[2022] Feedback: Rogues

Please use this thread to post feedback on the Rogue class, once you’ve tested it in the Dragonflight Alpha.

Thank you!

In this thread, please discuss ongoing changes to the Rogue class in the Guardians of the Dream PTR.

In Guardians of the Dream, we’re updating all four Rogue talent trees to bring them up to current standards. A sweeping pass was needed to make significant adjustments to address notable concerns, like: moving the first gate from row 3 to row 4 to match all other classes; improving pathing and increasing interconnectedness on every tree; removing 3-point nodes; and reducing the percentage of minor DPS talents taken in the Class tree to make room for more flavorful and robust utility options.

We also want to use the opportunity where so many things are changing to rework or redesign some talents that needed the update, and also just to make some new talents to experience and (hopefully) enjoy.

Please see our updated development notes for all of the changes to Assassination, Outlaw, and Subtlety.

Assassination

Assassination is known for having strong single target damage, but has two areas of concern we hope to address in Guardians of the Dream. First and foremost, their AoE has been notably weak and left them far behind the pack for M+ and certain raid encounter types. Secondly, Assassination’s damage performance does not improve at a similar rate compared to most specs when players improve their play and coordination to take on bigger challenges, like when moving from Heroic to Mythic level raiding. We hope the changes here will raise the floor of Assassination’s AoE, especially before reaching and needing capstone talents to do so, and that it will feel like a distinct Assassination-like way to deliver AoE damage and not just copy/paste of another spec’s gameplay.

As for the second concern, it’s very important to us that we not completely rewrite the book and threaten to undermine what makes Assassination appealing for so many players from both fantasy and gameplay perspectives. That said, the changes aimed at addressing this issue are more subtle. We intend to create more room for players tackling high-end content to use their resources and encounter knowledge to get improved performance outcomes, while not increasing the number of hoops players at all levels need to jump through to get results similar to the past.

Outlaw

Outlaw’s talent tree has produced some fun gameplay so far in Dragonflight, but it has significant issues with rigidity, lack of pathing options, high tension between early tree DPS and utility nodes, and far above average number of unskippable core skills. Some of those skills have returned to Outlaw baseline, creating room for improved pathing and interconnectedness.

We’ve also reworked or redesigned some existing talents and introduced some new options, with the hope that it will expand the gameplay space and options available to popular Outlaw builds.

Subtlety

Subtlety and its talent tree have been in a similar position as Outlaw. The gameplay outcome has been mostly good during Dragonflight so far, but many talents are underused, and rigid pathing with insufficient connections have restricted talent options. We have changed, redesigned, and added new talents alongside improvements to pathing and interconnectedness that will hopefully add up to feeling like there is more gameplay diversity and flexibility in the tree. And while we noted that gameplay outcomes thus far in Dragonflight have been ‘good’, there have been some negative trends we hope to address.

To start, Subtlety’s Energy and combo point resource economies have been overflowing, which creates a cascade of issues. Uptime for key cooldowns (predominantly Shadow Dance) has also been higher than expected, forcing overall damage tuning to result in a relatively flat damage profile, especially for a spec that is often known for having moments of increased intensity and burst within those frequent cooldown windows.

So, in addition to the more general improvements and additions for talents, there are some changes that affect Subtlety’s Energy and combo point flow that will reduce the floor of their steady downtime rate, and increase the relative value of effects that temporarily offer more resources. It will require tuning and iteration to get to the amounts of total resource generation and damage output in a good state, so any gameplay feedback you would like to share on these topics is welcome.

Let us know what you think!

With the PTR build that went live moments ago:

• ROGUE
  • Assassination
    • Exsanguinate (Active) has been removed.
    • Exsanguinate (Passive) – Energy threshold changed to 50% of max Energy (was flat 150), Energy consumed reduced to 3 (was 4) and damage duplicated reduced to 20% (was 25%)
    • Sudden Demise’s Bleed damage trigger value reduced to 150% of remaining health (was 200%) and now benefits correctly from Zoldyck Recipe bonus.
    • Indiscriminate Carnage now prioritizes targets without Rupture and Garrote.
  • Outlaw
    • New Talent: Precision Shot – Increases the range of Between the Eyes and Pistol Shot by 10 yards, and Pistol Shot reduces damage you take from the target by 5%.
    • Killing Spree base delay (before Haste) between strikes reduced to 0.3 seconds per combo point (was 0.4 seconds).
  • Subtlety
    • New Talent: Terrifying Pace – Gain 30% increased movement speed for 3 seconds when Shuriken Storm strikes 3 or more targets.
    • New Talent: Exhilarating Execution – Finishing moves heal you for 3% of damage done. Overhealing is converted to shielding, absorbing up to 10% of your maximum health.
    • Shadow Techniques’ Energy generated increased to 4 (was 3)
    • Shadow Techniques tooltip has been updated, no functional changes.
    • Shadowcraft now allows finishing moves to use Shadow Technique stacks only when it will refresh combo points to full.
    • Shadowcraft’s tooltip has been updated, no functional changes.
    • Ephemeral Bond’s bonus for healing received reduced to 8% (was 12%).

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Rogues in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• ROGUE
  • Hero Talents
    • Fatebound (Assassination/Outlaw)
      • Fatebound Coin (Heads) additional stacks now increase damage by 2% per stack (was 1%).
      • Fatebound Coin (Tails) damage increased by 50%.
      • Lucky Coin damage increased by 70%.
      • Delivered Doom now increases Fatebound Coin (Tails) damage by 30% when striking a single target (was 21%).
      • Fate Intertwined now duplicates 30% of Envenom critical strike damage to 2 nearby enemies (was 20%).
    • Trickster (Subtlety/Outlaw)
      • Unseen Blade damage increased by 78%.
  • Assassination
    • All ability damage increased by 10%.
    • Auto-attack damage increased by 10%.
    • Crimson Tempest damage increased by 8%.
    • Venomous Wounds energy restored increased to 8 (was 7).
  • Outlaw
    • All ability damage increased by 10%.
    • Auto-attack damage increased by 10%.
    • Killing Spree damage increased by 8%.
    • Combat Potency now increases Energy regeneration by 30% (was 25%).
    • Ace Up Your Sleeve now grants 5 combo points when triggered (was 4). This change does not affect PvP combat.
  • Subtlety
    • Secret Technique damage reduced by 6%.