Outlaw Rogue GuideMidnight Overview
Outlaw Rogue in Midnight So Far
With Outlaw Rogue being a divisive spec with many fans and detractors due to spells such as Roll the Bones, and the current version being centralized around Vanish Midnight offers a perfect opportunity to redefine the spec in a major way. With the removal of Crackshot, the rework to Roll the Bones, and finally fixing many of the glaring flaws of our hero talents, the class on Alpha looks promising.
Complexity vs Fun
Outlaw Rogue has been a spec with a steep learning curve and complex minor optimizations for years, especially since the rework in late Dragonflight. While to many, this offers a super unique gameplay style that no other spec offers, it's alienating to many as well. Additionally, it can feel exhausting to play a spec that's so demanding, while only being decent on the damage meters when compared to simpler specs.
The two big things making Outlaw Rogue simpler in Midnight are the removal of Underhanded Upper Hand, and Crackshot. This removes the 99%+ Adrenaline Rush uptime from the spec and Vanish from the rotation. Without these important damage windows and feedback loop effects baked into the spec, it will be much easier to ease yourself into playing the spec without being thrown right into the deep end.
The other big change is the rework of Roll the Bones. No longer is it a spell that grants a combination of 6 random buffs; it now works in a "levels" system. Whenever you press Roll the Bones you roll a random "level" and each level gives you a bonus, and all the effects of the previous level. Level 1 provides you with increased Opportunity chance, level 2 gives you additional combo points from Sinister Strike, level 3 gives you increased effect of Restless Blades, while level 4 gives you increased crit chance. This feels like the perfect rework. It makes it easier to understand, way more consistent numerically and in gameplay feel, and still keeps the "highroll potential" intact for people who love a spec with some variance.
What's New?
Many new talents for Outlaw Rogue are relatively simple, yet effective. Some of the standout ones are Flickering Steel, Menacing Rush, Zero In, Dragon-Bone Dice, and Fast Action. These talents don't offer much in terms of gameplay-altering choices, but they enhance the base experience of the spec in enjoyable ways.
One talent that isn't exactly new, but has gotten an enormous facelift is Blade Rush. With energy becoming a much larger issue with the spec that needs to be solved, Blade Rush comes in clutch, offering a free energy cost skill that generates energy and does great damage all for one talent point! Killing Spree's channel time might still be a bit too long for many, but without focusing on Vanish damage windows, it feels much less invasive to the rotation overall.
Ace Up Your Sleeve also got an update to where, in addition to the combo point refund effect, it'll now also fully refund the cooldown of Between the Eyes, which keeps some of the fun of Crackshot in the spec.
The last major new talent is Deadly Pursuit, which gives us some added CDR whenever we are forced into downtime due to mechanics, or at the end of a pack in a dungeon. I think this is a unique solution; however, I hope it never directly influences the rotation, where you hold finishers under certain conditions to get that CDR mid-combat.
Apex Talents
The big thing everybody gets with this expansion is Apex Talents. The first two effects we get from our Apex are Gravedigger and Gravedigger, which are more or less just passive damage increases. The one that shakes up the rotation is Gravedigger. How it works is you have a high chance when you cast Dispatch to load a bullet, and after loading six bullets, your next Between the Eyes is free and has no cooldown. The added energy, CDR, and damage this provides cannot be understated. It feels great to play with, feels powerful, what's not to love?
Hero Talents
Another cool change is fixing up Fatebound. This hero talent used to have many weird quirks throughout The War Within, and much of that is finally being cleaned up. Fate Intertwined no longer has this awkward reverse funnel effect, where you lose single-target damage when more mobs were present, and Lucky Coin no longer requires matching faces to trigger its effect; it now just triggers every seven flips, provides agility, and enhances the damage of your coins for 15 seconds.
Pain Points
Despite loving the overall direction of the spec, nothing is ever perfect. One of the issues I want to highlight is energy. Overall, on Alpha, it feels like we need slightly more energy regeneration from something. Giving even more energy regen to Blade Rush would be great, as it directly rewards playing the spec well with more energy.
Another issue is that the gating for the first set of talents totally blocks out the utility options, as they directly compete with all damage talents. Expert Duelist and Combat Potency should just be moved baseline, and the utility nodes should be put in their place.
One thing that feels exceptionally flaccid with the specs overhaul is the lack of "Wow factor" capstones. Killing Spree is a talent that only Trickster will talent into. Keep It Rolling doesn't feel impactful enough with the rework to Roll the Bones. I feel like, in addition to extending your active buff, it should +1 the level just to give it some added oomph. Fast Action as a talent is honestly quite strong, but again, feels like it's missing something to make it feel like a real capstone talent.
The other two capstones of Hidden Opportunity and Take 'em by Surprise feel very out of place with Blizzard stating they want the spec to "move away from Vanish being a DPS cooldown. Hidden Opportunity could be improved by reducing the energy cost of Ambush to fix the aforementioned energy issues the spec has on Alpha, while Take 'em by Surprise I feel needs to be scrapped entirely. An unfortunate side effect of removing Crackshot is that the spec struggles even more when assigning damage to a high-priority target swap or set of add spawns in a dungeon. Something that could help in a big way could be a second charge of Adrenaline Rush.
A Promising Future
Overall, the changes the spec has gotten are promising. While it has a lot of rough edges regarding talents and energy economy, the return to form and the move away from Vanish feeling like a budget Shadow Dance have me very optimistic for the rest of Alpha. We still have a tier set and three new passives for hero talents that could help iron out some of these issues soon.
