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Totally agree with this. Was actually going to post the same thing yesterday but figured it would fall on deaf ears. :(

I never understood why it took so long to build up CP and then wait for energy..

Nice post, hopefully someone at Blizzard will take notice and at least explain the double dipping reasoning.

Look at all of the death knight abilities, not one single ability requires Runic power and rune activation. It is always one specific resource, this should be no different for rogues. I have a feeling if blizzard was to implement this simple change, all of the complaints we are currently seeing would disappear over night.

well in fairness relentless strikes effectively make SnD and rupture free, recup cost 5 and evis and envenom cost 10. But you still have to wait for the energy to use them after you get the 5 points. So while making them free would be sweet. THey would probably have to scaled down in cost per combo point.

So relentless strikes would look something like this the energy cost of your finishers is reduced by 5 points per combo point. Or I would rather see 20% per combo point that way all 5 pt finishers are free.

IMO, talents like relentless strikes have overly complicated and muddled our resource regenration. In essence they keep adding duct tape to shore up an antiquated resource system by making us more RNG dependent, thus removing our control over our characters instead of giving us a predictable and stable resource generation which empowers the player while simultaneously removing stupid mechanics like venomous wounds that constatly have to be adjusted due to scaling.

I don't know much about monks, but their system is similar to rogues right? Does their system use both resources for finishers?

10/05/2012 07:43 AMPosted by Swineflew

I don't know much about monks, but their system is similar to rogues right? Does their system use both resources for finishers?

Nope, Monk abilities consume singular resources.

You are all forgetting that Blizz looks at Rogues as the model class that all other classes should mimic, I doubt they are going to change the way they work regardless of how great an idea it is...

Do you guys remember way back when energy regenerated at 20 points every 2 seconds? Those were the days. :)

In response to the OP, I agree. I always thought it was double dipping that our finishers cost energy and combo points. Adding insult to injury is the fact that our finishers seem to have gotten relatively weaker of the years.

Do you guys remember way back when energy regenerated at 20 points every 2 seconds? Those were the days. :)

In response to the OP, I agree. I always thought it was double dipping that our finishers cost energy and combo points. Adding insult to injury is the fact that our finishers seem to have gotten relatively weaker of the years.

I think of it like taxes. I get taxed to on the money I make ( CPs ) Then I get taxed again for investing or spending my points a la capital gains. It's ridiculous.

It's an interesting idea. But:

10/05/2012 06:57 AMPosted by Cloake

Other abilities could then be balanced with a more spammy state and make us feel more "active" in our combat rotations whether pvp or pve.

At the end of the last expansion, Combat was already largely GCD capped -- and during Adrenaline Rush or Heroism would often find itself energy capped as well. If all finishers become energy-free, how do we avoid the same scenario unfolding much, much earlier in an expansion?

Envenom is actually a very powerful finisher; I'm not sure why you're so down on it. The attack itself bypasses armor, which no other straight-damage finisher can do (without Shadow Blades active), and it significantly enhances poison proc chance, which is a massive chunk of Assassination's damage.

I, for one, would not want to see the Assassination spec become spammy. It is specifically designed not to be that way, which is why the energy cost of Mutilate is so huge. It may be running slow at max level right now compared to where it was for much of Cata, but that will change pretty quickly as gear improves.

Regardless, if you remove the CP cost from finishers, you dramatically unbalance the class relative to all of the others. How do you propose to get that back? Do you make the CP builders incredibly weak, such that the only damage we can do at all will come from finishers? Do you slow our energy regen or increase the energy cost of CP builders so we can't cast as many of them, which would take us right back to where we are now?

It's an interesting idea. But:

Other abilities could then be balanced with a more spammy state and make us feel more "active" in our combat rotations whether pvp or pve.

At the end of the last expansion, Combat was already largely GCD capped -- and during Adrenaline Rush or Heroism would often find itself energy capped as well. If all finishers become energy-free, how do we avoid the same scenario unfolding much, much earlier in an expansion?

Envenom is actually a very powerful finisher; I'm not sure why you're so down on it. The attack itself bypasses armor, which no other straight-damage finisher can do (without Shadow Blades active), and it significantly enhances poison proc chance, which is a massive chunk of Assassination's damage.

I, for one, would not want to see the Assassination spec become spammy. It is specifically designed not to be that way, which is why the energy cost of Mutilate is so huge. It may be running slow at max level right now compared to where it was for much of Cata, but that will change pretty quickly as gear improves.

Well, not to be cynical but I'm glad you enjoy the teeter totter nature of rogue balance, Myself I could do without the over complication that leads to balancing problems within the class as a whole. Envenom may bypass armor and it may refresh SnD and it may increase the RNG chance of our poison procs but the bottom line is it is not stable nor reliable damage. As of now Combo point generation is RNG, Energy generation is RNG, damage is RNG and ALL poison procs are RNG. We have NO stability and you cannot possibly like seeing autoattack and poisons comprising the largest chunks of damage done. It is lazy design and EVERY melee class designed after rogues are far more refined in their damage and resource management.

Edit: Shadow blades only FURTHER compounds the problem by only affecting auto attacks. I see where blizzard was going with the changes to the class by making energy usage more "meaningful" the problem is it is not. It only serves as a restriction to performing our abilities while introducing balancing problems later on as our stats " mastery and haste" creep up to OP levels later in the expansion to the point where we are out damaging ALL classes through auto attacks and poisons alone!!! yeah that sounds great!

10/05/2012 08:15 AMPosted by Rfeann

(without Shadow Blades active)

Hold the phone.
I thought Shadow Blades only made auto-attacks do shadow damage.

Also, Vendetta+trinket+Shadowblades after rupture and SnD = ANY player dead within 3-5 seconds through auto attacks alone. This is NOT good and will bite us in the A$$ later.

10/05/2012 08:30 AMPosted by Knocrogue

(without Shadow Blades active)

Hold the phone.
I thought Shadow Blades only made auto-attacks do shadow damage.

Ooooops. So sorry. That is correct.

10/05/2012 08:23 AMPosted by Cloake

As of now Combo point generation is RNG, Energy generation is RNG, damage is RNG and ALL poison procs are RNG.

The entire *game* is RNG. RNG is at the essence of what makes gameplay interesting. Without RNG, procs would not exist, nor would effects like Blindside. I don't see your point.

Envenom also costs significantly less energy than the CP builders that come before it (though the actual energy cost per CP generated is roughly similar to the other specs), so I don't really get why you're picking on Envenom so much as the reason Assassination feels slow.

I'm gonna repeat my questions, because like I said I think this is an interesting topic, and I really want to explore it further without it descending into yet another of those "this sucks because I said so, and here's the perfect solution trust me" arguments that is neither helpful nor worth engaging in:

10/05/2012 08:15 AMPosted by Rfeann

Regardless, if you remove the CP cost from finishers, you dramatically unbalance the class relative to all of the others. How do you propose to get that back? Do you make the CP builders incredibly weak, such that the only damage we can do at all will come from finishers? Do you slow our energy regen or increase the energy cost of CP builders so we can't cast as many of them, which would take us right back to where we are now?

Ugh, yeah, sorry. I'm riddled with holes today -- not enough sleep and no morning coffee. :)

The questions still hold; "CP" should just be replaced with "energy" wherever I put it.

I personally would rather deal with being gcd capped instead of waiting around for energy.
That's just my preference, I like feeling like I'm smashing dem keys for a reason.

The harder and faster I hit my keys the bigger the crits.

I'll try to address what it is about the RNG nature of the energy/CP resource system that makes us so incredibly dull and inconsistent.

However, first we must look at mages to understand why our system is so underwhelming.

Mages have one resource, a set base Mana or resource pool of 300k. All of their abilities require a set % of that mana to activate which so far is at least a mirror of rogues in that our abilities require a set % of our resources to use. The difference is that mage mana regen outside of self activated abilities is static and dependable. This makes it extraordinarily easy to develop strategies on resource consumption while creating a stable rotation that enables the player to never feel like they have to "wait" to use a primary damaging ability. While they have casting times which supposedly limit their output due their LARGE base mana pool, our limiting factor which is energy starvation feels both very restraining and liberating at the same time. Sure we can slap our abilities as soon as we have enough energy to use it, but unlike a mage doing so completely leaves us open to large periods of unacceptable downtime that a mage or deathknight " which ironically does not double dip" never experience.

This in essence removes our flexibility and restricts our ability to respond to a given situation such as target switching or self healing thru recuperate that other classes do not and cannot feel due to the construction of their resource system.

In essence in situations when energy regen is low our damage output or flexability will suffer. Later in the expansion we will both have insane flexibility and damage whereas a mage will stay consistently good like they have thru all of WoW.

Edit: I think warriors are in the same boat really, they are either starved or dropping A-bombs on peoples' heads. In theory, you could give mages an energy system like rogues and they would be just as UP or OP as we are depending on the time in the expansion.

The problem goes beyond the resource system.

Looking at how the talent/spec system has changed over the expansions we can see that blizzard has shifted its design philosophy from focusing on classes with 3 specs each to focusing on an economy of 33 specs as if they were individual classes. It has allowed them to make major changes to the mechanics of a spec without major disruption to the other 2 within the class.

The problem with rogues is nothing major has been done to Assassination, Combat, or Subtlety. The class is still in an antiquated state making our specs more like an arbitrary load-out than even our talents.

Assassination's Resolve - Vitality - Sinister Calling = Passive damage modifiers.
Venomous Wounds - Combat Potency - Energetic Recovery = Passive energy regen. mechanic.
Vendetta - Adrenaline Rush - Shadow Dance = Burst/DPS CD.

Pretty much every passive mechanism or ability one spec has the other 2 have something categorically similar, which results in nearly identical play styles. I've said it many times now that between specs I literally change 3-4 buttons. The specs CP generator, spec finisher, and the spec cooldown. All the passives do is alter the priority of rupture vs SnD and of secondary stat ratings like haste vs mastery.