Assassination - One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
With the changes coming in the anniversary patch, it's a great time to examine the problems being addressed and their impact on the spec. There's a lot to cover, with changes on the class tree to
Supercharger (previously
Echoing Reprimand) and
Thistle Tea, which has come under much scrutiny.
Subterfuge is lurking in the shadows as possibly one of the strongest utility talents in the game and an interesting rework to
Twist the Knife. Let's break down the impact of each change and how they will shape the spec from now on.
Tons of Talents
Most of the changes to the class tree/spec tree don't meaningfully impact the spec, but we'll go over them for the sake of completeness.
Master Assassin has finally received the 6 second standardization to match all the other stealth effects for us, but it came with a slight nerf. Numerically it looks good, but ends up falling short in mythic+ where points are already tight. Because there's no gameplay associated with
Master Assassin currently, this change is purely a buff.
Thistle Tea is a minor accessibility feature that doesn't impact optimal play. We pool energy between
Envenoms, falling under 30 energy to trigger the passive effect is relatively tricky. Because it can still be used the same as live, there's no difference in how
Thistle Tea is used.
Subterfuge now extending effects is an interesting change that could possibly impact the highest of key levels, allowing for
Iron Wire to be used for 12 seconds instead of the regular 6 seconds after stealth. This leads to a total possible 17 seconds of
Iron Wire. The issue remains, however, that it comes with a staggering 7% loss in damage, making it all but unplayable for most players. Without having an organized group to play around the powerful silence effect,
Subterfuge loses nearly all of its value instantly. At first glance, the increased duration on
Improved Garrote or
Indiscriminate Carnage seems like a decent buff, but the duration is often unnecessary.
Supercharger is a simplified version of
Echoing Reprimand that, while similar at first glance, actually changes the impact of the talent significantly. Instead of
Echoing Reprimand spreading its benefit over the next 45 seconds,
Supercharger empowers the next finishers cast after
Shiv. This timing difference moves the entire benefit of
Supercharger into our burst windows, leading to a more controlled, higher damage potential during
Shiv. Because of the extra combo points being applied to finishers (typically
Envenom), there's also synergy here with another reworked talent,
Twist the Knife.
Twist the KnifeTwist the Knife has long been one of the worst talents on the spec tree, often finding no place to exist due to the inherently high
Envenom uptime on the spec (over 90% in recent patches). This rework adds a new layer to the buff uptime, allowing it to stack twice. Anyone who has played a Guardian Druid might see where this is going. We're getting
Ironfur on
Envenom! (Also referred to as async stacks sometimes). If you're unfamiliar with some of the quirks, it's essential to cover exactly how this effect works. The first thing to note is how the timer itself functions. Below is a sample sequence showing how the overlap works with six combo point
Envenoms and the two-second extension from
Twist the Knife itself.
There are five full seconds of overlap in the sequence, during which we would enjoy the benefits of a second stack of
Envenom. But what does that exactly mean?
Unintuitively, when
Envenom "stacks," three effects are stacking. The first is the buff on
Envenom itself, increasing poison application chance by 30% per stack or 60% at two stacks. The second is
Dashing Scoundrel, going from a 5% critical strike chance to 10% at two stacks. The last is
Rapid Injection, which states, "
Envenom deals 10% increased damage while your
Envenom buff is active". Two stacks of
Envenom means 20% increased damage. The curious thing is that unlike other async stacking mechanics, this one will still pandemic, allowing you to extend the lesser of the two durations, and maintaining the clipping gameplay brought on by
Rapid InjectionFor a long time now,
Envenom has had a near 100% uptime, removing most of the uptime management and gameplay around
Rapid Injection. In the last couple of years, we have seen changes to
Venomous Wounds, the buff on
Envenom, the introduction of energy talents like
Sanguine Blades and
Vicious Venoms, and seen gameplay to play around the buff with
Rapid Injection and
Kingsbane being front and center to the spec.
Twist the Knife "solves" the problem of managing
Envenom uptime by simply raising the cap from 100% to 200% uptime. Sadly, It doesn't solve the underlying issue and has introduced a new problem with clipping
Rapid Injection. It feels like kicking the can down the road and hoping it'll be good enough rather than trying to target the problem at its core. If
Twist the Knife is supposed to solve
Envenom's buff uptime, it's too tricky to reach on the talent tree currently (especially for Mythic+), and it's not fundamentally addressing the uptime.
