Assassination Rogue Review of Fatebound Hero Talents - Flipping the Hand of Fate

The War Within Geposted 16.05.2024 um 07:01 von Whispyr

Hero Talents are an extension of the Talent system designed to explore class fantasy with a third talent tree, separate from your class and specialization. With the release of Alpha, Blizzard has previewed most Hero Talents Trees coming in the next expansion, The War Within.
The War Within Hero Talents Overview

Our Guide Writers have provided initial first impressions on the Hero Talent Trees revealed so far. Check out all of our released Hero Talent reviews in our new Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

Fatebound Assassination Rogue Review Flipping the Hand of Fate Hand of FateAlpha Build 54675

gives a simple buff that increases all damage. This includes bleeds that are already applied.

is a simple cosmic damage proc to your target. While this can proc from , it will still only hit your current target. The tails proc also has a massive 100 yard range apparently, but currently does not pull far away mobs or pull through walls, so there is no cause for panic regarding that.

NatureTier Set
Stacking the Deck in your favor

is the first talent augmenting our flips. It simply gives an increased chance to match the last flip when flipping with , weighting the coin from 50/50 to 66.6/33.3. Since is our main finisher, this will be easy to take advantage of through normal gameplay.

adds some power to our main cooldowns by causing the next flip to land on its edge, counting as both and . This means that you are guaranteed to maintain whatever chain you have going, since the flip will count for both.

augments to affect the next two casts, but it now only applies to . Additionally this also guarantees that it matches the same face as the last flip. This can allow you to give 2 guaranteed flips during cooldowns or help extend a long chain.

is a very straight forward passive increasing poison application chance and giving a base +5% chance to match the same face as the last flip. This would cause the weighting to go to 55/45 in favor of the last flip. When is active, this would then go up to a 71% chance to maintain your streak!

is the last flip-augmenting passive, giving flips when you break . It also does not guarantee the same as previous flips like , the flips only guarantee to match each other, so this can break your chain.

Going All-in

is a very simple passive effect that just makes the damage proc stronger

is the capstone of the tree, but is very simple and passive. When you get 7 flips in a row, you gain a large amount of stats until combat ends. This does not stack, and can be chained from pack to pack in mythic+ as well. To note is that the 1% increase is additional to your stats. As an example if you have 30% crit, you would go to 31%. There's also a bit of defensive power in this node, since it also includes a buff to stamina, avoidance, and leech.

is a nice buff to , but is a little odd. The additional damage on in single target is also very welcomed, and we'll be sure to see more -cleaving in 11.0, but that brings up a weird quirk. In cleave, 's damage is tied heavily into . This additional damage from should logically then also work with . But whenever you're in a situation where provides its benefit, is hitting "additional nearby enemies", and not the target with . What this ends up creating is a situation where the damage scaling per target is very awkward. To showcase this, here's the math of how the talent scales into 5 target aoe, versus how it would scale differently if it only duplicated onto the main target.

Bonus Damage Comparison per target

Target Count	Current Talent	Only Duplicating Single Target
1 Target	15%	15%
2 Target	15%	21.75%
3 Target	30%	28.5%
4 Target	30%	35.25%
5 Target	30%	42%

The oddities here are that as it stands currently, the 15% bonus on in single target would then switch to 15% to only the second target in two target situations. Once you add a third enemy, the effect caps out at 30%, or 15% for any two of the non-primary targets.

If it were to only hit a single target, it would do the same 15% against one enemy, but would replicate 45% of the damage onto nearby enemies. This would add 6.75% worth of damage, per target. As you can see from the table above, the values are still fairly close together. Two target gets a buff, three target gets a nerf, but four and five target are stronger again. The main thing here is that it's more simple. The proc already works with . and work with . The way scales damage is already something players are familiar with, even if they haven't played Assassination.Outlaw's has a similar functionality (albeit as a buff, not a debuff). I'd really like to see working more like every other effect we're already familiar with, instead of dancing around how much damage it's doing to what enemy at any given time.

is a cool passive that (as of now) doubles 's bonus, and demands some discussion. This has some deep implications to our rotation and talent choices. There are two ways to read the talent currently. The first is that it should be " and grant 1 additional combo point on critical strike", would would be +1 combo points. The way it's currently implemented, it is applying to each HIT of the ability, the same as does, which is equal to stating "grant an additional TWO combo points per critical strike". This is one of the concerns I want to address later.

/ / / . These are all fairly niche passive effects for some utility points. on paper seems fairly weak compared to considering we already have , but could find a use in heavy ticking damage encounters or rot damage in pvp. Similarly, requires a situation where you know you're going to encounter powerful slows. Even then it has a flip-requirement to even proc. on the other hand would only be abusable in situations where you need to use very often. The two charges we have right now are already quite strong. In general, the utility points here demand VERY specific use cases in order to provide tangible benefits.

The House Always Wins bombarded

Stacking up flips and on a dummy before an encounter, getting summoned into the fight arena, using a combination of , , and to guarantee a chain.

Using before a fight and waiting out the timer to double-cast and get 4 flips instead of 2, requiring a 30+ second pull timer.

Avoiding flipping when reaching a high stack chain. This is especially relevant for high stack chains of the buff going into cooldowns and potentially waiting out the buff for that window before continuing to flip. This has recently been addressed in Alpha Build 54675, where now also flips a coin in order to avoid cases where casting to avoid flipping can be abused.

There's even a 5% spell variance baseline in the game that was insanely polarizing when it was added back in

Visually, this coin flip is the only thing we have right now. In this gif, I proc twice. The damage proc doesn't have any fancy cosmic animation attached to it. I don't think this is providing anything impressive to the feeling of "Sealing the fate of your enemies". I think even just an arcane bolt for and some contrasting effect would make the flips stand out much more and provide a more tangible feel to the flip.

Rotationally, most of the tangible "feel" you get from the hero talent tree is contained purely within 's extra combo point. Everything else is just boiled down to your damage meter.

On the front of "big damage = fun", I think we're also falling flat. While the proc is good damage and interacts with our kit, the is a generic % increase. Additionally, there isn't much in the way of "cool" damage happening to break up the proc. If you hit a long chain of , the most you get out of it is the same proc you've gotten so far, but with a 20% increase. attempts to give a cool effect, but again this buff ends up being nebulous and most players will find it challenging to get excited over 1% all stat, even if it's powerful on paper.

in the alpha development notes post

The Fatebound eagerly act as the Hand of Fate, sowing chaos into well-laid plans. Guided by the whims of a flipped Fatebound Coin, they deliver the ending their enemies are destined for; the ending they deserve.