subtlety openers vs. mages -- a case study in dumbed down gameplay

[shoegazing]

Hello MMO-C Rogue Forums!

Today we're going to be looking at some openers vs. mages for past iterations of rogue vs. with the current design. This is just 0.01% of what Rogue PvP gameplay is all about but I hope to use it as a microcosm for how the class as a whole has been drastically dumbed down in Legion. Now with that statement of purpose out of the way, let's get into some examples.

CS --> Gouge this was one of the more prevalent openers. the goal is to immediately gouge on your first free global after pressing the stun, gouging the anticipated blink so that he's sitting in gouge at the other side of the arena or dueling area, essentially wasting the gap opening potential of the blink as it gives you time to catch up to him. high risk / high reward opener that could be countered by a savvy mage holding their blink for a global to see what the rogue does.

Sap --> Turning Garrote to delay the Sap break until the first bleed tick this opener had a few goals. one of them was to save stun DRs until after blink is forced, allowing a full kidney after blink which has a great chance of forcing the first ice block. the delayed sap break was important because it gave you time to apply crippling poison with shiv before the mage simply used pet nova and ran away from you scot free while you are on gcd. this opener could lead into a few different variations, depending on whether the mage trinkets immediately to gain tempo or tries to sit the opener.

Garrote --> Shiv Paralytic the goal of this MoP era opener was again to give you the opportunity to get some damage in without stunning before blink. this was not a super common or well known opener but it certainly had its uses and was rewarding for the rogues who understood the right situations to pull it out.

Sap Mage --> Cheap Pet --> Garrote Mage another garrote opener, this one was used to deny the mage the opportunity to counter your garrote with his pet nova.

Overlap Garrote and Stun A super aggressive opener, this one was used to create pressure right away by denying the possibility of the mage blinking out of your stun. best used when the enemy healer is already in CC so you know you can force trinket or iceblock in the opener.

Sap --> Premed --> Turning Cheap w/o breaking Sap --> Restealth & wait DRs this opener was rather situational, depending on the enemy mage not having a pet summoned. the goal was to bank 4 combo points before restealthing and waiting out DRs to get a stronger opener the 2nd time around. in certain situations this could even be pulled off in the presence of a water elemental by landing a quick focus kick on waterbolt (if the pet isn't set to passive and starts casting on you immediately) before the mage reacts with pet nova. this opener also baits a common mistake from the mage, which is to trinket the sap to prevent the restealth. the mage thinks he has got you by the balls because you gained no pressure from your opener, but you simply vanish out and wait your vanish CD (which was a smaller CD than his trinket in recent versions of the game) before transitioning into an aggressive burst into overlapped stun/garrote opener that he has no possibility of trinketing.

The Legion Opener -- just press cheap shot, the exact same thing you would do while opening on any other class this is the only option left in our arsenal. no sneaky rogue tricks, no flashy micro, no subtle plays to made. just press cheap shot.

Ok, I think I have made my point here. Legion Rogue, particularly subtlety spec, is extremely dumbed down and poorly designed for PvP. The examples presented here are just a microcosm of the whole picture, the wholesale butchery of this once amazingly fun and unique class. This is a shame considering great legacy of Rogue PvP through the years. Certainly the Neilyos, Reckfuls, and Pikaboos of the world as rolling in their graves at this level of dumbed down class butchery. Long gone are the days of the high skill cap, fast paced glass cannon that was an absolutely iconic spec of WoW PvP for over a decade. The Legion version was clearly designed for players with mental deficiencies, as Blizzard wouldn't want to overwhelm some wide eyed noobie or fotm reroller with too many tactical choices, now would they? Nope, this is 2017 after all, better to keep it as dumbed down as possible! Let's remember Holinka's immortal words when he was interviewed about ability pruning and the rogue class: "FINALLY, I'm so relieved that I live out my fantasy of being this dexterous character without having to actually have that manual dexterity!"

[elfporn]

There is zero point to this thread except it seems, to massage your ego?

CS certainly isn't the only way to open for rogue in pvp. Your "Subtle micro plays" are different and fewer, but still possible.

And most people agree there is less complexity in pvp, and that it could have been done better. It's also equally true that it will never, ever, ever, ever be reverted to what it was. It follows then, that this thread is another one of your pointless rants.

[shoegazing]

CS certainly isn't the only way to open for rogue in pvp.

oh, there are other openers? please enlighten me! what are the current PvP openers for subtety rogue?

[elfporn]

oh, there are other openers? please enlighten me! what are the current PvP openers for subtety rogue?

you're the one who only uses cheapshot, i thought you were supposed to be good at pvp?

[shoegazing]

you're the one who only uses cheapshot, i thought you were supposed to be good at pvp?

nice dodge.

it's a simple question -- what are the other openers?

[elfporn]

nice dodge.

it's a simple question -- what are the other openers?

44% unbuffed :P

sap, cs, blind, goremaw, SS, SB, and shroud all have their uses. Ill admit, without gouge. shiv, and garrote, our options are limited, but you're not limited to CS only.

[shoegazing]

sap, cs, blind, goremaw, SS, SB, and shroud all have their uses.

so, you would open on a mage with goremaw's bite without pressing cheap shot first? lol? you would open with 1st global shadowstrike instead of cheap shot? you would blind a mage from stealth? and then what?

btw are you aware that shroud is disabled in instanced PvP?

[elfporn]

so, you would open on a mage with goremaw's bite without pressing cheap shot first? lol? you would open with 1st global shadowstrike instead of cheap shot? you would blind a mage from stealth? and then what?

btw are you aware that shroud is disabled in instanced PvP?

i havn't done instanced pvp since shroud was added back in.

And no that's not what i would do for mage necessarily, depends on a lot of things, like if the mage has used his blink(s) or ice block yet.

The point is that you make it sound like there's 1 option for opening in every situation in legion, which is completely untrue.

[Soisoisoi]

I want to pre-face this with the obvious: I much preferred the old style with the options in the opener than it is now, but.. With that said, you can open with Shadowstrike which is damage and a slow on top, save your DR as you can stay on the Mage anyway unless they root you; makes no difference if they blink with C&D built in. So you can Sap/CS Healer, CS DPS, open Mage (or whoever).

For duelling it's a bit meh, but... You can force blink/CD with damage and save the stun DR to force the other later, or the other way around. Doesn't really make much difference unless you plan on using Flickering Shadows for a free Vanish.

Or just go Assass and go mongoloid on whoever. :/

[shoegazing]

i havn't done instanced pvp since shroud was added back in.

And no that's not what i would do for mage necessarily, depends on a lot of things, like if the mage has used his blink(s) or ice block yet.

The point is that you make it sound like there's 1 option for opening in every situation in legion, which is completely untrue.

there is only one option for opening in legion. anything that doesn't involve pressing cheap shot as your 1st global out of stealth is objectively wrong and is giving your opponent an opening to counter you if they have even the faintest idea of how to play.

I want to pre-face this with the obvious: I much preferred the old style with the options in the opener than it is now, but.. With that said, you can open with Shadowstrike which is damage and a slow on top, save your DR as you can stay on the Mage anyway unless they root you; makes no difference if they blink with C&D built in. So you can Sap/CS Healer, CS DPS, open Mage (or whoever).

For duelling it's a bit meh, but... no point using CS either since they'll obviously just blink/temp it, might as well force a blink/CD at the start with damage and then use KS or CS later to force whichever they didn't use.

Or just go Assass and go mongoloid on whoever. :/

shadowstrike has a snare? you are gimping your team by not speccing into prey on the weak.

if you shadowstrike as your 1st global, even a very bad mage will know to immediately root you before you even get to press that 2nd global

also mages run shimmer in PvP which means they can't blink stuns FYI. if he's not running shimmer he's a very bad player and has zero chance of ever landing a polymorph on your healer unless your healer is super low rated and doesn't know how to use a pillar...

[Soisoisoi]

shadowstrike has a snare? you are gimping your team by not speccing into prey on the weak.

if you shadowstrike as your 1st global, even a very bad mage will know to immediately root you before you even get to press that 2nd global

also mages run shimmer in PvP which means they can't blink stuns FYI. if he's not running shimmer he's a very bad player and will never land polymorphs

Depends if it's Arena or duels, not done much PvP lately but I can't imagine they'd use Shimmer in a duel vs a Rogue? With that said you can just Nightblade from the Sap (without breaking Sap ofc) for the snare, and then SS. Even easier if they are using Shimmer I guess though!

[shoegazing]

Depends if it's Arena or duels, not done much PvP lately but I can't imagine they'd use Shimmer in a duel vs a Rogue? With that said you can just Nightblade from the Sap (without breaking Sap ofc) for the snare, and then SS. Even easier if they are using Shimmer I guess though!

duels do not really exist in Legion as there are no templates in duels and unlike previous expansion there is no obvious dueling hangout for PvPers to sit around in while they wait for their teammates to log on

where are you getting those combo points to NB from sap btw? are you aware that NB's slow is only activated by autoattacking? are you aware that he's still going to root you while he blinks away?

and yeah I believe a mage would still run shimmer vs. rogue 1v1 bc it has 2 charges and they can just temp, trinket, or block the stuns... they don't need to blink it. although that is just my hypothesis as duels do not really exist any more in practice so who knows for certain.

shimmer has a shorter range than regular blink but it doesn't matter because any better than awful mage will root you before blinking to prevent you from reconnecting with shadowstrike or step

[Soisoisoi]

duels do not really exist in Legion as there are no templates in duels and unlike previous expansion there is no obvious dueling hangout for PvPers to sit around in while they wait for their teammates to log on

where are you getting those combo points to NB from sap btw? are you aware that NB's slow is only activated by autoattacking? are you aware that he's still going to root you while he blinks away?

and yeah I believe a mage would still run shimmer vs. rogue 1v1 bc it has 2 charges and they can just temp, trinket, or block the stuns... they don't need to blink it. although that is just my hypothesis as duels do not really exist any more in practice so who knows for certain.

shimmer has a shorter range than regular blink but it doesn't matter because any better than awful mage will root you before blinking to prevent you from reconnecting with shadowstrike or step

For the Nightblade slow it'll be from the CS on the Mage's teammate(s) - And of course, that'll be activated the instant you start attacking them, but it's up for your first GCD either way, which was the idea.

As for Shimmer, I dunno, it seems pointless in a 1v1 situation. You're not needing to Shimmer>sheep/CS anyone so it's not really useful, especially vs a Rogue who can stay on you anyway.

Also SW/Org are still pretty popular, even in Legion. Guess it's realm/whatever they're joined with dependant. The major PvP realms always have people duelling last I saw.

[shoegazing]

For the Nightblade slow it'll be from the CS on the Mage's teammate(s) - And of course, that'll be activated the instant you start attacking them, but it's up for your first GCD either way, which was the idea.

As for Shimmer, I dunno, it seems pointless in a 1v1 situation. You're not needing to Shimmer>sheep/CS anyone so it's not really useful, especially vs a Rogue who can stay on you anyway.

Also SW/Org are still pretty popular, even in Legion. Guess it's realm/whatever they're joined with dependant. The major PvP realms always have people duelling last I saw.

one shotting someone in front of orgrimmar with some ridiculous legendaries and no templates / no resilience isn't really dueling

and no it's not so easy for a rogue to stay connected to a good mage. here's some clips demonstrating the extreme kite potential of frost mages right now:



there are several matches vs relatively highly rated (2400+) rogue teams for you to get an idea of what rogue vs. mage gameplay is like right now in an arena environment.

pay close attention to what happens around 14:45 (you too @elfporn) when the enemy mage puts down frozen orb before the enemy rogue manages to land cheap shot! that is exactly why it is absolutely imperative to cheap first in an opener before doing any kind of damage.

[Coldkil]

Closing. There is a PvP subforum and there's not much discussion to be promoted in here.