Hello everyone,
I decided to make another post about the state of Subtlety rogue because the last one i did got some traction and we got some changes, call me superstitious but this is a thing now.
Preface
As mentioned in my other post, this is going to be about PVE content (m+ and raiding). So lets get started. As mentioned the post i made in March, i am what you would consider a “one-trick-pony”, i play rogue for sub and if sub is overly bad i would probably just play another class. I know a lot of people have issues with OTPs but it’s how i prefer to play the game so please respect that. Also i play at a decent level in raiding (hall of fame territory) so that’s the area of the game that i will be looking at this from. A lot of things in this text might not be relevant to the players who does not care about PVE content or strive to be the best they can be in PVE.
Current state
Sub is finally in a good place in PVE, it has a reason to exist, it gets played in high end raiding and m+ so i am obviously very happy about that. But nothing is ever perfect and the spec suffers from a few issues, mostly related to choices. Without further due, here is a list of things that will be talked about in this post.
- Flavor
- Mechanics
- Talents
- Legendaries
- Covenants
These are the things i think we currently can talk a lot about when it comes to sub rogue.
Flavor
Sub rogue has this cool spell blade archetype to it which isn’t fully realized. For some reason Blizzard is hesitating to go 100% into one direction, so right now the spec is in some limbo between stealthy assassin and spell-blade dmg dealer. My suggestion is to extend the mastery to also include a shadow damage buffer and extend the passive for Find Weakness to include Secret Technique. Shadowstrike should either be shadow damage baseline or partially shadow damage (like Eviscerate) and Gloomblade should be baseline because that talent is not used in any content at the moment anyway. Shadowblades should also convert your auto-attacks to deal shadow dmg, making the 3 min CD actually worthy of being a 3 min CD.
Mechanics
After about 9 months of Shadow Dance being 8 seconds and 1 charge baseline i have realized that this hinders the spec a lot in terms of gameplay and talent choices and flexibility. So whats the main issue about this? Well 8 seconds of 20% reduced energy on all your abilities means that Shadow Focus is simply just way better than any other talent in that row and Subterfuge is a dead talent because it extends Shadow Dance with 1 sec in which you don’t even have energy to get more GCDs out in dance anyway so it is actually a completely pointless talent. The 1 charge dance means that the talent Dark Shadows is dead because you have Symbols of Death on 30 sec CD and that just naturally misaligns it from Shadow Dance which is the main gameplay loop. Blizzard could go a long way in making the spec play better by reverting the Shadow Dance change from Shadowlands back to 5 seconds duration and baseline 2 charges (3 with Enveloping Shadows). The total amount of time spent in dance will be slightly lower but the gameplay should be much better overall.
Backstab being 20% more damage from behind is a pointless ancient mechanic which has no place in modern wow, but this could be solved by making Gloomblade baseline.
Talents
Level 15 row
- Weaponmaster = the number 1 choice by quite a big margin in ST and even competitive for AoE despite being a ST talent.
- Premeditation = only ever used in M+ and PVP. Mechanically very weak talent which doesn’t remove the need to cast slice and dice, just less often. Could be fixed by making it extend slice and dice beyond 45 seconds (like cut to the chase for assa).
- Gloomblade = completely dead talent, doesn’t do anything anywhere and is mostly a flavor thing that should just be baseline.
Level 25 row
- Nightstalker = Dead talent because of the Shadow Dance rework, there is simply no way to make sure you get 8 GCDs in dance because of the 8 second duration. At the end of Shadow Dance you have lost Master of Shadows (MoS) energy gain and you have spent the energy from Symbols of Death meaning you’re completely dry and no amount of skill/pooling will save it. Would likely be more competitive if Shadow Dance was reverted to 5 seconds (because it means MoS energy gain covers 3 of 5 seconds for each use of Shadow Dance). Alternatively they could buff or smoothen out the gain from MoS so you gain energy over 6 seconds instead of 3.
- Subterfuge = As mentioned above it has serious issues with how its designed since it doesnt even give more spell uses within Shadow Dance because you have no energy to spend. Would also be fixed with a 5 second baseline Shadow Dance.
- Shadow Focus = Easily the best talent in the row because when you reduce the energy cost of abilities by 20% for 8 seconds you can actually make use of the time you have in dance, which is not possible with any other talent.
Level 30 row
- Vigor = Does not do anything when you have Shadow Focus, you already get 8 gcds during the 8 seconds of dance, which is the only reason you need energy. Having more backstabs out of dance is of very low impact.
- Deeper Stratagem = Feels like it was made for sub, more CDR, more finisher dmg (synergy with our mastery) and is just overall a good talent.
- Marked for Death = Has its niche uses, but is basically never good in PVE because you don’t really lack combo points in AoE and Deeper Stratagem is just numerically better. If Marked for Death would also increase the damage of that finisher it could be very interesting.
Level 45 row
- Dark Shadow = Currently a completely dead talent because of how Shadow Dance is designed to be 1 charge. Means you will have to use Symbols of Death without dance, 15% dmg amp basically wasted on Backstabs and you will have dance without the extra damage amp from symbols which means the extra 15% damage from Dark Shadow does not actually make the dance window more bursty. Needs to also give another charge like Enveloping Shadows or see a massive increase to the damage amp to ever be worth taking.
- Alacrity = Remove this talent please, it is the most boring talent in the game across all 3 rogue specs and feels bland and lazy. Please come up with something interesting, instead of haste for a spec that doesn’t really want it.
- Enveloping Shadows = Currently the only choice in this row because of the extra charge, it basically makes Shadow Dance work, which is not what a talent should be doing. It should enhance the already working baseline gameplay, not enable it.
Level 50 row
- Master of Shadows = Very boring but efficient talent, outdated since it wasnt changed to accommodate the Shadow Dance design so it only gives you energy for 3 of the 8 seconds when it previously was 3 of 5 seconds. They accidently nerfed this talent going into SL with their redesign of Shadow Dance, which means that even for a ST talent it is very weak and needs to be updated to work with current dance design or simply revert the dance design to BFA.
- Secret Technique = Suffered heavily from the Black Powder damage buffs and the buffs to Shuriken Storm, now is a dead talent that is never worth using over Shuriken Tornado for any purpose. Could be redesigned to be our cleave talent, which would mean its damage is buffed by a lot but its capped to 2 or 3 targets instead of 6. Should benefit more from the sub rogue toolkit like Find Weakness, its actually insanity that this finisher is for some reason on its own little island in nowhere. Could be replaced by Death From Above, a talent many rogues loved in Legion which is still in the game in the shape of a PVP talent, just make it a PVE talent again please.
- Shuriken Tornado = Very nice and functional talent, works very well with Flagellation design together with Obedience. Is barely worse than Master of Shadows for ST which says more about Master of Shadows than Shuriken Tornado. Worked very well on some mythic fights this tier like Soulrender, Painsmith and Fatescribe.
In conclusion
Almost all of our talents are designed to work with 5 seconds and 2 charge baseline Shadow Dance. This needs to be fixed for there to ever be any other builds for sub rogue. The spec is all-in-all still very much working with current dance system, but it is very bad for talent viability. Some of our talents like Alacrity and Gloomblade should just be removed because they are never ever picked and are not sub rogue talents. Secret Technique needs to be reworked to ever be considered in a world where Black Powder does the same job but better.
Legendaries
One of the most disappointing things about sub rogue in Shadowlands is the lack of good legendaries, they are all bland and in most cases very bad. The only rescue we got was the covenant legendaries which were in 2 cases not only way better than our baseline legendaries but also much more interesting gameplay wise.
Finality, Akaari, The Rotten and Deathly Shadows are all extremely bad legendaries, they really need a huge buff to ever be considered when Obedience and Resounding Clarity exists.
To me it is insanity that Deathly Shadows was only implemented half-way, what i mean by that is that the set bonus its based on also had a CDR mechanic for Vanish included, this would drastically change the value of the legendary and makes 0 sense why its not already there, at least for the sub spec.
Akaari was completely gutted from the beta version when many other broken legendaries made it live. I don’t see a reason why they made it physical damage instead of shadow and lowered it all the way to 25% of your shadowstrike. It needs a serious buff because right now, its worse than our “aoe legendary” finality in pure ST when Akaari literally does nothing apart from ST.
The same can be said for The Rotten which used to be very cool for a short moment of the beta for Shadowlands where it would be a 3 sec duration buff, meaning you got two buffed Shadowstrikes that gave you 5 CPs. It suffers the same issue as Akaari, only does something on ST and is simply just bad for ST at the same time.
Obedience and Resounding Clarity are two amazing legendaries that are both competitive with other specs legendaries and also changes the way you play the game. The caveat to this is that they are locked to Venthyr and Kyrian respectively, basically killing Night Fae and Necrolord for sub rogues.
Toxic Onslaught and Deathspike simply does nothing for sub, they are two very bad and very bland legendaries that need to be either massively buffed or reworked.
Covenants
This part of sub rogue ties into the legendary section. Since our 2 best legendaries (by far) are tied to Venthyr and Kyrian, those two covenants are the only two worth considering for any serious sub rogue.
I will break down all 4 covenant abilities and why they work/don’t work.
- Flagellation = After the update in 9.0.5 it has quickly become one of the best sub rogue covenant abilities because we spend a lot of CPs in a short amount of time, which means we can get high stacks of the ability = more dmg, more haste. The only downfall is that it gives haste, which is weak for sub rogue. Obedience makes this ability really good and makes it give a stat that’s actually good for sub.
- Echoing Reprimand = This ability is baseline very weak, it does very low damage and the one animacharged CP doesn’t make up for the lack of damage baseline. The ability is however saved by the amazing legendary Resounding Clarity, which makes the ability more fun and more competitive in damage.
- Sepsis = Absolutely garbage ability which has an insane CD duration for what it does, this ability could be 30 seconds and still probably worse than Flagellation. Needs to either deal way more damage or do something more interesting at the end of the dot, getting 1 more shadowstrike every 1.5 minute is incredibly weak, it might have been decent when it was a vanish effect and thus made it buff Master Assassin legendary and Deathly Shadows, but in current state its just bad. This ability needs to have its damage increased AND cooldown reduced drastically.
- Serrated Bonespike = Awkward ability for sub that has 0 synergy with the sub toolkit. Wasted GCD in aoe because Shuriken Storm guarantees 5-6 CPs and the damage you get from CPs is worth more than what Bonespike gives you. And on ST this ability simply replaces Backstab because its not worth using while in Shadow Dance. Weak ability, not sure how to fix it for sub because of how its designed without making it OP or broken for assassination and outlaw.
Conclusion
Subtlety rogue is at the moment a good spec for raiding and m+, but it has some large gaping holes in its design which impacts both talents, legendaries and covenant choices. The talents needs to be updated to match the current design or the current dance design should be reverted to 2 baseline charges at 5-6 sec duration.
The sub specific legendaries must be buffed and/or redesigned, they are both very weak and very bland. It can’t be that the covenant legendaries are meant to replace all of our spec specific legendaries for almost all content and it’s not like the covenant legendaries are broken in a WoW context. Obedience and Resounding Clarity are 5-6% dps increases which is on the lower end across the game. But when our baseline legendaries are somewhere between 2-3% increases, you can understand why theres a problem.
I think all of the changes proposed in this text is something that could happen in 9.1.5 because it’s not really that complicated. They wouldn’t necessarily make the spec stronger (because it’s not needed) but it would introduce more different builds and options for both raiding and m+.
That would be all, thanks for reading and your patience.
i’m gonna stop myself from going on a long rant about how much i miss dfa.