On Twitter: Your Subterfuge Cries Have Been Heard

…And lord, has there been cryin’.

In the past two weeks alone, a total of 43 tweets (by my count) mentioning Subterfuge have been directed at senior developers Ghostcrawler and Brian Holinka. A forum thread on the issue that started 8 hours ago already has three pages’ worth of responses.

Almost all of the comments about the ability have fallen into one of two categories:

1. Rogue players who are pissed that Subterfuge doesn’t work well enough
2. Non-rogue players who are pissed that Subterfuge works too well

This is how you know an ability is successful: It makes EVERYBODY miserable.

In a nutshell, the rogue-player complaints revolve around Subterfuge’s unreliability; despite some fixes a few months back, its three-second destealth countdown still appears to occasionally begin even though the rogue hasn’t done anything that should logically trigger it. The non-rogue player complaints revolve around feeling it’s unfair that, within that three-second window, a rogue can repeatedly use abilities like Kidney Shot (for crowd control) or Ambush (for burst damage) largely at will.

To which PvP chief Brian Holinka responds: We hear you, but for the time being at least, you’re just gonna have to deal with it.

@ChritznL Is it really the problem? Didn't read a lot of 5.0 complaints. Is there more to this?—
Holinka (@holinka) March 30, 2013

Holinka Official Feedback Acknowledgement #1: I have read your tweet about subterfuge—
Holinka (@holinka) April 17, 2013

@ThornassEU It's a reply to everyone that tweets me about how subterfuge is OP and how subterfuge is bugged—
Holinka (@holinka) April 17, 2013

@ChritznL We have no plans for subterfuge—
Holinka (@holinka) April 24, 2013

@EwynOutland I understand the call for a subterfuge nerf but focusing on what changed between 5.1 and 5.2—
Holinka (@holinka) April 27, 2013

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On Twitter: Patch 5.3, Rogue Nerfs and the PvP Balance Game

I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to dump an absolute dung-load of tweets on you all — it’s essentially a compilation of everything WoW PvP guru Brian Holinka and lead designer Ghostcrawler have recently said on Twitter about rogue PvP balance in Patch 5.2, and how they’re hoping the changes upcoming in Patch 5.3 will affect it (as well as the classes that rogues tend to team up with).

Ghostcrawler just gave me that perfect opportunity with this new tweet, which nicely sums up everything they’ve said so far:

@VeiledW Rogues have several nerfs in 5.3. The intent is not to nerf them back to 5.0 levels but somewhere in between.—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) April 25, 2013

I don’t have much analysis to add to this, and at any rate the post will be long enough with just all these embedded tweets in it, so I’ll let them (and you, I hope) do the talking. I do want to note, though, that Ghostcrawler’s tweets in particular testify to how important it is not to see PvP-related class nerfs in a “rogue bubble” — a nerf to our class isn’t always necessarily specifically about our class, but may be just as much about how our class meshes with others.

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On Twitter: Cloak and Dagger May See Tweaks for 5.3

[UPDATE 4/25: A Patch 5.3 datamine and subsequent tweets appear to show that Cloak and Dagger has indeed been tweaked -- and that further ability changes may be coming as well.]

When they added Cloak and Dagger to our level-60 talent tier in Patch 5.2 (where it replaced Preparation, which became a baseline ability), Ghostcrawler and Daxxarri explained the move like thus-ish:

Combined with dropping out of combat to re-stealth, Shadow Dance, and the Subterfuge talent, we expect that it can be used to accomplish some pretty interesting things.

And boy howdy, were they right. The burst opportunity offered by CnD coupled with Shadow Dance helped catapult our Subtlety spec back into the PvP stratosphere, and served as one of the driving forces behind rogues’ sudden resurgence in competitive PvP over the past two months.

Perhaps inevitably, it also resulted in this:

@Aulper7 @Ghostcrawler And on the other side of that coin, do any Sub PvP rogues *not* take CnD? Seems almost required for arena comps.—
Rfeann Berougin (@SvelteKumquat) April 24, 2013

@SvelteKumquat @Aulper7 @Ghostcrawler Yes it is most popular with rogues. We're discussing options for Cloak and Dagger for 5.3—
Holinka (@holinka) April 24, 2013

Blizzfolk have stated, time and again, that they don’t want 1) everybody ignoring a talent in a given tier or 2) everybody taking the same talent in a given tier. CnD is the only talent worth considering for Sub rogues in PvP, and Sub is pretty much the only PvP game in town right now, so it’s not a surprise that the designers are considering a change.

I’m skeptical this is the way to go. The crowd-control nerfs already in store for rogues in 5.3 could impact their PvP viability, and the PvE trinket changes will already tone down some burst for those who use it. A nerf to CnD (which I’d figure would most likely involve adding a cooldown, though they could also alter its range or change the abilities it can be used with) at this stage feels like it might be overkill given that the full impact of the already-planned changes is unknown.

It’s also an oft-used Blizzard mantra that they try to nerf only as a last resort, because they generally feel so unsatisfying for players. What might be more interesting, if overpopularity of CnD is a concern, is to make a couple of improvements to the other movement abilities in that talent tier — reduce Shadowstep’s cooldown, perhaps, or allow Burst of Speed to break roots.

Of course, what Holinka could be implying with his tweet is that CnD may be changed to make it attractive to *other* specs in addition to Sub. Or to help make the other two specs a little more viable in high-end PvP — perhaps by allowing the rogue to restealth in the process of teleporting, or by adding Envenom/Eviscerate (or Mutilate/Sinister Strike) to the list of abilities it can be used for, though none of those ideas feel particularly well-balanced to me.

But I’m just a PvE player. What do I know of such things? If any of you out there are avid PvPers, I’d be eager for some edumucation on a reasonable approach to CnD’s overuse (and what can realistically be done about it in the short term).

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On Twitter: Should Kick Have a Cost?

This is probably the last thing a PvP rogue wants to see given the nerfs on their way for Patch 5.3.

@xiheartturtlesx It was put in line with many of the interrupts where resource costs aren't a factor. Definitely debatable if that was good—
Holinka (@holinka) April 21, 2013

One of many rogue buffs in Patch 5.2 involved the removal of Kick’s energy cost. (For many moons, rogue PvP gloves had an equip bonus on them that made Kick free; that was removed, and instead the ability itself was changed to cost no energy. The PvP glove bonus was changed to buff Recuperate.)

This was an unequivocal win for PvE, since it meant rogues could interrupt targets 1) without sacrificing any DPS at all and 2) even during rare moments when they might be energy starved (more likely to happen when questing or fighting elite world mobs than in raids).

For PvP, I understand the ramifications a lot less. Instinctively I’d want to say it’s a wash for experienced PvPers, most of whom likely had the gloves anyway, and most of whom likely scoffed at an additional 1%-of-max-health healing from Recuperate. For newer, less-geared PvP folk, this would be a minor boon.

I’ve already spent waaaay more words on this than I had planned to — I was gonna just dump the tweet here and go on my merry way — but now I’m flustered that I can’t understand why Brian Holinka would allow that the Kick change might’ve been too good. I get that the huge number of instant CC options in the game are a concern generally, but given that Kick was effectively free for many PvPers anyway, why should baselining it matter much?

(Housekeeping note: I’m doing some catchup this week on moving tweets out of the Home for Wayward Rogue Tweets and into actual, archivable, searchable individual blog posts. I’m gonna backdate all the oldish ones so they don’t cause a disturbance, but those of you who receive notifications whenever I post something new may get hit with more buzzes than usual. I’m sorry for any annoying deluges! Please don’t unsubscribe! My ego thirsts for your continued readership!)

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Blue Post/Ruffy Rants: Are Rogue Specs Too Similar?

Homogenization: It’s not just for milk anymore. Or so the wails of many a rogue this expansion would have us believe.

But in the Mists era, have our three rogue specs truly lost all of their unique flair?

In the context of a thread that discussed class uniqueness more generally, Blizz Community Manager Daxxarri (who has been known to prowl the WoW rogue class forum in the guise of a stealthy Protoss) took a detour to specifically address a person who asked why all rogue specs feel the same:

Rogues are something of an edge case, and moving previously spec defining abilities into the talent tree probably contributes to this, though I’d argue that it’s resulted in a class that’s more fun to play overall. Still, I find that Combat feels different from Assassination feels different from Sub. The differences are admittedly more subtle (no pun intended) than some other classes, though.

It’s Daxxarri’s last point that, for me, gets to the heart of this particular issue. He concedes the point made by many that what “feels” different about each rogue spec can be hard to tease out. But depending on how each of us plays, and on what particular characteristics of a class/spec are most important to us, the three rogue specs can be either glaringly different or impossible to tell apart.

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Hotfix: Shado-Pan PvE Trinket Proc Changed — Again — in PvP

Just over a week ago, the Vicious Talisman of Shado-Pan Assault — a PvE trinket purchased with Valor points — was nerfed, after many players expressed concerns (and Blizzard agreed) that it was too strong in PvP. The nerf reduced the strength of the trinket’s proc by 21.5%, in hopes of curbing the amount of burst damage it granted. (The same change was made to the Strength version of the trinket.)

But it didn’t take long for Blizzard to start to feel like the proc nerf might not be enough. So, as of a newly implemented hotfix, they’ve further reduced the value of the proc in PvP situations only — but they’ve doubled the proc’s length. The end result should be the same amount of damage, just more consistent and less bursty. The tooltip doesn’t appear to have been updated to match yet.

For your reading-what-official-people-write pleasure, I’ll dump all relevant tweets and Community Manager forum/blog post quotes below.

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On Twitter: Are More Shado-Pan Trinket Changes Coming?

[UPDATE 4/18: More changes were indeed coming. And then they came. And now they're here.]

Last week, a Patch 5.2 hotfix reduced the Agility proc on the new PvE Valor trinket, the Vicious Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault, by 21.5% in PvP situations. (This was *not* a Patch 5.3 PTR note, incidentally; the change is actually live.)

The change was intended to reduce the amount of burst that DPS classes/specs were able to deal to other players while the proc was active. But was it enough? Was it even… maybe… dare we say… too much?

HeckifIknow. But WoW PvP master Brian Holinka has been fielding a lot of tweets about the trinket since the hotfix. Here’s a dump (in date order) of all of them to date, for you to peruse and ponder at your temporal preference.

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Hotfix: Shado-Pan Assault (Valor Trinket) Nerfed in PvP

[UPDATE 4/18: Further changes to the proc were implemented in a subsequent hotfix a little more than a week after the change covered in the post below.]

The lamentations of the dead have been heard!

Vicious Talisman of the Shadow-Pan Assault now grants a reduced bonus of 6908 to Agility when the effect is activated in PvP combat, down from 8800. The bonus remains unchanged when the effect is activated in PvE combat.

(Please note: Though this change has been made, we’ve been warned that it won’t immediately show up in tooltips yet. Also, yes, that’s a typo in the official hotfix note: The name of the trinket is “Shado-Pan,” not “Shadow-Pan.”)

So sayeth one of the newly-posted-but-dated-April-10 additions to the official Patch 5.2 hotfix notes. This change follows a great deal of complaint (even by WoW-players-on-the-Internet standards) that the Shado-Pan trinket, which is a PvE rep reward purchased with Valor Points, offered way too much burst potential in PvP settings (particularly when coupled with other burst cooldowns, which we rogue types do so love to use).

That super-specific Agility number difference mentioned in the hotfix amounts to a 21.5% nerf to the proc. As lead PvP designer Brian Holinka noted in a tweet (below), this will keep the Talisman’s burst potential higher than its PvP counterpart, but its overall damage will be lower.

And now, for the sake of putting all this somewhere relevant, I shall dump upon ye most of the tweets that Holinka has sent out in the past couple of weeks in response to people asking about this damn trinket. (These have all been living in the home for wayward rogue tweets for a while; it feels nice to give them a more permanent home. Yep. Feels nice.)

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On Twitter: Blizzard Doesn’t Hate Combat Rogue PvP; It’s Just Really Hard to Balance

One of the really cool effects of Brian Holinka hitting the Twittersphere (and, well, being hired in the first place) is that we suddenly have more active back-and-forth between WoW gamers and designers than we’ve ever had on PvP matters.

This recent exchange with a couple of tweeting rogues provides a little insight from the design side about why Combat PvP viability is such a challenge. (I’ll provide some analysis below the thread.)

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On Twitter: Did Shuriken Toss Make Deadly Throw OP?

I mentioned a few days ago that lead PvP guru Brian Holinka had tweeted our clearest hint yet that Shuriken Toss was likely to get a nerf sometime soonish, due to its strength in significantly harming manned enemy pixels. This exchange earlier today may give us an idea for what sort of nerf we can expect:

@clemik99 We feel rogue CP generation is too high at ranged. Made Deadly Throw change OP

—
Holinka (@holinka) April 03, 2013

(The “Deadly Throw” change Holinka is referring to is a Patch 5.2 buff that made DT’s interrupt/spell lockout work when used at 3-5 combo points, instead of only at 5.)

So, if Shuriken Toss damage is a concern in PvP (as Holinka noted in his previous tweet), and ST’s rapid combo point generation makes DT too powerful in PvP as well, I’m thinking the logical move would be to increase the energy cost for Shuriken Toss (perhaps to ~35 energy or so). Of course, I say that with virtually no understanding of PvP balance, so take that prediction with a bucket of salt.

I’d also be sad to see such an energy-cost increase happen from a PvE questing standpoint, because ST has proven to be tremendously useful in dailies, particularly when trying to solo some of those Isle of Thunder rares.

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