With the release of 9.2, Outlaw is officially the only spec with its’ main AoE ability strictly capped at 5 targets.
My sincere question is what is the philosophy and logic behind this.
What was the thought process that drove this decision.
What exactly made the design team say
“you see that High-RnG / non-burst spec?, Aye let’s keep it hard-capped”
Thanks.
I think the philosophy behind that is the fact that we are still dealing our full single-target damage while simultaneously dealing 40-45% extra to 5 secondary targets. That is 200% to 225% increase to overal damage, which can be sustained indefinitely.
I am primarily a PvP player, but the times I’ve done a random Heroic dungeon or something of the like, I have been second highest or the highest in damage. Sure, that on itself does not prove anything, but considering Outlaw can pump out strong, consistent damage while being on the move… i think 5 target cap is fine.
It means we excell at Cleave fights, or dealing with the typical size dungeon packs, but some other specs and classes are better at AoEing large groups of mobs. That is fine. It would be boring if all classes and specs had precisely the same capabilities.
It is not 40% extra on 4(not 5) secondary targets, it’s 40% of our normal damage. there’s a difference.
Heroic dungeons and Mythic + on 23s or 24s are nothing alike.
Heroic dungeons are absolutely irrelevant after the first few weeks of an expansion. Nothing gets designed around heroic difficulty
Do not compare the two.
The problem is we don’t.
It’s just Outlaw is literally the odd one out right now being capped at 5 targets.
Then what would be your solution? 5 targets normal damage, anything beyond that with the ‘reduced damage’ that Blizzard is fond of using?
To my understanding, AoE target caps were introduced, as the standard tactic of Mythic+ was to stack as many mobs as the Tank could handle without dying and then AoE them down. To my understanding, to Blizzard that was not precisely favorable gameplay, as it allowed only certain classes who had superior AoE capabilities to shine. By placing a cap on AoE abilities, they reduced the effectiveness of AoE classes and increased the relevancy of Cleave or single-target capable classes.
They did revert the change to a limited extent, with removing AoE caps or giving the “targets beyond X” reduced damage.
As for the Cleave, appears you were correct. That is 4x extra targets. Assuming an “AoE fight situation”, that is an increase of 160-180% in damage compared to regular single target.
How do Subtlety and Assassinate fare in Mythic+ 23-24s? Have you played them? Do the rotation feel satisfying and do you have fun playing them? Or is it because Combat specifically is more fun to play that you would wish it to be competitive with the two?
Honestly yes. Even soft-Capping it to 8 targets would be a great improvement actually.
I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel or innovate in any kind of way. Since they literally did that with every other spec out there. That would seem fair for Outlaw as well.
Not taking any action towards this confirms their deepest and truest intentions are to diverge population from certain specs to other specs for the sake of forced diversity.
That is absolutely true, that was precisely what happened. That was the initial design and then that was Blizzard’s intention afterwards.
A lot can be said here regarding classes/specs funneling single target dmg through their AoE.(which kind of defeats the point regarding AoE and ST categorization) yes Sub rogue Included. Not on topic though.
Assassination had fallen a bit behind but now seems to on the rise for S3.
Sub dominated S2 and looks like it will continue to be the absolute META king for S3.
Haven’t really tried Assassination but i gave Sub a few tries in 15s and i absolutely despised it.
In my subjective opinion Outlaw is really fun and engaging.
Sure the spec’s identity was altered throughout the expansions, and i’m personally fine with it being literally the definition of RNG. But a line has to be drawn somewhere.
This is absolutely unacceptable and unjust treatment by the dev team.
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