LegacySubtlety is the highly mobile, burst damage member of the rogue family. In Legion, it enjoyed a lot of popularity in dungeons and during Tomb of Sargeras. Battle for Azeroth sees a slow down in the pacing of the spec and a leaning toward single target damage.
Gameplay ChangesCompared to the state of the Subtlety Rogue in Legion, the most noticeable system change is the loss of the artifact weapon and, thus, the artifact traits. You will likely feel the loss of some major traits.
Puñalada vigorosa gave us some kind of steady energy income. Without it, the pace of the spec slows down a bit and pooling will become more relevant again.
Mordedura de Buchegore (and
Frenesí hambriento) are gone as well. While it was an additional ability helping to get some more resources and boost regeneration of
Danza de las Sombras charges, the loss does not have a high impact - besides,
Frenesí hambriento often led to overcapping on energy.
Irrevocable has also been removed. It added an additional layer of complexity to the spec and opened some space for finisher optimization but it was also a bit confusing for new players. Losing
Irrevocable will also not have a very high impact. The energy gain on
Técnicas de las Sombras from the trait Shadow’s Whisper was made baseline. Other than that, you may also notice the loss of Catlike Reflexes. Subtlety Rogues, be prepared to take falling damage again; enjoy this trait on live while you still can.
There were further changes to our toolkit of offensive abilities. The duration of
Danza de las Sombras has been increased from 4 to 5 seconds, making it equal to
Danza de las Sombras with
Subterfugio on live servers. With Battle for Azeroth,
Subterfugio further increases the duration to 6 seconds. Pooling and optimizing your GCD usage during
Danza de las Sombras will become a bit more important. In terms of AoE situations, Subtlety also takes quite a hit. The damage bonus on
Tormenta de shuriken during
Danza de las Sombras was reduced from 100% to 50%, with
Tormenta de shuriken having a slightly higher amount of base damage. In addition, the passive
Combo de shuriken only increases
Eviscerar damage by 5% instead of 10% per stack. These changes significantly reduce our AoE burst potential as well as our conversion of AoE situations into damage on the main target. Sustained AoE is slightly buffed, but with Subtlety having been mostly about burst and focus target conversion, these changes (in addition to the loss of the artifact trait Shadow Nova) seem to be hitting quite hard and it is not very clear how Subtlety is supposed to perform in AoE.
Hoja de la noche, similar to Bleeds and Poisons, also scales with Haste now, which will finally add some more value to the stat that has been quite unwelcome so far. Though the hasted dot is a welcome change,
Hoja de la noche still seems overloaded, being both a damage amplifier and a DoT effect with a very short duration.
Hoja de la noche adds a ramp up time to the spec and has to be refreshed very often. Despite the damage amplification originally being introduced to fight multi-dotting, cycling targets has still been an increase throughout Legion.
Hojas de las Sombras continues to be our main cooldown. In addition to granting an additional combo point and changing your auto attacks, it now also changes your
Embate de las Sombras and
Puñalada to deal Shadowstrike damage (the mixed school of Physical and Shadow damage) and increases Gloomblade damage by 30%.
Hojas de las Sombras also now triggers the global cooldown. While this adds a bit of more value to the cooldown, it still is not very interesting, especially in AoE situations.
Esfumarse for Subtlety is also back at its original 2 minute cooldown, making it have less impact as an offensive cooldown, considering we will not have
Manto del maestro asesino anymore.
Our defensive toolkit got some changes as well.
Amago now has a 15 seconds cooldown and reduces AoE damage taken by 40% instead of 50%. While this is a noticeable nerf,
Amago is still very strong, you simply cannot spam it anymore and have to put some more thought into using it.
Capa de las Sombras cooldown was increased to 2 minutes.
TalentsLevel 15Maestro de armas has been changed to be a single target talent. Instead of a 6% chance for all abilities to hit twice, it is now a 15% chance on
Puñalada and
Embate de las Sombras. Master of Subtlety was replaced by
Descubrir debilidad, which adds an armor penetration debuff to the target when using
Embate de las Sombras or
Golpe bajo. While this allows for some interesting builds about maximizing
Descubrir debilidad uptime, the bypass effect also adds some discrepancy with
Hojas de las Sombras turning your main single target generators into Shadowstrike damage (and thus bypass armor already).
Level 45Anticipation has been replaced by
Marcado para morir. This change fits the theme very well and makes the whole tier much more competitive. At the same time, it opens up the bottom tier of our talent tree for new directions and ideas.
Level 90Sombra oscura got a slight nerf from 30% to 25% increased damage during
Danza de las Sombras. This was likely done in order to make the choice between stronger dances with
Sombra oscura and more dances with
Sombras envolventes more competitive.
Prontitud is staying on this row unchanged. It is a rather boring talent and easily overshadowed by the other two.
Level 100Descenso de la muerte so far, has not been changed. While having an amazing animation, the main issue this ability is suffering from is the loss of swings, mid-flight cooldown usage, and some weird positional behavior on certain encounters. We are still hoping for changes to make it less painful to use in these situations. At the time of writing, the second talent in this tier empty and marked as “Coming Soon” on Alpha. We will have to wait some more in order to be able to properly comment on this row.
OverallConsidering the loss of artifact traits, current tier bonuses, and legendaries, Subtlety’s pacing is noticeably slower on Alpha. There are some energy management issues, that can be addressed with a couple of talent selections. The major points for improvement are likely
Hoja de la noche and
Descenso de la muerte.
The general theme of converting AoE situations into more single target damage with
Tormenta de shuriken combo points and
Combo de shuriken is pretty cool and makes Sub somewhat special. In situations where some real AoE damage is necessary, the Subtlety toolkit is rather lacking, however. What made Subtlety fun in AoE-heavy situations in Legion is the burst damage that stemmed mostly from the shoulder and cloak legendaries. With these and Shadow Nova gone, as well as the nerfs to the
Tormenta de shuriken bonus and
Combo de shuriken, AoE situations will be different in Battle for Azeroth. This does not mean that Subtlety has to be a great AoE spec, but it would be nice to have something else in the toolkit to give AoE more impact. Unfortunately,
Hojas de las Sombras is still not a damage cooldown that feels encouraging to press in these situations.
Hojas de las Sombras has always come across as somewhat useless in AoE situations where the extra combo points are wasted and, both, single target generators and auto attacks do not really matter. Here are some ideas, maybe one or more of those could help to make it more interesting:
- Also turn Tormenta de shuriken into Shadow damage.
- Convert the overflowing combo points (into damage?).
- Mirror Shadow Blade auto attacks onto all targets in the area.
