Will people really be enticed to play Combat because Blade Flurry is removed?

[Lachtobi]

Didn't read all of the replies but it occurs to me that a lot of people are only evaluating one side of the coin. While Blade Flurry is being tuned down - let's be honest - something more balanced, combat also receives an X% AP buff to boost its single target damage (might not be 5). Add to this that combat traditionally scales better through an expansion due to its reliance on weapon damage and I think many will find combat to be quite on point for 5.2 and beyond.

The difference is that we're no longer forced into playing it on encounters like The Stone Guardians.

[Avengerx]

Instead of something like "Your envenom/eviscerate now applies poisons/rupture to 2 targets in a X yard range" (Not the best I know but it's a start), they went with the easy way.
Same with the ap buff. They could have tried to nerf white damage and buff yellow damage instead but noes...
To be honest the X% buff feels like a (I apologise in advance) "Combat now does moar single target dps so stfu" slap in the face.


Traditionally yes combat scales better, but with the poisons and assassin's resolve mop change ( I think it was changed in mop to 20% damage and not just weapon damage right?) the scalings should be around equal for the 2 classes. As for sub, we'll have to see.

[jtstormrage]

I hate playing Combat. But if it is top damage spec single target, I will play it.

[Sesshou]

The difference is that we're no longer forced into playing it on encounters like The Stone Guardians.

While true, the reason why any rogue would think this is a good change baffles me... I mean whats the deal, people don't really want to help their guilds by playing the best spec but end up doing it therefore want the option removed so they can't ever be that useful to their guild in the future even if they want to later? Now I get they could have gone the other way and gave something to assassination, but whether or not you liked switching to combat for cleaves, you should be hating that we are losing a really strong option.

[Coldkil]

New blade flurry covers a big hole in the rogue mechanics - the effectiveness when there are from 3 to 5-6 targets.

Big AoE is done by assassination, which still stays fine but requires a lot of mobs to be truly effective; It also has a someway decent cleave if you can manage to keep rupture rolling on two targets (which isn't always that simple).

Current BF is so awesome it's OP when there are 2 targets, but the more targets, the less effective it is. With 5.2, the situation will be exactly the opposite - a decent cleave that becomes better the more targets we have in range.

There will always be the best cleave spec. And i'm sure it will still be combat. I just hope that the single target damage won't be bumped up too much, other wise every rogue will be monospec.

[Impa]

Okay, first we need to understand that each spec does damage in a different way - sustained vs. burst - and damaging mechanics vary - aoe, cleave, multi-dots etc.

Then we need to factor in the variance of the encounters across a tier - stand and stab, or with a lot of movement/downtime, or with burn phases, etc.

This basically means that specs will never pull the same dps, no matter how much blizz tweaks the numbers. If a bursty spec and a sustained spec do the same numbers on a tank and spank boss, the bursty spec will do more damage on a fight with downtime. Likewise, if we try to balance numbers around a mechanic-heavy fight, then the sustained dps will pull ahead on a simple fight.

We have a choice between either accepting that our specs will feel well defined, but imbalanced, or on par with everything else but without really having a personality. Just wanted to get this out of the way.

Now with regards to combat and BF - I loved playing combat throughout 4.2 and 4.3, and I would have played it in MoP as well, if it wasn't behind on single-target damage. Saying that blizz forced us to go combat because of its OP 2 target cleave is just as valid as saying blizz forced us to go Mut for single target damage. And looking at the current tier, there are more fights were single target damage is more important than cleave.

I for one welcome the change to BF, especially if it gets bumped to 40% to 4 additional targets, although it can be argued that this means we'd be op on a different niche. Keeping the 25% value and the on/off functionality of BF, at no energy regen reduction, is obviously not a good choice. Everybody would simply keep it activated at all times.

Whatever the change might turn out to be, they're moving in the right direction. They kind of have to, since they're running a business. It would probably help to QQ less and test more on the PTR.

[Sesshou]

@coldkill
I agree we are weak at the 5-6 target range, but is this 40% cleave going to be better than what assassination can do? I'm not so sure, and if it isn't, then we are giving up something great and in return we get to spec assassination for ae. I mean a 40% cleave is worth hitting sure, but 40% of our non poison damage with a 20% energy regen penalty isn't going to be this absolutely amazing ae. It is only really going ot be current bf damage plus 60% and I'm not sure if thats enough. This is also assuming it isn't a royal pita to keep all the targets in BF range. I mean it can get annoying with just 2 targets when you factor in movement and potential crap on the ground.

[Coldkil]

It shouldn't be that amazing as ae - othewise we would return to the old OP cleave, which is something that needs to be avoided; anyway i see the problems you're brining out.

[shadowboy]

It shouldn't be that amazing as ae - othewise we would return to the old OP cleave, which is something that needs to be avoided; anyway i see the problems you're brining out.

5% is not a big single target buff. Combat will still be behind the other two specs single target, but not by as much. The AP buff does shift damage contribution around a tiny bit. Active damage is slightly shifted into finishers and away from builders, and passive damage is shifted into the deadly poison DoT and away from autoattacks, DP-I and MG. The active-to-passive damage ratio will be roughly similar. In fact, all these damage shifts will be so small that they won't be noticeable until very very high AP levels (like unattainable by gear levels).

[thebl4ckd0g]

I love Combat. I've been combat since Vanilla. I've tried out Mutilate, but I just don't enjoy it as much. I was actually surprised to see Ghostcrawler talk about "only switching to combat" - I guess only hardcore heroic-only raiding Rogues do that? Granted I can only get in LFR since my Guild isn't big enough anymore to raid since early Cata, but I've pretty much never seen any other Rogues beat me who were mutilate unless they had better gear.

[Lachtobi]

I've pretty much never seen any other Rogues beat me who were mutilate unless they had better gear.

People generally put way too much focus on "what's the right spec?" instead of asking "what's the right spec... for me?". On numerous occasions I've stuck to a lesser spec and still perform on par -- because my knowledge and familiarity with that spec had a bigger impact than a BiS patchwerk sim. There are very few players out there who can tri-spec at exactly the same level; how much that matters obviously depends on personal skill level, in-game ambitions and the balancing of specs. But from a majority stand point, I've always found choice of spec to be much less important than experience and personal preference.

[shadowboy]

People generally put way too much focus on "what's the right spec?" instead of asking "what's the right spec... for me?". On numerous occasions I've stuck to a lesser spec and still perform on par -- because my knowledge and familiarity with that spec had a bigger impact than a BiS patchwerk sim. There are very few players out there who can tri-spec at exactly the same level; how much that matters obviously depends on personal skill level, in-game ambitions and the balancing of specs. But from a majority stand point, I've always found choice of spec to be much less important than experience and personal preference.

A skilled player should be able to play any of the specs at a high level. Familiarity and experience with the spec does however offer other benefits. For example, if you're more familiar and have a better "feel" for one spec over the other two you can devote more attention to encounter mechanics than your rotation--and this is something that's noticable for me. My experience with combat is significantly better than my experience with the other two specs. That's not to say I can't play assassination and subtlety at a high level--it's just that it takes more concentration to do so due to the lower familiarity with the spec. The opportunity cost is generally not dps, but situational awareness.

[Coldkil]

The actual numbers that sims show aren't that far from one spec to another, to the point that all are clearly viable in a raid enviroment.

Combat anyway has something more - an OP cleave that counts as neraly half of your performance in the appropriate fights; while having familiarity with a spec is for sure a great thing that impacts your performance, some abilities are really game-breaking.

There is no "best spec" since it depends on personal skill and gear available (atm with the huge amount of mastery on gear assa is pulling ahead); but some fight mechanics just favor one or another ability - hence you will perform better using one spec.

This imho is a problem that should be avoided, especially given the difference BF can do at the moment.

[Lachtobi]

A skilled player should be able to play any of the specs at a high level. Familiarity and experience with the spec does however offer other benefits. For example, if you're more familiar and have a better "feel" for one spec over the other two you can devote more attention to encounter mechanics than your rotation--and this is something that's noticable for me. My experience with combat is significantly better than my experience with the other two specs. That's not to say I can't play assassination and subtlety at a high level--it's just that it takes more concentration to do so due to the lower familiarity with the spec. The opportunity cost is generally not dps, but situational awareness.

The cost is performance, and that's what matters. What I've been seeing through the years is that the potential to perform better in a more appropriate spec rarely outweighs the benefits of performing well here and now. There's something to be said about recruiting players that are not one trick ponies, but that's a topic for another time.

[Sesshou]

The cost is performance, and that's what matters. What I've been seeing through the years is that the potential to perform better in a more appropriate spec rarely outweighs the benefits of performing well here and now. There's something to be said about recruiting players that are not one trick ponies, but that's a topic for another time.

See your argument depends on several things. How close are the specs? I mean right now for a standard fight, they are fairly close so playing the others poorly will easily cause an inferior spec to perform better for a person. If its a fight with a solid cleave component and you aren't playing combat though, you'd have to be god awful at combat to beat it with another spec. The other thing is, is it "the right spec... for me" because you prefer one spec or because you are not familiar with another? If its the former, that should have absolutely no bearing on your choice if you are trying to seriously progress. If its the latter, all the more reason you do need to familiarize yourself with that spec as much as you can so that when it is the better spec, you play it well enough that it is also the "right spec" for you.

And back to the first point, if at some point our specs fall out of balance you become a massive liability. You could get away with either assassination or combat right now (except the huge cleave fights) but we aren't guaranteed those will be close forever. Take locks, if you have a lock that can't or won't play aff, that is a huge liability for your raid. Same with mages pre fire nerf.

My personal opinion is, if the "right spec for you" isn't the optimal spec for a progression fight, then the "right spec for you" should be bench spec until you fix your shortcomings.

[Lachtobi]

So in your case, in-game ambitions are high enough that not playing the best performing spec is disqualifying. For heroic progression I have always advocated for this culture in my guild, but generally I don't see it as the case. The vast majority of players out there should stick to the spec they're most comfortable and/or experienced with if they want the best performance. (As an added bonus, it also tends to make them happier raiders).

On-topic, I don't see any normal mode encounters that require you to play combat - even in Blade Flurry's current form. For heroic progress, you need to be combat for Stone Guardians and Garalon and probably Assassination for everything else.

[Sesshou]

Yeah, I do think that some one should be actively trying and learning the specs that are optimal for their progression fights so that they can use them. There really is no excuse for not being able to play them all. Now if they are roughly equal, whatever, but if a class has a clearly superior spec for the majority of encounters (or a spec so absolutely superior for specific encounters it is a mile ahead like BF on some fights) they need to be playing it, and there is no reason they can't learn how. Though like you said, the same is true in my guild and this doesn't happen 100% of the time, but the majority of the dps feel this way as far as I am aware.

No normal mode encounters for your guild may require that. Not every guild is at our guilds' levels or higher though. Some guilds have hit enrage timers on normal mode fights you know, and even if its not the enrage thats killing them, extra dps ends the fight earlier and in some cases burns down troublesome additional targets earlier making the fight easier. It doesn't matter what level of progression a person is at, just that what they seek is in fact progression. Now if you are talking about normals for people who are just casually playing around and don't care about progression, yeah you have a point.

[Whitey]

there are some people -such as myself- that already play combat for every fight. i dont agree with gc on this one.

This. I also PvP as Combat. Just love the swashbucklery of it.