Help Blizzard redesign rogue class

[Deleted]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to make our class better, with less niche-only oriented specs and generally a class that would be fun to play and offer toolkit to deal with any situation the game may throw at you.

I think that the basic thing to change would be our talent system, that's a bit lacking atm to put it mildly. I thought about a new talent system that should give you all the options to play any spec you want while still offering different playstyles. Bear in mind though that all of the numbers are only placeholders, meaning that proper balancing would need to be done in order for eliminate cookie-cutter choices etc.

But the basic idea should be there and so far it's as follows:

Anticipation is no longer a talent but a baseline passive ability for all rogues
There are no baseline AOE abilities since you choose your AOE style via talent

T15 – stealth tier:

• Nightstalker, Subterfuge, Shadow Focus – all talents are viable and therefore might stay

T30 – AOE tier (new):

• Crimson Tempest (burst AOE)
  - Active: Finishing move that deals instant damage to all enemies in 10yd radius.
  - Passive: Your Eviscerate/Envenom increases the damage and radius of your next Crimson Tempest by 50% (yeah, this is rogue’s Final Verdict incarnation)
• Blade Flurry (cleaving)
• Enhanced Fan of Knives (funneling ST damage to primary target via add cleaving)

T45 – survivability tier

• Cheat Death, Elusiveness, Leech – all talents have their place and might stay

T60 – movement tier

• Ranged Assassin
  - Active: Increases the range of your melee attacks and abilities by 20yd for 3 seconds. 30 second cooldown, 2 charges
  - Passive: Increases the range of your melee attack and abilities by 5yd
• Shadowstep
• Burst of Speed
  - Replaces Sprint. 15 second cooldown, 2 charges, 4 seconds duration, no resource cost

T75 – crowd control tier

• Balanced PvP abilities go here

T90 – resources enhancement tier

• Marked for Death
• Lemon Zest (Venom Rush)
• Cruel Intentions
  - Your combo point generating abilities have 10% chance to make your next combo point generating ability cost no energy and have 50% increased damage

T100 – cooldown enhancement tier

• Shadow Blades
  - While Vendetta/Adrenaline Rush/Shadow Dance is active, your combo point generating abilities award double amount of combo points.
• Heavy Combat
  - While Vendetta/Adrenaline Rush/Shadow Dance is active, your energy regeneration rate is lowered by 20%, but Haste, Critical Strike, Mastery, Multistrike, Versatility, and Bonus Armor are increased by 1000.
• Premeditated Frenzy
  - Vendetta/Adrenaline Rush/Shadow Dance now has 2 charges.

I'd very much like to hear your thoughts and start a discussion in order to do the job that Blizzard should have done like two expansions before.

[Deleted]

You've removed Prey of the weak. Why?

[Deleted]

You've removed Prey of the weak. Why?

I wanted to make the CC choices more diverse, not only "when you stun you do more damage" or "when you stun you and the others do slightly more damage". I've kept only your personal benefit of Internal Bleeding, cause we're rogues and screw the others. However since I PvP only occasionally I realize I might have overlooked something that might have some use in that regard.

[Thelxi]

Since they put a 3s cd on BoS they should at least reduce the energy cost if not completely remove it. Also I wouldn't mind if they deleted the envenom "perk".

[Shyrshadi]

My question is what it would do to play style. The only solid difference I see is pvp improvements versus melee. I like most of what I'm reading but Blizzard is the group that would have to tune this and I don't see much of it being considered balanced at all.

Don't mistake my cinicism for ungratefulness tho. I like what I'm reading. But it doesn't address issues that exist within each spec; Bandits guile needs help. The spec also needs more burst. Sub needs backstab positional req removed. Assassin has less burst than combat and only one spec cd. Of the 3 specs sub is the only spec I enjoy playing and also is the only spec that feels mostly complete.

[Eazy]

I lol'd at:
-Double Sap and Two charges of Kick(with stun!).

Imagine that in PvP. At last we'll have balance in PvP.

-Lemon Zest - now we're going to put lemon juice instead of poisons on our weapons and our opponents are going to feel our full WRATH!

[Shyrshadi]

The cc tier will not work in pvp...

the kick would work well with classes that immune interrupts and if paired with ranged assassin would be good for melee vs melee pvp.

[Deleted]

I lol'd at:
-Double Sap and Two charges of Kick(with stun!).

Imagine that in PvP. At last we'll have balance in PvP.

-Lemon Zest - now we're going to put lemon juice instead of poisons on our weapons and our opponents are going to feel our full WRATH!

Well, knockback and stun are two completely different effects...

But anyhow, I've deleted the PvP section cause:
a) I don't know how to balance things and make it interessting as well
b) PvP cannot be balanced
c) I don't won't this discussion to focus on PvP at all

[Deleted]

Class Personality

Venom Strike
Requires Assassination
Coats your weapons with a Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of poisoning the enemy for [(22.525% of Attack power) * 4] Nature damage over 12 sec. Subsequent poison applications will instantly deal (3.85% of Attack power) stacking up to 10 times.

Result is 38.5% (of attack power) instant nature damage, proc chance for stacks have a 3 second hard coded internal cooldown.

Lacerated Blades
Requires Subtlety
Enhances your weapons with serrated edges that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 30% chance of gutting the enemy for [(32.29% of Attack power) * 4] damage over 12 sec. Affected by multistrike.


Kingsweed Demise
Requires assassination
Coats your weapons with a Non-Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 15% chance of poisoning the enemy for [(5.333% of Attack power) * 4] Nature damage over 12 sec. Subsequent strikes have a 5% chance to refund 1 energy.

Bubbling Lotus
Coats your weapons with a Non-Lethal Poison that lasts for 1 hour. Each strike has a 15% chance of poisoning the enemy for [(5.333% of Attack power) * 4] Nature damage over 12 sec. Subsequent strikes have a 5% chance to increase the casting time of the targets next spell by 20%.

Talent Adjustments to remove over the top niche's

Crimson Tempest
35 Energy
Instant
Requires Melee Weapon
Finishing move that slashes at the flesh of all enemies within 10 yards, dealing Physical damage and causing victims to bleed for an additional 240% of the initial damage over 12 sec:
1 point : [(3) + ((Attack power * 0.0602) * 1 * 1.5)]) damage
2 points: [(3) + ((Attack power * 0.0602) * 2 * 1.5)]) damage
3 points: [(3) + ((Attack power * 0.0602) * 3 * 1.5)]) damage
4 points: [(3) + ((Attack power * 0.0602) * 4 * 1.5)]) damage
5 points: [(3) + ((Attack power * 0.0602) * 5 * 1.5)]) damage

Enhanced Crimson Tempest (Level 92+)
Crimson Tempest also increases the damage targets take from your poisons by 40% for 1 sec plus 1 sec per combo point. (Assassination)
Crimson Tempest also increases the damage targets take from your weapon enhancements by 25% for 2 seconds. (Subtlety)

Improvements to Base abilities

Backstab
Backstab the target, causing 170% Physical damage. Must not be in front of the target. Awards 1 combo point.

Subtlety (Level 100)
As your foe bleeds to death with less than 25% health, your Backstab ability deals an additional [(10.885% of Attack power) * 4].

Dispatch
Exploits the vulnerability of foes with less than 35% health, causing 330% Physical damage to the target and advances your poison damage by 1 second. Awards 1 combo point.

Your successful Mutilates have a 30% chance to make your next Dispatch free and usable on any target.

Sinister Strike
40 Energy
An instant strike that causes 165% Physical damage.



The idea behind these alterations is not to redesign the class but to clarify what each spec is and the theme it represents as a class personality. Too many of our abilities are just cross overs with no real definition. Backstab and its retarded positional requirement is not fun, so to make it fun, and to buff the ability (which is scrutinized by hitting like a wet noodle) is to mildly amplify its initial damage but also reward rogues needing to position themselves to actually hit something.

[leetpr0]

I mean ... that doesn't seem too crazy. That was fun to read and looks even more fun to play, however I'm not sure how balanced it would be

[Deleted]

...

I think we don't understand each other here. I'm talking about redesigning the class and I've shared my idea about how to do that via making new talent tiers. But instead of some kind of discussion whether having AOE style selectable via talent is OK or not, I see posts like "backstab damage should be increased by 10%".

This is about changing class mechanics, not number tuning.

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I mean ... that doesn't seem too crazy. That was fun to read and looks even more fun to play, however I'm not sure how balanced it would be

Anything can work with proper tuning. Look at monks and their Touch of Death ability. I guess the original idea was kinda crazy like "allow monks to insta kill mobs" and then via tuning they made it balanced like "mob needs to have lower HP than you", there's a CD, it cost resources etc. So I say if it's fun it can work with a bit of care.

[Heffladin]

Call me crazy, but it would have been really cool if you had the option as a combat rogue to go with two handers, or more specifically 2-handed swords, I think like katana, or maybe a lighter hammer/halberd. More ranged alternatives would also be neat, making you dash when you have the combo points, and run out when you don't, would make for compelling gameplay to me.

[Duravian]

Don't change anything. I like my class the way it is.

[Deleted]

Heavy Combat seems very strong because your energy regen would be reduced by 1 because of the haste gained, and getting (for sub): 9% crit, 27,3x% mastery and 6,6x% multistrike while doing Shadow Dance

[Deleted]

I think we don't understand each other here. I'm talking about redesigning the class and I've shared my idea about how to do that via making new talent tiers. But instead of some kind of discussion whether having AOE style selectable via talent is OK or not, I see posts like "backstab damage should be increased by 10%".

This is about changing class mechanics, not number tuning.

Refer to previous edit.

Redesigning talent trees to choices doesn't give a rogue any form of personality. That is purely mixing and matching to what you want from each spec. Creating obscure results and no rendered class specific. The alterations that I suggested and added abilities is to give definition and increase representation across all encounters and situations. Want to swing swords and cleave? Combat.. What to make shit bleed and do similar numbers? Sub.. Want to poison and watch rolling numbers? Ass..

[Koji2k11]

i know im not constructive at all but ..... when was the last time blizzard ACTUALLY listened to rogues ? also those HELP blizzard doing XXXXX stuff kind of threads keep popping up every expasion start and we all know how we end up forgotten and ignored

but you can keep posting and hope... maybe SOMEDAY blizzturd will listen when rogue population is at 0,00000001% and subs are at 10k

[Deleted]

Refer to previous edit.

Redesigning talent trees to choices doesn't give a rogue any form of personality. That is purely mixing and matching to what you want from each spec. Creating obscure results and no rendered class specific. The alterations that I suggested and added abilities is to give definition and increase representation across all encounters and situations. Want to swing swords and cleave? Combat.. What to make shit bleed and do similar numbers? Sub.. Want to poison and watch rolling numbers? Ass..

Maybe that's where we don't understand each other cause I don't think that rogue's lacking in terms of "personality". The tooltips for the specs say quite clearly what you can expect from each spec. The problem is, at least in current WoD state of things, that if you like Assassination for instance, you can use it only on fights like Hanz&Franz/Twin Ogron... If you decide to use Assassination on heavy cleave fight like Operator Thogar, you're just not able to pull the numbers you'd expect from a competent player.

My idea is that the new talent system should enable to pick a spec you like and play it on all fights without being considered sub-par or stupid. Of course there will always be fights more suited to one spec or the other, but the general idea is that if you like Assassination, you can play it on every single fight and still do within 5% difference from the best spec there is.

I'm not saying that the personality of the specs couldn't be embraced a bit more, like have some kind of "shadow" form for Subtlety (like shadow priest), visual effects like that and so on. But the main issue to me is the niches that are bound to every rogue spec atm.

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And also rogues are probably one of the last classes that need a total overhaul, imo rogues have the best design in the game.

I guess rogue is not your main.

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Heavy Combat seems very strong because your energy regen would be reduced by 1 because of the haste gained, and getting (for sub): 9% crit, 27,3x% mastery and 6,6x% multistrike while doing Shadow Dance

As I said, numbers in my post are basically placeholders and should be changed when balancing is done.

[Deleted]

Maybe that's where we don't understand each other cause I don't think that rogue's lacking in terms of "personality". The tooltips for the specs say quite clearly what you can expect from each spec. The problem is, at least in current WoD state of things, that if you like Assassination for instance, you can use it only on fights like Hanz&Franz/Twin Ogron... If you decide to use Assassination on heavy cleave fight like Operator Thogar, you're just not able to pull the numbers you'd expect from a competent player.

My idea is that the new talent system should enable to pick a spec you like and play it on all fights without being considered sub-par or stupid. Of course there will always be fights more suited to one spec or the other, but the general idea is that if you like Assassination, you can play it on every single fight and still do within 5% difference from the best spec there is.

I'm not saying that the personality of the specs couldn't be embraced a bit more, like have some kind of "shadow" form for Subtlety (like shadow priest), visual effects like that and so on. But the main issue to me is the niches that are bound to every rogue spec atm.

Obviously you didn't read the alterations and additions very well then. Having a pick and mix talent tree is such a terrible bandaid fix that it gives NO form of personality or embrace the class and specialisation you chose.

Again, the idea is to embrace what is currently there with minor adjustments and mechanic alterations to enable each specialisation to do within 5% dps of each other regardless of ST*, cleave or full blown AoE.

*Sub, like it should, has a small DPS increase with those alterations to ensure it's single target is better because, lets face it, it's not as brain dead and retarded as assassination and working over-time to keep your rotation and opener 100% should yield better results, no?

[Deleted]

Obviously you didn't read the alterations and additions very well then. Having a pick and mix talent tree is such a terrible bandaid fix that it gives NO form of personality or embrace the class and specialisation you chose.

Are you suggesting that Subtlety would loose it's "personality" if you had Blade Flurry available instead of FoK?

[Deleted]

I wanted to make the CC choices more diverse, not only "when you stun you do more damage" or "when you stun you and the others do slightly more damage". I've kept only your personal benefit of Internal Bleeding, cause we're rogues and screw the others. However since I PvP only occasionally I realize I might have overlooked something that might have some use in that regard.

yep, obviously you've cut Combat Readiness/Nerve Strike/Deadly Throw tier, Prey of the Weak, DfA, Shadow Reflection choices and put Lemon Zest to Anticipation&MfD tier and added only one tier for pvp which might screw pvp totally. I dunno if it won't work for pvp but I think that we would have much less options to construct pvp build with such choices.