Legion - Subtlety discussion

[elfporn]

You've kind of missed the point; Lorentz isn't saying it's too complicated, he's saying it's an awkward mechanic.

You're basing your thoughts on an average of x finishers per Deepening Shadows proc, when in reality you'll see it not as 1001001 but instead as 001011 whereby any time you use a finisher on 2 stacks of Dance, you're 'wasting' the cooldown if it procs, and there's no way to know if and when you'll get that proc.

So you're then overcapping CP to burn a Dance charge to avoid the potential of that happening (feels bad), or potentially wasting the cooldown on your Dance charge to prevent overcapping CP (feels bad). The player is forced in to a situation where even with good planning, there's an excessive amount of RNG that can't be avoided and that then forces you in to a lose:lose situation.

This is the problem with a stack reset / addition instead of a cooldown reduction e.g. Tier 18 4pc.

As an aside; snide comments about player skill or intelligence is unnecessary and adds nothing to the discussion, you should probably address the point and not the poster.

The point i'm trying to get across is that you should rarely, if ever, have 2 charges for any significant length of time(10+ seconds), outside of the pull. If you're managing your cooldowns correctly, it should not become an issue.

Lorentz is making the complaint about stack overflow forcing resource waste in one form or another, when you should never have a stack overflow problem in the first place.

This is where the spec gets complicated, cooldown management, and it's likely going to be more complicated (when released) to min/max than sub has ever been.

My apologies for being snide, i'm just trying to convey that the issue is definitely manageable, and part of the complexity

[maddnesskhaz]

The point i'm trying to get across is that you should rarely, if ever, have 2 charges for any significant length of time(10+ seconds), outside of the pull. If you're managing your cooldowns correctly, it should not become an issue.

Lorentz is making the complaint about stack overflow forcing resource waste in one form or another, when you should never have a stack overflow problem in the first place.

This is where the spec gets complicated, cooldown management, and it's likely going to be more complicated (when released) to min/max than sub has ever been.

My apologies for being snide, i'm just trying to convey that the issue is definitely manageable, and part of the complexity

Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a good thing; Sub in Legion is introducing more RNG than is necessary and the gameplay will suffer for it. There's too many relics of the passive Dance idea that they're trying to Band-Aid in to an active Dance world, rather than taking some time to go back and rework things the way they have done - multiple times - with Blood DK's.

If you're sitting on 1 charge of Dance (good play) and pooling CP (good play) then you can easily use a finisher and be back up to max CP within 2 or so GCDs due to the amount of passive CP we generate, this is the situation that sees us on 2 charges of Dance and holding 5 CP.

Have you play tested Sub on Alpha? This is really not a particularly uncommon situation to end up in, and one that even good players will find themselves in due to the nature of our CP and SD stack gain being both passive and RNG. Looking at the Tier 19 set bonus for Sub only increases the RNG and CP overflow as well.

I agree that there's potentially more 'complexity' to the spec, but it's not been implemented in any kind of intuitive sense, and actively detracts from the gameplay, such that it's more convoluted than it is complex.

Sprint becoming a DPS cooldown that's reliant on not taking damage is an example of a convoluted mechanic, especially since Sprint is often one of our major mobility / survival cooldowns.

SoD is another convoluted mechanic, we're using our major DPS cooldown - Shadow Blades is a joke, I think we can all agree - to maintain a personal self buff that has absolutely no interest or gameplay ramifications other than "do less damage" instead of using our actual offensive abilities.

An extension mechanic based off using openers or finishers during Dance would be meaningful complexity; where the player is rewarded for good play and as we gain haste and can use more finishers or openers, we can eke out more of this.

Nightblade doing something other than just damage would be meaningful complexity, fortunately - or unfortunately - we're gaining an aspect of this through a Tier bonus instead of building out compelling gameplay as part of the base spec.

Some people seem to love the idea of a convoluted spec the way Sub works in Legion, yet I don't believe it has any kind of compelling gameplay at all in the current format, and is a significant step backwards from where we're at in WoD.

[Smaxy]

Anyone who got Alpha access without Beta access?

Besides me

[kalaratic]

Anyone who got Alpha access without Beta access?

Besides me

u sure u didn't get beta? it should still say alpha: legion in ur bnet launcher, everyone in the beta has the same thing. they haven't converted it to say beta yet

[Deleted]

So the complete lack of AoE when 5-mans will play a much bigger role in the upcoming expansion does not bother you at all? I'm puzzled by this.

Is everyone really acceptin that we will have to be Outlaw for everything besides ST-Raidbosses and PvP (maybe)?

It does bother me, I forgot to mention that. Still, at this point I agree that Outlaw's AoE advantage is unfair. They should at least put back the target cap on Blade Furry.

I get astounded by how much CPs we're gaining from every source possible. Shadow Blades gives more CPs, Shadow Techniques gives more CPs, T19 4P bonus gives more CPs, talents like Premed and Enveloping Shadows give more CPs, Shuriken Storm gives 1 CP per target hit... Am I even forgetting some?

I get that Sub is the Finisher spec, but this feels like lazy design. Just so straightforward and not engaging. A lot of missed opportunities to throw in some Energy buffs, Nightblade mechanics (other than needed to be refreshed every X seconds) or more Stealth mechanics. Nightblade causing Shadowstrike to deal 50% Shadow damage would be an idea of a simple yet effective way of interacting 2 mechanics that reward you for good plays, without the need for even more CPs.

Or maybe like a 30% chance per tick of Nightblade reducing Vanish cooldown by 2 seconds or so.

[Smaxy]

u sure u didn't get beta? it should still say alpha: legion in ur bnet launcher, everyone in the beta has the same thing. they haven't converted it to say beta yet

Okay then I'm in. For some reason, I thought it would show up as Beta on the launcher. And I just got an email.

Anyone see this in the Beta Patch Notes? "Characters can now change between any of their specializations at most any time for a progressive gold cost. Action bar configurations are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed."

That is going to make raiding in Legion a lovely experience for Rogues, swapping to Outlaw for AoE and back and forth for more and more gold.

[maddnesskhaz]

Anyone see this in the Beta Patch Notes? "Characters can now change between any of their specializations at most any time for a progressive gold cost. Action bar configurations are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed."

That is going to make raiding in Legion a lovely experience for Rogues, swapping to Outlaw for AoE and back and forth for more and more gold.

It better cap out at like 20 gold... I swap quite a lot in HFC between trash / AE bosses

[Deleted]

Okay then I'm in. For some reason, I thought it would show up as Beta on the launcher. And I just got an email.

Anyone see this in the Beta Patch Notes? "Characters can now change between any of their specializations at most any time for a progressive gold cost. Action bar configurations are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed."

That is going to make raiding in Legion a lovely experience for Rogues, swapping to Outlaw for AoE and back and forth for more and more gold.

You must consider tho, that you won't have at the same spot both artifacts, so you won't be doing as much dps as Outlaw on AoE if your main artifact is Assa or Sub.

You will have to stay with your main spec (the one you have chosen and are empowering the artifact) for a long time.

I leveled to 110 my Rogue as Outlaw, using all Artifact Power items I got, and I managed to get 7 talents, not even enough to unlock the first golden trait. If you instead, start using the Artifact power between different artifacts, you won't perform well with any of them.

[Geckoo]

It better cap out at like 20 gold... I swap quite a lot in HFC between trash / AE bosses

I tested it last week... unless they change it for beta, it's a weird system.

First, we have one spec that is considered our main spec, we can change which one at any class trainer. If you had alpha access... did you notice a small star in one of your specs on the spec tab? well, that was your main spec.

Changing from any spec to our main spec?: always free.
Changing from our main spec to any other spec or between the other two specs?: increasing cost from 0 to cap*. It takes 5 spec changes to reach cap and i just forgot to test if the price diminishes with time, but i guess it does.

*cap: i couldn't reach a conclussion because every character i used had different values for no apparent reason. The max value i saw was 78g, but they where all more or less around 70g.

I also swap a lot between specs so this system is not good for me either. I don't know why they are so stubborn with this, we are already going to be punished by the awful artifact leveling system, no need to also add a gold cost to it.

[Lorentz]

Okay then I'm in. For some reason, I thought it would show up as Beta on the launcher. And I just got an email.

Anyone see this in the Beta Patch Notes? "Characters can now change between any of their specializations at most any time for a progressive gold cost. Action bar configurations are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed."

That is going to make raiding in Legion a lovely experience for Rogues, swapping to Outlaw for AoE and back and forth for more and more gold.

Just pick 1 spec at the very beginning and stick to it. You have 33.(3)% chance to win!

[Todesbote]

I tested it last week... unless they change it for beta, it's a weird system.

First, we have one spec that is considered our main spec, we can change which one at any class trainer. If you had alpha access... did you notice a small star in one of your specs on the spec tab? well, that was your main spec.

Changing from any spec to our main spec?: always free.
Changing from our main spec to any other spec or between the other two specs?: increasing cost from 0 to cap*. It takes 5 spec changes to reach cap and i just forgot to test if the price diminishes with time, but i guess it does.

*cap: i couldn't reach a conclussion because every character i used had different values for no apparent reason. The max value i saw was 78g, but they where all more or less around 70g.

I also swap a lot between specs so this system is not good for me either. I don't know why they are so stubborn with this, we are already going to be punished by the awful artifact leveling system, no need to also add a gold cost to it.

It's a double punishment for pure classes (Rogue, Warlock, Mage) compared to hybrids. Let's say I play Retribution: the chances my raid group needs me to re-spec into healing or tanking are much much much lower than the chances of any of the pure classes having to swap to another spec because of the heavy niches.

So as a Retri Paladin I can swap a few talents and in this way adjust my gameplay for AoE or Single-target. I don't have to LEARN to play multiple specs at the same skill level. I don't have to level multiple Artifacts. I don't have to pay gold everytime I need to adjust my playstyle.

How the hell is this fair?

[Deleted]

I tested it last week... unless they change it for beta, it's a weird system.

First, we have one spec that is considered our main spec, we can change which one at any class trainer. If you had alpha access... did you notice a small star in one of your specs on the spec tab? well, that was your main spec.

Changing from any spec to our main spec?: always free.
Changing from our main spec to any other spec or between the other two specs?: increasing cost from 0 to cap*. It takes 5 spec changes to reach cap and i just forgot to test if the price diminishes with time, but i guess it does.

*cap: i couldn't reach a conclussion because every character i used had different values for no apparent reason. The max value i saw was 78g, but they where all more or less around 70g.

I also swap a lot between specs so this system is not good for me either. I don't know why they are so stubborn with this, we are already going to be punished by the awful artifact leveling system, no need to also add a gold cost to it.

(bold, italics, and underline for emphasis)

Before dual spec this was the system that was used. "Oh you want to change spec? Pay for it." The price increased as you swapped more and more, though the 'fee' reduced with time. This price or fee was a "to be sure" approach to make people stick to one role and avoid uncertainties I guess....I have never ever understood the logic of it.
In any case, my guess for this 'poor' change is pure laziness. "Oh Bob, we want to end with this crap dual-spec, let us make something else"; Bob "Say no more, we have this previous spec changing system, we save time and money, but of course you will still pay me full as if the job took a tremendous amount of time"; Boss: "Of course, still cheaper! /trollface".
My other guess is, (and in their minds) having this fee for changing between specs 'obliges' the player to stick/focus on one spec only. This is more valid for pure dmg classes such as rogues...but no so valid when you go for multi-role classes....druids....shamans....

TL: DR. I have no effing idea why they have reverted to the old system and what advantage there is in paying a fee

[Deleted]

TL: DR. I have no effing idea why they have reverted to the old system and what advantage there is in paying a fee

Sometimes the answer is easier than it may looks like. Who is switching specs the most? Multi-role players (as for hybrids), multi-spec players (same for pures), min-maxers or players who enjoy doing more aspects of the game at once (both PvE and PvP). In short: Good players. Players who invest their time to learn and beat the game. Minority. Who is Blizzard? Do you think they fit this category? Maybe once they did, but now they are working on a game, there is so much content at this moment that you just cant do it all as a working individual. Lets not be naive, most of them fit the majority nowadays, doing just one thing or everything casually, so they dont see this problem in first place and even if they did, they are too high to admit it (people wont die if they fuck up, so its even worse). On top of it, they usually think that its them, who see the bigger and clearer picture, but thats wrong again. Those players who play the game better, more in depth and often longer than current Blizzard team have better understanding of what is bad and what is good. Just look at what Blizzard is doing to its own game, its pathetic, its wrong, same mistakes again and again. They are just people, stop thinking they know something we dont, because they dont. Now look at how they talk to us. Think about it. If you are not disgusted, then I dont know what to tell you.

Also yeah, you want to know why there is such huge disconnect between them and rogues? Because we simply fit that "good players" category the best. Not because we are good, but because you would reroll 5 years ago to a proper class, where you are actually having fun during play, if you are not good or determined to play it. Its the class, unforgiving, steep learning curve, making better players. Players who then realize impacts of stupid decisions like pruning, removing CC or adding RNG. So they just cant talk to us on our level, they just dont have anything relevant to say, because we are right. Its not like going into monk thread and arguing with some stupid guy, where they know they gonna win that argument.

[Todesbote]

Sometimes the answer is easier than it may looks like. Who is switching specs the most? Multi-role players (as for hybrids), multi-spec players (same for pures), min-maxers or players who enjoy doing more aspects of the game at once (both PvE and PvP). In short: Good players. Players who invest their time to learn and beat the game. Minority. Who is Blizzard? Do you think they fit this category? Maybe once they did, but now they are working on a game, there is so much content at this moment that you just cant do it all as a working individual. Lets not be naive, most of them fit the majority nowadays, doing just one thing or everything casually, so they dont see this problem in first place and even if they did, they are too high to admit it (people wont die if they fuck up, so its even worse). On top of it, they usually think that its them, who see the bigger and clearer picture, but thats wrong again. Those players who play the game better, more in depth and often longer than current Blizzard team have better understanding of what is bad and what is good. Just look at what Blizzard is doing to its own game, its pathetic, its wrong, same mistakes again and again. They are just people, stop thinking they know something we dont, because they dont. Now look at how they talk to us. Think about it. If you are not disgusted, then I dont know what to tell you.

Also yeah, you want to know why there is such huge disconnect between them and rogues? Because we simply fit that "good players" category the best. Not because we are good, but because you would reroll 5 years ago to a proper class, where you are actually having fun during play, if you are not good or determined to play it. Its the class, unforgiving, steep learning curve, making better players. Players who then realize impacts of stupid decisions like pruning, removing CC or adding RNG. So they just cant talk to us on our level, they just dont have anything relevant to say, because we are right. Its not like going into monk thread and arguing with some stupid guy, where they know they gonna win that argument.

I actually think you're on to something there... certainly seems that at least the guy who green-lit all 3 rogue specs does not know what the fuck he is doing.

[Deleted]

snip

That is a good 500 word essay there.
Let me contribute with another essay.

"they are too high to admit it" that is the frequent problem. The proof of it is that if we go see youtube video os Q&A at blizzcon you can see how they answer arrogantly. Curiously, the ones that have a more relaxed look into their face answer in a more humble way. Look at this video for instance "You think you do, but you don't". (a lot of arrogance is needed to make such claim - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wrw3c2NjeE )
"remember that one bug that really pissed you off and we fixed 2 years ago? It's still there in the past".
If we matched their arrogance we would answer as proposed in this youtube comment:"I wished the guy who asked the question wouldve said , remember when your game had 12 mill subs? still there in the past"

"They are just people, stop thinking they know something we dont,"
Problem is they think they do, but they don't. But since they think they do, sometimes they make changes and don't justify the purpose of said changes. When they are asked about said changes, they throw evasive answers. Because of that I try to think/discern/figureout what is or are the purposes for said change/changes. For instance, they started making TimeWalk dungeon and applying a technology that matches your lvl with the monsters lvl. The reason for such feature was "hey we want you to explore old content". Far enough and a good idea. But this was a means to achieve another end. That is, months later they announced the same thing of matching the lvls of player and monsters but with the lvling system in Legion. Those TimeWalk were tests for implementing this lvling thing in Legion. Or am I the only one who understood that in this way? Other times, or most of the times, they make changes that do not make any sense at all. And I am talking about major features that are too convenient, so convenient that they become inconvenient for game experience. Look at the "Teleport Syndrome". You go for a LFG, get grouped up and get instantly teleported into a dungeon. Now, try asking where the dungeon entrance is or where it is located. Half of the people won't know, particularly at low levels. Even more amazing is having a player say that he/she plays for some time already and has no effing idea where the dungeon is located. Moreover, by making teleportation so easy people very often kick others easily. No warnings nothing. Just puff*kick on the butt. A second later another guy joins the group via teleportation and right next to the group. THey also kick for the most wildest and strangest reasons: "hur dur we need a shaman...sorry we have to kick you. *bam*". What happened to those Meeting Stones? People used to travel around the world..and by the way meeting stones were amazing, particularly when you would find someone of the opposing faction. I am one of those guys that is glad flying was 'removed' (but not completly which is good) from the game, making Taxi rides meaningful. Still on teleport syndrom, no one seeks out for a mage in order to get teleported anymore. There are these permanent portals everywhere, anywhere. Does it not make the world look small with such ease of maneuverability? It makes engineering teleportation items useless. Another problem: Leveling-bullshit-race-fest, it isn't enough that you level fast via dungeons or questing, you also get the leveling gear that stays with you since level 1 up to lvl 100!! amazing isnt it? We have designed so many items for this game, and look, we make these items that scale with YOU, the damn player..."this is our way of saying F* to our own game designers who have spent so much time designing items *smile*. Said lvling gear would make sense if lvling was a pain in the ass but is not. Now that "old" gear is just for transmog reasons. "we can't throw out the countless hours of item design..so lets give players the choice of wearing them". You hit lvl 15 and bam just LFG LFG. Dungeons should be run for the lore, player engagement, and for the gear, and for the fun of course, and for that sense of accomplishment. They should grant slower experience than questing for sure. is this the World of Warcraft or the Dungeons/Instance of Warcraft? I made princess runn in 5mins ad 47 secs. Just run run run run, with the whole instance behind me and having the mage AoE. No time for feeling the environment.
This is all leads to Quasi-solo--pseudo-co-op-RPG kind of game.
Even questing has become kind of dull. You take a bunch of quests and follow the painted areas on the map. No need to read the quest descriptions (increased lore knowledge). THere is no time for reading! This leads to low-lore knowledge. Before this painted-area thing became a thing, people either had to read the quest log and FIND the place, or go to an online website and see where the hell was it. Personally I only did the later when i couldn't find anything. Like Mankrik's wife. Hell, where in 7 hells was she?...More can be said about these painted blue stuff..Blizard says they design a world to be explored, marveled upon, but guess what, these blue things don't help it. One to explore must first get lost. If you get lost you start to watch and see stuff, you actually start exploring. Nowadays, you hit autorun and go make a coffee. Sure this happened before, but less frequently. This was worse when flying was a thing in the game. By the way, by getting effing lost in the game, it increases the chance of making players engage in group activities or in the simple task of talking. Something that most won't do much today. THey simply ignore. And if you ask again, they will answer with a nice comeback:" you noob, leave me alone". What is the purpose of designing a world, a beautiful world, just so people can skip it as fast as possible? Again, "It is fun to discredit our design team's work".
Garrisons.another huge problem. Sit all day long, clicking on a UI. You do this, you do that, you better come back with soe gold, give me that loot and I do nothing. Oh, today is a new day I need to go get my free minerals and vegetables from the mine and herbithing. I don't need to go out into the world to farm *yay*. The less people I see, the less of a problem *stare 'creepingly' like Smeagol*.
Then this is more subjective, at a level of buildlings design, you go to The Barrens and you see buildings made of metal and lots of rocks that do not match the environment. Have you ever thought the huge amounts of money and effort they would need to transport said materails to a new site? Wouldn't it be easier to use the materials from the site? Nowadays everything is so grandiose and big. Perhaps they transported material using portals..yeah right.
other problems* other problems*

But there are good changes, such as achievements. It is a way of saying "hey, we have some more content that you can explore, or this type of 'easter eggs'. It promotes group activities and makes people explore the game.

[Smaxy]

Just pick 1 spec at the very beginning and stick to it. You have 33.(3)% chance to win!

Might as well stick with being a pirate Rogue then, yarghhhhh matey.

[Deleted]

Just pick 1 spec at the very beginning and stick to it. You have 33.(3)% chance to win!

I am planning to pick Outlaw but not use any artifact power items till level 110, since atleast on Alpha there aren't any automatic artifact power gains, only items. The first few Artifact talents beyond the first one you get for free don't matter much anyway.
Maybe we'll get some band-aid changes to energy regen till raids unlock.

[Smaxy]

More needs to be done than just energy regeneration to fix the spec.

Of note, Preach (from social media and videos) seems to not be very fond of how Rogues play. Since Blizzard seems to value the opinion of content creators so much, hopefully he lays it out in a video that Blizzard actually will seriously consider (Bc they clearly seem convinced we don't know what we're talking about).

[Mafic]

More needs to be done than just energy regeneration to fix the spec.

Of note, Preach (from social media and videos) seems to not be very fond of how Rogues play. Since Blizzard seems to value the opinion of content creators so much, hopefully he lays it out in a video that Blizzard actually will seriously consider (Bc they clearly seem convinced we don't know what we're talking about).

Yeah the last time Preach and Bellular came down on two of the available Rogue specs they did make changes. Although they took the Roll the Bones as the only aspect of Outlaw to heart and made it base line. Still, at least Outlaw did eventually see some changes to talents, but that tree needs work. Sub talents are in a worse state than Outlaw while Assassination could use improvement but it isn't as dire. The stealth tier for Assassination is a sore point for some players, but given that Garrote is Assassination exclusive...having a talent option like Subterfuge or shadow focus is still somewhat more interesting to the spec compared to Outlaw having to choose between Dirty Tricks or PotW. Or even Sub having to give up MoS for GloomBlade and Weaponmaster being a multistrike with a low proc chance.

[Deleted]

Yeah the last time Preach and Bellular came down on two of the available Rogue specs they did make changes. Although they took the Roll the Bones as the only aspect of Outlaw to heart and made it base line. Still, at least Outlaw did eventually see some changes to talents, but that tree needs work. Sub talents are in a worse state than Outlaw while Assassination could use improvement but it isn't as dire. The stealth tier for Assassination is a sore point for some players, but given that Garrote is Assassination exclusive...having a talent option like Subterfuge or shadow focus is still somewhat more interesting to the spec compared to Outlaw having to choose between Dirty Tricks or PotW. Or even Sub having to give up MoS for GloomBlade and Weaponmaster being a multistrike with a low proc chance.

Subterfuge being available to outlaw/ass further waters sub down as a spec as it is just a mini shadow dance in essence. It should be deleted in entirety as a talent, it can be as game breaking as shroud was in pvp.

Should be extends SD duration by 3s clearly sub only, if they keep it.