Outlaw flaws

[Aldo Hawk]

Greetings, i'm writing this thread in order to see what you guys have to say about the Outlaw spec in regards to its flaws, i have some things to comment about that but i'm just gonna point out one for now and see what you have to say about this.

Very often is said that Outlaw is about RNG, and that it comes from the dices, but another RNG aspect that makes the spec clunky at some times and very good at others is the sinister strike proc. It has a 35% chance to proc and a talent to bring it up to 45%, but the problem is that this skill can be used from 5 to 9 times or more without triggering the second hit (i counted up to 12 times, but is not very common), also the talent doesn't help that much with it while it's a worst pick compared to quick draw.

Remember, Blizzard reads the forums, even these ones that aren't reddit or the official ones, as crazy as it can sound, maybe they take feedback from this.

[Sunderella]

I dislike True Bearing and Buried treasure cos they feel redundant. Also, after leveling a Fury warr, their aoe system makes BF feel so 2004. Also so much RNG on cp generation some times feels tedious

[Nythiz]

Outlaw indeed has some RNG "issues". I don't think they're exactly issues, but the negative RNG often overshadows the positive RNG. Coming back on that below.

I personally don't think that the Opportunity proc (Pistol Shot proc) is a huge RNG issue In fact I think it's rare enough that it doesn't feel guaranteed, yet at the same time it's proc chance is high enough that it comes around frequent; giving a nice 'randomizer' to the rotation and is in fact one of the main things why I feel Outlaw spec flows well at the moment.

Roll the Bones on the other hand does suffer some RNG issues.
I don't think it's as bad as some make it out to be, but I do feel like the negative RNG overshadows the positive RNG.
RtB feels really great when you roll 5 buffs, but that's a 1% chance. On the other hand rolling a buff that 'requires' rerolling is nearly a 50% chance. Which basically means that the chance on getting 5 buffs is smaller than the chance to roll 6 "bad" single dice rolls in a row.
That means that you're quite often in a situation where your dps highly depends on a good roll (e.g. mythic+ bosses) and you roll 3-5 bad dice in a row, which just feels bad.

That said, I don't feel it's quite as bad as it was in Legion. Maybe the 'bad' buffs don't feel as punishing or maybe because Dispatch isn't as big for your overall dps as it was in legion.
I think the fix would be very simple if they made it feel less bad to get a single buff and/or reduce the amount of times required for rerolling.

For example:
- Make loaded dice baseline. Nobody picks this talent as it's clearly inferior to alacrity; but it makes a lot of openers a lot more clean and RNG free. At least on boss fights you're guaranteed to at least start out well with all your procs and bloodlust when you get a 2+ buff minimum during AR.

- Make something like Paradise lost baseline. Maybe even make it stack so that after 2-3 rerolls, sticking with a single buff is superior over rerolling a 4th time. That way it doesn't feel like you're stuck in this infinite reroll loop where you feel like the fight is over before you get any dispatches out.

I dislike True Bearing and Buried treasure cos they feel redundant. Also, after leveling a Fury warr, their aoe system makes BF feel so 2004. Also so much RNG on cp generation some times feels tedious

Agreed on Buried Treasure, I hardly even notice the 4 energy/sec from that buff.
As for True Bearing, I quite like the cooldown reduction increase. It makes BtE come up much more frequently and that's basically a staple of your rotation now; it has a lot of quality of life benefits that aren't quite visible in DPS meters either. I think, especially for M+, that buff is not getting the credit it should be getting.

What exactly makes you feel like BF is so outdated? I personally actually quite like the version with charges (at least it's better than the old toggle one. The biggest flaw of BF is that it's on the GCD, which it really shouldn't be.

[Runningmon]

For example:
- Make loaded dice baseline. Nobody picks this talent as it's clearly inferior to alacrity; but it makes a lot of openers a lot more clean and RNG free. At least on boss fights you're guaranteed to at least start out well with all your procs and bloodlust when you get a 2+ buff minimum during AR.

- Make something like Paradise lost baseline. Maybe even make it stack so that after 2-3 rerolls, sticking with a single buff is superior over rerolling a 4th time. That way it doesn't feel like you're stuck in this infinite reroll loop where you feel like the fight is over before you get any dispatches out.

Having played Outlaw through Legion and BFA I feel these are good suggestions. Having Loaded dice in Legion helped Outlaw a lot. Having a guaranteed 2 buffs in the opener saves you from a lot of frustration. There have been countless times when I have been stuck rerolling a shitty buff in the opener. It makes some boss fights feel really bad.

[Polarthief]

Haven't mained Rogue for too long (just been a month or so), but often I find myself resource-starved or resource-bloated, very rarely a perfect balance. Popping AR with Buried Treasure, especially during lust, and you will have way too much energy, more than you know what to do with, and your GCD is so low and you might start to panic a bit. The 8.1.5 change to AR (+200 maximum energy) will help a touch but I still don't see how anyone can spend all that energy before AR expires

Meanwhile, there are also times where energy is so slow and you don't proc Opportunity so even your CP generation is slow and you sit there twiddling your thumbs, waiting.

[Rikkuu]

It may be just my feeling, but with 3x Deadshot, i feel like True Bearing and Broadside are way more valuable than ppl give them credit for... that leaves only 2 truly shitty buffs... I run only M+ (16+) and dont raid at all this exp, but that has been my experience so far... i reroll only Buried Treasure and the SS one i dont even know what its called and I perform pretty well i think

[sirethas]

Since Legion, RNG on roll the bones has improved a lot and Outlaw as a spec is not as rng fiesta as people make it seem like, traits like deadshot and ace up your sleeves improves your dps quite nicely even if you have crap rolls and the only underwhelming buffs gameplay wise are true bearing and burried treasure, all other buffs actually make your damage and rotation feel different (which I assume was the intention of this skill). That being said, roll the bones is still far from perfect, in a wonderland with unicorns and rainbows all buffs would output same amount of dps and make you feel like you actually have some kind of buff. What I don't like about outlaw is it's consistency, your ceiling and rock bottom difference is way too huge even tho on averege you are fine, but when shit hits the fan and you get screwed you can feel it very negatively and on opposite side you can feel like invincible super hero.

I would just prefer blizzard to even out those differences because it can get quite ridiculous sometimes. Oh and also, for the love of god make Alacrity baseline already, since patch 7.0.1 no one ever took anything else in that row beside Alacrity, also I'm not very fond of the fact that SnD provides less AS than Grand Melee but w/e I guess *shrughs*

[Aldo Hawk]

That's the thing, SnD provides less attack speed than grand melee alone due to the fact that Alacrity is out of the equation, the only pro is giving more energy regeneration but outside that you are loosing everything roll the bones offer plus alacrity plus loaded dice.

Also, azerite traits are kinda good, yes, but it feels like a fix than anything else, Ace up my sleeves is more a reduction on the penalty of not doing a crit plus giving extra damage of critting plus the possibility of getting 4 CP, outside that, is just a way to make an skill not suck when it doesn't proc/crit (it's proc is also a crit, idk how to name it xd), and the new change to pvp makes this specific trait suck balls because the initial intention is defeated in the first place.

Deadshot is kinda cool, it is the legendary bracelets from Legion, but nothing truly gamechanging, it's so similar to Ace up my sleeves but without the crit damage and CP proc, which modifies it much more and gives a good feel of not having a penalisation for not critting with BtE instead of just dispatching. And i want to add that those two traits aren't a good pick in pvp too due to the fact that you have to force DR in order to use your traits, which is not very useful in many situations.

Also, someone remember the storm of steel trait? it got changed for Keep your wits about you, which is not bad when talking about AoE (Also, i don't feel the % of proccing SS stacks, maybe it does, someone knows about this?), but it doesn't provide a good feedback comparing it with the trait it replaced, which was a: "Sinister strike procced? good, more damage on dispatch". It might not have been the best damage trait, but it was a very straightforward one.

I would add something about the mastery and combat potency but is the least important things in my opinion, i feel overall RNG besides roll the bones (in which we can agree is better than in legion) and talents/azerite are more important to point out.

Thanks everyone for commenting here, i'm glad to hear you all and i expect more good comments, even critics, if you feel i'm wrong on something please explain.

[Avengerx]

I think a very small fix of not being able to roll the exact same "dice" again and again would solve a lot of problems. I mean as in you can't get the same active buff again from another roll.

[Lillemus]

There is no doubt that Outlaw is the most RNGy of all the rogue specs, but I do think the biggest contributor is Roll the Bones. It's important to remember that most class balance is based on raiding, so anything with a relatively high proc chance combined with a high volume of usage (Mastery, energy proc and SS) really averages out when you're in a 5+ min fight, Roll the bones not so much (I actually had a fight Sunday where I used RtB 25 times getting single buffs every single time, can provide link if someone wants me to ).

With roll the bones it's just really hard to balance, the inherit idea is that it's RNG so trying to reduce RNG on it is kind of counterproductive, but at the same time you want the class to stay competitive. I still believe True Bearing should be removed entirely, even though it isn't as broken as it was in Legion (with the bracers you would literally rather have 1 buff True Bearing than 3 buffs of anything else).
For me the problem with True bearing is that it doesn't "feel good" it's a decent buff, but because the reduction in CDs is now so small it just feels insignificant. I realise this isn't a very good reason for rebalancing it, and certainly a symptom of "instant gratification", but I think I am also fatigued by the fact that you would ALWAYS dig for it in Legion.

In my opinion the biggest Outlaw flaw at this time are the talents. Just for information the only other class I play(ed) in a raiding environment is my resto shaman, so it could be that resto shamans have just been consistently lucky with their talent tree always being somewhat interesting and having a good deal of impact on gameplay. My critique of these talents are more the choices and not the actual balance in game atm, as that can always be fixed.

1st Tier I think that Weaponmaster and Quick draw are just too close to eachother, and obviously if you have just 1 point in deadshot Quick draw is the go to talent (I think Quick draw is the go to talent regardless?), but ghostly strike at least manages to offer something different here.

2nd tier is mobility, there is a good difference between the three, I like this tier .

3rd tier is the Combo point(/energy) tier, this one I think is reasonably well balanced as well, offering three choices that all provide something different.

4th tier is survivability, much like our mobility tier I think this one is neat as they all offer something different.

5th tier is sort of a PvP tier, I do to a certain extent find this frustrating as we have pvp talents now, not sure how many other classes have talents that are focused mostly around pvp but it does feel sort of unique for rogues.

6th tier is sort of my main gripe. It's 3 exceedingly boring talents, Alacrity is just a passive that builds up and is neat once it's stacked, not so bad but just very lackluster. The 2 other ones are the worse ones though. Slice and Dice is literally a DPS reduction and meant for people who want to play Outlaw but not really play Outlaw, I don't think any other class offers a talent that replaces an ability but at a overall DPS loss. Loaded Dice is in a similar boat, there is a 21% chance that this talent is completely wasted if you had rolled a 2+ buff after using AR anyways, and after that you still run the risk of getting the Grand Melee + Buried treasure combination which can just sort of break your energy regen and mean that you are capped (especially if it's a hero on pull boss where you have to use AR during hero). The only (very slight) advantage of Loaded Dice is that it seemingly increases your chance for a 5 buff roll from 1% to 5% since rather than just automatically giving you 2 buffs it rerolls until you get 2 buffs.

7th tier is better, and offers somewhat decent variety.

TL;DR IMO Outlaw flaws lies primarily within the talent tree, not so much the overall RNG (although RtB could use some small tweaks).

As a final note with regards to PvP, the game was never balanced around PvP but I would say that the change from combat to outlaw has made outlaw more viable in PvP (Although that was a fairly easy thing to do ). If anything Subtlety has more of an issue there I think as assassination as taken over completely as the go to pvp spec (at least from what I've seen).

- - - Updated - - -

Haven't mained Rogue for too long (just been a month or so), but often I find myself resource-starved or resource-bloated, very rarely a perfect balance. Popping AR with Buried Treasure, especially during lust, and you will have way too much energy, more than you know what to do with, and your GCD is so low and you might start to panic a bit. The 8.1.5 change to AR (+200 maximum energy) will help a touch but I still don't see how anyone can spend all that energy before AR expires

Meanwhile, there are also times where energy is so slow and you don't proc Opportunity so even your CP generation is slow and you sit there twiddling your thumbs, waiting.

Rogues often hit the sweet spot half through the expansion, as rogues historically are affected more by stats than other class, especially haste for Outlaw as this not only increases your base energy regen but also increases the energy proc chance. So oftentimes you'll find that how rogues feel during heroism in the early to mid stages of an expansion is how a rogue feel constantly towards the late parts of expansion. For this reason you'll often see that Vigor is a go to talent in the earlier parts of the expansion due to the increased regen (although the addition of 50 energy does make it easier to avoid capping later on), but this often shifts to either MfD or Deeper stratagem towards the end.
Overall, being resource starved / resource bloated is just sort of how it's always been for rogues.

[Kaver]

The cool thing about RtB is that every buff change the gameplay a little bit. Some more than other. I think this was the original intent.

The problem is that all the buffs perform very differently. This should not be necessary in order to keep the RNG element that Blizzard clearly want from Outlaw.

[Dijk]

For me, the major flaws of Outlaw, from most significant to least significant are:
- RtB
- Talent tree design offering no real choice
- Blade Flurry & Cleave fight mechanics in general
- Outlaw being over-encumbered with global CDs
- Too many useless PVP talents being overshadowed by 2-3 no-brainer talents
- Mastery proc not feeing integral to the spec/rotation (Maybe make Mastery govern the saber slash proc chance instead?)
- Lack of dots/armour-penetration options for PVP

I'm only going to cover the first 3 in detail

Roll the Bones

It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Roll the Bones feels extremely ungratifying to play. It triggers a global cooldown. It consumes resources that you built up over time (and very inconsistently), and you deal no damage while executing it. Then, the worst thing is that even when you execute it, RNG might make it so that you have to do this over and over again.

For the largest part, it feels like a constant mental burden, that you have to keep watching your buff bar, and delaying your actual rotation, until you get one of the viable buff combinations (somethingl ike 45% of the time).

The easiest way to fix this mess is
- RtB should only award one buff (no more fishing for 2-rolls or 5-rolls)
- Only keep Grand Melee, Ruthless Precision and Broadsides. Completely remove the other 3 buffs

It feels like Jolly Roger, Burried treasure and True Bearing are just lesser alternatives to Broadsides, without really changing up the rotation. In effect those 3 buffs are there to frustrate your chances of getting a decent, viable buff. By only keeping 3 buffs:
- Blizzard can have an easier time to rebalance their effects to each other
- Players can have a reasonable chance of attaining a desirable buff (e.g., Grand Melee is useless if you can't get into melee range)
- (Maybe make Loaded Dice prevent the player from getting the same buff in a row?)

Snake eyes was a godsent during 8.0, as it allowed players to bypass many of the issues with RtB, as each die rolled was an increase in the player's overall DPS. However, instead of having the trait completely neutered as it was, it would have been more interesting to:
- Offer Snake eyes as a talent tree choice on the same row as Alacrity
- Make the trait add an X second cooldown on Roll the Bones. That way RtB doesn't completely phase out Dispatch/BtE as it did with the dagger meme-build

Talent tree design
Talent trees should be all about giving players the option/opportunity to customize their playstyle. In order for this to work, you need to make it so that:
- Each talent row offers talents of comparable strength (i.e., no no-brainer choices)
- There should, ideally, be some synergy between different rows
- Ideally, there should be 2 or more possible playstyles with the various choices

Last row:
I would argue that, with the current design, the only choice that Outlaw gets from their talent tree is between Blade Rush and Killing Spree. Even then, the playstyle is largely the same for both options:
- You only use your abilities when you are energy starved
- Ideally you want to hit blade flurry before activating the talent

The only difference is whether you prefer a bit more mobility, or you prefer a bit more burst. As an aside, Killing Spree also breaks roots if you activate it, which is yet another reason why this is the de-facto choice for PVP.

None of the other rows in the talent tree actually gives players any options:

First row:
- Ghostly strike has lack-luster damage, and has a cooldown. On top of it, Ghostly strike is yet another global cooldown that you have to manage in your rotation, while trying to avoid being energy-capped
- The rotation for Weapon-master and quick draw isn't that different. However, since Deadshot is a dominant Azerite traits, Quick Draw is a no-brainer

To be frank, Quick Draw could be melded passively into the pistol shot ability, and the first row could be deleted/replaced, and nobody would ever miss it.

Second row:
The second row is bad because it mixes a significant DPS increase talent with some minor mobility increases. Acrobatic strikes is head and shoulders above the competition due to the way blade flurry works, and also because there's so many pools/hazards etc that you have to dodge as a melee class, while dealing damage.
The minute mobility increase that retracting hook and Hit the Run give pales in comparison to vanilla grappling hook & Restless Blades, plus the attack talents in the last row.

If Acrobatic Strikes belonged to a different row, it would have been mildly interesting to choose between Hit the Run and Retractable Hook, but that still wouldn't warrant a dedicated talent row, imo.

Third row:
Even though marked for death is an interesting ability, I haven't seen anybody picked it for a long time. That's probably because Outlaw already is too good at cleave situations (where Marked for Death would actually make a difference).
Vigor is the safest choice by far, here.
Deeper Strategem makes sence for PVP, and also makes sense for the Ace azerite trait.

Since the player doesn't actually have any control over what azerite gear they get, they don't have any control over what they have to choose in this row. Nevertheless, despite the player's choice, on this row, the playstyle and rotation remains precisely the same.

Fourth row
This is the identical talent row for all rogue specs, and you have to choose between Cheat Death and Elusiveness, depending on the content you are doing. It used to be that Cheat for Death would reset on player's death. However, since 8.1, this seems to have been fixed. Thus, it is no longer the best choice always.

This is a decent row, as it actually gives players some choice.

Fifth row
This one is mixing a raw DPS increase talent with two utility talents (one of which is completely useless)
- Dirty Tricks: The only reason this talent was picked in Legion was because the other choices on Legion's equivalent talent row were terrible (Parley was a straight downgrade)
- Blinding powder is good; it just doesn't confer damage
- Prey on the weak is the obvious choice

It's hard to see how this row can ever be fixed

Sixth row:
This row is supposed to be about mitigating the RNG of roll the bones. Unfortunately, Alacrity is the only viable choice.
Slice and dice should have been viable to use in combination with Ghostly strike, and that would make an interesting talent tree alternative.
Loaded Dice is just bad, though. Having tried Snake eyes during 8.0, I think it's a missed opportunity why Snake Eyes isn't offered as an option to the talent tree instead of Loaded Dice.

AoE and Bladeflurry

Disclaimer: I have stopped playing my Outlaw in 8.1, so I haven't had the chance to try out the Wits trait. I don't think that Wits addresses any of my concerns about Outlaw's AoE, but I might be wrong.

The biggest issue with Outlaw AoE rotation is that it's a copy-paste of the single-target rotation. You are practically going to mash the same buttons, except that you have to account for the annoying global CD on blade flurry. There's no debuff to track on each target, there's no using alternative abilities, there's no change in energy/combo-point gain, and there's no choices to make for itemization (haste/versatility/crit/mastery weights will be identical, regardless of single target or AoE).

If somebody has ever tried Survival hunter, you would know exactly what I mean with how different single target DPS feels compared to multi-target DPS.

With the current iteration of Outlaw, this is a godsent. I can't imagine it being possible to keep a track of my RtB rolls, and all those many target debuffs at the same time. However, if the other issues with outlaw get ironed out, the spec will become too braindead for cleave situations. Maybe trying to bake Ghostly strike into Outlaw's AoE utility would be interesting, but I wouldn't be holding my breath for this.

[iddqd]

I think the title should have been "Outflaws"

[George Costanza]

mastery being changed to just be something that affects the rng would probably be nice.

something like increases your chance to roll 2 or more roll of the bones.

[Javanface]

Probably in the minority here, but I think Outlaw is in the best place it's been since its release.
Sure it might not be the most engaging spec to play, but it works, and that's more than you can say about many other specs.

Some QoL changes would be nice though, particularly with regards to Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush.
BF shouldn't need to be on the GCD, it's disruptive to the rotation and just a mild annoyance. Still its current incarnation is way more fluid than the toggle we had with decreased energy regen etc.

AR shouldn't need to be on the GCD either, it causes energy overflow and, I think, should be reworked a bit altogether.
I feel like I'm getting very little benefit compared to other specs from popping hero/BL at the start of an encounter just because of the energy capping issue. I think a weaker AR and another cd that makes us hit harder would work reasonably well, and it would mean another button to push as well.

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but those two things would go a long way to fix my minor gripes with the spec.

[Kaver]

mastery being changed to just be something that affects the rng would probably be nice.

something like increases your chance to roll 2 or more roll of the bones.

That’s actually a really cool idea! Of course it would need some tweaking but damn it would be nice to have the possibility to reduce rng in that way. Can you please call Blizz and tell them?

[George Costanza]

not sure if your sarcastic. But the way i see it Outlaw/combat has had the same Mastery since cata and could use something new

[Kaver]

not sure if your sarcastic. But the way i see it Outlaw/combat has had the same Mastery since cata and could use something new

I’m not sarcastic. I think it’s a good idea. Trading off some haste/crit to reduce rng. That would actually be a fun use of mastery.

[Sunderella]

What exactly makes you feel like BF is so outdated? I personally actually quite like the version with charges (at least it's better than the old toggle one. The biggest flaw of BF is that it's on the GCD, which it really shouldn't be.

Dont exactly know man. Maybe is just because its simply different (and I've been playing rogue as main since vanilla) but I find alternating between WW and whatever attack comes next more engaging that activating BF and keep going with my regular stuff. Maybe is because a Fury warr can sustain the aoe forever or because they dont need a cooldown to aoe. The fact is that feels nicer to me

oh and yeah BF being on the GDC makes it feel clunky

[Kaver]

Out of curiosity I just looked at the best Outlaw parse on Heroic Grong. Throughout the fight the Rogues in the best parse has:

5x buffs --> 2x buffs (Ruthless precision + Broadside) --> 5x buffs

I think we can all agree that this is pretty good RNG. The wierd thing is that even an Outlaw Rogue with this good RNG will not perform better than the best Demon Hunter. And then I have to think: What is the point of RNG if good RNG just makes you average? By logic you would think that an Outlaw Rogue with good RNG would perform better than other specs with a lesser amount of RNG involved. Because an Outlaw Rogue with bad RNG will definitely perform worse. So it should really be a two-way street, but right now it ain't.

Disclaimer: I'm talking about Single Target damage here. AOE is of course a completely other story where Outlaw Rogues are kings