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  1. #1

    Cool Shadowlands Sub Rogue : "Hopefully better" then BFA? That is all?

    First forgive me for any mistake. English is not my first lenguage.
    Well, I'm trying to find some youtuber saying that the subtlety rogue really is better in the shadowlands alpha and I only see people saying that it is "hopefully better" than BFA. This is not exactly what I call good news.
    Particularly a CtrlC - CtrLV in WOD talents, I think it would be the best solution for this spec, which was once a PVP icon.
    I would really give a kidney in exchange for having the talent "shadow reflection" back and also having gouge for all specs. Finally, I know that this next wish is quite unpopular but I loved shadowstrike with free-teleport at the beginning of the legion. I could apply swap-target at any time and appear behind the target at the moment we want is a great advantage ... at least in PVP situations.
    I really hope to see good news about the rogue subtlety and not what I am currently seeing ....

  2. #2
    Shadowstrike teleport is one of the worst ideas Blizzard ever had in the history of the game. Swapping in PvP should happen with Step --> Kidney or Step --> Dance --> Cheap Shot not with a braindead spammable teleport ambush that gives your opponent an entire global to respond.

    I agree with the other things that you wrote but you're really shooting your credibility in the foot by trying to argue in favor of the early Legion design, which by the way is exactly why we had so many tools pruned in the first place.
    Subtlety Rogue was an amazing, incredible, unique, and fun spec prior to Legion and BfA

    “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

    ― Douglas Adams

  3. #3
    I mean Sub doesn't even have all its talents in yet. I'm inclined to believe rogues haven't had their 'big' changes pass like locks or warriors yet.

  4. #4
    Sub needs two necessary changes right now.

    1- Find weakness should only apply from stealth/dance. Right now its a 24/7 debuff which is pointless and defeats the whole purpose of find weakness which is meant to give the spec a power spike when coming out of stealth.

    2- Premeditation should be given back to apply SnD before the opener. Having no slice and dice in the opener is going to make the spec really clunky since it specializes in its openers. MfD for SnD before the opener just doesn't feel right and would drastically reduce the power of sub openers. Maybe a potential different approach would be to make symbols give 2 combo points ? not sure. But we definitely need a 2 combo generator in stealth before the opener right now.

    Now regarding other things that people ask for such as gouge, garrote, etc. Sure it would be nice. But imo these 2 things that i previously mentioned are more important.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Blezius View Post
    1- Find weakness should only apply from stealth/dance. Right now its a 24/7 debuff which is pointless and defeats the whole purpose of find weakness which is meant to give the spec a power spike when coming out of stealth.
    FW is replacing the damage amp from nightblade being lost now it's going back to rupture. Now we could argue Sub's damage amp shouldn't be FW and it shouldn't apply on the builder but that's a separate issue of uninspired design.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    Shadowstrike teleport is one of the worst ideas Blizzard ever had in the history of the game. Swapping in PvP should happen with Step --> Kidney or Step --> Dance --> Cheap Shot not with a braindead spammable teleport ambush that gives your opponent an entire global to respond.

    I agree with the other things that you wrote but you're really shooting your credibility in the foot by trying to argue in favor of the early Legion design, which by the way is exactly why we had so many tools pruned in the first place.
    Well, about the "free-teleport" I said it was an unpopular opinion ...! I respect your opinion but I see nothing wrong with being able to do something with a single button instead of having to press 4 or 5 buttons to do the same thing ...! Of course, I don't want to press a single button to win ... but if I had fun pressing 1000 buttons in search of a simple result I would play guitar hero.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blezius View Post

    2- Premeditation should be given back to apply SnD before the opener. Having no slice and dice in the opener is going to make the spec really clunky since it specializes in its openers. MfD for SnD before the opener just doesn't feel right and would drastically reduce the power of sub openers. Maybe a potential different approach would be to make symbols give 2 combo points ? not sure. But we definitely need a 2 combo generator in stealth before the opener right now.
    I totally agree. So far SnD seems to me just another button (which costs a few combo points) that the devs gave us to press because in the feed-back we have players asking for more buttons to press. SnD should be a passive or at most a skill with 30 seconds of cooldown ...

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Fantazma View Post
    Well, about the "free-teleport" I said it was an unpopular opinion ...! I respect your opinion but I see nothing wrong with being able to do something with a single button instead of having to press 4 or 5 buttons to do the same thing ...! Of course, I don't want to press a single button to win ... but if I had fun pressing 1000 buttons in search of a simple result I would play guitar hero.
    What you need to understand is that this game is give and take. If they give you a free 24/7 teleport on your shadowstrike, then you won't be doing any meaningful damage. So rogue players would rather have bursty damage than a free teleport without being able to kill anything. Its not as simple as "i like teleports so i want teleport" its about what you'll lose if you get 100% uptime. Same argument is made for shadow dance charges. If they give you infinite shadow dance then obviously they have to make it less powerful.

    And no you don't need 5 buttons. You shadowstep. Its one button. You can only use it once or twice though so its fine unlike shadowstrike.
    Last edited by Blezius; 2020-07-07 at 10:53 AM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Fantazma View Post
    Well, about the "free-teleport" I said it was an unpopular opinion ...! I respect your opinion but I see nothing wrong with being able to do something with a single button instead of having to press 4 or 5 buttons to do the same thing ...! Of course, I don't want to press a single button to win ... but if I had fun pressing 1000 buttons in search of a simple result I would play guitar hero.

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    I totally agree. So far SnD seems to me just another button (which costs a few combo points) that the devs gave us to press because in the feed-back we have players asking for more buttons to press. SnD should be a passive or at most a skill with 30 seconds of cooldown ...
    It's not "my opinion"; there are very good reasons that Shadowstrike spammable teleport was removed from the game almost immediately. You simply don't have the understanding of PvP balancing in order to understand it.

    1. Shadowstrike teleport is a trap for extremely low skill players. It's worse than Shadowstep because Shadowstep is off GCD. Nobody who is actually good, or even minimally competent, misses it.

    2. While it's worse for swapping because of the GCD being punishable by any opponent who actually has a pulse, it's also a balancing nightmare because it was spammable, allowing even the worst Rogue players to fly around and be basically unpeelable while mindlessly tunneling a single target. It completely detracts from the skill of managing position, mobility, and CDs because the basic builder becomes the gap closer. It therefore mandates our damage gets tuned into the dumpster and then we have no burst for scoring kills.

    This design is the lowest point in Rogue history which dumbed down our gameplay to a completely facerolling level.

    It shouldn't even be necessary to explain this, frankly. I'm honestly astounded that it requires any explanation at all. Then again, I'm astounded that it made it into the game in the first place -- any designer with a basic clue should have shot it down at the drawing board.
    Last edited by shoegazing; 2020-07-07 at 02:25 PM.
    Subtlety Rogue was an amazing, incredible, unique, and fun spec prior to Legion and BfA

    “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

    ― Douglas Adams

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    This design is the lowest point in Rogue history which dumbed down our gameplay to a completely facerolling level.
    I wouldn't be so drastic but yes, it wasn't a good thing and made the playstyle worse. Instead of giving a free teleport, just remove the positional requirement (if there's one, i don't remember right now) and make it deal the additional damage when behind. Backstab should receive the same treatment, and Gloomblade removed cause i don't think it even fits in the game (until people really want the choice to have a magic damage builder for high armor targets).

    There you get streamlined use but with gameplay/skill involvement, especially in PvP where positioning is king.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Coldkil View Post
    I wouldn't be so drastic but yes, it wasn't a good thing and made the playstyle worse. Instead of giving a free teleport, just remove the positional requirement (if there's one, i don't remember right now) and make it deal the additional damage when behind. Backstab should receive the same treatment, and Gloomblade removed cause i don't think it even fits in the game (until people really want the choice to have a magic damage builder for high armor targets).

    There you get streamlined use but with gameplay/skill involvement, especially in PvP where positioning is king.
    You really can't name a worse stage of Rogue design than early Legion, though. Think about it. What could possibly be worse? Early MoP was garbage but its problems were NOTHING compared to what Legion introduced. Later Legion and BfA are both garbage, but of a lesser, less blatantly and obviously stupid to the entire world variety than early Legion. The fact that Legion design ever made it past brainstorming is a damning indictment of the class design team that worked on it. Not a single competent individual in the room, or if there was they must have been shut down by clueless management.

    Anyway, simply removing positional requirements and replacing them with a damage bonus from behind is not satisfactory either. There is no feedback on whether you are at the proper position to get the bonus.

    This was much better when we had two entirely separate buttons, Backstab and Hemorrhage. You *knew* without any doubt when you couldn't Backstab and needed to press Hemorrhage instead. And there was additional depth due to the fact that the first Hemo cast outside of Find Weakness was higher dps than Backstab due to the bleed effect, the fact that the bleed effect was extremely useful for controlling other stealthers, and the fact that Hemo generated more combo points per energy spent, offering the player a choice to prioritize combo point generation over total throughput. This often made sense to do in PvP when the enemy healer is not CCd so overall throughput is "meaningless" in that situation. But simpleton players who only understand "more dps is better" will never get it no matter how many times it's explained to them.

    When there are 36 specs in the game, and Rogue is a pure dps class with 3 leather wearing, agility based, melee dps specs, there is no need at all for this level of dumbing down to which we have been subjected. Subtlety Rogue since Legion is a least common denominator design which is intentionally targeted at least common denominator players. Disgusting that they would do this to the same spec showcased so beautifully in the videos of Reckful, Neilyo, and others. Imagine taking the spec that Reckful played and once made famous to the entire world for its remarkable possibilities and high skillcap, and taking the design approach of, "we should delete most of its spellbook and dumb it down with a spammable teleport ambush." Imagine thinking that's a good idea and thinking it would be successful and not widely ridiculed by the entire PvP community - across all classes - except for a certain subset of Subtlety Rogues who can't crack 1600 rating or so. Imagine getting paid to think that's a good idea. Imagine an entire team of designers all agreeing that's a good idea and patting each other on the back for it. That just boggles the mind.

    I wonder if part of the problem is that the lead class designer, Adam Kugler, worked his way up entirely through visual effects. If the dude understands anything about the technical details of gameplay, it's not evident from his resume. But then you have to ask why did an effects designer get promoted to this role in the first place. It seems like there is a directive coming from above to make classes have a far easier learning curve (remember all this pruning and redesigns coincided with the introduction of paid boosts) and more visually flashy to stand out to drooling simpletons who aren't heavily invested in actual gameplay.
    Last edited by shoegazing; 2020-07-07 at 04:00 PM.
    Subtlety Rogue was an amazing, incredible, unique, and fun spec prior to Legion and BfA

    “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

    ― Douglas Adams

  11. #11
    Early MoP was mostly a number tuning issue, with defensives not doing much and offensive swaps not being threatening enough.
    Control was good but Lethargic was a rng fiesta in a meta where Hunters and Warriors could pound you in a matter of seconds.

    The game was better overall though. Games were healthier for sure, the pace was dictated by how plays were made instead of dampening.

    About the visuals I won't even comment on. Fury Warriors' Rampage is the clear cut example of an ability that's been rigged first and made usable second, same for the Rupture animation. I mean, yeah, neat. It does nothing for me, but at least it's not harmful for the user as Death from Above was.
    Last edited by Jackstraw; 2020-07-07 at 05:13 PM.

  12. #12
    can sub get any worse?

  13. #13
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  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by mojusk View Post
    can sub get any worse?
    I mean I guess they could just not replace the talent that was removed when FW was made baseline.

    Not having the same number of talents as every other spec would be pretty objectively bad.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    -snip-
    Again, i dont think its this drastic, but it makes sense and basically agree. Especially for the lack of actual feedback for the positioning, and the lack of something that was hemo (which Gloomblade could actually be used for, just make the dot non dispellable).

    Only thing i dont really agree is your focus on "sub = pvp only" because i think is just a step backwards and there must be a way to make it a good to play spec overall. Anyway, i would just accept to have the other two specs for pve and sub for pvp exclusively if that meant that all three get the treatment they deserve and not some half assed recover of some old abilities for the sake of it.

    Partially related, i'm super worried about covenants and the related abilities/minitrees cause it looks a very grim situation with some stuff completely useless and some basically going to be mandatory.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Coldkil View Post
    Again, i dont think its this drastic, but it makes sense and basically agree. Especially for the lack of actual feedback for the positioning, and the lack of something that was hemo (which Gloomblade could actually be used for, just make the dot non dispellable).

    Only thing i dont really agree is your focus on "sub = pvp only" because i think is just a step backwards and there must be a way to make it a good to play spec overall. Anyway, i would just accept to have the other two specs for pve and sub for pvp exclusively if that meant that all three get the treatment they deserve and not some half assed recover of some old abilities for the sake of it.

    Partially related, i'm super worried about covenants and the related abilities/minitrees cause it looks a very grim situation with some stuff completely useless and some basically going to be mandatory.
    It absolutely is that drastic, though. Legion utterly ruined it. Legion ruined it in every way. Nobody that is serious about Subtlety PvP is happy. The opinions are basically unanimous among Subtlety PvPers once you exceed a certain very low threshold of game knowledge and experience. I mean sure if you want to include the PvP equivalent of LFR players who don't know what they are doing, then you'll get some "I thought it was cool when I could keybind everything to Shadowstrike and smash my face" opinions but let's not pretend those are well informed or more informative than random noise.

    I don't think that Sub should be "PvP only" necessarily, but out of respect for its long and storied history in PvP I think restoring an awesome PvP playstyle needs to be the priority. And PvE improvements in the first place shouldn't have been made with such a flippant attitude (or shall we say total disregard) towards PvP.

    If you look at past patches, Subtlety was considered awesome in both PvE and PvP at various points before Legion, such as in Cataclysm and Warlords of Draenor. So there is a precedent for how to have a thriving PvE Subtlety build on top of the awesome and iconic Subtlety PvP playstyle. This worked because it was done in a way that wasn't destructive towards PvP.

    So, again, the problem I have with Legion/post-Legion design isn't that it makes changes for the sake of PvE. The problem I have is that it did so in a way that was totally destructive and completely unacceptable to the PvP audience. Which is disgraceful because Rogues are a pure dps class with 3 specs so there wasn't a strict "need" for these changes with two other attractive options.

    I would accept the compromise you propose as a pragmatic solution, which worked very well for a long time given that we are a pure dps class with 3 specs, even though I don't consider it strictly necessary. Like I said, there are examples of Subtlety design in the past that both PvE and PvP players loved.

    Subtlety PvP must be restored to its rightful place. PvE design for Subtlety must be done carefully, in a way that doesn't disrupt that. We already know that's possible, because it's already been done.
    Last edited by shoegazing; 2020-07-07 at 07:33 PM.
    Subtlety Rogue was an amazing, incredible, unique, and fun spec prior to Legion and BfA

    “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

    ― Douglas Adams

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    You really can't name a worse stage of Rogue design than early Legion, though.
    Yes I can, and so can you. Unless World of Roguecraft somehow just didn't happen where you live?

  18. #18
    can we have cata sub back please ty

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Blezius View Post
    What you need to understand is that this game is give and take. If they give you a free 24/7 teleport on your shadowstrike, then you won't be doing any meaningful damage. So rogue players would rather have bursty damage than a free teleport without being able to kill anything. Its not as simple as "i like teleports so i want teleport" its about what you'll lose if you get 100% uptime. Same argument is made for shadow dance charges. If they give you infinite shadow dance then obviously they have to make it less powerful.

    And no you don't need 5 buttons. You shadowstep. Its one button. You can only use it once or twice though so its fine unlike shadowstrike.
    Yes. I really understand your point. At the time that they removed free-teleport this was discussed in the forums and I understand that free-teleport was very "face-roll". But "busrt of speed" and "shadow reflection" was even more "face-roll" than Sahdwstrike's free-teleport and to this day we still have many widows from BoS and SR....
    Anyway, as I already said I understand your point and the other guy's but ..... man ..... it was so fun. =)
    I could really think that I was the Xmen NightCrawler. ^^

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    It's not "my opinion"; there are very good reasons that Shadowstrike spammable teleport was removed from the game almost immediately. You simply don't have the understanding of PvP balancing in order to understand it.

    This design is the lowest point in Rogue history which dumbed down our gameplay to a completely facerolling level.
    Yes, as I said above I understand why we no longer have free-teleport but I thought it was a lot of fun. =)
    I know it created a dishonest game-play .... but I believe that even today warlocks and paladins have much more "face-roll" skills than rogues have ever had and I don't see many people complaining about it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by OFiveNine View Post
    can we have cata sub back please ty
    As a casual PVP player...the WOD one is really fine to me.
    SHADOW REFLECTION I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!! =(((
    Last edited by Fantazma; 2020-07-07 at 11:13 PM.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by shoegazing View Post
    Subtlety PvP must be restored to its rightful place. PvE design for Subtlety must be done carefully, in a way that doesn't disrupt that. We already know that's possible, because it's already been done.
    That's what "bothers" me the most, the fact you're focusing on a single aspect of a single spec. Like it was the holy grail of everything (it wasn't). But i fully agree that the design was there (loved playing sub in Cata, didn't meddle much with WoD because the expansion sucked super ass) and they just changed it in a way that wasn't good (i like the shadow magic concept, but execution was piss poor).

    As you say, they did the job already. I am not that confident they're able to replicate the scenario (though Shadowlands changes at least look promising, SnD back is okay, finally we have an aoe/cleave finisher and an actual "rotation" for it).

    I'm torn about FW. On one side, i'm happy it has become something more streamlined and not just a damage buff for Shadow Dance. Though correct usage and managing of the burst windows has always been the strong point of Sub and taking that away isn't good at all.

    I expect that we'll end in a similar situation with modestly changed specs and roles set in stone (assa for pve sustained dmg, outlaw for cleave, sub for pvp) because they're not able to make it work, even if they were. They're just not gonna make the specs as they were in old expansions because that would be admitting their failures and it's a bad PR move.

    They're gonna try stuff, some may be working, most won't, we'll be complaining about the same things over and over.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

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