So... Blade Flurry now hits up to 4 targets

[Coldkil]

Why would you recruit a rogue over a DK that can do similar single-target dps, better cleave dps, and on top of that brings more buffs and a combat res?

Because you already have aoe, and in a 25 man enviroment the presence of a rogue or two tricking the highest dps is always welcome.

Things are truly different for 10 man and i agree this isn't a good spot or enough reasons to bring us in a raid. But we're not useless. Just there are other classes that can do the same things with additional utility, which puts us in a bad spot.

[Linneth]

I sure hope this version of Blade Flurry doesn't make it to live.

It just doesn't make any sense when looking at our AoE abilities. As Combat, you have Fan of Knives (combo builder), Crimson Tempest (finisher) and Blade Flurry (Aura). A good design would require you to use all of them, making small changes depending on the amount of enemies. As it is now, both FoK and CT damage is underwhelming as Combat, but they will be even more useless come 5.2 because of the new Blade Flurry. Blade Flurry reduces energy regen, which reduces FoK and CT uses; FoK and CT aren't cleaved by BF, so BF is useless when using FoK and CT. What are Combat Rogues supposed to use for AoE? FoK? FoK and CT? BF? All of them?

I'd like to propose a "revamp" to how Combat AoE plays out, which I'm quite confident that it would be better than what we are getting:

- Remove energy pentalty from BF. Because it's a toggled aura, it requieres some kind of penalty, but it shouldn't dumb down Combat's playing style. Combat is supposed to be about faster energy regen, not about crippling it in favour of bigger damage.
- Reduce Combat's damage on your main target by X% when using Blade Flurry. It would act as a penalty that would warrant not using BF if there are no other targets. If you do 100% damage without BF, you would do, for example, 80% damage to that target with BF on.
- Don't kill Combat's cleave completely. Blade Flurry should have a number of targets it can cleave, but it should be stronger when there are less enemies. For example, make it do 50% damage if there's only 1 cleavable target, making it gradually weaker when there are more enemies, capping at 25% with 4 cleavable targets.
- Both FoK and CT should be cleaved by Blade Flurry. This way Combat AoE would require using our entire toolkit.
- Killing Spree damage should be cleaved by Blade Flurry without damage reduction (if there's 5 targets, it would hit all of them with 100% damage). This way Killing Spree would be a powerful AoE CD, which fits with how it plays.

[Deleted]

Because you already have aoe, and in a 25 man enviroment the presence of a rogue or two tricking the highest dps is always welcome.

Things are truly different for 10 man and I agree this isn't a good spot or enough reasons to bring us in a raid. But we're not useless. Just there are other classes that can do the same things with additional utility, which puts us in a bad spot.

to be fair, i wouldn't be devastated if they just flat out remove tricks of the Trade, since
1. it lost its original purpose, i.e helping with threat.
2. it is a stupid ability lore wise (where the rogue is a lone, selfish class)

But there is a lot more that doesn't fit lorewise right now, so i am not too suprised it is still there.

We can still hope for a decent raid cooldown (like the smoke bomb that reduces damage incoming for the people inside the bomb )

The current situation is a little more complex.

Now we have a very OP cleave that with a minimal cost basically nearly doubles our damage - given this the strenght of BF anyway is greatly reduced by the fact that tehre aren't a lot of fights in which we make full use of it; Combat just feels the "offspec for when we need cleave".

If you look in the opposite way, still Combat isn't covering a great role: anytime there's the opportunity to cleave, everyone goes combat because of the extreme effectiveness of the move.

Whatever point you choose, Combat is a broken spec due to BF:
1)most of the time behind the other two specs due to the addition of a cleave they don't have
2)so good that becomes mandatory in certain situations

Nerfing BF this way will solve the second point, but this won't automagically makes true the first one.

The niche of combat spec disappears, and makes it no more the must-spec for cleave fights.
I think it is mostly up to personal preference whether you like it or not, but right now it looks like a bit of a loss to me, since you need more targets for the same damage (you could cleave before in a 3-4 add fight too)
The upside (if you want to call it that, again up to preference) is that now you don’t really need to respec just for that one fight, and can play the spec you want.
Personally I am a bit in dubio, since I like to perform the best I can, but I also dislike having to run to a reforger for just one fight. (Why don’t they just make the same stats desirable over the specs?) and it makes gearing a bit easier i.m.o

[Javanface]

Because you already have aoe, and in a 25 man enviroment the presence of a rogue or two tricking the highest dps is always welcome.

Things are truly different for 10 man and i agree this isn't a good spot or enough reasons to bring us in a raid. But we're not useless. Just there are other classes that can do the same things with additional utility, which puts us in a bad spot.

Sounds like we're meant to fill the role of the TBC enhancement shaman in a 25 man then

Jokes aside you're right, there may not be arguments against bringing a rogue or two in a 25 man group but Rogue is quickly becoming the filler class you bring when there's no reason to bring anything else. Got all the buffs? check. Got enough combat resses? check. Got the added utility we need for this specific fight? check! Ok, bring the rogues then.

Then in 10-man where it's a fair bit of 'bring the class' still, we will get set aside in favor of other classes. I should say our 10-man has two rogues because we've raided together ever since the glorious days of tbc 25-mans, but that's because we're friends. I know I'm nerfing our group when we're both in together and our fury warrior is benched, and that bothers me deeply. The BF nerf won't help that feeling one bit.

[Deleted]

Comparing the specs and feeling forced to spec one way or the other is, at least in my mind, a smaller problem versus not being useful at all compared to another class.

Why would you recruit a rogue over a DK that can do similar single-target dps, better cleave dps, and on top of that brings more buffs and a combat res?
I feel that that is a question Blizzard should have answered a long time ago.

I do however, agree that we shouldn't be ahead of everyone else to the point where you have to bring a rogue or two to every cleave fight but with this nerf we bring nothing to the table that can't be done better by another class altogether.

You say the right thing, but draw the wrong conclusion. The BF nerf was necessary to ensure overall class balance and integrity; its absence makes it apparent that there's a bigger quality of life problem with rogues (or, some would argue, pures in general).

[rogueMatthias]

With the energy cost still there I think this is probably going to only really be much use if there are 3/4 targets nearby, and so will predominanantly be useful just for trash. Anyone done the maths yet to see if the energy cost still makes it worth it with just two mobs?

TBH Storm, Earth and Fire looks infinately cooler and looks like it will do a LOT more extra damage that Blade flurry will. Rogues have skill nerfed.. other class gets cooler, more useful version of skill. Where've I seen that before?

[Javanface]

You say the right thing, but draw the wrong conclusion. The BF nerf was necessary to ensure overall class balance and integrity; its absence makes it apparent that there's a bigger quality of life problem with rogues (or, some would argue, pures in general).

That's been apparent for quite some time though, and the BF nerf doesn't accomplish anything other than benching some rogues in favor of better cleavers on these fights. The Rogue becomes a one-trick-pony with these nerfs, and we don't even do that trick (single-target damage) especially well any more.

---------- Post added 2013-01-10 at 03:47 PM ----------

With the energy cost still there I think this is probably going to only really be much use if there are 3/4 targets nearby, and so will predominanantly be useful just for trash. Anyone done the maths yet to see if the energy cost still makes it worth it with just two mobs?

TBH Storm, Earth and Fire looks infinately cooler and looks like it will do a LOT more extra damage that Blade flurry will. Rogues have skill nerfed.. other class gets cooler, more useful version of skill. Where've I seen that before?

Haha that is just excellent. Unless that goes through some tuning monks just got 160% damage split between two targets (80%+80%) or 180% damage (60%+60%+60%) split across three targets. IE a better cleave than BF since you have to account for the energy regen reduction for BF.

[Coldkil]

-snip-

Agree with everything, especially the lost niche of combat.

[Redecle]

I see the new blade flurry as it propably was intended in the new patch the first time. Makes a lot more sense. Haven't yet seen the number crunches how it will behave, but it'll surely solve the overpower in cleave fights, compared to other specs. If it's comparable to fok as ass or sub, it's good. I'm still very worried that our single target can't compete with ass or sub. People here obviously specced as assasination complain that they hate when they are obligated to change spec in cleave fights, well guess what i as combat hate it as much to change to ass in single target fights, so that's not a valid argument of any sort.

There's a truth that in the end we should be compared to other classes regarding balance and performance, but before that can be solved. Rogues need to be solved internally with this spec dispute, we have the 3 most playwise similar specs than any other class in the game and yet they aren't comparable with each other, aoe utility remains to be seen after the new change if we are even. But in the end rogues are single target class and should be treated as that the foremost, aoe is aoe, comes and goes with trash (yes trash is important, but i haven't met a single person that comes to the raid every week excited about berserking troll #14, "i have my eye on you every week") and some bosses, but usually there's just one boss, one Lich King, one Deathwing, one Hogger. That sentence is not meant singlemindedly in the sense of stand and nuke, different fight mechanics make sure of that. It's meant that if we have 3 similar specs, players should be able to pick which ever one they prefer and perform equally. In the sense that only skill or better gear makes a difference. After that comes the comparebility to other classes it's as important as the internal class balance, but we can't be fixed compairing to other classes until we've been fixed as a single class.

Autoattack is the baseline all specs have, but how to really balance the ability based damage, we would like to have finishers that provide more damage and reduce the autoattack damage, but that makes it even more difficult to balance since the abilities scale differently. Changes need to be made in the baseline and much deeper than just introducing new inventional abilities for us to fix this class. New tricks won't last long if the baseline is messed up. As speaking of tricks for TotT, if that's our only utility to raid, i'm laughing. I have mine glyphed cause i'm so energy starved already that i can't perform dps wise as it is, i really don't want to feel like i'm someones buffmagnet and that's the only reason i've been brought to the raid. Selfish yes, but i thought the times of hybrid classes was over */sarcasm*. Rogues used to be active high energy fast paced class to play, now all it seems is like... opener, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, energy coming.. wait for it. Ability! wait for it, wait for it, energy Y U no regen? wait for it, i'm standing here making a sandwich, wait for it, brb toilet, wait for it, Ability!

[Deleted]

Didnt you know ? This is the way !!!! More People will be playing Rogue with this Changes .. why would i play a shitty DK that can AE 10000 Adds or a Monk that can split himself without losing much ?? Rogues can hit up to 4 extra Targets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the laughly cost of 20% Energy reg.. Energy Reg that already is shitty enough unless you are swimming in BiS Gear

On a serious note. I just wait for the Rogue revamp

[OneSent]

At last, the ability finally lives up to it's name - a flurry of blades.

[Deleted]

This is a weaker version of how Heart Strike used to be for DKs in wotlk (haven't really played a DK since then) where it hit maintarget for 100%, secondary for 75%, third for 50% and a fourth for 25%... But yeah idk, now they just moved the requirement for combat to have 1 target to cleave to to 4 targets. So yeah idk, didn't really solve anything imo.

[Vinho]

Agreed to it being a change just because so many whined for a change, but it's in the direction of allowing us to have more options on which spec to main / off rather than mandatory combat for cleave.

If history is to repeat itself, as I'm almost 100% certain it will.... Blizzard is very hesitant to buff us, because through scaling, either in mid or late 5.2, we will be near the top again, or at least on our way to being top damage dealers as we've ended up being for tbc / wotlk / cata.

[Demeia]

With the energy cost still there I think this is probably going to only really be much use if there are 3/4 targets nearby, and so will predominanantly be useful just for trash. Anyone done the maths yet to see if the energy cost still makes it worth it with just two mobs?

TBH Storm, Earth and Fire looks infinately cooler and looks like it will do a LOT more extra damage that Blade flurry will. Rogues have skill nerfed.. other class gets cooler, more useful version of skill. Where've I seen that before?

God, that really ripped my heart out. I hope it's a lie--that the skill is just garbage, it just looks fancy. They can't seriously be giving monks a better cleave than us, right?

[whathump]

Well, Blade Flurry is getting brought up to 40% in the next PTR build with the same cleave to 4 extra targets.

"In the next PTR build, it deals 40% of normal damage to up to 4 additional targets, for a 20% energy regen reduction."

From a blue post by GC on the forums.

[Coldkil]

Which makes BF worth using again. Less OPness on cleave fights and slightly better aoe for Combat.

It's not that now i like combat - for me the situation is still "go best single target spec, respec combat for cleave". If i absolutely need to aoe (read: other classes aren't enough) i'd go assassination.

[Lemons]

At last, the ability finally lives up to it's name - a flurry of blades.

Yea...that's kind of an awesome thought that the rogue is just going berserk and hitting everything around him.

I really like the new iteration as well...40% on 4 targets seems rather good. I knew there was no way in hell they were going to leave it at 25%...no matter how many targets it's hitting.

[glowpipe]

now its useless on dual fights and assassination will still outdo combat on 4 target fights. Combat is dead

[Koji2k11]

to be fair, i wouldn't be devastated if they just flat out remove tricks of the Trade, since
1. it lost its original purpose, i.e helping with threat.
2. it is a stupid ability lore wise (where the rogue is a lone, selfish class)

i'd like to see TotT as a raid cooldown where the whole raid benefits from the dmg effekt

[Coldkil]

now its useless on dual fights and assassination will still outdo combat on 4 target fights. Combat is dead

Actually no.

2 target cleave is surely nerfed, but if the damage is buffed to 40% still the cleave will be favorable instead of focusing on single target.

If you have 4 target cleave and all of them are staying 100% of the time in melee range, well, combat will outperform assa by a long margin - Assa aoe is effective only when you have 5+ targets.

This anyway will make combat still the cleave king spec and i don't see any rogue with a brain switching from it for a cleave fight.