skill-based benefit. Just make the scaling % from Mastery be how much bonus damage we get for X seconds after using a finisher. And boom, just like that we see a huge difference in output based upon active methods and skill.

I have a few problems with this, I never played assassination with the old find weakness so correct me if I am missing something, but it sounds just as passive as anything else, it sounds like the only real skill would be to pool as much energy as possible before doing a finisher, otherwise its giving us +x% damage for doing things anybody should be doing anyway, i.e. using combo builders after a finisher, even the worst rogue knows that they should be using combo builders to 4/5 cp then a finisher then repeat.