Rogue 8.0 Discussion

[Mamercus]

Kingsbane is more interesting than TB. I would support the replacement of TB with Kingsbane on beta. As it is you have to pool to get 3+ envenoms in a toxic blade so it doesn't play all that different from KB but KB was more interesting to play around.

[elfporn]

Kingsbane is more interesting than TB. I would support the replacement of TB with Kingsbane on beta. As it is you have to pool to get 3+ envenoms in a toxic blade so it doesn't play all that different from KB but KB was more interesting to play around.

I don't get that? The only thing to do for kingsbane was maintain SoT/envenom. There was nothing else to it except that cdr for it was based on resources spent.

TB you at least have some marginal planning/pooling to consider. Though at this point on live you don't even need to do that.

Going into bfa with less resource gen at the start, TB will need more pooling. But so would kb, to a lesser extent.

[Deleted]

@Varolyn thank you for the insight it is much appreciated!

[RobertoCarlos]

Kingsbane/toxic blades or exsang gives assassin a rather unique feel.

Theres not many classes that have that powerful of cooldowns coming up so often.

And its not like assassination demands full concentration to play effectively, so knowing when to use your cooldowns at least gave the spec some much needed depth

Its quite easy to waste those cooldowns if you're not paying attention to raid cooldowns

[Varolyn]

I don't get that? The only thing to do for kingsbane was maintain SoT/envenom. There was nothing else to it except that cdr for it was based on resources spent.

TB you at least have some marginal planning/pooling to consider. Though at this point on live you don't even need to do that.

Going into bfa with less resource gen at the start, TB will need more pooling. But so would kb, to a lesser extent.

For me it's really a flavor thing. Kingsbane had a pretty cool animation and I just thought it was satisfying to press. It has a big initial hit and the dot can end up doing some crazy high damage especially if utilizing envenom properly. Toxic blade is alright but I just prefer Kingsbane over it. Though I think Toxic blade could use a new animation, it's literally the backstab animation. Even if they just changed the trial color to green would be ok, to make it more, well, toxic.

[RobertoCarlos]

For me it's really a flavor thing. Kingsbane had a pretty cool animation and I just thought it was satisfying to press. It has a big initial hit and the dot can end up doing some crazy high damage especially if utilizing envenom properly. Toxic blade is alright but I just prefer Kingsbane over it. Though I think Toxic blade could use a new animation, it's literally the backstab animation. Even if they just changed the trial color to green would be ok, to make it more, well, toxic.

Kingsbane also suits the class fantasy they are so obsessed with.

A poison dot that scales up with more damage the more poison you apply in its duration? Great! Why would you remove it? Typical activision-blizzard

[elfporn]

ill give you the class fantasy thing. Though there's no reason they can't roll them into a single ability. TB is fairly boring as a CD, though effective, while kb was very class fantasy.

[Bullettime]

The Sub 100 talent tier is confusing to me. You have Secret Techniques and Shuriken Tornado providing interesting AoE boosts then you have...Master of Shadows? MoS does basically the same thing as Shuriken Tornado in being a set up for a bursted Shadow Dance shuriken storm but less interesting. Seems really odd to have two talents doing basically the same thing but with one giving energy before spending and one just spending.

[Critical92]

Mos is useable in all scenarios. It just gives energy overtime to help shadowdance.

Secret technique is the new dfa and we don't know how it really works yet. My guess is that the aoe part is not that huge but the single target damage could be.
Also it aligns with sod and mfd every 30 seconds allowing us to get the burst gameplay of dfa in another form back.

Shuriken tornado is good in really heavy aoe fights or in m+ trash weeks. You can see it as burst aoe form that allows you to spam back to back finisher.

Both secret technique and shuriken tornado are more of an st boost because the piercing shots have decreased dmg (how much will we see when it works)
and the dmg of shuriken storm was never that high without cloak stacks.

[Deleted]

What are peoples thoughts about making poison bomb controllable? Like using fan of knives during envenom windows will proc poison bomb.

[RobertoCarlos]

What are peoples thoughts about making poison bomb controllable?

People have been asking for that since its inception

[Varolyn]

What are peoples thoughts about making poison bomb controllable? Like using fan of knives during envenom windows will proc poison bomb.

Its damage has been lowered so much on the beta relative to now that it probably won't be nearly as big as an issue. Getting really lucky with procs and you might reach 5% Poison bomb damage, compared to the 15%+ you can get on live.

[RobertoCarlos]

ill give you the class fantasy thing. Though there's no reason they can't roll them into a single ability. TB is fairly boring as a CD, though effective, while kb was very class fantasy.

That would be fine.

They should have baked the stuff that worked in legion into the classes kit anyway. I'd have no problem if toxic also had kingsbane in it. But then it starts being a balance nightmare because you want Kingsbane to be strong to feel good. Which would make it op

And the talents already suffer from BiS syndrome where the choice is only an illusion for the min/maxers

[Crookers]

That would be fine.

They should have baked the stuff that worked in legion into the classes kit anyway. I'd have no problem if toxic also had kingsbane in it. But then it starts being a balance nightmare because you want Kingsbane to be strong to feel good. Which would make it op

And the talents already suffer from BiS syndrome where the choice is only an illusion for the min/maxers

Yeah honestly I was very surprised that every spec in the BFA beta didn't get an ability that was almost identical to the artifact ability. Personally I found KB a little dull, you just push a button and do your normal rotation but more damage all it really calls on you to do is maximise envenom uptime which has been sin 101 since wrath before we even cared about bleeds the spec has always been about maximum envenom up time to proc deadly/lethal poisons. Thematically the idea behind the ability is very cool and the ramping dot is great, but really you just push a button and do what you were already going to do.

Curse of the dreadblades was a great ability and I don't know if outlaw can really be fun without it, I like the retro treatment they have given blade flurry though, old school version was much better than just the thing you toggle on if more than 1 target.

I've only played a handful of specs this expansion (spriest, disc, MM, sin and outlaw) and aside from MM I don't see them feeling that great without their artifact ability. Disc loses its big burst heal, spriest loses its ability to maintain voidform while waiting on cooldowns for insanity generators, outlaw will just feel slow and clunky, sin loses some damage but not much else, MM just loses an ability that never actually felt good to use or made any sense in its rotation.

Obviously depending on gear and ability tweaks all of this can be overcome in BFA but they could have just done some handwaving and said "even though the artifact weapons were destroyed by sargeras' blade, prolonged exposure to their power has affected the heroes of azeroth and they can still use the special ability"

[Mafic]

Yeah honestly I was very surprised that every spec in the BFA beta didn't get an ability that was almost identical to the artifact ability. Personally I found KB a little dull, you just push a button and do your normal rotation but more damage all it really calls on you to do is maximise envenom uptime which has been sin 101 since wrath before we even cared about bleeds the spec has always been about maximum envenom up time to proc deadly/lethal poisons. Thematically the idea behind the ability is very cool and the ramping dot is great, but really you just push a button and do what you were already going to do.

Curse of the dreadblades was a great ability and I don't know if outlaw can really be fun without it, I like the retro treatment they have given blade flurry though, old school version was much better than just the thing you toggle on if more than 1 target.

I've only played a handful of specs this expansion (spriest, disc, MM, sin and outlaw) and aside from MM I don't see them feeling that great without their artifact ability. Disc loses its big burst heal, spriest loses its ability to maintain voidform while waiting on cooldowns for insanity generators, outlaw will just feel slow and clunky, sin loses some damage but not much else, MM just loses an ability that never actually felt good to use or made any sense in its rotation.

Obviously depending on gear and ability tweaks all of this can be overcome in BFA but they could have just done some handwaving and said "even though the artifact weapons were destroyed by sargeras' blade, prolonged exposure to their power has affected the heroes of azeroth and they can still use the special ability"

This is why there is a sudden scramble to address classes in BFA beta the last few weeks because they finally realized you can't go into BFA with watered down Legion classes.

Hopefully, we start to see more changes to Sub, Assassination and Outlaw.

Sub needs the most work right now and we can't test shadow techniques because it doesn't work. Assassination is the most complete of the three specs on BFA beta but it still needs some work too. Outlaw will play very differently than Legion Outlaw, but I am not sure how they are going to balance the spec with lower combo point generation.

[Rixxis]

What are peoples thoughts about making poison bomb controllable? Like using fan of knives during envenom windows will proc poison bomb.

Poison Bomb is really the only bad thing about the spec due to the RNG element but Blizzard's solution has been to nerf the damage so much that you don't really care if you don't proc it.

[Deleted]

What are peoples thoughts about making poison bomb controllable? Like using fan of knives during envenom windows will proc poison bomb.

I really like your idea ! Very nice !

[Deleted]

People have been asking for that since its inception

I know but have people suggested ways of how it could be implemented?

Poison Bomb is really the only bad thing about the spec due to the RNG element but Blizzard's solution has been to nerf the damage so much that you don't really care if you don't proc it.

Its damage has been lowered so much on the beta relative to now that it probably won't be nearly as big as an issue. Getting really lucky with procs and you might reach 5% Poison bomb damage, compared to the 15%+ you can get on live.

Which sucks and begs the question why even have it then? Why not just give us kingsbane talent instead? There are other aoe options on the tier.

I really like your idea ! Very nice !

Thanks it just seems so obvious as a way to give the intended aoe, make it controllable and reliable (with obvious damage change to go with it being controllable) and it fits right into the theme and rotation you're already doing.

[Naiattavain]

just reading most everyone's replies. skimming through. BFA is going to tank. rogue is being made even less without some care of the devs. really time to move on from world of warcraft to find a new game.

[Deleted]

Which sucks and begs the question why even have it then? Why not just give us kingsbane talent instead? There are other aoe options on the tier.

Because blizz loves their RNG and for some reason refuses to accept that in today's iteration of the game it is not outdated. The overall standard of player, has actually gone up over the years even with a reduction of subs. Not only that but the addons/scripts available and use of third party simulators i.e simcraft has become the mainstream norm for the average player even playing at the normal level. Its a thing of the past that these tools were for the hardcore min maxers and it is expected in most guilds raiding at a normal/hc level to sim and maximise your play as much as possible.

As this mentality has grown over the years abilities like Posion Bomb, which is essentially there to break up the simplistic nature of a spec/rotation and add more "flavour", have been exposed in terms of bad design because so many more players care and have access to whats going on under the hood of their char that when they reach that level of understanding things begin to start to feel bad, as they can actually see what a large effect it has over their play/damage and because most of these players are now following the min max paradigm, this lack of control is very counter-intuitive to what they are trying to achieve i.e maximum output.

Basically the mindset has really shifted from "wow i got lucky with PB that fight look at my damage, even tho if forgot to pre-pot!!" to "ffs thats another 89% parse instead of a 90%+ because of shitty rng but i played perfectly pretty much" If so much damage is locked behind RNG it just now feels worse relativity because the majority of the player base is all about simmed output, rather than "im top of the meter", so will focus on the bad parses but feel frustrated because there is nothing but luck holding them back.

The problem however is also blizz has the bad habit of preaching "we will make passives to suit the less skilled player, but they will of course do less damage" but ending up doing the opposite because the active talent on the same row that's ment to compete with the passive and be better in throughput because of its active nature becomes too hard to balance and everyone ends up taking the passive and the min/maxers amongst us fall into the above mindset i.e forced to take something that takes away our control.

Is putting Poison Bomb as an active the answer; it really depends on how well its balanced against the other talents but for me yes it's a much better solution than out of date RNG.

Kingsbane is a great example of a talent that looks relativity simple but has much deeper synergy with the rest of the toolkit, i.e envenom and using toxic blade in its last 9 seconds. Its not going cripple the bad players for not maximizing these effects but gives better players something they can work with the push more damage that they have control over rather than rng.