I’ve done this before and hopefully the feedback would be decent. But rogue is clearly in a weird spot and has been pretty much since you changed mutilate to a 40 energy attack.
I have some concept ideas for rogue builds that I feel would be decent with some rune reworks. Hopefully my offering doesn’t irritate people but we shall see.
So rather than listing individual runes and my thoughts on them I thought It would be better suggesting “builds” instead and potentially talent setups that could work for the builds. You already have 1 very strong and obvious DPS build which is your mutilate poison build. It’s a simple and obvious setup. Can be slightly more complex by chucking in carnage or could be the easiest rotate ever using cut to the chase and basically mutilating into envenom and keeping that envenom buff rolling. No point offering suggestions to this. Its decent and does well.
New idea. A bleed build. A big issue with bleeds in sod is the pace at which everything is dying. My initial concept is add a energy gaining rune along side the others Venomous Wounds “Each time a bleed ticks on a poisoned target you regain x energy”. Add a hemorrhage rune. That 1 makes it scale with daggers as well as swords like newer versions of wow. And 2 makes the hemorrhage charges have a chance to proc a charge of garotte that can be used outside of stealth. And on the leg slot along side the other finishers. Add an eviscerate rune. This one modifies eviscerate so that when you use it dependant on how many CP have been used for it, You exsanguinate the bleeds you have on the target. Either doubling the bleeds or halving the tick time. Effectively doubling the bleed damage for x seconds. This would I feel create quite a fun build with the ability to be able to spread bleeds on multiple enemies creating a bigger energy regain pool.
Rework slaughter from the shadows. I don’t personally understand the point in this rune in its current setup. From basically every aspect of the game why would you ever take slaughter instead of something else and mutilate? My thoughts on this rune is this:- move slaughter from the shadows to the glove slot rune. Where it should have been from the start. That’s where all the CP generators have been and ambush and backstab are both generators. This opens up being able to use deadly brew (which is undeniably powerful). Add a proc onto the slaughter from the shadows rune which is basically. X chance on backstab hit with 2x chance on backstab crit to proc an out of stealth charge of ambush. Mad idea but you could even add the wrath backstab glyph to slaughter making it so backstabs extend the duration of rupture on the target by X seconds.
Next is the combat build. Here is where I think there should be a fair few changes. Between the eyes for example, now that shadowstep is off the gcd. And the fact you already have shadow strike, shadow step, poisoned knife and kidney shot, why not change between the eyes to the retail version and make it a finisher that increases you crit chance by 20% for x seconds / CP. From what I’ve read as well saber slash appears to get quite bad feedback. Why not change saber slash into an aoe ability. Make it cost a little more energy but do something like : saber slash hits primary target for 110% and all targets in a wide cone Infront of the rogue for 55% weapon damage. Crits with saber slash and sinister strike lower the cooldown of blade flurry by X seconds (synergizing with new between the eyes). Then you make this sort of more aoe powered rogue.
When it comes to some of the other runes here’s my thoughts.
Main gauche - ive said this before. But main gauche doesn’t make much sense to me. 20s cd off hand hitting ability that gives 10% parry. I honestly feel like th only place that 10% parry cd would be beneficial is on aoe packs. And what’s rogue tank utterly awful at. You guessed it. Aoe! What I suggest main gauche is changed to is almost change it to be similar to the warriors shield block talent. You press main gauche and it buffs the rogue with 60% (or similar) parry chance with 2 charges. Adds a modifier to generate energy when you parry and you have the main gauche rune equipped. This would make it much more ST boss fight relevant and make it more useful at least in my opinion. It could also do with moving slots or just doing a more sensible thing (again in my opinion) and just sticking it as part of the blade dance rune or the just a flesh wound rune.
Shiv. Why is this in the game if we have poisoned knife. What a wasted rune slot. Pretty much always has been and always will be. Unless the energy price is wayyyy lower and the damage % is increased why is this even in the game? Do pvpers use this? I doubt it. Especially when you have mutilate.
If you’re adding FoK/Crimson/Blunderbuss (all quite boring ideas. Sorry to say it) to the game then why are you keeping shuriken toss.
My thoughts on the cloak runes is don’t bother with aoe. Make combat or a bleed build the “aoe” for rogues. Why not instead make the cloak enchants if you’re taking stuff from.the future versions something like this:-
Cloak of shadows - a finishing ability that has a 30s cd and applies a cloak of shadows absorbing 90% or magical damage and making you have 90% chance to resist magic damage for x seconds/CP
Blade rush: well you know. Blade rush. You dash in to combat and you gain increased energy regeneration for x seconds
Shroud of concealment - stealths your party for X seconds 15min cd.
It’s a mega post and I apologise In advance. I just feel there is some ideas that could be superb fun and decently balanced instead of the current meta which is mutilate/envenom and a pretty pants tank mode