So I've been thinking about Tricks of The Trade in raid situations, regarding which classes and specs benefit the most from Tricks in the sense that they have some damage over time ability that's able to be snapshotted and constantly refreshed throughout the entirety/majority of a boss fight, making full use of the 15% damage bonus from Tricks.
I started thinking about this during a raid with some scuffed Affliction Warlocks who were doing less DPS than the Shadow Priest and some other people. I was like, hm, the raid leader keeps saying to Tricks the Affliction Warlocks (after the tank on pull of course). I realized I've literally never heard a raid leader call out Tricks on any other targets, only Affliction Warlocks.
Think about it - have you ever heard anyone say "Tricks Shadow Priest", or "Okay Rogues after you Tricks Warlocks, Tricks the MM Hunters", etc? I doubt it.
Now I know what you're thinking, obviously raid leaders are too busy calling out more important things like boss mechanics, Divine Sacs, battle resses, and so on. Of course I wouldn't expect raid leaders to be constantly coordinating Rogues to Tricks specific targets, just like how they shouldn't have to shout at people (looking at you Paladins) to re-buff players who have been battle ressed.
Think about how many times you've heard your raid leader call out 'rebuff X class' etc. It should be automatic, as soon as it happens, the responsible players should be re-buffing as soon as possible.
Yet, still, I very often hear the typical "Tricks Warlocks" from raid leaders as if it's a core gameplay mechanic for Rogues to always Tricks Warlocks, and Warlocks only.
From what I've gathered, these are the specs with abilities that gain full benefit from Tricks, again in the sense that they have something that's able to be refreshed for the entirety or majority of the fight;
Affliction Lock - Corruption with Shadow Bolt/Drain Life.
Shadow Priest - Shadow Word: Pain with Mind Flay
Marksmanship Hunter - Serpent Sting with Chimera Shot.
Elemental Shaman (Tier 10 only) - Flame Shock with Lava Burst(?).
I'm not sure if there are any others, please let me know if there are.
While I was writing all of this down to some players that I raid with to get their opinions, my mind tripped over the part about raid leaders having to call out re-buffs on battle ressed targets. I was reminded of my distaste for the AddOn "Pally Power", and how many Paladins rely on it as more than just an extra tool to assist with buffing, and more as a replacement for their brain because they can't figure out for themselves which buffs are the most efficient for any given raid composition. I was thinking... What if there was an AddOn like Pally Power, but for Rogues, that would help them manage Tricks of the Trade on targets like the classes/specs listed above?
So I got the idea for 'Rogue Power' (could use a better name lol) - Imagine if there was an AddOn that would have a list of targets in the raid that will be receiving Tricks of The Trade, and once they have been Tricksed by any Rogue, it would check if those targets' DoTs are being kept up... And if someone lets their DoT which has been buffed by Tricks fall off, or if there is a target swap in the fight, the AddOn would notify you that they need a new Tricks of the Trade. I'm thinking that it could include settings that would display the name of the Rogue who is assigned to Tricks a certain target under that target's name & class icon, which would light up or otherwise clarify that this Rogue (or another) had used their Tricks, and show the snapshotted ability in question was in motion, with that DoT timer next to it.
I have no idea if an AddOn like this or one similar to this exists, but I imagine it would be extremely useful. I'm not a Rogue player, but from what I've gathered, not many Rogues are aware of what or who to Tricks and when, besides the obvious first Tricks going to the tank to stabilize aggro. I would assume that some Rogues know to Tricks Affliction Warlocks, but after that, then what? I suppose they either Tricks each other like how Mages Focus Magic each other for personal DPS gains (regardless of other players' performance) or don't Tricks at all to save energy pre tier-10.
I would love to hear more opinions on this, and if anyone who reads this is an AddOn developer or knows anyone who is, hopefully I could perhaps with my rough ideas, have inspired them to create an AddOn like 'Rogue Power'. Also, feel free to call me out if you think my logic is flawed. I didn't think about this more than a little brainstorming.
Cheers!
Smegmatotemx, Frostmourne (season 2), Horde side.
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Member
Maximizing Tricks of The Trade value
Edited: November 15, 2021 Reason: Incorrect info about DK snapshot
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Member
u cant compare corruption with serpent sting or sw:p or flame shock. their scaing is so much worse. for example serpent sting is around 3% of hunter's total dmg on single target fight. why even bother.
Also corruption refreshes from haunt/UA/Drain soul also, not only from sb/dl. so after ur affli snapshots 4pt10 set bonus with tot there is no point to tot anyone else but another rogue.
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Member
None, after first tot on tank, for the rest of the fight tot your fellow rogue
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Loremaster
No i haven't,and for a good reason. Usually you want to keep ToT on CD,even moreso with 2pc T10. Waiting around with it till the other set bonuses proc is a waste of time - and i've had quite a few instances on the mentioned classes with waiting forever for a set proc. The only instance i for example delay ToT is if i'm almost at full energy after a bunch of lucky procs,but that rarely happens,and i usually end up ToT-ing anyways if it's going to another rogue.
On a side note,i've heard people asking for ToT-ing a fury warrior,but unless some bug is going around with ToT and DW/Enrage stacking,that's kinda pointless.
Tl;dr: ToT the tanks if they have aggro issues/you don't trust them/tactics require it or ToT the other rogue when you can freely trade ToTs for extra damage.
That's my 2 cents anyways.
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Member
Hehe, I completely forgot that the majority of players here are not playing progressive, which is where all of this brainstorming was based in. =)
Of course I don't mean combining the T10 Hunter or Warlock proc with the Tricks, I was speaking in general terms, regardless of other effects that might factor in. I was thinking entirely of any situation where the Locks' Corruptions have been Tricksed, the boss is still very, very healthy and there is a long time until execute phase (in which you would of course spam Tricks on Affli Locks or other strong execute damage specs). What do you think of a situation like that?
To be extra clear - the Rogues in question are not waiting to Tricks after the cooldown has expired, they are Tricksing on cooldown, and I'm wondering whether it would be worth to Tricks an MM Hunter that knows to reapply their Serpent Sting when they eventually get a Tricks, having no other buffs to snapshot Serpent Sting with - ONLY Tricks.
Care to hand me two more pennies? :D
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Member
its not worth wasting tots on hunter, because serpent sting dmg even snapshoted is garbage. ss for hunter is just there to boos CS dmg and steady shot via glyph.
and im somewhat sure that during that 10 sec window with tot buff rogue will deal more dmg than hunter unless its done on execute phase
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Member
the only class you wanna tot is affli, other than that trade with other rogue on pulls with salvs, biggest burst and value
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Member
Are you forgetting about chimera shot or do you mean to say that the serpent sting - chimera damage is garbage as well?
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Member
Chimera damage is normalized to unbuffed sting so snapshotting it doesn't increase your Chimera damage.
And DKs can also snapshot diseases with DIMs only when using Glyph of Disease.
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Member
From what I understand, Blood Plague and Frost Fever carry the current stats/damage bonuses of the DK only to the targets that receive diseases spread with Pestilence, i.e the diseases on your main target refreshed with glyphed Pestilence aren't going to maintain the stats from when they were first applied. Is that not the case? (To be clear, what I mean is this - Tricksed DK applies diseases that carry the %dmg bonus, but when the diseases are refreshed on the target by Pestilence, they check for current bonuses, and therefore lose the %dmg bonus they had from the earlier Tricks)
I'll have to test the Chimera damage being normalized, never heard that before but I also haven't checked around. Thanks for the reply!
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Forum Veteran
Diseases wont retain snapshot. New snapshot every time you refresh.
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Loremaster
Personally,i still wouldn't do that,even if it yields some extra damage done. Why? Well,the reason is simple,neither the rangeds nor the rogues would want to move much,and ToT has a very limited range,20 yards. And often you simply just cannot stack up in one place(or in close proximity of each other) just to get in range for it - and as always,moving is a dps loss. And it's not really viable on pull with the 30k+ burst proper rogues can pull(ICC+ content). It's simply more of a headache than what it's worth(and it's not like any used pve spec really needs the damage boost either - ToT-ing the other rogue is also more of a convenience besides the damage boost because of the short range ToT has. Example - you don't want to cause parry-haste on Halion/Sindragosa,so going to the upper body just to get in range for the tank can be really dangerous(especially on hc).
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