Ideas to improve rogue gameplay

[Noorac]

Disclaimer; I have not tuned any numbers, and I am completely open to the fact that some of the changes I propose might be overpowered, and thus I welcome all critisicm. I just want to take the temperature of the rogue community and tell you my opinions, as well as listen to yours. This post will suggest changes to the rogue class to give it a fresh feeling, as well as bring it into the style of gameplay we have in WoW today.

Energy and combopoints;

Energy:
I like energy classes, in all games I play I prefer it. However I think the way energy works for a rogue in WoW is outdated and a bit boring. The energycost is so high, that energy no longer is energy, but just a bar that fills up and is depleted again if you push 2 buttons. I mean do two sinister strikes and you are out of energy? How out of shape are you? I think the way energy work could use a revamp, and I think I have a fresh solution for it; The way energy is regenerated could be non-linear, meaning if you have spent 20% of your energy, it might regen at 10 energy per second. If you have spent 50% of your energy, it might regen at 5 energy per second, and if you have spent 100% it will regen at 1 energy per second. Obviously the cost of abilities have to be tuned down so that say 1 sinister strike will take you to ~85%. Then you will have to wait a bit to get it back up, to push the button again. This will allow the rogues to maintain a steady stream of energy for continuous fights, and open up for burst in PvP and in certain PvE situations where there is downtime and you have time to regen from say 10% energy. Numbers suggested here is obviously a bit arbitrary, however such a system would reward skills, and also add another level of skill in the fact you need to make a decision when to deplete your energy and when to idle at the highest continuous damage. The way energy is now, you don’t really care about energy as long as it is not at 100% or you have to pool it.

Combopoints:
The idea is that you hit something and hit it again until you have gotten so many continuous hits that you can do something special. The idea is good, but not the combopoint system. It is always better to use 5 combopoints, and it is cringy to spend anything less. In order to bring rogues out of a general rotation, combopoints can be added randomly in all three specs, from crits etc. This makes being at say 4 combopoints feel scary and you could potentially lose a lot of damage if you are at 4 and gain 2 more(if this happens multiple times during a fight you can potentially lose a lot of damage). Anticipation fixes this problem, but at the cost of spending a high tier talent. Further, the idea of combopoints loses it’s reality when only a couple of abilities will net you points. For instance, if fighting an enemy player, you could backstab him twice, then gouge, then backstab again, that is a combo, you are doing it as a combo. They should all give combopoints. So let me suggest the new combopointsystem; we are going to call it comboenergy instead. Most abilities will give you comboenergy, some more than others. For instance a big attack like mutilate will cost a lot of energy, but gain lot of comboenergy, a small hit like shiv should cost little energy and give little energy. Kick should cost little energy and give little comboenergy. The new comboenergy-bar will go all the way up to say 200. A finishing move will cost an amount of comboenergy, and drain it from your pool. However, the maximum of comboenergy you will be able to spend is say 120. This way you aren’t punished if you gain comboenergy randomly as opposed to the situation described above. Comboenergy will also decrease at a non-linear rate. I don’t yet know if I would suggest it to deplete faster the longer it was since the last time you gained comboenergy, or if it depletes faster the more you have, or maybe both. This would make for interesting play especially in PvP, where getting CC’ed with a full bar would be bad, and you need to avoid it, for instance by using vanish offensively. I still haven’t decided if I want the bar to fill up as quick as combopoints do now, or slower(say ½ or 1/3 of the speed). Currently you might push a finisher for every 2-3 combopoint builders. This in turn makes the finishers feel less rewarding, and they might aswell just remove the combopoints and put a short CD on the finishers.

It might sound complex(or maybe it doesn’t) but I think it will feel intuitive after playing it a bit. Spend your energy carefully and not all at once, unless you need to(think of it like a quarter mile dash. If you run as fast as you can from the start, you will be out of breath very shortly, and maybe walk the rest and perhaps slowly jog the last bit and finish at 2 minutes. If you just run at 75% or 80% speed the entire way, you might finish at 1min 30sec), then finish it off with a strong move, but do it fast, you can’t wait 30 seconds or a minute, or go grab some food then finish off your combo.

Talents(It feels like maybe everything needs to be changed, however I have suggested mostly minor tweaks in order to make the talents competitive with each other);

Tier1; This tier is pretty okay in my mind. The nightstalker talent is one I like a lot but never use because it is underpowered compared to the two other ones(subterfuge is too good in PvP and shadow focus is just better for PvE according to theorycrafting). Shadow focus is a fire and forget talent, a reason to make people open in stealth. It could be buffed a bit so that opening on a boss in PvE is not the only place where the talent is viable. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to let the talent work similar to subterfuge in the way that it will reduce the energy-cost for a couple of seconds after you exit stealth aswell. As it is rarely used outside of opening on a boss, this would potentially make it more valuable for soloplay and potentially some people will use it more in PvP.
Tier2; Combat readiness is taken in almost any situation. Some people use nervestrike for magic-based teams, but this talent doesn’t have much use in PvE. I think this talent should be swapped out for a talent that adds a couple of seconds on your Cloak of shadows, or potentially reduces it’s cooldown or make it so it has 2 charges. Then this talent would be useful for both PvP and PvE. Deadly throw has nothing to do with the other talents. The other ones are about survivability. The 3 requirements of this talent(combo points for damage, energy and certain combopoints for interrupt) makes it too complicated to enjoy. Maybe with the automatic redirect in WoD, this could be used to quickly silence a healer in PvP. I think this talent should have the power of a ranged version of eviscerate similar to shuriken toss in order to be useful(the silence part is removed). Not many people use shuriken toss, but coupled with this, it could make for some interesting kiteing in PvP, and potentially make up for lots of movement or target swaps in PvE. Alternatively the changes I suggested could be baked into shurikentoss in order to get it on par with the two other talents and actually make it a viable choise instead of anticipation/marked for death, and deadly throw could buff kick in some way.
Tier3; I like this tier, I almost always run with elusiveness, but I see other people running with either of the two other talents, wich makes it a tier where people actually have to make a choise, wich is good. Every talent works in both PvE and to some extent in PvP. A few minor tweaks and bugfixes is neccecary though.
Tier4; Yeah, the famous tier. The talent that is useless, the talent that everyone wants to use, and the talent that everyone uses just because it is so good. Jesus Blizzard, just make shadowstep baseline. Put sprint on a 30second(arbitrary, however at least lower it from it’s one minute) cooldown, and make rogues immune to slows for the duration. Further more, make tier 5 about shadowstep. First talent; shadowstep breaks roots. Second talent; everytime you enter stealth the CD is reset. Third talent; shadowstep has two charges.
Tier4; None of the talents here has a use in PvE, wich is sad. Considering they work around stuns I think dirty tricks also should work around stuns. Many people think dirty tricks should be baseline, or that the glyph should be baseline. I don’t, but having both a glyph and a talent do the same thing seems redundant. We have more “breaks on damage” CC than most, and I think all of them(including sap) should be baked into a glyph that removes the DoTs on the target.
Tier6; shuriken toss, give it the ability to also eviscerate at a distance. Without this ability the talent just seems a complete gimmick. Yeah it’s cool and fun for 5 minutes in a battleground, but has no real use in either a raidsetting or arena. Anticipation; increases your comboenergy-bar by 1/3(allows for 2 maxed evicerates if close to full or full). Marked for death, immediately fill 75%ish of your comboenergy-bar.
Tier7; venom zest; please don’t make us have to poison 3 targets to gain full effect. It’s just that it feels like you are losing out on damage if you haven’t poisoned 3 targets, and you are going to have dumb rogues running around trying to poison 3 targets, not realizing the first target has already lost its poison when they finally poison the third. Shadow reflection; having the reflection out for 8 seconds before it starts doing anything looks idiotic, it just stands there. At the very least make it a buff to the rogue, or preferably make an inversed version of the DK death strike, if used it remembers the last 8 seconds you did of damage and copies it. Death from above; with a 1,5s activation time everyone is going to start CC’ing the rogue in the middle of the ability, I guarantee it. Also, please drop the initial aoe damage, (unless you made it so it can’t break CC) it will just break CC in PvP. If blade flurry is active, let it do the initial aoe.

Making the specs feel different;
In theory, we have 3 different specs that revolve around three very different things. Combat is about energy, and having strong confidence in your skills with weapons and fighting. Assassination has everything to do with poisons. And subtlety has everything to do with stealth, surprises and deceiving your opponent. As it is now, none of our specs feel like they have any specialty in the field that they should have. The only exception would be find weakness for subtlety and possibly envenom for assassination. I am not very creative, but let’s try to suggest some changes.

Combat;
Killing spree is gone(yeah I know, sorry, but it doesn’t feel like it belongs to combat. Jumping through shadows seems more of a subtlety ability). The mastery subtlety currently has is removed, and given to combat. It feels natural that combat has it’s slice and dice improved by mastery, and flurring around with swords falls withing the swashbuckler-idea. Furthermore, slice and dice should for combat improve dodge or parry-chances. This spec should be gimped more in stealth, possibly with something as simple as movementspeed. Adrenaline rush is a nice ability that falls right into the combat-role. With the removal of killing spree this spec need another cooldown. Also, cooldowns shouldn’t have their time reduced by comboenergy spent, but on energy spent(this of course, requires finishers to be strong enough for people to want to use them instead of standing with a full comboenergy-bar spamming sinister strike).

Assassination;
This spec needs to have something more to do with poisons. I don’t see why assassination can’t move while changing poisons. It should have it’s own poison, and possibly rotate poisons during dps. Crimson tempest is removed for assassination, and in stead they gain an ability to thrown a poison vial on the ground, breaking it, and leaving a pool of poison on the ground. The pool will do slow damage of time similar to death and decay, however it will also increase poison application rate, or have some other sort of secondary effect. Here is the kicker, as an enemy stands in the poison, he/she will absorb it. Reducing the radius of the poison-pool similar to the blobs right before garrosh in SoO. The pool evaporates by itself in a certain amount of time, but dissipates faster if an enemy stands in it. Let’s say a 20s CD, the pool lasts for 20s with 20 charges. Every 0.5s an enemy stands in the pool, he will absorb a small bit of the radius of the pool, and a stack. The poison he absorbs works as a DoT and a debuff that lasts for 8s, so if a boss stands in it for the full duration, the pool will last for 10 seconds, and the Dot will ramp up to max at 10 seconds and be gone after 18seconds. Reapply 2 seconds later so it can’t stack indefinitely.

Subtlety;
This spec feels so clunky in regards to the restealth in PvP, and similarly how preparation and vanish is used to gain find weakness in PvE. Something should be done so that a good rogue is rewarded for good play, and bad rogues don’t. My first suggestion would be a gimped vanish that lasts for .5 or 1 seconds, doesn’t take you in to stealth and doesn’t take you out of combat, however you gain find weakness. The ability is on a 15-20 second cooldown, 3 charges with 20seconds CD each. This could potentially replace vanish. Use it to have a steady upkeep of find weakness, or use it in quick succeccion in order to confuse your opponent. Simultaneously it will feel like subtlety has more to do with stealth and deception.

My intentions are not to make rogues OP. I just think this would breathe some fresh air into the class, and make each spec feel more unique. Feel free to critique, agree, add, subtract to any ideas, or simply call me a gigantic idiot because you don’t like any of the ideas at all. Furthermore, some flavour is neccecary, and some new animations. However I am not the most creative person(maybe you can tell from this post), so I won't suggest any of that. Also, to make the specs feel different, I would suggest many of the finishing moves be changed depending on the spec, similar to how evicerate is changed to evenom. Maybe rupture could be a DoT ticking over 6 seconds when used with max combo-energy instead of 24s, and hemo could instead be giving sanguary veins by default.

[Feali]

"Jesus Blizzard, just make shadowstep baseline."

Searched specifically for this. Found it. Reading the rest later

[Mossrono]

Just give me 1h Sword pvp viability, regardless of spec, and i'll be a happy Rogue. Oh yeah, and make SHS baseline

[Noorac]

Just give me 1h Sword pvp viability, regardless of spec, and i'll be a happy Rogue. Oh yeah, and make SHS baseline

That was the idea with making slice and dice improve with mastery, and also improve dodge/parry chance. What I wrote is by no means the only changes I would like, but more what I could come up with. I would like it to change a bit more, I just don't know how yet. Anyways, my vision of combat is someone with more default survivability, or someone who can stay in a fight longer, and having continous sustained pressure through good knowledge of combat rather than using CC, control and deception.

[Deleted]

"Jesus Blizzard, just make shadowstep baseline."

Searched specifically for this. Found it. Reading the rest later

With druids having Dash + Blink, I don't see why not.

[Packing an i5]

I think the solution to the energy problem is to just to stop tying any extra regen to haste, boost energy regen by default to whatever its suppose to be with the last tier of raiding gear.

as for talents i cant say anything without posting an 1000 word essay possibly more on how almost all of the talents and tiers need to be replaced.

Combo points are being fixed in wod all they need to do now is allow gouge to once again grant one.

[Vigilate]

I think the solution to the energy problem is to just to stop tying any extra regen to haste, boost energy regen by default to whatever its suppose to be with the last tier of raiding gear.

as for talents i cant say anything without posting an 1000 word essay possibly more on how almost all of the talents and tiers need to be replaced.

Combo points are being fixed in wod all they need to do now is allow gouge to once again grant one.

So you would not have resource generation increase as we get more gear like it does for other classes? Your idea would effectively make haste go from being a very strong stat for all Rogue specs to practically on par with white hit. What you described is how haste worked in TBC, and no one wanted the stat as a result.

[jSewell]

Scrap Slice &Dice. Building up combo points to spend on an attack speed buff is not fun. It's even more boring than Paladin's Inquisition and that got scrapped. "Iconic" ability, get out of here, there's nothing iconic about it, it just makes you attack faster and has always been a boring facet of the rogue's repertoire. Blizz and many people have said/hinted at moving more damage away from white/passive damage, so GET RID OF S&D! Bake that damage into builders and finishers, making those abilities feel more significant and "finisher" like.

Maintining buffs isn't that fun, especially when it is just a boring attack speed buff. They scraped Flurry because flat AS buffs are boring...but S&D remains...

[Packing an i5]

So you would not have resource generation increase as we get more gear like it does for other classes? Your idea would effectively make haste go from being a very strong stat for all Rogue specs to practically on par with white hit. What you described is how haste worked in TBC, and no one wanted the stat as a result.

well i exclusively pvp and haste never becomes a good stat with pvp gear theres not enough haste on it. Reforging haste is a waste of time you cant reach anywhere near what raiders get to.

For the last 2 expansions my favorite stat other than agility has been mastery followed by crit and then nothing.

[Vigilate]

well i exclusively pvp and haste never becomes a good stat with pvp gear theres not enough haste on it. Reforging haste is a waste of time you cant reach anywhere near what raiders get to.

For the last 2 expansions my favorite stat other than agility has been mastery followed by crit and then nothing.

That's more a situation of Haste not being good in pvp then. That's how it is for many classes. Blizzard likes it when players are able to feel like they can do more "stuff" as they get more stats like Haste in PvE.