Rogue RNG

[Deleted]

Hi,
so my question would be: how much rng is there in the rotation/dmg output of rogues(mainly sub and combat) outside of soul capacitor and just how much is that on its own?

i currently main a warrior dps and am kind of sick of the whole rng component of arms and fury and am looking for a fun toon to play. my usual toons (mage and lock) kind of are out of question because as far as i read mage rng is just as bad as warrior rng (if not worse) and lock just feels a bit boring to me.
and yeah i kinda feel like a melee at heart anyway soo...

[elfporn]

The only RNG rogues have is RPPM stuff, like soulcap, and the random nature of crit and multistrike, everything else about the class is consistent. skill factor comes in with cd use, as usual.

Assassination is fun to use every once in a while for the blazing executes, though sub is where it's at for ST.

Sub is fun for soulcap. But that's the most rng part about rogues in 6.2 - rankings are massively skewed because of the trinket, if you don't get 2-3 soulcap procs wrapped into ring use with SD/vanish, you can say goodbye to a good rank.

Though that's not to say you can't wipe the floor with everyone else, it really turns you into a smug bastard when you can burst out those 6mil soulcaps on the first 10-12 sec of each pull.

Right now, rogue is fun because of soulcap, despite the rng from the rppm nature of the trinket. outside of soulcap, nothing is abnormal about rng.

And of course things are looking mighty interesting with legion.

[leetillusion]

Well it's certainly not as simple as elfporn puts it. While the effects may be triggered by Crit or Multistrike, they do affect your rotation directly. Have to consider when it's okay to evisc because you will get 5 cp's before rupture falls even if several multistrikes. Combat you have to consider the possible proc of an extra combo point from SS preventing from wasting them by going over cp cap. Assass with dispatch procs and energy regen procs. While they aren't some insanely complex and hard to learn thing they do definitely affect your rotation and gameplay enough to try to master if you want to play at top difficulty endgame.

[badgersmashr]

Basically what these 2 before me have said, with sub and the multistrike thing you can develop what I would call a set of soft rules for dealing with that stuff, such as for example at < 12 seconds on rupture your next finisher will most likely be a rupture, etc. For the most part though as sub you'll do roughly the exact same every time and your dps will fluctuate based on soul capacitor proc timing more than most other factors assuming you are doing it right. and the other specs have some minor rng elements like seal fate and revealign strike which have little impact on the rotation quite frankly. and the other 2 specs do suffer from the soul capactior proc rng timing the most though, it being so powerful and all.

[nordveien]

Not exactly RNG, but rogue's total damage is extremely dependent on the rest of the raid group and on fight strategy. Talking about Sub and Combat specs, for example:

1. Kill times affect dps, especially Sub.
2. Ring usage affects Sub rogues probably more than any other dps class, scaling with gear (the higher ilvl, the more you gain from stacking personal CDs with ring and the more you "lose" by not being able to stack). Combat is less affected by ring usage. Remember, on some fights some guilds are still not using ring on cooldown (Kormrok, Socr, Iskar, Xhul, Tyrant to name a few).
3. If you go Combat for multi-target fights, your dps will be highly dependant on how well your tanks are stacking targets and how much other cleave you have in raid.
4. Downtime affects Sub dps greatly (examples: soak splashes/runes on Kormrok or not, being sent inside on Gore or not, soaking Black Holes/clearing fires on Xhul or not, getting Seeds/being sent down on Zakuun or not).

All these things make rogue damage extremely volatile, and based on concerns you listed in the OP, playing a rogue might not feel very rewarding for you either. Unless you can be in charge of ring, strats and bosses positioning in your raid.

And yes, RPPM trinkets provide a very thick layer of RNG as well (10-20% variation considering all other things equal and depending on a fight, feels like would be an adequate estimation).

[elfporn]

So yes, i did put it simply, but the aspects of our rotations affected by RNG such as revealing strike's chance to add a combopoint to sinister strike, and seal fate for assassination, and sinister calling (i think) advancing rupture for sub, all of those are adjusted for very fluidly and generally will not contribute to any frustration on the player's part. which is what the op seems to be asking about.

I myself, enjoy my rogue much more than i liked my warrior. gameplay for rogues has depth (despite the whining regularly seen) and is interesting.

note: the whining is mostly due to a lack of any meaningful changes over the years for the class, as well as complaints about coming changes, just in case that could turn you off.

Always glad to see converts to the class! (hopefully)

[Deleted]

thanks for your inputs guys.
currently inclined to use my legion 100 boost this weekend to try out a rogue, as it seems to be really rare for a dps to have "zero" to very little rng( and in legion we prolly will drown in rng mechanics anyway judging by some of the previews) and i think it should be a decent improvement to only have dps output rng but no rotation restricting rng like i currently have with my warrior where it might even happen that i have to pass a GCD because rngesus didnt smile upon me. (and hell i am looking forward to having some actual burst *smug face*)
and the whole "it depends on your raid" thing at least seems to apply to pretty much every dps class i would consider playing or am playing right now so i guess i just have to deal with that.
that said, any further replies to my OP are welcome as i still have some days to consider

[leetillusion]

Well, if you are trying to play the class optimally carelessness will lead to wasting combo points, choice between rupture downtime or snd downtime which can be frustrating if you don't understand how to take precautions to prevent these issues from occurring. Much less with assass for sure though if you are hitting your buttons lol. Which you won't be playing if you want to maximize damage.

For sub 5 Combo Point Slice and Dice can be refreshed as long as it has fewer than 12 seconds left in its duration, and a 5 Combo Point Rupture can be refreshed as long as it has fewer than 7.2? seconds left in its duration. With soul cap you want to try to keep up high energy and high combo point incase it procs outside of CD's of which you should have pulled for anyway. Don't macro Premed into any abilities because you will waste it for it doesn't work with anticipation. Always get an ambush off of vanish/dance with as close to >1second as possible.

Combat is amusing to me because many little tricks add up to noticble gains. If you know you have a large amount of AOE coming up, like from 1 target going to 4+ targets I will stretch out yellow insight trying to get as close to 1 sinister strike away from red as possible. It's okay to push red early if the add's die faster then 10 seconds and it you push 3-5 seconds prior to adds. I'll also hold CD's, KS for a bit and AR if it will get atleast 10 seconds of uptime damaging adds. Also with 4 piece I always try to keep at least a 3 - 4 point anticipation going waiting for AR proc's for the 15% damage to as many evisc's as possible. Also empty your energy before using KS and KS before AR always unless you are KS a AOE pack and can empty energy without wasting, because 15% damage inc to KS and BF reduces energy regen so you won't waste much if any at all energy if done right.

Hope this is put into words properly, 4am here and brain ceasing to function. :P Also these are just things I've intuitively applied due to 7 years of playing rogue not tested 100% independently with sims rather tested with the rest of rotation staying consistent and seeing if doing this or not is more or less damage for the combat suggestions. That said they work with my guilds strats and my experience with them.

[Smag]

thanks for your inputs guys.
currently inclined to use my legion 100 boost this weekend to try out a rogue, as it seems to be really rare for a dps to have "zero" to very little rng( and in legion we prolly will drown in rng mechanics anyway judging by some of the previews) and i think it should be a decent improvement to only have dps output rng but no rotation restricting rng like i currently have with my warrior where it might even happen that i have to pass a GCD because rngesus didnt smile upon me. (and hell i am looking forward to having some actual burst *smug face*)
and the whole "it depends on your raid" thing at least seems to apply to pretty much every dps class i would consider playing or am playing right now so i guess i just have to deal with that.
that said, any further replies to my OP are welcome as i still have some days to consider

Getting back to my rogue for real after 9 years feels really good. Killing Old Naxx Instructor was the last time I played him for real. Switched to HPally in TBC. Had a warrior as a main alt since Cata and yeah, the RNG is sooo bad. Less with Arms, though. Well, everything is less with Arms right now, except those juicy Executes. Fury is very gear dependant and RNG. I understand where you are coming from.

Rogue is all about timing. Timing your CDs, timing your buffs and debuffs. If you have it layed out - the rest is just execution of a rotation with tweaks depending on the fight progress. There is still some RNG left, it's in everything in the game, but you are much more in control. I think you should start with Combat. It would be a smoother transition from something like Fury. Anger Management-style mechanic for CD reduction on combo points spent, really potent AoE damage with a strong single target output, less focus on stealth, mid-to-high APM. The only tricky part is Bandit's Guile buff management. Then you could try Assasination or Subtlety later. Combat and Sub are the most common specs used. In Sub you spend a lot of time basically in stealth-like mode ambushing stuff with your shadow clone. Freaky.