PvE Specs

[ScareKRO]

Anyone else worried about the balance changes we're going to see in the PvE specs?

Assassination's pretty much on top right now, which I love as a long-time assassination rogue. They haven't mentioned much about us other than a need for crit-changes just recently.

However:

Combat's mastery is going to get changed, which it should, and I'm worried we're going to be seeing combat becoming far better than assassination. They've made it clear they want changes to the spec, and generally to institute such changes you'd see benefits to what they want, which scares me.

Sub's not doing so hot and that's extremely frustrating. I don't know about you guys, but I was very excited about it becoming viable pve, and then they went and made the rotation ridiculous in raid situations comparts to Assassination/Combat. They need to make serious changes here in my opinion. Something that makes a change in the rotation to make it easier...and also hemo's apparently not good anymore which is sort of gay.

I'd just like to know what you guys think about the three specs balance wise...as a dps only class we sorta get stuck choosing the better one and finding two obsolete trees...maybe we get two if we're lucky, but then two players of the same skill would still always do better on the better tree.

[Longview]

Subtlety hasn't been viable for a long time, and I'm not too excited about playing sub again unless there's some major changes to the rotation (i.e. evisc, evisc, evisc, evisc, evisc, snd, evisc, evisc etc.).

Personally, I'll just play whatever spec that's the most dps, switching between combat/assassination when the fight calls for it.

[Deleted]

Anyone else worried about the balance changes we're going to see in the PvE specs?

Assassination's pretty much on top right now, which I love as a long-time assassination rogue. They haven't mentioned much about us other than a need for crit-changes just recently.

However:

Combat's mastery is going to get changed, which it should, and I'm worried we're going to be seeing combat becoming far better than assassination. They've made it clear they want changes to the spec, and generally to institute such changes you'd see benefits to what they want, which scares me.

Sub's not doing so hot and that's extremely frustrating. I don't know about you guys, but I was very excited about it becoming viable pve, and then they went and made the rotation ridiculous in raid situations comparts to Assassination/Combat. They need to make serious changes here in my opinion. Something that makes a change in the rotation to make it easier...and also hemo's apparently not good anymore which is sort of gay.

I'd just like to know what you guys think about the three specs balance wise...as a dps only class we sorta get stuck choosing the better one and finding two obsolete trees...maybe we get two if we're lucky, but then two players of the same skill would still always do better on the better tree.

I really looked forward to start raiding with sub, but it didn't turn out to be viable once again. It's like you said, sub have a high demand rotation, with few to none messups for a good stable rotation. And when played flawless, you still do not get a high enough dps to even bother. Not to mention that honor among thieves rewards playing in 25 man raids, and I'm running 10 man atm.

And let's take a look at combat then, shall we? The major problem with combat is not the broken mastery, in my opinion. It's that haste is the best secondary stat. More haste equals more energy. And the better gear, the more haste. I've already noticed problems with getting energycapped. The most classes have cooldowns that are supposed to be blown with other big raidcooldowns, like bloodlust. But not adrenaline rush. If a combat rogue reforge into haste and use adrenaline rush alongside with a BL, they are getting capped, no matter what. The global cooldowns can't get rid of your energy in time, and this problem with grow along with better gear later in the expansion.

That leaves us with mutilate. The only spec with high dps and a stable rotation that you always have 100 percent control off.

[Fogkin]

I really looked forward to start raiding with sub, but it didn't turn out to be viable once again. It's like you said, sub have a high demand rotation, with few to none messups for a good stable rotation. And when played flawless, you still do not get a high enough dps to even bother. Not to mention that honor among thieves rewards playing in 25 man raids, and I'm running 10 man atm.

And let's take a look at combat then, shall we? The major problem with combat is not the broken mastery, in my opinion. It's that haste is the best secondary stat. More haste equals more energy. And the better gear, the more haste. I've already noticed problems with getting energycapped. The most classes have cooldowns that are supposed to be blown with other big raidcooldowns, like bloodlust. But not adrenaline rush. If a combat rogue reforge into haste and use adrenaline rush alongside with a BL, they are getting capped, no matter what. The global cooldowns can't get rid of your energy in time, and this problem with grow along with better gear later in the expansion.

That leaves us with mutilate. The only spec with high dps and a stable rotation that you always have 100 percent control off.

I think the main reason assassination is so popular right now is because of the ease of the rotation. I mean you put up s&d once a fight(Unless you really fail) then it's just use mutilate to keep up rupture otherwise envenom(until you start BS). I was mut spec back in the Kara days(when combat was king) and eventually switched over and have been combat since. I think combat can keep up nicely with mutilate, except that the rotation is not too friendly(not nearly as bad as sub). My main complaint about the combat mastery is it reduces the dura on the OH so fast. It's real annoying to be on a boss fight and have your OH break halfway through the fight.

As far as hemo, I think they should either make the glyph bleed built in to the talent or retool it to be either a debuff you throw up once every few minutes or a passive ability to cause some other ability to do more damage(ie. more bleed damage, crits to cause bleed damage, or something along those lines).

I just think our new talents(Smoke bomb) kind of suck as far as PvE. Seems like they are wanting rogues to be more PvP than PvE these days.

[Chowderman]

I play Subtlety PvE, I also used Combat, at least before Blizz axed ArP.
It is a complex and delicate rotation to manage 3 finishers, its aoe damage is trash, but there is not a lot of need for it now, and for short fights like on trash mobs the dot damage is almost irrelevant. I suppose as Mastery rating picks up it will be easier to just use strong eviscerate finishers on trash mobs for maximum damage.

Boss fights, and long fights, keeping the rotation going you can really push a lot of damage, but still I think not enough. The very first rupture you do, applying hemo, shadowstep bonus and MoS, buff that rupture as much as possible, and then keeping the rotation steady while maintaining that dot, it will be your highest damage bleed to buff it fully, so you need to keep it going or you will have to vanish and start it over, some fights you will have to anyway.

Shadowdance, that is a good way to get Rupture, SnD and recup all going at once, then between eviscerates, using 3-point SnD/Recup alternating to keep them between the Eviscerates. It works, but it is tricky to set up, and in a 5 man, you get less HAT points.

In the end it still can't keep up with Mutilate, I am not sure what is missing, maybe rupture needs a buff or recup needs to grant a bit more energy to make BS more available, but something.

[Deleted]

I like how the new sub mechanics are viable in pve, actually it is not just evis spamming, and besides that with assasi you just spam muti and envenom. in sub you need to keep up recoup and snd, along with evis spam to keep up rupture, and besides i think that sub will get more viable when you get more haste due to more energy regen as thats what i think is the problem with the specc being viable in pve atm, also the loss in dps as stated when you switch targets etc. any comments?

[Chowderman]

...also the loss in dps as stated when you switch targets etc. any comments?

I think short fights with target swapping, the rotation is entirely different than the long fights. Backstab 3-5CP and then eviscerate, use SnD, basically do it like a Mut rogue. 1 minute cooldown on ShadowDance, you can ambush spam one target, when its dead redirect to the next and be ready to open with any finisher you want...I think it will just take some toying with it to see which multi-target process works best.

[Disastor]

Didn't they specifically mention that they aren't changing combat's mastery?

As long as combat has bandit's guile as a main source of damage, I doubt it will be the go to spec for raiding rogues.

[Fogkin]

Didn't they specifically mention that they aren't changing combat's mastery?

As long as combat has bandit's guile as a main source of damage, I doubt it will be the go to spec for raiding rogues.

no, they said:

Mastery is a new stat for us, and there are a few specs that don’t value it enough. In some cases (e.g. Combat rogues), the design for mastery is fine and we just need to buff the effects to make it more desirable. In others, we don’t think it’s possible to buff mastery enough in its current form.

So they aren't going to change the mastery, they are going to buff it up. And I wouldn't say BG is the main source of damage, it just helps to determine when to pop certain CDs. You wouldn't want to open up with KS when BG is only at shallow insight, you'd wait for deep insight and then pop it. So I always open with AR to get to deep insight as fast as possible to use KS that way I can use it 2 or 3 times per boss fight(depending on the length). My only problem with combat right now is during AR I am constantly energy capped. I can't spam SS fast enough because of the GCD on it. If anything they should reduce the GCD on SS to .5 seconds(at least when AR is up).