Sub opener advice?

[Brandon7894]

Good morning!

I find myself struggling with the sub opener. What is your typical shadowblades opener looking like?

I understand the priority of maintaining symbol of death and nightblade. I believe my issue comes from the RNG nature of shadow techniques random 1-2 combo points and the random energy refund provided by energetic stabbing. Any and all advice would be appreciated. Thank you for your time!

[Celfydd]

Shadow Blades actually makes everything much less unpredictable since two Shadowstrikes always gives you 6CP. If you choose to do a Shadow Blades opener then:

SoD -> refill energy -> pot -> Shadow Blades -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Nightblade -> Goremaw's Bite
If you have less than 5 CP (no Shadow Techniques proc) then pool 1 or Backstab
Eviscerate -> pool to 70 energy -> Shadow Dance -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Eviscerate -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Eviscerate

After this your Shadow Blades has probably run out so it becomes a lot more reactive based on what CP you have.

Note that not everyone chooses to use Shadow Blades on pull, some people prefer to blow 3 charges of dance and then use Shadow Blades to give you the CP for finishers to recharge them quickly (on single target). I don't know which is better. But the above is certainly very predictable.

[Zzaj]

Are you actually able to: "ss x2 - evisc - ss x2" in the SD window? And if so, how much haste rating do you have?

[Kalador]

Are you actually able to: "ss x2 - evisc - ss x2" in the SD window? And if so, how much haste rating do you have?

You should be able to do at pretty much any haste level if you have 5 cp for your evisc/NB. the trick is to try and enter dance with 1 cp so you 5-6 cp after 2 ss. you also need to ShD at 65-70 energy with master of shadow.

[2fishbones]

I'm not sure why people would use a second finisher on pull BEFORE using a first Dance. In my eyes that is a complete waste of cooldown reduction is it not?

[Celfydd]

Are you actually able to: "ss x2 - evisc - ss x2" in the SD window? And if so, how much haste rating do you have?

Yes, and very low (8% currently). Goremaw's Bite makes it predictable in this particular case, although at other times you will be able to do it from Energetic Stabbing procs.

[Zzaj]

Yes, and very low (8% currently). Goremaw's Bite makes it predictable in this particular case, although at other times you will be able to do it from Energetic Stabbing procs.

Thanks. Gives me something to work on, maybe it's my latency but I can't reliably fit that in.

[DanielWard]

Are you actually able to: "ss x2 - evisc - ss x2" in the SD window? And if so, how much haste rating do you have?

Haste rating shouldn't matter here, as long as you have 100 energy entering dance. I play on 200ms and I can get 4 SS and and E off in one dance.

[shaunika123]

Haste rating shouldn't matter here, as long as you have 100 energy entering dance. I play on 200ms and I can get 4 SS and and E off in one dance.

actually in order for you to do a guaranteed 4+1 every dance you do need like 15% haste or ~10%+ the energy neck from arcway
because if energetic stabbing doesnt proc or relentless strikes doesnt double proc you have to spend 155 energy from 100 energy
which means you need to regen 55 energy in 5 seconds

i got 11% haste and 105 energy (from the arcway neck) and even with that it's barely enough if i have 0 procs.

of course if you run vigor it isnt a problem but then CPs are

[Prag]

Haste rating shouldn't matter here, as long as you have 100 energy entering dance. I play on 200ms and I can get 4 SS and and E off in one dance.

Just to clarify, if you're running Master of Shadows that gives +30 energy on stealth, make sure you're not entering ShD at 100 Energy.

[DanielWard]

Just to clarify, if you're running Master of Shadows that gives +30 energy on stealth, make sure you're not entering ShD at 100 Energy.

Yeah thanks for the clarity

[Snorlaxi]

Shadow Blades actually makes everything much less unpredictable since two Shadowstrikes always gives you 6CP. If you choose to do a Shadow Blades opener then:

SoD -> refill energy -> pot -> Shadow Blades -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Nightblade -> Goremaw's Bite
If you have less than 5 CP (no Shadow Techniques proc) then pool 1 or Backstab
Eviscerate -> pool to 70 energy -> Shadow Dance -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Eviscerate -> Shadowstrike x 2 -> Eviscerate

After this your Shadow Blades has probably run out so it becomes a lot more reactive based on what CP you have.

Note that not everyone chooses to use Shadow Blades on pull, some people prefer to blow 3 charges of dance and then use Shadow Blades to give you the CP for finishers to recharge them quickly (on single target). I don't know which is better. But the above is certainly very predictable.

Just a quick question, wouldn't it be better to open with x3 Shadowstrike without Shadow Blades?

That way you are using the opening stealth to fit one more Shadowstrike, which also means one more Akaari clone. The downside is that x3 Shadowstrike will put you at 6cp exactly, so you will waste 1cp from Shadow Techniques, but it COULD be worth it. You can then use Shadowblades right after that first Eviscerate.

[Celfydd]

Just a quick question, wouldn't it be better to open with x3 Shadowstrike without Shadow Blades?

Absolutely not, because then you don't have the energy to do a finisher, and you've therefore starved yourself of energy (via Relentless Strikes) needed to sustain the rotation.

[Zafire]

Absolutely not, because then you don't have the energy to do a finisher, and you've therefore starved yourself of energy (via Relentless Strikes) needed to sustain the rotation.

Why not do...

Shadowstrike x3 -> Shadowdance (+30 energy) -> Nightblade

The reason being, you get the 10% damage bonus by popping dance before using a finisher. Is this not ideal? I do it sometimes.

[Deleted]

Wouldnt it be good to open with shadowblades > 2x shadowstrike > dance > nightblade > 2x shadowstrike ?

Thinking about the cd-reduction for dance

[Celfydd]

Why not do...

Shadowstrike x3 -> Shadowdance (+30 energy) -> Nightblade

The reason being, you get the 10% damage bonus by popping dance before using a finisher. Is this not ideal? I do it sometimes.

You have a full 6 seconds of Master of Subtlety buff so basically any finisher that follows Shadowstrikes is going to fall inside that window, not that it matters greatly for Nightblade since Master of Subtlety does not snapshot. You gain no value as such from having a finisher immediately after popping dance.

The real question here is what happens after your Nightblade. If you've danced from basically no energy then even with the refund from the Nightblade Relentless Strikes you won't have enough energy to use your dance window for 2 Shadowstrikes, so again you've messed up the rotation. You always need to enter dance with as near to possible as 70 energy (assuming Master of Shadows which you do).

[Apanonar]

Why not do...

Shadowstrike x3 -> Shadowdance (+30 energy) -> Nightblade

The reason being, you get the 10% damage bonus by popping dance before using a finisher. Is this not ideal? I do it sometimes.

In that case you would have to use 2 finishers in shadowdance and subsequently lose 1 SS

[Snorlaxi]

Absolutely not, because then you don't have the energy to do a finisher, and you've therefore starved yourself of energy (via Relentless Strikes) needed to sustain the rotation.

Interesting, I find that if I open with Shadow Blades > x2 Shadowstrike > Nightblade I cap energy due to the energy return from a full cp Nightblade. Doing the x3 Shadowstrike > Nightblade was a good way I found to keep that from happening, and I'm not starved before Nightblade either, I can do it right away. What happens though is that I do have to wait a little bit after nightblade, usually from around 50 to 70.

So it would be something like: Shadowstrike x3 > Nigthblade > Pool from around 50 to 70 energy > Shadow Blades + SD > Shadowstrike x2 > Evisc > Shadowstrike x2 > Evisc > Goremaw's Bite > Evisc