Well Outlaw just got killed

[Varolyn]

Outlaw will still be very good in M+ while not being absurd. However, this nerf kills it in raiding.

[Nathasil]

-33% to all AOE damage is huge. Outlaw was over the top, sure, but not by this margin. They will plummet from the best M+ spec to below-average. I expcet a lot of people to reroll 3 echoing assassination now...which will probably be nerfed next week.

Edit: Also, if overperforming in M+ is a problem, then where are the RDruid nerfes?

[crymoreplz]

its a flat 7 or 8% damage overall in m+ its a big deal. Maybe more with the nerf of the keep your wits about you

[hulkgor]

Horrible use of "killed". Holy hell, can one really be so obtuse?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Man, World of Warcraft players have this collective lack of understanding of words and their meaning...

[-aiko-]

I approve of this nerf.

[arandomuser]

only effects M+ not raids

[Biomega]

only effects M+ not raids

Errr, no. Cleave was the only reason Outlaw was brought to raids. And with the amount of ST damage even in cleave fights, it's quite possible Assassination will now simply be better. Unlike M+, the utility of Outlaw is practically meaningless in raids.

A smart company would have nerfed Outlaw cleave and buffed some of its ST in return, but with Blizzard you can only swing wildly one way or the other.

[Kaver]

It's called being balanced. Do you just ignore the fact that most groups were taking 2-3 outlaw rogues as their dps. You're still gonna be strong, you're just not gonna be miles ahead. You had your fun for months, now get back in line.

With the current utility that Outlaw offers Blizzard needs to completely ruin Outlaw dps to get them back in line. The AOE of Outlaw was not the problem. The only thing Blizzard has achieved with this is that Outlaw 2 target cleave is now shit. The obvious solution would have been to make BF scale with the number of targets.

[Faesroll]

Finally, they've been top tier too long in the M+ scene. They're even more broken than WW monks in Legion.

- - - Updated - - -

With the current utility that Outlaw offers Blizzard needs to completely ruin Outlaw dps to get them back in line. The AOE of Outlaw was not the problem. The only thing Blizzard has achieved with this is that Outlaw 2 target cleave is now shit. The obvious solution would have been to make BF scale with the number of targets.

Eh, the AoE was exactly the problem, hence why it got nerfed.

[Nightstalker]

As if your toolkit wouldn't be good enough to still justify the spec.

"Oh noo, we're no longer undisputed #1!"

[Alanar]

So right now for the sake of MDI rogues have 2 dead specs. So nice of Blizzard to sucker punch nerf this spec mid patch after most people just finished farming their level 3 essences. Now I'll have fun being a subpar assassination for months until i get lucky enough to get decently rolled azerite armor and gear.

Stop whining.. outlaw isnt killed dramaqueen.
My god..

[Twdft]

Edit: Also, if overperforming in M+ is a problem, then where are the RDruid nerfes?

Druids are healing because warris are tanking and rogues do damage. Battle rez would have to go to see fewer druids.

How anyone is surprised outlaw gets nerfed wobbles the mind:

[Garymorilix]

seriously, thats the reason why i stopped playing core dps classes as main in an expansion.

first:

i only like 2 of 3 specs for all of the core dps classes. i LOVE my mage. i LOVE frost and arcane. but i hate fire. same with sub and outlaw for rogue. they play fast, while assa feels slow as chewing gum. i do not like surv of hunter but the other 2 specs. and i hate demo of lock, since they changed it a few years ago.

so, all in all, this means, if i play a core dps, at some point mid of the xpac, blizz will force me to be utterly bullshit or play a spec i hate (which happens with mage frost and fire in 8.2 as example). this means all my investment until then is lost and/or i have to play a spec i hate and end my fun of playing my class. this sucks.

on the other hand, the one and only dps spec some classes have, will always perform well. never as good as the one best spec of core classes, but not far away. and blizz has to keep it up, because every ret or shadow on this planet will shitstorm when they are longer than 4 weeks at a position like i.e. arcane mage, because its their ONLY dps spec.

this will be always the case. it happens since warcraftlogs exists and you can clearly watch it there from year to year to year. and its logical, when you say that core dps have to be a few percent better in average than hybrids and when you also say that hybrids only dps spec should be not garbage. with that mindset you MUST have the other core dps specs and the second hybrid specs like i.e. feral, enhancement, etc. at the bottom. because there have to be someone at the bottom. and this is the obvious choice when you think about it.

so, blizz is doing it absolutelly right here. and this lefts us with a rule of thumb: when you do not like playing really ALL of the 3 specs of a core dps class and you wanna be competitive and having fun, do not play a core dps class. play a hybrid class with only one dps spec instead, and you are safe.

second:

the investment (the problem you offered).

when playing a hybrid spec with 1 dps spec you will (as damage dealer) invest all of your time, currencies (manapearls, valor points or whatever), gearing (stats, essences, trinkets, gems, enchants, whatever) in that one and only spec. blizz rarely change stat priority for one spec. and if they do the difference will not be that huge. but when you have to switch core dps specs, it could happen something like this:

- spec 1 favors haste and crit over all. versatility is lower mid. mastery is COMPLETE garbage.
- spec 2 favors mastery completely over all. followed by crit and versatility mid way. and haste is COMPLETE garbage.

these relations exists at some core dps classes. if you played spec 1 and blizz decided to nerf it into the ground while overbuffing spec 2 like hell (as often happened mid xpac with core dps classes), you have to re-gear yourself heavily.

also all the other investment, like you said, essences, specific trinkets, etc. are now worthless (in some cases).

this will never happen with the one dps spec of some hybrid classes. it will ofc also change a bit here and there. but this is a whole another story. way less tremendous.

third:

this is foremost the case when you look at Legion and BfA (and their game concepts seem here to stay):

- hybrid dps perform super good, when you look at boomies or shadows in both xpacs.
- some core dps have lost their „a few percents ahaed“ throne, when you look at mages and hunters i.e. until 8.2
- both xpacs heavily focused on detailed spec specific investment. In Legion it was Legendaries, per spec AP and essences. in BfA it is better, but still Azerite Traits, Essences, Trinkets (and maybe stuff like benthic gear).

last words:

blizz WILL ALWAYS heavily buff and nerf core dps specs while an xpac is running. they HAVE to do that, just because otherwise all the players that decided to play the non-performing specs will never perform well the whole xpac and get angry. so, with core dps classes they HAVE to rotate the specs, performance wise, in one xpac lifetime. the ups and down with one-dps-only hybrid specs are way less dramatic.

so, if you have a lot of free time and like/accept re-gearing and really like all 3 specs, a core dps is the right choice and will put you always on top of the meters. but if you ok to accept to be second-fourth on the meters and do not wanna be forced into a spec you do not like, you better play a hybrid with 1 dps spec.

at least, these are my 2 cents after 14 years of wow gaming.

This is a pretty accurate summary of the situation.

My only problem with Blizzard's balancing is that the nerf core strengths of specs that give them their flavor.

Also, their encounter design always favors one specific type of damage pattern that makes some specs looks OP (aflli locks in antorus) while in reality, you take away the environment and they're totally fine. And the environment always changes so they are stuck re-balancing classes that they nerfed for the previous tier and suck now.

Sub rogues are completely non-existent in PvE content after the Uldir fiasco. Horrible balancing.

[Staboteur]

DPS isn't the reason rogues are broken in M+. Shroud for skips is incredibly OP and even if rogue was average damage the skips would make up for this alone, then on top of that you have sap, gouge + blind in combat as an additional interrupt that also works on things that can't be kicked, BtE being a strong stun with a very short CD adding additional CC without actually wasting any damage doing so (Kidney is a stronger stun but you sacrifice CP that could be spent on a damage dealing ability).

Basically Outlaw has insane control to the point where stacking several of them means you can just lock down a pack. The high damage the spec was dealing made this a no brainer since you weren't even sacrificing anything to have this control.

Assassination actually had the 2nd highest DPS representation in high M+ too which shows that it's rogue utility that makes them so strong.

What they should do is place Shroud on a shared CD like Bres is. 1 per 10 minutes, so bringing additional rogues for additional skips isn't required. Then maybe make gouge a 20 sec CD & place the stun aspect of BtE on a CD. So you can still cast the ability since it's a vital part of the rotation but it will only stun once every 30 sec or w/e. This would keep the utility but stop it being so strong & on top of the damage nerf open up comps to be something other than rogues.

TLDR; it's a pretty big nerf but Outlaw was ahead by a large margin so it's still going to be one of the top damage specs in M+ if not top still, but then the insane utility is going to keep rogue a required class regardless. It might drop down to only 1 rogue required but most likely it'll just be 2x Outlaw & 1 WW as the meta DPS comp.

[Monoxide]

My only problem with Blizzard's balancing is that the nerf core strengths of specs that give them their flavor.

I'm not saying you're incorrect, but damn that sentence messes with my head. To think how Rogues used to be the worst class at AoE, to come to a point where their AoE is considered a core strength of their class...how did Blizzard stray so far?

[Nathasil]

Druids are healing because warris are tanking and rogues do damage. Battle rez would have to go to see fewer druids.

How anyone is surprised outlaw gets nerfed wobbles the mind:

Which is besides the point, though...RDruid has been top choice for challenge mode and M+ ever since it existed. And Blizzard has NEVER done anything to change it. RDruid usually comes out as the top Arena healer, too. Why is it ok to nerf Rogue damage "because they also have shroud" but not RDruid HOTs "because they also have BR, roots, knockback and stealth"?

[Laqweeta]

"Killed" lol.

Cut the hyperbole. Outlaw rogues were vastly over-performing by every margin in M+10 to the point you could easily bring two of them and were even preferred.

/thread. Honestly.

I don't know how many times I've seen people say "stop kidding yourself, go Outlaw and it's a guaranteed invite". Just like Resto Druids.

[Marrilaife]

This was absolutely expected, and quite frankly needed. Other classes would like to also do M+, you know, and not find themselves competing for 2 DPS slots instead of 3 because 1 Rogue (at least) is a given.

More like 1 or 0, didn't you see all these double / triple rogue teams? Rogue could do shit damage and would still be taken for shroud. But their aoe isn't even close to shit, it's better than most classes.

- - - Updated - - -

Battle rez would have to go to see fewer druids.

Pretty much this, remember when in legion bdk was king, holy paladins were close to rdruids in representation in m+ (especially after cr stacking got nerfed after 1st mdi), 1st season of bfa we've seen decent amount of mw monks as well for ring of peace, aoe stun and melee buff. None of the other meta classes bring cr atm (warrior / monk tank, rogue / monk / dh / hunter dps) so you HAVE to bring a druid healer if you want a cr (and who wouldn't, the engi one has shit range, long cast time, and is banned on mdi).

Enable engi rez on mdi and make it 30 yard range not melee range and it would be a step in the right direction. Why is bl acceptable to be subbed with drums so you don't have to bring "real" bl class, but cr is treated differently.

[nightcrow]

Druids are healing because warris are tanking and rogues do damage. Battle rez would have to go to see fewer druids.

How anyone is surprised outlaw gets nerfed wobbles the mind:

You do understand that is TIME TRIALS..Your target is to be FAST...SO you need to min max your performace..
How many people complete their keys in low times..the only thing you care is to complete it in time not in that times
On you example the best +17 excluding the time trials is completed in 26min...which means that you guys thing that the fastest horse is to be nerfed because
it is fast..not because is the best...
My point is that nerfs generaly speaking are bad i prefer buffs to everyone to reach the "top horse"than nerf it..