Some stuff coming up on PTS

[Galibier]

In my mind the ideal situation is when all the builds are viable and you can choose to play what you enjoy. Then there could be some fights that disallow specs for one reason or another but mostly you could play how you want to. That is in contrast of having a bunch of niche specs and each fight dictates exactly which spec you must play. The best reason to play sin is because you like playing sin.

Pretty much. I think the problem is this though. I will use Tac as an example. The original change of reducing the number of effected targets was really enough to get the dps under control. Ailion however changed the energy rules to get people to play the soul the way he intended. Much of the current changes seem to be the same.

I think this is hamstringing the melee builds. Ailion thinks Sin should be played positionally and be pure ST only (as an example) this makes it a niche spec. In order to have Sin viable in any raid encounter it essentially forces you to make BD and NB niche specs as well. If not then Sin goes back to what it was before, a soul that is only useful in hybrid builds.

I really think Sin and it's limitations propagate through the rest of the rogue melee souls.

[bitnine]

So, with the changes in BD for Reprisal and Strike Back now activating from deflected attacks, does this give RS an option for dealing some more damage

Not really, not until they can do something like put a dodge/deflect link on a tank and use the tank's avoidance to fuel the procs, sort of a la Blighted Greed.

I do think that Marksman could use a little bit of a bump. Not that the 3% isn't nice, but it could stand to be a little more comparable to other ranged specs ATM. Personally, I'd toss in something like:

Sniper Training: Still 3%/level for AoE channel/cast time attacks, but 5% for ST channel/cast time attacks.
Barbed Shot: Increase on movement proc damage; it's really a marginal skill right now.
Eradicate: Deals X to X Air damage for each buff purged. Ain't gonna break MM's damage, and it'd make being the purgebot a bit more tolerable.
Deadeye Shot: Naturally deals 10% more Critical Hit damage.

[Solates]

This is especially ironic considering warriors do not have such a strict limitation.

Maybe because 3 of their souls are tank souls, but champ, paragon both are good. Tempest is a great subsoul, heard it sucked as primary...and then you have the do it all and then some RB. BM is no slouch either.

Would love to have those sort of options in rogue that's for sure.

[Gery]

If we look at the weaknesses of each of our melee souls we see this.
Assassin: Bad at target switching, no aoe, positional requirement.
NB: Bad at target switching.
BD: Extremely bad at disconnects.

NB's weakness is acceptable, BD's weakness is the single limitation that takes it out of the most fights. Assassin has a pile of weaknesses.

Removing the positional from assassin and giving BD at least something for disconnects would still leave weaknesses for each soul but they wouldn't be as severe.

[bitnine]

Removing the positional from assassin and giving BD at least something for disconnects would still leave weaknesses for each soul but they wouldn't be as severe.

Yeah, it is a real pity that none of those BD dances increases their melee range to 20 meters.

[Galibier]

Yeah, it is a real pity that none of those BD dances increases their melee range to 20 meters.

That is actually an interesting idea. If they took a dance and made it turn melee attacks to ranged for it's current duration, properly played you would take a big bite out of DCs.

[Kedon]

Not really, not until they can do something like put a dodge/deflect link on a tank and use the tank's avoidance to fuel the procs, sort of a la Blighted Greed.

I believe he meant using Bladedancer as a sub-soul for Riftstalker tanks; using the ripostes there to squeeze a little bit more damage into a tank build.

And yeah I think that's pretty much what that little tweak is for. You're never gonna wanna raid tank with BD subbed but I could totally see you using it in a 5-man build for the extra damage.

[CDagger]

In my mind the ideal situation is when all the builds are viable and you can choose to play what you enjoy. Then there could be some fights that disallow specs for one reason or another but mostly you could play how you want to. That is in contrast of having a bunch of niche specs and each fight dictates exactly which spec you must play. The best reason to play sin is because you like playing sin.

I agree with this sentiment, except as it stands, there are encounters where sin is basically not competitive, due to the positional requirements. , however, on dummies, it is overcompetitive; keeping in mind the assassins innate lack of aoes, NB is already competitive in more then enough scenarios to keep it relatively where it is.

Though the easiest way to balance this out is to remove the positional requirements on assassin from the balancing procedures, or at the very least, average out the parses between correctly positioned assassin, and a non-correctly positioned assassin.

I simply balk at the idea that assassins niche, being behind the target, is marginalized to the degree that people seem to be aiming for.

[Adastra]

Around 400-500 dps increase for assassin. It's a bit baffling since Ailion told me he would buff something low in sin tree to make sure nb/sin stays viable dps compared to NB but this is not part of NB/Sin build and after this there's probably no room to buff something in assassin without overbuffing it.

I would probably assume that EW buff would help NB/Sin a little bit. Although I have a different mindset from what you want from NB/Sin vs. 61 Sin. I prefer changes to Sin that won't also buff NB/Sin, but at the same time I do believe that it should be an "alternate", but equal spec of 61 NB with their own specific uses.

Choosing between one soul or another should be more about playstyle.

You want stealhty go sin, you want mele/arcane go NB, you want a melee with hard rotation go bd but, with this numbers everything will stay the same no one playing BD(Sadly cause the idea is pretty cool) and no one playing MM.

The difference between MM and ranger is so huge that is ridiculous.

I don't really think BD is hard, but I guess the "hard" part is deciding which cooldown order you want to use for a specific encounter. There's also the whole disconnect/max range issue (I don't think it was fixed yet, but I haven't really tried lately). If anything, BD could probably use a talent deep in the BD tree that extends your melee range by 1-2 meters to compensate for these issues, lol.

[Akizuki]

I agree with this sentiment, except as it stands, there are encounters where sin is basically not competitive, due to the positional requirements. , however, on dummies, it is overcompetitive; keeping in mind the assassins innate lack of aoes, NB is already competitive in more then enough scenarios to keep it relatively where it is.

Though the easiest way to balance this out is to remove the positional requirements on assassin from the balancing procedures, or at the very least, average out the parses between correctly positioned assassin, and a non-correctly positioned assassin.

I simply balk at the idea that assassins niche, being behind the target, is marginalized to the degree that people seem to be aiming for.

You are not seeing the big picture here, you are either new to the game or you are a returning player after a long hiatus, in short you missed a lot.

You are going to stand behind the mob regardless of the melee soul you play if you can. If the fight doesn't allow you to stand behind the mob, then you can't be there, period.

Sin is not overcompetitive on the dummy, you need to look at the game as a whole and not just Rogue. (Thus you can't stubbornly balance rogue souls with each other without looking at what is going on around us.)

[bitnine]

That is actually an interesting idea. If they took a dance and made it turn melee attacks to ranged for it's current duration, properly played you would take a big bite out of DCs.

Well, I suppose the obvious one would be Double Coup. Picture, if you would, how the class would play in relation to disconnects with the following changes:

Double Coup: Increases damage of all Bladedancer attacks by 50%. Increases melee range to 20m.
Duelist Pose: Now also procs from critical heal ticks from Bladedancer abilities as well. (Minor, but you can use Meditative Trance to keep stacks alive during a moderate DC.)
Dual Mastery: Offhand attacks cause a target to take 50%/100%/150% of weapon damage over 6s.
Strike Back: I would very much turn this into a buff you can put on 1 person at a time, same effect.
Reprisal: Can be used after Strike Back procs.
Disassemble: Range increased to 20m (picture Weapon Barrage animation).
Disengage: Range increased to 20m (picture Weapon Barrage animation).

[Eilidh]

Well, I suppose the obvious one would be Double Coup. Picture, if you would, how the class would play in relation to disconnects with the following changes:

Double Coup: Increases damage of all Bladedancer attacks by 50%. Increases melee range to 20m.
Duelist Pose: Now also procs from critical heal ticks from Bladedancer abilities as well. (Minor, but you can use Meditative Trance to keep stacks alive during a moderate DC.)
Dual Mastery: Offhand attacks cause a target to take 50%/100%/150% of weapon damage over 6s.
Strike Back: I would very much turn this into a buff you can put on 1 person at a time, same effect.
Reprisal: Can be used after Strike Back procs.
Disassemble: Range increased to 20m (picture Weapon Barrage animation).
Disengage: Range increased to 20m (picture Weapon Barrage animation).

Duelist Pose should just be a passive. Bladedancer doesn't need ramp-up time when starting a fight anyway.

Strike Back being a buff you could put on the tank is an interesting concept, but what happens when you put it on a warrior tank with high damage? Or a cleric tank with no real melee damage? Seems like a lot of potential to either be too strong and make BD required for DPS checks, or to be so weak as to be a completely useless and uninteresting part of the soul.

Reprisal just needs to go, or gain the ability to replace Keen/Binary in the rotation as a harder-hitting or OGD mainhand hit. There's no room for it in the rotation otherwise.

[Gery]

The harsh reality is that in fights where we would use BD, NB or NB/Sin you would see clerics using shaman and mages using harbinger. Shaman has like 20% more crit chance than NB and 15% more than NB/Sin, that means that the dps gap between us and shaman increases by close to 1k dps with live gear which has crit power. Shaman parses around 25k with test gear and harbinger a bit more than that while we parse like 23.5k. You end up looking at a dps difference of like 2k+ in live gear. And if we need to play NB/Sin from the front like on Regulos then the gap is 3k+ since not being able to use Backstab is about 1k loss in dps. 61 sin suffers about 1.3k dps if it can't be behind the target due to the positional penalties from Savage Strike and Final Blow in addition to Backstab.

The main comparison is against other callings, secondary comparison is against other rogue specs. The current dps of NB, NB/Sin, BD and MM just doesn't cut it against the competition. Also I've tested 5 of the new 20-man boss fights on PTS and none of them have suited 61 sin so far. So you better hope our other specs get balanced or we're kind of screwed.

[Harby]

I'm personally dissapointed with Ailions fixation on buffing Sin. 61sin, at least PvE wise is a niche spec that is only used for bragging rights in fights like Goloch. I can't fathom that our class lead want us to play a spec that is mediocre at disconnects, horrible at target switching, positional requirements, zero aoe and zero raid utility (interrupt/purge) outside of lethal.

Maybe the solution is really for BD to get a ranged dance or something, but personally I'd just like to see 61NB emerge as they default go-to spec since its only issues are lack of utility and a bit bad at target switching. But it feel all the other tickboxes, excellent disconnect handling, more than decent ranged damage, decent aoe and no positional crap.

The lazy way would be to buff ranger into a monster so no one would play melee anymore....

[Harby]

Also I've tested 5 of the new 20-man boss fights on PTS and none of them have suited 61 sin so far. So you better hope our other specs get balanced or we're kind of screwed.

Without any spoilers, whats the specs you felt are most appropriate for those 5 fights?