Pirate, Ninja, and Assassin - Rogues in Legion

The news of Survival Hunters going melee in Legion has made some speculate (myself included,) that one of the three Rogue specs will go ranged to balance things out. Hunters and Rogues have always had to struggle to distinguish between the three specs they have. While they are only half of the pure DPS classes, the other half, Mages and Warlocks have managed to feel pretty different - the latter of the two particularly after the Mists-era revamp. Making a spec that stands from afar, firing at the enemy out of the shadows, would not only be a pretty big way to make one of the specs feel different, but it would also fit quite well in the flavor of the Rogue. In many games, Rogues are a ranged class by default, and a sniper or quasi-medieval-era-appropriate equivalent thereof would totally fit within the Rogue flavor.

But we don't know that that's going to happen.

Blizzard has said that they see the three specs as being pretty different archetypes. Combat is the swashbuckler - the Pirate - not really focused on stealth so much as just fighting deftly toe-to-toe with one's enemies.

Subtlety is the Ninja. Their flavor is all about focusing on stealth, disappearing into the shadows and then striking with great precision, then leaving no trace except the body of their foe behind.

Assassination they describe as a master of poisons, though I think the easiest one-word descriptor here is "assassin." (It's right there in the name.)

Setting aside whether one of these guys is going to start using ranged weapons, I'm going to talk more about the flavor and mechanics of the class and how they might be better expressed.

Assassination:

Clearly the biggest thing here is poisons. Blizzard has said that they want this spec to be the DoT-focused spec. I actually think they already do a pretty good job of orienting the spec around poisons, especially with Envenom as the main "big burst" finisher. The damage of Envenom itself is nice, but it's really the buff that increases poison application rates that makes it so important to the spec.

Likewise, the bleed of Rupture is really more important due to the high-damage and energy-restoring Venomous Wound. Frankly, you could probably just give Assassination an ability called Venomous Wound and let Rupture go to other specs - essentially just as Assassination gets Envenom instead of Eviscerate.

Mutilate used to have more to do with poisons, as could Dispatch.

Overall, I really like the way that Assassination plays already (it's my main spec on my Rogue.) A few tweaks are really all you'd need.

Now, the radical step here would be to take poisons - a mechanic that has been part of a Rogue's kit since the beginning - and make it Assassination-only.

Combat:

Flavor-wise I think that Combat Rogues could drop a lot of the "Shadowy" and "Sinister" kind of terms. If it were possible to get a different tier set for different specs, I'd make Combat's involve a tricorn hat and a nice thick-cuffed jacket lined with pistols. And a parrot on the shoulder for good measure.

To be frank, I've never liked Combat all that much, and have not a ton of insight into how to make the spec more closely fit the fantasy of being a swashbuckler. Clearly a big part of it is using non-dagger weapons (if the Combat artifact isn't a pair of Pirate's Cutlasses, they're doing it wrong.)

I guess I'd try to focus a lot on making opportunities to make the perfect strike - not exactly just building up combo points, but trying to time things so that you have some powerful strike ready to go when the opportunity presents itself. A bit like a random proc, but something more active than reactive.

Subtlety:

Currently, a lot of Subtlety is focused around juggling finishing moves - ensuring that Rupture and Slice and Dice are running while squeezing in Eviscerates if you can. That doesn't really seem all that Ninja to me - it actually seems more like something Combat should focus on.

I think the key is Shadow Dance. Since... Wrath I think, Shadow Dance has been a cooldown that you use to be able to do stealth openers (mostly Ambush) while already in combat (and being able to do multiple in quick succession, unlike getting a single one after Vanishing.)

If Shadow Dance were made into something more than a cooldown, and instead into a key part of the rotation, it could work really well (think Demonology Warlocks' Metamorphosis, and how it changed from Cataclysm to Mists... though look into it quickly, as they're set to lose it as soon as Demon Hunters come on the scene.)

While going in and out of stealth constantly in combat would have serious power issues (and make questing almost impossible as everything would reset in the middle of a fight,) having Shadow Dance light up periodically once you achieved certain circumstances could really fit in well with the whole Ninja aesthetic. If you could get to a point where half of Subtlety's gameplay was in a pseudo-stealth (one that might leave you visible, but allow you to use those openers,) well, I think that would be pretty cool.

They See Me Roguing...

I love Rogues and all their special gameplay stuff (I finally coughed up the 10k gold to get started on the Fangs of the Father quest chain,) but they could definitely use some big changes to improve the distinction between their specs and also just give them some new gameplay ideas, as this is the class that has maybe changed the least since vanilla. I'm eager to see what Blizzard has in mind.