Encrypted Text: The subtlety experiment
by Chase Christian 
Jul 13th 2011 at 5:00PM
Over the past few years, I've been accused of playing favorites with the rogue specs. During Wrath, I was characterized more than once as the ArP-mongering combat rogue who neglected Mutilate builds. In Cataclysm, I'm supposedly the devoted assassin who never gives combat or subtlety a fair shake. The truth is that I don't care what spec I'm playing, and I'll play whatever gives me the best results.
I played Mut/Prep, HARP, and even pure subtlety in the arena during The Burning Crusade. I've raided extensively as both combat and assassination, and I've leveled my rogues (plural) with each of the three specs, as well. I frequently swap specs. I love combat for solo PVE play, while subtlety holds a special place in my heart for ganking and world PVP. I currently raid as assassination simply because it's how I get the best results. I'm not alone in this philosophy, as most rogues will do whatever it takes, including a respec, to get the most out of their characters.
Subtlety's bad reputation
Despite the developers' clear attempts to resuscitate subtlety's raiding viability, it's been lackluster throughout Cataclysm. When talking about viability, I'm referring to subtlety's DPS when compared to assassination's DPS. In order for a spec to be viable, I should be able to see similar DPS results to the class' top spec. They don't need to be exactly equal, just close enough. If I can increase by DPS by 5-10% simply by dropping subtlety and switching to assassination, then subtlety isn't viable.
I can't, in good conscience, recommend that you drop 10% of your potential DPS to be a special snowflake. When damage is on the line, viability comes down to how the specs perform. If you're happy with hearing that subtlety is "good enough," then by all means go spec subtlety and have a blast. If you're looking to do your absolute best, you simply can't spec subtlety.
Subtlety has been weighed and found wanting
The argument that I hear often is that if rogues are topping their raid's meters and downing content as subtlety, they're obviously viable. I am here to tell you that sacrificing DPS for any reason other than pure necessity is not a viable course of action. Subtlety's DPS is merely passable, like a C- rating on your report card. While you passed the test, your rogue peers far exceeded your performance. It doesn't matter if you've got the best grade in your class; your entire class is probably underperforming. Your teacher may allow you graduate, but you aren't going to be earning any honors. You certainly won't even be considered by any serious colleges, like Paragon or Premonition. I think I've exhausted this metaphor.
Scaling and rotations
If I give 1,000 haste to each of the three rogue specs, their DPS will go up by different amounts. Each spec values haste differently, and so their relative power also changes as they acquire new gear. Based on the latest round of Simcraft results, subtlety rogue DPS can actually eclipse assassination's DPS when geared in the best gear from Firelands. Subtlety rogues have always looked relatively strong in Simcraft, but Firelands gear pushes them into the #1 spot. The additional haste they acquire helps them smooth out their rotation while also allowing for more finishers.
If subtlety is so strong, why are the world's top rogues still assassination or combat? The reason is simple: It's almost impossible to play subtlety perfectly. The rotation itself bucks and twists like an enraged bronco, desperate to toss you off its back and stomp in your skull. I don't care if every spreadsheet in the world says that subtlety does the top DPS. I need to be able to actually deal that damage for it to be meaningful. Theory is great, but bosses don't fall over from napkin math and charts. If subtlety wants to take its supposed throne at the top of the meters, someone is going to have to start posting parses that show it beating assassination on identical encounters.
I played subtlety
I always have a subtlety spec available. As a player on a PVP server, I never know when I'm going to need to stop doing my dailies and start severing some spinal cords. I have been committing xenocide at the Molten Front, executing more than my fair share of draenei and gnomes. There's no better spec than subtlety for world PVP, and most of my favorite WoW memories involve my daggers embedded in someone's rib cage right after a clutch Shadowstep. I squeal any time I hear there's going to be a daily quest hub in a no-fly zone.
After talking with a few subtlety rogues in the comments section of Encrypted Text over the past few weeks, I realized that I haven't raided as subtlety since the HAT bug was all the rage. I have focused on combat and assassination in raids, leaving subtlety alone in the PVP box. I decided that I shouldn't rule out the spec without giving it a fair shake, especially since I've been less than flattering to subtlety on more than one occasion. While the numbers are still on my side, I needed to eat my own dog food.
More difficulty with less reward
While I don't have ideal subtlety gear, I did respec and reforge into all the right stats. I cringed as I turned all of my mastery into expertise, although luckily, my haste from assassination carried over well. I studied the rotation and cooldown usage of a subtlety rogue. I examined World of Logs parses for best practices and neat tricks. I focused on uptimes and finisher priorities, learning to mimic the best-parsing rogues of the spec.
After two full 12/12 clears of tier 11 as a subtlety rogue, my DPS declined from my assassination parses. On some fights, the difference between sub and assassination was minimal; on others, it was huge. I was in the top 100 parses for every single fight as subtlety, yet my assassination DPS was still higher two weeks ago. On Chimaeron, the difference was less than 1% DPS, while I performed nearly 20% worse on the AoE-heavy Maloriak encounter.
Subtlety performs its best on simple fights. There's plenty of time for you to establish your long rotation, and as long as you're not interrupted, you can continue beating up the boss with a deadly efficiency. As soon as you introduce adds or AoE or target swaps or anything, your DPS suffers.
With tier 11 haste values, it can be difficult to maintain the rotation. You're trying to maintain Recuperate, Slice and Dice, and Rupture, all at the same time. Shadow Dance is a powerful cooldown but requires careful planning to utilize it properly. Honor Among Thieves is fun but punishes you for not spending your combo points fast enough. Subtlety has amazing burst for low-life targets, as Backstab and Ambush can both see huge crits, but it can't compete with Fan of Knives or Blade Flurry for AOE. Subtlety also has amazing mobility with Shadowstep, but fights aren't tuned around requiring it. Subtlety's survivability between constant Recuperate and Enveloping Shadows is amazing, but again, Feint does just fine so far. Subtlety has the bonus utility that we all love, but its DPS just can't bridge the gap.
Subtlety is genuinely hard
I spent 8 hours raiding as subtlety, and I still don't have Shadow Dance quite perfected. You want to score a lot of Ambushes, but you also want to save your last Ambush for the end to extend Find Weakness. Should you use a finisher while in Shadow Dance? Do you just waste your extra combo points? Should I use Hemorrhage or Rupture when switching to a new add, or just burn it down? I let Rupture or Recuperate drop plenty of times, sometimes more than once on the same encounter. I am not that good at subtlety, yet somehow I'm parsing in the top 20 with awful DPS.
I wouldn't play subtlety in PVE right now, even if it were viable. The rotation and cooldowns are more difficult than either combat or assassination, and there's really no reward. I realized that I lost much of my raid awareness, as I spent most of the raid glued to EventHorizon. It's just not worth the effort just to have a shot to do as well than an average assassination rogue.
Coming into this experiment, I was already convinced that subtlety needed a DPS adjustment to be adopted by mainstream rogues. After my experiences, I think it needs a rotation revamp on top of that. Why play a spec with the highest skill cap for literally no reward? There are very serious subtlety rogues out there, and they're all still parsing worse than assassination. Subtlety simply can't hit its theoretical DPS with the level of randomness in Firelands. Until subtlety rogues can start outparsing assassination, the spec is going to continue to be reserved for PVP and nothing else.
For those of you who want to play subtlety, realize that I'm still on your side. You're convinced that subtlety is ready for prime time right now, while I think it still needs work. Would you really be upset if the developers made subtlety even stronger and more forgiving? I'm not saying that I never want subtlety to work in PVE -- I'm just saying that I don't think that's where it's at right now.
Check back every Wednesday for the latest rogue strategies, from rogue basics and kicking your interrupts into high gear to how to handle your dual-spec rogue and how to pickpocket top tips from top-performing rogues.
Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
steve Jul 13th 2011 5:10PM
Pop quiz..... which do you think is more difficult? Raiding as sub now, or weapon-swapping with assassination in Ulduar/ToC?
steve Jul 13th 2011 5:12PM
Clarification: i'm talking aboutthe assassination weapon-swapping priority/rotation as a whole, not just the swap mechanic
jordan Jul 13th 2011 5:17PM
Raiding as sub.
Lucidique Jul 13th 2011 7:38PM
Weaponswapping was easy. All it required was a macros and an addon for watching your procs, your abilities etc.
jordan Jul 13th 2011 5:12PM
Shadowdance really needs to go and energetic recovery needs to be attached to slice and dice instead of recuperate. Also serrated blades should be 50/100% regardless of combo points. All of these are easy fixes.
vocenoctum Jul 13th 2011 5:25PM
Me, I think Slice & Dice just needs to die or be reduced to say, 10% with the baseline buffed to compensate. It's not a "choice" for dps, I think, and it's just not a fun ability. Not sure though, not a hard core Rogue myself, but I'd just like something DIFFERENT, rather than "keep up S&D, then do other stuff".
I'll agree on Serrated Blades change, fits with Envenom/S&D functionality. The "as if 5 cp" functionality might be too much, but refreshing duration with a quick evis isn't bad.
jordan Jul 13th 2011 5:44PM
Slice and dice is affected by sub mastery because they wanted to make mastery more important but they didn't want to make it too bursty. As a sub rogue it should have number one priority. Energetic recovery is out of place. Having higher survivability than everyone else without sacrifice while dealing mediocre damage is just not a good spot to be in. Every nerf recuperate thread on the forums had at least 1 person saying something about rogues getting free healing for nothing when sub is the only outlier. For the other specs using recup is a sacrifice to your damage.
Cyno01 Jul 13th 2011 6:37PM
If slice and dice were a haste buff instead of just an attack speed buff, it would accomplish that.
thebitterfig Jul 13th 2011 8:33PM
You know, changing SnD to haste for sub-only would probably be a pretty handy buff for the spec...
Khirsah Jul 13th 2011 11:32PM
I agree with everything you said except the part about s&d, and here's why: sub still needs to remain viable for pvp, and s&d is too far down the list of pvp priority finishers to make it useful for energy regen in pvp. I don't know about you, but I only use s&d if I already have rupture and recup up, and I'm out of range for ks or evis, shd is on cooldown, and crippling poison has dropped off. Even then, I find deadly throw is usually a better option for those points for the slowing effect so I can close the distance.
Of course, I guess s&d would become a better pvp finisher if it were attached to energy regen, but it still feels like kind of a waste of cp's just to get energy.
I agree that there needs to be better energy regen for sub, though. How bout HaT also gives you 10 energy every time it gives you a combo point, or something like that?
vocenoctum Jul 13th 2011 5:20PM
I'm not disagreeing with the article, I don't use my rogue for raiding. For dungeons though, I find subtlety to be more survivable as well as more fun. In a raid you have time for positioning and such usualy, in a random dungeon, people just run.
Getting grouped with a druid or priest that preheals is fun too, since you can quite easily get 5 cp before stepping in. Evis refreshes rupture, recup helps energy, but I think it's slice & dice that is the problem really. I have always found slice & dice to be an odd design for a finisher. Such a huge/ mandatory ability for uptime.
I don't play Combat, never liked it for some reason, but assassination is definitely easier to dps with. It's just not as fun for me in dungeons.
Cephas Jul 13th 2011 5:36PM
You don't have to disagree with the article, because it doesn't really apply to you. Chase's main focus is about maximizing DPS in raids, and if that's you're goal you simply can't play Subtlety. Your goal as you've stated it is to maximize fun in dungeons, and if Subtlety does that for you, then by all means play Subtlety.
Narlic Jul 13th 2011 6:24PM
I was combat through BC, and discovered the joy of assassination in Wrath. I was a daggers guy through 12/12 as well, but for the heck of it I swapped to combat just to muck around. I was blown away when it maintained a great amount of damage, and just exploded off of the charts whenever there were two things to hit at once.
It's definitely wearing out my keyboard a lot faster. Especially since I am lazy and use a macro to put SS and RS on the same key... it works out to still be one RS per damaging finisher around 90% of the time due to extra CPs from SS and from renewing Slice and Dice. I am a big believer in using macros for less keybinds. But with mut there was a lot of calm, almost zen time waiting for the energy, planning the next keypress. Not so with combat. Damn near every GCD is used thanks to the intense energy regeneration rate. I seriously think that Adrenaline Rush needs a GCD reduction effect (like Unholy Presence).
Anyway, I was going to say it may surprise you. It's pretty funny getting 35k DPS in a dungeon on a pack of trolls when you line up BF and AR.
vocenoctum Jul 13th 2011 7:24PM
Well, yeah, that was my point. His article is fine for it's intent, but there is more to subtlety than raid dps for some, is all. I don't think damage lags too far behind assassin in dungeons, if at all, because I think it's more front-loaded damage. Combat may come out better, but I just didn't care for it when I tried it after The Shattering.
Arrohon Jul 13th 2011 8:14PM
The article says that he tried it while raiding. He doesn't have the data for dungeons nor was it his intent otherwise he would've done it. My personal advice to all classes that have more than 1 spec per role is to do what you enjoy most in dungeons and do what's optimal for progression.
krislen Jul 13th 2011 5:28PM
I believe you are overstating the difficulty of subtlety some here, this is coming from someone who has attempted raiding as every DPS spec available currently and someone who mained frost DK throughout most of lk where you could have as little as a .5 second window to refresh diseases. is it one of the more difficult specs out there yes, is it any harder than frost dk or feral early icc era, no. the real problem isnt the difficulty of it its the fact that it suffers so much from heavy movement and target switching that it tends to underperform in most fights. for fights like Baleroc and majordomo i could see sub really shining in higher gear levels but prior to that as you said it just isnt worth it simply due to encounter mechanics
Sunaseni Jul 13th 2011 5:47PM
See, even in the Wrath days of Frost being crazy, the price of diseases falling was never as bad as Subtlety's rupture falling, as it only took 2 GCDs to get back into the game. While Frost was no doubt difficult back in the day, the price of failure was also much, MUCH lower.
If Rupture falls off when you're Subtlety, you have to basically restart the fight. You need 5 CPs to get the full Rupture bleed, which you have to get rolling with 5cp Eviscerates, and during all of this, you need to get Slice and Dice and Recuperate back up as they have inevitably fallen off. Oh, adds just appeared. Or the boss went immune. Go back to the top.
Jack Spicer Jul 13th 2011 6:45PM
"he real problem isnt the difficulty of it its the fact that it suffers so much from heavy movement and target switching that it tends to underperform in most fights."
I would definitely describe moving and target swapping for a spec with a long rotation as "difficulty".
krislen Jul 14th 2011 3:55AM
no target swapping is part of the limitations of the spec and has no bearing on the actual difficulty of the single target rotation which tbh isnt really that hard at all, rogues are notoriously horrible at target swapping to begin with it just happens to be a bigger problem with sub than others
Spencer Jul 13th 2011 5:35PM
I just want them to fix all the stealth and vanish bugs we now have... Then we can all worry about specs.