Reason why combat is bad.

[Carp The Fish]

And I will also state, that just because some players are able to play without the aid of such software and still get good results, that this in now way justifies this new APM tax being levied on the spec out of the blue. Especially not without a compensatory gain or advantage to offset such a silly mechanism.

Which is kind of why Blizzard is upping the damage and energy cost of Sinister Strike in 5.4. Surprised it took us 2-3 pages to get to this conclusion.
Also, the SS buff going into place is going to be pretty good, folks.

[Zace]

I played Combat from the beginning of this xpac until about a month ago and I loved it, I had no problems topping meters on every fight. But I still feel the main reason people don't play Combat is because Killing Spree can fuck you over much easier on Heroic bosses and in general just has a really shitty mechanic.

[Sesshou]

Which is kind of why Blizzard is upping the damage and energy cost of Sinister Strike in 5.4. Surprised it took us 2-3 pages to get to this conclusion.
Also, the SS buff going into place is going to be pretty good, folks.

To slow us down massively the majority of the time where we don't really have a problem and basically do nothing during the problem section? I don't think SS costing 6 more energy under AR/SB/t15 is really going to slow things down.

Also what buff? From what I've seen so far, its a nerf. Now they still have time to adjust the numbers, but I for one don't feel comfortable just assuming they will end up adjusting it so it is better than before dps wise.

@Warstar
Either the GM didn't understand what you wanted to use it for (or you didn't ask him) or you got a dumb GM that doesn't know what those are / doesn't understand that section of the ToS. Those are tools and you can use them in multiple ways. Think of it like this: writing with a pencil, ok; stabbing some one with a pencil, not ok. Using software to automate your actions, not ok. Having it repeat they key while you hold it isn't automating... hell, even windows does that by default.

@Zace
KS isn't really that bad. You have to pay attention and maybe delay it slightly, but I can't think of even a phase of a fight where you can't use it. Closest would be DA, but thats not even a whole phase as your add should die and you should be back on the boss well before 2 minutes.

[shadowboy]

Sseshou: Well, strictly speaking the sinister strike change is a sinister strike dps buff if you look only at sinister strike and not consider the trickle-down effect it has on other mechanics (bandit's guile, main gauche, etc).

While the energy cost has increased, the damage has increased by a larger amount, leading to sinister strike doing more damage-per-energy. It's a 25% nerf to cost but a 31% buff to damage.

[mongoose6]

Sseshou: Well, strictly speaking the sinister strike change is a sinister strike dps buff if you look only at sinister strike and not consider the trickle-down effect it has on other mechanics (bandit's guile, main gauche, etc).

While the energy cost has increased, the damage has increased by a larger amount, leading to sinister strike doing more damage-per-energy. It's a 25% nerf to cost but a 31% buff to damage.

It's the trickle down effects that will turn it into a bit of a nerf. No way I'm smart enough to do the math on it, but higher cost of sinster strike would lead to less SS executed, leading to less Evis executed, leading to less CD reduction time from restless blades and also impacting BG negatively. I don't think combat needs a buff, but I know combat doesn't need a nerf.

[Shinob1]

For me personally the recent SS tweak, addition of ruthlessness, etc. is 7-10k loss of dps. So unless they tweak something else to compensate for at least 10k dps I'll consider this as a slap in the face.

[Kael]

If we all spam "report" at the same time, the mods will all wake up and their toes will be on fire!

I would've slept through someone setting my toes on fire. So tired last night. Also my E-mail will just lump duplicates of a single report into 1 e-mail with multiple copies, so, as much as that sounds good in theory, it doesn't really have much effect. Definitely report it, as someone did, though (I'm not sticking names out)! It's easier to catch when you've got a convenient link pointing to it.

back on topic: AHK and other turbo-button styled applications; the general ruling is that Blizzard doesn't want to make a general ruling, but it's leaning towards safe that if you're telling it what to do as you do it, you're okay, and if you don't tell it what to do as you do it, you're not okay. If you start an application and it runs your rotation, expect a ban if caught. Anything short of that, where you still hit the keys and buttons, Blizzard has you in "the gray zone" where they haven't made a ruling. GMs are capable of making mistakes in their responses, but they're just in-game CS reps and not the ones who'd be doing the banning, so information for them is second hand (and 2nd/3rd hand for us).

I think it's absurd that a spec has a good reason to use it, and that's a serious design flaw, but I wouldn't characterize that as "undertuned" so much as "please get the .5s GCD the hell away from my class and balance us around not having it."

Edit: also, yes, the SS change is absurd to me too.

[Sesshou]

Sseshou: Well, strictly speaking the sinister strike change is a sinister strike dps buff if you look only at sinister strike and not consider the trickle-down effect it has on other mechanics (bandit's guile, main gauche, etc).

While the energy cost has increased, the damage has increased by a larger amount, leading to sinister strike doing more damage-per-energy. It's a 25% nerf to cost but a 31% buff to damage.

Ok, technically you are right, but I have a hard time placing SS damage in a vacuum and looking at that as a "SS Buff."

[shadowboy]

Ok, technically you are right, but I have a hard time placing SS damage in a vacuum and looking at that as a "SS Buff."

Oh you're absolutely right.

I think the best way to state what I'm saying is that it's a Sinister Strike buff but a Combat nerf.

Sinister strike and ruthlessness should be very close to neutral, in terms of direct damage and combo point gains (ie, restless blades effect). They just hurt main gauche and bandit's guile, and in typical ToT gear with raid buffs, MG can potentially do more of your dps than sinster strike. Food for thought.

[Warstar]

Hey there! Game Master Kieulas here!

I received your ticket about cooldowns and third party programs, that I did!

Regardless of the rogue tier set issue, let me extrapolate it a bit for ya.

Let's say that you're playing whack-a-mole out at the Darkmoon Faire. At some point, no matter how good you are, you won't be able to hit all of the different targets that are up at one time.

That doesn't make it appropriate to enlist a second person's help to make sure you do indeed whack every mole that comes around.

This is the same feeling with third-party programs - they would effectively play the role of that second person, aiding and assisting you where other players would not have that capability. Your DPS is meant to be *your* DPS, not the DPS of you plus some other program.

This is only part of the reason why these programs are generally considered programs that'd net you a hefty penalty for use. That's about as detailed as we can get with it, though - if you have to ask whether a program is safe to use or not, it's very likely something you'll want to stay away from.


Another way to think about it is this - while some folks may think it is *required* to use those programs to obtain the *highest theoretical maximum dps* available to a rogue... that may not the goal, really. The set may be designed to simply give you more time during your rotation, so that you might be able to fit in a different ability when you need to, depending on the mechanics of the fight that you're involved in.

Your goal won't necessarily be *highest theoretical maximum dps* - even in heroic raids, your goals vary from time to time. After all, dead dps does no dps, right? There's other things to consider, and the set bonus may just give you the freedom to work in those other goals without sacrificing too much of your dps.

Your goal will be to work with the other members of your raid to make sure the boss dies. If you're being required to be *highest theoretical maximum dps* because the boss won't die otherwise, that means the remaining members of your raid are probably slackin' somehow. o.O

On the other hand, if you're just lookin' to be the best DPS around... using a third party program to help with that, like I mentioned above, means that it isn't really your DPS, now, is it?

Hopefully that helps clear things up, but if you need any extra advice, you'll want to hit up the UI and Macros forums and talk with your fellow players. ^^;

Regards,

Game Master Kieulas
Customer Services

That's the reply that I got from a GM. Not really much else to say. Argue away if you want but that's a response from a Blizzard employee who was pretty clear on the subject matter of using third party things to effect your game play not just bot.

[Chult]

Good thing you don't need a 3rd party program to play Combat, unless you 1: Have Arthritis, or 2: Have the hand-eye coordination of a 5 year old. Beyond that, most anyone should be fine. Assassination has made you people lazy.

[mongoose6]

I don't understand why people think assas is so much easier than combat. All three rogue specs involve getting to a buff as soon as possible and then unloading as many damaging abilities into that buff window as possible without capping energy (Envenom, BG, Find Weakness). That is the real problem here. All three specs, in the end, are just variations on the same theme. The complaint should not be that one specc is doing more damage than the other, its that one specc plays basically the same as the others. The focus needs to swing away from buffing combats and damage and more towards changing the way combat plays (or the way the other specs play, I don't care really)

[Verain]

@Warstar - The GM is being conservative. He says if you have to ask, it is banned. What if he had said go a head, then found out that the program in question could be macroed to run a rotation (or if they upgraded to allow that)?

As long as you are playing and not automating, you should be fine.

@You don't need it- No, but try this: clear your recount, go to a dummy in pve gear. Build up to your rotation without using sini or evis. Now blow your ARblades and run your rotation. Stop the MOMENT that your CDs are over. Now total your SS amd evis. Did you fill every half second global?
Do you always?
Does mutilate have to work that hard?

@They are all the same - Fucking Bullshit. You are wrong. While burst phases can be similar, it is much more cognitive pressure and reaction time to wail out combat's things. Mutilate can pool much more than combat. Combat has bandit's guile, but is so jammed packed full of GCDs that you can hardly ever do anything with it anymore (for instance, you cannot pool in yellow much).
Sub also pools with the intention of exploiting user created damage windows.

These specs might be too similar, but they are not the same thing.

[Warstar]

@Warstar - The GM is being conservative. He says if you have to ask, it is banned. What if he had said go a head, then found out that the program in question could be macroed to run a rotation (or if they upgraded to allow that)?

As long as you are playing and not automating, you should be fine.

@You don't need it- No, but try this: clear your recount, go to a dummy in pve gear. Build up to your rotation without using sini or evis. Now blow your ARblades and run your rotation. Stop the MOMENT that your CDs are over. Now total your SS amd evis. Did you fill every half second global?
Do you always?
Does mutilate have to work that hard?

@They are all the same - Fucking Bullshit. You are wrong. While burst phases can be similar, it is much more cognitive pressure and reaction time to wail out combat's things. Mutilate can pool much more than combat. Combat has bandit's guile, but is so jammed packed full of GCDs that you can hardly ever do anything with it anymore (for instance, you cannot pool in yellow much).
Sub also pools with the intention of exploiting user created damage windows.

These specs might be too similar, but they are not the same thing.

One problem I see with programs like that is that the spam the hell out of the server. Where a normal person is pressing a button maybe a hundred times during adrenaline rush if you're a pro Korean star craft player with that auto hot key program I saw people saying that you should set it for firing every 50ms so in the space of 15 seconds of adrenaline rush you fire off 300 commands at 20 per second. Now lets go further and say that probably a lot of people who would use auto hot key don't just use it during adrenaline rush and in fact use it during the space of an entire encounter and just hold down one button? Now let's say you get a funky LFR or maybe pugging oondasta and there's like 10 rogues all doing that... that sounds like the basic way that a DDoS attack works so the basic fundamentals of using that program are bad for the game.

Now that's a very highly unlikely over blown situation and blizzard can probably take that without breaking a sweat but the GM does make a good point in that it's not your dps anymore. Which once again goes to a faulty design of the spec. In my opinion a spec should be designed so that under optimal circumstances a good player should be able to reach the max dps of a spec. If the best player in the world can't do what the spec is designed to do then it's a poorly designed spec. And, if the best players in the world are falling behind other people with different specs it's a math issue and the spec needs to be retuned. And honestly using auto hot key really is cheating. Anyone ever remember playing the original mortal kombat game the little side games they had where you had to mash a button and if you mashed it fast enough you were able to break a brick made out of some sort of material? If you used a controller with auto fire and you beat that mini game is that really you beating it or the controller beating it for you?

The specs are definitely very similar in play style compared to a warlock's three specs. But in actual play from spec to spec they have a different feel. Assassination is a slower more relaxed play with pooling energy and maintaining envenom as much as possible vs. combat which is spammy all the time from slightly spamming at normal rotation to insane keyboard destroying spamming during cool downs vs. sub which is a mixture of them both of pooling energy during find weakness and then once you get those windows you spam the crap out of your energy trying to fight as many abilities as possible in them. The biggest difference in specs would be how they AoE especially with cleave and blade flurry and the other two specs.

And personally people who say combat is fine I think are absolutely wrong. It really should be that whatever weapons you have access to if you want to play that spec you should be able to respec and have a great time playing it and pull higher dps rather than the current situation of say having 522 daggers and getting a thunderforged combat main hand going combat and then pulling less dps. If you were assassination and got a better dagger you'd be happy and know that your dps is going to increase. But having to go combat even with better gear there's a more than likely chance that your dps will actually go down rather than up and you'll have to work harder for worse dps with better gear. Please someone explain to me how that makes combat an ok spec that's in a good place because currently unless you have like 463 daggers and upgraded to a 522 combat main hand I just don't see the benefit of ever going combat. Hell even with 463 daggers you'd probably out damage a combat rogue on a fight like tortos with mass aoe which is another way to show how bad the spec is.

More work for less dps is an absolutely horrible game play design any anyone who argues against that is a glutton for punishment.

[Sesshou]

You're looking at it wrong. As he said, if you have to ask, its probably bad. I don't have to ask because I know I'm not doing anything automating and therefore not violating the ToS. Let me apply that same argument to voice communication. Its like enlisting a second person to type for you while you do raids, so that isn't really 'your' coordination is it?

Also you mentioned macros for nagas and stuff not being allowed for the same reason...
http://steelseries.com/us/products/g...o-gaming-mouse
This licensed blizzard product can do the exact same thing using its software. Thats why I don't need to ask. Blizzard has their label slapped on stuff that does the same thing so obviously they are fine with it.

Also, that GM is a complete idiot when it comes to rogues. The GCD reduction IS ONLY ON DPS MOVES. Therefore, yes, the point of the bonus is to squeeze out more dps by using a dps move every .5 seconds. Feint and other things have a full gcd. How is that going to allow you to 'fit in a different move if you need to'? In fact, the set bonus discourages hitting other moves unless they aren't on the gcd as something like feint costs you 2 gcds.

[Shinob1]

From the link Sesshou posted:

Steelseries WoW MMO gaming mouse
Licensed Blizzard entertainment product

CUSTOM MACROS
Create custom macros (also supports in-game macro language).

lol

[mongoose6]

I personally don't equate smashing buttons faster to bieng more difficult, but that's all personal opinion. The fact of the matter is that the specs really ARE very similiar when compared to the other classes. We need us a nice big overhaul with a major focus on combat. Energy capping as combat isn't a new problem. I remember capping while using every global as combat in DS. Lowering the GCD obviously isn't the answer since some people aren't able to attain the goal of using every global through no fault of thier own. Again, its not a damage issue, its a design issue and until they redesign the class no amount of little bandaids are going to help. The last bandaid they gave us has people trying to use extra programs just to keep up lol.

[Escapes]

Add me to the list of people who will give combat a chance in 5.4...not sure how it's doing on the PTR right now, but I for one miss combat.

[Sesshou]

From the link Sesshou posted:


lol

Its the same crap the naga does which he was saying isn't allowed and will get you banned so I'm not seeing your point.

Here is his original post:

Good luck to you that's actually a bannable offence. I checked with a GM asking about using various things like auto hot key or even different hardware (anything that can make a macro like a razer naga or a g15 for instance) and the GM said that using any third party things to effect your game play is bannable if caught due to the fact that it's not you playing the game anymore but you pressing and holding down a button and something else playing for you. I posted the GM log here from an email I got a few months ago but dunno where that'd be if its even still around.

[shadowboy]

I personally don't equate smashing buttons faster to bieng more difficult

It's not the button mashing that makes it more difficult. It's the fact that you have to micromanage multiple resources and don't have a lot of time to make decisions on what button to press next. Assassination only needs to manage energy, combo points, envenom buff, rupture, and 2 cooldowns. Combat has to manage energy, combo points, rupture, slice and dice, 3 cooldowns, bandit's guile, revealing strike, and all at approximately 30% less time between decisions.