Encrypted Text: Rogue mobility
by Chase Christian 
Aug 18th 2010 at 6:00PM
I'm freshly back from slaying elementals and cultists alike in the Cataclysm beta, and I'm here to bring you some good news. I already talked about how Vanish was finally fixed and has managed to stay fixed on the beta servers. The mechanic they're using is a two-stage process, similar to how a space shuttle launches. The first stage is a buff called (unsurprisingly) "Vanish," which isn't actually Stealth, but a pseudo-Stealth that keeps us out of sight. The Vanish buff only lasts for 3 seconds, at which point regular Stealth takes over. We can't leave Stealth for those 3 seconds because we're not actually in Stealth anyway, which is a pretty elegant way of fixing the problem.
I'm rambling again, as Vanish is fixed and you've already heard about it. Blizzard's newest gift to the rogue community comes straight out of our de facto wish list, again. General mobility worries have been heard from rogues since warriors received Intecept, which is to say we've been complaining about it since Day One. An oft-suggested change has been halving Sprint's cooldown and duration, and it seems that the dev team actually took the idea to heart. As the screenshot above shows, Sprint is now on a 1-minute cooldown.
Sprint by the numbers
Due to subtlety's near uselessness outside of specific arena team compositions, Shadowstep has been off of rogue action bars since the days of Naxxramas. We've been left with Sprint to provide for our every mobility need, and it's been woefully underpowered. While the Fleet Footed talent in assassination gave us decent base movement speed, we were still nowhere near as agile as a warrior with Intercept. In a pure footrace, we'd only edge a warrior out by a measly 7 yards, if we used Sprint and they used Intercept on cooldown.
While we may have been one of the fastest classes in the land for marathon running, that's not how WoW really works. The arena game is played in short bursts and quick swaps, and PvE environments simply aren't big enough for us to take full advantage of Sprint. In fact, if we ever actually had a use for the full 15 seconds of the original Sprint's duration, the other classes would be left woefully behind. There's really no room in the game for a cooldown that gives us an extra 60 yards of running distance in just 15 seconds, and so most of Sprint's duration has been wasted.
Flip the coin: slows
The alternative to having a speed-boosting mechanic would be having powerful slows, which is something that we're actually lucky enough to have at our disposal. Crippling Poison, while one of the strongest slowing effects, is still not perfect. Poisons are able to be dispelled by all of the four healing classes in some way, which leaves our prey free to run away. Our ranged snare, Deadly Throw, consumes valuable energy and combo points.
While Hamstring can't be dispelled and Chains of Ice can be spammed on the run, we're left hoping our opponents stop to take a break. I know retribution paladins are in a similar boat, but I heard they got some similar loving in the latest beta build as well. In order to compete at the same level as the other melee classes, we've got to have similar mobility. Do you know what the No. 1 way to increase your DPS is? Increasing your uptime on the target. Better uptime equals better DPS. The formula is that simple, and it works for both PvE and PvP. We need to be able to continually attack our enemies if we want to have any hopes of ending up on the top of the pile.
The Sprint fix is in
There's really no other way to say it: we've finally got 1-minute Sprint. While the duration was halved, the fact is that we never needed 15 seconds of movement speed boosting anyway. We needed short bursts of speed to catch fleeing opponents or avoid powerful attacks, and being locked into a 3-minute cooldown simply didn't work. The new Sprint is actually now in competition with Intercept for the best mobility technique. Intercept is usable twice as often, but Sprint doesn't require a target and can be used in any direction and for any purpose.
It makes sense that we'd see a less potent and more frequent Sprint sometime soon. With encounter length increasing, the value of long cooldowns goes down dramatically. Even our level 85 ability, Smoke Bomb, requires increased mobility to use properly. Having a giant pillar of smoke to exploit line of sight isn't very valuable if we can't get behind it. Maximizing our uptime on bosses is going to be important if we intend to stay competitive in PvE environments. The new Sprint doesn't even add that much potency to our overall marathon speed; flexibility is what earns this change our admiration. Here's to Blizzard's increasing our flexibility and hoping that we see many more quality changes to rogues in the beta patches to come.
Check back every Wednesday for the latest strategies in Encrypted Text! Get ready for Icecrown Citadel with our rogue guide, part 1, part 2 (Plagueworks), part 3 (Crimson Halls) and part 4 (Frostwing Halls). Just hit 80 and need information? Try Combat 101 or Mutilate 101. Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Narlic Aug 18th 2010 6:22PM
I really, really wanted a baseline shadowstep. Even if it meant that it would have the damage and threat perks removed, that would be just wonderful. The sub tree could add an Improved Shadowstep to put the damage/threat stuff back in place, and we'd be able to bamf around happily.
Fletcher Aug 18th 2010 6:30PM
Ooh, THIS! Have you noticed that whenever Blizzard makes a rogue NPC (the Shadowy Mercenaries in HoR, for example, or the Darkfallen Tacticians in ICC), they have Shadowstep? It's clearly the iconic rogue ability ... so it would make a great deal of sense for all rogues to have it, as opposed to one spec that never sees the inside of a raid. If rogue NPCs were designed after rogue players in ICC right now, they'd have a pair of giant axes and slice through armour like butter.
Meijnrr Aug 18th 2010 7:17PM
Yeah this what I really wanted. I don't really enjoy the Subtlety build all that much but I want to play it in Cata just for Shadowstep. And though the buff to Sprint is great it doesn't really fix the problem unless Cataclysm arena matches are going to be 3-4x as long as they are now. A one minute cooldown is just a little too long for this to be useful consistently, though I'm still very happy about it.
Malon Aug 18th 2010 7:53PM
The thing is, what other flashy iconic ability do Rogues have? Most Rpgue-type mobs have SStep because it's immediately obvious and recognisable - most of them have poisons and stuns of some sort, too, but those are generally only a problem for the tank - and, sometimes, the healer. Shadowstep is a way to make sure everyone knows they're fighting a 'Rogue' - kind of like Fireball for Mage-mobs, or Charge for Warrior-mobs.
Pyromelter Aug 18th 2010 7:54PM
I think the big problem with shadowstep is that it would cause big imbalances in pvp. For PvE, i can see a baseline shadowstep working very nicely.
PvP balance issues strike again, unfortunately, because I have to agree with all of you... shadowstep is a very iconic and cool rogue ability, and every rogue should have access to it.
I mean heck, feral druids have feral charge (now granted there is only one tree for ferals but still), it would only seem fair to somehow make it baseline for all rogues.
A good way to maybe give sub a boost would be a glyph or a talent that boosts it's effectiveness... for example make the utility of it the same, but not the damage and speed boost for combat and assassination, and give a damage boost as well as an increased chance to hit with your offhand for 5 seconds (as opposed to just a 20% damage boost for your "next ability" as it is on live).
Rakah Aug 18th 2010 7:59PM
They should make shadowstep baseline and nerf HaT so they finnaly run out of excuses to give subtlety rogues a shot at a working pve build that doesn't mean loosing several 1000 dps (no exageration needed).
thebitterfig Aug 19th 2010 1:43AM
Rakah, HaT *is* being nerfed.
It's going to have a 2 second ICD instead of a 1 second one in cata. However, Sub's still in awful shape, partly due to the almost useless Shadow Dance (three ambushes per minute if correctly used, though requiring a total investment of 6 count'em 6 talent points). Those 6 points required for Ambush mean that any hope of selecting utility talents as filler are gone (PvE sub won't be able to afford to fill out Cheat Death...). Add in the fact that HaT is terribly designed in the sense that it doesn't really scale with gear, and definitely doesn't scale with the rogue's own gear. The way things are looking, with the required maintenance for SnD, you'll probably get barely more than one eviscerate per rupture, meaning that you'll have to refresh it manually a fair portion of the time rather than being able to let Serrated Blades take care of it.
Now, I don't PvP so don't know how major HaT is for that, but it seems that HaT is the best avenue for them to INCREASE the damage for Sub rogues in PvE. I'm not really sure what else they can do for the spec besides increase that, and thematically, I don't want them to. I don't want my damage to be coming from auto attacks and poisons and CP builders. Assassination and Combat do that fine, and if I wanted that playstyle, I'd play one of those specs. A nerfed HaT basically just makes Sub into Combat with BS or Hemo in place of SS, and that's just lame. I want to be Hemo because (1) I like Hemo from a thematic semi-lore perspective. Same way some mages just feel a kinship to one sort of element or another. (2) we want to play around with the changes to resources - mainly that energy is much less important, and that CP gain prominence.
If they nerfed HaT even further than they have now, the spec would probably cease to have any of the meaning it used to have (and really, they need to make haste reduce it's GCD, or else it'll be a scaling nightmare and Sub, if it starts out balanced, will drop off dramatically in future raids while all the other rogues race ahead due to having more than a pittance of haste on their gear). It's the finishers-first tree, and that part's hella fun. The junk regarding Ambush is much less fun. Additionally, I'm kind of bummed about losing Hemo as anything other than a debuff delivery method. The damage will probably wind up too low, since Bliz has decreed from on high that sub will use backstab, despite it's way shittier cp/e ratio and the fact that finishers not builders are the focus of the tree.
Oh, and then there's the current Energetic Recovery debacle. They decided in their infinite wisdom to give sub rogues yet another finisher to work into the rotation with the energy-on-recuperate talent. The energy returns will be a dps increase, you're basically trading 1 CP for 4 hemos, or 2 cp for 3 backstabs (an increase to be sure), but it further reduces the number of Eviscerates we'll be able to do, devaluing Serated Blades. Honestly, no dps tree looks in as bad shape as Subtlety looks right now...
As to baseline Shadowstep, it probably would be way overpowered for PvP, and despite playing combat as much as sub, I don't really feel like I need Shadow Step, and don't mind it being a Sub thing. Particularly since other specs will still have solid mobility. Assassination will have it's baseline 15% speed, which is always nice and arguably more useful than a teleport every 20 seconds, and Combat still looks like damaging finishers will reduce the sprint cooldown by 10-15 seconds, which is also pretty nice. As to adding back the damage/threat via a talent... Sub probably couldn't afford it, with as badly designed as the tree is now.
I guess I'm just depressed that despite how much I want the spec to work, as a pure PvE player who just likes the feel of it, it looks like it'll probably be worse in shape Cata than it is in live... Less fun, less flexibility, less utility, and less damage.
Khirsah Aug 19th 2010 3:15AM
@ Bitter: Thanks for that great analysis of the Sub tree. Don't be too depressed, though. There is still time for changes before Cata goes live. :)
I PvE and PvP in about equal measure, and I have to agree that SS as a baseline ability would be OP in PvP. I would give anything to be able to ShS and have the CP generation/damage/energy ratio of a Mutilate build. That, more than anything, tells me that it is probably not a good idea.
The biggest problem with the sub tree in PvP is that it is useless against a plate wearer. You simply can't do enough damage with those quick hitting finishers to really make it worth while. Then you are stuck trying to build CP's with backstab and Hemo, and your out of cooldowns, and basically up a creek without a paddle.
Which brings up another problem. With Blizz trying to get rid of stun-locking (which I totally agree with) it is going to be extremely difficult to get and stay on your opponent's back. Which also makes ShD not as useful. KS sharing a cd with CS means that you will not be able to get off as many ambushes during ShD.
I've always felt that Killing Spree seemed to fit better with the sub tree. It is basically like using ShS 5 times quickly, so it makes more sense in Sub than in Combat.
Dump ShD altogether. Make Killing Spree the 31 point talent in Sub, and come up with something else for Combat.
Blizz's stated goal for the Combat tree is to make the rogue more survivable in toe-to-toe encounters, and to have high white damage. Make the 31 point talent fall into line with goals. How bout something like for 10 secs the rogue's dodge, hit and expertise are all 100% (hard capped 100%, not soft) and he also gets increased haste and ArPen? 3 minute CD with a glyph that will reduce it 2 min. A great talent for both PvE and PvP.
Don't be too hard on that idea. I just thought of it right now, so I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but the point is that if Blizz wants each tree to have its own, unique feel, then put Killing Spree where it belongs, in the Sub tree. And get rid of ShD because one of the main benefits (the extra CS) is about to become useless.
Josin Aug 19th 2010 8:10AM
I'd love to see shadowstep become baseline for all rogues. It would force Blizzard to stop using "increased mobility" as an excuse for not fixing Subtlety's obvious PvE deficiencies and lack of focus.
Right now, you can't even figure out if Sub is a finisher or yellow spec. They have plenty of talents that buff finishers (mostly Rupture), but because of Shadowdance, they have to take a bunch of points to buff up Ambush to use during that. Ambush's combo points force them to use Eviscerate (you can't stack Ruptures) but they don't have any talents to buff Eviscerate.
Are Subtlety rogues supposed to use Sinister Strike or Hemorrhage?
Honor Among Thieves hasn't been viable except for the brief period of being overpowered and heavily abused. They nerfed that into the ground, and never came back to even see if there was a way to make it useful.
Khirsah Aug 19th 2010 9:50PM
@Josin--I haven't played Sub for a while, so this may have changed, but I think Hemo is preferable to SS because the extra damage does not just affect your damage, but also that of your group. Unless you use daggers, in which case you should try to use Backstab as much as possible.
Of course, SS, with the glyph, has the chance for better CP generation, which is a problem with the Sub tree after your opening sequence. Yeah, they have a lot of problems with this tree to fix before it is truly viable for more than 2 shotting clothies.
But like I said, its been a while since I have played Sub spec, so you may want to check with some other people.
thebitterfig Aug 21st 2010 11:19PM
Talented Hemo costs 30 energy, while untalented SS costs 45. Considering that the hemo cost reduction talent is pretty mandatory for sub, but the SS cost reduction talent is basically unaffordable, Hemo will pretty clearly beat SS in terms of CP/energy (even glyphed SS) and probably DPE too. Backstab, at least in live, is about the same as Hemo (perhaps a hair better DPE, but the lower CP/Energy on Hemo makes up for that), where if you glyph either of them, that one will clearly be better, but it's better to use other glyphs. Tricks of the Trade, Eviscerate, and Rupture are the standard PvE ones, as far as there is a standard PvE sub build.
Myself, I don't really bite on the "they can Shadow Step so they can't deal PvE damage" line. There are simply too many potent PvP utility goodies in Sub for that to suffice as a reason. Cheat Death, Preparation, Ghostly Strike, and probably a few others would still be there, and that still probably would have allowed Bliz to feel justified in leaving PvE damage lower than the other specs. There would probably be a bunch of other tweaks they could do to increase PvE damage without greatly impacting PvP potency. Increase the power of the Hemo charges, increase Rupture damage even further, allow out-of-stealth Garrote but with silence removed (which would REALLY be a cat-like change). Say... I kinda like the Garrote idea...
Hail Aug 24th 2010 10:46PM
@Bitter
Currently the beta talent has a 20% chance per CP to refresh rupture, and what you said about the uselessness of ShD is not entirely true either. With the changes to haste and the energy regen from recuperate (12 energy per tick i believe) there should be significantly more than three ambushes, but rather however many you can fit into the GCD, also shoving in a eviscerate every 5 cp since the damage/energy is generally greater. I do find what you say about HaT interesting but it still is extremely useful in that it increases the crit chance of the whole raid by 5%, which is only shared with feral druids. Hopefully that will get sub rogues a place in raids if the dps is slightly lower than others, and if it does not scale with gear as well Bliz can probably tweak it with mastery, making the bonus scale slightly better than other specs with gear.
What I would REALLY like to see is a brief immunity to getting tail whipped by dragons right after using shadowstep....
Fletcher Aug 18th 2010 6:25PM
I think the only time I've used sprint inside a dungeon is when we've wiped and are running back to the boss. And then it's not as useful as Aspect of the Pack. This is a welcome change.
Speaking of shadowstep, though - have you tried out Subtlety in Cataclysm at all? I hear we get shadowstep at level 10 now, and I'm anxious to know how awesome it is. Is it awesome? Please let it be awesome.
Chase Christian Aug 18th 2010 6:28PM
I just swapped my spec to subtlety, let me play around with it this week and get back to you. Man, having Shadowstep back is great though. I missed it from the TBC days.
Tbah Aug 19th 2010 3:00AM
Maybe not inside a dungeon, but in raids Sprint is invaluable to reach the boss faster to do some more hurting. Like Blood Princes, when the target changes. Or if you have to move to avoid AoE of some kind, you hit Sprint to get back hitting the boss.
Being a beta tester I already love the 1min sprint. It is actually usable if I'm bored to walking and usually it's off cooldown then. It's more like Blink nowadays. Except being more powerful.
Duulket Aug 19th 2010 8:00AM
My rogue is level 22 and I use sprint quite often. I have it in a macro with Evasion and use it to escape if I pull to many mobs.
jishdefish Aug 18th 2010 6:28PM
I'll drink to that, Chase!
*chinks glass*
Cheers, fellow shadow connoisseur.
Mike Aug 18th 2010 6:47PM
To say that priests can remove Crippling Poison is very silly. How many Holy Priests are there in arena? No team that is seriously attempting arena is going to have a priest capable of dispelling poison.
Chase Christian Aug 18th 2010 6:49PM
I find a lot of holy priests in battlegrounds, and B&S holy priests can be downright tricky to catch if they dispel crippling and use their mini-Sprint.
Mike Aug 18th 2010 6:53PM
Just curious, do you typically find those priests hard to kill? My main is an 80 priest, and when specced Holy (PvE, though my spec includes B&S), rogues eat me alive. Also, B&S only allows for self-removal of poisons, which while helpful, still leaves a lot to be desired.