Top spec for 6.0?

[Haytur]

So I am going to say as of right now, and since i can't currently copy my char I can't say for 100% that i think Sub may end up being top spec in 6.0 instead of combat. Since the trinket for reducing cd's is going to be nerfed to i think its 2%? Effectively hurting combat pretty badly. Any thoughts on someone who has put a lot more number crunching in than i?

[Ryme]

Without tier sets, Simc has subtlety > combat > assassination at level 100. I haven't seen any work into what's going to happen at 90 though.

[shadowboy]

The current iteration of the simc combat profile is stacking haste (at both level 90 and 100) and using RvS exclusively in deep insight, so that particular profile is not optimal. I do not know if the sub profile has any inefficiencies. I've been focusing on combat so far. I leave it to others to optimize the other specs

I doubt changing the enchants and the combo builder during deep insight is going to overcome the advantage sub has at level 100 though. I don't know what the pecking order is at 90.

[Leih]

I suspect at 90, Sub will probably suffer from the lack of multistrike on gear/food/enchants compared to at level 100. The only way I'm aware of to get Multistrike at 90 will be the 6-7% we get from Haromm's.

So with that in mind I think most people will still be performing best with Combat for the few weeks until WoD launches, despite the AoC nerf. It's also possible the AoC change won't be final and they'll convert it into something that's not 100% useless between now and the patch going live, since I don't think the flat 2% was fully intended, and more just an accident they haven't bothered to fix yet.

Either way, I'm not sure it'll be super important. Mythic SoO will be pretty undertuned, and it'll be the usual period of everyone messing with specs and stuff and facerolling the content like it was in every X.0 patch. They've deliberately made SoO much easier in 6.0 to compensate for the class changes. So I wouldn't worry about it too much, just try stuff out and see what works!

[Deleted]

Shouldn't sub suffer almost equally as hard from the AoC nerf as combat due to much lower FW uptime? I haven't seen any math on the damage in 6.0 pre-patch but Assa should be largely unaffected.

[Sesshou]

Shouldn't sub suffer almost equally as hard from the AoC nerf as combat due to much lower FW uptime? I haven't seen any math on the damage in 6.0 pre-patch but Assa should be largely unaffected.

Should be larger for combat I think. The longer you spend with FW up doesn't help you get more FWs up. The longer you spend with AR/SB up, the more AR/SBs you will get because the resources from that go towards reducing the cooldown.

[Deleted]

Should be larger for combat I think. The longer you spend with FW up doesn't help you get more FWs up. The longer you spend with AR/SB up, the more AR/SBs you will get because the resources from that go towards reducing the cooldown.

I'm aware combat gets hit the hardest, I was more referring to people saying Sub will be the top spec in 6.0, although it does get weakened significantly as well. Shouldn't Assassination be the top spec, at least theoretically, because pretty much nothing changes?

[Leih]

Shouldn't Assassination be the top spec, at least theoretically, because pretty much nothing changes?

Well all the numbers are being squished, changed and retuned for all specs so relative damage of abilities won't necessarily be the same post patch as they are now. I haven't seen any simming for Rogue specs at 90, but Assassination is particularly weak at 100, so unless the numbers tuning scales completely different at 90 without perks, then I wouldn't bet on it being too strong.

Perks will definitely play a big part in which spec is strongest at 90, because the specs will be tuned around level 100 where they will have these things. Sub actually comes out best without perks, since all it's really losing for single target is Vanish CD, 2 seconds of shadow dance and 5% post-stealth damage. Assassination may take a hard hit since it will have no passive SnD and no 30% boost to dispatch/mutilate during envenom, which is pretty hefty. Combat loses out on having the extra 20% damage in Deep Insight, and will suffer a lot from the no white misses.

So just looking at that Sub does look stronger for those few weeks, at least on single target.

Can only speculate though. It's hard to say though without actually going on PTR and testing it or running a proper sim. Numbers could be all over the place at 90, they usually are in an X.0 patch, and I guess most people on beta (myself included) are busy focusing on level 100 where the tuning matters rather than the 4 weeks of up-down nerfed SoO we'll get in 6.0.

[Deleted]

Assassination may take a hard hit since it will have no passive SnD

SnD feels pretty passive to me on live for assa.

[Leih]

Sorry, you're right. For some reason I thought that they had removed the part of Envenom where it refreshes SnD because with the perk that aspect was no longer necessary, but just tested it on my 90 in beta and it does still work as it always had. So scratch that, SnD still refreshes.

Rest is still valid. It's more about the 30% nerf to Dispatch and Mutilate.

- - - Updated - - -

Eh, played with dummies in Shrine a little with my 90 character out of curiosity. Just for pure single target, in my gear (~585) Sub seems to come out slightly ahead, with Combat second and then Assassination 3rd. The difference wasn't very big by any means though, talking a difference of like 1-2k between my best Sub numbers and my lowest Assassination numbers. Obviously those numbers are affected by my latency (EU player on US beta) and slightly crappy UI, but it seemed fairly consistent over a few tests.

When you factor in the amount of cleave and AOE fights in SoO though, I still see Combat being the most obvious choice for 6.0 just because there's so many blade flurry opportunities.

But perhaps someone else can do some tests of their own and see how it compares. It's a little biased because latency and UI is going to affect some specs more than others.

[Packing an i5]

for pvp it will be sub despite damage nerfs it still has the most control of all 3 and now shadow dance with a perk is a 10 second duration plus there is a perk that lowers the cooldown on vanish by 30 seconds this increases survivability and control.

Sub Season 3,4,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,... Real exciting.

I imagine as usual mutilate will dominate dps charts in raids early on especially now that the rotation is easier and Sliceand dice is always active at 100 then later on as Sub gets more multistrike and agility from gear it will scale better and deal the most damage but it will still retain the most complex rotation.

[torr1186]

Sub Season 3,4,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,... Real exciting.

lol so true

[DakonBlackblade]

The real question is, does it even matter ? Mythic SoG will be undertuned by default, blizz wants it to be easy and were sitting on an infinite gearlevel now I dont think it matters wich spec will be better. If they realy kill Assurance of Consequences Im gona go Assas just cause AoC dont realy change much for that spec and I wont feel too gimped.

[Deleted]

The real question is, does it even matter ? Mythic SoG will be undertuned by default, blizz wants it to be easy and were sitting on an infinite gearlevel now I dont think it matters wich spec will be better. If they realy kill Assurance of Consequences Im gona go Assas just cause AoC dont realy change much for that spec and I wont feel too gimped.

Just being curious, any source on Blizz saying they will make 6.0 SoO undertuned?

[Leih]

In general, we're erring on the side of converted SoO feeling a bit easier than it does in 5.4. (That's part of why the Feats of Strength for clearing Siege will stop being available in 6.0, instead of when Draenor unlocks.)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13272037548

[Packing an i5]

lol so true

lol yep and everyone who pvps seems content with that i only found 5 other people that thought it was lame like I do.

just no depth into a character build anymore.. but theres a good argument against it.. if other specs were made pvp viable like fury they would be overtuned and it would be so much harder to balance for sure thats why blizzard tries to make sure theres just 1 spec balanced for pvp for every class. Hybrids are the only exception.

[Anium]

Sub Season 3,4,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,... Real exciting.

Haha this is bloody true, although assassination was competative for a short time in wrath. Got fairly high as assasination this season but sub is just better yup.

[Packing an i5]

Haha this is bloody true, although assassination was competative for a short time in wrath. Got fairly high as assasination this season but sub is just better yup.

yes assassination was only competitive in 2v2 and 3v3 in a few comps and only a few seasons those were season 5, 6 and 7.

In season 5/6 it was classic Mutilate using eviscerate and double wound poison or wound and mind numbing. Then in season 7 it was the cookie cutter envenom build 44/4/20 something it shredded through plate but it was horrible vs comps with a lot of dispels that could remove the poison and it had to be constantly reapplied and the spec struggled with no mobility whatsoever being nick named the waddle spec until Mists of pandaria. The Mutilate prep builds ceased to exist in 4.0 but even before that in 3.3.5 sub was taking its place.

ironicly combat and mut have never been better for pvp than they are now but Sub still does more damage and has shadow dance the other specs wont find a niche unless they start doing stupid crazy damage again that damage was lost with the loss of all our crit modifying talents.

[Sesshou]

ironicly combat and mut have never been better for pvp than they are now but Sub still does more damage and has shadow dance the other specs wont find a niche unless they start doing stupid crazy damage again that damage was lost with the loss of all our crit modifying talents.

Wait, what? You clearly missed season 1 and 2.

[Deleted]

While I think on beta the damage is more or less the same single target. If all specs scale similarly I definitely feel combat pulling ahead on organised cleave situations. I feel this tier is going to be similar to SoO where combat pulls ahead thanks to the cleave