I feel like Outlaw just feels so clunky because of roll the bones.
I think if you just remove it outright, baked its effect into Between the eyes then it would be far smoother.
Also I might be worth removing prep and actually just making outlaw rogue cds standard like everybody else
Rather they remove Keep it rolling which is utter garbo, and make Preparation a pure defensive cd, that resets Cloak, Evasion, Vial. That would somehow fix outlaw survivability to be above Sub like it should, and then give baseline damage to abilities.
Also make KS a choice node with the previous version. Keep the exact same damage, duration, cd and effect.
Im new to outlaw and it does feel clunky. A guide said use it on CD well, should I be doing that or just ensure its up, ie if I get triple threat or jackpot etc why would I re roll them?
Enjoying it, even if its mental with all the procsit is fun having stuff to do whereas other specs have been pruned to tapping 2-3 buttons
I remember when they put that garbage in the game with the combat rogue rework.
RtB is SUCH a bad cooldown that they had to rework it regularly and it never really felt good.
The only way for it to work would be if they took it off the gcd so it did not mess with your combat. Having to press it during your rotation always feels bad and takes out a lot of momentum in my opinion.
Roll the Bones is essential to Outlaw and the ability should return exactly as it was before the pre-patch.
Vanish should also return as part of the rotation, because rogues operate from the shadows.
If thatās not the case, theyāre not rogues ā theyāre paladins
Iād rather they leave a few specs in the game that require more than one brain cell to play. Outlaw being one of them. Roll the Bones is fun. And Restless Blades is unique.
Current RtB is the best iteration of this ability overall. The only thing I can see as a 100% improvement right now is taking it off the GCDā¦and maybe upping the Double Trouble chances, because One of a Kind feels like youāve lost, rather than a baseline. Or swapping OoaK/DT effects around, maybe.
Thats what you have Sub and Assa rogues for. Outlaws should still have the feeling that the combat rogue spec had back before they remade it. Legion Outlaw was still not using Vanish in Combat.
Outlaw was ALWAYS the least stealth reliant of the three rogue specs. They only implemented the vanish idea in war within and many people did not like itā¦
Crackshot wouldāve been fun tied to just about anything but Stealth or Vanish. But if not having to use Vanish for damage as Outlaw means not having Crackshot at all, I could probably live with that (even though they could have easily put three charges of Crackshot into AR, for instance).
In DF S3 actually
Stealth is the essence of the rogue in all its forms. Stealth should always be part of the rogueās rotation.
Not for Combat/Outlaw, who had basically no real use for Vanish/Stealth from WotLK to Crackshot being introduced in 10.2. So, like, for 80% of the gameās lifecycle. Using it for Shadow Focus minor optimizations is like 0.2% damage which is negligible.
Sub has had long stretches of not being dependent on any Stealth but Shadow Dance pseudostealth that does not actually do anything but enable Stealth-based abilities.
Assa was the one spec tied to Stealth/Vanish for the longest time overall - first for aggro dumping, then for Overkill, then in a very minor form for Shadow Focus, and then in Legion for some legendaries.
In short, historically youāre in the wrong.
Call it Shadow Dance, Shadow Focus, or whatever āshadowā you want. Rogues have always had stealth ā historically, always. And since itās part of their identity, it should always be part of the rotation. And besides, if thatās what makes the class funā¦
But it doesnāt. The fantasy of Combat/Outlaw was always a daring in-your-face fighter, rather than someone striking from the shadows. Tying all of Rogueās potential identities to Stealth is further limiting an already thematically narrow class.
By that logic, Warriors should still be stance-dancing (no big reason since Wrath/Cata, Def Stance is now a last resort defensive CD basically), Druids should be shapeshifting into every combat form they have for their rotation, Mage should be using all elements for their rotation, Shaman totems should feature heavily in their rotationā¦
A lot of things classes have are simply for utility now. Warlock has Demonology which is focused on demon summoning, but Aff/Destro can just Grimoire their demons away. Druids donāt even touch their other forms for anything but mobility or defensives. Same should apply to Rogue. Why should Stealth be a core part of your rotation unless your spec is specifically all about Stealth or Stealth-lite (i.e. Sub)?
From what youāre saying, you actually agree with me that a classās personality comes through its abilities. Why should it be included? Because itās the foundation of its identity ā it has always been that way. It was created like that.
The Druid shifts forms seven times in every pull. The Shaman wouldnāt be one without totems. Why does the Warrior have an ability that removes fears, etc.? Because theyāre an unstoppable being who fears nothing.
Itās not about tying it to them ā it is their identity; itās already tied in. Youāre not a rogue without stealth, youāre something else.
Nope. Combat was designed, from the very start, to not rely on Stealth for fighting. Vanishās only combat use in PvE for Combat was an aggro dump until that became irrelevant with Tricks of the Trade in Wrath (and could have been irrelevant at all, but Feint cost energy and Vanish did not, so Vanish was more efficient). Combat built its identity on being a Rogue that can fight directly, an agile weaponmaster rather than a sneaky backstabber. If you donāt believe me, take a look at Combatās vanilla talents. Nothing there interacts with Stealth nor benefits from Stealth.
But also youāre shifting the goalposts. Youāre no longer saying anything about rotation, but utility. Stealth has utility for Rogue, but itās no longer necessary for Rogue to use Stealth in their actual combat gameplay, just like itās not necessary for Warlock to use a pet (instead of eating it) or for Warrior to change stances, and if they do elect to do so, then the benefits are not related to damage, just like a Shaman using their totems or a Druid changing their shape.
Iām not shifting the argument. I still maintain that the Rogue, whose identity is rooted in Stealth (take Stealth away from a Rogue and see if itās still a Rogue), should base its rotation on the abilities that give it its personality (all classes should be like that). Before the pre-patch, Outlaw had a rotation built around Stealth and it was brilliant. Now itās the most boring thing Iāve seen since 2005.
But you are. All those classes donāt do these things for their base damage rotation, they do it for utility and survival. Which you can still do, grab the Soothing Darkness talent and youāll have an extra defensive. Same as a Shaman picking up totem talents to have more defensives or debuff removal - not damage.
Druid has Stealth. Hunter has Stealth. If we go this route, then why arenāt Pick Lock and Pickpocket used in any Rogueās rotation? These are unique, these are something no other class has. Stealth is not unique, and you can indeed be a Rogue without Stealth. I know this because Iāve played Combat Rogue back in TBC and Wrath, and Stealth was increasingly only useful for outdoors to skip enemies you didnāt want to fight.
Rogue, just like all classes, has a rotation based on their resources instead. And while Energy+Combo Points has been the worst resource since Legion at the very least, itās what makes Rogue unique, not access to Stealth.
Like this is not even true. What it was actually built around is using Between the Eyes as many times as possible. They could have slapped three charges of Crackshot on Ghostly Strike and it wouldāve been the same rotation feel-wise (certainly wouldāve given Ghostly Strike at least some identity other than āmacro this with Sinister Strike and forget it existsā).
Putting it on Stealth was the same kind of decision that was giving all Rogues access to Shadow Dance (and it was made at the same time, so the person/s designing 10.2ās Rogue rework apparently agreed with you) - and that was pretty bad, because Stealth just doesnāt function well in current endgame content.
The Midnight direction in regards to Stealth/Vanish is better for Outlawās identity (and Iād say for Assaās identity also), because Rogue is not all about Stealth and never was, and every single attempt to force Stealth as its main mechanic made it feel worse. Stealth focus was always Sub (even if Shadow Dance diluted that massively over the years, to the point TWW Sub didnāt even use Vanish for anything, Shadow Dance covered all needs), with Assa being also sometimes forced to dump Vanish on CD for various reasons (Overkill, Legion legendaries), but Combat/Outlaw? Not since Wrath up until 10.2, and now not again, hopefully never again.
Shadow Dance or Stealth is the same idea. If you donāt understand thatā¦
Why is Outlaw so incredibly boring now? It has no energy, no available CDs, nothing spectacular. Why was it fun before? What was the rotation based on? On an aspect of the Rogueās personality that allowed them to chain Between the Eyes multiple times in a row, and on a skill, Roll the Bones, which also fits the Rogueās āTricksterā personality.
You can, if you want, chain Between the Eyes just because, but that takes away from the balance between gameplay and lore. We want classes to have a how and a why, not just be simple geometric shapes throwing other geometric shapes. Now that I think about it, maybe there are people who see exactly that.
And speaking about the Druid. Imagine a class that, during Eclipse, empowered the effects of a Balance Druid. That at the end of Eclipse, Darkness would come, where a Feral cat is stronger, and at the end of Darkness, Dawn would come, when a Bear is more powerful, for example. Imagine a class that fought both at range and in melee, based on rotations and constantly shapeshifting. Wouldnāt it be really fun to play a Druid whose rotations were based on form changes, where, for example, while in one form, their attacks would regenerate the CDs of the other forms?
āAnd donāt come at me with, ābut the Bear is defensive, this, that, etc.ā If what makes a Druid a Druid is the ability to shapeshift and use those forms (and donāt come at me with, āthe Shaman also changes formsā blah blah blah, think open-minded and smart), then letās make rotations based on that
Shadow Dance is not the same as Stealth. It functions nothing like Stealth, as it has none of Stealthās downsides, and downsides is what defines Stealth. Shadow Dance is a cooldown that enables most of Rogue-specific Stealth bonuses but doesnāt hide you from sight or NPCs nor drops aggro nor drops on damage nor does anything actually associated with Stealth as a mechanic in itself.
Killing Spree is the big selling point of Outlaw for me. I really wish it was tuned much higher, because itās one of the best abilities in the entire game by feel and punch, and would work very well as āthis is the thing you build up toā overall. I like the gun parts of Outlaw, and I like Restless Blades. The melee parts I donāt care much for, but they kinda work as I mogged my weapons to very small fist weapons so that Iām essentially doing gun kata with fists and kicks filling in the gaps. If Outlaw could become more gun, I wouldnāt mind at all. Also you can still chain multiple BtEs with 2/2 Aces, which is slightly undertuned but not to a debilitating degree.
And yes, Energy is tuned too low, and AR uptime feels a bit lacking, and rolling One of a Kind feels really bad. But the thing is, itās all Rogue specs now, theyāre basically razed to ground level with only core mechanics, and we can only hope there will be something built on top after Midnight. I would prefer that something to exist, but also for it to not involve Stealth or Vanish or Shadow Dance for anyone but Sub, because Rogue does not equal Stealth, and every time Blizzard think it does and try to force it, playing Rogue becomes worse while it lasts.
No. Personally I hate Druids, and this change wouldnāt make me play them, but it would ruin the game for people who actually like playing their moonkin or bear or cat. I personally know a couple Balance players who dislike having to go Bear or Cat for some of their utility CDs, and Iām sure theyād drop the class entirely if Balance rotation forced them to spend time as Bear or Cat. Less so for Cat players, who arenāt as adamantly against Bear-shifting at least. At best this could be sold as a fifth Druid spec, but itād be a nightmare to tune and design with Bear/Cat/Moonkin remaining their own things.
Specs exist for a reason - and while early on it was a very undercooked system (and traces of those hasty decisions still affect the game to this day quite heavily), now they exist to focus on a specific identity that has some significant overlap with the base class, but isnāt entirely defined by it.
If you want a game where every class ability is used for optimal gameplay, you can try FF14 (no sarcasm, it is a legitimately good game), it doesnāt have specs and instead every job (class) is designed around using every single thing in its toolkit consistently in its place. WoW hasnāt done that basically ever (the closest it got was vanilla release and then WoDās outright statement that spec fantasy was secondary to class fantasy, which got retracted pretty quickly) and shouldnāt try to - this allows specs to be their own thing, rather than āclass, but you do these specific abilities betterā. In essence, WoWās approach allows you to have 40 actual āclassesā, rather than 13 apparent ones.