Why did they really remove Cold Blood?

[Neurocist]

I guess, im not the first to ask, but just curious - why did they really remove Cold Blood spell from assasination rogues? I think removal of it was the thing, that really killed rogue(Assasination) PvP and it's burst. Your opinions? Are there any hopes someday to see it again?

[Incineration]

Like hell it was. Fact of the matter is, none of Assassinations specials deal any serious amount of damage, apart from maybe a critting Dispatch/Envenom. With that in mind, you'd need at least 3 guaranteed crits in a row or so, if you'd want to classify any damage output from Assassination as "bursty".

Cold Blood was useless. That's it really.
It did nothing for us in PvE.
It did very little for us in PvP.
Its removal increased the stat-value of crit (although only slightly) and freed a keybind.

A welcome change, I'd say. Alternatively, they'd have to revamp the spell entirely, which I'd also have liked to see.

[D3athsting]

Its removal increased the stat-value of crit (although only slightly) and freed a keybind.

Crit value has been increased by poisons critting for 200% dmg, 1 free crit every 2 minutes wasn't a big deal to be honest and GC response about it's removal was kinda lame...
Overkill has been scrapped too because rogues used vanish offensively in pve, but thanks to t1 talents we still keep using vanish this way especially with subt

[Neurocist]

Like hell it was. Fact of the matter is, none of Assassinations specials deal any serious amount of damage, apart from maybe a critting Dispatch/Envenom. With that in mind, you'd need at least 3 guaranteed crits in a row or so, if you'd want to classify any damage output from Assassination as "bursty".

Cold Blood was useless. That's it really.
It did nothing for us in PvE.
It did very little for us in PvP.
Its removal increased the stat-value of crit (although only slightly) and freed a keybind.

A welcome change, I'd say. Alternatively, they'd have to revamp the spell entirely, which I'd also have liked to see.

Really very little in PvP? Destrolocks have Chaos Bolt, it crits 100%, one of the most usefull spells in burst. All "legendary" arena rogues used CB in every fight. For ex. you have an opponent at 30%, you just vanish-->CB-->Ambush or just Cb-->Evi(in most cases). I think it played a big role in PvP back then. Don't you think so? And poison damage increase is not burst at all, just high damage DoT, you cannot call it PvP burst - the only thing it did is made assasination PvE single target spec. Saddly. You had an opportunity to go assasination or subtlety depending on how you like to play, and now you got rogue as a raiding only DPS. Combat was enough for that(fortunetelly it is still is. Question - how long?).

I still use assasination in PvP, because i have my style of putting opponents down, but was really sad when I didnt find CB after i came back to the game.

[Neversage]

As a sub rogue, I'd love Cold Blood if you guys are done with it.

[Incineration]

As a sub rogue, I'd love Cold Blood if you guys are done with it.

Cold Blood would be incredibly powerful on Subtlety, now that I think of it...
Saving 10 combo points with Anticipation and unleashing two Eviscerates (of which one is guaranteed to be a crit) would be quite devastating - especially if you have Find Weakness running.

[Neurocist]

As a sub rogue, I'd love Cold Blood if you guys are done with it.

Yes, cold blood on subtlety would be too OP, u have increased ambush damaged already, when you use subtlety talents, and CB would make you war machine, which wouldn't be good fortunately you don't have +20 energy like assasination has.

[Avengerx]

CB would be nice for combat as well for those deep insight evises

[Lemons]

Because one guaranteed crit doesn't make a cooldown. The game has evolved past the point where that even matters.

[Tziva]

As far as cooldowns go, it was a pretty boring one.

[Verain]

Cold Blood was originally in the same category as Elemental Mastery (I think) and Combustion (for sure). It was only ever a pvp or solo cooldown. Originally, it just flat out caused a crit. Since crit rates have varied between 18% to 45% for much of the game, this cooldown was between one in five and one in three times entirely wasted- the move would have crit regardless!

It has mattered whenever eviscerate or envenom has been a decent chunk of life of a player. In vanilla this was very true, but it hasn't been true in awhile. I don't think it's so much the game evolving as it is that the rogue class has become much hastier- in general, you get energy back much faster, and have a much higher APM, than a vanilla rogue. The side effect is that each move sucks, especially finishers. In fact, our MoP finishers are actually pretty nice compared to the last two expacs- I can actually crit a decent envenom or eviscerate now.


GC said it was removed to up the crit value for mutilate rogues. That's absolute garbage- the other changes had a much bigger effect (poisons critting at 2x, for instance). Here's my theories:


1)- It wasn't a very exciting cooldown, even with the energy, in the eyes of the devs that play classes whose equivalent cooldowns would be "you always have five combo points and all your finishers are criticals" (I think that's a summary of ascendance for rogues). But it was still a button, and buttons should probably do more than it did.
2)- It was a pvp button, and I think they actually thought mutilate might be good in arena. Given the heavy handed and ludicrous rogue nerfs to survival, extra tricks required for sustained, burst, and mobility, I think it was an intended pvp nerf.
3)- The idea seems to be that each rogue spec has a different set of cooldowns with different combinations. All rogues have the baseline cooldown (shadow blades, one of the coolest things this expac has done), but then each spec gains something else. Combat has spree and adrenrush. Sub has shadow dance and vanish- dance is interesting because it's better than vanish and has a shorter cooldown, but unlike sub, you can't stack dance and vanish- you don't get double find weakness. You can stagger them, but that's it. Mutilate, meanwhile, just has vendetta, a "modern" cooldown in that it can be stacked with anything and doesn't have a cost besides the global and its own cooldown. If you gave it cold blood too, it would just be a third thing to use during blades or blades+vendetta (when they line up).


I actually think Blizzard is at a bit of an design flub when it comes to cooldowns. Combat and Sub are some of the few specs that don't gleefully combine every SINGLE cooldown at the same time, every time. I mean, there's no downside to not pressing shadow blades and vendetta at the same time- I don't really think there should be, but it's obvious that this double stack is far behind what other specs/classes can pull off in a similar window, and it kind of cheapens what each individual cooldown means.


Some ideas for an additional mutilate cooldown:

1)- Cold Blood revisited- instead of one crit, this behaves similar to recklessness, giving you an enhance crit chance, but just for your yellow attacks. To make it interesting, it is a debuff on a target like vendetta, and can't be up when vendetta is. Ideally, it would be balanced such that vendetta was the stronger cooldown, but probably not during say, skull banner.
2)- Poison Bottle- this could be the ground target aoe cooldown that we've asked for, but it could be balanced to be worth using single target, in the same way that starfall is- you delay for aoe phase, or you stack it single target.
3)- A finisher that is stronger than envenom, does not refresh slice and dice, and has a short-ish cooldown. It could have a high energy cost as well. Such an ability would be powerful in pvp, and would require a bit of thought for optimal play in pve. It could be a short bleed dot to mitigate the pvp power (damage delivered over 7 seconds, for instance).
4)- A cooldown that temporarily grants you a second type of deadly poison (or just grants you the ability to also proc whatever lethal poison you don't have equipped). This would be in flavor and interesting, but a lot of rogues already cry about "passive" damage, even if they have to press a combo point builder until they have the correct number of combo points, then execute a finisher, and the finisher buffs their attacks. But that's passive, so QQQQQQQQ

[Ssith]

you guys forget that it also granted energy.

i think that alone made it a nice cooldown, if a bit long. drop it to a 30-second CD and you've got something fun to throw assassination.

[Verain]

I mention the energy grant, but most of the time it didn't do that. That was only during Cata.

At 30 seconds it really would distort the value of crit.

[Garian]

Like hell it was. Fact of the matter is, none of Assassinations specials deal any serious amount of damage, apart from maybe a critting Dispatch/Envenom. With that in mind, you'd need at least 3 guaranteed crits in a row or so, if you'd want to classify any damage output from Assassination as "bursty".

Cold Blood was useless. That's it really.
It did nothing for us in PvE.
It did very little for us in PvP.
Its removal increased the stat-value of crit (although only slightly) and freed a keybind.

A welcome change, I'd say. Alternatively, they'd have to revamp the spell entirely, which I'd also have liked to see.

Yeah please do that. Oh wait, they won't. Not for another year maybe.

Are you one of the devs who had it removed or something?

How about you let us have our useless ability and you just don't use it?

Cold Blood was both fun and iconic. Now Assassination is basically a watered down Sub spec.

[Shaderas]

I dont know.. perhaps something like:

2 minute cooldown, duration: 10 seconds.

Cold blood: While Cold blood is active, you may use Dispatch regardless of the target's health, and if your target's health is below 35% Dispatch will do an additional 10% damage. In addition, when your Lethal poisons are applied, there is a 10% chance that you will regain X amount of energy.


I don't know, all I could think of, and I don't like the redundancy of Blindside combined with it. Also, may be strong when combined with Vendetta.. just throwing some ideas out there.

[Incineration]

Yeah please do that. Oh wait, they won't. Not for another year maybe.

Are you one of the devs who had it removed or something?

How about you let us have our useless ability and you just don't use it?

Cold Blood was both fun and iconic. Now Assassination is basically a watered down Sub spec.

Yes, because arguing for/against certain developer decisions makes you a developer.
1 crit every 3(?) minutes is neither fun nor iconic. If your notion of "fun" is having an on-demand attack that can be rendered unnoticeable by simple RNG, then I sure as hell do not want to know what you consider boring.

As mentioned prior to MOP's release: The devs will be taking a look at rotation and will remove additional buttons they consider unnecessary to the rotations. Cold Blood was one such button.

As a side note; If you consider Assassination a "watered down Sub spec" now, you're playing it very, very, very wrong. Sub has become a watered down Combat spec. Assassination is the only spec to still have some spec-identity left.

---------- Post added 2013-01-28 at 10:44 PM ----------

I dont know.. perhaps something like:

2 minute cooldown, duration: 10 seconds.

Cold blood: While Cold blood is active, you may use Dispatch regardless of the target's health, and if your target's health is below 35% Dispatch will do an additional 10% damage. In addition, when your Lethal poisons are applied, there is a 10% chance that you will regain X amount of energy.


I don't know, all I could think of, and I don't like the redundancy of Blindside combined with it. Also, may be strong when combined with Vendetta.. just throwing some ideas out there.

I like that...! I really do dig the sound of that. Could be a very interesting cooldown to work with.

[Garian]

Yes, because arguing for/against certain developer decisions makes you a developer.
1 crit every 3(?) minutes is neither fun nor iconic.

That is your opinion. Don't force it on the rest of us.

If your notion of "fun" is having an on-demand attack that can be rendered unnoticeable by simple RNG, then I sure as hell do not want to know what you consider boring.

Having the ability to time a crit was amazing for setting up a kill. Now I am forced to play Sub.

Thanks.

As mentioned prior to MOP's release: The devs will be taking a look at rotation and will remove additional buttons they consider unnecessary to the rotations. Cold Blood was one such button.

As a side note; If you consider Assassination a "watered down Sub spec" now, you're playing it very, very, very wrong. Sub has become a watered down Combat spec. Assassination is the only spec to still have some spec-identity left.

The only difference between Sub and Mutilate now is Mutilate has Mutilate and Envenom while Sub has Backstab, Premed and Shadowdance (and Eviserate instead of Envenom for burst outside of Dance). I don't even count Dispatch because it's procs randomly. RNG is bad game design. I want control. I don't want to be at the mercy of luck. Vendetta is a painfully long cooldown as well.

Assassination is now the most 1 dimensional spec I have ever played in WoW. I am guessing that's why you like it? It was better even in Cataclysm when it wasn't viable most of that expansion, and that is saying something.

[Incineration]

I know when a debate isn't worth having with someone, as this seems to be one such case. I'll just counter what you said with;

That is your opinion. Don't force it on the rest of us.

Good day, sir.

[Verain]

Having the ability to time a crit was amazing for setting up a kill. Now I am forced to play Sub.

Not to journey too far into douche, but you've been forced to play sub since the dawn of cata.

If anything, 5.2 will be the closest you'll be to playing mutilate in pvp since LK, because you'll have both prep and a gap closer (old mutilate never had any form of gap closer). You'll also have, as compensation for cold blood, access to vendetta. I don't think this will make it better than sub- but it will make it better than mutilate has been in years.

The only difference between Sub and Mutilate now is Mutilate has Mutilate and Envenom while Sub has Backstab, Premed and Shadowdance (and Eviserate instead of Envenom for burst outside of Dance). I don't even count Dispatch because it's procs randomly. RNG is bad game design. I want control. I don't want to be at the mercy of luck. Vendetta is a painfully long cooldown as well.

These are huge differences.
Mutilate hits pretty hard, and muti doesn't gain energy back much. Mutilate has more base energy, so you are scarier with a full bar.
Envenom ignores armor, making it generally quite stronger in pvp than eviscerate. There are exceptions to this.
Both specs want to rupture, but having rupture run off during a kill cycle hurts sub worse than muti.
Backstab is positional, and you often have to hemo.
Shadow Dance lets you just cheapshot people in the face, or Garrote them.
Find Weakness can happen from any opener, which you can gain from a restealth, which is sometimes possible.
It's easier to keep recup us as sub (and for that matter feint), as you have more energy to play with. The devs removed overt, flavorful, and different defensive mechanisms, such as Nerves of Steel, which just means that they honestly never even tried to play mutilate in pvp at all anyway.

I do agree that the spec needs help in pvp, and that it lacks burst quite a bit. I think cold blood provided an inkling of the necessary burst to make the spec scary, but honestly, we need something more- I bring up in an earlier post the possibility of a dpc-superior finisher with a cooldown. Such a finisher could provide burst mostly on demand.

[Garian]

Mutilate was viable at the very start of Cataclysm when Smokebomb had a 10 second cooldown and Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows didn't share the same cooldown.

My friends played rogue priest + X to 2.2k when priests were terrible at the start of Cata, but then the priest was a 2.7k experienced player.

If they had simply given us Preparation as Assassination the two vanishes would have made it much more viable but still a niche spec. Instead Blizz left the spec to rot for a year.

Assassination needs more on demand burst. Rogues should be, IMO, a fragile but bursty spec like in Wrath. I cannot believe how much I miss that expansion.