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  1. #1

    Is a slow decline the ultimate fate of poor rogues?

    I love the rogue class, it's concept is great, and a pretty crucial part of the fantasy cast of archetypes. But I see a lot of complaints in WoW about how they're boring to play.

    Look at other classes like, mages, warlocks, druids, and paladins. One shoots balls of fire/ice out of their hands, another has a pet demon, one can shape shift, the other calls on the light and a crusader for the holy. What can rogues do WITHIN REASON that is comparatively as cool?

    The whole concept of being a stealthy assassin who plays with daggers and occasionally swords/axes isn't GOING to be as flashy and explosive as the other classes.

    We can critique the class and blizzards choices all we want, but can the community itself even come up with some REASONABLE abilities that would fit into a rogues rotation, and still be as flashy as a mages fireball or warlocks AOE.

    Because I see a lot of complaints about the rogues specs all feeling the same, and the class in general. With that said, is the rogue class fated to just be underrepresented? Why should that be a bad thing or something people worry about? If you find it fun, play it and KEEP having fun! Not every class has to be fun for everyone or have equal representation.

  2. #2
    PARTY TIME


    Ok- first, rogues have never asked for fireballs or rain of fire or sexy demoness slaves.

    The rogue animations are the standard WoW autoattack animations. When the game was new, these would be occasionally interrupted by special attacks. With a fixed energy regen of 20/2 seconds, a 40 energy sinister strike and a 35 energy hemo were the spammiest moves, and they couldn't really be used that often. As time passed, we ended up nearly global capped- our special animations are now the vast majority of our combat rotation, visually.

    And these animations are generic. If you look at monks, who have a drunken stance an aggressive stance, and a defensive stance, along with insane animations for everything they do, all without making the world burn like a lock.

    Sinister strike should not be "generic strike attack". Backstab certainly shouldn't be. Finishers could have different animations. The monk kicks and punches all look different. Our attacks should as well. Our mutilate animation should be just ours, our sinister strike animation should be just ours, no one should have our eviscerate animation, none of them, at all, should be shared by anyone else but us.


    And we KNOW they can do this, because they JUST FUCKING DID.


    Have you seen the Golden Blade Flurry card in Hearthstone? It's got a rogue with both of his blades on fire, and the fire is animated. That one card has better animations than our whole class.


    Shadow blades uses the "balls of light on your fist" generic animation, but it makes them purple. That's an improvement, but shadow blades should make our weapons blackish purple, as that is what the effect is actually doing. I'm not asking for crazy shit here- the ability literally turns our weapons into shadow energy so they ignore armor, we should see that instead of strange dumb ball things.


    I want enchants optional. This effects other classes two, but they can shut the fuck up because their weapons are universally not tiny. Rogues should be able to disable enchants, and this should have been a UI feature in BC when enchants stopped being glows. Looking like pigpen for a whole expac because someone thought particle effects were the kewlest, to the point where you couldn't even see your legendary daggers, was awful. Many rogues transmog their daggers to gutgore ripper or a similar option that features a small fixed animation.

    Blizzard needs to spend time making us look good. This isn't a kit issue, it's a display issue. Blade flurry should ignite our weapons. Shadow Dance should feature very feint shadow duplicates of us around us. Shadow Blades should make our weapons into shadow, not use the glowy-fist thing from an RTS, where it was only ever bloodlust- we should have our own animation.

    We don't. We don't have anything that's our own. It should be obvious looking at my character when shadow walk is active and when it fades. I shouldn't have to watch a buff.


    The problem with this is production value. And there's a lot that's missing because the rogues are stitched together from animations and features of other classes.

  3. #3
    I'm having more fun on my rogue than ever since switching to Subt. Yeah, it kinda feels the same as the other two specs, but it's kind of like saying Guitar Hero on Easy is the same as Guitar Hero on Hard. If they revamped Mut and made all specs viable at lower gear levels, I think the class would be a lot less stale. The reason it's boring right now is that Mut is boring and most people feel like they're railroaded into that spec. Even Combat feels slow and boring at low gear levels now because of the 50 energy SS change, especially if you need to use BF.

    I don't care too much about character animations. I even found some of the new monk animations distracting, though pretty neat, until I learned to just tune them out. Some new/more obvious animations or effects would be nice though. I agree that Shadow Blades is lame when it has the potential for a really cool effect (giant shadow glaives/swords/daggers would be neat) and is pretty lame currently. Feint should be something more than the standard special attack animation, Shadow Step should have some effect, Adrenaline Rush should make you big or red or something. I actually like the Shadow Dance effect. This doesn't make or break a class for me though. Like I said, I don't really care about animations.

    Anyways, I think the people that like rogue will keep playing rogue as long as they're viable. A lot of the rogue PvPers jumped ship at the start of this expansion because we were just atrocious. We're pretty good now, but there are plenty of classes/specs that do everything we do better in PvP. For PvE, we've been solid as far as numbers for forever and utility for as long as it's mattered. Unless Blizzard does attempt a revamp and it goes terribly wrong, I don't see the rogue class ever completely dying off. Low population doesn't really matter as long as the few that keep playing rogue enjoy doing it.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    I'm having more fun on my rogue than ever since switching to Subt. Yeah, it kinda feels the same as the other two specs, but it's kind of like saying Guitar Hero on Easy is the same as Guitar Hero on Hard.
    I like this sentence.
    A witty saying proves nothing.
    -Voltaire
    winning
    plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

  5. #5
    #2 << spot on.

  6. #6
    Rogues lost a lot of their niche and now their just random melee dps No. 5 in a raid. They don't have anything flashy about themselves and biggest animations most rogues like about their class is the damn swirly ball we have to spend a minor glyph slot for.

    Rogues for a long time used to be popular because they were really good at damage. A lot of the wow community plays FotM classes and rogues are rarely that. ToT saw a surge in the rogue pop it feels like but I'm getting a feeling that they're dropping down again since they're no longer able to top meters and ignore all the boss mechanics.

    Rogue pvp sucks because rogues were the original burst class and now they've got crap for burst and are one of the worst in pvp yet again. Combat seems to be ok since it's the only way to get killing blows on healers in 2s. Blizz was so afraid of rogues bursting people down that they nerfed them into the ground and anytime rogues get anything that lets them have some sort of an edge in pvp they get nerfed back to shit.

    Rogue leveling is absolutely horrible now for anything except sub with the 5.4 changes making combat all but useless unless your max level with end game gear similar to fire mages. Mut is in the same boat as combat and just too slow to level as. And to top it off by the time you hit MoP leveling rogues are just down right the worst at it and have the hardest time leveling. Rogues are by far the squishiest melee class out there. Especially leveling rogues are so easy to be killed if they pull more than one mob at a time. They have bad aoe leveling and if they try to be an aoe leveler like other classes do they tend to die. Even with good gear at lv90 if I try to group up a lot of stuff and aoe it down once evasion wears off I'll die. I'm guessing people try leveling a rogue, die a bunch when they pull too much and then get frustrated and quit.

    Personally I think the reason why rogues are one of the least played classes is because they're not a hybrid. This is for a couple reasons. First off people chose a hybrid class so that they can do multiple things and not get bored on their toon so the hybrid aspect just makes people gravitate towards that spec because they see the opportunity that it allows them. Secondly a hybrid class brings more people to it like a paladin/monk/druid for example people say "I want to tank on a paladin" or "I want to heal on a monk" so anything besides a pure dps class brings more people to it because it's really 3 classes rather than 1 like with a rogue.

    So as far as why don't people play rogues over the other dps classes? Warlocks are the new FotM class and half the fights on world of logs has warlocks plastered all over the place plus they just got a massive overhaul so all their specs are pretty awesomely designed and they have the green fire quest. Hunters get pets so people like playing hunters because they can have a cute little kitty cat. People like mages. They're shiny and have ports. Frost has been the OP pvp spec since vanilla and has been dominant in pvp since then and will always be dominant. Also fire mages top charts pretty good so you get fanboys who wanna do that too.

    What does that leave rogues with? Stealth. Sucking at pvp and being ok in pve. We don't have something op like bladestorm for warriors or glowing like a fairy princess like paladins do. Monks have everything that rogues have ever wanted and have a lot better rotation. Monks are pretty much what rogues should be with a class redo.

    Rogues don't bring something to the raid like a battle res or heroism. While we have good utility and feint is op as hell a lot of raids will grab someone just for battle res or heroism. So the other pure classes each have a battle ress or heroism or both yet rogues have no big raid CD aside from smoke bomb which is very specific and hardly worth using on a lot of fights since people are spread out. Locks have health stones and battle ress. Mages have mage food (lol) and heroism. Hunters have battle ress or heroism or any buff you possibly need (which helps out 10 mans a lot) as well as misdirection which is a lot better than rogues tricks since tricks has a tendency to get a rogue punched in the face before the add goes off. Sitting in a pug raid (on any character not just my rogue) I've never heard someone say "hey we should get a rogue for <anything>".

    To top it off MoP has been a fuck you melee expansion. Ranged to melee ratio is extremely favorable to the ranged. Every raid group out there is looking for a ranged or healers so for a rogue to find a raid spot it's pretty hard to do. So say you're sitting on a class and in trade or whatever all you ever see is "looking for ranged" might make people make a ranged character.

    All things considered I'd say rogues are the worst class in the game atm. They're ok in pve but not the best at dps and they don't bring any strong raid CD. They're piss poor at pvp and takes an incredibly skilled player to be good and yet they're still not great. They're ok at soloing stuff but other classes are a lot better mostly classes with a tank spec or a pet class. Really there's nothing I'd ever say, "Rogues are the best at <?>". A lot of people when they pick a class they want something visually appealing (paladins) or the "best" at whatever it is they want to play. People don't say "hey I want to tank in this game. What's the worst tank class out there?"

  7. #7
    I've found that rogues are in a better place DPS wise in SoO than we were in ToT. Especially since a lot of the DPS in ToT that rogues were "good" at was just scumbagging useless targets on fights like Tortos, Horridon and Primordius. Our single target's higher now than it was in ToT (comparatively, of course) because most other melee's got nerfed on top of the RPPM nerf.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Warstar View Post
    I'm guessing people try leveling a rogue, die a bunch when they pull too much and then get frustrated and quit.
    ^I do believe this hits the nail on the head as to why rogue population is low. Yes there are other factors, but think of how many of your guildies havn't leveled thier rogue past 30 because they die too much.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    I don’t believe rogues are really in a state of decline. They have never been a particularly popular class, and yes, Blizzard has made very little effort to counter this situation. Since MOP, rogues have been the least successful class in both pvp rankings and popularity, and this has no doubt contributed to their numbers.
    Regarding levelling, they have always been quite weak when compared to other classes, but it's really only an issue for people expecting to mass pull, steam roll through mobs as they would with their warrior/dk.
    In terms of raiding, if there's a pure mele dps spot, and your group doesn't have missing raid buffs to fill, then rogues are still top of the pile imo.

    As for the points about this being a ranged bias expansion. I have to kind of agree. Ranged classes in general are normally favoured over mele when that random pug is being formed - and this not only applies to raiding but RBG's too.

    While rogues kind of cling on to the niche of being the best class for 'cheesing' certain raid mechanics, there are few to no encounters where a rogues or indeed any mele presence is a necessity.
    A big shift I've noticed over the last few years of raiding is that back in BC and wrath, it felt like far more boss mechanics were designed for mele to deal with. They had to deal with them, because asking ranged to move would equal a far larger dps loss. In MoP however, and perhaps to the greatest extent in SOO, class changes have seen a state where ranged specs now lose far less when required to move a bit, or swap targets.
    The developers have acknowledged this and incorporated mechanics which are better dealt with by ranged classes.
    So what's the net result of this? Basically, ranged have to work harder in a fight while that scum bag rogue just sits there dpsing. What do rogues get out of this? Massive dps domination due to higher boss uptime? Not really, in fact, we remain competitive with the ranged guys who had to do far more in the fight. The only real thing we get is bitterness and resentment from other raid members in regard to how easy a ride we have.
    There is of course an alternative, you can be the guy who deals with all the adds at the back of the room, who helps absorb that thing 30 yards away (though its not essential to the kill). But the result is you are now doing significantly less dps than the ranged guy who previously had these responsibilities.

    That aside, I still have a raid spot, I'm still enjoying rogue, I'm happy that all specs are currently viable, which is big improvement over default assassination during ToT.

    We have been told that the class wont receive a large overhaul during the next expansion. IMO it doesn't need one, but what is needed is a sit down to decide exactly what rogues and indeed all mele should be bringing to the table for the future expansion.

  10. #10
    I think that some people will always be drawn to rogues regardless of "neglect". Might not be many, but there will always be some. Of course there was some decline in numbers after cata because the legendary daggers being so easy to get made everyone and their mother dust off their alt rogue.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Ouchy View Post
    I don’t believe rogues are really in a state of decline. They have never been a particularly popular class,
    Rogues were very popular in vanilla. They lost popularity during BC, but it wasn't a really obvious thing until LK.

    The rogue archetype, which in this game encompasses ninjas, thieves, and swashbucklers, is a very popular fantasy archetype. The rogue class as originally designed, envisioned, and sold off, was a very popular class.

    Regarding levelling, they have always been quite weak when compared to other classes, but it's really only an issue for people expecting to mass pull, steam roll through mobs as they would with their warrior/dk.
    During vanilla the best leveling class was hunter (that may still be true if you restrict yourself to questing and farming), but rogues were considered easier than some, such as warrior.


    We have been told that the class wont receive a large overhaul during the next expansion. IMO it doesn't need one, but what is needed is a sit down to decide exactly what rogues and indeed all mele should be bringing to the table for the future expansion.
    I don't think the melee issue is entirely the rogue issue. I think they are separate.


    I will point out, Blizzard solved pretty much all the obnoxious stuff about rogues.

    > Stealth isn't super slow.
    > You have game outside of stealth in pvp.
    > Poisons aren't horrible anymore.
    > Farming/questing made easier with deadly momentum glyph.
    > Mobility greatly improved.

    So it's not like they've been idle or something.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Squirl View Post
    I'm having more fun on my rogue than ever since switching to Subt. Yeah, it kinda feels the same as the other two specs, but it's kind of like saying Guitar Hero on Easy is the same as Guitar Hero on Hard.
    I must say you hit the nail right here. If Assa and Combat were involving as sub (positional req feel clunky but it's something that makes you stay on your toes and not just use the middle finger to press 2) our class would become suddendly more enjoyable.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Ouchy View Post
    A big shift I've noticed over the last few years of raiding is that back in BC and wrath, it felt like far more boss mechanics were designed for mele to deal with.
    I strongly disagree with this. Even back in BC most of the mechanics were ranged based like clicking on magtheridon. Melee "mechanics" were generally limited too and still are interrupts. You'd bring 4 rogues to a raid since the interrupt spell would come too fast for the CD to come back up and you'd double up to make sure if one kick missed the other should land. That and rogues did amazing dps. Don't kid yourself that melee mechanics were anything special back then.

    Quote Originally Posted by Thelxi View Post
    I think that some people will always be drawn to rogues regardless of "neglect". Might not be many, but there will always be some. Of course there was some decline in numbers after cata because the legendary daggers being so easy to get made everyone and their mother dust off their alt rogue.
    There will always be players who play everything. There's a guy who leveled up a panda to 90 by picking flowers so he could stay faction neutral. There were people in vanilla who thought they could tank on paladins/druids because they had a tree that said they could. I remember seeing videos back then of a hunter who had thunderfury who specced into survival and ran around in pvp as a "melee hunter". That being said even if rogues were 50% under the next lowest dps there would still be people who would play the class just cause they like stealthing around or have nostalgia for the class or just like playing a thief genre. So saying that people will always be drawn to rogues is like saying people breath air. Just because some people play it doesn't mean that it doesn't need an update and need to have a reason why people should play it and bring them to raids. The fact that there's an iconic class that's been around since vanilla that's in as poor of a state that rogues are in and are getting worse and worse as time has gone by with, in comparison with what EVERY OTHER CLASS has gotten, being relatively ignored in any sort of up keep manner.

    Rogues have a lack of iconic abilities that are only for the rogue. Stealth which is the thief's main ability now is usable in some way by over half the classes in the game now. Every combat ability we have is mimicked by a druid as well as other classes. Our major CDs are all pretty much the same as other classes. Vendetta? Paladin wings that you can't target swap on.Adrenaline Rush? Rapid fire for hunters or berserk for druids. Shadow Dance and Shadow Blades? I guess those are kinda unique to rogues but shadow dance doesn't really do anything. All it does is change your combat bars for a few seconds and let you do abilities you can already do. Shadow Blades same thing just you don't even really notice it. Sure you get more CP during that time but most of your damage you gain from that is auto attack damage that people don't really pay attention to. And, none of our special abilities even get a cool animation to go with it. I guess killing spree is a kind of iconic rogue ability. But not because it's awesome. But because it's the only cooldown in the game that can kill you on a regular basis.

    Rogues visually are the most boring class out there. When you can even see them. Not so much of a trouble in a 10 man but in a 25 man raid the melee generally get lost in the clump of other players, pets, random particle effects shooting out the bosses ass and the boss it self. People want to see what they're playing. If they didn't we could all just go play text based games and watch damage scroll buy and /attack stuff. Your character gets lost frequently so you can't even see it. And when you can actually see it? Whoop dee doo. There's not much of a difference ever during a rogue's game play other than auto attack animation. Look at the new class the monk. Each one of their abilities is very well visually designed and you can tell exactly what it does and each one of their abilities has cool particle effects that go along with it. Warriors. Just as old as rogues and in a similar boat but they can use stuff like avatar with all their CDs popped and be big red angry and look like a crazed berserker coming to rip your face off. Or bladestorm which is one of the most iconic abilities in the game. Don't forget the almighty paladin who looks like William Wallace with fireballs shooting out of his eyes and lightning out his arse. Every damn thing a paladin does looks cool as hell. Rogues need something to make them look cool.

    As far as melee mechanics go the devs need to think something up. They get paid lots of money to do so. Stuff like on magmaw where you had to jump up on it's head and tag team chain it down was a pretty cool thing that melee generally got to do. Stuff like that. They need to think outside the box and stop making stupid interrupt mechanics since everyone and their mom can do that now. And for the love of god stop making shit that if you're in melee range kills you but spawns in melee range aka the slimes on dark shaman or Thok both fights which are akin to giant middle fingers from blizz towards melee. Any mechanic that's along the lines of: get out of melee range, avoid stupid one shot mechanic, twiddle your thumbs and do absolutely nothing, go back into melee range so you can do something again are just agonizingly stupid. The entire point of those "melee mechanics" is to go from doing something like damage to not doing anything at all... brilliant.

  14. #14
    Another very simple consideration - back in the days, rogues brought something nothing else had: dps. We were nearly by default the best damage dealers; we didn't bring buff or utility, we leeched them to deal more damage. That was our utility to the raid. I remember in TBC having a pocket enha shaman that would come every time with me in party and he was godly at totem twisting; with him i rocked damage meters an entire expansion.

    Now dps is something anyone can bring. The fact is that every class got their dps on top of the utility they already brought; we rogues got nothing on that side. While i'll be fine with less utility (i choose the rogue class because of the archetype and the playstyle), at least make our work (doing damage) more fun and peculiar.

    As many said, we already have a good set of tools. Make them more interesting.
    Non ti fidar di me se il cuor ti manca.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Verain View Post
    PARTY TIME
    I agree. Rogues don't provide any WOW factor outside of stealth which a lot of people bring now. The other melee have stuff that catches your attention like the monk animations you mentioned or the fact that warriors dual wield 2 handers.

    They could do so much with rogue animations and animations in general, I always like the idea of blurred type motion for rogues especially. Like shadow blades; I think that should turn you halfway into cloak of shadows looking while creating a blurred mirror image on either side so it looks like there are 3 shadowy rogues attacking for the duration of the cd. Adrenaline rush could just speed up all rogue animations by 50% for the duration, you wouldn't even need to add a new effect you would just look like your moving fast as hell.
    Quote Originally Posted by Gandrake View Post
    I like how when people complain about getting killed by kill shot which can have a 43 yard range, no resource cost, and can be used again if it doesn't kill and everyone says WELL, HEY, YOU KNOW, IT IS CALLED KILL SHOT
    but when a warrior does it, clearly the ability's name is "useless wet noodle piece of shit strike with an exorbitant rage cost that should do the same damage as MS"

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by mongoose6 View Post
    ^I do believe this hits the nail on the head as to why rogue population is low. Yes there are other factors, but think of how many of your guildies havn't leveled thier rogue past 30 because they die too much.
    Not to mention how boring rogue leveling in general is. As WW monk you can die just as much, if not more often than a rogue at times, but at least they have some decent sustained damage/AoE. Rogues get FoK at like level 70 or something (they might've changed that) and even then, you'll be energy starved A LOT.

    As for other reasons I think it's because rogues are probably one of the tougher classes out there to play properly/to its full potential. You have to do a lot to stay alive while solo killing elites and a lot to win a fight in PvP. As for PvE I'm not completely sure, as I'm only really familiar with LFR, which brings me to how hard it is to swap to adds as rogue. At least for assass and sublety, you have to have rupture up on the target or else you're doing a lot less DPS.

    Edit: Another thing is that the class feels EXTREMELY boring. Rogues used to be the crit heavy class next to ferals and stuff, at least in PvP. But now they're so boring, which is why I enjoy WW monk more at times because of the high crit chance.
    I'd rather see 40k back-to-back backstab crits than 80k eviscerate crits to be extremely honest.
    Last edited by Terahertz; 2013-10-18 at 11:03 PM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by The Ogdru Jahad View Post
    What can rogues do WITHIN REASON that is comparatively as cool?
    We can fucking vanish. Right in front of all that flashy shit, just POOF!

    It either appeals to you or it doesn't. I don't think flashy is what attracts people to the Rogue archetype to be honest.

  18. #18
    Rogues are one of the coolest and most fun classes to PvP on. I've played every single class (except for Monk, I haven't PvPed in MoP) to at least a duelist level and my rogue was by far the most fun (followed closely by druids). We might not be the strongest, but it's just so much fun. In PvE, we're beyond stale.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Emfg View Post
    Not to mention how boring rogue leveling in general is. As WW monk you can die just as much, if not more often than a rogue at times, but at least they have some decent sustained damage/AoE. Rogues get FoK at like level 70 or something (they might've changed that) and even then, you'll be energy starved A LOT.

    As for other reasons I think it's because rogues are probably one of the tougher classes out there to play properly/to its full potential. You have to do a lot to stay alive while solo killing elites and a lot to win a fight in PvP. As for PvE I'm not completely sure, as I'm only really familiar with LFR, which brings me to how hard it is to swap to adds as rogue. At least for assass and sublety, you have to have rupture up on the target or else you're doing a lot less DPS.

    Edit: Another thing is that the class feels EXTREMELY boring. Rogues used to be the crit heavy class next to ferals and stuff, at least in PvP. But now they're so boring, which is why I enjoy WW monk more at times because of the high crit chance.
    I'd rather see 40k back-to-back backstab crits than 80k eviscerate crits to be extremely honest.
    WW in General is like Rogue 2.0, much more fun to play. And Rogue leveling, yes, it does suck. They need to not make energy based classes/specs(WW, Feral, Rogues) not so dependent on Haste. Since while leveling you have very low haste levels and you just can't get a good feel when you mostly spend your time waiting on energy to regen.

  20. #20
    rogues could benefit from some new, awesome looking animations without becoming too flashy or showy.

    I'd bet on afterimages and blurring speed effects if I was blizzard. if rogues looked superhumanly fast, they'd be much more awesome, just like those superhumanly strong warriors.
    Warlorcs of Draenorc made me quit. You can't have my stuff.

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