Subtlety PTR Notes

[shaunika123]

They changed the new Legendary: For 5 sec after activating Symbols of Death, Shadowstrike generates 3 additional combo points and Backstab generates 4 additional combo points.

That is a lot more underwhelming then the original one was, but I get that they swapped them around seeing that we actually got the old Legendary effect in the new SoD.

is it tho? with the burst build it's basically 2 MFDs in a row during dance
it's very good

in fact it's probably gonna be bis along with the bracers

[Seliar]

is it tho? with the burst build it's basically 2 MFDs in a row during dance
it's very good

in fact it's probably gonna be bis along with the bracers

Actually it's kind of 3 mfds and it synergises with the shoulder very good after vanish. If only they didn't remove the vanish from sprint..

[Deleted]

yea my thoughts exactly because there really wasn't a beta test before they released it in currant form i mean how a big way to drop the ball on blizzards most loyal customers.

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rofl thief bargain. i saw that i was like you mean thieves deal? instead of bargain. idk it makes you even more squishy with only 20% damage. but the 30 second cooldown on vanish is a need for all rogues given how fucked we are.

Yeah i know, but i mean its a cool talent. wish it was on a different row tho. Imo they should just remove the first tier and give everyone regular trinket and put three new fucking talents there instead of orcwin, adaptness and trinket

[Deleted]

They seem to have "fixed" the pre pull bug where u shadowdance->stealth for the longer 100%crit buff in the opener. Not in the most elegant way, since you now just cant use normal stealth during shadowdance.

[Critical92]

They seem to have "fixed" the pre pull bug where u shadowdance->stealth for the longer 100%crit buff in the opener. Not in the most elegant way, since you now just cant use normal stealth during shadowdance.

This will bring more problems while fixing a minor bug. Not being able to stealth while dance is active means we have to write a cancelaura macro to avoid that.
How hard can it be to let normal stealth cancel dance without it running in the background.

[shaunika123]

Actually it's kind of 3 mfds and it synergises with the shoulder very good after vanish. If only they didn't remove the vanish from sprint..

yeah actually it's 3, i didnt realize the buff didnt drop after you used it

it's insane how well the new set+gloves are performing on PTR actually

This will bring more problems while fixing a minor bug. Not being able to stealth while dance is active means we have to write a cancelaura macro to avoid that.
How hard can it be to let normal stealth cancel dance without it running in the background.

you cant cancel shadowdance with macros afaik

[Critical92]

you cant cancel shadowdance with macros afaik

That is even more fucked up. Like you killed the mob and dance is still running and you can't restealth to get shoulder buff/shstrike teleport.
In pve it may be not a huge problem but for pvp that is a huge step back.

[Deleted]

That is even more fucked up. Like you killed the mob and dance is still running and you can't restealth to get shoulder buff/shstrike teleport.
In pve it may be not a huge problem but for pvp that is a huge step back.

Hopefully they also fix the fucking combat bugs too, im in combat for like 20 seconds sometimes.

[Seliar]

That is even more fucked up. Like you killed the mob and dance is still running and you can't restealth to get shoulder buff/shstrike teleport.
In pve it may be not a huge problem but for pvp that is a huge step back.

There is no step back in pvp. Since PA doesn't increase your SD duration and you need 5 seconds to get ooc in pvp you won't have sd active ever when you get ooc.. unless you active dance while you are avoiding combat but that's just user error.

[Critical92]

Obviously such situations are rare but it is stupid that dance doesn t allow stealth

[Djanco]

yea my thoughts exactly because there really wasn't a beta test before they released it in currant form i mean how a big way to drop the ball on blizzards most loyal customers.

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rofl thief bargain. i saw that i was like you mean thieves deal? instead of bargain. idk it makes you even more squishy with only 20% damage. but the 30 second cooldown on vanish is a need for all rogues given how fucked we are.

idk if you read the talent right but what it did before was gave you a 30 second vanish, reduced your maximum hp by 25% and increased your damage WHILE STEALTHED (this doesn't include shadow dance) by 20%.

the new version gives you 30 second vanish, reduces your hp by 15% and most importantly: increases ALL DAMAGE done by 10%

that alone is a considerable buff not even considering all the other crazy shit they just handed to us.

[honung]

idk if you read the talent right but what it did before was gave you a 30 second vanish, reduced your maximum hp by 25% and increased your damage WHILE STEALTHED (this doesn't include shadow dance) by 20%.

the new version gives you 30 second vanish, reduces your hp by 15% and most importantly: increases ALL DAMAGE done by 10%

that alone is a considerable buff not even considering all the other crazy shit they just handed to us.

Live Thief's Bargain works with Dance. All the PTR version is is a toned down version of the live version. Less of the benefit, less of the downside. Damage outside of Dance isn't particularly important both on PTR and Live, though for different reasons.

As long as Dark Shadow doesn't work with Stealth, I don't think Thief's Bargain will see play. Phantom Assassin gives you increased burst as well, and it doesn't reduce your health.

[Djanco]

Live Thief's Bargain works with Dance. All the PTR version is is a toned down version of the live version. Less of the benefit, less of the downside. Damage outside of Dance isn't particularly important both on PTR and Live, though for different reasons.

As long as Dark Shadow doesn't work with Stealth, I don't think Thief's Bargain will see play. Phantom Assassin gives you increased burst as well, and it doesn't reduce your health.

hmmm i was told by some other rogues ive come to trust it didnt work with shadow dance. but still, with the other coming changes it will at least be more usable for the vanish at least.

ps i just relized they are removing shadow's caress. rip

[lolpve]

So, you wrote all of this, the only readable part is: "The new 7.2.5 Subtlety spec is definitely an improvement for PvP"... ok..

Can you please TRY to look forward? we all know how the spec USED to work, we all know about prunning, we all know about how the rotation used to go

His observations on the pruning are valid. Blizzard have wasted an entire year with a failed design philosophy that has been exposed as really being down to dumbing down the game for boosted characters. It's very annoying that Blizzard haven't even apologised for the awful state many specs have been in since launch. I am getting slightly tired of Blizzard managing to "fix" a spec by the end of an expansion only to royally fuck it up again when they get these stupid ideas in their heads every fresh expansion. Happened with Cata, MoP, WoD, Legion. So now we get to enjoy maybe 1 year of a playable subtlety spec before the idiots at Activision decide to screw it up again for the next expansion. You could call me cynical if this pattern hadn't repeated itself several times already.

Why do they make these mistakes? Because it's a completely different dev team and these devs look at the old sub spec and want to impose their design on it to make it their creation rather than something they just inherited and tinkered with. There's a certain arrogance and ego to it. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of these devs do not raid or pvp seriously (contrasted to oldschool devs who did) and are only connected to the playerbase via community managers who themselves are a bunch of dimwits like Lore.

[Kwakman]

So before this derails into a topic about Blizzard's way of tuning classes and 'class fantasy' (that phrase always makes me throw up a bit inside my mouth) I'm asking anyone who is actively trying out things on the PTR to post their findings.

I'm talking:
- What specs are possible; the bursty for example or nighstalker vs subterfuge
- How are the legendaries treating you and in what combinations?
- Is Shadowstrike/Backstab dmg really that much better then before because of the new trait?
- How is energy regen? Energetic Stabbing is almost manditory now but I feel we are getting a lot of energy regen in 7.2.5

[honung]

hmmm i was told by some other rogues ive come to trust it didnt work with shadow dance. but still, with the other coming changes it will at least be more usable for the vanish at least.

ps i just relized they are removing shadow's caress. rip

The Vanish isn't that great since it doesn't work with Dark Shadow. The defensive utility it gives you is cool, but you lose health to take the talent so that's kind of pointless. I can see it having two good usage scenarios. One, it allows you to frequently Vanish to stun during a setup so you can get more damage out of your Dance by not using as much of it to stun. Two, if played with Thieves' Gambit you can Vanish your partner constantly and make them really hard to kill, but then they'll pick up on that and go on you instead to punish it.

Shadow's Caress is completely broken and it's a good thing they're removing it. Even if they didn't, it wouldn't have been good anymore since Dance uptime is much, much lower on the PTR.

[Djanco]

that's true, i find it annoying they keep removing all the interesting mechanics in favor of "oh you just deal x amount more damage with this talent now" i just don't find that compelling even if it might be the right decision :/

one thing that worries me but im not sure if it's a valid thing to worry about, unless i a missing something it seems as if all 3 specs now will now be performing a similar rotation for burst with (mantle) vanish - finisher - builder - finisher - builder - finisher. i can see them later on deciding this is a problem

[Terahertz]

Live Thief's Bargain works with Dance. All the PTR version is is a toned down version of the live version. Less of the benefit, less of the downside. Damage outside of Dance isn't particularly important both on PTR and Live, though for different reasons.

As long as Dark Shadow doesn't work with Stealth, I don't think Thief's Bargain will see play. Phantom Assassin gives you increased burst as well, and it doesn't reduce your health.

Is Dark Shadow not working with Stealth really that big of a problem? The way I see it if going the Dark Shadow build, Thief's Bargain is going to be mandatory to compensate for the loss of up time on SDance. You're not going to be able to afford wasting SDance charges just for a Sap or a few Cheap Shots if you're going for that build. Thief's Bargain also synergizes extremely well with Thieve's Gambit and as long as you're controlling the fight properly, the reduced health shouldn't be too much of a problem. Depending on whether we'll have 2 SSteps or not, taking Silhouette might also be an option which should help in terms of survivability.

Also, comparing Phantom Assassin to Thief's Bargain the DPS increase difference during SDance is actually only 7.5% (17.5% vs 10%) due to the reduced crit dmg in PvP

[honung]

Is Dark Shadow not working with Stealth really that big of a problem? The way I see it if going the Dark Shadow build, Thief's Bargain is going to be mandatory to compensate for the loss of up time on SDance. You're not going to be able to afford wasting SDance charges just for a Sap or a few Cheap Shots if you're going for that build. Thief's Bargain also synergizes extremely well with Thieve's Gambit and as long as you're controlling the fight properly, the reduced health shouldn't be too much of a problem. Depending on whether we'll have 2 SSteps or not, taking Silhouette might also be an option which should help in terms of survivability.

Also, comparing Phantom Assassin to Thief's Bargain the DPS increase difference during SDance is actually only 7.5% (17.5% vs 10%) due to the reduced crit dmg in PvP

If it worked with Stealth, you could Cheap Shot off-target>Cheap Shot>Evis, Cheap Shot>Evis>MFD Evis, Cheap Shot>DFA or Cheap Shot>Evis>Cheap Shot (if Orc Relentless) which would dramatically increase the value of Vanish (and re-stealthing). As it stands, they're as useful as they are on live, so not very.

You'll just Dance the way you did before Legion. Something like Kidney/Blind healer (or skip if Mage gets Poly or Druid pushes in for Bash Clone)>Shadowstep Dance Cheap Shot>Cheap Shot>DFA/Evis MFD Evis>Cheap Shot, potentially burning second Dance for more damage and third Cheap Shot.

Short Vanish can actually be good here cause you can Cheap Shot both DPS and then Dance DFA/Evis MFD Evis and still have 3 seconds left on Dance for activities. How about this:
Vanish Cheap Shot off-target>Cheap Shot>Dance DFA/Evis MFD Evis>Cheap Shot>Shadowstrike/Goremaw>Evis

Maybe it'll be good, we'll see.

You do have 2 Steps, and there's no way you play Silhouette. Step is almost always used on enemy targets. You play Shiv.

Pretty sure crit is 200% in PvP in Legion. Tried on the PvP dummy now and it was.

[Raidenwrath]

Somehow, I am still waiting for the nerf-bat to strike last minute (same as the T19 4p set bonus before 7.1.5 released).
When hitting the dummy I get around 900k dps unbuffed (ilvl 912, shoulders and bracers) and since I don't have my weakauras there is still a lot of room for improvement. Compare this to my ~840 dps unbuffed live it's a pretty nice increase, which should go up even more when I lose that now-horrible T19 4p setbonus.

That aside, has someone tested whether Weaponmaster ist still bugged when using DfA?