Cataclysm Rogue Changes - Page 89

Milano · 10/27/10, 7:52 PM

Originally Posted by Dek

and having our mastery simply be harder hitting combo point generators (which would presumably include openers, though who knows, and that wouldn't be that big a part of the equation).

That could lead Combat into some wierd state where you ignore Rupture and Eviscerate all together because Sinister Strike ends up having higher DPE. I guess that's why they scrapped that idea early.

It could be interesting to see if they'd change the mechanic of Combat Potency, allowing Combat rogues to wield 2 slow weapons. Would certainly be interesting for both PvE and PvP perspectives as Killing Spree already favours slow weapons in both hands.

Dek · 10/27/10, 8:10 PM

Originally Posted by Milano

That could lead Combat into some wierd state where you ignore Rupture and Eviscerate all together because Sinister Strike ends up having higher DPE. I guess that's why they scrapped that idea early.

It could be interesting to see if they'd change the mechanic of Combat Potency, allowing Combat rogues to wield 2 slow weapons. Would certainly be interesting for both PvE and PvP perspectives as Killing Spree already favours slow weapons in both hands.

Theoretically it could reach that point, but I think it would be easier to balance against that happening than the hoops they're going to be jumping through trying to make MG worthwhile.

Katria · 10/27/10, 8:25 PM

Originally Posted by Dek

Theoretically it could reach that point, but I think it would be easier to balance against that happening than the hoops they're going to be jumping through trying to make MG worthwhile.

Well, since it sounds like main gauche now procs from yellow attacks (I thought it always did, my mistake), between that boost and the boost to the overall proc rate, that should take its value from 0.6 to 2.4 (assuming it does proc 4x as often now). Putting it more in line with haste, spell hit, and expertise. Which is a good place to be. It's still a backwards and counter-intuitive mechanic, but I guess when boosted enough it can work.

On another topic, I do wish combat got a talent to help keep expose armor up. Assassination gets a talent to help out, and that spec needs the debuff the least. Assassination gets free slice and dice refreshes, sub gets free rupture refreshes, combat should have gotten a similar ability and free expose armor refresh would fit well since combat depends on it so much. There still aren't many sources of this debuff, letting combat refresh it with eviscerate or rupture would be a nice perk. Or have revealing strike extend the duration in addition to its other abilities.

Sarvius · 10/27/10, 8:28 PM

With relentless strikes back in combat specs, finishers are either free or 10 energy. And they already do significantly more damage than a cp generator. The idea of SS being more efficient than a 5-point evis/rupture is basically unthinkable unless mastery is going to provide a 400% damage boost. In the case of rupture and snd (these are kinda common) it is, in fact, impossible given that you spend no energy to use them.

Neckface · 10/27/10, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Sarvius

With relentless strikes back in combat specs, finishers are either free or 10 energy. And they already do significantly more damage than a cp generator. The idea of SS being more efficient than a 5-point evis/rupture is basically unthinkable unless mastery is going to provide a 400% damage boost. In the case of rupture and snd (these are kinda common) it is, in fact, impossible given that you spend no energy to use them.

I just tested Subtlety's Mastery ("Executioner") on beta. Duration of S&D & Recup have not changed; their potency has. I got exactly 29% additional healing (beyond the base 3%; not specced into Imp Recup or Quickening) from Recup ticks, matching my 29% total Mastery bonus. On S&D the numbers didn't quite work out...my MH weapon speed dropped form 1.74 to 1.24, which comes out to about 72%, not the expected 69%.

• Aldriana · 10/28/10, 12:09 AM

Is 1.74 your unhasted swing time, or your regular SnD swing time? As 1.74 to 1.24 is exactly 40%, so either buffed SnD is giving exactly 40% - i.e., no benefit at all - or it's 96%, which is almost impossible to explain.

Neckface · 10/28/10, 12:33 AM

Oops, my bad. Rushed the math there on the S&D.

Went back and double-checked; Mastery DOES affect S&D duration and it shows up in the tool tip. (Which is what threw me; I unspecced to verify.) Tool tip rounds to nearest second.

Only Recup does potency. Sorry.

ieatpaperbag · 10/28/10, 12:43 AM

Originally Posted by Neckface

I just tested Subtlety's Mastery ("Executioner") on beta. Duration of S&D & Recup have not changed; their potency has. I got exactly 29% additional healing (beyond the base 3%; not specced into Imp Recup or Quickening) from Recup ticks, matching my 29% total Mastery bonus. On S&D the numbers didn't quite work out...my MH weapon speed dropped form 1.74 to 1.24, which comes out to about 72%, not the expected 69%.

I saw the same as you for Recuperate. For SnD, when mousing over my melee damage range, my weapon speeds were the same as Sub with 3.10 mastery as they were with no talent points (with SnD up of course). Similarly when calculated, the damage per second on the character screen matches 40% melee attack speed for both cases as well (I accounted for Sinister Calling).

Originally Posted by Neckface

Oops, my bad. Rushed the math there on the S&D.

Went back and double-checked; Mastery DOES affect S&D duration and it shows up in the tool tip. (Which is what threw me; I unspecced to verify.) Tool tip rounds to nearest second.

Only Recup does potency. Sorry.

I am not seeing the change in duration, mousing over the tool tip a 5 combo point SnD is 21 seconds for both Sub with 3.10 mastery (27.75% executioner) and no talent points.

Neckface · 10/28/10, 1:17 AM

Originally Posted by ieatpaperbag

I am not seeing the change in duration, mousing over the tool tip a 5 combo point SnD is 21 seconds for both Sub with 3.10 mastery (27.75% executioner) and no talent points.

Argh. I went back again to verify. With no gear on, so 20% Mastery bonus, I was definitely getting 4 extra seconds, which is about 20%.

Finally figured it out...I've been switching between specs to do this and my 2nd spec has the S&D glyph. So that's two strikes in 2 posts. :-/

So now I'm totally stumped. Tried a bunch of different combinations and can't find any discernible difference from S&D. Possible that the character sheet is wrong? Seems like combat logging is disabled (because of boss testing?) and the default UI timestamp is rounded to nearest second, so hard to check.

Any suggestions (for tests to run)? Or should we assume it's just Not Yet Implemented.

Sorry for confusion.

Valustria · 10/28/10, 5:12 AM

I initially posted this in the blue thread, because it was a response to the blue posts about combat buffs, but I guess it's more appropriate here.

The biggest problem I feel with combat's damage is the damage. I know that sounds really obvious, but what else is there to say when we are already frantically trying to spend energy during Bloodlust/cooldowns? We don't need more OH hits giving us more combat potency procs (combat potency is fine the way it is), and more passive damage is directly contrary to the direction they said they wanted to take rogues. What we need, plain and simple, is to hit shit harder than we do.

Honestly, I wish they would take a look at Revealing Strike and see if there's something they can do with that talent. The concept behind it is kinda nifty, but the math has been done and it amounts to nothing more than a single button we hit in a relatively narrow set of circumstances. What if Revealing Strike was a finisher on its own? What if it dealt damage AND increased the duration of other finishers currently active? Like, it deals some amount of damage and adds 1 second per CP to the duration of all Rupture, Recuperate, and Slice and Dice effects already active on you/your target. Not enough to allow you to keep all three going, or even just two, using RvS alone, and not more damage than Eviscerate if you just want to deal as much damage as possible instantly with a finisher... but something you would use when you are know you will be staying on a single target for some time.

It's just a thought, but I'd love if the extra buttons they're making me push actually felt worth pushing. I know that hitting RvS when I'm at exactly 4CP before a damage finisher yields better damage, but only intellectually. I don't feel it when I play, and I can't tell in the heat of battle that the numbers popping up are significantly bigger than they would be if I'd just spammed SS once more before hitting Rupture/Eviscerate.

ieatpaperbag · 10/28/10, 6:46 AM

Originally Posted by Neckface

Argh. I went back again to verify. With no gear on, so 20% Mastery bonus, I was definitely getting 4 extra seconds, which is about 20%.

Finally figured it out...I've been switching between specs to do this and my 2nd spec has the S&D glyph. So that's two strikes in 2 posts. :-/

So now I'm totally stumped. Tried a bunch of different combinations and can't find any discernible difference from S&D. Possible that the character sheet is wrong? Seems like combat logging is disabled (because of boss testing?) and the default UI timestamp is rounded to nearest second, so hard to check.

Any suggestions (for tests to run)? Or should we assume it's just Not Yet Implemented.

Sorry for confusion.

It would be worth checking, this wouldn't be the first time the character sheet was wrong (dodge chance on bosses). Recount looks like it's working for me, I'll double check with it if no one gets to it before me later today.

damagedone · 10/28/10, 8:36 AM

Interesting Sub Mastery change. Sub Energy regen is still tied to Recup. Increasing the % Recup heals doesn't help PVE Sub. A duration or % increase to SnD is nice. Personally, I'd prefer a duration buff to a speed increase. I never really pictured Sub doing as much from melee and poison procs as it currently does. Would rather see it allow for more Evis's in a given time span.

Curious what other Rogues feelings are about this change.

It really looks like they are trying to repair poor design with Mastery. In both the Combat and Sub trees. It means Rogue balance is only going to occur with X amount of Mastery. Wish they'd attempt to balance the class first, before dinking around with the Mastery stat.

Josidiah · 10/28/10, 9:37 AM

Well I tested today, it seems sub mastery isnt effecting SnD at all, its still giving the amount of haste its supposed to give and no duration change at all.

I wish we could have gotten more questions and more answers at latest blizzcon about rogue.Most of people are unhappy with combat and sub yet we see no intention to change about anything by blizzard, it seems they think buffing vitality or masteries is enough.

There are many things to do with talents, for example giving special benefits to bandit's guile phases, maybe for %15 phase you can hit with both weapons while using sinister strike etc
Or making RvS like festering strike, increasing duration of SnD rupture recuperate etc

• Aldriana · 10/28/10, 11:03 AM

Last couple posts in this thread have gotten kind of wishlisty. Lets try to keep the discussion constructive. Thanks.

Katria · 10/28/10, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by damagedone

It really looks like they are trying to repair poor design with Mastery. In both the Combat and Sub trees. It means Rogue balance is only going to occur with X amount of Mastery. Wish they'd attempt to balance the class first, before dinking around with the Mastery stat.

That's just it...they wouldn't be just dinking around with Mastery if they didn't feel rogues were more or less done. At this point there are going to be minor tweaks on the numbers, but I don't expect any substantial changes until 4.1, if then. They'll just tell us to wait until 85, because things will be different then...we'll have combat readiness (oh wait, only reduces damage), err well we'll have Redirect (a very minor boost on boss fights with adds...does it still have a 1 min cooldown?), well at 85 we get the powerful Smoke Bomb (oh wait, that doesn't do damage either).

So...basically nothing between now and 85 is going to change, other than our weapons will have bigger numbers and our crit/haste/hit numbers will go down due to the steeper rating conversions. How we play now is more or less exactly how we'll play at 85. Looks like I should find some daggers on the way to 85 now...

The problem with boosting RvS is that it's essentially a combo builder just like SS. So once you add fancy new abilities to it (extending SnD, rupture, etc.), those new abilities just effectively add more dps (longer SnD and rupture = more evis). So Aldriana or someone will kindly do the math for us and tell us if it's worth it to use RvS instead of SS or not. And if not, we're back to just hitting RvS once per rupture or evis cycle. If it is more damage than SS, then we drop SS and Blizzard nerfs RvS because (presumably) they don't want us to stop using SS. I predict a lot of tweaks to RvS throughout Cat to keep it in the sweet spot of doing less damage than SS, yet boosting Evis and Rupture enough to make up for that lost damage and chance at a bonus combo point.