How fun are WOD rogues right now?

[Feali]

If you want it to be more like Prowl, then hey, let's reduce your movement while Stealthed. Or more like Camouflage? Let's give Stealth a 1 minute cooldown. Think about what you're saying. In no way do I desire anything from these two classes when it comes to stealth capabilities. Apart from maybe the looks of Camouflage..

Enhanced Prowl - Perk Which makes them faster than us because Cat Form > Fleet Footed.
Enhanced Camouflage - Perk Should be a Rogue Perk.
Improved Camouflage - Perk But Subterfuge gets nerfed.

[Fiska]

Currently, in MoP, Cat Form is stuck with movement penalty when Prowling unless picking Glyph of Prowl. Going into WoD, Cat Form can potentially have 145% movement speed when using Prowl in WoD, at the expense of Wild Charge. Which means the Druid will need to run between every mob. Picking Nightstalker, Rogues have 135% movement speed. Potentially 10% less than Cat Form, but this doesn't come at the cost of Shadowstep, which is closely similar to Wild Charge. Stealth/Prowl is most used for solo content though, and in this area Cloak and Dagger is far better than Shadowstep anyhow. You can get between mobs a lot faster, despite being potentially 10% slower. Picking Glyph of Stealth you'll be able to enter Stealth faster after quick kills, whilst Cat Form will regularly have to wait for Prowl to come off of cooldown due to the lack of such a Glyph. Rogue Stealth is more fluid overall. What exactly about Prowl is better than Stealth? You also have the option to Vanish as a Rogue. There is no way Cat Form can get into Prowl as often as a Rogue, and get between mobs as fast as a Rogue. For traveling you'll just use your mount instead, so the potential 10% speed advantage Cat Form can achieve isn't enough alone to outshine the Stealth potential of Rogues.

Healing during Camouflage is cool, but how often does a Hunter activate Camouflage while soloing compared to a Rogue activating Stealth? Very rarely. And neither Hunters or Rogues wants to spend a lot of time in Camouflage/Stealth when chain pulling during quests. You won't get a lot of healing from Camouflage unless you sit in it for an extended period. I don't envy this perk, because Recuperate and Leeching Poison are more smooth options for restoring your health during quests.

[Sesshou]

Because it's possible to stab someone by swinging your arm in from the side to the middle--Not just by thrusting straight forward.
You can totally stab someone in the back without being directly behind them.

It is also possible to stab some one in the back while standing directly in front of them. No matter how you look at it, it is nothing but god awful blizzard logic if the name is the sole reason we can't use it from the front when using it from the side is just fine. Though rather than disagreeing with me, seems more like you missed my point.

[Fiska]

Subtlety has been fabricated as a spec that's hard to play, and Backstab's positional requirement is most likely very much an intended part of that difficulty. I personally don't enjoy it, so I don't play it. Luckily the other options have been quite fun and very viable in the past, so I have great faith they'll be so in WoD too.

A personal wish is that Subtlety differentiates itself more from Combat and Assassination. Combat already uses Eviscerate and Slice & Dice, and Assassination already uses Rupture. Couldn't Subtlety get something different?

[Hitei]

I find this way of thinking a bit.. silly. :P Another way to say exactly what you're saying is: "If you want to combine all the good parts of other classes into one class, then play a Rogue". Am I not right? You just had to list several classes in order to match the Rogue. And seriously, in no way do the stealth capabilities of Druids and Hunters outshine what Rogues have. Rogue Stealth is in such a shape at the moment that I can't really imagine what more you'd want it to do? If you want it to be more like Prowl, then hey, let's reduce your movement while Stealthed. Or more like Camouflage? Let's give Stealth a 1 minute cooldown. Think about what you're saying. In no way do I desire anything from these two classes when it comes to stealth capabilities. Apart from maybe the looks of Camouflage..

Speaking purely about T16 now (SoO), Rogue mobility is in very good shape. You'll be hard pressed to find a better mobility ability like Shadowstep. It takes you to your target, instantly, boosts your movement for a bit, has a short cooldown, can be used on any target, and you can use it even if you're mid-air. What beats "You-press-a-button-and-appear-on-your-target"? Charge and Feral Charge come close, but they have travel time, can't be used within 5 yards, and won't boost your movement speed. Should you need to use a mobility ability for avoiding hazards then Sprint gets the job done. And it will have a relatively short cooldown assuming you're playing Combat. Again, I wouldn't trade anything for Shadowstep. And especially Burst of Speed on Heroic Malkorok..

Mobility is mostly about ways to stay on your target, and in regards of "staying on your target" Rogues have great evasive abilities that makes them able to stay on their target when other classes need to run out. Cloak of Shadows is the main contributor here, but Feint and Evasion can let you soak stuff other classes need to run away from. With all the tools Rogues have they've certainly proved their worth in raiding, and if anything they're very special.

No. What I am saying is that there is nothing unique about playing a rogue, except Smoke Bomb.
There was a time where our identity, or class playstyle, was built around having a unique toolkit that gave us interesting advantages. We were one of two classes that could escape combat (but we could do so while running away, feign death requires you stay still), we (and ferals who were based on us) were the only class with sprint, stealth, long duration stuns, auto-applied slows, etc. But over the years our entire toolkit sans smoke bomb was given to other classes to make them more interesting--and we were never given a different unique identity.

How do you think druids would feel if they gave two or three other classes the ability to change into animal forms to fill different roles?
How would shamans feel if they gave other classes totems? Or Death knights if mages and warlocks were suddenly able to summon undead creatures?

Can you honestly say you don't desire the ranged immunity that comes from camo? Do you really not think it's absurd that they gave our class' defining feature to the class that has an entire anti-rogue tool-kit, and then gave their version of stealth a unique functional mechanic? Imagine how outraged hunters would be if rogues were given the ability to tame pets, even if the pets only added 10% more DPS to the rogues damage.

I wasn't trying to argue that rogues are in a bad state. Just that there's no reason to pick the rogue class if combat mobility is what you are after. Monks and warriors are equally adept at getting around the battlefield and their class package comes with so much more than ours. Charge doesn't make you sprint and it isn't instant, but it's also 12 seconds talented (half the CD of shadowstep) and in warlords, roots the target instead of giving you a speed increase.

Our ability to break boss mechanics is probably the only unique feature we have left. But the pessimistic side of that is that the only time when a rogue is better than another class is during that brief moment where the boss does an AoE ability that we can feint.

I don't find that to be enough to put our class in a good place. Not when the trade off is lackluster talents, out of date mechanics, and three specs with very little distinctive identity.

Currently, in MoP, Cat Form is stuck with movement penalty when Prowling unless picking Glyph of Prowl. Going into WoD, Cat Form can potentially have 145% movement speed when using Prowl in WoD, at the expense of Wild Charge. Which means the Druid will need to run between every mob. Picking Nightstalker, Rogues have 135% movement speed. Potentially 10% less than Cat Form, but this doesn't come at the cost of Shadowstep, which is closely similar to Wild Charge. Stealth/Prowl is most used for solo content though, and in this area Cloak and Dagger is far better than Shadowstep anyhow. You can get between mobs a lot faster, despite being potentially 10% slower. Picking Glyph of Stealth you'll be able to enter Stealth faster after quick kills, whilst Cat Form will regularly have to wait for Prowl to come off of cooldown due to the lack of such a Glyph. Rogue Stealth is more fluid overall. What exactly about Prowl is better than Stealth? You also have the option to Vanish as a Rogue. There is no way Cat Form can get into Prowl as often as a Rogue, and get between mobs as fast as a Rogue. For traveling you'll just use your mount instead, so the potential 10% speed advantage Cat Form can achieve isn't enough alone to outshine the Stealth potential of Rogues.

Healing during Camouflage is cool, but how often does a Hunter activate Camouflage while soloing compared to a Rogue activating Stealth? Very rarely. And neither Hunters or Rogues wants to spend a lot of time in Camouflage/Stealth when chain pulling during quests. You won't get a lot of healing from Camouflage unless you sit in it for an extended period. I don't envy this perk, because Recuperate and Leeching Poison are more smooth options for restoring your health during quests.

If we're talking areas where mobs spawning, warriors have a much quicker time getting from mob to mob, and can pull much large groups than a rogue can with little worry and no CD use.

I found myself using Camo all the time when playing my hunter in Ashran. Slipping out of combat for a brief time allows you to passively heal up very quickly while in the protection of stealth and not limited by standing still, sitting down, or relying on items. Recup is nice but remember that hunters also take almost zero damage while questing, because they have pets tanking and can spam heal the pet for a stupidly high amount of health. Even without the pet, hunters take less damage because they kill targets from a distance (kiting is even easier in WoD due to instant trap arming. You can literally just throw an explosive trap directly in front of a mob and it is instantly blasted backwards, ice trap instantly deploys instead of mobs running past it while it arms).

[Sesshou]

How do you think druids would feel if they gave two or three other classes the ability to change into animal forms to fill different roles?
How would shamans feel if they gave other classes totems? Or Death knights if mages and warlocks were suddenly able to summon undead creatures?

Can you honestly say you don't desire the ranged immunity that comes from camo? Do you really not think it's absurd that they gave our class' defining feature to the class that has an entire anti-rogue tool-kit, and then gave their version of stealth a unique functional mechanic? Imagine how outraged hunters would be if rogues were given the ability to tame pets, even if the pets only added 10% more DPS to the rogues damage.

Oh, you mean like how pissed ranged dps were when we could kill them at range with shuriken toss/dt spam before it got nerfed into the ground because 'omg you guys are rogues, you can't be able to do that at range'. Apparently the ability to constantly fire good damage ranged attacks while moving is only ok if the class is a hunter.

[Fiska]

How do you think druids would feel if they gave two or three other classes the ability to change into animal forms to fill different roles?

I think if you ask players of different classes, you will probably find that they're complaining about the same thing.

What makes the Rogue class feel unique to me is Stealth. It's like a stance that makes me approach fights differently (or avoid them), and gives me a new set of abilities to utilize. It's a big factor. Daggers are iconic Rogue weapons, and also Rogue-only. No other class uses them. Makes me look unique. Then you have the evasiveness which imo is unparralelled. And maybe I'm alone here, but I still find Poisions and target control to be unique Rogue themes, though the former isn't emphasized as much anymore (like Hunter Aspects and Stings). All of this put together makes me feel like a Rogue. I don't feel like a Rogue when I'm a Hunter. Camouflage only provides stealth functionality when stationary (unless Glyphed), hence it also has the ranged-immunity addition so it provides the Hunter something while moving. I don't care about that as a Rogue since I'm always stealthed while moving anyway. Having said that, Rogues and Hunters are concept-wise closely similar in some areas, and hiding out of sight is something you'd imagine a Hunter would do. I think they pulled off Camouflage quite well without it being similar to Stealth in how often you use it, effectiveness, and the gameplay it grants you (no new array of abilities). Rogues are quite uniquely the masters of stealth, and remarkably so. I don't feel outshined or less unique. Druids are the closest in similarity, but they're not better. I've already covered that.

The same goes for mobility. I don't envy Warriors, and I don't feel that they're equal at getting around the battlefield. Shadowstep is better than Charge in every way apart from the talented bonus Warriors choose on lvl 15. And Warriors lack ways of avoiding hazards efficiently with mobility abilities. I consider this important. They can jump out of "the fire" with Heroic Leap, but it's not as useful as Sprint which can be used more often and lets you re-adjust yourself several times during its duration (you probably want to get back to your target after dodging that fire). Sprint may be old, but it works. It did get it's duration and cooldown cut in half at one point, which has been pretty much all its needed throughout the years.

If there is a class that has overall better mobility than a Rogue then so be it. Maybe that class is supposed to be the best. But I certainly don't feel left behind, copied or in a bad spot with the tools I have available to me as a Rogue. I feel very powerful, and in ways that are different compared to what other classes have. Hunters are supposed to be good (the best?) at soloing, for example. This is fine. I was talking about the effectiveness of Stealth compared to Prowl and Camouflage in the first place. Neither beats Stealth.

Also, and most importantly, you gotto look at what a Rogue does in total, and not say "this class covers mobility, and this class covers stealth". The way I see it is, the classes in the game have gotten homogenized in areas that are important for every class to be proficient at. It affects multiple classes. And if the Rogue class happens to be in an area, it's most likely the best in that area. The iconic Rogue features are also there if you look a bit harder. I listed some of the things which makes me feel like a Rogue.

Hopefully I understood and answered your points correctly. Thanks for being constructive.

[Hitei]

I think if you ask players of different classes, you will probably find that they're complaining about the same thing.

What makes the Rogue class feel unique to me is Stealth. It's like a stance that makes me approach fights differently (or avoid them), and gives me a new set of abilities to utilize. It's a big factor. Daggers are iconic Rogue weapons, and also Rogue-only. No other class uses them. Makes me look unique. Then you have the evasiveness which imo is unparralelled. And maybe I'm alone here, but I still find Poisions and target control to be unique Rogue themes, though the former isn't emphasized as much anymore (like Hunter Aspects and Stings). All of this put together makes me feel like a Rogue. I don't feel like a Rogue when I'm a Hunter. Camouflage only provides stealth functionality when stationary (unless Glyphed), hence it also has the ranged-immunity addition so it provides the Hunter something while moving. I don't care about that as a Rogue since I'm always stealthed while moving anyway. Having said that, Rogues and Hunters are concept-wise closely similar in some areas, and hiding out of sight is something you'd imagine a Hunter would do. I think they pulled off Camouflage quite well without it being similar to Stealth in how often you use it, effectiveness, and the gameplay it grants you (no new array of abilities). Rogues are quite uniquely the masters of stealth, and remarkably so. I don't feel outshined or less unique. Druids are the closest in similarity, but they're not better. I've already covered that.

Stealth also gives ferals a unique set of abilities, and those abilities would be great if they felt at all powerful, but it has been a long time since being in stealth felt significantly dangerous (to other players). Poison and target control were unique rogue themes, because back in Vanilla and BC, there was very little control in the game, so things like rogues and frost mages had unique positions. But now, even with reduced CC, nearly every class has a similar level of control. What is Crippling poison compared to Chilblains? Or monk's ability to not only slow, but root, or hunter's short CD zero cost concussion shot, or druid's auto-applied slow disease? Where is the uniqueness we used to have as one of the few classes with stuns, when nearly every class in the game has one (and none of them besides ferals have to spend resources tied to offensive ability)?

Rogue stealth is superior in speed to hunter, but inferior in speed to druids.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel much like the "master of stealth" when a hunter can stealth too, is immune to sap and other non-attack abilities while stealthed, has increased stealth detection that makes getting anywhere near it dangerous, can deploy not only traps (which now deploy and activate almost instantly and can't be disarmed) but also flares to directly counter rogue stealth, and on top of that passively heals more than recup while camo'd.

And again, it's not even about the effectiveness. It's the principle of giving away our class' single most identifying mechanic. The thing that makes us rogues.
It's on par with giving mages the ability to summon really weak demons or ghouls. Or (as I pointed out earlier) giving another class the ability to tame beasts. Or allowing priests to create portals to cities or turn players into sheep for a couple seconds.

The same goes for mobility. I don't envy Warriors, and I don't feel that they're equal at getting around the battlefield. Shadowstep is better than Charge in every way apart from the talented bonus Warriors choose on lvl 15. And Warriors lack ways of avoiding hazards efficiently with mobility abilities. I consider this important. They can jump out of "the fire" with Heroic Leap, but it's not as useful as Sprint which can be used more often and lets you re-adjust yourself several times during its duration (you probably want to get back to your target after dodging that fire). Sprint may be old, but it works. It did get it's duration and cooldown cut in half at one point, which has been pretty much all its needed throughout the years.

I fail to see how Shadowstep is superior to Charge.
Shadowstep requires a talent, so how can you ignore charge's talented bonuses?

I don't understand your comment about Heroic Leap. Sprint has a 60 second cooldown. Heroic leap has a 45 second cooldown (30 seconds glyphed). And when you heroic leap out of the fire, you can charge back to the target. You can literally move out of fire and get back to your target twice as often with gylphed heroic leap and talented charge(30 sec CD, 12 sec CD), than you can with sprint and talented Shadowstep.(60 second CD, 20 second CD).

If there is a class that has overall better mobility than a Rogue then so be it. Maybe that class is supposed to be the best. But I certainly don't feel left behind, copied or in a bad spot with the tools I have available to me as a Rogue. I feel very powerful, and in ways that are different compared to what other classes have. Hunters are supposed to be good (the best?) at soloing, for example. This is fine. I was talking about the effectiveness of Stealth compared to Prowl and Camouflage in the first place. Neither beats Stealth.

Also, and most importantly, you gotto look at what a Rogue does in total, and not say "this class covers mobility, and this class covers stealth". The way I see it is, the classes in the game have gotten homogenized in areas that are important for every class to be proficient at. It affects multiple classes. And if the Rogue class happens to be in an area, it's most likely the best in that area. The iconic Rogue features are also there if you look a bit harder. I listed some of the things which makes me feel like a Rogue.

If you don't mind, could you elaborate on how you feel very powerful in different ways as a rogue?

Looking at rogues overall is worse than looking at specific facets, because as an overall package we can do very, very little compared to other classes. We fill a single role, we are melee (and so subject to more hazards in fights), we have very little solo-ability, three specs that play similarly, uninteresting talent choices (or talents that are band-aid fixes for class problems) out of date mechanics like kidney shot and broken, buggy combo points...

All classes have been homogenized somewhat, but other classes were given additional unique mechanics and abilities to keep them fresh and unique. We've had our unique mechanics removed or given to other classes, and the only really significant things we've gained since Wrath are Smoke Bomb (the only ability in game that can create LoS) and feint, an ability that lets us ignore specific mechanics on certain boss fights.

[Deleted]

Did a level today on the beta.

Tried mutilate and combat. Combat felt superior but not by a big margin. It felt very fluid, a lot more than I suspected. This is mostly because of the combo point changes. CPs are no longer wasted when going from mob to mob, so 50 energy sinister strikes didn't feel too bad. Killing Spree seemed very powerful. We got a new aura for when we get to deep insight and blade flurry has a new animation. Cloak and dagger was the big shocker because I was unaware how superior it is for leveling because of how often you resealth. CnD is basically step without a cooldown if we only consider leveling.

Other than that every thing feels the same. You really have to like the rogue class to stick with it because we haven't got any big overhaul like locks, only a few QoL changes. They didn't even bother to add a new aura for dispatch procs. Every class has a unique aura, mutilate just gets colossus smash's hand-me-downs.

PvP wise, mutilate is better than sub at 100 although it's not a big gap. Venom Zest is shit and nobody will spec it ever in PvP and not often in PvE or at all. I mean, VZ would only excel in cleave situations which we would probably go combat for with shadow reflection (think blade flurry KS+shadow reflection). I don't know, it needs to add more regeneration to make it feel better.

If you're sticking with rogue, well you'll truly be the underdog because there will definitely be less people playing it next expansion, although that's not down to a balance PoV. They're balanced quite well on the beta. You'll really love the combo point change - everything feels extremely fluid.

[Hitei]

PvP wise, mutilate is better than sub at 100 although it's not a big gap. Venom Zest is shit and nobody will spec it ever in PvP and not often in PvE or at all. I mean, VZ would only excel in cleave situations which we would probably go combat for with shadow reflection (think blade flurry KS+shadow reflection).

Does shadow reflection cleave with flurry?
And does it know how to multi-target KS?

[Wow]

Does shadow reflection cleave with flurry?
And does it know how to multi-target KS?

Just tried and no it doesn't do either.

[Deleted]

Muti is a lot quicker but still really simple. Would like a bit more speed maybe, at least in the >35% stage.

Combat is not bad, could potentially be quicker to make it a bit more exciting. Especially with the loss of Assurance of Consequence.

Our 100 tree is pretty much a let down. Venom Zest is good, but pretty snooze. Shadow Reflection is conceptually AMAZING, but the damage and everything about using it just feels pathetic honestly, even a cooler and more obvious animation would help somewhat. It does have great potential, so I'm not completely lost on it. Death from Above has a sick animation no doubt, but the auto attack DPS loss makes me question its viability. Needs more number tweaking, but I do like the ability a lot and hope it ends up worth considering.

Overall if you like Rogue now you will be happy in WoD, especially when they iron out the issues. But honestly the changes are not gonna pump the rogue population up in the way that is needed. I think to do that they need to at least look at level 100 talents. But as well as that look as the glaring issue of our whole talent tree, it's very underwhelming compared to other classes. I have always played Rogue and always will, I just hope they give the talent tree a good rework honestly. It's all that's needed. The tree is shocking

[Vigilate]

Muti is a lot quicker but still really simple. Would like a bit more speed maybe, at least in the >35% stage.

Combat is not bad, could potentially be quicker to make it a bit more exciting. Especially with the loss of Assurance of Consequence.

Our 100 tree is pretty much a let down. Venom Zest is good, but pretty snooze. Shadow Reflection is conceptually AMAZING, but the damage and everything about using it just feels pathetic honestly, even a cooler and more obvious animation would help somewhat. It does have great potential, so I'm not completely lost on it. Death from Above has a sick animation no doubt, but the auto attack DPS loss makes me question its viability. Needs more number tweaking, but I do like the ability a lot and hope it ends up worth considering.

Overall if you like Rogue now you will be happy in WoD, especially when they iron out the issues. But honestly the changes are not gonna pump the rogue population up in the way that is needed. I think to do that they need to at least look at level 100 talents. But as well as that look as the glaring issue of our whole talent tree, it's very underwhelming compared to other classes. I have always played Rogue and always will, I just hope they give the talent tree a good rework honestly. It's all that's needed. The tree is shocking

Was optimistic about Rogues talents at the start of Beta, but as Beta has worn on, I've more or less come to the conclusion that Rogue level 100 talents are a near wash. Venom Zest's bonus is near negligible, especially for Assassination and Subtlety. Shadow Reflection is the "highest" dps gain, buy eeks out as only ~3% of your damage. Death from Above is a DPS loss. No matter which talent you choose, your playstyle also doesn't change in the slightest. Venom Zest is passive, Shadow Reflection just gets macroed into other CDs, and Shadow Reflection is a talent that you replace your Evis/Envenom with once ever 20 seconds. Not too impressed at the moment from my raid testing experiences.