So, in the new PTR changes released today (https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2587645-Shadowlands-PTR-Patch-9-0-5-Build-37503-Covenant-Ability-Changes?p=53003601#post53003601) the only listed mention for Rogue is "Flagellation (New) Lash the target for [ 100% of Attack Power ] Shadow damage, increasing the range of your melee attacks by 6 yards for 10 sec. Venthyr. Venthyr. 12 yd range. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown. 1 sec global cooldown."
I know the number of Rogues using this covenant are fairly small in number, but it feels weird that the whole ability might be remade in just one small patch. Or is this just something left in the data?
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I kind of like the idea of making it instant rather than having to ramp it up. It helps on shorter fights and for bursts for sure sine its shadow damage, aka doesnt get mitigated by armour or physical reduction effects but the 1,5 min cooldown seems WAY to long for what it does unless they are adding something more to it or changing the cooldown to be more in line to like 30 or 45 secs.
Ideally it should either have a leech effect on it as well or it should dot the enemy after you strike too.
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I also hope it generates combo points, kinda garbage otherwise. Reduced CD + leech sounds good to me. Leech plays well into the whole vampire theme venthyr has going.
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Curious to see where they’re going with this. I have been wanting to go Venthyr when they’d rework that ability.
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Yeh for sure. It would help a lot in most situations as well and make venthyr viable.
A lot of things to do with it, so they probably just making this change for the ptr and then adding more to it as they rework it. We hope.
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Cool. If I got venth + acrobatic strikes on my Outlaw I can pull unintended trash packs.
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Might make us finally viable because we are able to q as RDPS kekw
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Somehow they made Venthyr and Flagellation more worthless than it already was. I liked it for the small haste buff, helped with really bad rolls, but now? Good thing my sub runs out in 3 days, so I won’t have to change covenant…
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I like this change, have been waiting for Flagellation to be changed/reworked since release.
Finally a simple spell that does instant dmg and no need to reactivate.
I don’t mind the current iteration of it, though it’s difficult to get the stacks if you’re anything but outlaw
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In my experience it was easier with sub if you pair it with dance
So why can’t they just rework it to keep the haste buff and just not have to be re-activated? This doesn’t make it any better, and the Acrobatic strikes don’t help at all when you consider half the content B)
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i’d like to see something like “feast” from lifestealer in d2, i mean, we are vampires, so i’d like to see some LIFESTEAL, or something like next 5 abilities will steal hp in a size like 50% of their damage
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Also can we just look at the fact it’s a 1.5 minute vs the other dps class cooldowns, yikes. Almost all the others are shorter that are utility like this.
Tbh 6 yards is a big deal, especially if this stacks with Acrobatic Strikes. There’s a solid chance that this would let you ignore A LOT of mechanics. The problem is that if holding Flagellation ends up being a DPS loss vs casting it on cooldown then the 6 yard range effect may become entirely useless because you will never actually have it up when you might need it.
This is some really strange ability design, especially considering the 1.5 min cooldown. Leaves a lot of space for player skill tho.
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Honestly, wouldn’t mind the CD if it did something more than just another button to press. If they were really that much into keeping it simple, just give it another damage bump.
shrug.
I actually went on the PTR to check this out, and, at least for now, the Flagellation change is not out. This might just be some random stuff that dataminers dug up.
This is what I am suspecting, as there are many covenant abilities for other classes that are way more in need of reworks or improvements than Flagellation. Plus it just seems odd that Blizzard would completely rework the ability suddenly, after touting they don’t want to change such things too much due to player investment.
I mean, they reworked Necrolords massively for a bunch of classes. The whole Fleshcraft thing is gigantic, not to mention the warrior changes. Wouldn’t surprise me if they did something to rogue abilities because all of them have extremely low impact compared to other classes (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if the class is balanced regardless).
I’d hope, flag is under 3k dps of Kyrian, that’s a huge difference, and it flies far from the rest, it’s the worse covenant ability. Not the soulbinds are good Atleast, but not good enough to matter when the others are more useful, sepsis needs to be fixed too, and Max spikes seem to be in the eh zone. Kyrian one not sure. I guess we’ll see.