Xanatu
7 years ago
Outlaw discussion: RTB and True Bearing
Alright, more outlaw rogue discussion. I'm still trying to make this work in Mythic progression without the bracers and I'm dying inside because of it. Onto the topic.

True bearing is too damn strong to be included with the rest of the roll the bones buffs. It's game-changing and completely affects how the spec plays both in terms of pace and damage. Rolling true bearing with good secondary buffs is the number one factor in how much damage I'm going to do pull to pull. No other buff provides the immediate satisfaction of knocking your CDs down, or just the huge raw damage increase you get from back to back adrenaline rushes.

It has become too strong for its own good. I understand that all classes have a level of RNG to them; it's fun, I like it. I like having pulls with good rolls sometimes. But true bearing is disproportionately good to the point that it's the only thing I'm even rolling for. Roll the Bones has become Roll True Bearing.

I think you can easily find a non-OP way to bake a weakened TB into the spec; a common suggestion is to replace the oft-maligned blurred time with a passive 1 second true bearing and make a 6th buff that does some other mild DPS thing.

The feedback last time is that increasing TB uptime makes for dangerous positive feedback loops. I think this denies the reality that this ALREADY HAPPENS, I just can't control it. I shrug my shoulders as I do 40-50 mil less from pull to pull for reasons out of my control. No other spec swings like this. Removing TB from RTB makes it so that you can balance around expected AR uptimes, rather than massive swings in CDs.

In short, TB has become too powerful to be a random part of this class. We can't survive without it, and because of the 10% of pulls where you have 70%+ TB uptime, we can't be balanced because of outlier super high DPS pulls. Bake it in, remove it altogether, anything but where we're headed right now.
Sigma
Game Designer
7 years ago
Outlaw discussion: RTB and True Bearing
Overall it would be more ideal if the RTB buffs were closer in value. True Bearing has gradually crept up over the course of the expansion (around the time of Legion launch, I believe Shark Infested Waters was considered best, and they haven't changed much since then). I expect True Bearing climbs in value as the rotation gets faster due to stat increases and other bonuses being added over the course of the expansion, which all feed into the True Bearing positive feedback loop. Simply making it baseline would speed up the spec even further and contribute to the energy flood and other issues that it can have. While the similar effect was passive in Warlords, I'm sure (I haven't dug into this closely) that the Legion spec churns combo points much more rapidly. In any case the Legion version of True Bearing has the added synergy with Marked For Death that heaps even more combo points into the rotation during True Bearing.

Point being, while there's not a specific plan yet for balancing out the different RTB buffs, we agree that it would be better they were more even again. Longer-term, there's something to be said for tweaking the rules/probabilities of RTB in a way that would further reduce the value of rerolling frequently.
Seph
7 years ago
Outlaw discussion: RTB and True Bearing
Two things I think many of us can agree on right now:
  • 1. True Bearing's cooldown reduction per combo point spent mechanic is fun to play with. The mechanic has been on the spec for a long time as a passive with a different name (Restless Blades), and largely drove the pacing and feel of the spec.
  • 2. True Bearing is much stronger than any of the other single Roll the Bones buffs, on average.

That said, we're going to make two changes to Outlaw Rogues in 7.2.5:
  • 1. The True Bearing mechanic is being added to Outlaw as a baseline passive (called Restless Blades), tuned to an appropriate pacing and power level for how many combo points the spec currently generates. Restless Blades, currently in 7.2.5 is tuned at 0.5 sec of cooldown reduction per combo point because realistically, the spec now generates easily 2-3x more combo points compared to a couple expansions ago, and the pacing impact and tuning of Restless Blades should reflect that.
  • 2. True Bearing will remain as one of the 6 Roll the Bones buffs, but will be tuned down from 2.0 to 1.0 sec of cooldown reduction per combo point. We're serious about balancing each of the 6 individual buffs against each other, and True Bearing at 2.0 sec is clearly out of line.

We'll be keeping a close eye on Roll the Bones during 7.2.5 development, and as usual will make further tuning/adjustments as necessary.
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