Combat PvP in 5.4

[Sicarius87]

So Im an assassination rogue and I dueled a combat rogue last night on the PTR. I have full S14 gear (yes season 14 pvp gear is up on PTR already) and i had damn near full health. I popped his on use trinket and killing spree on me and i went down like a led balloon. Im thinking combat is the next pvp spec in 5.4 if this doesnt get tweaked at all.

[Rorke]

Hopefully it doesn't become anything. I'm tired of dealing with trash Rogues speccing Combat on the ptr because they don't know how to play Sub. It's such a shame that Rogue pvp has fallen so low that people are playing Assassination and Combat over Sub which is the true Rogue pvp spec. It's similar to when Warriors have a terrible season and they spec into Fury because Arms is such shit.

They need to revert the find weakness nerf to Sub and its fixed. That will silence all the small talk about lesser specs such as Combat being viable in pvp.

Infracted: trolling

[Simian]

Hopefully it doesn't become anything. I'm tired of dealing with trash Rogues speccing Combat on the ptr because they don't know how to play Sub. It's such a shame that Rogue pvp has fallen so low that people are playing Assassination and Combat over Sub which is the true Rogue pvp spec. It's similar to when Warriors have a terrible season and they spec into Fury because Arms is such shit.

They need to revert the find weakness nerf to Sub and its fixed. That will silence all the small talk about lesser specs such as Combat being viable in pvp.

Why is sub the "true" rogue pvp spec? I've been playing my rogue since launch day vanilla and hate the sub playstyle. I really don't like using abilities that were designed to be used in stealth, out of stealth. It doesn't feel right.. it's never felt right to me and its silly that you've determined that "this" is the pvp spec.

[yurano]

I popped his on use trinket and killing spree on me and i went down like a led balloon.

This has always been the case.

The only difference with 5.4 is that KS will still be instagib when there are others near the target.

[Sesshou]

Why is sub "the pvp spec" exactly? I mean other than the times when it is actually more powerful. But why should it be designed as "the pvp spec" ? And don't even try to tell me that it has "always" been the pvp spec because thats a load of crap. Combat was better in vanilla and BC for pvp (until S4 in BC anyway which was really when sub took off).

This has always been the case.

The only difference with 5.4 is that KS will still be instagib when there are others near the target.

You clearly didn't try that in Cata or MoP at launch...

[Sicarius87]

This has always been the case.

The only difference with 5.4 is that KS will still be instagib when there are others near the target.

Guess you dont realize that Killing Spree only attacks your current target regardless of how many people you have around you. Only time you go outside of your target is if you have blade flurry active.

[Rorke]

Why is sub the "true" rogue pvp spec? I've been playing my rogue since launch day vanilla and hate the sub playstyle. I really don't like using abilities that were designed to be used in stealth, out of stealth. It doesn't feel right.. it's never felt right to me and its silly that you've determined that "this" is the pvp spec.

Sub is the true pvp spec because it is easily the most skill demanding spec of the three. Not to mention, its the only spec where a cool down such as Shadow Dance isn't 100% based around pve. In pve you don't silence, you don't stun and you don't crowd control anything. When you pve as a dps, its all about damage. If you're not doing damage then its a dps loss. Sub offers the best form of utility for pvp situations and that's what makes it the "pvp spec."

Combat is nothing in terms of a pvp spec. It's a scaling spec balanced around high end pve. PvP specs don't have talents like Bandits Guile in them. Combat also has such a slow combat point generation in pvp gear, that its basically limited to slice and dice, eviscerate and kidney shot. It doesn't have to keep up rupture or recuperate, not as if it could or mattered anyway.

The problem arises when you have all of these horrible Rogues who play Combat because they don't understand how to utilize finishers such as Rupture or even Slice and Dice. They rather settle with passive energy regeneration, similar to how assassination Rogues in pvp enjoy settling with basically what is passive slice and dice. It's a crutch, they want everything as simple as possible.

And what attracts these people the most about specs like Combat or Assassination is the "One shot" abilities like Killing Spree or Vendetta. You can't mess those abilities up. You just hit a button and do damage. On the other hand, a bad Sub Rogue will have a bad Shadow Dance because Shadow Dance isn't just hit a button and do damage.

However, I'm also well aware of the "one shot" shadow dances some Youtube heroes make. That is how bad Rogues learn from other bad Rogues. Most of your shadow dances in high mmr will not be a kill ability. Most dances will be completely defensive or to offer your fellow dps an extra form of cc that allows him to score the kill.

Combat and Assassination are specs similar to Frost for DK's. They're hardcore pve specs that are meant to utilize a strict three button priority system and using utility abilities will punish their dps significantly. The problem with these types of specs is that they don't offer anything at high rated pvp because in high rated pvp, damage will only get you so far. Of course, you may see someone playing assassination or combat at 2k mmr, but that's mostly because that person is either getting carried by amazing team mates or the person is playing with a hunter.

[Deleted]

My first pvp impressions on the ptr suggest the same thing - Killing spree, with the 4 set pve bonus, is taking between 35-45% hp from targets without a defensive cd popped.
Combat, will more than likely become the go to spec for many rogues as it will allow a Swifty-esk type 'one shot macro' type approach to be taken. Basically, Glyphed CS, AR, SB(no gcd ofc) SnD, SS spam Evis, then ether a MfD kidney and more spam or a MfD Evis, into a KSp.

Scumbag pvp style essentially. I don't know whether this is blizzards intention, but I doubt it, based on how they have been trying to nerf burst chains like this.
Sure, sub is a way more fluid, pretty and skill capped spec, but my guess is many will want to take the simple option. I doubt, even with this damage potential, it will be as game changing as C+D was. The longer CD's of this burst cycle mean your target will far more frequently have a trinket and/or defensive CD waiting.

[Juddo]

Hopefully it doesn't become anything. I'm tired of dealing with trash Rogues speccing Combat on the ptr because they don't know how to play Sub. It's such a shame that Rogue pvp has fallen so low that people are playing Assassination and Combat over Sub which is the true Rogue pvp spec. It's similar to when Warriors have a terrible season and they spec into Fury because Arms is such shit.

They need to revert the find weakness nerf to Sub and its fixed. That will silence all the small talk about lesser specs such as Combat being viable in pvp.

Infracted: trolling

Absolutely idiotic. I remember Combat was the best spec in PvP pre TBC. At least i destroyed shit in it. To limit rogues into one spec for pvp makes you look pretty duuuumb. Dumb dumb.

Infracted elsewhere

[Venant]

Just as an aside, can you even play sub in pvp if you have over 100ms with the positional requirements?

[Wow]

All 5.4 is gonna do for combat is get it hotfix nerfed on kill spree then the spec will have no real burst.

[Ravenyx]

After monks, rogues are among the least represented classes (source: Ghostcrawler's twitter). Having some work done into making more specs viable is a great thing. You can all drop the sub snobbery. The best thing for the class is more choice - this doesn't take away your precious sub spec. I find the short term memory of these 'hardcore' rogues laughable - combat was an incredible PvP spec in the old days. Rogues will always offer greater control (even in 5.1 they had this) -this always has a place. Combat should be about just that - combat. There is absolutely room for the combat spec in PvP. I enjoy all the rogue specs on their own merits - I perhaps perform better when playing sub but I enjoy the challenge combat brings.

Even as combat is now you can burst somebody down in the opener (with mark for death) - WITHOUT even using killing spree. I don't see how having a broken ability (killing spree - breaks your CC - too easy to counter) is fair. Especially when frost mages, monks, bm hunters all have their own incredibly OP skill sets.

Please - enough moaning about swifty macros. Less people do them these days.

[Wow]

I find the short term memory of these 'hardcore' rogues laughable - combat was an incredible PvP spec in the old days.

Yea damn those people for not remembering back 8 years ago like it matters at this point......

Even as combat is now you can burst somebody down in the opener (with mark for death) - WITHOUT even using killing spree.

lol ok. Outside of cd's combat does no dmg to kill someone. Two evis from combat bursting people down stop fighting people with 60k hp.

[Warstar]

lol ok. Outside of cd's combat does no dmg to kill someone. Two evis from combat bursting people down stop fighting people with 60k hp.

Outside of CDs sub does pretty bad dps too.

Btw the original "pvp" spec was assassination. 31/7/13 with a hybrid tier 1/2 was the most OP the rogue class has ever been typically killing anyone aside of a warrior inside of a stun lock. Even killing warriors 1 v 1 with some tricky business who were the only class that rogue's had difficulty against in vanilla. Back then people would (poorly) spec sub since at higher AP hemo actually started to hit harder than sinister strike in pve sometimes but no one would ever go full assassination for pve. Then once 2.0 came out with tbc talents at lv60 assassination was still about the strongest you could go in pve with mutilate.

[Baracuda]

Gotta love the combat rogues on the PTR, pull a few of them, let them waste their killing spree and watch them run around like headless chickens after.

[Wow]

Outside of CDs sub does pretty bad dps too.

Indeed however somehow combat tops it in terribleness lol. Uptime is terrible for any rogue spec in pvp which means for combat Restless Blades barely gets to do anything. Which means its stuck with close to 2min killing sprees etc. While sub every restealth, vanish, and dance per min means it gets more uptime on ok dmg while combat is stuck in terrible mode until cd's are up no matter what and has even worse dmg with no cd's that sub which means its really really bad.

[Warstar]

Indeed however somehow combat tops it in terribleness lol. Uptime is terrible for any rogue spec in pvp which means for combat Restless Blades barely gets to do anything. Which means its stuck with close to 2min killing sprees etc. While sub every restealth, vanish, and dance per min means it gets more uptime on ok dmg while combat is stuck in terrible mode until cd's are up no matter what and has even worse dmg with no cd's that sub which means its really really bad.

Would be nice for restless blades if every finisher counted instead of just damaging finishers. Like every time you used SnD it counted. Recuperate is kinda garbage in pvp with how little pvp power effects rogues healing and unless you were in a 1v1 situation in arena where you were bidding your time in stealth it'd probably be better to use dps finishers rather than waste cp on that.

Combat now definitely doesn't have the utility that dance offers sub rogues and because of how combat's energy regen is typically pve oriented with stacked haste vs assassination and sub getting it passively (haste too but not as dependent as combat is) so their cp general is pretty gimped. Combat seems almost more of a gimick spec now. I remember back in wrath doing 2s with a combat rogue friend and when we'd run into a double melee team he'd just get them close together and then blade flurry with KS up and insta gib em both.

Combat is a fun spec to play and lining up a full bandits guile with KS would be pretty crazy burst. It'd be nice to play it competitively in pvp instead of just a blow your load and kill a poorly geared player in a normal bg and then hang around in stealth til your CDs are up again and it just needs a few tweaks to bring it up mostly with fixing energy regen/cp generation.

[Tomia]

Why is sub the "true" rogue pvp spec? I've been playing my rogue since launch day vanilla and hate the sub playstyle. I really don't like using abilities that were designed to be used in stealth, out of stealth. It doesn't feel right.. it's never felt right to me and its silly that you've determined that "this" is the pvp spec.

Sub transformed into a pvp spec when all the good stuff was transferred to the spec. They said its was too much so in MOP they moved all the utility spell into talent which is available in all spec. Here is the question, why is it STILL a PVP spec? Answer is simple, its play style is the easiest manageable making it ideal for PVP.

Every rogue spec can do the same burst plus combining that with there normal rotation you will come up with the same numbers in a 5min encounter. They only differ in play style. Meaning "how and when" they do the in demand damage necessary in PVP.

Assassination: 2min cd Burst, strong basic rotation
Subtlety: 1 min cd Burst, weak basic rotation
Combat: Mini-burst + 3 min Burst, Medium basic rotation

If you will do that math, they will all do almost the same number. Only differ by a FEW percent which is unnoticeable unless you do theory crafting which DOES NOT have any value in PVP. BG/Arena is a fast phased encounter and no one wants it to last longer than 2min. Looking at the difference in play style I mentioned above, subtlety is the ideal spec for PVP. Its all about killing as fast as you can then move to the next target doing the same strategy.

Everything will change in patch 5.4 with the new single target killing spree and buff on Nightstalker talent. I am not sure if it will be par with sub or assassination but one thing for sure more will finally use it.

[Verain]

I'm sorry, but mutilate doesn't do the same burst as the other guys there. We know the specs are similar in PvE sustained, but like:

Vendetta is a moderate cooldown. It's not that great, and, very importantly, whomever you pop it on KNOWS it is coming. It can be removed by certain cooldowns, and more importantly, at 2 minutes you can pretty easily save something for it. It's also on the global. Peeling a rogue using this is pretty damned easy, and the duration is so long that you clearly won't deal most of the damage it's capable of inside of a casual CC chain.

Sub has find weakness, which it can trigger from a bunch of stuff, including restealths, and dance is a one minute thing, a shorter CD than trinkets. Additionally, when you dance, the enemy doesn't know exactly what you are doing next- you could step the healer and stun him, opening a burn on him. If you end up behind a pillar, you can dance and either score a kill or cooldowns. Every dance should score cooldowns at least!

AR and Spree are both bursty. They don't obliterate face like some of this thread is telling you- AR in particular is very simple to peel, and is generally worse than vendetta in this regard. But having BOTH? And a shorter cooldown on blades to boot, definitely makes this a burstier spec than Muti.

[Sicarius87]

For as much haste that I have on ptr gemming and reforging for it (27%) i hardly need to use AR. Granted though, thats just duels. I havent tried arena or bgs yet.