Why is Subtlety unpopular?

[Aeula]

No clue. On my 103 rogue it's easily the best spec for leveling. The others are so painful to level with.

[ymirsson]

This statement is semi-valid until 3 gold traits. I like the fact that sub's actual potential is very hidden behind the effort to unlock its powers. There are 34 traits and I dare say all 34 are giving something important. Minimum 30 to start shining. 34 to really mean business. And I believe by January everyone will be talking how they love sub.

Dodge chance is important?

[zaino]

you actually have to be good at the game to play sub unlike the other 2 specs

[Demeia]

"I miss the days when people played what they enjoyed, not what is just currently "top" spec :"

You can't use an underperforming spec in mythic raiding/myth + unless your guild does that content in heavy farm mode

I actually enjoy the spec that does the best. It's also worth pointing out that I like Outlaw aesthetically but re-roll the bones goes old quickly; still, there's blade fury which is a delight outdoors. 'Sin kills things fast and feels a little clunky but I was always pretty good at multi-dotting and I enjoy that.

Just haven't played sub a lot.

[Xanatu]

you actually have to be good at the game to play sub unlike the other 2 specs

You actually have to be good at [the spec I'm playing] unlike [the specs I'm not playing].

As I said above, people love jerking themselves off about playing whatever they think is hardest.

[Clinkzthebonerogue]

Why are people saying sub is an "advanced" spec and so much harder to play than sin? They're both very easy specs to play/learn.

Have you actually went to play sub? I assure you, it takes double the time to learn sub than it does sin.

Higher APM means you have less time to decide which button to press next. The lower the APM required, the more you can sit and think about what to do next. None of our specs are super complicated, but Mut is slower than Sub which is slower than Outlaw.

I get what you are saying. You have more decision making to do in sub than sin, than outlaw. Can't even tell if you are arguing a point about outlaw being better in some way lolol.

[Deleted]

No clue. On my 103 rogue it's easily the best spec for leveling. The others are so painful to level with.

Subtlety is GOD TIER for leveling/outdoor content.

Matias Shaw as bodyguard gives you a 100% crit when you leave Stealth, making WQ and farming a breeze.

You are immune to fall damage.

You have 25% dodge chance.

You regen 10% of your HP per Shadow Dance (not sure).

[Deleted]

People love jerking themselves off about playing the "hardest spec". They act like current sub is underplayed because it's "experts only", rather than because it's not fun and doesn't do superior damage.

a) That this spec is not fun to play for many =! not fun at all.
b) It doesn't do superior damage... yet.

Sub shows promise regarding the scaling with Nighthold equip and I'm pretty positive, that Assassination will begin to fall back by then (reason: scaling issues of Assassination since how many expansions already? Which in essence are still not resolved.).

I played until the devastating nerf Outlaw and jumped ship directly to Sub even while knowing, that at the equiplvl at the moment, Assassination is the best choice.
Assassination is for me personally extremely boring and slow. I don't raid on Mythic difficulty, so I'm able to choose the spec which is more fun to me while pulling ~20k Dps less... at the moment.

[Deleted]

Are you speaking about the increased damage of a few abilities ? that is more of a bandage then anything else. Other classes that have had scaling problems have those buffs every patch because they wont scale as well compared to other classes.

The reason why outlaw has issues is Roll of the Bones. You don't gain a higher chance of having a better roll with more gear but you still rely on good rolls. You then have some rolls that those specific ones to devalue certain stats. You will still scale with gear, that's not what is being said, it is that you wont scale as well compared to other classes, in this case other specs that scale well but are gear dependent.

So with the buffs outlaw may be in a better position but it will only cause them to need another buff in a following patch. Again, I am not saying they don't scale, they just don't scale as well which causes small buffs here and there to fix issues with the spec.

I dont use feelcraft sorry so i cant respond to exactly what you feel will happen. I look at what simcraft posts after updates to classes and the reasont buff to outlaw pushed it up ahead of sub again. Both being ahead of assassination at 880 ilvl.

I know how roll the bones work and i hate the ability. You can play around that however as many people on this forum has posted, and i'm not about to get into a discussion about it.

TLDR
You need to take your feelcraft somewhere else


Edit:

Also what is it with people in here saying that sub is harder then the other two specs atm.

If you where to say that in WoD i'd agree, but right now i just cant. Its actual rotation is simpler then assassination. Its jsut that it requires some fast and accurate button pushes. As long as you have practised that a little bit on a target dummy it just comes down to muzzle memory though

[Xanatu]

I dont use feelcraft sorry so i cant respond to exactly what you feel will happen. I look at what simcraft posts after updates to classes and the reasont buff to outlaw pushed it up ahead of sub again. Both being ahead of assassination at 880 ilvl.

I know how roll the bones work and i hate the ability. You can play around that however as many people on this forum has posted, and i'm not about to get into a discussion about it.

TLDR
You need to take your feelcraft somewhere else

We have empirical evidence that Outlaw is not ahead of assassination though. Simcraft is great, but similarly geared assassination rogues are beating similarly geared outlaw rogues.

[Deleted]

We have empirical evidence that Outlaw is not ahead of assassination though. Simcraft is great, but similarly geared assassination rogues are beating similarly geared outlaw rogues.

I disagree. Warcraftlogs does show who does most damage with what spec atm. But some time ago most serious players stopped playing outlaw and started with sin and sub. I think what we are seeing is people with underleveled/wrongly geared outlaw specs atm. Also some people just swear off outlaw completely because its got that extra RnG and annoying gameplay.

Once we get into Nighthold we should see Sin starting to back up a bit and sub + outlaw take over

[ymirsson]

I don't know about you but for me it is. And its not just dodge its also immune to fall damage. You should see AB switches from LM to BS on the fly. Every single trait does something useful.

So what would be useless if anything is useful? You failed to specify that all traits seem useful to you, not that they are.

[Deleted]

Artifact weapons are so boring compared to assassination...

They're actually laughably bad.

[Wow]

Sub shows promise regarding the scaling with Nighthold equip and I'm pretty positive, that Assassination will begin to fall back by then (reason: scaling issues of Assassination since how many expansions already? Which in essence are still not resolved.).
.

In mop Assassination actually out scaled the other specs. Only fell in SoO because it was nerfed and combat and sub were buffed + the cdr trinket. In wod assassin was just left under tuned all exp.

[Clinkzthebonerogue]

Also what is it with people in here saying that sub is harder then the other two specs atm.

If you where to say that in WoD i'd agree, but right now i just cant. Its actual rotation is simpler then assassination. Its jsut that it requires some fast and accurate button pushes. As long as you have practised that a little bit on a target dummy it just comes down to muzzle memory though

Going to have to disagree with you bud.
Imo I think it requires a lot more planning and reactive playstyle. I'll lay out my thought processes in sub and sin (exang) since I have played both.

Note** in no way I am asserting dominance to the spec, just explaining what goes through my head when i play the specs and making my point that sub is indeed harder for the average player to execute.

For Sub:
There is DoT upkeep of nightblade: playing around with finality as in, letting the finality pandemic'd buffed nightblade tick all the way before reapplying another nightblade. So tracking finality buffs. if not you lose dps.
Pooling energy to 60 or so before activating shadow dance so you can fit 4 shadowstrikes in. If your 2nd evis procs weapon master you cap energy immediately which should prompt you to refresh your symbols of death. So symbols of death and shadowstrike should be pressed at the same time so you can fit that 4th shadowstrike in before shadow dance ends. If not you lose dps. Fitting in a symbols of death is also pretty punishing because you will most likely lose a shadowstrike in the dance due to energy. which is remedied with energetic stabbing relics and legendary boots.
Shadow techniques proc and weapon master procs - meaning you don't really know if you will get a set number of combo points. Sometimes a shadowstrike will give you 5-6 combo points so you will need to finisher immediately or else your shadow technique CP proc will be wasted. if not lose CP and dps.
Another note on shadow techniques with shadow dance: The rule of thumb is 4 shadowstrikes in a shadowdance but things like shadow techniques proc will cause you to evis after one shadowstrike (or if it procs from weapon master) in which the shadowdance rotation window would be something like SS > Evis > SS > SS > Evis then Shadow dance would be over. so you missed 1 SS but if you hadn't evis'd you'd waste combo points and an extra evis in an encounter.
Use of Vanish which is similar to outlaw, little different for sin.
Lets not forget the stun utility that subs bring with the cost of dps which is pretty important in adds like dragons and xavius.
Using Goremaw when you have less then 2 combo points and less than 70 energy. Trying to use it on cd as close as possible.
The use of sprint for flickering shadows to get a free vanish.

For sin (exang):
All about putting exang, vendetta, nightstalker'd pandemic'd rupture on the boss and keeping Elaborate planning while the super rupture is ticking. Same as finality nightblade with taking caution to not refresh until it fully ticks. which happens every 45 seconds as opposed to every other nightblade. Have to make the decision to hold back on one or the other so that they line up
Energy pooling to take advantage of elaborate planning.
Keeping rupture and garrote up
All energy gains are pretty solid and not unpredictable with venomous wounds.
Watching for extra CPs when your muts crit.
Keeping envenom up for kingsbane damage
Waiting on EP/envenom buff to fall off before doing a finisher. So you don't waste any buff time.

I think poison sins are a bit more complicated with buff manipulation with EP,agonizing, and Kingsbane.

I tried to keep this post unbiased but it may appear i have failed that. I just like sub because of its complexity and its potential to always get better on the rotation. Also my sin knowledge might also be underdeveloped but i have pulled pretty close to simmed damage so i think I am doing things right for the most part.

They are both complex in their own ways but again, I think sub is definitely more complicated.

P.S. I had fun typing all this shit cuz it makes me wonder if I really am doing all I can do to maximize damage. Also typing at work so why the hell not.

[ymirsson]

For me every trait has a use. Obviously for you it doesn't. Do I have to justify myself to you? I don't think so. Bye bye.

You dont have to justify yourself, but maybe your post. Because following your logic would mean that the other 2 specs also have only useful traits and be better with all 34.

[bubbadubba]

I dont use feelcraft sorry so i cant respond to exactly what you feel will happen. I look at what simcraft posts after updates to classes and the reasont buff to outlaw pushed it up ahead of sub again. Both being ahead of assassination at 880 ilvl.

I know how roll the bones work and i hate the ability. You can play around that however as many people on this forum has posted, and i'm not about to get into a discussion about it.

TLDR
You need to take your feelcraft somewhere else


Edit:

Also what is it with people in here saying that sub is harder then the other two specs atm.

If you where to say that in WoD i'd agree, but right now i just cant. Its actual rotation is simpler then assassination. Its jsut that it requires some fast and accurate button pushes. As long as you have practised that a little bit on a target dummy it just comes down to muzzle memory though

Not going off feel craft but obviously not going to agree so no point arguing with you on it.

Also on the Edit, I am not sure if that is directed at me. I said Sub looked hard to play before trying it out, I then played the spec to find out it isn't. This is due to how the spec is explained causing it to sound challenging when in reality it isn't, this then causes the community to assume it is the more challenging of the specs because people don't play it and when they looked at the spec it seemed challenging. This then causes people to think that it is the most challenging when it realistically isn't.

[Akka]

I'd say the reason is simply that Sub is not fun to play :-/

I thought sub was suppose to be like a ninja though? I guess its not as obvious as outlaw being YAAARR PIRATE(..) but the spec gave me that impression. I always thought it was the coolest of the specs really.

I started sub, I like ninjas, I like the idea of being a rogue in the shadows. Sub is also much better for leveling I think (immune to fall damage, huge burst, lots of defensive or escape CD).
I still ended up switching back to Assa rather quickly in raid.

Because sadly, sub doesn't feel right. It feels like a close-combat warlock, not a rogue. It's all about magic shadow damage, the artifact talents are not very engaging, and it doesn't feel ninja nor even especially roguish.

[purpleblood]

Assass is fotm and people aren't willing to learn the more difficult spec, which is sub IMO. It's not hard, but it's certainly more involved than the other two by far.

Im so confused when people call the better performing spec FOTM and then use it as an insult. I just can't understand what point you want to prove. As soon as sub starts outperforming top assassination parses im sure people will switch to it. Are you going to switch to assassination and call it more skilled when this happens and call everyone who plays sub a FOTM follower?

[Greylan]

Sub definitely feels like the easier spec this time around. I mean, it has its share of depth/planning ahead but it seems shallower than in the past. Still a fun spec though.