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.
Apunhalada Energética 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.
Mordida do Gorjavil (and
Frenesi Predatório) are gone as well. While it was an additional ability helping to get some more resources and boost regeneration of
Dança das Sombras charges, the loss does not have a high impact - besides,
Frenesi Predatório often led to overcapping on energy.
Finalização 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
Finalização will also not have a very high impact. The energy gain on
Técnicas Sombrias 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
Dança das Sombras has been increased from 4 to 5 seconds, making it equal to
Dança das Sombras with
Subterfúgio on live servers. With Battle for Azeroth,
Subterfúgio further increases the duration to 6 seconds. Pooling and optimizing your GCD usage during
Dança das Sombras will become a bit more important. In terms of AoE situations, Subtlety also takes quite a hit. The damage bonus on
Tempestade de Shurikens during
Dança das Sombras was reduced from 100% to 50%, with
Tempestade de Shurikens having a slightly higher amount of base damage. In addition, the passive
Sequência de Shurikens 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.
Lâmina Soturna, 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,
Lâmina Soturna still seems overloaded, being both a damage amplifier and a DoT effect with a very short duration.
Lâmina Soturna 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.
Lâminas Sombrias continues to be our main cooldown. In addition to granting an additional combo point and changing your auto attacks, it now also changes your
Golpe Sombrio and
Punhalada pelas Costas to deal Shadowstrike damage (the mixed school of Physical and Shadow damage) and increases Gloomblade damage by 30%.
Lâminas Sombrias 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.
Sumir 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
Dragonas do Assassino Mestre anymore.
Our defensive toolkit got some changes as well.
Finta now has a 15 seconds cooldown and reduces AoE damage taken by 40% instead of 50%. While this is a noticeable nerf,
Finta is still very strong, you simply cannot spam it anymore and have to put some more thought into using it.
Manto das Sombras cooldown was increased to 2 minutes.
TalentsLevel 15Mestre 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
Punhalada pelas Costas and
Golpe Sombrio. Master of Subtlety was replaced by
Achar Ponto Fraco, which adds an armor penetration debuff to the target when using
Golpe Sombrio or
Golpe Baixo. While this allows for some interesting builds about maximizing
Achar Ponto Fraco uptime, the bypass effect also adds some discrepancy with
Lâminas Sombrias turning your main single target generators into Shadowstrike damage (and thus bypass armor already).
Level 45Anticipation has been replaced by
Marcado para Morrer. 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 Escura got a slight nerf from 30% to 25% increased damage during
Dança das Sombras. This was likely done in order to make the choice between stronger dances with
Sombra Escura and more dances with
Invólucro de Sombras more competitive.
Diligência is staying on this row unchanged. It is a rather boring talent and easily overshadowed by the other two.
Level 100A Morte Vem de Cima 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
Lâmina Soturna and
A Morte Vem de Cima.
The general theme of converting AoE situations into more single target damage with
Tempestade de Shurikens combo points and
Sequência de Shurikens 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
Tempestade de Shurikens bonus and
Sequência de Shurikens, 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,
Lâminas Sombrias is still not a damage cooldown that feels encouraging to press in these situations.
Lâminas Sombrias 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 Tempestade de Shurikens into Shadow damage.
- Convert the overflowing combo points (into damage?).
- Mirror Shadow Blade auto attacks onto all targets in the area.