Before I start I want to make it clear that the play style of our class was much different in the past and has continued to change as the game has evolved. Comparing even burning crusade arena to current arena where I think strategy and control has give way to a much faster paced, split second play style with a growing list of opposition abilities to worry about. The rogue has evolved and the rogue player has evolved. What shocked me, looking back, is how little the class itself has changed in the past years.
Our abilities and PvP damage cycles have been similar for a very long time. The standard cheap shot — > combo ability(ies) –> kidney shot –> combo ability(ies) –> damage finisher has been the foundation of the class for a very long time. The last class shaping abilities that we received were mutilate (which was essentially played the same way as backstab, but let’s forget about that), cloak of shadows, and shadowstep. All of these abilities came before Burning Crusade was even released. You could argue for shiv here as well, but I’ll get to that later.
WOTLK gave us some very lame abilities and class changes. It’s kind of a sad situation when none of our three 51 point talents are used for any high end PvP
other than shadow dance, which is minuscule in comparison to mutilate representation in end game PvP (actually, none of the top 100 rogues in terms of arena rating are anything other than mutilate atm) . Hunger for Blood is irrelevant as far as PvP is concerned. Killing spree is, for lack of a better term, retarded. I really dislike having a 51 point talent that does lots of random damage and ports you without control, for PvP it’s underwhelming at best. Shadow dance, in it’s first iteration as a set of vanishes was cool although it needed some adjusting. This was changed to it’s present form which is, in my opinion, a lot more boring than people realize. Essentially, all dance does is let you use those same stealth moves you’ve had for 4 years out of stealth for a few seconds. It’s somewhat interesting but still lacking in terms of creativity as a 51 point talent in what should be one of our best pvp trees.
Shiv was another one of our new abilities, but deadly brew and the present burst situation has marginalized it greatly. Fan of Knives is the biggest joke of all in PvP; it’s paradoxical to me that the most common PvP use for our big new WOTLK ability is to aoe out other rogues. Am I the only one who sees a problem with that?
In Classic WoW, one of the most popular rogue specs was cold blood / prep daggers. To be honest (although play style has of course changed, there are more abilities and burst) the removal of shiv really makes present day prep mutilate feel a lot like cold blood prep. WOTLK gave us some interesting talent choice opportunities but it’s pretty sad when the basics of PvP can be summarized in this flow chart someone linked me which I found pretty amusing. Of course this is an exaggeration, and what differentiates rogues is reaction time and decision making regarding cooldowns and strategy, but is this really that far off?
I want to say first that I don’t think rogues are out of balance. I do not want rogues to be buffed. Actually I think they are right were they should be in terms of balance, and I’ll cite SK once again here which has us right in the middle of high end PvP representation. That doesn’t change what I said above and that doesn’t make the class ideal. I know this all may look like complaining but here’s what the changes I believe would move rogues in a better, fresher, and more interesting direction.
Survivability
The biggest problem limiting rogues now is survivability, and more specifically survivability while stunned. Stuns remove what little defense we have against physical damage, our innate avoidance and evasion. If you do not get a generous helping of heals in a stun that lasts as short as 4 seconds and your opposition isn’t completely naked, you will either be close to death or dead. Rogues need a way, without a healer, to survive a stun. I don’t think it’s fair that I can’t survive one kidney shot but a deathknight can survive 3. I can be at 100 percent health in full resilience gear with every one of my cooldowns and if I don’t have a trinket and I enter a stunlock, I’m boned if I don’t get heals.
The first thing people will say is “just play with a healer and you’ll be fine”. Even though I play a lot of arena, I have to say that most of my time playing this game is without a dedicated healer, and I think that goes for the vast majority of rogues. I understand that we may have to be toned down a bit in others ways for this, and I’m well aware of Blizzard’s vision of rogues as a high damage, low survivability class. That sounds great but it really sucks the fun out of the game when I can’t even survive a 2 second gnaw. Stuns eat us, give us a way to mitigate stun damage better than deadened nerves so that we don’t have to cycle through our entire cooldowns and prep cooldowns withing seconds if we don’t have a healer. We don’t want to spam these cooldowns but in a lot of situations we have no choice.
One thing I can suggest here is having an ability that we can use reactively, while stunned, that reduced damage taken for the next, say 4 seconds, by x amount. This value would probably need to be near 40 percent or greater. I see this as a five minute cooldown. All it would be, ultimately, is something we can do on our own to survive a single stun.
Sacrifice some Damage for this Survivability and some Flavour in our 51 pointers
As it stands rogues have strong burst (somewhat toned down via the overkill nerf). Our utility comes primarily through wound poison, blind, sap and stuns. While these are decent I would be happy to sacrifice some of our damage in return for slightly more steady damage (think relative damage of something between the pvp rogue of BC and the pvp rogue of WOTLK), the ability to survive stuns (see above), and some more interesting 51 point talents. Look at assassination for example. Our 21 point talent gives energy. Our 51 point talent gives raw damage. These are extremely boring talents, even if they are balanced. It’s as though warlocks got increased shadow damage instead of haunt or increased spell crit instead of demon form. I’m not suggesting a gimmick, and I know rogues are intended to be a purely melee class. I am suggesting a more interesting set of 51 point talents.
Also regarding utility, deadly brew is almost essential for pvp now. This talent should be more accessible so that other trees and 51 point builds can become more PvP viable. Simply giving deadly brew to a dance rogue will make them far more viable, and if in return you need to nerf damage some to compensate then that’s fine.
An Ability as Unreliable as Vanish Should not have such an Enormous Impact on the Outcome of a Fight
As it stands, and this is no exaggeration, whether a rogue gets knocked out of stealth or vanish is the most significant aspect of rogue pvp resulting in victory or defeat. That would be fine if all that was required for vanish to work was for it to be used appropriately. I think it’s really cool that other classes can even react to vanish to cancel it out purposefully, that’s more than fair. Getting range nova’d out of a vanish is just as important as a mage landing a counterspell on a healer.
Blizzard needs to find a way for incidental damage (ie. autoattacks, random aoe, instant abilities) to not negate vanish. Vanish should return you to stealth if it occurs at the same time as an instant ability. This is long, LONG over due, and WOTLK’s flurry if new instant abilities makes vanish work far less. It is not fair, at all, that a random auto attack taking a rogue out of vanish should be the determinant factor in who wins a fight. If a mage randomly fireblast’s at the exact same time as vanish and that costs a rogue a game, there is a problem.
To quickly summarize this article and what I’m trying to say:
- Rogues are basically the same class they were 3 years ago
– Rogues are balanced but far from ideal
– Our 51 point talents are unimaginative and weak, and that’s a big reason none of them are being used for high end PvP
– Our survivability without a healer and particularly when stunned is abismal and completely out of our control, and this needs to change, even if it means sacrificing other qualities
– Whether vanish works or not is integral to the outcome of our PvP encounters, but too much random and incidental damage can cause it to fail. It needs to be adjusted.
There are a lot of other minor adjustments I’d love to see to a lot of our talents and abilities, but I think these are the most important issues we have.
Related posts:
Bring back Hemo thats all i gotta say, shs build was the business and i personally miss cheat death and shadow step along with the whole play style of Hemo. good guide but i just want Hemo buffed again, shiv is fine if they bring us Hemo back simply because shiv adds more skill to the class.
Comment by Magoth — May 28, 2009 @ 7:58 pm
deadly brew is like giving a warrior’s attacks 50 percent chance to apply hamstring, and also allows us to apply wound twice as much. It is the biggest buff of the expansion. If we have to shiv again then a we’d need some buffs or adjustments to poisons and dispels (return of 5 stack wound for dispel protection, something else) idk. I agree shiv took more skill though.
Comment by Akrios — May 28, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
You Read my Mind regarding survivability in stuns:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17367769998&sid=1
Comment by Nvasive — May 28, 2009 @ 8:10 pm
hahahahaha i love the diagram!!!!!!!!!
Comment by jorik — May 28, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
why not a talent wich allow the use of evasion and cos while stunned ?
Comment by Guts — May 28, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
posting this on damage dealing forums, maybe we’ll get some more notice?
Comment by Serapi — May 28, 2009 @ 8:49 pm
Gurubashi will forever miss you, Akrios.
Huehuehuehue.
Comment by Aoelius — May 28, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17367761524&postId=173660699295&sid=1#2
Comment by Serapi — May 28, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
In honestly, i like the idea of making a trainable shadowstep, but remove all the buffs you get from the talented shadowstep, such as the speed/dmg buffs. Just something to get us away from melee, maybe make it a 10 or 15 yd range.
Comment by Barkel — May 28, 2009 @ 9:04 pm
Akrios i love how the class is right now. The only change i would be happy with is a fixed vanish (lol ya rite) and a better 51 talent tree. The fact that we die within a stun is what forces us to be creative with the way we play. I think we would be completely fine if ret paladins dmg was toned down a bit because thats were i get the most problems from.
Im still your biggest fan though!!!!
Comment by Hidden — May 28, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
wow, this sums up rogues completely. someone NEEDS to post this in the damage dealing forums at the official site to get attention. (i can’t, i’m banned)
Comment by deeds — May 28, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
its not fine to die within a stun r u dumb? taking 10k within 3secs is fine to i guess?
Gr8 post shadow dance is boring, HFB useless Killing spree lol?
Comment by jedz — May 28, 2009 @ 10:33 pm
the only class i like are rogues…. if i could have a chance to talk to blizz the only thing i would say is that rogues sucks!! in general…. wth 5 years passed and what is new in a rogue -_-’…. come on blizz you most control those pally a bit.. omg….
Comment by Dominicano coño ;] — May 28, 2009 @ 10:37 pm
As always, right on spot Akrios. I completely agree with what you’re saying, I have been saying similar things for quite a while now. The return to prep/cb is a HUGE step backwards from the Shadowstep or even the HARP days in my opinion.
BTW: what happened to nition?
Comment by Zoëphobia — May 29, 2009 @ 1:48 am
why would someone blow evasion while stunned?
Comment by lolcat — May 29, 2009 @ 1:54 am
WTB a ShS hemmo build with SF
Comment by Lulzmachine — May 29, 2009 @ 2:17 am
i totaly agree with your post, though i have no hope in Blizzard of doing any change or balance…
Comment by Ataroth — May 29, 2009 @ 2:50 am
What about posting this into the damn Blizzard Rogue forums ?
Comment by TheTruth — May 29, 2009 @ 2:52 am
wtb sap on tree form,that would solve lots of problems ^^
Comment by Dryx — May 29, 2009 @ 3:02 am
problem with shiv, imo, is that it does no damage what so ever to help out your initial stun burst or in general damage.
Comment by ryan — May 29, 2009 @ 3:21 am
Nice diagram.
Comment by Echonia — May 29, 2009 @ 3:24 am
Hey, there is bug in your nice diagram. If my target has > than40% HP and it is not a pally or mage, bubble and ice block are superfluous icons
Comment by Cavaly — May 29, 2009 @ 3:40 am
Yeah I noticed Nition was missing too. I can’t even find him in Armory???
Comment by Jaggers — May 29, 2009 @ 4:23 am
you hit the nail on the head there m8. i cant agree more.
Comment by Neimad — May 29, 2009 @ 4:28 am
I think what you said about deadly brew is spot on. Making it more accessable for the other tree’s would be perfect Perhaps keeping the deadly brew of assas as it is, but bringing in a slightly weaker version in the form of a glyph? Then give me back my old shadowstep, and look what’s viable all of a sudden. I understand why the overkill nerf was needed, but I don’t really think it’s entirely justified, when we see very little other class toning down. I also think a way we could fix the vanish problem is by making it grant 1.5-2 second immunity from everything but a set list of aoes, ie. nova, freeze etc. Things that might not necessarily be just luckers.
Comment by Rokx — May 29, 2009 @ 4:42 am
Might be fun messing around with (if only to relieve the boredom of insta-gib muti/prep pvp) something like
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhtboeMoiMsZZe0rbIhddVz
only with the new overkill talent. With the points from Deadened Nerves available to switch into D/W or Sinister Calling, and the three in Setup available to go to MOS to make it less anti-melee and more bursty.
But it’s muti or go home I guess.
Comment by Frube — May 29, 2009 @ 5:13 am
in my opinion there are 2 other problem in pvp at the moment:
-some clases need resilience and they must farm honor, but classes like pala ret dk or warrior need only good pve gear,,, and whit this OP (bugged) classes the resilience is useless. now is it the time to change resillience?
- as u say mutilate is the only way, but for it a rogue need daggers and if he’s not in a pve guild he can’t find a good weapon, and most of daggers are in the final part of raid and they’re not so common… a good idea is re-use weapon whit honor, like tbc, like 150 dps not the best dps but usefull…
Comment by Cortx — May 29, 2009 @ 5:19 am
Eh.. There’s lots of daggers in game that easy to get.. i got to 1850 with the titansteele.. and the one front the argent tournament.
Comment by Jaggers — May 29, 2009 @ 5:23 am
Fleshshaper and Knife of Incision aren’t a bad set of daggers, and they are both easy to get.
Comment by Rokx — May 29, 2009 @ 5:33 am
Also, about the vanish thing, wtf is up with pets not losing aggro on us, drives me nuts when a hunter sends his pet across the map at me, and i leave combat/vanish and hes still chasin me down.
and props whoever made that rogue chart its legit, signed =)
Comment by SsapS — May 29, 2009 @ 7:44 am
I say blizz makes Shadowstep Mutilate. Or make Mut a standard ability. Nerf damage on it or something, but seeing as it’s pretty much the only ability that can deal enough damage to be useful, it’s pretty much standard for most rogues.
ShS Mut ftw
Survivability and crazy damage.
Comment by Galeren — May 29, 2009 @ 7:50 am
Galeren wrote: I say blizz makes Shadowstep Mutilate. Or make Mut a standard ability. Nerf damage on it or something, but seeing as it’s pretty much the only ability that can deal enough damage to be useful, it’s pretty much standard for most rogues.
ShS Mut ftw
Survivability and crazy damage.
And now for my part: I agree completely. After getting shadowstep, it has been pretty much essential for rogues to be truly viable in PvP. However, since the introduction of 3.0, the demand for burst has gotten increasingly higher, and thus we also truly need mutilate. But since they nerfed shadowstep (and mutilate, too, in 3.0.8 – I think?), they could just give us either that or mutilate as a trainable skill. They did it with mages and ice block, which at that time (as well as now) was a 100% needed ability for PvP.
Comment by Zareph — May 29, 2009 @ 8:16 am
When I read about the overkill change I started branching out. I have found that deep combat can give excellent survivability during stuns. The drawback, that is unfortunately very apparent, is the lack of burst. 3/43/25 It seems strange but if you can get by the low burst then it seems like a pretty good spec. Kind of reminds me of the old HARP days.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhZMxVbgfxo0ur0RZe0rbhhdb
Comment by Enflight — May 29, 2009 @ 9:52 am
Or when you sap a warlock and his succubus pulls you out of stealth? So awesome.
I agree on survivability. Why are clothies more sturdy than we are?
Comment by Phace - Fenris — May 29, 2009 @ 10:10 am
I think Shadowstep should be a trained skill. And it should break stun. That would fix a lot of problems imo. Mages had evocation and instant arcane explosion taken from talents and made trainable.
Pallies get nothing but buffed, and it seems half my server is Pallies… hmmmmm.
Comment by Phace - Fenris — May 29, 2009 @ 10:12 am
Completely agree with you akrios.. I really want the ShS back, I like Shadow Dance though, but I don’t like the fact that we suck when we’re not in the dance.. That made me have to Spec Hemo also and make a shitload of weapon swap macros.
WTB trainable ShS or Muti or bring us back the old ShS.
Comment by Jiona — May 29, 2009 @ 10:37 am
Trainable SHS/mutilate would solve nothing, we would get more burst, but don’t we have it enough already? And we would still die at the same rate as we die now.
Comment by Anaksha — May 29, 2009 @ 11:02 am
Well, I kinda don’t like to use CS->KS(especialy BG’s/1v1), simply because then i have the KS to interrupt etc. casting…
So instead to use CS on that Hunter I usually open with a Garrote and simply just remove his weapons(doesnt remember name lol) and Rapture, so I can burst him down during a KS instead of being RNG’d down my self.
Buuuut ofc i can’t gauge/blind him for some time(sometime???)
Just my 50cents( DONT FLAME ME PL0X:D)
Comment by Shatan — May 29, 2009 @ 11:52 am
lol im a mage
DONT GARROTE ME BRO.
Comment by Kaymordius — May 29, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
killing spree isnt bad i think the words u used there were way TO much
Comment by julius — May 29, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
I really hope that they somehow buff or make ShS viable again. The things you can do with shadowstep is just awesome, but it lacks the damage and burst compared to Mutilate :\. Making shadow dance viable would be pro to, blind the healer, start up shadow dance, not even having to vanish to sap
Proooo
Comment by Durlug — May 29, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
The only thing I long for are guild rated bg’s, to take the pressure away from arena’s.
It’s not that I don’t agree with you, I do. But I think that if you put 50% of the gear in guild rated bg’s, ppl will stop complaining so much about arena.
Cause the thing with bg’s is, that way more speccs are viable then just the ones that work in arena and one OP spell doesn’t change the outcome of the battle.
Comment by Carpedies — May 29, 2009 @ 4:52 pm
The use of Evasion while stealth would prove foolish. Any decent opponent is going to be behind you as much as possible, especially during a stun… this gets rid of possible dodges etc, making this an impractical change.
Comment by Fear — May 29, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
A blink for rogues? Or the same mechanic, it ports you to an opponent..?
Comment by Fear — May 29, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
Retribution Paladins, to me anyhow, aren’t a problem. A well placed cd, or combo can generally nullify their dmg or time to do it. Not nearly as much as a DK that knows when to use what, they take forever to kill, and can toss out rediculous burst. An unholy dk with rune tap for healing has been my biggest issue atm. Which seems to be growing in popularity..
Comment by Fear — May 29, 2009 @ 7:06 pm
Nice, this is spot on. Survivability at the moment is deeply in need of a fix. Without the agregious slaughter of our Cds in order to survive a stun, or burst from an opponent we are dead. And vanish is atm, too easily ‘accidentally’ or just non-purposefully countered by what it should be countering/avoiding. Better 51talents would be nice, and a Deadly Brew / Shiv change would be nice. Overall, if this is able to get some ‘airtime’ somewhere.. it could do alot of good. – Nicely done.
Comment by Fear — May 29, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
This is an interesting idea, however I think Blizzard needs to stop making the game easier… which is probably why pvp is where it is atm. And why there are so many difficulties with this class or the other. ‘OP’ spells and how easy some classes have become in pvp.
Comment by Fear — May 29, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
So, I’ve been reading everything off this website for forever and a day now, and previously, I thought I knew my class, obviously being a rogue or I wouldn’t be here, but thanks to you Akrios I’ve gone from Sub-par standards to Damn near full pro. I’d like to personally thank you. I support everything out of this article to the letter. I played a rogue BC, and was a whelp Pre-BC but I whole heartedly agree that and I quote “…Comparing even burning crusade arena to current arena where I think strategy and control has give way to a much faster paced, split second play style with a growing list of opposition abilities to worry about.”
You are 120% right my friend, I used to arena BC with a Destro lock and I assure anyone who doesn’t believe him. Its very different now then it was then. Also I completely agree that we should have SOME way to mitigate damage from stuns, or like Phace said, Shadowstep(although I disagree for making it an ALL specs skill) should remove stuns, or do something similar to what the mages blink ability does. I’m so fed up with it because if i get unlucky and some other rogue gets the jump on me, theres a less then 5% chance I’ll make it through his opener, even If I pop my trinket I’ll just get re-stunned or blinded, or gouged, or something along those lines.
Even if I manage to TRY to turn the tables on him theres still a 95% chance against me since he already opened on me, and honestly if I was in a persons place like that and my enemy was dropping fast I wouldn’t give him a single chance to get away so its blatantly obvious we need something to counter stuns, I’ve even been killed by prot warriors in arenas because of concussion blow then I’ll have half their team open up on me because I cant stop their damage in ANY way, and In 3v3s your pretty much fucked if your healer is CC’d or isnt able to help mitigate some damage.
Take the paladins ability to take 30% of the damage for example you have 70% of 3 peoples damage (taking into account if its an All DPS, 2 and 1/2 if its not, if the healer can off DPS and before the ability expires or reaches its stopping point of 120% of the paladins health which it very well might) Maybe if they fixed vanish and made it so that you didn’t get knocked out so easily and had that remove stuns with a glyph or at 80 or something like that, I’m just throwing that out there.
-Riath of Firetree
Comment by Riath — May 29, 2009 @ 9:30 pm
I think not
Comment by Riath — May 29, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
another thing i can not understand is the nerf of eng googles, but in the same time blizzard let lock (old buff) with void to see you… and this buff is better and better than googles…
–now all the class could heal, only rogues and hunters can’t (but they’re ranged and they don’t take all damage like a melee) a good idea for a 51 points talent and for our surv. could be a skill like lifestealing
Comment by Cortx — May 29, 2009 @ 10:29 pm
As usual, a very clever analysis of the rogue class.
-It is obvious that the 51 points talents are one of the most disappointing thing in wotlk, because of their uselessness in pvp. Of course one can have fun in BG’s with ShD or killing spree, but no serious rogue would consider them as core abilities for more serious pvp like, say, arenas.
It is quite frustrating to get a new expansion to the game, and yet have to stick with mutilate as the ultimate pvp talent. Even for commercial reasons, this is not a clever move from blizzard. The idea of reaching the ultimate 51 point talent is a great source of motivation for many players.
-I still don’t understand why vanish is not fixed yet. Seems that there are plenty of ways to make it work fine, like for instance a 1 to 2 sec immunity to all things that may unstealth the rogue. Well there is a former post by Akrios on this so no need to continue.
-I’m not sure that making ShS a trainable ability is a good solution. Of course almost every rogue would be happy, but talents trees would continue then to lose their identity, what makes them specific. Rogue must be improved with the implementation of new talents, not the generalization of the existing ones.
-One guy gave the idea of using evasion while stunned. This is not uninteresting, but then Evasion should be improved: give it a damage reduction, for instance. Make the dodging bonus applies even to attacks coming from behind, and even while stunned.
-I think dodge should be the main rogue defensive / surviving ability, simply because is it, with stealth and CC, what most defines a rogue in my opinion, rather that resilience, unfortunately much more usefull as a defensive stat. My suggestions to improve it are:
-A percent of the dodge chance should be applied to spell attacks aswell. One can dodge a bullet, a melee swing. Why not a fireball?
-A percent of the dodge chance may be applied to attacks that come from behind, why not the whole dodge chance, if it’s not overpowered. This could be a general passive ability, or a specific talent (which I would put on the subtelty tree). This could be justified with the idea of the rogues greater awareness, improved senses, etc.
Comment by baruch — May 30, 2009 @ 2:42 am
mmm
well locks cant survive that much thourh rogue stuns imo
i saw someone saying something about shadowstep
imo shadowstep is uselesss…..at tbc was really imba and now it sux big time cause of the nerf it got
anywayz nice article dude keep it up.
Comment by koumatrix — May 30, 2009 @ 4:03 am
akrioss….u are the man….i didnt realize that and i was rerolling a mage and now i see why…rogues are startin to be the same over and over….
Comment by silencedeath — May 30, 2009 @ 4:20 am
Silencedeath, your rolling a mage too? My mage is 66 at the moment. I do not plan on leveling him past 70 yet until 3.2 comes out.
Comment by Krus — May 30, 2009 @ 7:41 am
symbol COS 40% lowered melee dmg. But not as a symbol! We need this as a passive talent point that lowered damage on us in stunlocks. sry my eng is not very well =\
Comment by skzzk — May 30, 2009 @ 8:24 am
Where is my Roguerogue.com t-shirt??
Akrioss!!
That diagram had my peeing myself a little, it was sooooo funny, but so PRO at the same time!
BTW
Thanks for whooping my ass on the Tournament realms! I would have been mad if it hadn’t been you Blinding–> /laughing—> Gouging—> Cold Blood Eviscerating me.
9.2K crit, DEAD.
Thanks man.
Comment by Faeyna (Kul Tiras/Arena Realm 1) — May 30, 2009 @ 8:56 am
You know what though?
Look at any movie Mahikosan has been in.
That dude can PLAY some ShS. Sure, he is the “Underdog” when he goes into Arenas with all of us Mutilate rogues, BUT.
When he is /owning everyone. Its hard to say, “ShS is not viable.”
In an earlier posting by the former Nition, ShS is the ugly sister that does not get any attention. Learn to play different specs, because with the way patches and fixes are going right now, some of us may or may not be going down the Sub or even the Combat tree.
I play ShS when I am trying to get something different, but I mean, WHO can argue with 2 8K+ ambushes on a clothie or Sapping a Warrior and FFing down his healer and saving the Arena you thought you lost?
I am just saying, that despite the nerfs and the changes, WoW is still the MOST balanced of the online games, it favors skill just a bit over gear. You can be the most geared pally ever, but if your dumb ass does not bubble in time for that next CS, you gonna DIE!
Comment by Faeyna (Kul Tiras/Arena Realm 1) — May 30, 2009 @ 9:02 am
skzzk is rite.
If only CloS could be used in stuns. At least with the glyph it’d worth be used against melees etc, since 3v3 is all about duo melees (warri dk paladin) and a healer.
Comment by Neat — May 30, 2009 @ 9:15 am
Man it’s always the same shit with rogues, I’m glad I quit this game, so dull…
Comment by Yeah — May 30, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
Sadly what Akrios says is the truth about the current rogue class. You should post this onto the suggestion WoW forums.
Comment by Evolas — May 30, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
It’s not that Cloak should have passive dmg reduction and be usable in stun. It’s the fact that Deadened Nerves should be moved to the Assassination/Subtlety tree at about tier 2-3, or replace deadly brew to have rogues use shiv once again.
Maybe add one or two abilities to give us more mobility without using a set of cooldowns as well as more survivability (hence deadened nerves and baseline or trainable shadow step.) Hopefully they can buff subtlety/combat for more a more PvP viable spec.
When it comes to a rogue, we are REALLY predictable even if we switch our cycles/rotations in pvp up. It’s like Akrioss says, Cheap Shot -> combo abilities -> Kidney Shot -> more combo abilities -> then Eviscerate/Envenom. As much as I enjoy playing a rogue, I hate being predictable in most PvP situations vs. an experienced player.
I agree with Evolas, you should post this onto the suggestion WoW forums.
Good luck in season 6 and keep up the good work on this site!
~Everhell
Comment by Everhell — May 30, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
Honestly, I fully agree with you Akrios, but making shadow step trainable and not have to have a target for it would just make every other class bitch about how we got even MORE OP which is quite obviously rediculous. Although it would help all that would happen the later patch would make it a 5 minute cd or something stupid. Blizzard aims to please not to balance, so every person in WoW population QQing about the skill will make it an invalid change and make us still as killable and less feared.
-Surface of Kil’Jaeden
Comment by Surface — May 30, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
I completely agree Riath, not much like blink where it teleports you 15 yards in front, but behind your target to sorta of change the tables. It may be considered “OP” first, but if you have it do that and keep it where it is.
People would be forced to either go with hemo or shadow dance spec for more survivability and Shadow Dance (still boring) can be used more often.
Just throwing this out there; making it trainable for all specs seems to be a little bit out there. If there was a way to spice up shadow dance, like allowing quicker energy regeneration or having it do something a little similar to Evasion would make it much more appealing since it’s used for control, burst and utility.
~Everhell US-Magtheridon
Comment by Everhell — May 30, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
I like the idea of an ability to reduce damage while stunned. They should just change the Glyph of Cloak to allow it to be used while stunned along with the 40% less physical damage, and maybe a cooldown increase as well(but not as drastic as 5 minutes, as using this to mitigate physical damage means we can’t use it to avoid CCs later, or get out of a key nova, etc.).
I also like the idea of trainable SS(who wouldn’t =/), and it would be pretty easy to balance imo, just make it a 20 yard ability, 30 sec CD, small energy cost, and make the 41 point talent in sub make it supremely better(would make this a buff to all specs that way). The 41 sub talent could reduce the CD to 15 sec, increase the range to 30 yards, add the speed increase/damage buff, and take away the energy cost, maybe add some other stuff as well. Also, the base version shouldn’t be reset by prep, that could be another part of the sub talent.
Comment by Neruh — May 30, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
WOTLK has brought so many ways for ruining vanish that the ability is some what frivolous. The Shadow step being trainable would be a great start to mobility, maybe take away the damage increase from the trainable one but still allow SS rogues the increased damage. And cloak while stunned, would be amazing. That would at least sometimes save you from 20k damage in 3 seconds down to 12k for at least that one stun. Great Article and I too would love a decent 51 point talent again.
Comment by Niall — May 31, 2009 @ 5:19 am
I think resilience should influence the way evasion works, like reduce the damages taken. Because when a retadin stuns me, it doesn’t matter that I have 700resi, he still own me. Resilience should really influences our surviviability.
Comment by Roggay — May 31, 2009 @ 11:20 am
I agree atleast make resil worth something (this was just a test) but I went and stacked all resil things on my rogue for the hell of it came out wit around 1k resil (used resil gem’s aswell) and just a ret paladin beat on me (this ret was not full pve he was like full hateful) and he was able to kill me in under 10 sec with me just standing there lol wtf is that? funny part is in my normal gear I still get killed in under 10 sec so really i dont see resil making a diff in arena, thats why i use my pve gear now because this game now is more aboust burst in arena (dont get me wrong there is some skill involved for certain comp’s usually rogue comps) but I mean look at a warrior if he can get u stunned for atleast 3 sec (his intercept) and you have no trinket and he does that gay WW shit w/e the hell its called were dead lol, So really I see rogue’s as there fine for now but some class’s really need to be toned down alot surely some of you can agree with me lol
Comment by somerogue — May 31, 2009 @ 11:43 am
you are welcome for the flow chart
(OP = http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16137213848)
Comment by kitchwa — May 31, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
Damnittt vanish. “Pshhhhh” sound and nothing more. Well, thanks for a post Akrioss.
Comment by Zy — May 31, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
The survivability part really gets me thinking, rogues have nothing to get out of stuns or survive them (besides PvP trinket), but why do ret pallys and DKs? They would be fine with out them, i mean seriously when a retpally can take me from 30% down to 8% with one Autoattack swing (Seal of Blood or w.e) how are we supposed to survive that when we cant even risk wasteing points on Kidney shot(saying we already used Blind earlyer in the arena).To be honest i can’t type in words how mad these things make me, especially when you DO get a pally in a stun lock you lose 50% hp just from eye for an eye. Sorry for being so Choppy in clarity of writting im just very pissed off right now due to this in arenas.
Comment by Kubane — May 31, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
beast chart, good job
Comment by Aasor — May 31, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
Loved the chart, I agree with everything you have to say. I personally have found myself getting knocked out of Vanish simply by luck or circumstance far more than anyone has skillfully knocked me out of stealth (sadly :\). I’m not sure if you were referring more to latency problems combined with auto attacks or random use of an ability/spell knocking us out during or immediately after a Vanish, but I thought maybe if there was a 100% chance to avoid all attacks/spells for 1 second after the Vanish that could definitely help out with incidental damage knocking us out of stealth and a small buff to survivability.
Comment by Traten — May 31, 2009 @ 7:26 pm
As far as survivability through stuns you are forgetting the talent deadened nerves in the combat tree.. I personally am one of the rare rogues that spec 0/45/26.. I speccd this one for the burst, survivability, and the sustained damage that it offers where mutilate fails… When i went from Mut to this spec i noticed that i could survive ANY KS/ Gnaw, Charge stun, Or Hoj combo that was thrown at me.. As a matter of fact i actually played to welcome stuns hoping theyd blow cooldowns and lose out on 30% damage.. However, i still agree deadened nerves is far too deep of a talent and should be moved where IM SS is.. One major thing i miss in my spec is deadly brew, as u mentioned before its essential for pvp and it really hurts not having it.. I would also like to see this moved down closer to the first 2 tiers in assass… Alot of things definitely need to be revamped, not buffed, in the rogues structure and abilities.. WTB GC to get his head outta his ass and hear our simple requests…
Comment by Reflexx — May 31, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
Nition once mentionned a pvp build with combat / sub, relying on Nerves of Steel (not Deadened nerves, which is the assas talent reducing global damage taken).
This talent could indeed be available sooner in the talent trees. It is currently located too far in a tree that is still (despite what we always hope or think when we read patch notes) a poor pvp tree.
Comment by baruch — June 1, 2009 @ 12:44 am
The chart shows …everyone uses the same way to pvp………
when i pvp……i dead in 6s stun with full hp and 500+ reili
Comment by Ghostpot — June 1, 2009 @ 8:49 am
well something for the rogues to have to get out of stuns would be nice because think about it everyclass rather has something to get out of the stun or can live thru out stunlocking like it’s nothin i mean look at mage’s they can blink, warlock’s well they wont die in the stunlock because of soul link and alot of resil and health (geared one’s anyways) a disc priest well they can def live through the stun locking, a druid can def live thru stunlock because of barkskin and not to mention they have armor like a tank in tree form, a shammy wear’s mail whitch is decent armor and they get a sheild and there resil actually means something, you have hunter well let’s see there dodgeing machine’s they can alway’s pary our dodge our Kidney, and they have flare’s to help prevent a stunlock happening, and let’s face it all the plate’s def can survive a stun lock hell warrior’s can jump from dps mode to tank mode in a instant in arena pally’s can BoF, a DK can be immune to sap and stun’s, so yea I would have to say rogue’s need something atleast to get out of stun (beside’s trinket) or atleast to lessen the dmg other then the nerves tallent they should but the nerves in assasin or sub atleast because wtf does a raider need nerves of steel for surely some of you agree
Comment by Somerogue — June 1, 2009 @ 10:26 am
mut sucks and is overrated….L2play shadowdance…youll get your 51point tree…i go a shadowdancer, and mut rogues dont got shit on me.
Comment by chuge — June 1, 2009 @ 10:27 am
shadowdance rogues are equal to mutilate rogues just only when shadowdance is up. other than that u can hop around every 20 seconds with shadowstep which is just a crutch cuz rogues who get kited are bad. id imagine ur chillin in 1500’s bracket where people die while u spambush
Comment by sapsapsap — June 1, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
What about something more similar to the glyph of Cloak of skill? you take reduced damage while in the shadowdance? instead of increased energy regen(although that would be nice to have, haha) or a slight regen increase, cause if its too OP blizzards just gunna throw us up on the chopping block for upcoming nerfs and might fuck use up beyond all repair because some 7 year old got his mage killed and QQ’ed that we’re op.
Comment by Riath — June 1, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
I think that the problem is the fact that classes burst way to much. For example, lets take a Rogue with 21K HP – 650 Resiliance.
If a paladin gets a stun on you, well, you are kinda fucked (To make it quick). A Paladin can easily take down 21K very fast just by rolling his face on the keyboard. Blizzard do need to nerf their damages. DKs, i think that there is something wrong with the “Chain of Ice” spam… Spamming it isnt cool at all for a rogue. CoI should have a cooldown of like 30sec. Maybe nerfing their damages a little would be ok.
That just an idea…
Nerf Torns!
Comment by InMyOpinion — June 1, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
My retri paladin buddie 1shots me when I wear my pve gear – which I do use for arena play from time to tome
When I wear my resilience gear (roughly +500) he crits me 15k in one burst, when I sit down or get just get stunned for that matter..
It’s come to the point of me not really wanting to play my rogue anymore, unless you’re a rogue superhero(which I’m not) you just get smashed time and time again. And there’s so damn much frustration combined with playing it, due to these lame-ass mega bursts, and vanish bugs, that the fun is just being sucked straight out of playing the class..
On top of that, I recently started playing my warrior, and my druid buddy and I, more or less facerolled our way to 1900+ rating, where as I’ve never gotten above 1670 on my rogue(Playing rogue/priest in cyclone EU), which I’m way better at playing.. Bleh..
Comment by Døxler — June 1, 2009 @ 7:33 pm
I find it a bit ridiculous that Blizzard still refuses to accept how absurdly overpowered paladins, DKs, and Arms warriors are now. They have them in plate, they deal more damage than any class, they have multiple ways to get out of stuns(with the exception of warriors here), and they can heal themselves, have pets, etc. Yet, I can’t vanish without getting auto-attacked out of stealth by a hunter. I can’t beat another rogue unless I have more cds up than him. Rogues can stack resilience up to 1k and be practically uncrittable but what is the point when we are auto-attacked by paladins, warriors, and DKs for upwards of 2k NON-crit. Where is the fairness in that? I spec combat-pvp in BGs just for the simple fact that I can nuke plate-wearers down without having to rely on survivability. Where is the fairness in letting DKs obliterate for 4k non-crit and Arcane Mages arcane barrage for 5k non-crit yet when our mutilates are DOUBLE-critting for that much we get nerfed? Seriously.
Comment by Mcstabz — June 1, 2009 @ 10:38 pm
This post really made me lol. Rogues already have tools to handle 90% of all the situations they can be confronted with. A good rogue can outplay any other class in their current state, and you’re asking for them to get a skill that nullifies their one weakness? They should nerf paladins and reduce their retarded bursts, then give them 1/3 of the rogue toolkit and THEN you could have the skill you’re asking for. Fair trade?
Comment by Dragan — June 2, 2009 @ 12:25 am
I’ve been saying ALOT lately that with other classes having their DMG as high as it is, it’s ridiculous that rogues survivability hasn’t at least increased marginally. While I don’t want to see the return of 4 Piece PvP 4 Piece T6 type of thing, alot of the successful rogues that I’VE seen have been rocking PvE 213 or higher PvE gear as opposed to PvP gear, for the most part.
I also think our damage, for the most part is fine, but my major gripe (Along with the lack of survivability) is that with mutilate getting Prep, you get both Damage AND Survivability (At least more then Mut had during BC, when the Prep ShS rogues had is what made them that much more of a counter to Mut Rogues, in my opinion and experience.) which takes away whatever edge the Sub tree once had. Sure, it still has mobility, but since you can no longer ShS while rooted alot of the time I find I have to do the same things I did as a Mut Rogue in these situations (CloS, Vanish, Blind if they’re in range, Trinket.) and you seem to lose so much damage it almost doesn’t make sense, that is unless you’re playing a Sub spec for Shadow Dance Ambush Spam, which isn’t really enough alot of the time anyway. I always end up using Shadow Dance as another two interupts, CS – Garrote – Evis / KS – CS.
All in all, I agree with your post, and continue to enjoy reading your thoughts on the rogue class.
Cheers
Comment by WrileyonScilla — June 2, 2009 @ 12:34 am
lulz…arena with my rogue…ill pass…if i want furious gear ill do an emalon run. but my dk and arms warrior partner and past 1500
Comment by chuge — June 2, 2009 @ 2:10 am
Actually I play shadowdance.
I play arena for fun, but in TBC I’ve always been around 1950ish. I reckon that probably the only effective way to play shadowddance is with another DPS, possibly mage.
I can guarantee, when our opponents have used their main CDs to protect themselves, I pop shadowdance up and they’re both gone.
The drawback is that pally are basically impossible to get down (I don’t manage to survive long enough against pally) and when we get healer druids we have to get them down in cat form.
In shadowdance mode you are one incredible DPS, and all (apart pallies) suffer this.
Rogues are the easiest, priests go down like flies. Basically all clothies and mails are not an issue.
Just pally+any or druid healer +any is very hard.
pally+druid is basically impossible.
My partner is a DK…we always lose against pallies or good druid healers.
The big drawback of shadowdance is that mobility is anyway low (shadowstep should have a 10 secs CD), backstab damage is bad.
I can take that survivability of shadowdance build is low, but at least we should have impressive mobility…and a bit of decent damage…
Comment by Emanem — June 2, 2009 @ 10:11 am
Missed out 1 thing bro.. Is he a rogue > yes > Did he vanish > yes > cast FoK > Did u get him out of stealth > yes > is deadly brew on him.. lol
Comment by Otherdude — June 2, 2009 @ 11:44 am
As always, right on the spot Akrios. Keep it up.
Akrios, in a side note I would like to ask you if I can ask you some advice… Either yes or no, thanks
Comment by Ísis — June 2, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
well i havent read all comments, so i dont know if anyone has suggested this but, when they gave rogues the 40% reduce physical dmg while clos is active glyph. I always thought that being able to cast clos in stuns would be a great survival boost to rogues.
but than again it might turn out to be way to overpowered since the cd on clos atm for most pvp rogues is 1 minute, but giving me the chance to survive a stun without getting my ass handed to me i would gladly increase the cooldown on clos.
Comment by Ryst — June 2, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
wow…… thats 2 powerful i bid blizz wouldnt have an answer for this monster you wrote here ;]
Comment by Dominicano coño ;] — June 2, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Id be the only rogue in the top 100 as combat but I dont do 5s so I dont show up lololol
Comment by Crimsønsnow — June 2, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
… I was wondering if you’d read my post in that ‘QQ’ thread. The one with Asperiti more or less just bitching at you (LOLOLOLWhiner).
More or less, you took what I had posted- that rogues haven’t changed much- and stretched it out. Kudos to putting it into such a neat, concise, and clean package.
I wish that they’d go back to the OLD Shadowdance, I remember screwing around with that in Beta… good times.
Comment by Kaeska — June 3, 2009 @ 5:35 am
Just great, /agree completly, i always think exactly the things you posted here when i play in arena.
Comment by Huro — June 3, 2009 @ 7:32 am
was kinda funny last night was doing arena I roll with priest rogue and omfg DK’s are so god dam annoying there chain of Ice is so fucking OP it piss’s me off, no cd on it instant cast can cast it from fair away, not to mention they can jump off a edge death grip and take you away from there healer, lol It was kinda funny last night, He chained of ice me, I CoS so I can keep up with my target, he chains right when im in CoS (it always hits while CoS is in effect on me for some reason idk why) My priest dispels it I get blasted again by it, I vanish (because I didnt have any dots on me) I cs the priest and I get death griped and blasted by another chain of ice (wtf?) So I think they should increase the CD of chain of ice and death grip and have there CD connected like the trinket and racial a human has, another thing is that the DK hits way 2 hard, he has 30k HP and crit me for 8k, blizz need’s to nerf there dmg same as a ret or warrior’s and people who QQ about the rogues dmg, umm dam near every class and 2 shot us and our dmg come’s from us stunning because where not getting beat on so we dont have to be as defensive, but dam near every class can get out of our stun or be able to live through it hell a warrior has a shit ton of armor and he has that second wind shit so he wont die in our stunlock besides he will probably be wearing a shield in the first stun lockin, so ya if everyclass can live through out stunlock were pretty much dead and have the slightest chance to reset it because when we vanish it always break’s it seems
Comment by YesiAmaRogue — June 3, 2009 @ 8:22 am
Troll detected.
Comment by hurr — June 3, 2009 @ 7:40 pm
I agree with the idea that Warriors and Ret pallies need to be “toned down”, but being the DK is a hero class I can somewhat understand the huge amount of power DK’s seem to have. Doesn’t mean it is not in need of a nerf, but I can see what blizz was trying to do.
I love the spread sheet btw.
Comment by Manana — June 4, 2009 @ 1:08 am
Nice article, and awesome flowchart! Makes me remember my rogue
I have to go off topic and say:
GIEF NEW EVISCERATE! MOAR!
Have a nice day.
Comment by Ma — June 4, 2009 @ 3:07 am
well. im a rogue fan. have been playings rogues 2 years ago. in my opinion, blizzard should put rogues a litle better cuz right now they aren’t that good. they dont have defence, vanish is useless. each time u use it they detect u very quick and if some1 gets u out of stealth. then u are fuked. I think blizzard should nerf pally damage. if a pally gets u with the stunt u are so fraking fuked.they also wear plate, u have to kill them 2 times becouse of divine shield, and they can heal. I dont know the good thing of a rogue having stunts if everybdy can get away from them. like mages. they can frost their selve when they are stuned, they can teleport. and use trinkets. pallys can use trinkets and divine shield, plus wear plate. dks are imune to sap stunts and stuff and warriors too. and locks can fear u a hundred times. Right now , been invisible is useless cuz all charts can detect u in multiple ways. a warrior can remove invisibility with demolition shout and thats a shit that blizzard need to fix. seriosly, blizzar need to do something with rogues. Its’nt fair
Comment by Platano — June 4, 2009 @ 7:51 am
[...] Rogue: The Class that Never Changed, How We Should Evolve [...]
Pingback by Interesting WoW Articles Around the Web | Antherwina's Corner — June 4, 2009 @ 8:36 am
Either that, or someone whos extremely ignorant..
Comment by Joe — June 4, 2009 @ 8:48 am
69.2 @ 66.1
Comment by Joe — June 4, 2009 @ 8:49 am
Miss-reply.. Was intended for 66.1
Sorry
Comment by Joe — June 4, 2009 @ 11:34 am
You suck.
Comment by Dead — June 4, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
Blizzard should move up Nerves of Steel (reduces damage taken while stunned/feared by 30%) from the combat tree to make it available for assassination and subtlety specs.
Comment by Kieru — June 5, 2009 @ 11:27 am
u said it hunger for blood sux! wtf mage gets deep frezze and warlocks chaosbolt warriors bladestorm palas divine storm: in compete our sux!! should change it?
Comment by Reqz — June 9, 2009 @ 9:06 am
so im supposed to eviscerate him if he has bubble on?
Comment by asddasder — June 11, 2009 @ 4:26 pm
I must be about the only Rogue on all of WoW that isn’t complaining. For me, every time I get a “nerf”, it challenges me to learn new ways. I for one, beleive Blizzard is trying to push the Rogue in a new direction. I have discovered that direction.
The only things that stun me are maybe the cheap shot of another rogue. If I allow this to happen to me, I deserve to die.
I never completely rely on a healer to heal me. Even the best healer cannot keep me healed at all times.
If I ever get “bored” with the Rogue class. I’ll roll another class. As of now, and for three years. I am addicted to the Rogue class. I tried the others, I always come back to the Rogue. I am proud to be the most hated class in the game. Playing a Rogue is more fun than it’s ever been.
I NEVER worry or even care for that matter, whether or not the other class have better abilites than me. All I care about is me. All I see is rogues everywhere crying about all the things they can’t do in this game. I refuse having the game be changed just to facilitate my lack of wanting to challenge myself to play the rogue according to his evolution. You won’t here my crying, “Blizz, please give me better this and that?”
Vanish-Cloak of Shadows-Preparation-Vanish. When one Vanish wont do????….Those abilities just saved your life. 90% of the time. They SHOULD take a bit longer to cooldown. SURVIVABILITY in ANY environment.
Autoattacks shouldnt negate Vanish? Autoattack is for the weak. I never use that crap. Instead, I manually place a hemmorage on ten targets in four seconds. I did something Rogues SHOULD do more often. I lowered the DPS of ten targets.
I leave the relentless swinging to others. Rogues DO NOT combat. EVER. I prefer EVADING attacks rather than absorbing them like plate wearers. Im to good to stand there looking stupid and getting beat on. “Dodge” ticking above my head continuously is the stat most important to me. I lowered the DPS of my target.
I remain ecstatic that the stupid DPS title now belongs to the death knights. This Rogue cares nothing for stats or titles. I give my my middle finger up. I make up my own stats now.
LDR- Least Damage Received
MDP- Most Damage Prevented
I would NEVER increase the cooldown on COS in trade for better ability to get out of stun. I have a better chance of getting out of the stun. Besides, a Rogue that allows himself to be stuned, DESERVES TO DIE.
Comment by Tullos — June 12, 2009 @ 5:09 am
That was a rather long post explaining the intricate details of absolutly nothing. So, basically, you’re a pawn, a sheep, a stepping stone or a puddle of water. What happens when you 1v1? What a retard.
Comment by Feight — June 12, 2009 @ 7:21 am
i believe completely with what Feight just said. This is a long post about abosolutly nothing. because, even the most amazing rogues get stunned. Also, wtf is the point of stacking stuff that increases your dodge? when, in 1 stun, you can die from them being behind you.
so i say, you’re point of “deserving to die” in a stun, probably applies more to you, then anyone else.
Comment by Speakss — June 12, 2009 @ 10:18 am
I hate when the death knights are death gripping u in the time u press vanish.. what can rogues do without a vanish in a fight against dk. they can take 4-5 stuns without dying. so pls fix the vanish.. and i still love to play shodowstep sword. but dont need to do it with a healer. its the easyest way to get close to a mage or a kiter like huntards. with a healer u can just run after the taget and feel no pain. i would love to see more shadowstep sword rogues in arena.
Comment by tryneditt — June 12, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
Here’s an idea — how about 2 minutes into the fight there’s a little crystal that appears in the Arena, and when you get the crystal all of a sudden Paladins can’t bubble, DK’s can’t deathgrip, druids can’t shapeshift, warriors can’t WW, priests can’t bubble, hunters can’t use their pets, shamans can’t use totems, and . . . rogues can’t stealth. Sound good?
Comment by Akh — June 12, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
A quick idea that could provide a solution to a few issues, encouraging rogues to stack resilience to augment their abilities.
-Master of Deception.
In addition to increasing your relative stealth level, your Vanish ability will now also absorb X damage (Modified by Resilience.)
2 – 300 resilience (what the average rogue will stack at the moment) could maybe absorb enough to stop an auto attack, whereas stacking 7 – 800 resil could be enough to absorb an aoe or two.
Thoughts?
Comment by Copenet — June 13, 2009 @ 7:18 am
could work, but sounds to me like “we’re too lazy to fix vanish, so penalize your own damage just to make it work properly”
Comment by Akrios — June 13, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
wtf are you even talking about
Comment by Akrios — June 13, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
Your right in that aspect, they should totally fix Vanish still, add a .1 sec immunity to it like trinket/wotf, but then add this to it also…
Survivability, if your willing to gear for it..
Comment by Copenet — June 13, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
I can’t agree more with the example of being stunned and not being able to do a thing about it. We’re a burst damage class, with very strong emphasis on surprise as our main ally in battle. But with other classes being able to survive not just barely, but actually surviving quite comfortably (plate/mail wearers) is absolutely unfair to us. Sure, we can restealth, rinse and repeat the process and there is still no guarantee we’re closer to winning.
Give us more mobility or survivability, a poison that gives back 2% of our health per crit? a vanish that blinks? a glyph that reduces chain stunning times by 30% per stun?
Sure, a buff to rogues will create chants of unfair play from other classes, but when rogues are balanced and other classes are not, its starting to get stupid.
Comment by erikk — June 15, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
all that you have said, is just sad. Very sad.
Comment by erikk — June 15, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
The only reason rogues have good representation in high end arena is because their partners have the utilities to make them successful. If that’s a dispel, heal, absorb, spammable cc.
Also, I don’t understand why they give warriors, rets, and dk’s plate. It seems in full furious gear these plates have 50% reduced physical damage, 27k-29k health, and they dont sacrifice damage at all… Then rogues, they get 23k health, 20-28% reduced physical damage taken, and do shitty damage vs plate.
I say give rogue gear more agility for more dodge, armor, crit, and ap. (enough for full pvp gear to have 30-35% armor mitigation, 30% dodge. Fix/change vanish. Give a fel armor type effect while in stealth so you can regen healt quicker and be ready to fight sooner. Allow vanish to be used while stunned or something.
(why did all these classes get stuns and stun immunes that dont need them? only rogues, ferals, and warriors should have stuns like it used to be.)
One last thing a rogue in full furious should be feared by others, and not something a player in full hateful should be able to defeat very easily.
Comment by hershey — July 22, 2009 @ 11:51 pm
Dk’s are a hero class, you get to start them at lvl 55!
Comment by hershey — July 22, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
Rogue problem is that, we had in tbc pretty nice dodge chance and rly nice armor from gladiator sets. look at older s3/s4 for 70 which has same or little bit smaller than t8 or any s6.
Comment by Dante — July 23, 2009 @ 7:41 am
made me lawl.
rogue vanish at it’s finest*
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4988321333294495350
Comment by Medors — July 23, 2009 @ 11:12 am
I agree with hershey to a point. But obviously in saying that, alot is being said and not being done.
However i do not agree with the idea of being able to Vanish while stunned; self explanatory tbh.
+health regen in stealth did get me thinking. Vanish also absorbing certain amounts of damage depending on resil sounds excellent. Just making vanish better without fixing it, but as Akrios said, it’s like blizz is too lazy to fix it, in which is true anyway…
To chuge (61): “mut sucks and is overrated….L2play shadowdance…youll get your 51point tree…i go a shadowdancer, and mut rogues dont got shit on me.”
If you’re talking about RvR… I could be talentless (as in no spec)and still beat other rogues, even if they are ShD. not saying i would beat them without getting touched but seriously…If i win the ‘trinket war’ it’s basically over. That’s why it’s hard to define a better rogue player from another in regards to RvR in LK pvp. In RvR: We are carried by lag.
Eg. Trinket the cs > blind…vanish > cs as the enemy rogue trinkets out of blind OR vanish > another cs as he trinkets your cs or ks after you re-open (if he leaves trinket for after blind). that’s what RvR is about nowadays – the trinket war. I like the idea of RvR being about timing and latency, but can end real quick.
Anyway RvR is talked about too much, i’ll leave it at that.
The main things i’m concerned about is a buff in survivability…and the pallys’ burst nerf, which is coming soon anyway. I’m still quite content with rogues at the moment, even in these dark times in LK pvp. Sorry for long post.
Comment by Septicflesh — July 24, 2009 @ 2:04 am
Btw being talentless and beating other rogues would be fairly difficult, i was just making a point of how ‘latency-based’ RvR is.
Comment by Septicflesh — July 24, 2009 @ 2:10 am
How about making CoS activateable (if that’s even a word), in stuns? AH–>Glyph of CoS and you wouldn’t have to add a new ability to a rogues already somewhat full toolbox. I realize that this will also increase our surivability against casters, but you’d still have 11k chaos bolts piercing our spines so i’d say its fair, considering we’d have to get rid of some other major glyph in order to save us from these nerdrage-triggering stuns.
Comment by Mutrog — July 24, 2009 @ 5:01 am
Honestly taking away other classes that have stuns (HOJ, gnaw… ect) that dont really need them to survive; would greatly increase rogues survivability.
I think theres a point where rogues are amazing with a healer; and not so amazing without one, giving rogues tools to survive on his own 1v1 might have an effect on if he had a healer and make them OP.
I like the Vanish give an immune; or i saw this one a while ago. When you vanish it creates a mirror image or a ghost image with like 2 seconds to appear there, and for those 2 seconds damage to the rogue is redirected to his mirror image.
And have you guys ever watched your health, how long it takes to regen out of combat its like 15-20 seconds for 1% of health. I’m sure some kind of buff to that while stealthed would be appreciated especially for rogues leveling 1-79.
I’m not sure if you guys read about Ming’s duel contest but the rogues lost against every class 1v1
and thats some of the best rogues in the game. I just feel that if we do everything perfect (kicks, stun, silence, burst when we need to and blow CD’s when need to) we should stand a good chance at 1v1. Problem is if were in a BG and were out of Cd’s and our opponents are out of Cd’s they will almost always win.
Comment by Hershey — July 24, 2009 @ 8:41 am
sorry for this comment but I really was lmao.. demolition shout killed me
Comment by Renshi — July 24, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
@77 sorry
Comment by Renshi — July 24, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
no talking about RvR…i see mut rogues (with pretty decent gear) in a BG, and they are at the bottom of the dmg charts, while im up at the top…GG guy
Comment by chuge — August 29, 2009 @ 1:34 am
not talking about RvR…i see mut rogues (with pretty decent gear) in a BG, and they are at the bottom of the dmg charts, while im up at the top…GG guy
Comment by chuge — August 29, 2009 @ 1:35 am