Rogue's not popular because they can't Stunlock/insta kill people.

[Hondoshaver]

I love my rogue now, and I loved it 8 years ago when I started playing him. The rogue is vastly different now then they were then, but I still have a great time with him. My one gripe is, everyone cried ,and justifyably so, about stun locks being so over powered. They said ok, we'll put a DR on them!! Then, they gave warriors a stun lock with no DR and a 30 second CD. It amuses me to some degree that they think if they give something like that to different classes they will be less powerful for some reason, and then are legitimatly surprised when, nope, someone not able to control their dude for 10 seconds is a little broken , humph..

[FathomFear]

I've had a rogue alt since vanilla and would actually somewhat agree with his comment. Much of the allure in vanilla/TBC was the rogue's ability to come out of the shadows and try to maul a person down. It was really fun--and you felt powerful.

These days, though, the design philosophy of the game is different, and HP/Damage scaling is radically different than what it was back then. There's also way more homogenization of the classes. With so many classes getting similar abilities, the allure of the pure classes has been lowered.

[Wow]

If you look at vanilla->burning crusade era...

Melee dps choices were warrior, rogue, badhancement, loltribution, feral druid.

Now I never saw a feral dps druid in those days, and badhancement/loltribution were pretty weak.

Needless to say your options for melee dps were pretty limited and there were tons of rogues.

Now?

Warrior, rogue, enhancement, retribution, feral cat, Deathknight, Windwalker monk.

Of those, 5 have tank trees... 4 have healer trees... 2 have ranged trees.

My guess is the singular role of the rogue is what killed people playing them, I know it was the case with me.

Theres a lot of truth to this. Think about the timing, rogue pop didn't drop until wrath which happens to be the same time that all hybrids were buffed up in all roles and rogues stopped being the auto #1 dps.

The only reason you even seen anything on it now is because from wrath through cata rogues stayed at around 7% pop mists made that drop way off is the only reason blizzard started to really care at all. Which is still odd given how much they didn't care at all in beta which was what caused this in the first place.

[Duncanîdaho]

He's partly correct but I think he's looking at it the wrong way. The rogue's identity in pvp used to be exactly what he said and it was bad design off the start. They completely changed that though without having any idea or foresight into what they wanted the class to become, which is the problem. They made an easy to play class hard to play and at the same time gradually nerfed and gave away the fun stuff.

Just ask yourself what is a rogue's niche is in pvp these days? Stealth? Not really anymore. Stuns/control? not anymore. Damage? Not anymore. Pet's? Don't have any. Dot's/bleeds? Don't really have those either. We're literally smoke bomb bots who gets to do some damage when shadow dance(another very boring ability if you look at it) is off CD if we blow everything at once. That is not fun and couple that with the boring play style of energy starvation in pvp it's no wonder few play them. Every other dps class seems super heroic compared to the rogue who feels like a regular dude holding daggers. We have 3 dps specs yet only one of them is competitive in pvp, how is that fun as well?

Experimenting with new things like having a ranged rotation in 5.2 are things they should have been doing for years now. If people start seeing rogues in pvp, and are like "hey, thats looks cool! I want to do that!" and start getting some buzz going we will starting seeing more people playing rogues again. Just like when we got legendary daggers and an awesome trinket and got a population boom. People will play rogues again as soon as there is a reason too, just like every other class has a reason. They just need to not make it based off gear(which doesn't last) or an OP control system(which was unfair to others).

[Verain]

GC is correct about a lot of things, but this simply isn't one of them.

The ability to 100->0 a couple non-raid geared classes, most of whom did not have a pvp trinket in vanilla by popping every cooldown (and normally by being undead) may have made headlines and terrible movies versus warriors who don't press buttons, but it wasn't why people rolled rogues.


1)- Most of the advantages stealth granted in the world are pretty much gone now, because flying mounts.

One of the nicest things about stealth is that it prevents enemies from seeing you- both enemy players, and enemy mobs. It still does that, of course- but a flying mount does the second one far better, and honestly, isn't bad for the first one either. A high flying ganker can land on your face, and that simply wasn't true in vanilla. In vanilla, searching around your character as you ran your rotation prevented the unexpected entrance of everything that didn't have stealth. Now, that isn't true. This rogue advantage was handed, not just to druids, but to everyone!

A second part about this is that if you went somewhere with actually dangerous mobs- such as either of the plaguelands, or honestly even the wastelands near blackrock mountain- you were in danger of pulling aggro. Depending on the mobs, you could be dazed -> dismounted. This put a cognitive pressure over where you were likely to go. You may not have been aware of this, but the moment you pressed "stealth", the fact that it LEFT you like a ball of stress was noticeable. Farming mobs was actually an activity in vanilla that many players engaged in- you would go to a place with high level mobs and kill them as efficiently as possible. This activity, common in most MMOs, has all but entirely disappeared in modern WoW- mostly to heavy praise. But, it was something rogues excelled at. Your rogue could go back deep into the mobs and pick off the weaker or more profitable ones. You didn't have to carve a path through as most classes did. And of course, if you saw an enemy deep in combat, you could pick them off. With this activity mostly gone (dailies are the equivalent), a flying mount effortlessly takes you where you want to be, and lets you forget about enemies entirely.

2)- Rogue CC got handed out willy-nilly.

In vanilla, rogues had Cheapshot and Kidney shot, as well as blind (no one could trinket blind, but it could be dispelled). Sap was still there, as was gouge. Mace stun effect was also present. Rogues have gained garrote silence and paralytic poison, and lost mace stun effect- as well as CS and KS being on the same DR. That's not a lot of change. Each of these CCs has a pretty decent cost. CS costs a nontrivial amount of energy, and pressing it limits what the rogue can do next. Kidney shot costs a full suite of combo points. The design is that these abilities were to be powerful and synergistic with other classes- I blow my resources to lock him down, my ally tunnels into him with great damage. While MoP CLEARLY went overboard with CC, allowing huge CC chains with little coordination and low cooldowns, this was a problem that started getting snuck into BC, and only got worse with LK and Cata.
Shamans were a successful class in pvp with no stuns. Warriors had charge stun and that was pretty much it (the mace stun effect, when they had it in arena, was eventually recognized as just too powerful). Mages had no Deep Freeze. Druid stuns were dodgeable and required two globals- the feral ones were weaker than the rogue ones, and they couldn't just bust them out. Every expansion added large amounts of CC to the game. No one ever got cycloned in vanilla, for instance. Most of these CCs have been added FOR FREE- the cooldown is the only cost. Unlike rogue CCs, which have energy or combo point costs and limit what the rogue can do, many modern CCs deal damage (sometimes in an area) and stun or disorient (sometimes in an area). What stun costs rage? What stun costs rage in the same manner that kidney shot costs combo points or cheap shot costs energy? What stun costs runes? Or runic power? Yet, all these classes have stuns. Everything that made the rogue CC system powerful got handed out, but the disadvantages of the system never did.


3)- The combat system is way too similar on all three specs. There's no rogue spec that simply melts casterface, or one that is aces against warriors. But these classes DO have specs that are good against rogues. All of them, pretty much. This is short and simple- there's not enough differences in capabilities, and the ones we DID have, instead of being expanded upon and made awesome, just get deleted.

4)- Similar to the CC system, everything that made the rogue combat system interesting got handed out but the disadvantages of the system never did. You like the pacing of rogue energy, you'll probably like the runic system the DK has. Or the energy -> chi system the monk has. The advantages are mostly there, and the lock-in of combo points generally isn't.

[Ryme]

Nah.

Maybe it happened when body pulling more than one mob whilst levelling became a dangerous when your CDs are down.
Maybe it happened when you spend half of your combat time standing there doing nothing
Maybe it happened when specs stopped feeling like specs and started feeling like what cooldowns do I want?
Maybe it happened when every other class got some form of animation or visual that was distinctive or "cool".
Maybe it happened when QoL issues stopped being listened to.
Maybe it happened when 60-70% of our damage became passive. Seriously.
Maybe it happened when everything desirable a rogue offers, another class does as well, but with added bells and whistles to boot.

[Kael]

...I was going to post some of my ideas about where people were ignoring signs along the way, but I'm pretty sure I'm 2 hours too late and Verain and Ryme covered it thoroughly.

Does the "gank" allure exist? Sure. Is it gone? Pretty much, yeah. Do I think that's the major detractor from playing the class? No.

I don't know anyone who starts a rogue now and gets past 60. They just don't think the class is fun, and don't see a point to finishing it unless they're trying to finish a collection of 90s. From my experience, nobody wants to level a rogue because the experience is just horrendous compared to almost every other class in the game. We're better at cap, but... for some of us, it's just not as rewarding as it should be, and the journey too painful.

[Demeia]

Know what the scary part about this is? It's not that he thinks that people want to play a class that can gank someone in a stunlock, because that IS really fun. It's that he views this a major reason making him less likely to actually try and find a solution because he thinks the problem is with the playerbase and not the class.

I felt for a time the devs were in denial about the class needing quite a bit of work; I no longer think that. They've pretty much admitted we need some work and applied at least a PvP bandaid. I think what they haven't decided is whether they want to keep us playing slightly modified specs or actaully making all our specs play wildly different. They tried that with warlocks and I think they want to see how that turned out. I agree there is no point in changing the hell out of us if it turns out warlocks end up disliking the fact that each of their specs plays like a different class--and that, as a result, they are unhappy.

We weren't going to get a major revision mid-expansion anyway.

Can't say anything about the ganking. Never, ever, even remotely found it fun. I'd probably prefer the more swashbuckly idea of a rogue with less stun, more damage absorption. The style that I don't think works in wow PvP, in other words--hence the reason I'm not PvPing much on the rogue.

I can say that I think his theory seriously underrates the "cool" factor of rogues, which has definitely gone down over the years. Monks stole a lot of the Ninja thunder we should have gotten. Roll would have been an awesome alternative to sprint on a tier. Doing ninja flips would have been totally in keeping with our class. And I will never understand why warriors are the "mobility" class in PvP. Plate wearing mobility class...um, OK?

[Evi1Toad]

Maybe it happened when everything desirable a rogue offers, another class does as well, but with added bells and whistles to boot.

Lies!!

We still have... pick pocket!

[dokilar]

ive had a rogue alt since mid way thru BC and the main reason i played my rogue, and this will probably sound silly, was mainly because of stealth. being able to pick and choose my fights was a lot of fun. i wasnt your typical stalk someone til their low kinda rogue (i will admit i did it a few times) but being able to cheapshot someone on a flag, duel them for a bit, then vanish and do it all over again, stalling til reinforcements arrived, thats the kinda playstyle i like.

[Deleted]

What I don't understand about GC's statement, is what he seems be saying is 'rogues cant kill people in stun locks so they gave the class up' but not actually leading into an explanation of what his concept of the rogue class currently is.
It is suggesting that good rogues don't need stuns to achieve kills? I mean, the most functional rogue PvP spec is subtlety, of which, revolves around 1 minute of lacklustre damage, followed normally but the kill opportunity, more likely than not, featuring stuns.
If he feels that rogues should be practicing a different type of roll other than ganking for kills, then how is this being provided to the class right now? For instance, playing with a healer and going toe to toe with other mele as Assassination (the non ganky, consistent damage spec) almost always puts us at a disadvantage. Warriors, DKs, Ferals and even WW monks simply outclass us. It's not just our burst that was nerfed, but many of our defensive capabilities too, like passive DR, Increased armour talents and passive dodge.

[Deleted]

If you look at vanilla->burning crusade era...

Melee dps choices were warrior, rogue, badhancement, loltribution, feral druid.

Now I never saw a feral dps druid in those days, and badhancement/loltribution were pretty weak.

Needless to say your options for melee dps were pretty limited and there were tons of rogues.

Now?

Warrior, rogue, enhancement, retribution, feral cat, Deathknight, Windwalker monk.

Of those, 5 have tank trees... 4 have healer trees... 2 have ranged trees.

My guess is the singular role of the rogue is what killed people playing them, I know it was the case with me.

yup,

its simply stastics and this is a major reason.

Give us a fourth tank tree and we are back in the game.

[kidstechno]

Nah.

Maybe it happened when body pulling more than one mob whilst levelling became a dangerous when your CDs are down.
Maybe it happened when you spend half of your combat time standing there doing nothing
Maybe it happened when specs stopped feeling like specs and started feeling like what cooldowns do I want?
Maybe it happened when every other class got some form of animation or visual that was distinctive or "cool".
Maybe it happened when QoL issues stopped being listened to.
Maybe it happened when 60-70% of our damage became passive. Seriously.
Maybe it happened when everything desirable a rogue offers, another class does as well, but with added bells and whistles to boot.

Quoted for truth.

[Woceip]

The fact of the matter is this was one of the major attractions in playing a class which has so few. That they took away the insta kill through a stun-lock and the population plummeted says less about the player base and more about the design of the class.

I disagree. It says a lot about the player base that they were ONLY interested in the rogue for that. So many people don't want to be able to be countered. It just comes down to that, I feel. I know I had my fun taking someone from 100 to zero back in the day, especially leveling up in BC. The class does need more flash though, I feel.

[Korgoth]

My pet theory is rogue pop started to drop as soon as gank -> guaranteed kill became less likely.

I am agreeing with GC on something, that's not good. I guess that also means he's intentionally making Rogues OP in 5.2 to get the population back up. Which is a horrible way to balance a game.

Then, they gave warriors a stun lock with no DR and a 30 second CD

It's 3s Warbinger into 4s Shockwave every 20s, and it uses our gap closer. 7/20, - gap closer, compare to kidney shot which is 6s by itself on a 20s CD, or Cheapshot 5s, into DR Kidney Shot 3s, into Paralytic Proc... Rogues still have a far better stun lock.

[Damax]

Problems with rogue is simple can't you see? it was already said in this thread! Hybrids

rogues aren't #1 dps anymore and hybrids do as good or better by providing better utility to raids like enh can heal raid with a talent, DK can switch to a tank or kite mobs.

Rogues aren't ranged dps other pure dps are: its hard to find a raid group who wants a rogue specially with limited time avaibility. Most raid groups 10 mans and even some 25 mans runs with 1-2 rogues and those spots are ALWAYS filled and you can't just say: well I'll heal/tank with my rogue! Plus Melee dps are everywhere and extremly put aside for ranged dps all the time. 10 mans runs with 1-2 melee out of their 6 dps (that makes 4 range) 25 mans are mostly a myth now.

In pvp? same deal. So many rogues wants to do rbg and only one make it to be into the rbg team so you are out of luck. PVE is boring on a rogue so rogues pvp. And all those pvp rogues fight for the same few spots. Arena teams are different though, if it wasn't for warrior being op last season (and hunter) we might still have seen a decent number of rogue in arena rep.

There's no incentive, no benefits of bringing a rogue, which contrary to a feral can't even bring a armor debuff without losing tons of dps or even heal themselves decently (recup) or reduced dmg taken without losing tons of dps. Feint? 30 energy.. survival instinct and ironbark? freaking free for a total of 70% dmg reduced.

Rogues don't carry stuns into pve, their interrupts was costing them dps unlike most melee! useless!

I'm not even talking about the passive dmg which is 70% of a rogue's damage or the combo points sticking to target(which monk/pally got a better system) but those are just a few of the rogue's problems that have been ignored and might have frustrated the most veterans rogues so they quit

I myself was forced to reroll in my 10 man raid. They couldn't afford a spot for a second rogue and they needed range dps, unfortunatly its also one of the only raid team I can attend due to schedule and LFR is laughable. So now I'm a shaman... at least in pve -_-. I still love my rogue for pvp

[Deleted]

Because rogues core design was not to go toe-to-toe with people. They were designed for fast kills and then get the hell out of there.

[Coldkil]

Nah.

Maybe it happened when body pulling more than one mob whilst levelling became a dangerous when your CDs are down.
Maybe it happened when you spend half of your combat time standing there doing nothing
Maybe it happened when specs stopped feeling like specs and started feeling like what cooldowns do I want?
Maybe it happened when every other class got some form of animation or visual that was distinctive or "cool".
Maybe it happened when QoL issues stopped being listened to.
Maybe it happened when 60-70% of our damage became passive. Seriously.
Maybe it happened when everything desirable a rogue offers, another class does as well, but with added bells and whistles to boot.

Agree with everything.

[Deleted]

Nah.

Maybe it happened when body pulling more than one mob whilst levelling became a dangerous when your CDs are down.
Maybe it happened when you spend half of your combat time standing there doing nothing
Maybe it happened when specs stopped feeling like specs and started feeling like what cooldowns do I want?
Maybe it happened when every other class got some form of animation or visual that was distinctive or "cool".
Maybe it happened when QoL issues stopped being listened to.
Maybe it happened when 60-70% of our damage became passive. Seriously.
Maybe it happened when everything desirable a rogue offers, another class does as well, but with added bells and whistles to boot.

I agree with most of the points, but rogue damage has always been mostly passive, it's not like it's a mop thing, do you remember vanilla? Cause i do and it was even worse

[Coldkil]

I agree with most of the points, but rogue damage has always been mostly passive, it's not like it's a mop thing, do you remember vanilla? Cause i do and it was even worse

We know, but still it's something we are calling for a long time, and few rogues like it.