Topic: subtlety
squeegee started this discussion 8 years ago #68,536
Pirate Rogue was fun, but it's time to change it up and get back into being a real rogue. i've talked a little about specs before, but mostly about Assasination and Combat specs. Subtlety is a little different. it's actually the red haired stepchild spec that every expansion blizzard tries to "fix." historically it's been a great PvP spec focusing on stuns and bleeds. Subtlety's bread and butter is using shadowdance, which lets them use powerful stealth-only abilities at any time. back in the day that meant rogues could use [Ambush] and [Cheap Shot] the former being a superior Combo Point generator for executing Finishing Moves. the latter was a brief stun lock that could be used when [Knock Out] is on cooldown to basically keep an opponent perpetually stunned while you bleed them out.
it was a lot of fun in arenas and other PvP arenas, but it was among the very worst specs to raid with and slowest more difficult specs to level with, making it entirely niche.
eventually Subtlety got changed and a handful of really wonky abilities were experimented with to try and make them raidable but the changes were misguided for a long time. at one point combo point generation was reliant on the other player in the raid having adequate Critical Strike percentage for your rotation to work fluidly. it was just silly.
but i think they've totally fixed it now. not only is it doing great in raids but it's fun to play in almost all situations. and it feels the most rogue-like with a huge emphasis on stealth abilities and massive damage multipliers for stacking buffs with stealth attacks while Shadowdancing. my rogue's finishers are now critting for more than 3 million damage, which is just insane to see.
squeegee (OP) double-posted this 8 years ago, 9 minutes later[^] [v] #833,976
subtlety's cooldowns are on theme with the spec now too, they empower your weapons with shadow damage for stronger attacks which is right in keeping with the shadow nature of the class. subtlety is the only class that kept water walking when using [sprint], which is great, and it also takes no fall damage, which is very handy.also my rogue may not be blind anymore, there's a lot of good head pieces i'm coming up with so i might have to stop transmogging every helm into a blindfold. even though it's Illidan's blindfold that held back the burning fel energy of the magical eyes given to him by Sargeras himself, it's been like 5 years. and check out this cape, it doesn't look like a floor rug.
squeegee (OP) triple-posted this 8 years ago, 24 minutes later, 34 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #833,987
so i don't know how her going un-blind is going to get worked in. i'm not even sure i won't just keep her blinded, i have a thing about helms, capes and shoulder pieces. they all, with very very few exceptions, look like trash. and the ones that don't usually only look good on other classes, the rogue armor and weapons don't always feel very roge-like but huge armor shoulder pads aren't very stealthy looking. fortunately blizzard allowed helms, shoulders, capes, belts, and tabards to be set to invisible. we'll see how long this cape and helm business lasts. but i'm definitely sticking with subtlety from here on out. Assassination is stale, it hasn't really changed much in 5 years it doesn't seem. and they've actually made it less interesting, imo, by consolidating poisons to just a small selection. you have 2 choices now tbh, and it's kinda meh as a spec anyway. it was fun when it was retooled and [Envenom] was something you worked in between 2 other finishers but now it's pretty much it. you've got to keep up one bleed effect and then just spam the one finisher. you do rely on stealth but only to open your attacks, after that you're kinda playing a spec that is near to subtlety, (they both have a damage over time ability to maintain) but it feels like you're switching the ability to use poisons for Shadowdance which isn't a fair trade. not only is passive poison procs not "fun" but the cool downs you've got as assasination seem kinda meh.
combat (pirate spec) is still fun, and the grapple is fucking awesome and i miss not having it when spec'd subtlety, but it's getting kinda tired. one of your major finishers relies on RNG to pick an effect to add, so your damage is unreliable in the short term and you may end up spending a lot of energy [rolling bones] to get a good buff. and your most powerful finisher is available to Subtlety as well. not to mention it can AoE just as hard as combat and single target DPS harder than either, making it the clear winner overall.
i don't really miss anything from assassination, and all i really miss from combat is use of a grapple.
anyway, my rogue is now 3/4 of the way through the Tomb of Sargaras raid. she's gotta help seal the tomb to prevent any further meddling, and then ultimately fight Kil'Jaden, the second most evil dude anyone in the universe knows of. then maybe i'll find out how there's a new planet in the sky