Combat Rogues - Should they be changed to use two slow weapons?

[Deleted]

This threads about most of the problems I can see with combat rogues. I think combat rogues could be improved by changing the functionality of talents. This isn't just a case of "add more 0's on talents" because if the basis isn't working then I think the talent needs to be redesigned, not just adding more damage.

These are some of the issues with combat rogues are the moment :

1) Combat Mastery

The mastery is quite poor. It doesn't matter how much they improve the mastery scaling, if the idea behind it is crap then it's not going to work. Also, they said they would consider the idea of combat being changed to "slow/slow" set up but nothing was done, so I think "slow / slow" should be preferable for combat, and they should change the mastery to something like this :

Current mastery is :
"Your main hand attacks have a X% chance to grant you an extra off hand attack. Each point of Mastery increases the chance by an additional N%."
This doesn't work because it wants you to use a fast weapon in mainhand, and slow weapon in offhand.

My suggestion :
I think It should be changed to something more exciting that fits the feel of the tree. This is my suggestion, and would make sense if combat rogues were using "slow / slow" weapons.
"Your Sinister Strike and Revealing Strikes abilities have a X% chance to also strike with your offhand weapon. Each point of Mastery increases the chance by an additional N%."

The idea is that this would work like Threat of Thassarian talent. Instead of getting another boring auto hit every now and again, you would have your combo point builder doing double damage - for free - and having a chance to critically strike.



2 ) Weapon speeds

Weapon speeds are a problem, because talents like killing spree want to use a slow / slow set up. Most people would prefer a more bursty, but slower tree. Those who want rapid strikes should choose daggers and go assassinations.

One of the main reasons that slow/slow doesn't work at the moment for combat is because of combat potency. My suggestion to fix combat potency is simple :

Currently it is:
Gives your successful off-hand melee attacks a 20% chance to generate 5 / 10 / 15 Energy.

Instead, It should be changed to :
Gives your successful melee attacks a 10% chance to generate 5 / 10 / 15 Energy.


3) Revealing strike

It's a nice idea, but it isn't powerful enough and it isn't fun to use. I think it should be made into a short cooldown ability that is a little bit more powerful so that you will actually look forward to using this ability.

Currently it is:
40 Energy - Instant - no cooldown.
An instant strike that causes 125% of your normal weapon damage (sinister strike deals 130%) and increases the effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on that target by 20% for 15 sec. Awards 1 combo point.

Instead, I think it should be changed to :
20 energy - Instant - 8 ( or 10? ) second cooldown.
An instant strike that causes 200% of your normal weapon damage as shadow damage and increases the effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on that target by 20% for 15 sec. Awards 1 combo point.


4) Restless Blades

It's a nice talent, but why doesn't it proc off of slice and dice or recuperate?

Current : Your damaging finishing moves reduce the cooldown of your Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Sprint abilities by 1 / 2 sec per combo point.
Suggested : Your finishing moves reduce the cooldown of your Adrenaline Rush, Killing Spree, and Sprint abilities by 1 / 2 sec per combo point.

[Mrkew]

agreed

[Lemons]

I voted yes, but not because I'm somehow disgusted by using daggers...quite the opposite actually.

Combat should go double slow weapons simply because I can envision a dystopian future in which combat rogues are rolling on daggers. Now that there are no weapon specializations to pigeon-hole combat into favoring certain weapon types they're going to roll on anything and everything that could serve as a fast offhand...including daggers.

Now I know everyone who reads this is going to think "well who the hell cares? More specs should use daggers you loot whore." Yea, that's nice, but combat can already use swords, maces, fist weapons, and axes. What can subtlety and assassination use? Daggers...only daggers, but that fact isn't going to stop combat rogues from rolling on a good offhand dagger when they see it.

Combat rogues already have a plethora of options available to them...they don't need daggers as well.

[Guesswho69]

Combat Rogues have always rolled on daggers. Fist/dagger was big until about ICC, Combat Daggers was good in Classic. A rogue isn't really picky about weapons. Whatever weapon is BIS for spec should be rolled on and used. A simple swap to Mastery change that changes from extra OH to extra MH would greatly improve the overall damage of the spec. Probably even make it OP.

[Jazzhands]

I actually really like this idea. It would make weapon choice a bit more interesting, and it would make combat a lot more unique. There would probably need to be a few more tweeks to rogues overall to bring us back up to par, but this is definetly a good start to making rogues both more fun and more viable.

@Lemons: I agree with you as well. Rogue weapons are incredibly uniform, the difference between Mut and Combat is more or less strictly what weapon is in your MH. Combat rogues will be rolling on any 1.4 speed dagger, as those are the best OH for any spec. I plan to be combat, and I don't want no stinkin' dagger in my offhand.

[Prolly]

I voted yes because as Combat I want to use all the axes, swords and maces that drop. For some reason having a big axe MH and then a little dagger offhand seems a little off to me. It just makes my offhand seem kind of useless, it's just there to apply poisons and proc combat potency. I think a slow offhand would make it feel more like your offhand damage is more worthwhile and would go well with the idea of a Combat Rogue.

[Deleted]

and it would make combat a lot more unique.

What? How? Combat rogue is the only class/spec that uses a slow MH and a fast OH, if it was slow/slow it would just be another fury warrior/enhancement shaman/frost dk

[Lemons]

What? How? Combat rogue is the only class/spec that uses a slow MH and a fast OH, if it was slow/slow it would just be another fury warrior/enhancement shaman/frost dk

It's not that unique...the other two rogue specs are the same way.

[Sesshou]

@OP
First of all you need to learn how to write a poll. Yours is infested with so much bias crap that any result you may get is statistically useless. Why in the hell did you bloat each choice with biased crap at the end... Because of that crap, your choices only cover a very limited part of the actual responses to such a question. I won't quote the whole thing because its pretty long but...

The mastery is quite poor. It doesn't matter how much they improve the mastery scaling, if the idea behind it is crap then it's not going to work. Also, they said they would consider the idea of combat being changed to "slow/slow" set up but nothing was done, so I think "slow / slow" should be preferable for combat, and they should change the mastery to something like this

No, the idea behind an extra offhand is not crap. The mechanics which prevent it from scaling are what make the mastery crap. There is nothing inherently wrong with more offhand swings.

The idea is that this would work like Threat of Thassarian talent. Instead of getting another boring auto hit every now and again, you would have your combo point builder doing double damage - for free - and having a chance to critically strike.

No, swinging with both weapons does not double damage. You should go look into how offhand damage works.

One of the main reasons that slow/slow doesn't work at the moment for combat is because of combat potency. My suggestion to fix combat potency is simple :
Instead, It should be changed to :
Gives your successful melee attacks a 10% chance to generate 5 / 10 / 15 Energy.

No, that will not favor slow/slow. It will still favor a fast offhand, in fact it would favor fast/fast, so such a change would be absolutely useless in moving to slow/slow. You should go look into why blizz opted for a ppm mechanic on certain things.

3) Revealing strike

This is in no way related to weapon speed of the offhand changing.

4) Restless Blades

It's a nice talent, but why doesn't it proc off of slice and dice or recuperate?

Again this has absolutely no effect on weapon speed at all. You are asking for a buff to a competitive talent without any real reason other than you find it strange. Thats like asking for another x% on top of Aggression. This isn't a problem talent anyway, the real problem talent is BG.

@Lemons

Now that there are no weapon specializations to pigeon-hole combat into favoring certain weapon types they're going to roll on anything and everything that could serve as a fast offhand...including daggers.

Not exactly, combat is now pigeon-holed into weapon types by mastery. However, blizzard refuses to put in a real combat offhand, so yes all rogues (all 3 specs) will be taking the same dagger offhands.

[leprocy]

i voted no because thats just more competition against enchance shammies for weapons >.<

[Bullocks]

Main problem I see with this is that poisons already stack slower than an assassination rogue. Slow/ slow would hinder poison application and completely end any desire to target switch sending the wrong idea to bads and giving a MAJOR dps loss in most situations (that require target switching.)

Poison is a major part of our damage, this would be a buff and a nerf, sure our yellow damage would go up but what is 80% of our dps anyway? Auto attack and poisons. This looks good on paper but would never yield benefits compared to what we would lose.

@Murdeh, your sig cracks me up every time I see it.

[Powerogue]

it's as simple as change that one talent that procs energy from off-hand attacks to not encourage a fast offhand. after that it all falls into place pretty well with 2 slow weapons. it'll save them a lot of effort, in the same way making us use axes saved them effort for several tiers, us and shamans sharing weapons.

[Sesshou]

it's as simple as change that one talent that procs energy from off-hand attacks to not encourage a fast offhand. after that it all falls into place pretty well with 2 slow weapons. it'll save them a lot of effort, in the same way making us use axes saved them effort for several tiers, us and shamans sharing weapons.

Not really, you are overlooking the poison damage loss from using a slow offhand which would persist even if combat potency was changed. Also merely changing to slow/slow (assuming dp and cp were changed to make it optimal) wouldn't actually fix any of the problems combat has right now. Mainly, mastery would still suck, and BG would still screw us.

[Deleted]

Not really, you are overlooking the poison damage loss from using a slow offhand which would persist even if combat potency was changed. Also merely changing to slow/slow (assuming dp and cp were changed to make it optimal) wouldn't actually fix any of the problems combat has right now. Mainly, mastery would still suck, and BG would still screw us.

Ok then, point taken about using a fast / fast set up. I just assumed that it would be common sense not to go back to combat daggers, and that by halving the proc rate but having it proc from both weapons would make offhand speed less relevant. I don't think energy regeneration would over take raw damage any way, but theory crafting would probably say otherwise.

The only other option would be to completely do away with the proc per hit mechanic, and to change it to a proc per minute similar to the poison frequency change - but I realise this could end up being a nerf but won't necessarily.

However, it would make weapon speed irrelevance and should solve the problem.

If it was split into ranks, like this :
Your offhand attacks have a chance to generate 15 energy. This effect occurs more oftern than rank 0 / 1 / 2

That way, you should end up with the same amount of energy being generate - right?

I found strange about main gauche idea was that "more offhand attack procs, can proc combat potency" so yer, proc while you proc. That doesn't sound good, because it would be so unlikely to happen. I'm not saying it wouldn't ever happen, or that it would not improve damage, but its not really the most "fun" concept.

[Sesshou]

Ok then, point taken about using a fast / fast set up. I just assumed that it would be common sense not to go back to combat daggers, and that by halving the proc rate but having it proc from both weapons would make offhand speed less relevant. I don't think energy regeneration would over take raw damage any way, but theory crafting would probably say otherwise.

The only other option would be to completely do away with the proc per hit mechanic, and to change it to a proc per minute similar to the poison frequency change - but I realise this could end up being a nerf but won't necessarily.

However, it would make weapon speed irrelevance and should solve the problem.

If it was split into ranks, like this :
Your offhand attacks have a chance to generate 15 energy. This effect occurs more oftern than rank 0 / 1 / 2

That way, you should end up with the same amount of energy being generate - right?

I found strange about main gauche idea was that "more offhand attack procs, can proc combat potency" so yer, proc while you proc. That doesn't sound good, because it would be so unlikely to happen. I'm not saying it wouldn't ever happen, or that it would not improve damage, but its not really the most "fun" concept.

When I said fast/fast I still meant non daggers for both. Granted there is no non dagger offhand. And you would end up using a slow MH since there is no non dagger offhand (thus none for fast mh). I don't think a dagger would be viable even with that change you had because BS sucks as combat and SS with a dagger also sucks, so while you would get more energy, the damage you gain from each point of energy would drop quite a bit.

Yeah a ppm change to everything could fix it, but I think you are missing the point entirely. Weapon speeds will not fix any of our problems. All the problems will persist. Making slow OH viable (pre mastery) will not entirely fix mastery due to offhand mechanics. It also won't fix BG.

If you have a high enough mastery, then you will get enough swings to lessen the randomness of the over all gain in energy from MG procs, so that in theory could be ok. Now they way it was on live when it first got put in where you get 5-6 procs an entire fight, it would be far to susceptible to rng to be very good. The main thing, even though I vastly prefer old sword spec, is to ensure that it is currently a competitive stat, and it will scale about the same as other stats which will help us as a class/spec scale against the competition.

[mtr]

This change would move combat even more away from pvp, as poison proccing on double 2.60 will be very slow, and shiv is just unacceptable with such weapon speed. And even 400% increase on armor would not fix it :P

The good thing would be to just change the offhands to be not 1.50 but 1.40. What is technically wrong with it? Daggers should always be faster then huge axes? How about the off-hand warglaive, that has 1.40 speed and the size of airplane? There are several other examples.

Another way is to add to mastery bonus weapon type restriction, like mut: Has a chance to proc offhand attack bla bla bla, if wielding non-daggers.

Anyway, whatever weapon+dagger is stupid :/

Also your points regarding revealing strike and restless blades are very good. But what also bugs me about RvS, combat cp generation is super random, and sometimes I get 5 cp from 3 cp, and using RvS seems unappropriate, but I could use it on 3 cp and hit a 4 cp finisher, which doesnot look good too (for example, Kidney shot).

I'd say Revealing strike should not award CP :P

[Deleted]

If you have a high enough mastery, then you will get enough swings to lessen the randomness of the over all gain in energy from MG procs, so that in theory could be ok. Now they way it was on live when it first got put in where you get 5-6 procs an entire fight, it would be far to susceptible to rng to be very good. The main thing, even though I vastly prefer old sword spec, is to ensure that it is currently a competitive stat, and it will scale about the same as other stats which will help us as a class/spec scale against the competition.

Yes I agree about the old sword spec being a better idea as well. You got more hits with fast sword, but for less damage. Or, less hits with slow swords, but for more damage. That does seem like a much more balanced idea and I would much rather have that as a mastery other than this crappy idea about main gauche, where the mastery alone works optimally with a slow offhand a fast mainhand for some weird reason.


Also, about revealing strike... I just feel as if it is a bad idea. It boosts the damage of your finishing move - this in a tree that is based around a slow but strong combo point generator.

Why couldn't revealing strike somehow relate to sinister strike. I have no idea how the numbers would work out, but for example :

"revealing strike increases the damage the target takes from your next (5?) sinister strikes by (20%?)" Does no award combo points, does more damage than sinister strike, but has a cooldown of about 10 seconds.

That way you could :
Use finisher : Revealing strike, Sinister strike to 4 or 5 combo points, then use finisher.

Without worrying about capping combo points

[Annoying]

Not voting. Passive aggressive options = no thanks.
My vote: No, I think the dynamic of having to obtain and maintain 2 separate types/speeds of weapons adds much needed depth that 2 slow weapons cannot add.

[Jazzhands]

What? How? Combat rogue is the only class/spec that uses a slow MH and a fast OH, if it was slow/slow it would just be another fury warrior/enhancement shaman/frost dk

All rogue specs use slow/fast, it's just a matter of the weapon. Mut uses a Slow MH dagger, and a fast OH dagger. 1.8 isn't slow compared to Swords ect, but it's slow for a dagger. It's make it a more unique rogue spec to finally move away from the slow/fast we've had for 6 years.

[acenthehole]

I like these ideas since haste will be good for energy regain now i can just stack haste till my 2 slow weapons are hitting fast and that would a lot more fun then having a fricking dagger.
The idea for restless blades is very good since combat rogues will be using recuperate and snd quite often during raids.
You should send these ideas in so they can have a good look at them so at least someone will have a idea on how to fix us rogues.