If I remember correctly the theme of this tier originally was "break the rules"
Rogues get a ranged combo point builder
Combo points on rogue (redirect with no cooldown)
Can stack more combo points than 5
It sounds really interesting on paper but a whole expansion of data should be enough to see that they really aren't cool choices...
In a way I understand the difficulty. Make them too similar and you have a boring tier, make them too different and one will usually be the better one. But they need to keep trying because some tiers for some classes are doing similar things in different ways, and that is how it should be - not a step back from this philosophy by having only 1 or 2 tiers actually feeling like a meaningful choice.
They took a unique gamble by setting up this "break the rules" theme, but it didn't pay off. Rogues need their whole tree redone, ASAP.
It's actually a better version of Killing Machine.
KM is a pain when you're playing 2H Frost (hard to predict unless you use a swing timer add-on), and completely ineffectual when you're playing 1H Frost (as in "It procs and doesn't change anything in what I'm doing")
Cold Blood, on the other hand, was a controllable CD that could be used with any ability and (outside of your big CD) at any time. In addition, it's completely usable for every spec, even if Blizzard tied it's use to outside of each spec's major CD (Vendetta, AR, Shadow Dance). I'd love getting Cold Blood back.
Back to Anticipation, if it became passive, it'd require Blizzard to change all of the 90 talents: Shuriken Toss doesn't fit that tier (never has), Marked For Death would be REALLY OP for Combat if Combat could also get Anticipation.
Actually, KM doesn't require a swing timer addon for 2H frost. Just pool blood charges and as soon as you get a KM proc, use blood tap once (or twice if need be) to get the runes needed for an immediate obliterate (but do not let your runic power go past 76).
Cold blood is better than KM in terms of flexibility, but certainly not in terms of effectiveness. CB was pretty terrible for a 2 (or 3?) min cd.
Cold blood in its current incarnation was an uninspiring and boring talent that got worse in effectiveness as your crit level got higher.
What Cold Blood could be /should be if they reinstate it:
Your next attack will be a guaranteed critical hit that hits for (200% + current crit level * modifier) of your base damage and increases the crit change of your next 5 attacks with X %.
But even then I fear it will still be a boring thing in PvE since everyone will still bind it to the ability that does the highest damage and just macro it in, just like they have done it while cold blood was current.
Do you understand that you r going to receive nerf to own this baseline ability?
And that's fine if it's to balance. But given the fact that ANY rogue in the world that does PvE takes Anticipation as lvl90 talent, i assume our damage is balanced about actually having it (or a similar damage buff active).
The fact is we're not asking for a buff. We're asking that a mechanic which is passive AND a mandatory talent becomes just passive. All our talent tiers are either "pick this because it's the only one worth" or "take whatever one since they're all equally useless" (from a PvE point of view).
I don't understand people afraid of nerfs, really.
Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.
I think having anticipation AND the other existing lvl 90 talents would be too much IMO, if you get rid of anticipation to make it baseline, you'd have to rework the entire talent teir. PvP already often prefers MfD, if you had anticipation AND MfD Rogue burst would be insane - build up 10CPs then you've got MfD ready, and boom 15CPs worth of finishers in 3 globals...
One thing I noticed compared to other classes talent trees is that there are no DPS talents apart from the shitty 90 choices we have.
Comparing to other classes:
Death Knight: 2
Druid: 2
Hunter: 3
Mage: 2
Monk: 3
Paladin: 2
Priest: 3
Shaman: 2
Warlock: 2(and overall Warlocks can adapt to a LOT of situations by switching talents)
Warrior: 2
Rogue: 1, where everyone picks Anticipation.
Having played all 11 classes, I really have to say Rogue talents are the most uninteresting bullshit I have seen. T30/T75 are just very bad tiers and should be redone, everything there is only useful to PvP, literally no use in PvE at all, zero(Combat Readiness has its uses on some fights possibly).
The only other tiers of talents that compare to Rogue-like failure is T45 for Mages. Only logical pick is Ring of Frost in nearly all situations.
It's not much about them being damage talents or not - actually, if they were all damage talents, someone would do the math ofr everyone and every rogue would pick the "0.001% better" one.
The problem here is that our talents may not give dps, but at the same time they don't give any significant utility in any PvE environment. I won't talk about PvP cause i'm no expert, but unfortunately our class has a lot of mechanics (biggest examples are stealth and stuns) which play a very great role in PvP, but near to zero in PvE.
I'm not saying that balancing our class is an easy task, especially with the very tight model we're built on, but talents like a ranged CP builder/finisher, more damage/less damage during/after stuns and all these kind of things are maybe useful for solo play/questing and play a good role in PvP. End.
Our talents just reflect this - some meaningful choices for PvP, zero for PvE.
Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.
Why its already the weakest version of extra resources and everyone else that has it gets it baseline. Anticipation is a 15 sec buff and doesn't even work on all finishers. Everyone else's its part of their base resources and lasts the same amount of time as the rest of their resources.
I don't see it baseline needing a nerf unless it became real extra resources like other classes then I could see them making it store less than 5 extra.
But nerfed or not it needs to be baseline like everyone else's.
Last edited by Wow; 2013-12-19 at 10:39 PM.
I would like this to be passive.
However, my main issue with talents is how few options there are at tiers 1, 2, and 5. They are only options for PVP really. Subterfuge is theoretically best for Sub PVE (but I don't take it). The rest are completely unexciting in PVE and, for the most part, useless.
I agree it should be passive, all speccs need it in a way.
My replacement for anticipation
Combo Mastery:
Activate Combo Mastery (10sec, 4min CD) Grants the rogue 5 extra combo crystals and grants you 10 combo points. For each finisher used remove 1 combo crystal down to a minimum of 5. All finishers scale with combo mastery.
(If its too OP remove the granting of combo points).
(Anticipation remains maximum 5 extra points, so you could possibly get 15).
But this would be insanely OP with Shadow Blades which is why I gave it a high CD that doesn't align well with it.
Im guessing for Assassination you would pick MoD either way, because you don't really need a 10 cb finisher - compared to getting a free 5cb once a min.
(Combo crystal = possible maximum combo points).
In b4 similar thing is added in WoD.
Last edited by Rupenbritz; 2013-12-20 at 10:51 AM.
Shadowlands - Server first 60 Rogue on Tarren-Mill EU
Classic - Server first 60 Rogue on Gandling EU
Server first Ragnaros, World 6th
I wouldn't be surprised if they baselined, say, 3 of the charges and made the talent extend the buffer to 5. It wouldn't surprise me either if they introduced a spell (or reworked redirect) to throw current points into the buffer.
I've thought about that a few times but my worry is extending the buffer to 5 really can't compete with MfD. MfD is already pretty comparable to anticipation in most gear sets and better in some especially low gear sets, reducing the power of the anticipation talent would just switch the dominant talent choice to MfD and make the anticipation extender a dead talent.
Maybe that is better, most of the classes with overflow pools don't have a full bar worth of overflow, perhaps rogues shouldn't get one either. Just give all rogues 3cp anticipation and then replace anticipation with a new talent.
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Last edited by Rupenbritz; 2013-12-20 at 02:59 PM.
Shadowlands - Server first 60 Rogue on Tarren-Mill EU
Classic - Server first 60 Rogue on Gandling EU
Server first Ragnaros, World 6th