6.2 Rogue Buffs

[fierydemise]

The thing is though, this has only been true for WoD and the start of MoP.

No its been around for a long time, basically since they gave us the new incarnation of feint in T8.

Want proof here is Aldriana talking about the power of the rogue survivability niche all the way back in T11.
http://web.archive.org/web/201305100...8-role_rogues/

Rogue survivability has always been good, its not always the reason people bring rogues since we often end up with OP or very strong throughput as well but its always been there.

[Layke]

No its been around for a long time, basically since they gave us the new incarnation of feint in T8.

Want proof here is Aldriana talking about the power of the rogue survivability niche all the way back in T11.
http://web.archive.org/web/201305100...8-role_rogues/

Rogue survivability has always been good, its not always the reason people bring rogues since we often end up with OP or very strong throughput as well but its always been there.

You misunderstand; I wasn't talking about our survivability, though re-reading my post and the quote in question, I can see why it was taken that way. I'll always agree that our ability to reduce damage and stay alive is pretty much second to none. What you quoted me as saying was in regards to our DPS in relation to other classes over the expansions. For almost all of Vanilla, BC, and Wrath, Rogues were really solid in terms of DPS out-put. Cataclysm was also pretty good, with DS letting Rogues do amazing, though most of that was in relation to the Legendary daggers. MoP was one of the first times ever I actually felt weak as a Rogue. Tier 14 was horrible on us, with Tier 15 being fairly decent. It wasn't really until Tier 16 in SoO that I felt Rogues were once again good (in terms of just our DPS). Granted, these are just memories off the top of my head, and I could very well be wrong in how I recall them.

Fast forward to Highmaul and the start of WoD. Rogues were in a horrible place. Blizzard buffed us a bit and now we're where we currently are; middle of the pack. Do I think the sky is falling? Absolutely not. Do I wish Rogues currently did as much damage as Mages, Warlocks, and Hunters? Absolutely. Even toning those classes down, Rogues still don't do as much DPS as UH DKs (over the instance as a whole), and we're on par with Warriors/WW Monks, if that. I realize that most of the ranks/logs are achieved via padding and cheesing mechanics, and that Rogues don't have a reliable on-demand burst. I understand that our ST damage output is great, and that the boss dying is all that matters, with Rogues often having some of the best ST output. All that being said though, it's still fun to be "on top of the meters", and many of us rolled Rogues to do just that. I honestly feel this is one of the lowest Rogues have ever been, and I just want to see us back to where we once were. Either way I'll still continue to play the class, and I am happy with the 6.2 buffs as well as our new tier sets (assuming they go live).

[Pathal]

...

Not entirely. There's a little rose tinted glasses going on here.

In Cata, combat rogues had abysmal performance in t11, and was only viable on 2 target cleave fights. Which to be fair, was actually leagues better than any other classes' 2 target cleave even at it's worst for the time. Almost every patch since Cata's release featured across the board rogue buffs in some way or another. Rogues simply weren't that good at single target sustained at the start of the expansion. Wrath was actually a pretty similar situation, and BC wasn't too far from this as well. It wasn't until ArP cap and ICC that combat was considered good, and Assassination was buffed pretty much every patch as well until the poison nerf in ICC. There have always been exceptions to rules, V&T in Cata practically made rogues mandatory, despite being a poor tier for rogues, and BF+FOK had its moments in wrath, but otherwise rogues weren't that great until the final tiers.

Rogues for awhile have had this tendency to cycle through these periods of being underpowered, get buffed every patch, and then get nerfed because they're just too good at the end of the expansion. There's probably too many factors to just boil it down to 'niche', or 'role', or something else. But the role of Feint and rogue specific tricks definitely play a part. This isn't a new trend.

[Fiska]

That rundown is pretty much exactly sums up my memory of Rogue dps throughout the expansions.

[Joresh]

Ru for real?

Yes we have had a short period where we had great survivability but that still means jack shit when applying to guilds.

Feel free to show me any guild recruitment adverts which are asking for Rogues due to survivability or theyre recruiting any class with great survivability... thats right they dont exist *facepalm*

Except for the part where rogues were necessary for mythic blackhand for all of the top guilds in the world. Hell thats why Blood Legion couldn't down M Blackhand

Let's be real, rogues are slightly below average but not anything nearly as bad as you have claimed they are. In 99.9% of circumstances, rogues are not being sat for their performance and if they are I'd feel confident saying it was a player performance issue not a class performance issue.

And yes, many guilds to recruit rogues for their survivability, the ability to survive or mitigate large amounts of damage is a particularly strong attribute for mythic blackrock foundry (which you might not know because it doesn't appear you have any experience with it)

It's still fun to be "on top of the meters", and many of us rolled Rogues to do just that.

every single dps spec in the game can make the same, valid argument. I roll a feral druid to do damage; I roll a shadow priest to do damage, etc. Every single dps spec in the game thinks they should top the meters, the reality is not every single one can. Rogues have traditionally been near the top of the dps charts in every expansion at some point, if anything you can be slightly below average for once, welcome to the world of a hybrid dps where you're taxed for the utility you brought; maybe now you'll start to understand what every dps priest, shaman, and druid has gone through at some point

Honestly, if you rolled a rogue just to top the meters I pity you

[maddnesskhaz]

snip

You're correct that Rogues were being recruited for M Blackhand, but that's a failing of fight design and mechanics more-so than due to any particular strength of Rogues. The class has always been an individual class with very limited raid buffs, but strong individual DPS and survivability. Evasion, CloS and Feint makes for a formidable toolkit to allow 'you' to survive, but does very little to keep the raid alive.

We can't taunt, we can't BoP, we can't off-heal, Rogue is a pure DPS class along the same line as a Mage or a Hunter.

The issue currently is that:

• Rogue DPS doesn't stand-up against Mages and Hunters at maximum output (whether you believe they're overtuned or not is a different topic).
• Rogue as a melee class is significantly more exposed to incoming damage than a ranged class, so you're more of a liability than the ranged DPS classes.
• Whilst Rogue's offer good survivability for a melee class, that's only really a compensation for poor fight design in BRF that makes melee significantly more of a liability than ranged on a number of fights. This liability has no real upside when you could bring a Hunter or a Mage instead.

I'm OK with having to switch specs to maximise performance on each fight, I think that it's a benefit of being a pure DPS class that you can min:max for specific fights through your spec choice, something that may not be available to other classes.

I'm OK with having limited or no (remove the PvE damage reduction of Smoke Bomb perhaps) raid utility beyond what I can offer as a player.

I'm not OK with being a significant margin behind the other pure DPS classes (Mages & Hunters specifically) on every single fight in BRF even when played at the same level. You have Fire Mages - for example - offering significant burst and sustained AE damage along with extremely strong ST damage, no Rogue spec can match this, there's a trade-off to be made between strong AE and strong ST.

Druids can switch between Balance and Feral to have some of the strongest performance at AE and ST fights, Mages and Hunters both offer the same. As it stands a Rogue cannot match this output without playing at a level above the others in their group.

For most of us, not in a top-level PvE guild, you're not competing amongst a large group of people playing a class to it's potential, so being benched isn't an issue. It is however, a sign of poor balance when you're playing at the 90% region to do the same DPS as a mid-level Arcane Mage.

I think mechanically the playstyle of the class isn't too bad, the CP change made a noticeable improvement to quality of life for target-switching fights which have always traditionally been a limiting factor for the class. Sub / Assn having their CD's still tied to the target isn't ideal for this still however, and Sub still retains the positional requirement that no other class has anymore.

Yes it's nice to be top of the charts, but I don't think anyone is looking to be so far ahead of the pack that they're able to be an average player beating other classes played to full potential, what we want is to be able to compete on equal footing with other DPS classes, and not be brought for the novelty factor of spamming feint.

[Layke]

You're correct that Rogues were being recruited for M Blackhand, but that's a failing of fight design and mechanics more-so than due to any particular strength of Rogues. The class has always been an individual class with very limited raid buffs, but strong individual DPS and survivability. Evasion, CloS and Feint makes for a formidable toolkit to allow 'you' to survive, but does very little to keep the raid alive.

We can't taunt, we can't BoP, we can't off-heal, Rogue is a pure DPS class along the same line as a Mage or a Hunter.

The issue currently is that:

• Rogue DPS doesn't stand-up against Mages and Hunters at maximum output (whether you believe they're overtuned or not is a different topic).
• Rogue as a melee class is significantly more exposed to incoming damage than a ranged class, so you're more of a liability than the ranged DPS classes.
• Whilst Rogue's offer good survivability for a melee class, that's only really a compensation for poor fight design in BRF that makes melee significantly more of a liability than ranged on a number of fights. This liability has no real upside when you could bring a Hunter or a Mage instead.

I'm OK with having to switch specs to maximise performance on each fight, I think that it's a benefit of being a pure DPS class that you can min:max for specific fights through your spec choice, something that may not be available to other classes.

I'm OK with having limited or no (remove the PvE damage reduction of Smoke Bomb perhaps) raid utility beyond what I can offer as a player.

I'm not OK with being a significant margin behind the other pure DPS classes (Mages & Hunters specifically) on every single fight in BRF even when played at the same level. You have Fire Mages - for example - offering significant burst and sustained AE damage along with extremely strong ST damage, no Rogue spec can match this, there's a trade-off to be made between strong AE and strong ST.

Druids can switch between Balance and Feral to have some of the strongest performance at AE and ST fights, Mages and Hunters both offer the same. As it stands a Rogue cannot match this output without playing at a level above the others in their group.

For most of us, not in a top-level PvE guild, you're not competing amongst a large group of people playing a class to it's potential, so being benched isn't an issue. It is however, a sign of poor balance when you're playing at the 90% region to do the same DPS as a mid-level Arcane Mage.

I think mechanically the playstyle of the class isn't too bad, the CP change made a noticeable improvement to quality of life for target-switching fights which have always traditionally been a limiting factor for the class. Sub / Assn having their CD's still tied to the target isn't ideal for this still however, and Sub still retains the positional requirement that no other class has anymore.

Yes it's nice to be top of the charts, but I don't think anyone is looking to be so far ahead of the pack that they're able to be an average player beating other classes played to full potential, what we want is to be able to compete on equal footing with other DPS classes, and not be brought for the novelty factor of spamming feint.

Exactly. Everything you said is what I meant.

And @Joresh, you can "pity" me all you want, I've played my Rogue since Vanilla. I remember all of the highs and lows we've been through, and at the time people DID roll Rogues for DPS. That's all you brought a Rogue for. Don't feed me anything about finally understanding what HYBRID DPS have been through with all of the insane utility they can bring. Not to mention that Hybrids now exist in a game where all they have to do is change specs and voila! Most of their gear is good to go.

[Christhammer]

Cloak of Shadows now has a 90-second cooldown (up from 60 seconds).

[Sicarius87]

Cloak of Shadows now has a 90-second cooldown (up from 60 seconds).

That better not make it to live. That severely hurts rogues in PvP.

[Firatha]

That better not make it to live. That severely hurts rogues in PvP.

And pve how are we supposed to deal with killing spree porting us around into death?

[Mafic]

Bad change is bad.

[Deleted]

Cloak of Shadows now has a 90-second cooldown (up from 60 seconds).

Terrible change, they should lower duration instead of increasing CD

[Dextar]

Terrible change, they should lower duration instead of increasing CD

Or just not touch it at all. PvP combat nerfs, BoS nerf, and now a CoS nerf?

Here's an idea, they could do a major overhaul and fix abilities to work differently in PvP vs PvE instead of trying to get them to balance for both and failing miserably.

[Mafic]

This is one of the case where I would say it is an all out nerf for PVE and PVP reasons. Probably more of a PVE nerf this time around (unlike last time which was primarily for PVP reasons)...surprised feint has survived the nerf bat lol.

[Deleted]

This is one of the case where I would say it is an all out nerf for PVE and PVP reasons. Probably more of a PVE nerf this time around (unlike last time which was primarily for PVP reasons)...surprised feint has survived the nerf bat lol.

Please, don't give them ideas. They seem to miss some

[Rosvall]

You're correct that Rogues were being recruited for M Blackhand, but that's a failing of fight design and mechanics more-so than due to any particular strength of Rogues. The class has always been an individual class with very limited raid buffs, but strong individual DPS and survivability. Evasion, CloS and Feint makes for a formidable toolkit to allow 'you' to survive, but does very little to keep the raid alive.
.

We have smoke bomb which is one of the best defensive raid cooldowns of all dps classes. Especially now that AM is going away.

[Deleted]

Cloak of Shadows now has a 90-second cooldown (up from 60 seconds).

Death rate in pve will increase. So many fights were u have to use this while KS is running, else u will die.

[maddnesskhaz]

We have smoke bomb which is one of the best defensive raid cooldowns of all dps classes. Especially now that AM is going away.

It's not a major gamebreaker the way Fox is, certainly in WoD I can't think of a situation where a Rogue is brought to the raid because of Smoke Bomb, more-so it's used because it happens to be there. Very limited AE range, short duration, and a 10% damage reduction doesn't really compare to the necessity of something like Fox, nice to have of course, but I don't see it as making a case for Rogues having an enormous amount of raid utility.

[Deleted]

Cloak of Shadows now has a 90-second cooldown (up from 60 seconds).

Very funny... Are the guys at the design team of Blizzard playing their own game ? Maybe... Are they playing rogue, maybe not... ;-)

[Rosvall]

It's not a major gamebreaker the way Fox is, certainly in WoD I can't think of a situation where a Rogue is brought to the raid because of Smoke Bomb, more-so it's used because it happens to be there. Very limited AE range, short duration, and a 10% damage reduction doesn't really compare to the necessity of something like Fox, nice to have of course, but I don't see it as making a case for Rogues having an enormous amount of raid utility.

Fox is getting removed as well.
And there have historically been, most recently in Highmaul, uses where smoke breaks and lets you skip boss mechanics. Which have been used on several competitive first kills.

That said, no. If you felt that you needed to bring a rogue due to smoke bomb, then something would be broken just as you say. But it's another tool that extends our high value on progress even further.