5.2 tuning pass

[Deleted]

@Mutix: I use Mutilate out of Vanish on the opener, Mutilate out of Vanish during the fight when I don't have a Blindside proc, and Ambush out of Vanish in case Blindside procs off of a Mutilate right before/after I hit Vanish.

Ah that's actually a really good tip. I've been using Mutilate during Vanish if I had a dispatch proc up, shall be using Ambush from now on. Cheers.

[Astinos]

Mutilate does 200% weapon damage with both weapons + 535 additional damage with both weapons
Dispatch does 400% main hand weapon damage + 2333 damage
Dispatch pulls ahead quickly, i've ended fights with dispatch doing more damage them mutilate MH + OH with very close uses

[shadowboy]

At 25% crit chance, mutilate generates 2.4 combo points for 55 energy, or 22.56 energy per combo point, Dispatch generates 1.25 combo points per 30 energy, or 24 energy per combo point. Envenom buff uptime goes down with dispatch spam. Mutilate also gives 2 chances at DP procs per 55 energy, dispatch only 1 per 30 energy, so you get more DP procs per energy spent with mutilate, too. And then there's blindside.

[Sesshou]

Am I the only one that wants a rupture buff in the tuning pass? I realize that helps sub far more, but I don't think that will end up mattering.

[shadowboy]

I wouldn't mind seeing a rupture buff. The button is not satisfying to press.

[Verain]

Well, I see mutilate as around 30k in pvp gear (recall my example was about pvp), with about 8000 for poisons, so a bit shy of 40000. Dispatch I see a bit over 40000 with around 4000 for wound poison (50% proc chance), so around like 48000. This is pre resilience and pvp power. In my example you have plenty of energy, so I feel mutilate would be correct. You are more likely to make a reasonable envenom fast, and of course you might get a free dispatch for after that envenom. The dispatch choice does not feel super powerful or bursty.

That being said- I stated mutilate was more damage, and it just isn't. However, the situation I described is a situation where you would almost assuredly be better served with mutilate- unlike a more traditional execute, which gets whipped out the moment it can be pressed with guaranteed solid results.

---------- Post added 2013-02-20 at 10:45 PM ----------

Rupture is, I think, working ok for sub. It is pretty powerful. Of course, you have to use it. Mutilate's venomous wounds makes it pretty decent, and it's already a gain for combat to press it versus not. I wouldn't mind a rupture buff, but with all the posts on the official forums whining about "passive damage", I think we have an uphill battle getting that to happen.

[Deleted]

What was surprising me the most: they finally took active damage sources for a buff, instead of passive ones.
*insert "not bad!" meme here *

[Coldkil]

What was surprising me the most: they finally took active damage sources for a buff, instead of passive ones.
*insert "not bad!" meme here *

I think they're preparing the ground for the removal of SnD - i expect it becoming combat-only.

[Deleted]

I think they're preparing the ground for the removal of SnD - i expect it becoming combat-only.

I really would not mind, SnD is poisoning the rogue activeness for far too long now.

[Verain]

I think they're preparing the ground for the removal of SnD - i expect it becoming combat-only.

I don't think this is related to that but...

Slice and Dice works for combat and sub in pve. For mutilate, the only thing it does is provide a pleasingly enhanced attack speed. While this is nice, a hell of a lot of rogues complain about it, and even though I'm not a big fan of that point of view, I do think that a pure melee class should offer quite a bit of diversity in the three specs- and currently we do not.

More importantly- slice and dice is on auto-refresh for assassination, and has a very long duration. This means that it could, honestly, be omitted without damaging the rotation, and whatever it would be replaced with would likely be pretty thrilling. The assassination rotation features rupture timing and envenom maximizing, and as such it is, broadly speaking, the simplest rogue rotation.

I would like to see a poison bottle finisher, or any kind of finisher that is on a cooldown but is powerful.

Anyway, I think they buffed yellow damage because that's the more interesting damage- and because mutilate is in no danger of becoming some uberspec in pvp with such a change (though it will probably become much more defensible with such a change).

[Kael]

I think they're preparing the ground for the removal of SnD - i expect it becoming combat-only.

We can only hope. Or do complex gameplay analysis like Verain... and keep hoping. I am excited by the white -> yellow "trend" though.

[Eazy]

We can only hope. Or do complex gameplay analysis like Verain... and keep hoping. I am excited by the white -> yellow "trend" though.

I don't like our main Damage Ability is based on auto-attacks(or poisons). I hope they'll buff Mutilate/Dispatch/Envenom for Assassination, Backstab/Hemorrhage/Ambush for Subtlety, Sinister Strike for Combat, and Rupture/Eviscerate for everyone and reduce Attack Speed from SnD by ~20%.

[Kael]

I don't like our main Damage Ability is based on auto-attacks(or poisons). I hope they'll buff Mutilate/Dispatch/Envenom for Assassination, Backstab/Hemorrhage/Ambush for Subtlety, Sinister Strike for Combat, and Rupture/Eviscerate for everyone and reduce Attack Speed from SnD by ~20%.

I'm pinning my hopes on 6.0, honestly, since it's unlikely we're going to get our DPS re-organized in the coming patches, or anytime before next expansion.

My "hope for the coming tiers" is that when buffs/nerfs go out the buffs will affect active damage (dispatch and envenom, yay!) rather than passive damage (Sang Veins is kindof neutral =/) and any nerfs will affect passive gains - like dropping SnD 4% to lower our PvE DPS if we're doing too much, rather than nerfing dispatch/envenom/SS/RvS/backstab/eviscerate.

[Sesshou]

So they buffed only envenom base damage... the majority of it which comes from AP wasn't buffed at all. Combats getting vitality increased by another 5% so its going to be 8% more ap than on live.

[Coldkil]

I don't think this is related to that but...

Slice and Dice works for combat and sub in pve. For mutilate, the only thing it does is provide a pleasingly enhanced attack speed. While this is nice, a hell of a lot of rogues complain about it, and even though I'm not a big fan of that point of view, I do think that a pure melee class should offer quite a bit of diversity in the three specs- and currently we do not.

More importantly- slice and dice is on auto-refresh for assassination, and has a very long duration. This means that it could, honestly, be omitted without damaging the rotation, and whatever it would be replaced with would likely be pretty thrilling. The assassination rotation features rupture timing and envenom maximizing, and as such it is, broadly speaking, the simplest rogue rotation.

I would like to see a poison bottle finisher, or any kind of finisher that is on a cooldown but is powerful.

Anyway, I think they buffed yellow damage because that's the more interesting damage- and because mutilate is in no danger of becoming some uberspec in pvp with such a change (though it will probably become much more defensible with such a change).

SnD works for sure for combat - i see it good because as combat we use slow weapons, so SnD makes the flow of attacks faster, comparable to using daggers. Not talking about actual numbers/speed, more about playstyle/feeling.

As for sub, apart the obvious dps increase, snd is important for energetic recovery; anyway, since SnD has 100% uptime (more or less) i can see the energy regen tied to another finisher (or it can be a standalone finisher) or be passive (active only during combat maybe). Another idea: rupture with the dot tied with energetic recovery; Eviscerate or better "agoodfinishername" that deals istant damage and leaves a 24 sec debuff (or shorter since we would spam it) that applies the 20% dmg increase.

When i said "preparing the ground" i was meaning that they are trying to shift our damage to more active sources; a thing that needs to be done carefully.

[Deleted]

I find this confusing. They buffed Vitality to get combat on par with assassination in terms of single target damage. Now it seems it's back to square one. Unless they've in some other way nerfed assassination that I'm not aware of, this seems very random.

[jtstormrage]

They have just buffed Vitality again.

•Vitality increases your Attack Power by 35%, up from 30%.

This should make Combat a serious competitor single target. This is an 8% buff compared to live.

Assassination with the Dispatch and Envenom changes is buffed by 3.5%.

This should line them up, assuming equally good gear and skill.

[Ryme]

Feels wierd they would keep buffing assassination and combat but leave subtlety on it's 3.45% increase - genuinely intrigued to see what their internal sims show us at in T15.

[Sesshou]

They have just buffed Vitality again.

•Vitality increases your Attack Power by 35%, up from 30%.

This should make Combat a serious competitor single target. This is an 8% buff compared to live.

Assassination with the Dispatch and Envenom changes is buffed by 3.5%.

This should line them up, assuming equally good gear and skill.

I thought that 3.5% estimate was with a 20% buff to ALL envenom damage. Unless I'm missing something, according to the data mine all that got buffed was the flat damage part which doesn't even account for half the total damage. Both live and new one are showing 56% ap to damage at 5cp.

[jtstormrage]

I think that is right. It is only the initial Envenom hit.

But on average a current BIS Rogue is doing 9-10% of its damage with Envenom. A 20% buff is therefore a ~2% overall damage increase.

Dispatch is ~10% of overall damage and so a 15% increase is ~1.5% overall.

So this should be ~3.5% overall.

Hopefully my napkin maths is correct