One more Sap target: why Quick Getaway has Forever players arguing before launch

Rogues get a new Subtlety talent in Blizzard's development notes, posted by Kaivax at 03:20 UTC on 3 November, the day before launch. It's called Quick Getaway, and it lets a Rogue keep one more target Sapped. Two forum threads have been arguing about it since: one on the US forums from 05:30 UTC and one on the EU forums from 15:38 UTC. We read both in full and haven't tested any of this in the game. Our look at the whole set of notes didn't cover this talent.

What the notes say

The line is short: "New Talent: Quick Getaway. Passive. 2-point talent in Row 4. Increases the maximum number of targets you may have Sapped by 1/1 and increases your movement speed by 15/30% for 3 seconds after sapping a target."

Read the numbers one rank at a time. The first point gives one extra Sapped target and 15% movement speed for 3 seconds after you Sap. The second point raises the speed to 30%. The target bonus is written as 1/1, the same at both ranks, so the second point doesn't add another extra target. The bonus stays at one.

The wording means there is a cap on how many targets one Rogue can have Sapped at once, but the notes don't state the cap itself. The players in both threads read the talent as two at a time, and call it double Sap. The talent text doesn't limit the extra target to creatures, so players count other players among the targets. No reason for the talent is given.

Row 4 is the middle of the tree. Our talent planner needs 5 points per row, so Quick Getaway takes 15 points in Subtlety first.

"You'll see the problems"

Wise opened the US thread, titled "Double Sap is Gamebreaking for PvP", with a plain request: "Please remove this talent, or just change it to give increased movement speed after a sap." Then Wise offered some mock fixes: two Polymorphs for Mages, a Freezing Trap Hunters can press twice, and Warlocks able to Fear two players at once. "You'll see the problems with these proposals."

Incognito called it "maybe one of the most game breaking PvP changes to every be implemented in any version of the game", arguing that no hard crowd control lasting over 20 seconds in PvP should work on more than one target at a time. Incognito also pointed at another Subtlety change in the same section: Ghostly Strike now lets your next Ambush or Garrote within 7 seconds skip the Stealth requirement. Goldbug imagined Warsong Gulch with four or more Rogues, able to "sap most of the opposing team immediately".

On the EU side, TwoCenk's worry is the open world. Double Sap, the thread's opening post says, makes "node gathering, calling friends for help, and small-scale PvP utterly pointless", because one Rogue can control two players "with zero counterplay". TwoCenk will roll on a PvE realm if it goes live as it is. Bermuda wants the talent to work only on targets that aren't players.

Control as Subtlety's job

Not everyone in these threads is against it. TanyaTurner replied that control "is the job of sub talent tree": "Sapping and controling the field is the whole part of sub rogue and rogue in general." Rogues "waited all beta and got paid dust", they wrote, telling TwoCenk: "now you scream foul play and havent even seen this in action". On the US forums, Maulgryve asked everyone to "let it play out and try it", and Anerion dismissed the thread as wanting balance changes "in complete ignorance of PvE".

The supporters' comparisons didn't go unanswered. When TanyaTurner said two Mages could do the same, Supremacy disagreed: "2 Mages can sheep 1 person each, but everyone else can react." Supremacy also corrected "deep sub" to "mid talent tree", and TwoCenk argued you can take it alongside Assassination and Combat talents.

What this can't tell you

Every player claim above is a forecast. Nobody in either thread describes having used the talent, and no battleground or open-world result exists yet to settle it. The "zero counterplay" and the Warsong Gulch lockdown are what players expect, not what anyone has seen.

These are small threads, too. When we read them at 16:23 UTC, the US thread had 13 posts, one of them deleted, and 655 views, and the EU thread 22 posts and 94 views, with no Blizzard poster in either. They show what some players are worried about, not how many Rogues will take the talent.

One EU reply says Blizzard won't make adjustments before the raids. The notes are more careful than that: "With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don't plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month." Whether two Saps counts as a serious outlier is Blizzard's call, and the notes don't say.

So, for now, the notes say a Rogue with one point in Quick Getaway can have one more target Sapped than before, and runs a little faster after each Sap. Whether that ruins world PvP or is simply what Subtlety is for, launch will have to show.