Legion - Subtlety discussion

[lolpve]

I am having this same issue right now, but from a PvP perspective. The loss of clone and powershifting (which was given back then removed again!) keeps this a tough choice for me.

Feral is nothing but a damage dealer now, with a stun if we talent for it. There is no counterplay involved.

Rogue however, has 3 specs, 2 with decent CC and one that plays very similar to a feral (ass). But I have been a feral main since TBC so leaving is hard. I just don't feel like this is a viable spec anymore in PvP outside of mongoloid cleave teams.

With any luck feral won't be viable in pvp. Honestly pvp was much better back when druids stuck to healing. Same with paladins.

[Chemii]

Cheers. So should i be spending time of just auto attacking to gain combo points then backstab when energy is nearly capped with a lack of combo points? Then keep nightblade 100% and shadowdance whenever i have 2 charges? I figure i use the shadow dances 1 after the other once the buffs run out?

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear. As I've been playing it, you should aim to be using 3 shadow strikes and a finisher in each SD window while keeping up symbols of death. If you do run two back to back shadow dances, the earliest you should do it is when Master Of Subtlety is on around 1 second remaining, assuming you also have your energy in the right place. Personally I've been playing with DfA but with Master of Shadows make sure you are around 70 or below energy before entering dance.

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen is people using SoD every time they use Shadow Dance, you want to refresh this buff as little as possible.

Outside of those dance windows, you should spend your energy to maintain 100% up-time on Nightblade, after that it's about pooling for other windows of damage, such as during dance (which is pretty regular as cool-downs go), lust, on an add or during trinket procs.

It is perfectly acceptable to just accumulate your combo-points entirely from pooling if Nightblade is up and you are not going to cap energy and you will have six combo points in time to refresh Nightblade. Eventually you will get a feel for how often Shadow Techniques will proc an extra combo-point, though it feels a little clunky from time to time and you will inevitably waste combo-points and cap energy at some stage - The idea is to minimise that as much as possible.

Hope that helps!

[lolpve]

dont know how to play without a Shadowdance bar

this is fucking cancer... ah well pretty much whole class is now after the changes

A few weeks later and I still don't know what is so hard about finding 2 keybinds out of stealth for SS and cheapshot. I really don't. I put backstab on my old hemo button and cheapshot on my old shiv, and I still have a ton of empty keybinds. How many buttons do we press now as sub? Like 10 max? Lol this shit is like an arcade game and people are acting as though it's like playing a rachmaninov concerto.

[shaunika123]

A few weeks later and I still don't know what is so hard about finding 2 keybinds out of stealth for SS and cheapshot. I really don't. I put backstab on my old hemo button and cheapshot on my old shiv, and I still have a ton of empty keybinds. How many buttons do we press now as sub? Like 10 max? Lol this shit is like an arcade game and people are acting as though it's like playing a rachmaninov concerto.

thankfully i only needed 1 keybind cos i already had stealth and cheap shot macrod together and i just put backstab in the place of Hemo

but the problem still isnt "i cant find 2 binds for it"

the problem is the principle of the thing, and blizzard's entire reasoning for it
a: stealth bar still changes so why doesnt shadow dance
b: other classes with similar mechanics still change bars/abilities automatically
c: the entire point of the expansion and their design philosophy is to remove keybinds that are unnecessary, this is the prime example of one and yet they deliberately put it in.

[Wazooty]

It's a matter of efficiency and convenience. SS may as well replace backstab whenever you're in shadowdance, so it sure would be nice to be able to press that same keybind, as has been the case forever. Just treat it like demon hunter meta abilities that "change" when in an alternate form.

Is it possible to get an action bar addon to page a different bar while in shadowdance, even though blizzard doesn't do it themselves?

[Celfydd]

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen is people using SoD every time they use Shadow Dance, you want to refresh this buff as little as possible.

With DS, in a normal (sustained) PvE rotation you will be using dance approximately every 18 seconds (duration of Nightblade). SoD duration is 35 seconds. Therefore by refreshing SoD every time you enter dance, you lose one potential Shadowstrike every 35 seconds, since they have approximately the same energy cost. If the fight is entirely predictable and you know that you will always be able to refresh SoD before it expires, you can micromanage it and gain this extra Shadowstrike. However, without BHTV (i.e. in Legion) and/or with lower ilvl daggers and/or with high mastery, one Shadowstrike every 35 seconds is not a huge proportion of your overall damage, whereas dropping SoD even for a few seconds is, so erring on the side of caution might be justifiable especially in more unpredictable fights.

Vanish can also be used to refresh SoD if you are micromanaging it and missed your window. However as you rightly point out this is likely to clip the MoS buff. Also with T18 2 piece set bonus you want to keep Vanish as a burst dps cooldown.

If you run Vigor instead of DS then the rotation is a little faster and you will be dancing every 16 seconds. Thus the loss from refreshing SoD every dance is higher in that case, although you will always clip SoD since the windows don't line up.

[Rascal Bob]

A few weeks later and I still don't know what is so hard about finding 2 keybinds out of stealth for SS and cheapshot. I really don't. I put backstab on my old hemo button and cheapshot on my old shiv, and I still have a ton of empty keybinds. How many buttons do we press now as sub? Like 10 max? Lol this shit is like an arcade game and people are acting as though it's like playing a rachmaninov concerto.

You do need more then 2 though, for arena targets. But we do indeed have enough empty keybinds anyways. It just takes some getting used to.

[Conformist]

Do any of the people who think lack of shadow dance stance is fine do PvP? There's tons of useful macros that depends on shadow dance (focus sap/focus cheap shot) that would just be very nice to be slightly more controllable with the stance conditional.

Sub feels very finicky and fine-controlled. Great utility in arena thanks to shadow dance (sap without having to vanish is just fucking gold as always) but it maximizing dps feels very difficult compared to my shadow priest and the other rogue specs.

Last honor talent (longer duration of shadow dance and auto symbols of death) will mitigate the perceived complexity a lot though. Looking forward to it.

[shaunika123]

You do need more then 2 though, for arena targets. But we do indeed have enough empty keybinds anyways. It just takes some getting used to.

you already had those binds before, why do you need new ones?

[viezavi]

How bad is sub compared to mut for lvl 110 PVE? Any ideas? Sorry, didn't have access to beta.

[RobertoCarlos]

How bad is sub compared to mut for lvl 110 PVE? Any ideas? Sorry, didn't have access to beta.

Probably be pretty close in best in slot gear because of assassinations woeful scaling with mastery and haste is also next to useless for assass. So the meer fact sub actually uses all the stats means it will scale better.

[Deleted]

Probably be pretty close in best in slot gear because of assassinations woeful scaling with mastery and haste is also next to useless for assass. So the meer fact sub actually uses all the stats means it will scale better.

so low gear assa and high gear sub for dps and outlaw for high aoe/cleave?

[RobertoCarlos]

so low gear assa and high gear sub for dps and outlaw for high aoe/cleave?

Looking that way yea. hearing of nerfs to assassin bleed damage already so this will be the case even more.

[Blokes]

so low gear assa and high gear sub for dps and outlaw for high aoe/cleave?

Keep in mind, you're going to be dumping artifact power into whatever you decide to main. I know with the catch up mechanic, you're able to get other artifact up to par for the first 12-13 pts pretty quickly, but after that, it becomes MUCH more difficult to level it up. Like, 1 point every 2-4 hours of play, and it only gets longer the higher you go.

My point being, even if assassination is technically better in the first tier, it might be worth it to just go straight sub for the boosted artifact, particularly because Sub has a lot of good talents you have to skip to get to Finality as quickly as possible.

[Soisoisoi]

Looking that way yea. hearing of nerfs to assassin bleed damage already so this will be the case even more.

I've not checked numbers for much at 110, do you think I'll be hindering myself much by spending AP as sub (I'm wanting to pvp, but also do dungeons/mythic+) over, say, outlaw? Lacking cleave and aoe makes me think I will be. :/

[RobertoCarlos]

I've not checked numbers for much at 110, do you think I'll be hindering myself much by spending AP as sub (I'm wanting to pvp, but also do dungeons/mythic+) over, say, outlaw? Lacking cleave and aoe makes me think I will be. :/

Well if rogues are brought to mythic+ it probably wont be for cleave/aoe unless outlaw does pull ahead of specs like fire mage/BM hunter etc. But I doubt it. Best bet for rogues will probably be our strong single target and interupts/stuns which sub will be fine for so I wouldn't worry about it. Plus both assassin and outlaw don't need many artifact points to get the relevant stuff, like assassinate for example you can pick up all the major minor traits on the way to blood of the assassinated so the catch up on those specs will be pretty easy

[panzaghor]

because they missed the nerfbat, next round will fix

You predicted it correctly, here is your candy and a /hug too

[Spriestlawl]

You predicted it correctly, here is your candy and a /hug too

lol it was pretty expected by a lot of people.. I was hoping they'd nerf rupture and not exsan though I want more poison damage

[elfporn]

You predicted it correctly, here is your candy and a /hug too

I'm just glad i was justified in refusing to play and now won't HAVE to play assassination - i'm not a fan of the DoT spec focus. I would much rather have some other type of synergy built around poisons - envenom is an example of that synergy, but to most people it's just an evisc replacement.

Now i just have to stop lazing around and play sub a bit more, i've been rocking outlaw since prepatch. (and kicking everyone's asses too, SiW ftw)

[panzaghor]

I'm just glad i was justified in refusing to play and now won't HAVE to play assassination - i'm not a fan of the DoT spec focus. I would much rather have some other type of synergy built around poisons - envenom is an example of that synergy, but to most people it's just an evisc replacement.

Now i just have to stop lazing around and play sub a bit more, i've been rocking outlaw since prepatch. (and kicking everyone's asses too, SiW ftw)

Been playing sub since the pre patch and i`m loving it, just changed once on reaver for the burst but it`s over now