Rogue PvP Openers: Then vs. Now

[shoegazing]

Today we're going to be looking at some openers vs. mages for past iterations of rogue vs. with the current design. This is just 0.01% of what Rogue PvP gameplay is all about but I hope to use it as a microcosm for how the class as a whole has been drastically dumbed down in Legion. Now with that statement of purpose out of the way, let's get into some examples.

CS --> Gouge this was one of the more prevalent openers. the goal is to immediately gouge on your first free global after pressing the stun, gouging the anticipated blink so that he's sitting in gouge at the other side of the arena or dueling area, essentially wasting the gap opening potential of the blink as it gives you time to catch up to him. high risk / high reward opener that could be countered by a savvy mage holding their blink for a global to see what the rogue does.

Sap --> Turning Garrote to delay the Sap break until the first bleed tick this opener had a few goals. one of them was to save stun DRs until after blink is forced, allowing a full kidney after blink which has a great chance of forcing the first ice block. the delayed sap break was important because it gave you time to apply crippling poison with shiv before the mage simply used pet nova and ran away from you scot free while you are on gcd. this opener could lead into a few different variations, depending on whether the mage trinkets immediately to gain tempo or tries to sit the opener.

Garrote --> Shiv Paralytic the goal of this MoP era opener was again to give you the opportunity to get some damage in without stunning before blink. this was not a super common or well known opener but it certainly had its uses and was rewarding for the rogues who understood the right situations to pull it out.

Sap Mage --> Cheap Pet --> Garrote Mage another garrote opener, this one was used to deny the mage the opportunity to counter your garrote with his pet nova.

Overlap Garrote and Stun A super aggressive opener, this one was used to create pressure right away by denying the possibility of the mage blinking out of your stun and bursting into it. best used when the enemy healer is already in CC so you know you can force trinket or iceblock in the opener.

Sap --> Premed --> Turning Cheap w/o breaking Sap --> Restealth & wait DRs this opener was rather situational, depending on the enemy mage not having a pet summoned. the goal was to bank 4 combo points before restealthing and waiting out DRs to get a stronger opener the 2nd time around. in certain situations this could even be pulled off in the presence of a water elemental by landing a quick focus kick on waterbolt (if the pet isn't set to passive and starts casting on you immediately) before the mage reacts with pet nova. this opener also baits a common mistake from the mage, which is to trinket the sap to prevent the restealth. the mage thinks he has got you by the balls because you gained no pressure from your opener, but you simply vanish out and wait your vanish CD (which was a smaller CD than his trinket in recent versions of the game) before transitioning into an aggressive burst into overlapped stun/garrote opener that he has no possibility of trinketing.

The Legion Opener -- just press cheap shot, the exact same thing you would do while opening on any other class this is the only option left in our pruned, dumbed down arsenal. no sneaky rogue tricks, no flashy micro, no subtle plays to made on this pruned, wannabe D3 class. just press cheap shot.

Ok, I think I have made my point here. Legion Rogue, particularly subtlety spec, is extremely dumbed down and poorly designed for PvP. The examples presented here are just a microcosm of the whole picture, the wholesale butchery of this once amazingly fun and unique class. This is a shame considering great legacy of Rogue PvP through the years. Certainly the Neilyos, Reckfuls, and Pikaboos of the world as rolling in their graves at this level of dumbed down class butchery. Long gone are the days of the high skill cap, fast paced glass cannon that was an absolutely iconic spec of WoW PvP for over a decade. The Legion version was clearly designed for players with mental deficiencies, as Blizzard wouldn't want to overwhelm some wide eyed noobie or fotm reroller with too many tactical choices, now would they? Nope, this is 2017 after all, better to keep it as dumbed down as possible! Let's remember Holinka's immortal words when he was interviewed about ability pruning and the rogue class: "FINALLY, I'm so relieved that I live out my fantasy of being this dexterous character without having to actually have that manual dexterity!"

[Saberstrike]

I mean yeah, much as I hate rogues I'm inclined to agree. The class was hit the hardest with the 'dumbing down stick'. Right along with druids who -somehow- by losing every button in bear form became near-immortal... --- except, y'know, rogues actually kinda suck now.

[Soisoisoi]

Either I need to go buy a lottery ticket or you posted this a few days ago and we had a "discussion", and then it got locked because there was nothing else worth discussing?


e: Bah, was hoping I was about to get some spending money!
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-down-gameplay

[Noblia]

Today we're going to be looking at some openers vs. mages for past iterations of rogue vs. with the current design. This is just 0.01% of what Rogue PvP gameplay is all about but I hope to use it as a microcosm for how the class as a whole has been drastically dumbed down in Legion. Now with that statement of purpose out of the way, let's get into some examples.

CS --> Gouge this was one of the more prevalent openers. the goal is to immediately gouge on your first free global after pressing the stun, gouging the anticipated blink so that he's sitting in gouge at the other side of the arena or dueling area, essentially wasting the gap opening potential of the blink as it gives you time to catch up to him. high risk / high reward opener that could be countered by a savvy mage holding their blink for a global to see what the rogue does.

Sap --> Turning Garrote to delay the Sap break until the first bleed tick this opener had a few goals. one of them was to save stun DRs until after blink is forced, allowing a full kidney after blink which has a great chance of forcing the first ice block. the delayed sap break was important because it gave you time to apply crippling poison with shiv before the mage simply used pet nova and ran away from you scot free while you are on gcd. this opener could lead into a few different variations, depending on whether the mage trinkets immediately to gain tempo or tries to sit the opener.

Garrote --> Shiv Paralytic the goal of this MoP era opener was again to give you the opportunity to get some damage in without stunning before blink. this was not a super common or well known opener but it certainly had its uses and was rewarding for the rogues who understood the right situations to pull it out.

Sap Mage --> Cheap Pet --> Garrote Mage another garrote opener, this one was used to deny the mage the opportunity to counter your garrote with his pet nova.

Overlap Garrote and Stun A super aggressive opener, this one was used to create pressure right away by denying the possibility of the mage blinking out of your stun. best used when the enemy healer is already in CC so you know you can force trinket or iceblock in the opener.

Sap --> Premed --> Turning Cheap w/o breaking Sap --> Restealth & wait DRs this opener was rather situational, depending on the enemy mage not having a pet summoned. the goal was to bank 4 combo points before restealthing and waiting out DRs to get a stronger opener the 2nd time around. in certain situations this could even be pulled off in the presence of a water elemental by landing a quick focus kick on waterbolt (if the pet isn't set to passive and starts casting on you immediately) before the mage reacts with pet nova. this opener also baits a common mistake from the mage, which is to trinket the sap to prevent the restealth. the mage thinks he has got you by the balls because you gained no pressure from your opener, but you simply vanish out and wait your vanish CD (which was a smaller CD than his trinket in recent versions of the game) before transitioning into an aggressive burst into overlapped stun/garrote opener that he has no possibility of trinketing.

The Legion Opener -- just press cheap shot, the exact same thing you would do while opening on any other class this is the only option left in our pruned, dumbed down arsenal. no sneaky rogue tricks, no flashy micro, no subtle plays to made on this pruned, wannabe D3 class. just press cheap shot.

Ok, I think I have made my point here. Legion Rogue, particularly subtlety spec, is extremely dumbed down and poorly designed for PvP. The examples presented here are just a microcosm of the whole picture, the wholesale butchery of this once amazingly fun and unique class. This is a shame considering great legacy of Rogue PvP through the years. Certainly the Neilyos, Reckfuls, and Pikaboos of the world as rolling in their graves at this level of dumbed down class butchery. Long gone are the days of the high skill cap, fast paced glass cannon that was an absolutely iconic spec of WoW PvP for over a decade. The Legion version was clearly designed for players with mental deficiencies, as Blizzard wouldn't want to overwhelm some wide eyed noobie or fotm reroller with too many tactical choices, now would they? Nope, this is 2017 after all, better to keep it as dumbed down as possible! Let's remember Holinka's immortal words when he was interviewed about ability pruning and the rogue class: "FINALLY, I'm so relieved that I live out my fantasy of being this dexterous character without having to actually have that manual dexterity!"

Sub is gimp in pvp... they need a damage buff... but the pvp devs are morons so this will not happen EVER.

[Seneca]

Current class design (and by extension, gameplay) in pvp is unbearable. It's not bad, it's unbearable, it's way worse than it being bad.

Said, that, the issue is greater than it may sound, because in pve it is bad too (bot not unbearable or not so unbearable). Almost all specs play like shit, if the feedback given by long time players of each spec is of any indication.

I swear for each player who says "I love spec X" there are 99 who says "I hate spec X with passion", and the same can be extended to most if not all specs.

So, yeah, to summarize, most pvpers agree about pvp being unplayable, but many pvers are not happy with the current class design too.



WoW has always had many issues, but we can all agree that it has always been highly fun and exciting to play, gameplay wise (yeah there are players out there who enjoy the current gameplay of their chosen class/spec, there's no need to reply to me by underlining something this obvious as a sort of counter-argument, telling you this so we both do not waste time).

Personally, I was used to play many hours doing content which gave no rewards at all, just for the sake of playing, like spamming bgs the whole day for the sake of doing it (no honor/achi/whatever which I needed/wanted), simply because I liked the way my spec/class played so much. Hell even doing transmo runs of very old raids (one-shot mobs) were somewhat fun.



Really, go and find me a discussion where most players of the same spec are happy about the class design of their spec and, if anyone finds this discussion (a very hard task, trust me), then compare it the the number of the discussions which say the exact opposite (in before "there have always been some kind of discontent in Wow", yes, but not so intense, quantity wise, and anyway not so focused on class design, quality wise).

Edit:
This all sums up what I was trying to say https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...3765314?page=1

In particular, this must be underlined:

It seems like what the devs and some players those that defend them don't get is , how we interact with all the great content this expansion is just as important as the content itself.

Our toons are the tool we use to interact with what we have been given content wise and even though we can find things to do it isn't as enjoyable when you aren't enjoying the character you play.

And, to make it worse, class design is not the only issue WoW has right now, imho.

[Deleted]

Does it even matter anymore? As soon as they see you out of stealth, you are blown up in 3 seconds!

[lexonio]

This is a terrific post. Thank you for reminding me what I feel we all lost with the pruning. I have never been against the pruning, but your post may make me reconsider my stance.

[Ishayu]

This has happened to every single class in the entire game.

Blizzard is way too busy designing for rotations as opposed to designing for counterplays. This also hurts PvE.

The game is no longer about "hit button if X happens to me or there is danger of X", it's about "hit buttons in sequence unless proc then hit something else". Basically, our classes are made to be engaging vs. a target dummy, and because of that it doesn't leave enough space on our keyboards for things that are actually rarely used counterplays, and so Blizzard pruned them all, and here we are.

On some classes it's so bad that you're pressing the same buttons regardless of the number of enemies, their location, what they are doing, etc., and if for some reason opponents are doing something your predetermined rotation is terrible at dealing with - well then you just suck.

Some of these rotations can be exceedingly difficult and convoluted to play (hello Feral Druid) or extremely fragile and easy to counter (Hello SV Hunter) or all sorts of other things, but there really isn't much strategy to any of them.

[shoegazing]

Sub is gimp in pvp... they need a damage buff... but the pvp devs are morons so this will not happen EVER.

A damage buff will not fix the retarded windowlicking playstyle of this class and the gutting of our skillcap

I do not want a damage buff, I want to have buttons to press which actually require me to think

Either I need to go buy a lottery ticket or you posted this a few days ago and we had a "discussion", and then it got locked because there was nothing else worth discussing?


e: Bah, was hoping I was about to get some spending money!
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-down-gameplay

Yeah apparently discussing rogue gameplay in PvP and the dumbing down of the class is not allowed on the rogue class forums which apparently only allow discussion of pressing 12345 vs. 12346 in a PvE raid or which trinket one should wear for maximum numbers while 12345ing at bosses

Windowlickers and sycophants, every last one of them

[Deleted]

For me as a former Mage main, and former Hunter main, battles vs rogues used to be the most exciting. It could go either way depending on the skill of the player. Now it's boring as fuck with the endless teleports (shadowstrike) or cast-while-blinking nonsense.

[Noblia]

A damage buff will not fix the retarded windowlicking playstyle of this class and the gutting of our skillcap

I do not want a damage buff, I want to have buttons to press which actually require me to think



Yeah apparently discussing rogue gameplay in PvP and the dumbing down of the class is not allowed on the rogue class forums which apparently only allow discussion of pressing 12345 vs. 12346 in a PvE raid or which trinket one should wear for maximum numbers while 12345ing at bosses

Windowlickers and sycophants, every last one of them

I am good with a good damage buff. What you want in complexity you can get in the other specs of the class. Sub class is just fine in its complexity imho. All it needs is a serious damage buff.

Play a fucking enhancement shaman if you want complexity. Talk about a class that needs to be pruned.

[shoegazing]

I am good with a good damage buff. What you want in complexity you can get in the other specs of the class. Sub class is just fine in its complexity imho. All it needs is a serious damage buff.

Play a fucking enhancement shaman if you want complexity. Talk about a class that needs to be pruned.

Sub was the highest skill cap spec in the game before Blizzard's D3 devs got their hands on it and trashed it for retards like you to play

I have played a Sub rogue as my main for 12 years so YOU fuck off. You go play a death knight or a demon hunter if you want to smash your face on your keyboard and do big damage you useless 1600 mouthbreather.

I bet you never even played Sub before Legion deleted half of the buttons and made it so retard friendly, noob.

[RelaZ]

Completely agree with you on every single point. Now I don't play Rogue (I main Feral) but I remember the days when I could truly show myself as an exceptional player.

I remember faking an entire wizardcleaves interrupts in ~5secs with Cyclone, only to then land the Cyclone and thereby winning the game. Those games probably felt the best of all the games I've ever played. The satisfaction of knowing just how much I outplayed them (and how much they could've prevented it, but I just outplayed them). Can't do that no more, it's all instant CC (Enraged Maim) or no CC in Legion. WoD Cyclone design was so much fun as a Feral, holy shit, I've never had more fun playing the game than WoD S1 faking all those Cyclone.

I also remember Typhooning Druids/Shamans so that they would shift the slow so I could hibernate them in MoP, that felt incredible.

I remember Soothing grounding totems before the trap activated on the healer, knowing we outplayed our opponents that well felt amazing too obviously.

So many things lost, so many things replaced with passives or damaging abilities or simply just straight up removed. Feral is a shell of its former glory, and so are most specs.

[Deleted]

It's really sad that they took out so much depth out of the classes.

[Pratt]

Rogue was hit the hardest because it was annoyingly overcomplex. You needed like 50 macros to not suck.

[shoegazing]

Rogue was hit the hardest because it was annoyingly overcomplex. You needed like 50 macros to not suck.

No you did not need "50 macros to not suck"

I've been a bare minimum of 2200+ rating in every single expansion in this game and I didn't even make a simple focus blind macro until MoP

Stop lying noob

[Felpleb]

No you did not need "50 macros to not suck"

I've been a bare minimum of 2200+ rating in every single expansion in this game and I didn't even make a simple focus blind macro until MoP

Stop lying noob

"2200+ rating in every single expansion" - calls others noob.. No wonder why you stuck at that low rating.

[shoegazing]

"2200+ rating in every single expansion" - calls others noob.. No wonder why you stuck at that low rating.

bare minimum of 2200+ rating

bare minimum

??????????

nice attempt at trolling but i suggest you learn to read first

[Krusza]

Rogue, Ret and Mage have literally been dumbed down so fucking much. I'd quit if I mained any of them.

[IAMANIKOLAS]

Sub was the highest skill cap spec in the game before Blizzard's D3 devs got their hands on it and trashed it for retards like you to play

I have played a Sub rogue as my main for 12 years so YOU fuck off. You go play a death knight or a demon hunter if you want to smash your face on your keyboard and do big damage you useless 1600 mouthbreather.

I bet you never even played Sub before Legion deleted half of the buttons and made it so retard friendly, noob.

I had so much respect for you, and your opinion on this forum, right up until I saw this post. Just.. Wauw

OT: I feel that Rogues have indeed been pruned too much, and I am quite sure that Blizzard is aware of the issues that Subtlety and all rogue specs in general are facing these days. Blizzard will probably make heavy changes in 7.2.5, and with enough feedback we might be able to have a say in their decisions (this is optimistic I know)

What Blizzard tried, is to have a big focus on class, and spec differences and to make it fit their intended fantasy. This is something that I personally really appreciate. Every spec feels unique in visuals, animations, rotations and general feel, which is a HUGE succes imo. However, this does have a price, which was the pruning to allow (in your own words) noobs, 1600 mouthbreathers and people who want to smash their face on the keyboard to experience and participate in casual PvP which they succeded at. Blizzard reached their goal, now it's time for them to perfect the imperfect and this is where your and other Rogue's feedback comes into play.

Also.. Be nice..