Hi all,
As the title mentioned. Is sub rogue playable in PvE for 9.1 patch. What are your thoughts?
From some quick PTR testing:
- The AOE buff is nice. Nothing close to Fire Mage burst, but overall it’s very competitive.
- The buff to secret technique has made the spec play smoother. Especially outside of dance. This is a really nice change.
- The buff to Black Powder should make it viable for 3 target cleave. We will however most likely still lack 2 target cleave which really susks. I wish they would give us a talent to fix this. For example, MM hunter also don’t have 2 target cleave as baseline, but they can talent into Chimaera Shot which fixes this issue. Sub should have the same possibility.
However, said all this, Subtlety will probably still lack behind Assa and Outlaw in most scenarios. For ST you go Assa. For AOE you go Outlaw. For Cleave you go either Outlaw or Assa depending on the fight. I cannot really see a scenario where Subtlety would be better to play than the 2 other specs.
Sub is with current PTR build ahead of assassination on ST. The question becomes if you’re willing to play it because it’s more complex if you want to reach the biggest numbers.
Sub also matches outlaw on 5t and beats it by quite a lot on anything above that. Plus its the only rogue spec with AoE burst with the Shuriken Tornado build.
The thing is, Sub needs to beat Assa by a substantial amount on ST for it to be worth it during progression since Assa handles downtime much better due to dots plus it brings execute damage.
But I definitely hope Sub will be the go to for AOE instead of Outlaw. I’m still worried about the 2 target cleave though. Hopefully the new Necrolord legendary can fill that void.
The bold part is a common misconception, more dot damage is definitely better than what sub has, but assa also loses a ton of damage from downtime, like any melee. The reason assa is preferred on prog is because its very easy to play when you don’t know the exact timers of the boss (2 min cds definitely helps).
Also the execute damage comes at a big dps cost (Doomblade is much better than Zoldycks) so it’s not as much of a gain as you’d expect.
Yes any melee suffers from downtime and Assa is definitely easier to play but I think it’s wrong to say that’s the only reason why it’s picked for progression. I really don’t agree that it’s a misconception to say that Assa mitigates downtime much better than Sub due to dots. Especially in an important execute phase during progression like Mythic Sire phase 3 where dots combined with Zoldycks really can help mitigate downtime when dps is very much needed to meet the dps check. Also considering that Sub has CDR as a part of it’s rotation which makes downtime even more punishing than it already is. On a progression fight like mythic Sire D with a tight execute phase, Assa is simply better than Sub by design (assuming both a tuned well).
Zoldycks might be a dps loss overall compared to Doomblade but it’s a pretty significant dps gain during an extended execute period like phase 3 on mythic Sire D. Especially when you considering movement and downtime. And if you bring a Rogue to mythic Sire progression then it’s definitely for the extra ST damage during the last phase. Having the possibility to add ST execute damage when needed is making Assa very flexible as a progression spec and is one of the big reasons why it’s typically really good for end bosses. Combined with it being easy to play also. I’m not saying that’s not a valid point, but it’s definitely not the sole reason.
But that’s precisely the reason, bosses rarely have any downtime and if they do having 2 extra dots does help, but its not going to make up a 100 dps difference.
You only lose CDR as sub if you 1) cap your energy while not being able to hit the boss and 2) loses a significant amount of auto-attacks and thus shadow technique (CPs) procs. Downtime is bad for sub but it’s usually exaggerated, just like the loss of dps from assa downtime is downplayed. Look at any assa log and you’ll see that almost 35% of your damage comes from auto-attacks and deadly poison procs.
Mythic sire denny is a PERFECT boss for assa execution, its not the norm. But it’s wrong to say that its the only damage that matters, my guild killed the boss before assa was buffed and we used 2 sub rogues because of the 30 sec CDs you could (together with fire mages) carry one of the lieutenants (Gloomveil).
Assa is flexible and its a good progression spec, but if its 100+ dps behind sub on ST you would most likely play sub. As is the case on PTR at the moment (sub gained a lot of dps from the buffs + obedience being better than Akaari), the difference becomes even bigger if you swap to Necrolord as assa.
I see in this expansion shamans, druids, paladins are always welcomed and appreciated. They always have a spot in M+ and raids. People are more friendly with those because they need strong classes. If you choose other than those, you don’t have too many opportunities to make progress at the same speed. Sorry Blizzard but the monthly price of this game is not warranted
I mean, end bosses often have an extended execute phase with a dps check where high ST damage is prio. This is often why specs who lack execute damage falls short on end bosses in progression raiding.
This I don’t agree with. If Sub does 100 dps more than Assa on a Patchwerk fight I strongly believe you would take Assa for progression. Dots and execute damage might be exaggerated sometimes, but it is still very much relevant.
I really don’t think it was optimal in any way to bring two Sub Rogues for Sire even in the scenario you mention. There were far better options during this tier to handle the different priorities.
I really hope Sub will be good next tier. I love playing it! Especially with Necro if tuned correctly.
Yea execute is valuable, but its not going to make or break a comp unless you play at a really high level.
I don’t think you would play assassination if sub is 100+ dps ahead on patchwerk, there would be 0 reason. Neither spec is RNG heavy.
At what point did you kill mythic sire? When we killed it was absolutely beneficial to play sub over assa and outlaw, simply because of lieutenant damage which made phase 2 very easy. Phase 3 was never an issue, mostly a stay alive check for us.
Would be nice if you would post on your main so i know there’s some weight to these opinions.
Agree to disagree. I’m pretty sure that most top end Rogues would play Assa over Sub in that scenario. But I’m happy to be proven wrong by next tier.
I’m not saying Outlaw or Assa was better than Sub for Sire during 9.0. I’m saying that there was no objective reason to bring a Rogue during 9.0 since other classes could do a better job in every scenario. However, if Assa had been tuned as it is now, then ST damage during the last phase would have been the only arguably valid reason to bring a Rogue over some other class.
I mean thats not realistic for most guilds, again you’re talking about this from a WF perspective, do you raid WF? Just benching rogues is not an option for a majority of guilds.
Plus the cloak of shadows (could ignore hand of destruction) + ST burst utility on Gloomveil was definitely something you could build a strat around. We killed the boss in 79 pulls, would have been hard to do it quicker with any “better classes”. Lots of guilds had issues killing these lieutenants in time, we had 0 issues, but i guess some WF raiders said rogue is bad so it must be true.
Ok let’s just end it here. I’m happy that you made Sub work for you and your guild. Good for you! And I hope Sub will be relevant next tier since it’s super fun to play. The buff to Secret Technique is really nice. Unfortunately I think Sub will be extremely underrepresented due to the obvious deficiencies of the spec unless it’s tuned extremely strong on ST. But I hope I’m wrong 
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Why I’m struggling to find a spot in M+? why people decline rogues with 215 ilvl, 915 RIO for M13?
Is this why I pay monthly for this game? for what? for investing time and money to get declined? It’s my time, blizzard, my time! for what??
You know what? is not worth it. If u are a wow beginner think twice, you will regret it.
Because they can wait 2-5 minutes and get a meta class with higher ilvl and rio score.
Hello Obkarky,
From the looks of the sub rogue buffs I would argue that sub rogue would still be falling behind in raiding, but that they would be decent contenders in mythic+.
I quit playing some time ago and only resubbed recently. While I was still active I was able to push mythic 19 and 20 keys as a sub rogue, because they are better than what people give them credit for. The CC from sub rogue is arguably better than outlaw and the AOE damage is very similar. The difference between outlaw and sub is how the damage is spread throughout the dungeon. In my opinion sub rogue has always been a good option for mythic+ and with the buffs that are primarily AOE buffs, they will be even better.
However, as others have already noted sub rogue 2-3 target cleave will still be underwhelming. Even with the buff to black powder and shuriken storm I don’t think that sub rogue 3 target DPS will be anything special, 2 target DPS even less so (as compared to assa or outlaw). However, 4-8 target sub DPS will be much better, which is normally the sizes of pulls in mythic+.
In short, yes sub rogue are looking to be quite decent in mythic+. Regarding sub rogue in raiding we will have to see. This will depend on how the raid fights are designed in sanctum of domination. If the fights have little downtime and especially if there are few fights with cleave, then sub rogue will probably be a decent pick. However, if the harder bosses are cleave heavy, then I fear that sub rogue will be dead for another tier in raiding yet again.
To be fair though… for Heroic raiding and getting keystone master any specc is viable. For example Sub rogue is performing much better in heroic raiding than it does in mythic (if you look at the stats). This can partly be explained by the player skill, more than the specc. The point is that if you are only doing mythic dungeons up to +16 and Heroic raiding then any class/specc is viable and able to outperform others doing the same content.
It is first in mythic raiding and 18+ keys that you start to feel the more important differences.
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