3 Unique Specs

[Verain]

Dodge and parry are fine as passive stats, bonuses, etc., but for tank gearing they are pretty poor. But rogues will still get to dodge and parry in the expansion.

The "pirate" option I like, but I'm reading that as "swashbuckler", which is the intended role of combat. The problem, of course is that not only can you not use a buckler, but there's also no mid range pistol to offhand, nor even the ability to use case of rapiers.

This is a big part of the rogue problem- there's a zillion rogue friendly concepts, and very few of them are implemented. Does the assassination rogue actually feel like an assassin to anyone? We call the spec "mutilate" for a reason- that move makes it work differently than the other two specs. The envenom thing going through armor is awesome and cool, but it isn't like that's particularly assassin-y either. Does the combat rogue feel like a swashbuckler, as the description states? Does Bandit's Guile fit the flavor? Restless Blades?

[Nanaboostme]

Here's an idea: Make it the first and only class to require 1 one-handed weapon, nothing else. Balance it like an arms warrior.

a rogue carrying one weapon doesn't make as much sense lore-wise. I would like to see a one-handed melee weapon with a thrown weapon in the off hand and make it a melee/ranged hybrid spec

[Kael]

This is a big part of the rogue problem- there's a zillion rogue friendly concepts, and very few of them are implemented. Does the assassination rogue actually feel like an assassin to anyone? We call the spec "mutilate" for a reason- that move makes it work differently than the other two specs. The envenom thing going through armor is awesome and cool, but it isn't like that's particularly assassin-y either.

Personally I find the sense of theme and choice of spec names to be quite ironic. All that bleeding and poisoning, envenoming, it's all quite subtle. You wouldn't necessarily know from whence it came. An ambush, backstab or evisceration, by comparison, seem much more likely to kill you directly, and aren't really very subtle at all (I'm pretty sure I'd notice my guts starting to spill out more readily than that I'd been severely poisoned in the height of combat). A strike being either revealing or sinister doesn't really seem especially more suited to combat than assassination or subtlety, and the blending of spec themes continues.

While they do play somewhat differently, the themes between the specs are 100% nonexistant, in my opinion. You can argue the differences in the idea between a rogue that's subtle, an assassin, or geared toward extended combat, but take a look at the abilities each spec uses and it no longer seems to hold together or really be different from spec to spec at all.

[Coldkil]

To me, names count only up to a certain degree.

Assassination is described as a "master of poisons" - it could have been called venomancer for what i care, but this doesn't change the fact that as assassination, our "poison mastery" is traduced into "you eviscerate does poison damage and you have more poison procs".

This is not a master of poisons. This is combat with more poison damage.

[Boil]

As Blizzard says, a Combat Rogue is:

A swashbuckler who uses agility and guile to stand toe-to-toe with enemies.

Toe-to-toe; what role is usually toe-to-toe with the enemy? TANKS…!!!

Of all the Rogue specs, Combat sounds like the one most suited to take on a Tanking role…!!!

I want the option of going DPS or Tank as needed!

[Kulestu]

People need to realize that no matter how much you want a Combat tanking spec, they turned that into Brewmasters.

[Coldkil]

People need to realize that no matter how much you want a Combat tanking spec, they turned that into Brewmasters.

Well, yes to a certain degree. Anyway, i like the fact we are the only pure melee dps class in the game and i'd like to keep this niche. There's so much room to work over the specs without changing or adding roles.

[Sesshou]

I wouldn't want combat to become a real tanking spec, but I would like to have a taunt like every single other melee in the game (though enhances is kinda crap).

[Warstar]

Well, yes to a certain degree. Anyway, i like the fact we are the only pure melee dps class in the game and i'd like to keep this niche. There's so much room to work over the specs without changing or adding roles.

I'd say warriors are the only "pure" melee dps class out there even with prot in consideration due to the fact that assassination is predominately a nature based dot class and then DKs are all melee/magic so out of all the classes in the game warriors are the only pure "melee" no magic damage what so ever.

And I disagree that having 3 agi melee specs in one class has a lot of room to work with. Say you set assassination apart and have that be the dot/magic using spec (I know it's not "magic" damage but it's not physical and in the same category as magic damage in as far as armor is concerned) you still have combat and sub which the only difference being swords v. daggers but sub can use swords (and by swords I mean non-dagger 1 handers) as well. As other's have said and has been blizzards history burst is bad (even though every other class can burst better and harder than rogues I think that vanilla scared blizzard away from giving rogues too much burst) so then you take away a "burst" spec so what's left aside from two agility melee dps specs that use different weapons.. sometimes? I wish blizzard had a "pvp" spec mentality in that they made sub really really good for pvp but maybe not so good for pve and combat really really good for pve and not so much for pvp. So now they take away some control, add a piss worth of dps and call it a day.

Blizzard is kinda stupid in this aspect. If you try to make everyone happy then in the end no one is happy. You blur the lines and create a whole lot of problems and balancing problems. If you balance pve around pvp then it's boring and no one gets to be a unique snow flake and stand out. If you balance pvp around pve then a few fotm classes will run around 2 shotting everyone and 1v3ing arena matches. So instead they want to give everyone a trophy and give every dps class a chance at the top which ends up screwing a lot in the end because they're trying balance a hundred different things at once. If you tweak one thing the wrong way too much it throws the whole balance scheme out the window.

I think this is one of the reasons that a tank or ranged spec gets thrown around so much because it takes 3 pokethebosswitha1h melee specs and adds something completely new to it.

[Verain]

I'd say warriors are the only "pure" melee dps class out there even with prot in consideration due to the fact that assassination is predominately a nature based dot class and then DKs are all melee/magic so out of all the classes in the game warriors are the only pure "melee" no magic damage what so ever.

Nah. You mean warriors are the only ones that are limited to just physical damage. Rogues are the only pure melee dps.

Note that their bleeds do ignore armor, just as poisons do.

[Warstar]

Nah. You mean warriors are the only ones that are limited to just physical damage. Rogues are the only pure melee dps.

Note that their bleeds do ignore armor, just as poisons do.

Ya but you can't cloak off bleeds But ya it is a similar concept so warriors are pure physical rogue are pure melee.

Another thing that'd make balancing a game nightmarish is that in a fun group based game you want a "tank" or tankish type person that focuses most of it's damage to that person, then you want a mixture of melee and ranged dps and then a variety of support classes whether that's control, or healing or enhancement.

The problem with that is that 99% of the population wants to be a shinning star of a dps with giant numbers flying around and epeens being flexed everywhere. If they made a buff class that did 0 dps but made other people have like a permanent heroism/avatar/adrenaline rush/vendetta/superman status and made 2 people worth 5 I guarantee it'd be the least played class in the game yet anytime you went up against one it'd be the most over powered thing out there.

People are selfish. Not many people are a team player as even shown by this forum. People crying out in outrage because of a whisper of a changing a rogue spec to tank thinking that they might actually be able to do something other than derp dps. Look at a low elo LoL game. Everyone plays a carry class with no support and no tank and it turns into a clusterfuck of "NOOB and L2PLAY" insults.

So now blizzard had to take classes originally designed for support and make them viable dps classes and make every class they add and will ever add have viable dps specs. Hell they even have to balance support because they can't make support too good or else when someone does play a support class it turns over powered.

Something that would make sense would be a rock paper scissors format were certain classes are direct counters to others and some just kinda neutralize each other but in the eyes of most players in the game they think "I am awesome therefore I should be able to kill every class out there" which if every class is able to do that then there's no uniqueness in the game anymore and soon stuff like arenas are going to turn into people standing around in shiney glowy epic items pressing 1 button bitch slapping each other and seeing who can slap faster since anything else than that would be over powered and unbalanced.

[nightfalls]

The problem with that is that 99% of the population wants to be a shinning star of a dps with giant numbers flying around and epeens being flexed everywhere.

So only 1% play healers?

People are selfish. Not many people are a team player as even shown by this forum. People crying out in outrage because of a whisper of a changing a rogue spec to tank thinking that they might actually be able to do something other than derp dps.

I don't think people are outraged at being able to do something other than "derp dps," I think they are more outraged at the prospect of their class changing and losing some of its old identity. Which although I don't believe the game should revolve around them, I'd recognize that it's something people would be upset about.

So now blizzard had to take classes originally designed for support and make them viable dps classes and make every class they add and will ever add have viable dps specs.

Think that's more for required dailies and things, not so much because people "have to play derp dps and flex epeens"

Something that would make sense would be a rock paper scissors format were certain classes are direct counters to others.

I think that makes the least sense and is absolutely stupid. I'm glad you don't exist on the design team (hopefully, but if you did, it sure would explain a lot).

[Warstar]

So only 1% play healers?



I don't think people are outraged at being able to do something other than "derp dps," I think they are more outraged at the prospect of their class changing and losing some of its old identity. Which although I don't believe the game should revolve around them, I'd recognize that it's something people would be upset about.



Think that's more for required dailies and things, not so much because people "have to play derp dps and flex epeens"



I think that makes the least sense and is absolutely stupid. I'm glad you don't exist on the design team (hopefully, but if you did, it sure would explain a lot).

Ever sit for over an hour as a dps in lfr waiting for either 1 tank or 1 healer? Then hop on a tank or healer another day and get an instant que? Ya I'd say way more people play dps than tank or heal and that's true for any game I've ever come across.

People are outraged because people are afraid of change. That's not just wow related but life in general. There's a reason the same old man has gone to the same dinner and gotten the same chicken dinner every Friday night for the last 50 years. Or why the same woman is in an abusive relationship for years without leaving the douche. People don't like change and it scares them even if everything about a change would be an amazing improvement.

Blizzard didn't make dps specs for just doing dailies and that's an ignorant response. If they just wanted to have healers have dps for dailies then they'd be like they are now with holy paladins denouncing things to death priests smiting and so on. No, they gave them dps specs and then not just hybrid lower dps specs but competitive often out dpsing pure dps class specs. So now you have feral/balance druids, shadow priests, enhance/ele shaman and so on who refuse to do anything but dps even though they could do so much more but instead just derp dps.

If classes don't have counters then certain ones who are stronger get out of control. Everyone fan boy's to it and then the game is flooded with that class. People should have strengths against something and weaknesses against other stuff. But lately blizzard has made it so that classes that had certain weaknesses don't anymore. Hunter? Used to get in their dead zone and you could effectively counter them. Casters? Used to have to sit and hard cast everything but now more often than not they can just run around and cast and use instants and kite everything. Warriors? Root them/snare them and without a paladin they're fubar. Rogues? Focus them and make them blow their CDs and vanish and then you can just focus them dead easily enough. Rogues are still easily countered but all the casters have a million instants and can just run around casting all day long. Hunters don't have their dead zone and are the best pvp class out there now with their insane burst ridiculous amount of utility and high amount of survival. Warriors have who have always been the most mobile melee class have even more mobility than ever. Classes are losing their counters and it's getting stupid.

[Coldkil]

I've nearly finished the combat part of my big reasoning on the rogue class - now only Sub it's left and the Talents. Hope i can finish it during the weekend for posting it in here.

[nightfalls]

Ever sit for over an hour as a dps in lfr waiting for either 1 tank or 1 healer? Then hop on a tank or healer another day and get an instant que? Ya I'd say way more people play dps than tank or heal and that's true for any game I've ever come across.

There's a reason I don't play a single pure anymore, aside from gathering/bank alts. ∎

[SynergyDarkstar]

Here's an idea: Make it the first and only class to require 1 one-handed weapon, nothing else. Balance it like an arms warrior.

I actually like this idea a lot. They could repackage Combat in the style of a fencer (ie: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Syrio_Forel). There's a classical roguish persona, rather than the ninja/assassin archetype we're stuck in now.

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Playing as a tank this entire patch, i can assure you - no tank wants dodge parry. First, because of the big nerf made to avoid people capping avoidance. Second, because offensive stats like hit/exp/haste for most tanks bring also up resource generation and the usage of certain abilites, so they're worth a lot more. And as a plus, the "active mitigation" model is really well done and more involving than the old tanking - dodge and parry have a very marginal role in it.

That's the thing; I feel like the combo point system translates extremely well to active mitigation for a tank spec (one needs only to look at how blood DK, prot pally, and brm monks have a version of CPs).