Is Sub now the most difficult spec to play in PVE?

[smana7]

Any other specs that are more difficult to play than Sub after the patch?

- Need keep SnD up
- Need to keep Rupture up
- Need to keep Hemo up
- Positional requirements with Backstab
- Need to maximise Find Weakness with energy management and cooldown timing
- Is melee

I know most of it isn't that hard but it is a lot of things to keep track of. I think Backstab still having positional requirement is the most annoying.

Ferals lost snapshotting (most of it anyway) and positional requirements and most other specs are quite straightfoward?

[Feali]

"But the rewarding gameplay"

Yes, Sub is arguably the hardest specc in PvE. But that's also part of the fun and challenge! Except for Backstab. That's just stupid to keep it in the game with positional requirements.

[Stormykitten]

In an environment where bosses -instantly- turn to cast random attacks at raid members, as well as latency and player models in pvp, backstab positioning has no place

[Artorius]

Bosses don't turn the real body anymore, they only turn the graphical body when casting skills.
Well, unless the tank is dancing with them...

[Keyboard Champion]

Tried leveling a rogue. Gave up at level 55 due to it being annoying to play and so so fucking gimmicky. Fuck that, I'd rather have fun playing something that is straightforward and doesn't require keeping up a million buffs and debuffs.

[Freitag]

In an environment where bosses -instantly- turn to cast random attacks at raid members, as well as latency and player models in pvp, backstab positioning has no place

I get your point but disagree. Taking away the positional requirement is just another step to absolute generalization of classes. What's the difference between a rogue and a monk/warrior/dk/pala if they all just stand in front of the enemy and blindly smash his face?

Rogue is already the least played class because it has so little to offer (no tank or healing offspec). Take away the character of the class and there won't be any reason left to play it.

[Packing an i5]

I think its also the hardest spec in PVP just look at how low the rogue representation was for most of Mists on the arena ladders. Someone can learn a warrior or something and do better with that in half the time it takes to master sub Thats why the class is so unpopular. For some its rewarding for others it is just a punishing playstyle.

Playing a rogue lately reminds of my Counter strike days.

[Soisoisoi]

Bosses don't turn the real body anymore, they only turn the graphical body when casting skills.
Well, unless the tank is dancing with them...

Siegecrafter does. Takes the piss when he launches a sawblade just as you hit your Rising Sun Kick and it's just Parry/Blocked. -_-

[Eace]

Here I was thinking that Find Weakness got removed 'cause it's nowhere in my spellbook anymore. Then I noticed that it's in the openers' tooltips. This must be result of the ability pruning and the "more uncluttered and clear" spellbooks that were advertised.

OT: It has probably surpassed Feral in terms of difficulty since 6.0.2, although the only "hard" factor is Find Weakness.

[Ujio]

Best spec left in the rogue class after the gutting of abilities. If you cant play it, it's because you don't have a good UI or cant press more than 2 buttons.

[Deleted]

As per Warlords, Subtlety is the highest skill cap playstyle in the game hands down. But sub has real weaknesses, worst spec ingame for target switching and non-existant/zero cleave. If by the time Warlords launches, and Sub isn't one of the highest single target specs in the game, then GGWP reroll FOTM fury warr or arcane mage. LOL, but srsly, I love Sub sooo much right now, I just hope they tune it correctly and I will fall in love with it for sure. Plz no more Assassination watching poison paint dry.

[Soisoisoi]

Here I was thinking that Find Weakness got removed 'cause it's nowhere in my spellbook anymore.

I thought that too. Was excited in a "yay no more OP in openers shit otherwise" for PvP... Then meh. I saw it.

[ThePlanckEnergy]

Actually, according to sims at least, Sub 2 target cleave is stronger than Assassination and Combat, 3 target cleave is roughly equivalent to Combat, and 5+ target AOE is only 10-15% behind Combat. Beyond 5 it should easily start pulling ahead again. On top of the fact it is ~15% higher than the next best Rogue spec single target.

As to the question, maybe. While snapshotting is gone, feral still has a lot of annoying things to deal with (extraordinarily low energy regen, for one), especially if you take Blood Talons at 100.

While Sub has a lot of things to maintain you are absolutely drowning in Combo points. And Hemo isn't really something you "maintain" given it has no combo point requirement. The positional requirement is annoying, especially given changes in other classes, but only comes in to play with bad tanks.

Also, getting the most out of Demonology, especially AOE, is still a very high skill cap. Certainly the highest of all the casters.

[madmanx]

Much of that shit you can "maintain" with a simple spell flash ...not really all that complicated.

Must agree on backstab though, looks a lot like they realize how stupid their position has been on this and did a face saving "from the sides" decision....from front should come soon.

[Willoughby]

There's more to it than Combat and Assassination for sure (but that's old news), but I don't know about hardest PVE spec in the game.

Its main difficulty is being entirely based around buff/debuff uptimes and getting the most mileage out of your energy during FW windows. But with Pandemic being a global feature, you have a lot of leeway in making sure you won't have to refresh anything in the middle of an upcoming FW window.

[Raic]

From my experience, it was only difficult to learn. Once I had everything down and followed the set of priorities, it was just a matter of managing buffs/debuffs. I wouldn't say that addons are "required" for the spec, but having a UI specifically set up for Sub really helps out.

I swapped to it a few times during SoO (yay 35+ weeks of farming ) and it was certainly more engaging than the other specs. The two main problems I had with the spec in 5.4 was 1) It sim'ed neck and neck with Combat for most of SoO, single target, so the "reward" of playing it well wasn't really there and 2) It's cleave/AoE was pretty awful, which made it inferior to Combat on several fights.

I'm really excited to see Sub's multi-target potential come WoD. I loved the FoK change when it was announced and I can't wait to try it in a live environment once WoD is released. I'm going to make an effort to raid as Sub in this coming expansion, unless I end up hurting my guild's progress lol.

[Deleted]

Bosses don't turn the real body anymore, they only turn the graphical body when casting skills.

Apparently, someone forgot to tell that to Siegecrafter, aka. Sir Turnsalot

When he throws a sawblade, he turns. Really turns. Hes not the only one (looking at you, Wavebinder Kardris), but the most annoying ^^

[threads]

It's not that difficult anymore. You just have to deal with positional stuff that's annoying.

[Lynxx89]

Meh I don't think anything about a rogue is difficult. I still say feral will remain one of the hardest specs in the game to play optimally (aka bloodtalons/TF snapshotting ), not to mention managing Moonfire, rake, Rip, Thrash and FB weaving in 2-4 target fights with the amount of energy regeneration at early gear levels. Sub is definitely the most interesting and "deep" spec a rogue has at its disposal. I really like all of the rogue specs and what they offer.

Disclaimer: None of the specs are "difficult" anymore. Taking advantage of the little baked in spec mechanics is what separates average dps from great dps.

[Fiska]

Assassination and Combat remain such solid and fun specs that capture two different essences of the Rogue, that Blizzard can get away with having Subtlety as a hard spec to play for those that are out after the challenge. Personally I feel the spec doesn't quite hit the mark. In MoP the spec barely had any AoE potential, and going into WoD you still need to use Vanish for dps since it's a much larger gain than for the two other specs. Subtlety just ends up feeling restrictive and not worth it. Then there's the Backstab argument..