Outlaw in need of help

[Garnier Fructis]

Yeah. Their dps remained more or less the same on different fights. Not counting aoe fights, cause outlaw seems a bit broken there, but ST fights all where fairly steady. While i was all over the place.

But im just gonna try SnD and see how that works out

Honestly I'm not sure what you're doing that's giving you such variance. I don't have that, and I'm consistently near the top of the pack in my guild.

I've seen a few posts where people complain about spending the majority of a fight rerolling over and over trying to get the recommended buffs. That might be, on average, the best thing to do on paper, but at some point in a fight you have to accept a less-optimal single buff like Broadsides and start doing some actual damage. Unless it's True Bearing, fuck that one.

I mean, a 5 proc could swing your dps way higher, but everyone knows that 5 procs only happen on wipes and trash.

I think Blizz realizes that we don't really like Outlaw & would rather go BACK to Combat, so they are doing their best to make sure that RtB will always be better than SnD (because they realize the 'class fantasy' of Outlaw is stupid & someone effed up by creating it)...

Speak for yourself; I'm having way more fun with Outlaw than I ever did with Combat. Reacting to different buffs is a hell of a lot more fun than doing the exact same thing over and over for a whole expansion.

[Biomega]

I've seen a few posts where people complain about spending the majority of a fight rerolling over and over trying to get the recommended buffs. That might be, on average, the best thing to do on paper, but at some point in a fight you have to accept a less-optimal single buff like Broadsides and start doing some actual damage.

This is not playing optimally. Your goal isn't to win the roll every time, it's to win the most rolls on average over time. And that means following the theoretically best reroll logic, because you can't predict the future. You are basically saying "I know two dice land on 7 most of the time, but at some point you just have to face it that 7 isn't going to come up and bet on 5 instead" - which is simply a nonsensical approach that will never win out in the long run.

[Garnier Fructis]

This is not playing optimally. Your goal isn't to win the roll every time, it's to win the most rolls on average over time. And that means following the theoretically best reroll logic, because you can't predict the future. You are basically saying "I know two dice land on 7 most of the time, but at some point you just have to face it that 7 isn't going to come up and bet on 5 instead" - which is simply a nonsensical approach that will never win out in the long run.

The issue I have with this is that I'm trying to be effective every attempt, not effective on average. When you follow the best reroll logic religiously when an add needs to die, you run the risk of being absolutely useless for the majority of that add's lifespan. It's a decision to sacrifice average dps for consistent dps.

But I am interested now in just how much worse it is; does anyone have any sim data?

[Biomega]

The issue I have with this is that I'm trying to be effective every attempt, not effective on average.

But you can't predict the future. You play for what is most likely to yield the best DPS, because most of the time it will. You say you want to reduce variance, but you have no way of knowing whether you hit the RNG well or poorly - all you can go by is expected average, and all you are doing by playing incorrectly is reducing that average. I know statistics can sometimes run counter to what people intuitively feel should be the case, but math is math.

You're right, though, that very short fights are an exception for several reasons, and may require entirely different approaches in the first place. An extreme example would be open-world questing where you're fighting one mob at a time, and something like MFD into BtE into (Deadshot/Opportunity) Pistol Shot kills things outright with no need to use RtB at all. Depending on how far apart the mobs are, even rolling it between mobs might not be optimal due to the long downtime.

In raids, it's fight-specific and can be very difficult to accurately math out due to the many factors involved. If there's a priority add, for example, damage on that add is one concern - but continuing damage on the boss afterward doesn't disappear completely. If it's a short-lived high-priority add that you aren't cleaving (and then why aren't you playing Sub), chances are that pooling energy and holding CDs like BR/MFD is going to be much more important than RtB for that short window. But if the add lives longer, or if you're cleaving off the boss, then sticking to the correct RtB logic is most likely the optimal way to go.

[Garnier Fructis]

But you can't predict the future. You play for what is most likely to yield the best DPS, because most of the time it will. You say you want to reduce variance, but you have no way of knowing whether you hit the RNG well or poorly - all you can go by is expected average, and all you are doing by playing incorrectly is reducing that average. I know statistics can sometimes run counter to what people intuitively feel should be the case, but math is math.

You're right, though, that very short fights are an exception for several reasons, and may require entirely different approaches in the first place. An extreme example would be open-world questing where you're fighting one mob at a time, and something like MFD into BtE into (Deadshot/Opportunity) Pistol Shot kills things outright with no need to use RtB at all. Depending on how far apart the mobs are, even rolling it between mobs might not be optimal due to the long downtime.

In raids, it's fight-specific and can be very difficult to accurately math out due to the many factors involved. If there's a priority add, for example, damage on that add is one concern - but continuing damage on the boss afterward doesn't disappear completely. If it's a short-lived high-priority add that you aren't cleaving (and then why aren't you playing Sub), chances are that pooling energy and holding CDs like BR/MFD is going to be much more important than RtB for that short window. But if the add lives longer, or if you're cleaving off the boss, then sticking to the correct RtB logic is most likely the optimal way to go.

I know probability, and perhaps I'm just terrible at communicating my thoughts but your last two paragraphs (i.e. adds) are what I had in mind throughout this whole discussion of variance. The part you quoted was not meant to be taken in isolation, given the wealth of adds in Uldir.

[Biomega]

Things can get very complicated when fight-specific mechanics are involved. Models are just that - models. They're not 1:1 carbon-copy representations of an actual fight. The rotational priorities dictated by simulations are useful because they're the optimal baseline, but that doesn't mean they're absolute. Far from it, and most good guides will always come with an appropriate caveat.

Once people figure out the details of the new raid fights, I'm sure there will be threads made that discuss the optimal ways to handle the various mechanics. Since those may vary based on fight difficulty and individual raid strategy, it's unlikely there'll be simulations to fall back on for every scenario - but the base assumptions still hold, they'll simply be modified based on extenuating factors.

[Phookah]

They're gonna get helped alright


Helped right into a wheelchair

[Boil]

I think Blizz realizes that we don't really like Outlaw & would rather go BACK to Combat, so they are doing their best to make sure that RtB will always be better than SnD (because they realize the 'class fantasy' of Outlaw is stupid & someone effed up by creating it)...

Speak for yourself; I'm having way more fun with Outlaw than I ever did with Combat. Reacting to different buffs is a hell of a lot more fun than doing the exact same thing over and over for a whole expansion.

I was speaking for myself, does not everyone use the royal "we" when speaking of oneself...?!?

Regardless, thee was nothing wrong with Combat whatsoever, and then Blizz decided "hey, we need pirate rogues!", and here we are now...

Blizz took what worked, a Combat Rogue was an incredible cleave machine; and the effed it all up with RtB & a crappy implementation of RNG...

I must have rolled almost a half-dozen times fishing for a decent buff in a Mythic +2 Kings Rest before I said "eff this" and just went with what I had...

And then there are the RtB rolls where you get a 5-roll, only to have whatever mobs you are on die a few seconds later, then you are all "go, Go, GO...!" to the tank because you want to get the most out of that elusive 5-roll...!

[Garnier Fructis]

I must have rolled almost a half-dozen times fishing for a decent buff in a Mythic +2 Kings Rest before I said "eff this" and just went with what I had...

And then there are the RtB rolls where you get a 5-roll, only to have whatever mobs you are on die a few seconds later, then you are all "go, Go, GO...!" to the tank because you want to get the most out of that elusive 5-roll...!

You can be a lot more loose with the buffs in mythic keystones and still perform well on trash packs. I find that I can push out a good number of Deadshots with a single Skull & Crossbones and sometimes even with a single Broadside, which can shred aoe packs. I save the diligent fishing for bosses, within reason: if someone gets hit with soul thorns on Soulbound Goliath, I'll just use BtE and consume an opportunity proc to break them out fast instead of fishing.

But yeah, sorry about the royal we stuff.

[Demeia]

I think Blizz realizes that we don't really like Outlaw & would rather go BACK to Combat, so they are doing their best to make sure that RtB will always be better than SnD (because they realize the 'class fantasy' of Outlaw is stupid & someone effed up by creating it)...

They are really, really cramming RTB done our throat. If they have such faith in how great it is, they should make all three talents on that tree equal...and then watch as we all go S&D.

Someone at blizzard really, really loves Roll the Bones.

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Speak for yourself; I'm having way more fun with Outlaw than I ever did with Combat. Reacting to different buffs is a hell of a lot more fun than doing the exact same thing over and over for a whole expansion.

If reacting to buffs meant that I altered my rotation, sure. But if it means I am rerolling FOUR out of the SIX goddamn buffs, it's just stupid and frustrating. The only way this power could work is if they would put the work into constantly rebalacing the bones every raid tier, which is insane, which is why it's a bad power.

They should have just baked in loaded dice into the power instead of getting cute with it as a talent.

[glowpipe]

So i guess deadshot traits is a no no now ? 20% nerf along with a 5% overal outlaw nerf.

Outlaw was insane in AOE. Not that great in ST. Why are they mainly nerfing our ST and not even touching the Aoe ?

[Sephiroso]

They are really, really cramming RTB done our throat. If they have such faith in how great it is, they should make all three talents on that tree equal...and then watch as we all go S&D.

Someone at blizzard really, really loves Roll the Bones.

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If reacting to buffs meant that I altered my rotation, sure. But if it means I am rerolling FOUR out of the SIX goddamn buffs, it's just stupid and frustrating. The only way this power could work is if they would put the work into constantly rebalacing the bones every raid tier, which is insane, which is why it's a bad power.

They should have just baked in loaded dice into the power instead of getting cute with it as a talent.

Even if loaded dice was built in, you're kidding yourself if you think that would eliminate rerolling.

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So i guess deadshot traits is a no no now ? 20% nerf along with a 5% overal outlaw nerf.

Outlaw was insane in AOE. Not that great in ST. Why are they mainly nerfing our ST and not even touching the Aoe ?

you do understand our aoe comes from our ST right? This isn't me agreeing with the nerf, just explaining to you how this does effect our aoe.

[Biomega]

So i guess deadshot traits is a no no now ? 20% nerf along with a 5% overal outlaw nerf.

Outlaw was insane in AOE. Not that great in ST. Why are they mainly nerfing our ST and not even touching the Aoe ?

Preliminary analysis shows Deadshot is still good, but it's possible other configurations might be better now. 2 Deadshot 1 Ace of the Sleeve is a contender, as is the Snek build with RtB. People are still simulating things and trying to figure out what's best. More info soon(tm).

[glowpipe]

you do understand our aoe comes from our ST right? This isn't me agreeing with the nerf, just explaining to you how this does effect our aoe.

My first post didn't reflect what i meant correctly. Cause i suck at writing.
But why was nothing done to bladeflurry ? longer recharge. 1 charge or even lower dmg. Instead the hurt something that was already rather mediocre, unless you won he lottery 5 times in a row during a fight