subtlety pvp design criticism

[shoegazing]

there is a movement of PvP rogues on twitter asking Blizzard developers Talbadar (multiple time rank 1 PvP, Blizzcon arena champion, and current Blizzard QA analyst) and Zorbrix (Blizzard esports manager) to revert Subtlety to pre 7.0 when it had a more exciting and roguelike playstyle

these guys aren't exactly Holinka, Watcher, or Celestalon, but they are nevertheless influential when it comes to WoW PvP

I urge anyone who has similar feelings about this issue to tweet at these fellas and tell them how the Rogue PvP community feels about the 7.0 subtlety redesign

You can find the discussion on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rogue_happyfeet/...98664112177152

Some suggested talking points:

1. we lost a lot of our diversity of CCs and DR categories in exchange for constant Dance uptime and Cheap/Shadowtrike spam
2. Shadowstrike teleport is an unhealthy mechanic in PvP
3. with 3x Dance charges but no Find Weakness, we rarely if ever have any incentive to play a traditional roguelike hit & run style, and seek out a restealth... and we have extremely limited burst dps when opening from stealth in PvP
4. game responsiveness updates have eliminated traditional high skillcap rogue micro plays like stepping charge or kicking warstomp-->clone or vanish immuning blind/deathcoil/etc
5. lack of poisons exacerbates loss of roguelike hit & run playstyle as we no longer have crippling poison to kite for a restealth
6. lack of ability relationships like sap/gouge warrior --> berserker rage --> shiv dispel enrage --> priest/warlock teammate lands full fear while berserker rage is on CD
7. pruning of stealth oriented abilities like Shadow Walk (w/ stealth detect glyph)
8. Smokebomb is no longer baseline but is now a PvP talent that competes on the same tier with objectively stronger passive cooldown reduction
9. pruning of 'point guard' / 'shot caller' tricks of the trade damage buff which established rogue as the coordinator of team offense even when personal burst damage is on cooldown
10. loss of micro plays such as (active) premed --> sap --> camera turn cheap shot without breaking sap (now have 4 combo points) --> restealth & wait DRs --> (4pt) slice and dice --> open with slice already active and premed back off CD so need to premed for slice.... another example of this type of high skill cap micro play was expose armor w/o breaking gouge/sap
11. holy balls they pruned gouge, garrote, shiv, and poisons.... wtf.... is this even a rogue anymore?
12. overall reduction of subtlety rogue skillcap and playmaking potential
13. anything else that you might think of, I'm sure there is more

thank you so much for your time and effort

Legion Subtlety is an abomination as far as most PvP rogues are concerned and the best possible outcome would be to have this 100% disastrous and moronic spec redesign be completely reverted

short of a full reversion to pre 7.0 patch (please!) at the very least sweeping and substantial changes need to be made to the PvP talents so that subtlety can play in PvP the way it is supposed to play as opposed to a dumbass 223 223 spam personal teleporting stunbot slave to a mage teamate

- - - Updated - - -

other micro plays that have been lost over the years include kicking warstomp --> clone, shadowstepping feral/warrior charges (game responsiveness updates have rendered these impossible) and the changes to vanish behavior which means rogues with high situational awareness and a bit of luck are no longer able to vanish immune incoming abilities like blind or deathcoil

for the uninitiated, here's a video that includes several examples of what i'm talking about from the #1 rogue in the world all the way back in the vanilla/bc/wotlk era



and here are a couple videos from top players in EU and NA playing subtlety PvP at the highest ratings during the golden years of that spec:

[ribthanwa]

You really felt the need to repost this?

[shoegazing]

You really felt the need to repost this?

yes. it is an issue that is extremely important to me, and to many others.

PvP might not have a huge presence on this particular forum but it is a big part of this game and a huge part of the history of this class.

I want to create more visibility of PvP issues on this forum

[Kalador]

You're asking for the impossible, they will never revert a spec to the way it fonction in a previous patch. Also, all the class and pvp as a all as changed a lot in 7.0. The adition of pvp talent and the pruning of many niche spells, reverting sub would mean reverting all spec to their previous ways... otherwise it would just be blatantly OP.

I don't know if pvp is in a better place now than before, but you don't really seems to have that discussion either... you just want a gone spec back. I used to love monk SEF, so much that it's the reason i don't play a monk in legion, but i understand why it's gone. it was requiring macro and addon to manage correctly witch is not something you want in a game. i moved on.

it's NEVER going to go back to pre 7.0, if you want to build on post 7.0 than it's interessting and opened to disscution, saying its trash revert to befor when it was better is unproductive.

Some of you're point also are debatable
3-5 you talk a lot about hit and run playstyle, but thiefs bargin is there to provide exactly that playstyle.
5 what poison brought that you don't have anymore, the slow is build in NB and the dmg was never really there.
4 doesn't seems like a bad thing that you can stop spell that should not be stoped.
10 that seems overly complicated... you think that kind of thing is healthy in a game... sound so complicated it looks like a bug than anything else.
11 all those are still available in sin toolkit.

2 i agree that the backed in teleport in SS is not good both in pvp an pve.
Also avoid stuff like

Legion Subtlety is an abomination as far as most PvP rogues are concerned and the best possible outcome would be to have this 100% disastrous and moronic spec redesign be completely reverted

short of a full reversion to pre 7.0 patch (please!) at the very least sweeping and substantial changes need to be made to the PvP talents so that subtlety can play in PvP the way it is supposed to play as opposed to a dumbass 223 223 spam personal teleporting stunbot slave to a mage teamate

it's not really inviting to discussion.

You also link the twitter of a guys who is also clearly not open to discussing the matter either. he just sound like a guy who think he's above everyone in terms of skills and trash everything that changed instead of trying to fix what's current...

Is pvp in a better place now or before is an interesting discussion to have, i personally pvp more now that we have less huge skillcap and pvp template. I by no mean say it's better tho but saying i want my old spec back is not really productive in that discussion.

[shoegazing]

I am a huge advocate of reverting most classes to their pre 7.0 toolkits for PvP. I don't know why you assume that I only want Subtlety Rogues to change?

And PvP is undeniably worse now than it was before. Just look at the plummeting ladder participation if you need any evidence. People of all classes -- not just Subtlety Rogues -- are quitting PvP left and right because the classes aren't enjoyable to play in PvP anymore.

[shaunika123]

10 that seems overly complicated... you think that kind of thing is healthy in a game... sound so complicated it looks like a bug than anything else.

those small little things are what made pvp fun

pvp now compared to pvp back in the day is like comparing the original star wars to the prequels

sure one wasnt as polished and clean, but that's what made it enjoyable, the fact that there were so many little things you could do and it wasnt just endlessly optimized and sleek but ultimately soulless

swapping weapons with different poisons
abusing combo points to make the most of your opener
being able to vanish spells(and different types of spells interacting differently with vanish)

were all things that werent "intended" but that's what made them beautiful
ever since cataclysm launched rogues were made more and more generic at least in pvp
they've consistently got rid of our Crowd control every expansion and gave us more raw damage
they've consistently put less and less emphasis on our opener and made it easier to do

and it's not by accident, it's the same with giving mages/warlocks faster and faster cast times and more and more instants
remember stuff like rank1 frostbolt? remember stuff like using low rank spells for dispel fodder at the right times? all those micro plays are now all but gone

it's all big macro stuff and it's just boring.

It's not by accident either
they wanted to narrow the gap between really good players and bad ones.

if you compared a decent player in TBC and a top tier player the differences would be noticable from miles away

ofc there's still differences(and big ones) but it's less to do with gameplay/class knowledge and more to do with general game sense like positioning and stuff
class identity and being a great *class* is all but gone, they're so accessible now that if you're a good player you just pick up another class and go
"oh yeah this is the burst cd"
"oh yeah this is the interrupt"
"oh yeah this is my cc"

and you're done, it's practically a moba now. which is ironic, because HotS is exactly to other mobas what current wow pvp is to old wow pvp
a shallow imitation with all the little quirks taken out to make it more accessible

[elfporn]

All those "micro plays" are why pvp was never enjoyable for a massive portion of the wow community (hyperbole, but applicable).

No one enjoyed being CC'ed to death. PvE players stopped pvping because it stopped being fun when you got shit on. PvP players didn't care(or understand, how could they?) I got glad in s2 and i've never gone back because it just wasn't fun unless i was in a group doing BG's (arena sucked donkey dick, and still does).

So blizzard ups and realizes the split they have between pve and pvp and how it causes balancing issues and player participation problems, etc.

They do something about it - templates, pvp talents, pruning abilities. The result is that pvp is a more accessible part of the game - player participation in pvp goes up (even if arena participation goes down)

From blizzards PoV: More people are experiencing more of the game as a result of changes to pvp made to level the playing field. Result: Extreme levels of skill and extreme levels of suck are less impactful, causing the very best players to have less fun when they can't pwn n00bs as easily. And the worst players to have fun when they can wield hand of ragnaros on their shaman and WF the fuck out of everyone (anyone remember that video?).

Blizzard's goal is not to cater to the .01%, it's to cater to the 1%. (lol) They are trying to get more people to experience more of the game, and pvp is a large part of that.

So while i agree that pvp could be done better. (more creative pvp talents + prestige talents or abilities imo) Reverting pvp to the "good 'ol days" is definitely not the solution, it was inaccessible, un-fun to get into, and grindy af for 12 years.

[shoegazing]

those small little things are what made pvp fun

pvp now compared to pvp back in the day is like comparing the original star wars to the prequels

sure one wasnt as polished and clean, but that's what made it enjoyable, the fact that there were so many little things you could do and it wasnt just endlessly optimized and sleek but ultimately soulless

swapping weapons with different poisons
abusing combo points to make the most of your opener
being able to vanish spells(and different types of spells interacting differently with vanish)

were all things that werent "intended" but that's what made them beautiful
ever since cataclysm launched rogues were made more and more generic at least in pvp
they've consistently got rid of our Crowd control every expansion and gave us more raw damage
they've consistently put less and less emphasis on our opener and made it easier to do

and it's not by accident, it's the same with giving mages/warlocks faster and faster cast times and more and more instants
remember stuff like rank1 frostbolt? remember stuff like using low rank spells for dispel fodder at the right times? all those micro plays are now all but gone

it's all big macro stuff and it's just boring.

It's not by accident either
they wanted to narrow the gap between really good players and bad ones.

if you compared a decent player in TBC and a top tier player the differences would be noticable from miles away

ofc there's still differences(and big ones) but it's less to do with gameplay/class knowledge and more to do with general game sense like positioning and stuff
class identity and being a great *class* is all but gone, they're so accessible now that if you're a good player you just pick up another class and go
"oh yeah this is the burst cd"
"oh yeah this is the interrupt"
"oh yeah this is my cc"

and you're done, it's practically a moba now. which is ironic, because HotS is exactly to other mobas what current wow pvp is to old wow pvp
a shallow imitation with all the little quirks taken out to make it more accessible

very well elucidated.

the irony is that supposedly this prune was to make classes less homogeneous, but that is nothing but disingenuous PR buzz. they have absolutely trashed the uniqueness of classes and specs on a mechanical level.

they have simply made the animations and pretty colors stand out more visually and called it "class fantasy" but observant players see right through this ruse.

[Uselessrouge]

i was sub rogue since allways... i loved my rogue had him since classic...

this is the first time i just "leveld" him and realy hate the gameplay now a days :/

[ymirsson]

After all thing said, it obviously comes down to a matter of preference. And it seems obvious which style the devs prefer.

And your way of begging for your pet spec to return still leaves room for improvements

Legion Subtlety is an abomination as far as most PvP rogues are concerned and the best possible outcome would be to have this 100% disastrous and moronic spec redesign be completely reverted

short of a full reversion to pre 7.0 patch (please!) at the very least sweeping and substantial changes need to be made to the PvP talents so that subtlety can play in PvP the way it is supposed to play as opposed to a dumbass 223 223 spam personal teleporting stunbot slave to a mage teamate

[elfporn]

After all thing said, it obviously comes down to a matter of preference. And it seems obvious which style the devs prefer.

And your way of begging for your pet spec to return still leaves room for improvements

I have to agree here.

I also happen to like the current style more, mostly because i don't pvp often enough (or enjoy it enough) to dig deep into it. For me, i can stick to a target, CC when needed, and setup big burst. I can even burst down most healers. It's easier for me, the layman, to pvp when i don't need to invest heavily in pvp gear to kill some idiot in BG blues/greens.

So i like the goal they've achieved with making pvp something you can jump right into. But i can see where the depth has moved from a requirement of intricate class knowledge and macro/micro play to "beat em with your dick till they submit". There's still some depth and lots of room for skill, but like i said before, the skill variance has been heavily reduced between the worst and best.

[Mafic]

there is a movement of PvP rogues on twitter asking Blizzard developers Talbadar (multiple time rank 1 PvP, Blizzcon arena champion, and current Blizzard QA analyst) and Zorbrix (Blizzard esports manager) to revert Subtlety to pre 7.0 when it had a more exciting and roguelike playstyle

these guys aren't exactly Holinka, Watcher, or Celestalon, but they are nevertheless influential when it comes to WoW PvP

I urge anyone who has similar feelings about this issue to tweet at these fellas and tell them how the Rogue PvP community feels about the 7.0 subtlety redesign

You can find the discussion on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rogue_happyfeet/...98664112177152

Some suggested talking points:

1. we lost a lot of our diversity of CCs and DR categories in exchange for constant Dance uptime and Cheap/Shadowtrike spam
2. Shadowstrike teleport is an unhealthy mechanic in PvP
3. with 3x Dance charges but no Find Weakness, we rarely if ever have any incentive to play a traditional roguelike hit & run style, and seek out a restealth... and we have extremely limited burst dps when opening from stealth in PvP
4. game responsiveness updates have eliminated traditional high skillcap rogue micro plays like stepping charge or kicking warstomp-->clone or vanish immuning blind/deathcoil/etc
5. lack of poisons exacerbates loss of roguelike hit & run playstyle as we no longer have crippling poison to kite for a restealth
6. lack of ability relationships like sap/gouge warrior --> berserker rage --> shiv dispel enrage --> priest/warlock teammate lands full fear while berserker rage is on CD
7. pruning of stealth oriented abilities like Shadow Walk (w/ stealth detect glyph)
8. Smokebomb is no longer baseline but is now a PvP talent that competes on the same tier with objectively stronger passive cooldown reduction
9. pruning of 'point guard' / 'shot caller' tricks of the trade damage buff which established rogue as the coordinator of team offense even when personal burst damage is on cooldown
10. loss of micro plays such as (active) premed --> sap --> camera turn cheap shot without breaking sap (now have 4 combo points) --> restealth & wait DRs --> (4pt) slice and dice --> open with slice already active and premed back off CD so need to premed for slice.... another example of this type of high skill cap micro play was expose armor w/o breaking gouge/sap
11. holy balls they pruned gouge, garrote, shiv, and poisons.... wtf.... is this even a rogue anymore?
12. overall reduction of subtlety rogue skillcap and playmaking potential
13. anything else that you might think of, I'm sure there is more

thank you so much for your time and effort

Legion Subtlety is an abomination as far as most PvP rogues are concerned and the best possible outcome would be to have this 100% disastrous and moronic spec redesign be completely reverted

short of a full reversion to pre 7.0 patch (please!) at the very least sweeping and substantial changes need to be made to the PvP talents so that subtlety can play in PvP the way it is supposed to play as opposed to a dumbass 223 223 spam personal teleporting stunbot slave to a mage teamate

- - - Updated - - -

other micro plays that have been lost over the years include kicking warstomp --> clone, shadowstepping feral/warrior charges (game responsiveness updates have rendered these impossible) and the changes to vanish behavior which means rogues with high situational awareness and a bit of luck are no longer able to vanish immune incoming abilities like blind or deathcoil

for the uninitiated, here's a video that includes several examples of what i'm talking about from the #1 rogue in the world all the way back in the vanilla/bc/wotlk era



and here are a couple videos from top players in EU and NA playing subtlety PvP at the highest ratings during the golden years of that spec:

I always had a feeling Zorbix was on our side so it is worth a shot to see what he says. Good to see some feedback for Blizz to fix Sub from players that love the old Sub spec!

- - - Updated - - -

I have to agree here.

I also happen to like the current style more, mostly because i don't pvp often enough (or enjoy it enough) to dig deep into it. For me, i can stick to a target, CC when needed, and setup big burst. I can even burst down most healers. It's easier for me, the layman, to pvp when i don't need to invest heavily in pvp gear to kill some idiot in BG blues/greens.

So i like the goal they've achieved with making pvp something you can jump right into. But i can see where the depth has moved from a requirement of intricate class knowledge and macro/micro play to "beat em with your dick till they submit". There's still some depth and lots of room for skill, but like i said before, the skill variance has been heavily reduced between the worst and best.

Sub even from a PVE point of view is currently a massive downgrade from PVE Sub of WoD. Without legendaries, I wouldn't even think of playing Sub in PVE which only leaves Assassination as the only viable spec for PVE.

[elfporn]

Ehh it depends mafic, my issue atm is for me, sub is ahead of ass due to my legendary situation, im even beating my competition when he plays ass. The specs are close enough that early adoption of either one (in addition to the fight/role) can be the deciding factor

[Kalador]

I am a huge advocate of reverting most classes to their pre 7.0 toolkits for PvP. I don't know why you assume that I only want Subtlety Rogues to change?

And PvP is undeniably worse now than it was before. Just look at the plummeting ladder participation if you need any evidence. People of all classes -- not just Subtlety Rogues -- are quitting PvP left and right because the classes aren't enjoyable to play in PvP anymore.

There is probably less participation from very high skilled player who use to abuse all those ''micro play'' and skills but what i can tell you is that in my guild pvp participation as gone through the roof, template allows you to have fun even if you are not deck out in gear, before you had to do weeks and weeks of pvp before being able to stand a chance and not get one shot. Also pvp talent alows for fun factor, i love using shadowy duel or thief bargains in bgs even if it's not ''optimal'' .

All the guys i play with do pvp for fun factor, they like trying new stuff, jumping in a bg and try somthing new, they don't want to spend hours making macro and hours practicing a trick down to millisecond to have an advantage over the other guy...

I can understand that you lost something that was fun to you, but i think most player don't think pvp is worst now..

- - - Updated - - -

Sub even from a PVE point of view is currently a massive downgrade from PVE Sub of WoD. Without legendaries, I wouldn't even think of playing Sub in PVE which only leaves Assassination as the only viable spec for PVE.

Sub is very viable in pve... yes sin is a bit stronger for tunnel boss ST but sub is very strong in almost every situation. I think the low representation of sub in pve mostly come from the fact that most player played sin in EN and have better legendary for it.

[Deleted]

loss of micro plays such as (active) premed --> sap --> camera turn cheap shot without breaking sap (now have 4 combo points) --> restealth & wait DRs --> (4pt) slice and dice --> open with slice already active and premed back off CD so need to premed for slice.... another example of this type of high skill cap micro play was expose armor w/o breaking gouge/sap"



Erm.... wat?

[shaunika123]

loss of micro plays such as (active) premed --> sap --> camera turn cheap shot without breaking sap (now have 4 combo points) --> restealth & wait DRs --> (4pt) slice and dice --> open with slice already active and premed back off CD so need to premed for slice.... another example of this type of high skill cap micro play was expose armor w/o breaking gouge/sap"



Erm.... wat?

what dont you understand? you could cheap shot without breaking sap then restealth thus stacking up combo points for the opener
you could even apply expose armor without breaking sap thus having a 5pt expose armor on your opener which was huge.

[shoegazing]

I have to agree here.

I also happen to like the current style more, mostly because i don't pvp often enough (or enjoy it enough) to dig deep into it. For me, i can stick to a target, CC when needed, and setup big burst. I can even burst down most healers. It's easier for me, the layman, to pvp when i don't need to invest heavily in pvp gear to kill some idiot in BG blues/greens.

So i like the goal they've achieved with making pvp something you can jump right into. But i can see where the depth has moved from a requirement of intricate class knowledge and macro/micro play to "beat em with your dick till they submit". There's still some depth and lots of room for skill, but like i said before, the skill variance has been heavily reduced between the worst and best.

TLDR "i'm not good and i don't want to invest the effort to get good, and instead of developing PvP to continue to be appealing to people that have loved PvP for the past decade, Blizzard made the right decision by trying to turn PvP into a dumbed down little minigame for people like me to enjoy on our off night from PvE activities"

If that's where you stand then we aren't going to be finding any common ground

[Deleted]

what dont you understand? you could cheap shot without breaking sap then restealth thus stacking up combo points for the opener
you could even apply expose armor without breaking sap thus having a 5pt expose armor on your opener which was huge.

That's a bug. I mean...

[shoegazing]

There is probably less participation from very high skilled player who use to abuse all those ''micro play'' and skills but what i can tell you is that in my guild pvp participation as gone through the roof, template allows you to have fun even if you are not deck out in gear, before you had to do weeks and weeks of pvp before being able to stand a chance and not get one shot. Also pvp talent alows for fun factor, i love using shadowy duel or thief bargains in bgs even if it's not ''optimal'' .

All the guys i play with do pvp for fun factor, they like trying new stuff, jumping in a bg and try somthing new, they don't want to spend hours making macro and hours practicing a trick down to millisecond to have an advantage over the other guy...

I can understand that you lost something that was fun to you, but i think most player don't think pvp is worst now..

- - - Updated - - -



Sub is very viable in pve... yes sin is a bit stronger for tunnel boss ST but sub is very strong in almost every situation. I think the low representation of sub in pve mostly come from the fact that most player played sin in EN and have better legendary for it.

lol, gearing a character with full conquest gear could be done in a single afternoon in WoD, and it was easy to do. the amount of mindless grinding you have to do for PvP in Legion is 1000x what it was in previous expansions. you have to complete your order hall campaign, unlock your 3rd relic slot, level your artifact knowledge up to 25, level your artifact to 34, and unlock 50 honor levels.

in WoD on the other hand you could take a boosted 100 in full greens, grab a friend, tank your 2s rating down to 1100 to fight other players who are on freshly boosted characters in full greens / don't keybind their abilities, grind out a couple dozen wins, and have your full conquest set that same day.

it's absolutely insane for anyone to suggest that PvP is more accessible than before from a time investment / grinding perspective.

furthermore, class depth was not preventing you from enjoying PvP before. don't want to learn all the advanced techniques of playing a class? fine, don't learn them. many players didn't. don't want to make a bunch of macros? don't then, they weren't mandatory unless you were going for high level titles like gladiator. don't want to keybind every single ability in your spellbook? don't keybind them then. no one was forcing you to do these things before, plenty of people didn't.

but why should those options be removed for those players who did enjoy them? that is pure selfishness and laziness, trying to drag everyone else down to your level because you don't want to exert the extra effort (which is fine) and therefore think that no one else should be allowed to exert the extra effort either (screw that).

plenty of other people have been able to enjoy casual PvP in the past without insisting that people who are more invested have their joy ruined, so what was preventing you?

[Deleted]

lol, gearing a character with full conquest gear could be done in a single afternoon in WoD, and it was easy to do. the amount of mindless grinding you have to do for PvP in Legion is 1000x what it was in previous expansions. you have to complete your order hall campaign, unlock your 3rd relic slot, level your artifact knowledge up to 25, level your artifact to 34, and unlock 50 honor levels.

in WoD on the other hand you could take a boosted 100 in full greens, grab a friend, tank your 2s rating down to 1100 to fight other players who are on freshly boosted characters in full greens / don't keybind their abilities, grind out a couple dozen wins, and have your full conquest set that same day.

it's absolutely insane for anyone to suggest that PvP is more accessible than before from a time investment / grinding perspective.

furthermore, class depth was not preventing you from enjoying PvP before. don't want to learn all the advanced techniques of playing a class? fine, don't learn them. many players didn't. don't want to make a bunch of macros? don't then, they weren't mandatory unless you were going for high level titles like gladiator. don't want to keybind every single ability in your spellbook? don't keybind them then. no one was forcing you to do these things before, plenty of people didn't.

but why should those options be removed for those players who did enjoy them? that is pure selfishness and laziness, trying to drag everyone else down to your level because you don't want to exert the extra effort (which is fine) an therefore think that no one else should be allowed to exert the extra effort either (screw that).

Because they're bugs...