#214 - March 30, 2009, 5:02 p.m.
So, there seems to be this perception that we are going to nerf HfB because a few players are trying to use it for PvP (and apparently mostly for 1v1 duels against targets who don't run around much).
I am going to assume this is one of those deals where some of you are reading the blue quotes out of context or not reading the entire thread. Therefore, at the risk of derailing this thread, I will sum up the Hunger for Blood story one more time.
1) We like where Assassination rogues are in PvP. You can have excellent crowd control, and decent burst, survivability and mobility. We think adding more damage on top of this would be too good, which is why we nerfed Mutilate in the first place.
2) However, that same basic build doesn't do enough sustained damage in PvE.
3) Our solution was to make 51 Assassination a large increase in damage for PvE. To confine it to PvE, we made it require a bleed effect, and we stuck it to the bottom of the tree where it is out of reach of the traditional PvP Mutilate / Prep spec. You can have your damage (presumably for raiding) or you can have your utility (presumably for Arenas) but you can't have both.
4) If we were trying to get the Assassination tree enshrined in the Game Design Hall of Fame, would this be our approach? No. Ideally, talents are not so skewed towards PvE or PvP. Ideally a single talent point wouldn't account for so much dps. Ideally there might be a strong PvP spec that uses the 51 point talent. Can we design an Assassination tree that does that? Yes, but it would involve moving around a lot of other talents. Since we think rogues are where we want them in PvP and where we want them in PvE, we think the risk of hacking apart the talent trees for 3.1 in order to create a single Assassination build that is good in PvE and PvP isn't worth the reward. It might be something we look at in the future though.
5) This is where I note that we had plenty of posts that said we could inflate the 51 point talent to a ludicrous level without the bleed requirement and no PvP rogue would EVER, EVER take it. Even then, we maintained there is a number at which we would see rogues start to abandon their utility for more damage. (I don't honestly know if that is happening now though.)
6) Some rogues are, understandably, not happy with this design. They want their PvE damage to not be so dependent on that one talent. They want HfB to be good in PvP. We understand why they feel that way, even if it isn't in the cards for 3.1. I suspect, as one player above posted, some are trying to use HfB in PvP out of spite. At this stage we don't think we'll see most Arena rogues go 51 Assassination. But you know what? If they want to give it a shot, go for it. We don't think it will be overpowered given what they have to sacrifice.
7) Long-term, we'll have to see how it goes in the Arena this season. As I have offered before, rogues were originally designed to be the guys who surprise an enemy and beat them down before anyone knows what happens. That is certainly iconic for the rogue class in RPGs and other media. But it also just isn't much fun for the victim. We have been moving away the stealth -> stunlock -> 100% to 0% in a few GCDs phenomenon (which to be fair, is pretty wildly exaggerated in the first place). We have chilled out the CC and the burst. At this point we don't think we can chill it out much more without giving rogues more staying power to just sit in combat and melee (which we don't think they have a ton of right now). We can imagine a PvP rogue that stuns less and stands and fights more, but again that's a big change, and it's not in the cards for 3.1. If you think that kind of direction is interesting or terrible, we would love to get your feedback (though probably not in this specific thread).
