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

[Soisoisoi]

sub: who are you?
ass: I'm you, but better

I speak for all rogues when I say give Sub the mercy killing it deserves and give us a tank spec

No thanks, I prefer Sub. Outlaw would be the tank spec if anything, but... Also no. Now Sub has bleeds and poisons back, and no reliance on using NB every other Evisc, Sub is back to being great.

[Flantini]

From playing skirms on the beta, most rogues I see are sub and do crazy dmg, 60% hp in a cheapshot. The few sin rogues ive seen dont do as good as compared to sub.

[Naiattavain]

From playing skirms on the beta, most rogues I see are sub and do crazy dmg, 60% hp in a cheapshot. The few sin rogues ive seen dont do as good as compared to sub.

yea please don't break sub leave it for us players that play the spec.

[tamarin]

From playing skirms on the beta, most rogues I see are sub and do crazy dmg, 60% hp in a cheapshot.

That's nice, but this is only one data point. What matters is: who is dead at the end of the fight? (I'm not implying that it's the sub rogue, I'm genuinely asking)

[javic09]

I think playing with the night fae covenant, which is a no energy cost 10 sec dot. If it ticks the full duration, they take a massive hit (a little more than 2 eviscerates) and you gain vanish. if it doesn't last the full duration the cd is reduced by 60 sec. (1.5min cd) doing this into a dance then vanishing after its over, to throw more saps or just to gain subterfuge again is going to be pretty fun for sub.

Isn’t Sepsis dispellable? I feel like it sucks to pick a covenant that will be useless against Paladins, Druids, and Monks. I guess you could get it off sometimes if you used it right at the start of a cc chain on the healer, but I would think it would become a big priority to dispel, and good healers would rarely miss it.

Right now I’m planning to go Necrolord for the Bone Spike, but I’m not sure how much damage it even does. It might not be worth it because, based on the tooltip, the bleed will never fall off and that could be really annoying for ever swapping sap targets.

I’m really not excited about any of the covenant abilities. Some of the soulbind conduits seem more exciting and useful than the actual covenant abilities. I guess that might be a good thing since they aren’t going to let us change covenants, but it just seems really sad to have such a large expansion feature turn out to be so bland.

[keldarepewpew]

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. ^^

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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.

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As a casual PVP player...the WOD one is really fine to me.
SHADOW REFLECTION I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!! =(((

way to drag warlocks and paladins into this. i play both warlock and rogue at decently high rating 2300 and i cant tell you right now rogue is WAAAAY more faceroll then warlock.

[Lodravel]

That's nice, but this is only one data point. What matters is: who is dead at the end of the fight? (I'm not implying that it's the sub rogue, I'm genuinely asking)

Definitly whoever opposes the sub rogue. Dmg is hilariously overtuned right now and it won't go live like this.

[Seliar]

You are completely leaving out the other half of the request, which is that we want Dance to happen only once per minute rather than every 30 seconds.

It's a really bad design from pve pov, it just feels bad to hit like a wet noodle outside dance so either make dps lower in dance and higher outside or give higher dance uptime with more frequent usage.

Btw you should use less "we" and more 'I' since you don't represent the sub rogue community.

[tamarin]

Isn’t Sepsis dispellable? I feel like it sucks to pick a covenant that will be useless against Paladins, Druids, and Monks. I guess you could get it off sometimes if you used it right at the start of a cc chain on the healer, but I would think it would become a big priority to dispel, and good healers would rarely miss it.

Right now I’m planning to go Necrolord for the Bone Spike, but I’m not sure how much damage it even does. It might not be worth it because, based on the tooltip, the bleed will never fall off and that could be really annoying for ever swapping sap targets.

I’m really not excited about any of the covenant abilities. Some of the soulbind conduits seem more exciting and useful than the actual covenant abilities. I guess that might be a good thing since they aren’t going to let us change covenants, but it just seems really sad to have such a large expansion feature turn out to be so bland.

Speaking of covenant abilities, do we know if slaughter (the venthyr thing that steals healing) steals 15% in pvp as well, or less?

I mean they could maybe display these kind of things in the tooltip but I guess that's crazy talk.

[Bomba the Shaman]

So what legendary is for sub pvp? My first guess is the one that give 100% crit in stealth and 5 seconds after? But I don't have enough experience in sub so I might be wrong?

[shoegazing]

It's a really bad design from pve pov, it just feels bad to hit like a wet noodle outside dance so either make dps lower in dance and higher outside or give higher dance uptime with more frequent usage.

Btw you should use less "we" and more 'I' since you don't represent the sub rogue community.

Subtlety is an iconic PvP spec, played by luminaries like Neilyo, Reckful, and Pikaboo, with at least 13 or so years of history being "the PvP Rogue's Rogue spec". Subtlety PvE meanwhile is a relatively more recent phenomenon. Despite that fact, there have been patches in the past where Subtlety PvE & PvP co-existed with good playstyle and performance in PvE that didn't require any sacrifices of the unique and awesome PvP gameplay that the spec is so famous for -- for example in Dragon Soul, HFC, etc.

For these reasons, Subtlety has an audience that is more heavily weighted towards PvP, because PvP players have gravitated to the spec over its entire history while PvE Rogues tended to self select more to Combat.

There's a similar argument taking place on the beta feedback thread currently, with one obstinate PvE player insisting that the PvP Subtlety Rogues asking for a return to pre-Legion gameplay are some kind of loud minority. I find examining this response as well as the pattern of upvotes in each post here to tell a very different and compelling story:



You don't have to like these facts about Subtlety's history and the history of its core audience, but they are facts nonetheless.

PvE improvements, if they are to be made, must be made in a way that doesn't disrupt the Dance burst and control focused PvP playstyle, or else you will see an extreme amount of unrest and complaints from PvP Rogues like you have seen since the awful, stupid Legion changes. Unlike PvE Rogues, PvP Rogues really only love one spec, and we will fight tooth and nail to ensure it retains its legendary and awesome playstyle.

[tamarin]

It's a really bad design from pve pov, it just feels bad to hit like a wet noodle outside dance so either make dps lower in dance and higher outside or give higher dance uptime with more frequent usage.

It was an awesome design during cata, because outside of dance we had to use all our CCs properly to survive. General consensus back then was that a sub rogue could kill anyone they wanted, but they needed to play well to pull it off. So it was more or less unanimously considered one of the most balanced spec in pvp.

So of course blizz's designers couldn't leave it alone and had to go and fuck it up.

Now after thoroughly emptying the sub rogue's bag of trick, they are bringing back a couple things (which were considered absolute essentials back in the day, like bleeds) and we're supposed to be grateful.

Can't be arsed to find it, but I remember a blog post where a designer circa legion explained that he wanted to make playing sub rogue feel like you are playing piano. I'm not making this shit up. Because of course, all they could think of is how to add some flair to boring PvE button press rotations.

[Coldkil]

PvE improvements, if they are to be made, must be made in a way that doesn't disrupt the Dance burst and control focused PvP playstyle, or else you will see an extreme amount of unrest and complaints from PvP Rogues like you have seen since the awful, stupid Legion changes. Unlike PvE Rogues, PvP Rogues really only love one spec, and we will fight tooth and nail to ensure it retains its legendary and awesome playstyle.

I'd use less passionate tones, but it's 100% this. Sub PvE and PvP can coexist and be actually fun and effective since it already happened in the past. Imho the issue is that PvP rogues had their spec stripped away without getting anything of value in return.

As for PvE, Sub actually didn't need much and most has been given. Sub should be all about buiulding up for huge burst windows and making full/right use of them is what makes you show your skill with it, without being a mindless "123123123" button press cycle. It lacked AoE, and they have given us an AoE finisher so we're fine now.

Hopefully we get a PvP spec like in the old days when it was actually fun to play, AND a spec that plays effectively in PvE.

What i want the most, is actually Blizzard offcially saying "we're not able to balance it, so Sub is for PvP, Assa for sustained damage and Outlaw for cleave/aoe". I don't need every spec to be able to do everything.

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Because of course, all they could think of is how to add some flair to boring PvE button press rotations.

And that's exactly what went wrong. As a PvE player, i don't need more flair, but an actually involving rotation. Which is usually much less "complicated" than playing PvP, because they're fundamentally two different games. I literally don't need all the buttons the spec has to be effective in PvP.

This doesn't mean they had to get rid of everything that wasn't about dealing damage to a boss. While i liked Legion's "shadow damage" thing, mechanically/playstyle wise it just felt like playing the old Combat, just with different spell effects.

There's a reason why Assa is the go-to PvE spec, and why Outlaw is the go-to for M+. So, they either make it official and there's no more confusion, or they work their asses out and actually make the specs good.

[Naiattavain]

bring back wod sub is a movement; they based their design decisions off of one person playing during warlords of draenor. it was Elton john on the piano.

[Seliar]

There's a reason why Assa is the go-to PvE spec, and why Outlaw is the go-to for M+. So, they either make it official and there's no more confusion, or they work their asses out and actually make the specs good.

That wasn't the case in legion, outlaw was nerfed down to oblivion and wasn't viable at any pve content while sub started weak and become the go-to spec until late antorus after the rework.

Sub should be all about buiulding up for huge burst windows

The thing is that a 1 min dance cd wasn't an issue before m+ for pve content, cause in raids you always had enough dance window to pull good dps, but m+ is another story. It's not fun to have abysmal dmg on every second trash pull. Blizz have to make the sub burst window more frequent if they want players to play sub..

[Coldkil]

-snip-

Agree, but when they implemented the M+ system they didn't realize that the "metagame" is completely different - unfortunately, as per every content that's infnitely scaling, you're just gonna see the shortcomings of some specs compared to the increased efficacy of others.

I didn't like how SD became basically something that had huge uptime and didn't feel impactful enough. I'm totally for the current situation where you have less uptime but means a lot more.

The fact is that you don't need the best M+ spec to do your weekly 10 or 15 for the chest roll - it becomes a problem when you're going to push as high as you can. The fact players using r.io check you beforehand and don't invite you because you have the "wrong spec" for a +8 is a player problem, not a balance one.

[Jackstraw]

I'm totally for the current situation where you have less uptime but means a lot more.

This. But I vehemently disagree with the r.io take.

The fact of the matter lies in the design the game is starting to build upon, which sees m+ as a parallel outlet to raids. Aoe becomes more prominent, and specs need to address the issue of where the damage gets spread to. Specs like sub who had great single target damage and burst always thrived in encounters because there's always something big to focus, but in m+ trash speed is actually more important than shaving however many seconds off a boss.

This is a design issue, not a player problem. Design issues need to be tackled by design, because community perspective is heavily skewed by how the design is conducted.

How do you solve this?
Talent differentiating the type of damage would be nice. But that won't be the path apparently.

[Coldkil]

This is a design issue, not a player problem. Design issues need to be tackled by design, because community perspective is heavily skewed by how the design is conducted.

My point was more about the fact that you don't need that kind of performance for doing the standard weekly "chores", but for the rest it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you run your weekly +10 doesn't matter much the spec you're using assuming you're proficient at it - at best you're shaving off a couple minutes, especially later on when people is geared.

Fully agree on the design thing. Reason why if Blizzard wants an "equal" representation of specs in M+, they need to give everyone tools to deal effectively with that, otherwise it's just natural people will play only a small subset of specs. Players are so focused on performance they'll play whatever is .001% better on paper despite hating it or actually not being able to perform good enough to get that .001% gain.

[Jackstraw]

Yeah, but performance can be influenced by numbers. Rogue stay viable due to sheer utility.

Would be nice to see the same approach reinstated for all classes. There's a dire need for widespread utility.

[Coldkil]

Yeah, but performance can be influenced by numbers. Rogue stay viable due to sheer utility.

Would be nice to see the same approach reinstated for all classes. There's a dire need for widespread utility.

Agree. We cannot really complain much about representation because even if our raid damage is middle tier compared to other classes (but we have also corruptions which are a mathemathical abomination) we're always being decently represented in any kind of content if not doing well.

I'm always torn between "rogues are in need of fixes" and "rogues are actually still a solid class despite everything".