Subtelty - what am I missing ?

[shardee]

Hi !

So i decided to play Subtelty for Night hold progress, but I clearly missed something in my rotation...
I tried to fix my dps alone, but tonight one of my guild's officer took me alone to say that i don't do enough damage.

I have 893 ilvl, 42 points in my weapons, 2P bonus and here are my stats :

Crit : 27%
Haste : 12%
Versa : 6,45% / 3,23%
Mastery : 79%

i have leg boots + prydaz, both 940 ilvl, i thought i got the playstyle / opener and rotation, as i follow what Stejrn's guide says and i regularly check the forum and the "Thread: Legion - Subtlety discussion" to fix my dps but still, i can't do more than grey / green ranks on bosses.

If someone wanna help me, here are the logs for yesterday's 8/10 HM :

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

i always plays with Anticipation

about my rotation, i use sterjn's opener : Use Symbols of Death pre-pull at 11 seconds -> Symbols of Death at 1 second [Pandemic effect]-> Shadowstrike to 5- 6 combo points -> Nightblade -> Shadow Dance -> Shadow Blades -> Shadowstrike to 5-6 combo points -> Eviscerate -> Goremaw's Bite

then :

- i maintain SoD within pandemic range
- i use my SD when i have 65 energy
- i try as often as possible (meant, if a don't have to refresh SoD) to place 4 Shadowstrike during each SD, Spaming it untill 8cp and then eviscerate and spam again
- i refresh my nightblade @9sec (2p bonus) and let it fade if it's Finality : Nightblade
- I use Shadow blades pretty much on CD, but if i have at least 1 SD or a Vanish
- I try to use goremaw on CD when off energy, or when i really need extra CP to reset a SD stack / emergency refresh nightblade.

I regularly sim my character so now stats weights.


Thanks for you help !

S.

[Critical92]

I don't want to take your hope away, but without 1 or 2 of the very good legys (shoulders, bracers, cloak) Sub has a hard time competing in NH.
All these small adds who perfectly aligne with the legy cloak, everyone without it just looks bad. The shoulders coupled with supterfuge are also a huge gain.

In the posted log i see you dropped SoD in the last quarter of the fight for some time. You have 88% SoD. You should always have 99-100%.
Anticipation is good when you have 4-Set, you should still use DS until you have 4-Set.
Try to lower your haste to 10%. Everything more is wasted and 10% is the sweet spot (11 energy/sec)
Try to get more Mastery.
And the last thing to say is when you have the chance (double/triple ES proc) to refresh SoD without skipping an SS, do it.
What hurts Sub the most is skipping an SS in dance because of SoD (Thats why old boots were OP)

[elfporn]

Get an SD-->SS macro, pool to 75, 80 if you have energy necklace.

As creativ says, SoD should never drop.

Don't trip out if you have to dump CP in dance instead of SSing a 4th time.

Get the bracers - you'll have a hard time ranking 80-90 percentile without them, especially on longer fights.

Use SoD@5seconds to pull(if you want to pandemic it, use at 15sec till pull or earlier). pot@1, and SB@0, build to 5, NB, then SS/bs once before dance. If lusting on pull, save goremaws till 1-2sec before SB ends, else use goremaw between dances to keep up energy gen during SB.

[Arthas242]

I don't want to take your hope away, but without 1 or 2 of the very good legys (shoulders, bracers, cloak) Sub has a hard time competing in NH.
All these small adds who perfectly aligne with the legy cloak, everyone without it just looks bad. The shoulders coupled with supterfuge are also a huge gain.

In the posted log i see you dropped SoD in the last quarter of the fight for some time. You have 88% SoD. You should always have 99-100%.
Anticipation is good when you have 4-Set, you should still use DS until you have 4-Set.
Try to lower your haste to 10%. Everything more is wasted and 10% is the sweet spot (11 energy/sec)
Try to get more Mastery.
And the last thing to say is when you have the chance (double/triple ES proc) to refresh SoD without skipping an SS, do it.
What hurts Sub the most is skipping an SS in dance because of SoD (Thats why old boots were OP)

shoulders do not work on shadowdance, sub gets to use them just as much as any other rogue spec gets to, but they are still nice opener with 100% crit and vanish as a cooldown

[Narzok]

shoulders do not work on shadowdance, sub gets to use them just as much as any other rogue spec gets to, but they are still nice opener with 100% crit and vanish as a cooldown

but subterfuge is not dance alone.
it allows for up to 3 openers per vanish, and sub rogue gets an extra vanish for not taking dmg after using sprint.

i don't know if the shoulder work on subterfuge's extra opener though, would like some insight from people who have them.

[Ukalnar]

but subterfuge is not dance alone.
it allows for up to 3 openers per vanish, and sub rogue gets an extra vanish for not taking dmg after using sprint.

i don't know if the shoulder work on subterfuge's extra opener though, would like some insight from people who have them.

I have no idea what you mean by that. You mean if it's gonna extend the 100% crit chance buff? Because no, it doesn't.

[Todesbote]

Honestly even if you have the essential legendaries that "make the spec work" and execute perfectly you won't reach the numbers of arguably easier to play Assassination. From the perspective of someone who raided with both specs in mythic progression its basically this: While there are things you can fuck up playing as Assa I have to say that Sub is much less forgiving - one mistake and you can watch your dps drop massively. I know people will crucify me for this but with Shadow Techniques, Energetic Stabbing and now the added RNG of 4-p set this makes the spec even more tedious to play. You have to rely on ES procs to refresh SoD, there are often situations where you will end up with 7 CP and you can basically risk wasting 1-2 CP (Shadow Blades + 4p + ST proc = 5-6 CPs during that global -> 2-3 wasted) or use a finisher and lose out on your last SS during SD. Add in the Finality bug with Anticipation making it basically required to pool to 10 CP and it gets even worse. It's a clunky mess and not fun at all. Before the 4p set bonus it was way smoother and way less risky. The added 30% RNG shit really annoys me so much. Maybe I'm not getting it right yet I only had the 4p bonus for 2 raid nights. But I'm getting DESTROYED by Ret, DH, Enhancer Shaman, DK basically all other melees in Nighthold when I used to be able to do way better compared to the same people in ToV/EN. It's depressing as fuck.

[Narzok]

I have no idea what you mean by that. You mean if it's gonna extend the 100% crit chance buff? Because no, it doesn't.

what i mean is that subterfuge allows to use stealth-opener for xSec (?) after breaking stealth, 3 fit into that window.
i don't know if these openers profit from the shoulders as i don't know the exact wording of their effect.

as with the extra vanish: sub has a trait that makes them automatically use vanish if they take no damage for 3 seconds after using sprint, so 1 extra vanish per sprint CD (45 sec i believe? not sure on that) if the fight allow for it.

[Deleted]

I don't think you are doing wrong in my opinion. Your dps to ilvl is nice given the legendaries you have.

You could be assa and do more tunnelling the boss and droping a rupture here and there sometime? Yes...

But rogues are nice.

Sub is like this: take DS and do dmg and starve from energy at the 2 min mark. Or take anticipation and do not make more than 500k dps once the 2 min mark is passed

[Deleted]

reports/1rnNpj27HDFYCAzv#fight=8&view=rankings <= not allowed to post links unfortunately
same boss, I dont have boots nor bracers nor shoulders (fight length is shorter i know), i agree on sub legendarys being strong but they wont stop you from getting acceptable ranks. I know on longer fight you may run out of dances but 3:30 min is a good fight length for subtlety and people were pushing above 500k in emerald nightmare content when itemlvl was a lot lower so of course you can do better with different gameplay

[T18Z]

Honestly even if you have the essential legendaries that "make the spec work" and execute perfectly you won't reach the numbers of arguably easier to play Assassination. From the perspective of someone who raided with both specs in mythic progression its basically this: While there are things you can fuck up playing as Assa I have to say that Sub is much less forgiving - one mistake and you can watch your dps drop massively. I know people will crucify me for this but with Shadow Techniques, Energetic Stabbing and now the added RNG of 4-p set this makes the spec even more tedious to play. You have to rely on ES procs to refresh SoD, there are often situations where you will end up with 7 CP and you can basically risk wasting 1-2 CP (Shadow Blades + 4p + ST proc = 5-6 CPs during that global -> 2-3 wasted) or use a finisher and lose out on your last SS during SD. Add in the Finality bug with Anticipation making it basically required to pool to 10 CP and it gets even worse. It's a clunky mess and not fun at all. Before the 4p set bonus it was way smoother and way less risky. The added 30% RNG shit really annoys me so much. Maybe I'm not getting it right yet I only had the 4p bonus for 2 raid nights. But I'm getting DESTROYED by Ret, DH, Enhancer Shaman, DK basically all other melees in Nighthold when I used to be able to do way better compared to the same people in ToV/EN. It's depressing as fuck.

In the same situation as you, I know exactly how you feel. We have far too many RNG reactionary elements to our gameplay it's getting stupid. I have no clue why Blizzard thought it was a good idea to give us set bonuses which essentially makes our life even more difficult, meanwhile giving assassination two automatic set bonuses which basically provide a flat increase with no chance for error.

Honestly even if you have the essential legendaries that "make the spec work" and execute perfectly you won't reach the numbers of arguably easier to play Assassination

This is the worst part of all, really. Knowing that you've actually done everything right in such a hectic rotation and still seeing assass or other melee 50k+ ahead is just depressing to say the least. As it stands Sub is pretty much a dead spec in mythic Nighthold when going off the current parses.

[Halobob87]

Change spec. 470k on something like trillax is really really low. Even without any legendary item you could easly do 600k~ with assa.

[Deleted]

I have no idea what you mean by that. You mean if it's gonna extend the 100% crit chance buff? Because no, it doesn't.

Correct, Subterfuge does not extend the duration of the crit buff. However, when you use vanish it takes 3 seconds before your stealth breakes, giving you an additional 3 seconds to the buff every time you vanish. In addition to this, in some fights you can get a chance to vanish using Sprint.

[elfporn]

Honestly even if you have the essential legendaries that "make the spec work" and execute perfectly you won't reach the numbers of arguably easier to play Assassination. From the perspective of someone who raided with both specs in mythic progression its basically this: While there are things you can fuck up playing as Assa I have to say that Sub is much less forgiving - one mistake and you can watch your dps drop massively. I know people will crucify me for this but with Shadow Techniques, Energetic Stabbing and now the added RNG of 4-p set this makes the spec even more tedious to play. You have to rely on ES procs to refresh SoD, there are often situations where you will end up with 7 CP and you can basically risk wasting 1-2 CP (Shadow Blades + 4p + ST proc = 5-6 CPs during that global -> 2-3 wasted) or use a finisher and lose out on your last SS during SD. Add in the Finality bug with Anticipation making it basically required to pool to 10 CP and it gets even worse. It's a clunky mess and not fun at all. Before the 4p set bonus it was way smoother and way less risky. The added 30% RNG shit really annoys me so much. Maybe I'm not getting it right yet I only had the 4p bonus for 2 raid nights. But I'm getting DESTROYED by Ret, DH, Enhancer Shaman, DK basically all other melees in Nighthold when I used to be able to do way better compared to the same people in ToV/EN. It's depressing as fuck.

Youre overthinkning the rotation, running anticipation now as a given - you should not stress about getting 4ss, 1finisher within dance every time, it just wont happen, and mostly because youre dumping cp on a second finisher instead.

My experience the last two weeks is that i never run out of dances(ever) and im having a hard time preventing energy capping, and im flooded with cp's. Running anticipation, 4p, and belt/ring@897 equipped.

Im not some magician farting resources, the other sub rogue im with just got his 4p and went anticipation and was blown away, he has bracers/boots.

- - - Updated - - -

Sub is like this: take DS and do dmg and starve from energy at the 2 min mark. Or take anticipation and do not make more than 500k dps once the 2 min mark is passed

If this is your experience, youre doing it wrong.

[shardee]

reports/1rnNpj27HDFYCAzv#fight=8&view=rankings <= not allowed to post links unfortunately
same boss, I dont have boots nor bracers nor shoulders (fight length is shorter i know), i agree on sub legendarys being strong but they wont stop you from getting acceptable ranks. I know on longer fight you may run out of dances but 3:30 min is a good fight length for subtlety and people were pushing above 500k in emerald nightmare content when itemlvl was a lot lower so of course you can do better with different gameplay

Haha man, i was not at all looking for some condescension / troll answer, yes you did good rank, but you have 4p, 2 pure dps legendaries + two of the best available trinkets. Thanks for your aswer, it really helped me (btw check our Trilax logs, we are not so far from each other...)

I'm not either askin if i must switch spec, just asking for help from people like Creativlol, elfporn, Todesbote, Letalius and all other people who constructively took part to the thread, and who seems to know the spec way better than me.

Thanks to them for their advices i took note

[Deleted]

I see you don't use your vanish and shadowblades enough. In most of the logs I checked you could have used each at least one more time.
Use vanish if you won't overcap Shadow dance (my mark is at most 2 she and 30 seconds remaining for the third) and I usually use shadowblades soon after pull to ensure enough uses.

You should also use a macro for Shadow dance + Shadowstrike, it helps.

It's a pain to go through logs on mobile, but your dps isn't that bad considering the rest of your raid. 4p will help too.

Good luck!