On Twitter/Patch 5.3 PTR: Cloak and Dagger Nerf Clarified (It’s All About the Stealthjamins)

Amidst the hue and cry over our latest rogue PvP nerf revelation (in Patch 5.3, Cloak and Dagger likely won’t work when Subtlety rogues try to use it during Shadow Dance), WoW PvP honcho Brian Holinka dropped this little nugget:

@JRoosy CnD's range is back to 30 yards, but no longer usable unless stealthed—
Holinka (@holinka) May 03, 2013

Holinka and Ghostcrawler have been tweeting like CRAZY over the rogue changes since word of this CnD adjustment got out; read my previous post for a (mostly) complete listing.

Between Twitter, datamining and official patch note updates, the Patch 5.3 rogue change revelations have been pretty rapid-fire lately, so just to recap where we think we’re at right now:

• Cloak and Dagger will still be usable at 30 yards; the nerf to 20 yards will be reverted. However, rogues will only be able to use CnD while stealthed — this is why it can’t be used during Shadow Dance, because you’re technically not stealthed when ShD is active. (I’m assuming we will also be able to use CnD during Vanish or, for those of us who play a night elf, while Shadowmelded, but I haven’t seen any solid info on this yet.)
• All the Shuriken Toss changes are still happening. (Energy cost doubles, damage doubles, damage bonus at range removed.)
• The crowd control glyph nerfs (to Cheap Shot’s stun and Garrote’s silence) are probably still happening. (Aeriwen notes in the class forum that the Glyph of Cheap Shot tooltip hasn’t been updated with the nerf, but it’s still in the official patch notes.)
• The Find Weakness PvP nerf/PvE buff is still happening.
• We still haven’t heard a thing from anyone official about the datamined Revealing Strike buff.
• The Recuperate PvP buff is still happening (though that’s not a rogue-only change; it’s part of the broader PvP Power adjustments the devs are implementing for 5.3).

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On Twitter: New Subtlety PvP Nerf; Devs Respond to Flood of Patch 5.3 Rogue Tears — Updated 5/8

[UPDATE 5/4-5/8: Since I first posted this, Holinka clarified the new CnD change and noted that the previous range nerf is being reverted. I've also added a whole mess of additional, related tweets from Holinka and Ghostcrawler at the end of the post.]

Since the most recent Patch 5.3 PTR build yesterday, a number of Subtlety rogue players on the PTR have reported that Cloak and Dagger no longer works while they’re in Shadow Dance. The synergy between these two abilities has been one of the bread-and-butter rogue combos during Patch 5.2, and has helped propel rogues — specifically Subtlety rogues — to the top of the arena heap.

When added to the other changes already in store for Patch 5.3, what we’re seeing is a very clear attempt to 1) tone down rogue burst and CC abilities in general, and 2) try to make Assassination and Combat feel like they’re worth trying in PvP as well (mainly by making Sub less attractive).

PvP chief Brian Holinka and Ghostcrawler let forth a flurry of tweets (many featuring his refreshingly unapologetic tongue-in-cheek humor) in response to the frustration many rogues have expressed with this steady flow of rogue PvP nerfs for Patch 5.3. I shall unleash them on you below the cut; I’m too lazy to set up anchored links so you’ll have to scroll through them, but they’re split roughly into these minicategories:

• Tweets Clearing Up the CnD Change
• Offsetting the 5.1 Changes
• What About Subterfuge?
• Has Rogue PvP Been Ruined for 5.3?
• Re-Examining the Mobility Talent Tier (Part I)
• Re-Examining the Mobility Talent Tier (Part II)
• Ignorance About Being Ignored
• What About Patch 5.4?

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Patch 5.3 Datamining: Rogue DPS Tuning Begins

MMO-Champion and Wowhead have picked up a new Patch 5.3 PTR build, which includes two rogue changes:

• The Subtlety-only Find Weakness PvP nerf/PvE buff that Brian Holinka tweeted about earlier today is in place, though it’s not yet in the official patch notes. (Instead of 70% armor reduction, it’s now 50% reduction against players and 100% reduction against PvE targets.)
• Unexpectedly, Combat rogues appear to be getting a fresh DPS bump (and possibly a PvP boost?) in the form of a buff to the duration of Revealing Strike. Everything else about RvS stays the same, but when you use it the buff will last for 24 seconds instead of 18 (a 33% increase). This change hasn’t been confirmed (or even mentioned) by anyone at Blizzard yet, so we may not be seeing the full story yet.

While we won’t fully see the PvP implications of these changes until the new season begins, the PvE implications can be calculated to within an inch of their lives, as the Rogue Code dictates must be so. A couple of players have tinkered with our best simulation tools to see what sort of impact these changes will have on our DPS.

For Subtlety, Dansu posted on the WoW rogue forum that, in SimCraft, the Find Weakness PvE buff amounts to a little more than a 5% DPS increase for the spec — which, in theory at least, puts it basically on the same level as Assassination at very high gear levels (i.e., heroic raid gear with both set bonuses). Fierydemise, one of the brains behind our beloved ShadowCraft rogue-optimizing tool, came to a similar conclusion after modeling the change in that engine.

For Combat, as Fierydemise also noted in the post I just linked, we’re looking at a super-tiny DPS impact if it’s truly going to be implemented solely as it was datamined. The change basically would mean that, in the course of a six-minute raid fight in which you’re on the boss the whole time, you’ll be using RvS instead of Sinister Strike five fewer times than you otherwise would. That’s… barely any effect. RvS deals slightly less damage than SS and has no chance to proc an extra combo point when used, so being able to use SS a few more times is cool, but certainly not a major spec-balance fix — provided you’re already very good at juggling Slice and Dice, Rupture and RvS. If you’re not, then this change potentially becomes a much bigger deal, because it makes that juggling act a little bit easier.

Part of me wonders if, assuming this RvS change really is entirely what was datamined, it isn’t intended mainly to be some sort of PvP buff. Considering Combat is widely panned for competitive PvP at the moment and I haven’t tried it in ages, I have no concept of what impact this change would have in that area. Maybe make kiting have less of an impact?

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On Twitter: Find Weakness Nerfed vs. Players, Buffed vs. Evil Things

For those keeping score, this’ll be the fifth PvP-related rogue nerf (vs. one PvP rogue buff so far) — and first PvE rogue buff — slated to take effect with Patch 5.3:

Going to get out in front of this one. Find Weakness is now 50% against players (100% for mobs)—
Holinka (@holinka) May 02, 2013

@Aulper7 The former, 50%—
Holinka (@holinka) May 02, 2013

@FlawlessLogic1 @Knight_Lite There will be a 50% cap on Find Weakness in PvP, whether it's tooltipped or not.—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) May 02, 2013

 

(This change was datamined in a PTR build shortly after these tweets.)

At the moment, the Subtlety-only Find Weakness ability reduces the armor of both player and non-player targets by 70% for 10 seconds. When the patch hits, these guys are announcing that the reduction will be nerfed to 50% against players (making it roughly 29% worse than it is now) and buffed to 100% against mobs (making it roughly 43% better than it is now).

For PvP, the idea here seems be a further reduction of Subtlety’s burst potential during Shadow Dance. I wonder: When combined with the other nerfs on the table for 5.3 (particularly to Cloak and Dagger), will this be enough to make rogues try out Assassination or Combat, as Holinka suggested a few weeks ago – without causing the rogue class as a whole to be shunned in Patch 5.3 as much as it had been prior to Patch 5.2?

For PvE, the idea here seems be an attempt to buff Subtlety DPS in hopes of providing some level of extra reward for successfully using arguably our most fragile raiding spec. I wonder: Is this enough to increase Sub’s DPS potential to the point where some high-end raiding rogues will feel it’s worthwhile to give it a shot?

Yep. I wonder. And while I wonder, here are a few more tweets from Brian Holinka on this change; gonna put them below the cut because they’re “extra” info/context.

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On Twitter: Is the Planned Subtlety Buff in 5.2 Enough? — Updated 1/9

(Posted updated on Jan. 9 with an additional Ghostcrawler tweet.)

Maybe yea, maybe nay. But this recent Twitter exchange with Ghostcrawler shows that the design team 1) has thought through the issue and is proposing the adjustment they feel will do the trick, and 2) doesn’t feel Subtlety is that far behind in the first place, particularly not on single-target fights.

 

@evangel666777 What % do you think Combat is behind Assassination? (You can't just compare Raidbots or WoL because of sampling bias.)

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 07, 2013

@eldersgapingmaw Yes, my bad. He said Sanguinary Vein buff. I heard Vitality buff. Both were intended to close the gap.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 07, 2013

@evangel666777 Hard to say. If you look at a fight like Feng, Sub isn't far behind even though the sample size is much smaller.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 07, 2013

@gridbread Is Sub behind? WoW Insider discussed it recently. (And when did "Sin" become a thing? I get why people don't like to type "Ass.")

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 09, 2013

 

This isn’t the first time in the recent past that Ghostcrawler has taken to Twitter to defend Subtlety’s viability: Check out this exchange from a couple of weeks ago.

(Note added 1/9: The additional tweet from Ghostcrawler I added to the bottom of the pile refers to this Encrypted Text column by Chase Christian, which posted to WoW Insider on Jan. 8.)

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On Twitter: Subtlety’s DPS Ain’t So Bad, Ghostcrawler Says

Around the time the first bit of datamined info on Patch 5.2 was being leaked by MMO-Champion and Wowhead, Ghostcrawler was taking to the twitwaves for another round of responding to irrationally angry messages from Twitter users. (Happy holidays, everybody!) Among those exchanges:

 

@harrison_erik Pretty happy with PvE overall. Arcane will be fine without Scorch spam. Aff may be too high. UH, Sub, Ele, Arms may be low.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 21, 2012

@EvilAipac Have you tried it? Sub can do really comparable numbers, but many PvE rogues are Mut / Combat so there are 100x less Sub parses.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 21, 2012

 

GC already knew, when he tweeted that, that Subtlety’s Sanguinary Vein passive ability was slated for a buff in Patch 5.2; as of this post, the official patch notes have its bleed debuff increasing damage by 20% in the next patch, up from 16%.

Between that Subtlety buff, the above tweet, and the massive nerf to Combat’s Blade Flurry ability, Blizzard’s clearly trying to set the stage for a resurgence of raiding Subtlety rogues in 5.2. Haileaus, you must be on Santa’s good list this year.

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On Twitter: Ghostcrawler Ponders Subtlety’s Third-Class Status in Raids

@JamesWire1 Potentially. If you take Combat for any cleave fight, then Mutilate for the others, you don't have a spec left.

—
Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 10, 2012

 

The bigger question I think this tweet raises is: What should be done about the problem? After all, if it’s only underplayed, not underpowered, you can’t really buff it — that would likely just push the see-saw in the opposite direction.

And heck, while I’m at it: Is this even really a “problem”? Is it automatically a bad thing if we only use two of the three rogue specs in end-game PvE? Is it possible that, in this crazy, mixed-up, dual-spec world of ours, we players simply can’t handle the concept of three truly viable raiding specs?

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