Yet another list of rogue revamp suggestions

[Hitei]

We gained swirly ball. Even tradeoff.

Also, bullshit. There are so many things that have been added as effects from other classes that caused us to lose more of our identity.

Yes, but things added to other classes doesn't change the fact that Rogue doesn't need any pruning. (Seriously though, fuck Camouflage)
I assume the swirlyball comment was sarcasm, because it absolutely wasn't even close to a tradeoff, and the new detect is shitty and interrupts the previous animation anyway.

Recuperate makes no sense on a DPS. Remove all healing other than items.

Combat Readiness makes no sense. It's an obvious Shield Wall clone.

Burst of Speed is flat-out overpowered. No one should have that mobility, even at an energy cost.

Feint providing 30% damage reduction is overpowered. Perma Shield Wall at the cost of a global.

Death From Above is an idiotic Evis/Shadowstep mashup. Not creative or balanced.

Subterfuge just rewards bad gameplay. Hate it.

Vendetta is a boring Death Wish clone with stealth detection.

Tons of things should be pruned but won't because players don't appreciate good gameplay. Good gameplay inherently encompasses limitations.

Every DPS class has self healing. It is necessary for balance. Just as every DPS has defensive cooldowns, those don't need to be removed.

Burst of speed is fine. Rogues are supposed to be mobile and able to get away easily, feint is also in a good place. You are listing the few abilities that give us any sort of identity as the light, evasive, agile melee class--unfortunately Blizzard is determined to give that identity to other classes (Monk, DH).
Death from above is neat, it needs some fixes in terms of damage and it being one of the easiest things to counter because it's so telegraphed, but it is solid conceptually.

Subterfuge was better in its previous form of keeping you in stealth, but balance.

Vendetta is boring because of its CD and single target dependency. It is conceptually sound to be able to mark targets for high bursts of damage, just poorly implemented.

Rogues need change, not pruning.

[Hamski]

Yes, but things added to other classes doesn't change the fact that Rogue doesn't need any pruning. (Seriously though, fuck Camouflage)
I assume the swirlyball comment was sarcasm, because it absolutely wasn't even close to a tradeoff, and the new detect is shitty and interrupts the previous animation anyway.



Every DPS class has self healing. It is necessary for balance. Just as every DPS has defensive cooldowns, those don't need to be removed.

Burst of speed is fine. Rogues are supposed to be mobile and able to get away easily, feint is also in a good place. You are listing the few abilities that give us any sort of identity as the light, evasive, agile melee class--unfortunately Blizzard is determined to give that identity to other classes (Monk, DH).
Death from above is neat, it needs some fixes in terms of damage and it being one of the easiest things to counter because it's so telegraphed, but it is solid conceptually.

Subterfuge was better in its previous form of keeping you in stealth, but balance.

Vendetta is boring because of its CD and single target dependency. It is conceptually sound to be able to mark targets for high bursts of damage, just poorly implemented.

Rogues need change, not pruning.

Yeah, thanks for confirming my closing thought that you aren't actually after balance or class identity in a RPG. You just want to be some super-agile, speedy superhero for an hour a week.

Every class having anything doesn't make it balanced. I'm not advocating solely for rogue pruning. Every class needs it.

Pure DPS classes have exactly zero logical reasons to have healing abilities and every class having 4-5 defensive cooldowns is unbalanced and called button bloat.

Rogues already have Sprint, Shadowstep, and Fleet Footed. How much else do you need to be considered "mobile?"

Feint is idiotic and doesn't fit the class whatsoever.

Death From Above is a second Shadowstep. That's the thick of it. It's excess mobility.

I don't care when Subterfuge was better. It's too good now and basically tells all rogues they don't have to be good opening from stealth because you get a free opener anyway. Same idea as Shadow Dance.

Pruning is change and it's desperately needed if we're ever going to have challenging and rewarding gameplay again.

[Hitei]

Yeah, thanks for confirming my closing thought that you aren't actually after balance or class identity in a RPG. You just want to be some super-agile, speedy superhero for an hour a week.

Every class having anything doesn't make it balanced. I'm not advocating solely for rogue pruning. Every class needs it.

Pure DPS classes have exactly zero logical reasons to have healing abilities and every class having 4-5 defensive cooldowns is unbalanced and called button bloat.

Rogues already have Sprint, Shadowstep, and Fleet Footed. How much else do you need to be considered "mobile?"

Feint is idiotic and doesn't fit the class whatsoever.

Death From Above is a second Shadowstep. That's the thick of it. It's excess mobility.

I don't care when Subterfuge was better. It's too good now and basically tells all rogues they don't have to be good opening from stealth because you get a free opener anyway. Same idea as Shadow Dance.

Pruning is change and it's desperately needed if we're ever going to have challenging and rewarding gameplay again.

Every class having 4-5 defensice cooldowns is not unbalanced, what was unbalanced was the game before defensive CDs and self healing, when PvP was literally whoever bursts the fastest and is playing the right class in the rock paper scissors rotation wins.

Yes, rogues have a CD sprint, a shadowstep that requires you to opt out of BoS and 15% increased movement. That is not very much in the current game. Ferals have 30% movement speed cat form, dash, and a 25% quicker jump to target ability. Feint fits the class perfectly, in pretty much every fantasy universe ever, thief/rogue types are good at deceptive combat to avoid damage. Death from above is a blend of mobility, AoE and single target damage. It is a good ability, it needs some minor fixes to resolve issues with its telegraphing and damage.

Opening from subterfuge isn't any less complex than opening from regular stealth. It's straightforward either way, how are you seriously whining about rogues getting an extra attack in?

Please don't pretend you are arguing for RPG class identity. You are whining about rogues stomping you in PvP.
Rogue class identity doesn't need less abilities, it needs more spec differentiation and less of our iconic toolkit being given to other classes.

[Tanthoris]

Yes, lets take away the only decent abilities rogues have because no one plays them. Blizz needs to do something to make them more fun to play, not remove useful abilities that will just end up pissing off the players even more than they already have. Rogues are still very much their RPG selves, aside from making their own poisons and lockpick leveling being removed.

Feint is fine as is because rogue often feel squishy against a more hard hitting NPC/Player so it's a DPS loss to use, but a survival gain in the end.

There is nothing wrong with rogues being able to sprint all over the place honestly, that was there thing back in the day, sprint, stealth, vanish, and gank.

Subterfuge really isn't that great because you dump all your energy on your openers basically. It's that trade off, crazy control and burst, or sustained opening damage.

I think the only thing DoA could use is a minor nerf to the range of the ability simply because it can be impossible to get away from a good rogue, but that just means that they are out playing you, not that DoA is OP and stupid.

Aside from mages, all dps now having a self heal is perfectly fine to be honest, if all classes have it, it's fair.

Oh, and combat readiness is PERFECT for combat rogue identity, it doesn't need to be removed because someone thinks it's a clone of another spell. Hell all tank CDs are basically clones of other tanks classes CDs anymore. That is the end result from blizzards over pruning.

I do think that Assassination needs to feel more like they just poison people, combat should feel like stealth is never needed, and sub really should just go back to the in/out of stealth opening spec that it once was, not this weird bleed stealth monster.

[Hamski]

Please don't pretend you are arguing for RPG class identity. You are whining about rogues stomping you in PvP.
Rogue class identity doesn't need less abilities, it needs more spec differentiation and less of our iconic toolkit being given to other classes.

I play a rogue. That's why I'm on the forums. But just because I play one doesn't mean I want it to be this ridiculously OP mobility queen that any retard with 2 fingers can play.

Again, I don't give a shit what other classes have. They have too much as well. We're talking about what rogues should have, a subject in which you are clearly no expert.

[Hitei]

Again, I don't give a shit what other classes have. They have too much as well. We're talking about what rogues should have, a subject in which you are clearly no expert.

No one is an expert in what rouges should have, because it's subjective.
But it seems to me that the vast majority of the rogue player base is much more in line with my opinion of what the class should have than your opinion of what needs to be removed from the class.

[Hamski]

No one is an expert in what rouges should have, because it's subjective.
But it seems to me that the vast majority of the rogue player base is much more in line with my opinion of what the class should have than your opinion of what needs to be removed from the class.

Really? Because it seems to me that out of the 50% of subs Blizzard lost, a lot of them are complaining about homogenization and class design. Your ideas are more abilities taken from other classes, making us even less unique.

You have horrible ideas. It's a shame Blizz caters to casuals like you.

[slime]

Another CoS buff, now you can only use it once a day - 24 hour CD.

[Feali]

Uhmm.. What exactly doesn't proc "the multistrike mechanic"?

Hemo doesn't.

[Hitei]

Really? Because it seems to me that out of the 50% of subs Blizzard lost, a lot of them are complaining about homogenization and class design. Your ideas are more abilities taken from other classes, making us even less unique.

You have horrible ideas. It's a shame Blizz caters to casuals like you.

Oh lord, are we already to the "I don't have anything real to say, so I'm just going to throw out buzzwords like casual" phase? I guess we're done here.

But just some protips:
1) Most of the subs in that 50% sub loss were casual, hardcore subs don't make up anywhere close to that number, so; pretty hilarious that you brought this up and are whining about Blizzard catering to casuals in the same post.
2) I'm not interested in taking abilities from other classes, I'm interested in rogues getting new, unique playstyles and abilities and some of the unique parts of our toolkit that were taken (stealth, disarm trap, high mobility, usefulness of pick pocketing and lock picking).
3) You are asking for the removal of some of the few unique things we have (High AoE mitigation, DfA, Combat Readiness) and asking for subterfuge to be removed, weakening stealth's already weak state even more.

[Artorius]

I honestly wanna know how people are getting into the conclusion that Rogue's mobility is OP in a world that every class has 10 ways of CCing you.

[Hamski]

Oh lord, are we already to the "I don't have anything real to say, so I'm just going to throw out buzzwords like casual" phase? I guess we're done here.

But just some protips:
1) Most of the subs in that 50% sub loss were casual, hardcore subs don't make up anywhere close to that number, so; pretty hilarious that you brought this up and are whining about Blizzard catering to casuals in the same post.
2) I'm not interested in taking abilities from other classes, I'm interested in rogues getting new, unique playstyles and abilities and some of the unique parts of our toolkit that were taken (stealth, disarm trap, high mobility, usefulness of pick pocketing and lock picking).
3) You are asking for the removal of some of the few unique things we have (High AoE mitigation, DfA, Combat Readiness) and asking for subterfuge to be removed, weakening stealth's already weak state even more.

1. You have no information to support this. Absolutely nothing. I can tell you from the ~200 or so people in my guild that no longer play, all of them were Sunwell and heroic Ulduar/ICC raiders in BC/WOTLK. The game got worse, they didn't go casual.

2. Nothing about stealth or mobility was taken. In fact, more was added in the last 2 expansions that pushed us over the top.

3. AOE mitigation means nothing. Name one fight where having Feint puts us at an advantage over another melee? There isn't. It's a PVP ability, and a shitty, uncreative one at that. Combat Readiness is just a longer duration Feint on a CD for a class who shouldn't have high armor/damage reduction. You're supposed to be agile, not tanky. DFA unique? It's literally two of our existing abilities put together. There is nothing unique or even necessary about it. It's like these freshman developers wasted all their imagination taking things from other classes for our talent trees and couldn't come up with a single original one for the DFA slot. Finally, stealth is not weak. Stealth at 100% speed on a 6 sec CD with Subterfuge is the strongest(and most broken) the ability's ever been. You are honestly one of the most spoiled and entitled people to ever play a RPG if you think there's anything weak about rogues right now.

[Hitei]

1. You have no information to support this. Absolutely nothing. I can tell you from the ~200 or so people in my guild that no longer play, all of them were Sunwell and heroic Ulduar/ICC raiders in BC/WOTLK. The game got worse, they didn't go casual.

2. Nothing about stealth or mobility was taken. In fact, more was added in the last 2 expansions that pushed us over the top.

3. AOE mitigation means nothing. Name one fight where having Feint puts us at an advantage over another melee? There isn't. It's a PVP ability, and a shitty, uncreative one at that. Combat Readiness is just a longer duration Feint on a CD for a class who shouldn't have high armor/damage reduction. You're supposed to be agile, not tanky. DFA unique? It's literally two of our existing abilities put together. There is nothing unique or even necessary about it. It's like these freshman developers wasted all their imagination taking things from other classes for our talent trees and couldn't come up with a single original one for the DFA slot. Finally, stealth is not weak. Stealth at 100% speed on a 6 sec CD with Subterfuge is the strongest(and most broken) the ability's ever been. You are honestly one of the most spoiled and entitled people to ever play a RPG if you think there's anything weak about rogues right now.

1. Pretty basic logic. Hardcore raiders/PvPers make up less than 20% of the game's population Look at any data on boss kills or rank distribution. If 50% of the game's population leaves, oh gee. I wonder if most of them were casual or hardcore. Even if every single hardcore player in the game left as part of that subdrop, most of the subdrop would still be casual players, it's putting two and two together.

2. Stealth and mobility were given to other classes, i.e. we had abilities that were uniquely rogue taken. Every class in the game has some form of sprint, two other classes have frequent stealth, and two more classes have brief stealth on CD.

3. It means a lot. It is additional damage mitigation on every single fight with AoE, with no CD. It is extremely powerful for soaking abilities. Not going to bother naming "one fight" if you really want to read all the situations where feint is advantageous, click here and Ctrl+F "feint". Combat Readiness is the rogue's ability to get into the enemy's flow and increasingly anticipate hits, taking less and less damage each time for the duration. DfA is an AoE gap closer single target burst ability. It is unique. Yes, it is made up of other mechanics, welcome to every single ability in the game. Ambush is just higher damage backstab, are you going to whine about that too? Stealth is in an extremely weak state right now. Yes, it is much faster than it once was, and at the time where it was slower, rogues also did FAR more damage opening out of Stealth, and very few classes had spammable AoE, and those that did have spammable AoE risked going OoM very quickly by doing so. Now pretty much every class has cheap/non-cost AoE to knock rogues out of stealth with, along with unbelievably anti-stealth abilities like Destro's ability to spam Rain of Fire over a massive area, Shadow's halo, DK's necrotic plague which will target the rogue in stealth, etc. Stealth is fast, sure, but it's also far weaker as an ability than it was in Vanilla, BC, or Wrath. Stealth is probably the one part of rogues that isn't functionally balanced and could use a buff. A point Ghostcrawler himself brought up during Cata, agreeing that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for Stealth to ignore AoE damage with the amount of AoE classes were gaining, but that it was too drastic a change for people to deal with.

[Artorius]

1. You have no information to support this. Absolutely nothing. I can tell you from the ~200 or so people in my guild that no longer play, all of them were Sunwell and heroic Ulduar/ICC raiders in BC/WOTLK. The game got worse, they didn't go casual.

2. Nothing about stealth or mobility was taken. In fact, more was added in the last 2 expansions that pushed us over the top.

3. AOE mitigation means nothing. Name one fight where having Feint puts us at an advantage over another melee? There isn't. It's a PVP ability, and a shitty, uncreative one at that. Combat Readiness is just a longer duration Feint on a CD for a class who shouldn't have high armor/damage reduction. You're supposed to be agile, not tanky. DFA unique? It's literally two of our existing abilities put together. There is nothing unique or even necessary about it. It's like these freshman developers wasted all their imagination taking things from other classes for our talent trees and couldn't come up with a single original one for the DFA slot. Finally, stealth is not weak. Stealth at 100% speed on a 6 sec CD with Subterfuge is the strongest(and most broken) the ability's ever been. You are honestly one of the most spoiled and entitled people to ever play a RPG if you think there's anything weak about rogues right now.

I don't want to be the guy to say this but... You made me laugh.

1 - 0.02% of the player-base had defeated M Blackhand by April. If we exaggerate a lot and say that 1% of the players are hardcore players, this number still isn't nowhere near relevant.

2 - Nope. What he means is that others improved much more in this department than us.

3 - I feel like breaking your post this time because it's quite funny.

AOE mitigation means nothing.

It means that you're going to be alive after receiving an AoE damage phase.

Name one fight where having Feint puts us at an advantage over another melee?

Almost any fight in a tier, bosses that don't do any AoE damage whatsoever are actually rare nowadays.

It's a PVP ability, and a shitty, uncreative one at that.

Yes, it's the way it currently is so Rogues aren't roflstomped with 2 hits. That's true. Doesn't change the fact that the class has the best defensive toolkit in the game for a DPS and is able to ignore half the mechanics because of it.

Combat Readiness is just a longer duration Feint on a CD for a class who shouldn't have high armor/damage reduction.

This skill is not even good, you need to take damage to stack it.

Finally, stealth is not weak. Stealth at 100% speed on a 6 sec CD with Subterfuge is the strongest(and most broken) the ability's ever been. You are honestly one of the most spoiled and entitled people to ever play a RPG if you think there's anything weak about rogues right now.

Stealth is easily countered with FF or Flare in a completely ridiculous way. You can't do anything against it.
The entire concept is wasted, you use it once to open and then never again unless you can get out of combat or waste a Vanish offensively.
Are you seriously complaining about Subterfuge? It was strong when you remained invisible while it was up. Now it's merely an offensive talent that can be easily countered as well.

[Bosen]

I would combine two of the specs and have two specs. Swashbuckler and Ninja.

[Deleted]

I feel as if you guys have gone completely off topic...

I created this thread to discuss new abilities and spec differentiation - and instead all I see are arguments about DPS and class popularity.

Having more dps does not make a class more fun. Otherwise you'd just be smashing 1 ability over and over, which would be boring AF but who cares so long as it does damage?

DPS and numbers do not make a good game a fun character. Class feel and immersion does. This is something rogues are lacking heavily.

And for the last fucking time, we're not ninjas or pirates. The design of rift to have a "blade dancer" is vastly superior.

The Blade Dancer class is available under the Rogue calling. Blade Dancers are masters of wielding edged weapons. They specialize in ritualized combat movements that are lightning fast. Blade Dancers can overwhelm even an accomplished opponent's defenses, setting them up for a devastating coup de grace.

Lithe and agile, a Blade Dancer cherishes unimpeded movement over heavier protection, so they wear only light armors (such as leather) into combat. Extremely competent and aware, a Blade Dancer's weapons tend to be the only defensive protection they need. Unfortunately for their enemies, these blades aren't just used for defense, but offense as well.

Strengths
The Blade Dancer's mastery of edged weapons allows them to unleash devastating close combat attacks in quick succession. Their honed skills and supernatural agility allow them to avoid incoming attacks for short periods of time and launch lethal sneak attacks on the unwary.

Weaknesses
Once a Blade Dancer's fury is spent, their light armor offers scant protection. They must quickly overcome their opponent's defenses or face defeat themselves.

That's how combat rogues should be. Not pirates. Not swashbucklers, but quick precise experts of dual wielding blades.

And then there's this, which makes far more sense to blend both sub and assassinations in to one spec.

The Assassin class is available under the Rogue calling. Masters of subtlety and subterfuge, an Assassin’s ability to walk in the shadows allows them to bypass obstacles and launch devastating surprise attacks. A rare few survive the initial assault, only to succumb to virulent poisons.

Strengths
Assassins are trained to meld with the shadows, bypassing defenses and launching potent surprise attacks with their poisoned blades.

Weaknesses
Assassins must choose their targets carefully, or wind up in desperate straits if they forfeit the element of surprise or attack a foe who can shrug off the venom from their blades.

Subtlety should be a spec that embarrasses the shadows and mysticism, with a combination of shadow magic and abilities to bypass armour, and shadow dance should be a finishing move or part of the rotation.

[Deleted]

We gained swirly ball. Even tradeoff.

Also, bullshit. There are so many things that have been added as effects from other classes that caused us to lose more of our identity.

Recuperate makes no sense on a DPS. Remove all healing other than items.

Combat Readiness makes no sense. It's an obvious Shield Wall clone.

Burst of Speed is flat-out overpowered. No one should have that mobility, even at an energy cost.

Feint providing 30% damage reduction is overpowered. Perma Shield Wall at the cost of a global.

Death From Above is an idiotic Evis/Shadowstep mashup. Not creative or balanced.

Subterfuge just rewards bad gameplay. Hate it.

Vendetta is a boring Death Wish clone with stealth detection.

Tons of things should be pruned but won't because players don't appreciate good gameplay. Good gameplay inherently encompasses limitations.

The thing is though, people don't care about good gameplay. If you removed burst of speed, most people would just see that as a nerf. I hate burst of speed and also hate feint.

Unfortunately it feels like no one cares about ability design any more, only it's output and numbers. What ever happened to the aesthetics and lore of abilities? These are all crucial for good design - but most of the time if feels like 80% of the rogue population wouldn't care if backstab got renamed stab; hemo, poisons, and slice and dice, were removed and rogues got a flat 50% damage buff to compensate.

[Shevaron]

WOW knows best I'll go with whatever they deem best. Hell I pay them to do the thinking

[Deleted]

WOW knows best I'll go with whatever they deem best. Hell I pay them to do the thinking

It's interesting you say that. I've been making suggestions since wotlk and the attitude has definitely changed.

I used to make posts like this and people were actually excited and offered their ideas of improvements. Nowadays I just get shot down and told to get lost