New Mastery For Outlaw

Classes Rogue
1

Outlaw has had a consistently terrible Mastery for a long time now, enough so that it has been at the bottom of our stat priority in pretty much every expansion, and taking any of the stat at all has generally been something to avoid.

So, just to remind, the current Mastery for Outlaw is this:
‘Your main-hand attacks have a 40% chance to trigger an attack with your off-hand that deals x Physical damage.’
The Mastery stat simply increases the damage dealt by Main Gauche, which is, quite simply, a pathetic thing for it to do.

Let’s look at the Masteries of other Rogue specs:
Assassination; ‘Increases the damage done by your poisons and bleeds by x%’
Subtlety; ‘Increases the damage done by your finishing moves by x%’

Anyone can see immediately that these masteries are more impactful to the output of these specs compared to Outlaw’s. They’re not powerful enough to be the primary focus, but they’re not so useless that every other stat is more important.

Here are some Masteries that are significantly more powerful:
Augmentation Evoker; ‘Casting an Empower spell grants Shifting Sands to 1 ally, preferring damage dealers, increasing their Versatility by x% for x sec.
The durations of Shifting Sands, Breath of Eons, and your other helpful auras are increased by x%’
Enhancement Shaman; ‘Increases your chance to trigger Stormbringer and Windfury Weapon by x% and increases all Fire, Frost and Nature damage you deal by x%.
Your special attacks have a x% chance to reset the remaining cooldown on Stormstrike.’

So, it’s quite obvious that Rogue in general, but Outlaw especially, have really meh or bad Masteries.

Here are some ideas of what an improved Mastery for Outlaw could be;

  • Increasing the proc chance of Main Gauche as well as the damage it deals.
  • Increasing the amount of CDR you get from spending Combo Points thanks to Restless Blades.
  • Increasing the proc chance of Sinister Strike hitting twice, affecting all talents that use that same proc chance (Hidden Opportunity), as well as the damage Sinister Strike deals.
  • Increasing the chance of getting additional buffs from Roll the Bones.
  • Increasing our Physical damage done by x%
  • Increasing the amount of damage we deal that is translated into Blade Flurry.

The general idea behind these is that Mastery for Outlaw should mean either mastering our combat prowess (the spec was originally Combat, after all. It’s what Outlaw specialises in), or mastering our ability to fight dirty, to cheat (weighing our dice in our favour, recovering abilities quicker than we should).
A new Mastery does not necessarily have to be just one of these ideas; it could combine two of these, potentially, as seen in above examples.

What does everyone else think? Any other ideas for a new Outlaw Mastery?

1 Like
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Maybe u can compare it with a worse version of ele shaman better . Your spells ( with talent also mealstrom spenders ) have a X % chance to fire again for 85% of the dmg dealt .
And even in this case , the outlaw version is worse. Maybe just change it like that , all your attacks have a 30% chance to deal X % of the dmg again

But outlaw was always the rule " Avoid Mastery "

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Aha, basically just Multistrike again xD
IIRC that was our best stat for Warlords back when

1 Like
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What I’m proposing is a complete overhaul of the Rogue Class Design. Reduce unnecessary bloat, and go for what’s really important.

For arguments sake, if we were to start designing Outlaw from the ground up, what would be important? What would make it stand out from the other Specs, and how would it play differently from them? What would be the fantasy, and what mechanics would you need to sell that fantasy?

I’d argue, Outlaw is the fast-paced maverick brawler. The Outlaw operates differently from Subtlety and Assassination Rogues. They won’t wait for the perfect opportunity, instead relying on improvisation and fast movement to cause havoc. If we agree this would be the fantasy for the Spec, then what kind of mechanics do we use to support it?

Things like Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry, they are iconic, and fit the idea of this tornado of overwhelming mayhem attacking everything fast, and then moving on. Killing Spree is also very much fitting here, it has that look and feel of what we’re going for. Roll the Bones, while in line with this fantasy, the ability simply tries to do too much, and thus it makes many other potential options redundant. A new version of it could work, just a much simpler one. Instead of 6 potential buffs, reduce the number to 3 or 4. And you can only have 2 up at a time. Overly complex design ends up providing a shallow gameplay experience. A simpler design allows for more complexity in actual control for the Player, more Player agency, and arguably more fun moment-to-moment gameplay.

I’d argue throwing some kind of Cantrips or Smoke Bombs would also support this kinda playstyle as well, though I think those Tools need not be exclusive to Outlaws, they are very much in the Rogue DNA.

As for what would feel most fitting as a Mastery Stat, to help sell the fantasy of the Outlaw, the Spec already has this mechanic built in. Restless Blades is the perfect Mastery for Outlaw. It feels thematic, and it really sells the idea of this maverick, who doesn’t so much plan out things, but improvises things as they go. I’d argue Outlaw is the only Spec, where CDR fits thematically, and if Stats would be how it worked, that would actually allow for people to tailor things to their preferred Playstyle much more, than we really see any Class do in the game.

2 Likes
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I think major part of community want to get rid of RTB, so making our mastery around it would p1ss a lot of people. Physical damage done can be made by stacking vers. Main Gauche has already lots of talent to increase proc chance. For me, best they can do with mastery is to rework it to increase the damage of our combo point builders. Just like subtlety have with finishers.

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Too bad for them, I don’t see it going anywhere.

You mean…1? Ambidexterity? Which nobody takes outside of AoE?

That would be immeasurably boring.

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The mastery is kinda ehhh and yeah I think it should be changed for something else, maybe make it have a random chance to give RtB bonus or something.

SnD is awful and nobody likes it, just remove it forever from the class, not just the spec.

RtB is kinda the flavor of the spec but at the same time is horrible gameplay wise. Either remove forever or make it so it has some consistency and doesn’t have to be refreshed every 15 seconds because the buffs suck.

Blade Flurry is fun IMO, I like not having an AoE rotation but rather cleaving with my ST spells. I’d keep the spell but make it less punishing or reduce the CD to the point where even messing the rotation you still have 100% uptime.

It feels bad having to decide whether you do single target damage for 5-6 seconds when pull is ending or using BF and not having it for the next pack.

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Most masteries suck, if they wanna re make it, they should at least try to make it have an effect of the rotation, and not just be there for the sake of increasing damage.

I like the idea of combining a few aspects crucial to the spec, and mastery amplifying them.

Like better chance to roll dices, a better restless blades etc… Things that you can actually feel on the rotation, if they get rid of main gauche they need to adjust energy regeneration though.

1 Like
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I think Main Gauche should stay, but it should just be a standard passive rather than Outlaw’s mastery

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Probably. Not a bad idea.

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