Of the Rogue's three specs, you've got Subtlety, which is finally living out its fantasy of being a shadowy ninja, and you've got Outlaw, the new name for Combat that is really committing to being a Pirate. So where does that leave Assassination?
Honestly, it's leaving them with most of the old class features that used to define Rogues.
Totally Toxic:
Assassination Rogues are now the only spec that has access to poison. It works just like it does on live, giving you an hour-long buff that adds effects to your weapon strikes. You can still have one lethal poison and one non-lethal one at any given time.
You'll also get a new ranged attack to replace Throw (all three specs get their own ranged attack) which is Poisoned Knife, costing 40 Energy and guaranteeing an application of your two poisons, but not doing enough damage to really justify it in the main rotation.
Bleeding All Over the Place:
Assassination also becomes the only Rogue spec with Bleed effects, making them masters of the DoT (Sub does have Nightblade, but that does Shadow damage, so it doesn't count as a bleed or poison.)
Rupture remains the finisher you'll want to maintain at all times on your target, and it continues to have the Venomous Wounds effect to help with your Energy regeneration.
The new twist is that Garrote now becomes a constant part of your rotation. The ability no longer requires Stealth, but you'll only get the silence effect if you use it from Stealth. Thus, you'll want to make sure that this is constantly ticking on your target throughout the entire fight. The ability also now has a 15-second cooldown and lasts 18 seconds, so you'll only be able to keep this on one target, realistically.
And of course, any bleed on a poisoned target will trigger Venomous Wounds, so in a two-target situation you can start off by Garroting one and Rupturing another.
Dispatch Dispatched:
Much as I loved it, Dispatch is gone. Not only are they really consolidating "Execute" style attacks in Warriors, but they're also making Assassination a much more predictable and steady rotation - if you like this proc, you might want to check out Outlaw, which has a similar kind of rotational proc in it's Saber Slash/Pistol Shot combo.
Death of a Thousand Cuts:
Assassination is definitely more focused now on damage-over-time effects. You'll still use Envenom and Mutilate, and a lot of your old tools are still there. In fact, other than Dispatch and Ambush (and you'll be using Garotte anyway,) I think everything's still there. Vendetta is still your big cooldown.
There are certainly new talents, though. Still, Assassination is the Rogue spec for players who don't want change.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Gul'dan Live in Heroes of the Storm
Gul'dan, hands down the most evil mortal in the Warcraft universe, has arrived in the Nexus. Gul'dan is the figure that the WoW Warlock class is based on, and so you're going to see some familiar abilities if you've played much WoW. For a little lore backstory, Gul'dan was originally a Shaman of the Shadowmoon Clan. When the Burning Legion decided to use the Orcs to exterminate the Draenei, the demon Kil'jaeden appeared as the ghost of the Shadowmoon chieftain's wife. But it was in the chieftain's apprentice that Kil'jaeden found his most useful resource. Gul'dan wanted power, pure and simple, and Kil'jaeden felt no need to disguise himself when appearing before the orc that would come to be called Darkness Incarnate. Gul'dan happily served the Legion, convincing the Orcs to drink demon blood, binding them to serve the agents of chaos. Guilty of just about every crime imaginable, Gul'dan finally got himself killed when trying to wrest the power of the fallen Titan Sargeras from his Avatar's tomb. Thanks to our alternate-universe-hopping misadventures in Warlords of Draenor, a new version of Gul'dan is back, leading the Legion on a massive invasion of Azeroth.
Gul'dan is a ranged assassin hero, with strong sustained damage and powerful self healing. Let's go over his abilities.
D: Life Tap:
Gul'dan does not passively regenerate mana. Instead, you'll need to sacrifice health to regenerate your mana. He does seem to have a decently large health pool to help with this.
Q: Fel Flame:
On a short cooldown, Gul'dan sends out a wave of green fire, starting narrow and then growing wide when it reaches its max distance. This will definitely cover an entire minion wave, and it does moderate damage.
W: Drain Life:
On a somewhat longer cooldown, you can target a hero, minion, or mercenary (I don't think it works on buildings) and deal constant damage over a few seconds while you heal considerably. This is going to be a very important move for you to compensate for the Life Taps you'll need for mana, but obviously it also works to heal you from damage that enemies have inflicted. This ability doesn't cost mana.
E: Corruption:
You target an area that looks like three circles in a row. The three areas explode with shadows, one after the other, starting with the one closest to you. Enemies within these areas will get a small damage-over-time effect on them. However, if they are hit by multiple explosions, such as if they are running away from you as you cast this, they will get multiple stacks of the DoT, which adds up to a pretty significant amount.
R: Rain of Chaos:
You channel for several seconds, standing still while felfire meteors rain from the sky over a large area. When each meteor lands, it does a large amount of damage to anyone nearby.
R: Horrify:
Targeting an area, this will send enemy heroes running in all directions for a couple seconds.
Gul'dan is relatively tough, which is good given that you're going to be damaging yourself constantly to sustain your attacks. The upshot of this is that Gul'dan is actually quite sustainable out in the field. Use Drain Life whenever you can, but try to hit targets that will stick around and not die any time soon. The heal is the same regardless of what you're hitting, but if the target dies, the effect ends.
You're also going to want to be careful with positioning, as Gul'dan doesn't have any escape abilities. Pairing with a healer will make Life Tap a more forgiving mechanic, but make sure they know not to heal you when you could just as easily use Drain Life - in other words, outside of intense group fights, healers should probably just let you take care of yourself.
Corruption is also tricky to use optimally, but it's also fantastic against enemies that are fleeing, as they tend to have low health, and your DoT is the perfect thing to finish them off.
Gul'dan is a ranged assassin hero, with strong sustained damage and powerful self healing. Let's go over his abilities.
D: Life Tap:
Gul'dan does not passively regenerate mana. Instead, you'll need to sacrifice health to regenerate your mana. He does seem to have a decently large health pool to help with this.
Q: Fel Flame:
On a short cooldown, Gul'dan sends out a wave of green fire, starting narrow and then growing wide when it reaches its max distance. This will definitely cover an entire minion wave, and it does moderate damage.
W: Drain Life:
On a somewhat longer cooldown, you can target a hero, minion, or mercenary (I don't think it works on buildings) and deal constant damage over a few seconds while you heal considerably. This is going to be a very important move for you to compensate for the Life Taps you'll need for mana, but obviously it also works to heal you from damage that enemies have inflicted. This ability doesn't cost mana.
E: Corruption:
You target an area that looks like three circles in a row. The three areas explode with shadows, one after the other, starting with the one closest to you. Enemies within these areas will get a small damage-over-time effect on them. However, if they are hit by multiple explosions, such as if they are running away from you as you cast this, they will get multiple stacks of the DoT, which adds up to a pretty significant amount.
R: Rain of Chaos:
You channel for several seconds, standing still while felfire meteors rain from the sky over a large area. When each meteor lands, it does a large amount of damage to anyone nearby.
R: Horrify:
Targeting an area, this will send enemy heroes running in all directions for a couple seconds.
Gul'dan is relatively tough, which is good given that you're going to be damaging yourself constantly to sustain your attacks. The upshot of this is that Gul'dan is actually quite sustainable out in the field. Use Drain Life whenever you can, but try to hit targets that will stick around and not die any time soon. The heal is the same regardless of what you're hitting, but if the target dies, the effect ends.
You're also going to want to be careful with positioning, as Gul'dan doesn't have any escape abilities. Pairing with a healer will make Life Tap a more forgiving mechanic, but make sure they know not to heal you when you could just as easily use Drain Life - in other words, outside of intense group fights, healers should probably just let you take care of yourself.
Corruption is also tricky to use optimally, but it's also fantastic against enemies that are fleeing, as they tend to have low health, and your DoT is the perfect thing to finish them off.
Mastering Drunkenness in 7.0
Brewmaster Monks are getting some big changes in 7.0, moving a lot of focus onto their Stagger mechanic and making Brews their central defensive abilities. A lot of Monk changes are actually reflective of the Paladin changes (or vice versa if you're more focused on Monks than Paladins.) In both cases, the healing and tanking specs have lost the class' major secondary resource, and much like Protection Paladins, Brewmasters will be focusing on regaining charges of their defensive abilities. So let's get started!
No More Chi:
Chi is now a Windwalker-only resource. Instead, you'll use Energy for some abilities while the rest won't cost anything except a cooldown or a recharge. You'll still be encouraged to use these Energy abilities, as they tend to help recharge your brews.
Two Brews to Rule Them All:
While you'll still have a couple of Brew-themed abilities as cooldowns, you have two really central ones that are going to be the focus of your defensive gameplay. These are Ironskin Brew and Purifying Brew. The two abilities have three shared charges with what I believe is an 18-second recharge, reduced by haste.
Ironskin Brew grants you 40% additional Stagger for 6 seconds, and I suspect that it's the ability you'll be hitting more frequently.
Purifying Brew now only purges half your Stagger damage, but you'll be staggering more by default.
Stagger:
You'll now Stagger 35% of physical damage you take over 10 seconds, and half that amount of magical damage. So that means that with Ironskin up, you'll be Staggering 75% of the physical damage you take.
Mastery: Elusive Brawler:
You no longer are able to increase your Stagger amount via Mastery. Instead, each time you get hit with an attack, you'll gain dodge chance by a percentage determined by your mastery. This will continue to stack until you dodge an attack. Essentially, mastery will help smooth out your damage intake, with higher amounts meaning more frequent dodging.
Energy Spenders:
You'll really only spend Energy on three abilities - Keg Smash, which has an 8-second cooldown reduced by haste, costs 40 Energy, and hits the target and nearby targets for a nice chunk of damage. It will also reduce the cooldown on your major brews by 4 seconds. It also slows targets by 50% for 15 seconds.
Tiger Palm costs 25 and has no cooldown, doing less damage and to a single target, reducing the cooldown on Brews by 1 second. Basically, you'll fill this in when Keg Smash is on cooldown.
Expel Harm works a bit differently now. You still have Gift of the Ox, which now has a chance to trigger when you take damage. Expel Harm will allow you to suck in all those Healing Spheres without running over them, and then does damage based on the amount healed. You can still run over the spheres if you want to, but Expel Harm only costs 15 Energy and has no cooldown, so you'll probably want to use this instead.
Free Damage:
Breath of Fire finally becomes a major part of the rotation, though its only role is still threat and damage. This has no cost but does have a 15-second cooldown. It'll burn the target for fire damage and then, if they've been recently hit by Keg Smash, they'll get a Fire DoT as well.
Your ultimate filler ability is Blackout Strike, which has a 3 second cooldown and just hits the target for some physical damage.
Crit Getting Healed:
Celestial Fortune gives you a chance equal to your critical strike chance to get healed by an additional 65% when a heal lands on you.
Brawlin' in the Tavern:
Most of the rest of the spec is familiar. You'll still have Crackling Jade Lightning to pull (though no Dizzying Haze.) You still have your interrupt, your rez, and a new single-target heal called Effuse that you can use between fights.
Fortifying Brew now has a 7-minute cooldown, but I think that's to balance the fact that this, like Ironskin and Purifying, also has its cooldown reduced by Tiger Palm and Keg Smash.
I do think that without Spinning Crane Kick or Dizzying Haze, Brewmasters are going to have a somewhat more difficult time holding huge groups of adds, but that only really puts them down on the same level as other tanks. You'll still have Keg Smash and Breath of Fire, which should be enough to keep swarms interested in you.
No More Chi:
Chi is now a Windwalker-only resource. Instead, you'll use Energy for some abilities while the rest won't cost anything except a cooldown or a recharge. You'll still be encouraged to use these Energy abilities, as they tend to help recharge your brews.
Two Brews to Rule Them All:
While you'll still have a couple of Brew-themed abilities as cooldowns, you have two really central ones that are going to be the focus of your defensive gameplay. These are Ironskin Brew and Purifying Brew. The two abilities have three shared charges with what I believe is an 18-second recharge, reduced by haste.
Ironskin Brew grants you 40% additional Stagger for 6 seconds, and I suspect that it's the ability you'll be hitting more frequently.
Purifying Brew now only purges half your Stagger damage, but you'll be staggering more by default.
Stagger:
You'll now Stagger 35% of physical damage you take over 10 seconds, and half that amount of magical damage. So that means that with Ironskin up, you'll be Staggering 75% of the physical damage you take.
Mastery: Elusive Brawler:
You no longer are able to increase your Stagger amount via Mastery. Instead, each time you get hit with an attack, you'll gain dodge chance by a percentage determined by your mastery. This will continue to stack until you dodge an attack. Essentially, mastery will help smooth out your damage intake, with higher amounts meaning more frequent dodging.
Energy Spenders:
You'll really only spend Energy on three abilities - Keg Smash, which has an 8-second cooldown reduced by haste, costs 40 Energy, and hits the target and nearby targets for a nice chunk of damage. It will also reduce the cooldown on your major brews by 4 seconds. It also slows targets by 50% for 15 seconds.
Tiger Palm costs 25 and has no cooldown, doing less damage and to a single target, reducing the cooldown on Brews by 1 second. Basically, you'll fill this in when Keg Smash is on cooldown.
Expel Harm works a bit differently now. You still have Gift of the Ox, which now has a chance to trigger when you take damage. Expel Harm will allow you to suck in all those Healing Spheres without running over them, and then does damage based on the amount healed. You can still run over the spheres if you want to, but Expel Harm only costs 15 Energy and has no cooldown, so you'll probably want to use this instead.
Free Damage:
Breath of Fire finally becomes a major part of the rotation, though its only role is still threat and damage. This has no cost but does have a 15-second cooldown. It'll burn the target for fire damage and then, if they've been recently hit by Keg Smash, they'll get a Fire DoT as well.
Your ultimate filler ability is Blackout Strike, which has a 3 second cooldown and just hits the target for some physical damage.
Crit Getting Healed:
Celestial Fortune gives you a chance equal to your critical strike chance to get healed by an additional 65% when a heal lands on you.
Brawlin' in the Tavern:
Most of the rest of the spec is familiar. You'll still have Crackling Jade Lightning to pull (though no Dizzying Haze.) You still have your interrupt, your rez, and a new single-target heal called Effuse that you can use between fights.
Fortifying Brew now has a 7-minute cooldown, but I think that's to balance the fact that this, like Ironskin and Purifying, also has its cooldown reduced by Tiger Palm and Keg Smash.
I do think that without Spinning Crane Kick or Dizzying Haze, Brewmasters are going to have a somewhat more difficult time holding huge groups of adds, but that only really puts them down on the same level as other tanks. You'll still have Keg Smash and Breath of Fire, which should be enough to keep swarms interested in you.
Stayin' Frosty in 7.0 (Death Knights, to be specific.)
I've done posts about Blood and Unholy first because, frankly, they're the two DK specs that are getting the biggest changes. Frost Death Knights have most of the same abilities and procs, but there are some significant changes coming, primarily as Blizzard consolidates Frost's two-handed weapon and dual-wielding playstyles.
But first:
Runes:
All Death Knights will now have six straight up "Runes," no more Blood, Frost, Unholy, or Death Runes - though one could argue that all runes are Death Runes now. While they are no longer paired up for the purpose or rune regeneration, you'll still only be able to regenerate three runes at a time. Runes still generate 10 Runic Power when used, so an ability that costs two would give you 20, etc.
Runic Empowerment:
Frost DKs still have Runic Empowerment, but it's much simpler to use thanks to the aforementioned change to the nature of runes. You'll now have a percentage chance per Runic Power spent to regenerate a fully-depleted rune (which you should have three of at any given time.) I don't know for certain how Sindragosa's Breath works with this (it's still a talent,) but I'd assume that each time it ticks and spends RP, it'll do another check.)
And of course, now that all runes are interchangeable, there's no more gaming Runic Empowerment by leaving one of your Unholy Runes unused to ensure that it's a Death or Frost Rune that gets reactivated. You can just spam your Frost Strikes as much as you like.
Dual-Wield Only:
Frost has officially become the dual-wielding spec for Death Knights. Your abilities actually won't even work with a two-handed weapon, so you're going to have to stick with a pair of weapons. I haven't tried starting a new DK character at 55, but I'm curious to see if they've updated the quest rewards in the Death Knight starting experience.
Obliterate and Killing Machine:
Killing Machine now only affects Obliterate. This might push the spec to working much more like the old two-handed rotation, which focused on big Obliterate crits.
On the other hand, this might make the proc feel kind of like a random bonus rather than something that changes the rotation. I could imagine that with a lot of mastery, you might go back to the Howling Blast spam version of the spec, but interrupting that for Obliterate when you get a Killing Machine proc. I'll wait to see what the theorycrafters say, but I've been having some decent success on the PTR focusing more on Obliterate.
Remorseless Winter:
Frost Death Knights no longer have Death and Decay. Instead, they'll use Remorseless Winter, which similarly lasts 10 seconds and has a 30-second cooldown and costs one rune. However, Remorseless Winter of course does Frost damage and it works as a buff that you place on yourself, damaging enemies that stand near you. I imagine this could work as part of the single-target rotation, though again I'll have to see if it's worth wasting half an Obliterate.
Chillin' Out:
That's really the big changes. For the most part, this Frost spec is the one you've known. Frost Strike is still your main RP-dump, and there are some cool new animations (like most melee classes.) I suppose my only regret is that with Obliterate counting its two weapon strikes separately, you won't see the enormous numbers on screen that you did when critting with it as two-handed Frost.
If you're on the fence about going Frost on your DK, remember that their artifact weapon is a pair of swords forged from the shards of Frostmourne. This is the closest you'll get to actually wielding the most iconic weapon in Warcraft, so... could be cool. (Believe it or not, that pun was not actually intended.)
But first:
Runes:
All Death Knights will now have six straight up "Runes," no more Blood, Frost, Unholy, or Death Runes - though one could argue that all runes are Death Runes now. While they are no longer paired up for the purpose or rune regeneration, you'll still only be able to regenerate three runes at a time. Runes still generate 10 Runic Power when used, so an ability that costs two would give you 20, etc.
Runic Empowerment:
Frost DKs still have Runic Empowerment, but it's much simpler to use thanks to the aforementioned change to the nature of runes. You'll now have a percentage chance per Runic Power spent to regenerate a fully-depleted rune (which you should have three of at any given time.) I don't know for certain how Sindragosa's Breath works with this (it's still a talent,) but I'd assume that each time it ticks and spends RP, it'll do another check.)
And of course, now that all runes are interchangeable, there's no more gaming Runic Empowerment by leaving one of your Unholy Runes unused to ensure that it's a Death or Frost Rune that gets reactivated. You can just spam your Frost Strikes as much as you like.
Dual-Wield Only:
Frost has officially become the dual-wielding spec for Death Knights. Your abilities actually won't even work with a two-handed weapon, so you're going to have to stick with a pair of weapons. I haven't tried starting a new DK character at 55, but I'm curious to see if they've updated the quest rewards in the Death Knight starting experience.
Obliterate and Killing Machine:
Killing Machine now only affects Obliterate. This might push the spec to working much more like the old two-handed rotation, which focused on big Obliterate crits.
On the other hand, this might make the proc feel kind of like a random bonus rather than something that changes the rotation. I could imagine that with a lot of mastery, you might go back to the Howling Blast spam version of the spec, but interrupting that for Obliterate when you get a Killing Machine proc. I'll wait to see what the theorycrafters say, but I've been having some decent success on the PTR focusing more on Obliterate.
Remorseless Winter:
Frost Death Knights no longer have Death and Decay. Instead, they'll use Remorseless Winter, which similarly lasts 10 seconds and has a 30-second cooldown and costs one rune. However, Remorseless Winter of course does Frost damage and it works as a buff that you place on yourself, damaging enemies that stand near you. I imagine this could work as part of the single-target rotation, though again I'll have to see if it's worth wasting half an Obliterate.
Chillin' Out:
That's really the big changes. For the most part, this Frost spec is the one you've known. Frost Strike is still your main RP-dump, and there are some cool new animations (like most melee classes.) I suppose my only regret is that with Obliterate counting its two weapon strikes separately, you won't see the enormous numbers on screen that you did when critting with it as two-handed Frost.
If you're on the fence about going Frost on your DK, remember that their artifact weapon is a pair of swords forged from the shards of Frostmourne. This is the closest you'll get to actually wielding the most iconic weapon in Warcraft, so... could be cool. (Believe it or not, that pun was not actually intended.)
Monday, July 11, 2016
Avast Ye! Combat, No, Wait, Outlaw in 7.0
When Legion was announced, Blizzard mentioned that some specs would actually be getting renamed. Many of us assumed that would break up pairings like Frost and Frost, Protection and Protection, Restoration and Restoration, and Holy and Holy. Turns out that's a no, but Combat Rogues have been renamed to go along with a pretty significant redesign. It's not on the level of Survival (which is really just a new spec with a familiar name,) but there's definitely some change in the air for these odd Rogues who don't use daggers.
Combat was always the most generic Rogue spec. It's only real defining trait was that it was the only spec that didn't use daggers - making it more like other classes, really. Even the name was about generic as they come. Combat? Isn't that what literally every class and spec does?
Thankfully, Outlaw is going to bring a lot more flavor to the spec, as well as some fun mechanics that go beyond "this is basically how Rogues work." Word of warning though: if you dislike RNG in your rotations, stay the hell away from Outlaw, which is probably the most RNG-dependent spec in the game. Luckily, Assassination is nearly devoid of RNG, so you have an option. However, for those of you who really like reacting to new situations, oh boy. You're in luck.
And you're also in luck if you wanted a different feel for the Rogue class. While Subtlety is leaning much heavier into the shadowy Ninja and Assassination is focusing considerably on its treacherous bleeds and poisons, Outlaw is going for an archetype that Combat always kind of hinted at if you squinted at it from just the right direction. Dust off your Ragefury Eyepatch and hoist the mainsail, because Rogues can now be full-on Pirates!
Combo Points:
While Warlords changed CPs to be "on the Rogue," a change that I'd literally been waiting for since vanilla, in Legion we're actually going to get that reflected in the UI. Both Rogues and Feral Druids will now see the red dots below their energy bars - much easier to track.
Slashing and Shooting:
Outlaw's two main combo builders are Saber Slash and Pistol Shot. While you can spend energy on Pistol Shot if you need to deal damage and generate combo points from range, you can, but generally you're going to save it for a proc.
Saber Slash is your new Sinister Strike (same initials!) and costs 50 energy. Ordinarily, it just does some physical damage and generates one combo point. But the ability inherently has a chance to strike twice, literally duplicating the entire effect - damage and combo point - and then gives you Opportunity, which makes your next Pistol Shot free. So, for the price of one Saber Slash, you'll often get three combo points and an opportunity to shoot your enemy in the face.
(Pistol Shot's pistol is just a spell effect - you don't need to equip a gun or anything.)
Opportunity is one aspect of the RNG basis of this spec, but it's not the biggest one.
Finishing Them Off:
Eviscerate gets replaced by Run Through for Outlaw, which similarly does physical damage to the enemy based on combo points consumed. This attack actually has a 5-yard range, so you can use it even if you're slightly outside of the enemy's hit box. Basically, it's like a lunging attack. Still, you'll of course want to be in melee for your auto-attacks and Saber Slashes.
There's also a ranged finisher called "Between the Eyes," which does some damage and stuns the target for a few seconds. This does quadruple damage on a crit, which, depending on how the tuning and theorycrafting turns out, means you might actually want to swap this in under certain circumstances. It has a 20 second cooldown, though, so you'll still be using Run Through even under the circumstances which we'll be talking about next.
The "maintenance" finisher is Roll the Bones, which deserves its own section.
They See Me Rollin':
Roll the Bones consumes combo points, giving you 1, 2, 3, or 6 36-second buffs (at max CPs) from a list of 6 buffs. These buffs are:
Broadsides: Each combo-point generating ability generates an additional combo point.
Shark Infested Waters: Increases critical strike chance by 40%
Grand Melee: Increases Auto Attack Speed by 20% and gives you 40% Leech
True Bearing: Causes your Finishing Moves to reduce the remaining cooldown on almost all Rogue abilities by 2 second per combo point.
Buried Treasure: Increases Energy regeneration by 40%
Jolly Roger: Saber Slash has a 40% additional chance to trigger a second attack.
Using Roll the Bones again will eliminate existing buffs, so if you get buffs you like (or you get the rare all-six) you definitely want to let the buff tick down until it's done before you cast it again.
This ability is going to make playing an Outlaw Rogue very reactive. I think you're going to want to use Weak Auras to tell you exactly what buffs you have up. True Bearing is going to make you want to use your Adrenaline Rush whenever it's up and Shark Infested Waters might make you want to use Between the Eyes in place of Run Through while it's up.
I also wonder if it will be considered prudent to re-roll the bones if you get one of the less exciting buffs.
Given how insane this ability is, they've also provided boring old Slice and Dice as a level 100 talent to replace it, giving a full 100% attack speed buff for up to 36 seconds (and remember that with Combat Potency, attack speed also means more Energy.)
Rotation is Different, Other Stuff is the Same:
So clearly you're going to have some very different abilities to use in your main rotation. What's the rest of the spec look like?
Well, it's actually pretty familiar. Adrenaline Rush is still your main cooldown, doubling your Energy regeneration and giving you 20% additional attack speed for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown (though likely less in practice, thanks to True Bearing.)
You'll still do your AoE via Blade Fury, which you can toggle on to have your attacks deal 35% of their damage to nearby enemies at the cost of 20% of your Energy regeneration.
All three Rogue specs have Crimson Vial as their self-healing ability, which costs 30 Energy to heal you for 30% of your max health over 6 seconds on a 30 second cooldown.
You still have Stealth, and actually you're now the only spec that uses Ambush.
You still have Sap, Pickpocket, Cheap Shot, and Distract, as well as Gouge, Cloak of Shadows, Feint, Pick Lock, Sprint, Vanish, Tricks of the Trade and Kick.
Evasion gets replaced with Riposte, which works similarly but now has you parrying instead of dodging, and striking back at enemies who attack you, but has a 2-minute cooldown and no longer reduces damage taken.
Also, instead of Blind you have a very different ability called Bribe. Bribe has a 30-minute cooldown and works similarly to abilities like Enslave Demon or Control Undead, but this time for Humanoids. You can control your target for 5 minutes, so of course you can't maintain this forever.
Pirate Talents:
There are a lot of talented abilities that play even heavier into the pirate theme of the spec, including Grappling Hook (which give you a sort of ground-targeted Shadowstep) and Cannonball Barrage, where you can call in an artillery strike on an area.
Yarr, Matey!
I've really got to say, having held a lot of disdain for Combat in the past as a spec that was focused much more on optimizing mathematical game systems instead of living out a fantasy, Outlaw has been a complete reversal. I will absolutely not judge Rogues for going down this path. In fact, I think it might out-fantasy Assassination at this point. There's a really strong spec identity now, and it's a lot of fun to play. I only hope that we'll get some really great Rogue tier sets in the future that embrace the buccaneer theme.
Combat was always the most generic Rogue spec. It's only real defining trait was that it was the only spec that didn't use daggers - making it more like other classes, really. Even the name was about generic as they come. Combat? Isn't that what literally every class and spec does?
Thankfully, Outlaw is going to bring a lot more flavor to the spec, as well as some fun mechanics that go beyond "this is basically how Rogues work." Word of warning though: if you dislike RNG in your rotations, stay the hell away from Outlaw, which is probably the most RNG-dependent spec in the game. Luckily, Assassination is nearly devoid of RNG, so you have an option. However, for those of you who really like reacting to new situations, oh boy. You're in luck.
And you're also in luck if you wanted a different feel for the Rogue class. While Subtlety is leaning much heavier into the shadowy Ninja and Assassination is focusing considerably on its treacherous bleeds and poisons, Outlaw is going for an archetype that Combat always kind of hinted at if you squinted at it from just the right direction. Dust off your Ragefury Eyepatch and hoist the mainsail, because Rogues can now be full-on Pirates!
Combo Points:
While Warlords changed CPs to be "on the Rogue," a change that I'd literally been waiting for since vanilla, in Legion we're actually going to get that reflected in the UI. Both Rogues and Feral Druids will now see the red dots below their energy bars - much easier to track.
Slashing and Shooting:
Outlaw's two main combo builders are Saber Slash and Pistol Shot. While you can spend energy on Pistol Shot if you need to deal damage and generate combo points from range, you can, but generally you're going to save it for a proc.
Saber Slash is your new Sinister Strike (same initials!) and costs 50 energy. Ordinarily, it just does some physical damage and generates one combo point. But the ability inherently has a chance to strike twice, literally duplicating the entire effect - damage and combo point - and then gives you Opportunity, which makes your next Pistol Shot free. So, for the price of one Saber Slash, you'll often get three combo points and an opportunity to shoot your enemy in the face.
(Pistol Shot's pistol is just a spell effect - you don't need to equip a gun or anything.)
Opportunity is one aspect of the RNG basis of this spec, but it's not the biggest one.
Finishing Them Off:
Eviscerate gets replaced by Run Through for Outlaw, which similarly does physical damage to the enemy based on combo points consumed. This attack actually has a 5-yard range, so you can use it even if you're slightly outside of the enemy's hit box. Basically, it's like a lunging attack. Still, you'll of course want to be in melee for your auto-attacks and Saber Slashes.
There's also a ranged finisher called "Between the Eyes," which does some damage and stuns the target for a few seconds. This does quadruple damage on a crit, which, depending on how the tuning and theorycrafting turns out, means you might actually want to swap this in under certain circumstances. It has a 20 second cooldown, though, so you'll still be using Run Through even under the circumstances which we'll be talking about next.
The "maintenance" finisher is Roll the Bones, which deserves its own section.
They See Me Rollin':
Roll the Bones consumes combo points, giving you 1, 2, 3, or 6 36-second buffs (at max CPs) from a list of 6 buffs. These buffs are:
Broadsides: Each combo-point generating ability generates an additional combo point.
Shark Infested Waters: Increases critical strike chance by 40%
Grand Melee: Increases Auto Attack Speed by 20% and gives you 40% Leech
True Bearing: Causes your Finishing Moves to reduce the remaining cooldown on almost all Rogue abilities by 2 second per combo point.
Buried Treasure: Increases Energy regeneration by 40%
Jolly Roger: Saber Slash has a 40% additional chance to trigger a second attack.
Using Roll the Bones again will eliminate existing buffs, so if you get buffs you like (or you get the rare all-six) you definitely want to let the buff tick down until it's done before you cast it again.
This ability is going to make playing an Outlaw Rogue very reactive. I think you're going to want to use Weak Auras to tell you exactly what buffs you have up. True Bearing is going to make you want to use your Adrenaline Rush whenever it's up and Shark Infested Waters might make you want to use Between the Eyes in place of Run Through while it's up.
I also wonder if it will be considered prudent to re-roll the bones if you get one of the less exciting buffs.
Given how insane this ability is, they've also provided boring old Slice and Dice as a level 100 talent to replace it, giving a full 100% attack speed buff for up to 36 seconds (and remember that with Combat Potency, attack speed also means more Energy.)
Rotation is Different, Other Stuff is the Same:
So clearly you're going to have some very different abilities to use in your main rotation. What's the rest of the spec look like?
Well, it's actually pretty familiar. Adrenaline Rush is still your main cooldown, doubling your Energy regeneration and giving you 20% additional attack speed for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown (though likely less in practice, thanks to True Bearing.)
You'll still do your AoE via Blade Fury, which you can toggle on to have your attacks deal 35% of their damage to nearby enemies at the cost of 20% of your Energy regeneration.
All three Rogue specs have Crimson Vial as their self-healing ability, which costs 30 Energy to heal you for 30% of your max health over 6 seconds on a 30 second cooldown.
You still have Stealth, and actually you're now the only spec that uses Ambush.
You still have Sap, Pickpocket, Cheap Shot, and Distract, as well as Gouge, Cloak of Shadows, Feint, Pick Lock, Sprint, Vanish, Tricks of the Trade and Kick.
Evasion gets replaced with Riposte, which works similarly but now has you parrying instead of dodging, and striking back at enemies who attack you, but has a 2-minute cooldown and no longer reduces damage taken.
Also, instead of Blind you have a very different ability called Bribe. Bribe has a 30-minute cooldown and works similarly to abilities like Enslave Demon or Control Undead, but this time for Humanoids. You can control your target for 5 minutes, so of course you can't maintain this forever.
Pirate Talents:
There are a lot of talented abilities that play even heavier into the pirate theme of the spec, including Grappling Hook (which give you a sort of ground-targeted Shadowstep) and Cannonball Barrage, where you can call in an artillery strike on an area.
Yarr, Matey!
I've really got to say, having held a lot of disdain for Combat in the past as a spec that was focused much more on optimizing mathematical game systems instead of living out a fantasy, Outlaw has been a complete reversal. I will absolutely not judge Rogues for going down this path. In fact, I think it might out-fantasy Assassination at this point. There's a really strong spec identity now, and it's a lot of fun to play. I only hope that we'll get some really great Rogue tier sets in the future that embrace the buccaneer theme.
Transmog 7.0: Sets and Specs
The new transmog system is a huge improvement to the old system. Obviously the most notable feature is that the game will now save your gear's appearances, meaning you'll be able to clear out your Void Storage and Bank of what I'd assume is 90% of what is in there.
But there are some other really cool features in there as well.
First off, there are saved sets. When you put together a transmog set, you can save it much as you would save an outfit in the character screen (I still use the Outfitter addon, but that's more out of habit than necessity.) I don't know how many outfits you can save, but I'd guess many.
This way, if you get a new piece of gear, you can just head to the transmog shop and select the outfit, which will know which pieces to transmog automatically to your saved looks. Let's say you like to rock a tier 6 look on your Druid. If you get new shoulders and a new helmet while questing, it's just one button press to get those things looking like you want them to.
Of course, being able to save multiple sets means you'll also be able to experiment with looks and put them together before you actually spend the gold to transmog your gear. For example, I've been putting together a Paladin tier-8 10-man lookalike set (it's more blues and whites than golds and whites) for my Frost Death Knight, allowing him to get a kind of "redeemed" look. But obviously I'm also going to keep his old scary-looking Death Knight transmog set if I get tired of that look. With these saved sets, you can easily swap between full transmog sets just by using the menu.
But maybe even more exciting than that is that you can now set a transmogrified appearance to be only for a specific spec. Let's say you play a Mage. You dabble in all three specs, but your "literally on fire" look that you've put together for your Fire spec really doesn't work for Arcane, much less Frost. With the new transmog system, you can just put together that burning look and before you hit the transmog button, click the little arrow next to it and select "current specialization (Fire.)" This way, when you switch into your Fire spec, you'll get all that burning look, but when you're in the other specs, you'll have something more sensible, like the best tier set, Time Lord's Regalia.
So you can set things up to swap out appearance every time you change specs this way. I've got my Rogue on the PTR wearing basically the darkest armor I could find in all slots along with some daggers that have a bit of a purple glow from the Lifestealing weapon enchant illusion, but if he swaps out of Subtlety and into Assassination, it's a full set of tier 17 Poisoner gear with daggers out of the 4.3 dungeons that look like a tentacle and a jawbone and have sickly yellow and green enchant illusions on them.
Basically, you can always be dressed for your role. Transmog: best gold sink ever?
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Surviving the Transition to Melee in 7.0
Hey, do you play a Survival Hunter? Do you think you'll be able to wing it when 7.0 arrives, coasting on knowledge of how the spec has functioned in the past? Guess what. You won't.
While Combat got renamed to Outlaw, Survival is the spec that has undergone the most radical redesign of any spec in the game. Throw out absolutely everything you know about Survival in a pre-7.0 world, because this is a brave new world - one in which you have to get up close and personal.
This entry might be a bit longer, as there's a whole lot to cover. In other posts I've glossed over cooldowns and mechanics that are only slightly different, but Survival doesn't really have small changes.
Set Down Your Gun and Pick Up a Spear!:
Survival is now a melee spec. Every other major change to the spec flows from this huge change. No longer will you be standing at the periphery of fights, pewing and pewing away at a boss that is far away. Survival Hunters get in close.
When you log in after 7.0 drops, you'll get a Polearm in the mail, but this thing is only something like item level 655. I'd recommend that you get 30,000 Apexis Crystals together and get yourself a Baleful weapon and Empowered Apexis Crystal (or whatever that thing is called) so that you can have a 695 piece ready, or if you're in a regular raiding group, the next time a polearm drops, ask your guildies if you can pick it up for when the patch drops.
The rest of your gear should be fine. It's just the weapon.
Mongoose Bite:
The central ability to Survival is Mongoose Bite, which actually costs no Focus. The ability has three charges, with a 12 second recharge reduced by haste. When you hit Mongoose Bite, you gain a buff, increasing the damage dealt by Mongoose Bite by 50%, stacking up to a maximum of 6 times, and lasting 12 seconds. The wrinkle here is that successive Bites will not refresh the duration of the buff. So once you have that first stack, it will fall off after 12 seconds no matter how many stacks you build to.
Various passives and abilities will give you more charges of Mongoose Bite, and so maximizing the damage of the spec will largely revolve around getting as many Mongoose Bites into that 12-second window as you can. You'll also want to conserve charges when the buff runs out so that you have the full three charges to strike with next time you go into your Mongoose phase.
Your Mastery, Hunting Companion, will give your pet a chance on its attacks to give you a charge of Mongoose Bite.
Flanking Strike:
Flanking Strike is sort of like Survival's version of Kill Command. You'll still have a pet with you in all situations, and using this ability will have the two of you strike the target at the same time. If the target is attacking you, your pet will do 50% more damage and 400% more threat. If the target is not, you'll do 50% extra damage. This ability also has a double chance to trigger Hunting Companion.
Lacerate:
This is a 12-second bleed on a 10-second cooldown - this one unaffected by haste (you'll be able to see this by having a green cooldown number if it is affected.) As such, you'll simply maintain this on your target. Multi-dotting doesn't seem possible, as you'll be able to get at most a 2-second overlap.
Raptor Strike:
When you have more than enough focus to use Flanking Strike on cooldown and maintain Lacerate, you can burn 25 Focus on Raptor Strike. Easy peasy.
Carve:
A simple AoE attack, this costs 40 Focus and probably gets swapped in for Raptor Strike in multi-target situations.
Harpoon:
Instead of Disengage, Harpoon will take you to the target. It's functionally almost exactly like a Warrior's Charge.
Explosive Trap:
Unlike the other two traps you'll have, Explosive Trap will automatically get tossed right in front of you. It will only trigger if something walks over it, but of course if you toss it at an enemy in melee, it'll go off immediately. It has a 30 second cooldown, making it a major part of your AoE rotation.
Hatchet Toss:
A simple ranged attack, this is something you'll use when you can't get in range, similar to Poisoned Knife or Shuriken Toss for Rogues.
Aspect of the Eagle:
This is your major 2-min dps cooldown. It increases your crit chance by 10% and increases your chance to gain Mongoose Bite charges by 100% for 10 seconds.
Other Aspects:
Like all Hunters, Aspect of the Cheetah is a Sprint ability now and Aspect of the Turtle more or less is Deterrence, and both are available to all specs.
The Traps Are All Yours:
Having Freezing Trap and Tar Trap (which is just the old Frost Trap, slowing those it hits) may not seem like a big deal, but these are now the exclusive domain of Survival. Freezing Trap and Tar Trap can be turned into Steel Trap and Caltrops, respectively, via talents. Explosive Trap will simply be tossed forward when you hit the button, but Freezing and Tar will automatically have the functionality of "Trap Launcher," allowing you to throw them where they're needed.
I Will Survive:
It's almost a brand-new spec, and I expect that there are going to be mixed opinions. Those who loved the old Survival might want to check out Marksmanship, which gets some of its old mechanics. The good news is that if you love your Hunter but are getting tired of plinking at enemies from afar, you can switch to Survival and get a different perspective on combat.
I actually think this was a great move on Blizzard's part, not only creating a very serious distinction between the three Hunter specs, but also making another class get the option to DPS at range or in melee, which previously had been limited to only Druids and Shamans. Frankly, while I adore the 7.0 Subtlety Rogue, I think it would have been a smart move to give Rogues a ranged spec in Legion, perhaps making their artifact a Crossbow to round things out. Being an outdoorsy wilderness person doesn't mean you can only exclusively use ranged attacks, and it would seem that some assassins and spies might occasionally want to strike from a distance, perhaps in a dark alcove where they cannot be seen.
Perhaps in the next expansion, if the transition for Survival proves popular, they might consider this (though I wouldn't hold my breath, especially after the major changes to Subtlety and Outlaw.)
While Combat got renamed to Outlaw, Survival is the spec that has undergone the most radical redesign of any spec in the game. Throw out absolutely everything you know about Survival in a pre-7.0 world, because this is a brave new world - one in which you have to get up close and personal.
This entry might be a bit longer, as there's a whole lot to cover. In other posts I've glossed over cooldowns and mechanics that are only slightly different, but Survival doesn't really have small changes.
Set Down Your Gun and Pick Up a Spear!:
Survival is now a melee spec. Every other major change to the spec flows from this huge change. No longer will you be standing at the periphery of fights, pewing and pewing away at a boss that is far away. Survival Hunters get in close.
When you log in after 7.0 drops, you'll get a Polearm in the mail, but this thing is only something like item level 655. I'd recommend that you get 30,000 Apexis Crystals together and get yourself a Baleful weapon and Empowered Apexis Crystal (or whatever that thing is called) so that you can have a 695 piece ready, or if you're in a regular raiding group, the next time a polearm drops, ask your guildies if you can pick it up for when the patch drops.
The rest of your gear should be fine. It's just the weapon.
Mongoose Bite:
The central ability to Survival is Mongoose Bite, which actually costs no Focus. The ability has three charges, with a 12 second recharge reduced by haste. When you hit Mongoose Bite, you gain a buff, increasing the damage dealt by Mongoose Bite by 50%, stacking up to a maximum of 6 times, and lasting 12 seconds. The wrinkle here is that successive Bites will not refresh the duration of the buff. So once you have that first stack, it will fall off after 12 seconds no matter how many stacks you build to.
Various passives and abilities will give you more charges of Mongoose Bite, and so maximizing the damage of the spec will largely revolve around getting as many Mongoose Bites into that 12-second window as you can. You'll also want to conserve charges when the buff runs out so that you have the full three charges to strike with next time you go into your Mongoose phase.
Your Mastery, Hunting Companion, will give your pet a chance on its attacks to give you a charge of Mongoose Bite.
Flanking Strike:
Flanking Strike is sort of like Survival's version of Kill Command. You'll still have a pet with you in all situations, and using this ability will have the two of you strike the target at the same time. If the target is attacking you, your pet will do 50% more damage and 400% more threat. If the target is not, you'll do 50% extra damage. This ability also has a double chance to trigger Hunting Companion.
Lacerate:
This is a 12-second bleed on a 10-second cooldown - this one unaffected by haste (you'll be able to see this by having a green cooldown number if it is affected.) As such, you'll simply maintain this on your target. Multi-dotting doesn't seem possible, as you'll be able to get at most a 2-second overlap.
Raptor Strike:
When you have more than enough focus to use Flanking Strike on cooldown and maintain Lacerate, you can burn 25 Focus on Raptor Strike. Easy peasy.
Carve:
A simple AoE attack, this costs 40 Focus and probably gets swapped in for Raptor Strike in multi-target situations.
Harpoon:
Instead of Disengage, Harpoon will take you to the target. It's functionally almost exactly like a Warrior's Charge.
Explosive Trap:
Unlike the other two traps you'll have, Explosive Trap will automatically get tossed right in front of you. It will only trigger if something walks over it, but of course if you toss it at an enemy in melee, it'll go off immediately. It has a 30 second cooldown, making it a major part of your AoE rotation.
Hatchet Toss:
A simple ranged attack, this is something you'll use when you can't get in range, similar to Poisoned Knife or Shuriken Toss for Rogues.
Aspect of the Eagle:
This is your major 2-min dps cooldown. It increases your crit chance by 10% and increases your chance to gain Mongoose Bite charges by 100% for 10 seconds.
Other Aspects:
Like all Hunters, Aspect of the Cheetah is a Sprint ability now and Aspect of the Turtle more or less is Deterrence, and both are available to all specs.
The Traps Are All Yours:
Having Freezing Trap and Tar Trap (which is just the old Frost Trap, slowing those it hits) may not seem like a big deal, but these are now the exclusive domain of Survival. Freezing Trap and Tar Trap can be turned into Steel Trap and Caltrops, respectively, via talents. Explosive Trap will simply be tossed forward when you hit the button, but Freezing and Tar will automatically have the functionality of "Trap Launcher," allowing you to throw them where they're needed.
I Will Survive:
It's almost a brand-new spec, and I expect that there are going to be mixed opinions. Those who loved the old Survival might want to check out Marksmanship, which gets some of its old mechanics. The good news is that if you love your Hunter but are getting tired of plinking at enemies from afar, you can switch to Survival and get a different perspective on combat.
I actually think this was a great move on Blizzard's part, not only creating a very serious distinction between the three Hunter specs, but also making another class get the option to DPS at range or in melee, which previously had been limited to only Druids and Shamans. Frankly, while I adore the 7.0 Subtlety Rogue, I think it would have been a smart move to give Rogues a ranged spec in Legion, perhaps making their artifact a Crossbow to round things out. Being an outdoorsy wilderness person doesn't mean you can only exclusively use ranged attacks, and it would seem that some assassins and spies might occasionally want to strike from a distance, perhaps in a dark alcove where they cannot be seen.
Perhaps in the next expansion, if the transition for Survival proves popular, they might consider this (though I wouldn't hold my breath, especially after the major changes to Subtlety and Outlaw.)
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