Reason why combat is bad.

[mongoose6]

@Ghostcrawler: More on the table would be something like one spec has Rupture, one uses Recuperate rotationally, and one uses SnD.

This is the one that bugs me the most. I know its not official and all but it really shows the depth of misunderstanding. This kind of change would do nothing to differentiate the three specs, it would only give each specc a different version of a buff/debuff to refresh. That's pretty much a continuation of what we have now.

[Kulestu]

It could make each spec feel very different. They could balance spec speed/playstyle around each one. Assassination with envenom and rupture would play different than Combat with evis and SnD.

[D3athsting]

I'm thinking that the only solution is no one playing the class anymore, but we're still here playing our mains and discussing about specs and trinkets.

Tbh i'm only using my rogue to craft belt buckles for my other toons atm, call it a strike if u want...

[fierydemise]

Well said.

"we're pretty happy with rogues" bugs me more than a lot. If you're happy and the rogue community isn't, maybe there is some kind of issue.

I'm thinking that the only solution is no one playing the class anymore, but we're still here playing our mains and discussing about specs and trinkets.

I think the dissonance between what Blizzard is saying and what the community is because we are focusing on different issues. From Blizzard's perspective the cp system works very well, it creates a well defined rotation structure without too many wonky side effects, this is in marked contrast to something like locks last expansion who basically used every damaging spell in their spell book. CP systems are easy to design and hard to screw up so from a strict engineering perspective its easy to see how rogues are the best designed class.

The problems from the community's perspective are mostly on a play style level with assassination having no complexity and combat/sub having an underdeveloped/underutilized play style theme. The same thing that makes cp based systems so nice for Blizzard makes them pretty boring for us.

[SinisterAsc]

I'm personally happy with the way that the specs play tbh, every spec has 3 things to watch . SnD , rupture and a spec specific thing like revealing strike, envenom and hemo

[Koji2k11]

I'm personally happy with the way that the specs play tbh, every spec has 3 things to watch . SnD , rupture and a spec specific thing like revealing strike, envenom and hemo

even YOU will get bored after doing this for what 9 years now ?

[Sesshou]

I'm personally happy with the way that the specs play tbh, every spec has 3 things to watch . SnD , rupture and a spec specific thing like revealing strike, envenom and hemo

Do they? I have a hard time putting SnD in the 'things I have to watch' as assassination. You hit SnD less than you hit your 3 min dps cooldown.

[Deleted]

Well said.

"we're pretty happy with rogues" bugs me more than a lot. If you're happy and the rogue community isn't, maybe there is some kind of issue.

I'm thinking that the only solution is no one playing the class anymore, but we're still here playing our mains and discussing about specs and trinkets.

Maybe he just means that he's happy with where rogue damage is, which for both combat and mut would be absolutely true.
There is also not really much to complain about a rogues overall raid performance, dmg is really good, survivabilty is almost broken.
So in terms of raiding/progression, rogues are perfectly fine, they're just pretty boring and easy to play compared to most other classes, beat em up style combat aside.

So there is pretty much no way that rogues playstyle will change in MoP, or atleast not for raiding right now.
Maybe some magic will happen in the pre patch for the next expansion.

Until then, do mad deeps, get bored :/


Also!

Garrosh looks like a pretty decent fight for Combat, so it should see some uses

[Coldkil]

I admit that some issues like "zero utility class" has been addressed somewhat with smoke bomb, and tbh i didn't choose the rogue class in vanilla because of the buffs i brouught to the raid

GC talks about "playstyle redefinition" for the three specs: i'd really like to see the ideas they have about this, because from what i see now (the best one is the last SS change on PTR which brings more issues than solutions) it seems they're just tweaking some stuff because "hey, your damage is fine and we don't want to mess up things".

EDIT: i'm also realistic and don't expect anything for 5.4 - i'll play assassination and be fine with it (love the spec concept based on poisons) if combat will be viable, my RL will be happy too.

What i'd really like to see? A spec (maybe sub) that works a little like Affliction, with multiple dots management. I always liked that playstyle and i always thought that it would fit the rogues class well.

[Deleted]

I admit that some issues like "zero utility class" has been addressed somewhat with smoke bomb, and tbh i didn't choose the rogue class in vanilla because of the buffs i brouught to the raid

GC talks about "playstyle redefinition" for the three specs: i'd really like to see the ideas they have about this, because from what i see now (the best one is the last SS change on PTR which brings more issues than solutions) it seems they're just tweaking some stuff because "hey, your damage is fine and we don't want to mess up things".

EDIT: i'm also realistic and don't expect anything for 5.4 - i'll play assassination and be fine with it (love the spec concept based on poisons) if combat will be viable, my RL will be happy too.

What i'd really like to see? A spec (maybe sub) that works a little like Affliction, with multiple dots management. I always liked that playstyle and i always thought that it would fit the rogues class well.

While I get what you mean, "playstyle" is something that needs a better definiton.
Because, like you said, you like assassination for beeing the "poison" specc.

Well, that actually is a playstyle.

Mut = poison
Combat = spammy kind of whack
Sub = burst with positional requirements

So actually, rogues do have 3 different "playstyles", just how YOU actually play something is pretty much the same for all speccs.

A specc with multiple dots is basicly what sub is now, with both rupture and hemo, but with more focus on that, you would (to be what a rogue is all about) have just a specc with another dot finisher like rupture.

Dunno if that would be that great.
Sure it could work, but who knows.

I just recently started gearing my rogue, and I can understand why people think playing one is boring and plain, it just deals alot of damage, which is what makes them good.

What kind of playstyle would you want to have?
Not as in how the specc does damage (through poisons, through other dots etc.) but WHAT should the player do to accieve that?

I always just see "its plain!, its boring!", but how would long term rogue players actually want to play?

[Deleted]

What kind of playstyle would you want to have?
Not as in how the specc does damage (through poisons, through other dots etc.) but WHAT should the player do to accieve that?

I always just see "its plain!, its boring!", but how would long term rogue players actually want to play?

I would like my combat rogue to be way more like what it was back in WotLK:
meaningful Fan of Knives so we can compete with others AoE wise (although FoK isn't an AoE), some meaningful DoTs so I don't have so much downtime on bosses. And having the choice if I want to stack crit for big hits or haste for faster one, not having to stack haste like a mindless monkey.
I want to feel like I'm a hero, not like I'm trying to get my dps at others level (ie: warlocks) So I don't want to put so much effort to be at same level, I just want it to be.
Once Ghostcrawler said, "forget the class bring the player"... yes please give us the same chances to do the same amount of damages, with different playstyle.
Thats' not what is happening when Assassination is better than Combat (specially for challenge modes) and you're asked to change spec.
I just think devs and GC are lazy, they know rogues are kinda "broken" they also knwo they are the less played class... why would they even bother?

[Deleted]

I would like my combat rogue to be way more like what it was back in WotLK:
meaningful Fan of Knives so we can compete with others AoE wise (although FoK isn't an AoE), some meaningful DoTs so I don't have so much downtime on bosses. And having the choice if I want to stack crit for big hits or haste for faster one, not having to stack haste like a mindless monkey.

That's not really what I was asking for, it's more of an overall rogue thing, better AoE, less downtime/more mobility (which leads to less downtime), maybe combo points on the rogue or a lower redirect CD.
What I would like to hear are things like, I want to specc X to have you build up combo points, to do strong finishers, and specc Y to be more centered about alot of fast attacks, while maintaining buffs/debuffs, something like that.

I want to feel like I'm a hero, not like I'm trying to get my dps at others level (ie: warlocks) So I don't want to put so much effort to be at same level, I just want it to be.

Well...that's just wrong I'd say.
Rogues are a melee class, you compare with other melee's, not with ranges.
Unless there will be a meleewide buff, like in DS, melee will never really compete with range, rogues are actually an exeption atm.

And compared to other melees, rogues are at the top of the foodchain, in both damage (atleast single target) and survivability, so you're not really trying to "get up there", you ARE up there.

And for the no effort part, yea...no. No effort, no reward, if you don't want to bother, you deserve to have crap dps, no matter what class.

Once Ghostcrawler said, "forget the class bring the player"... yes please give us the same chances to do the same amount of damages, with different playstyle.
Thats' not what is happening when Assassination is better than Combat (specially for challenge modes) and you're asked to change spec.
I just think devs and GC are lazy, they know rogues are kinda "broken" they also knwo they are the less played class... why would they even bother?

Combat and assassination aren't that far of, and it seems in SoO, combat will get quite some more time to actually prove that.
There will never be a point when both speccs are completely equal, WoW is far to complex for that, they should be pretty close to each other, which might be the case with combat single target beeing buffed just a little bit.

Devs are neither lazy nor do they not care, that has been proven time and time again.
Just that when looking at the overall performance, rogues are pretty top notch, they just play pretty dull.

[D3athsting]

Idea for aoe: cluster bomb!
What do you think?

[Lochton]

If one were to go against all odds and have a combat specc, what would your advices be? (Other than, "Don't do it").

I have this dire wish to atleast have a combat specc so I can finish my transmog set. Wish to play my rogue, and be able to dual wield thise - http://www.wowhead.com/item=61614#.

Goblin Engineer, GO!

[mongoose6]

What I would like to see is a variation between speccs on how combo points work. One spec could have the combo points stack on themselves using high damage cp builders and moderate finishers. Another specc would work kind of like how they do now, combo points on target but with fairly weak builders and huge finishers. Sub, from my perspective, works fine conceptually, it just needs a damage buff.

[fierydemise]

While I get what you mean, "playstyle" is something that needs a better definiton.
Because, like you said, you like assassination for beeing the "poison" specc.

Well, that actually is a playstyle.

Mut = poison
Combat = spammy kind of whack
Sub = burst with positional requirements

So actually, rogues do have 3 different "playstyles", just how YOU actually play something is pretty much the same for all speccs.

A specc with multiple dots is basicly what sub is now, with both rupture and hemo, but with more focus on that, you would (to be what a rogue is all about) have just a specc with another dot finisher like rupture.

Dunno if that would be that great.
Sure it could work, but who knows.

I just recently started gearing my rogue, and I can understand why people think playing one is boring and plain, it just deals alot of damage, which is what makes them good.

What kind of playstyle would you want to have?
Not as in how the specc does damage (through poisons, through other dots etc.) but WHAT should the player do to accieve that?

I always just see "its plain!, its boring!", but how would long term rogue players actually want to play?

Assassination has a pretty well defined kit based around envenom but it doesn't have any complexity. Assassination is almost certainly one of the easiest specs in the game to play because its really hard to make a mistake that you are actually punished for.

Combat and sub though don't really have a well defined playstyle. If you remove positional requirements, which you need to do in the long run to balance sub against other rogue spes then they are both pretty similar. Combat and sub have 2 builders, one primary and one they use every 24 or so seconds, keep up SnD and Rupture and both have similar steady state APM. They differ in aesthetics but not much in practice.

Distinguishing the three specs better actually isn't that hard.
Assassination: As mentioned assassination's kit is already pretty well fleshed out it just needs to be made more punishing to screw up.
Combat: Combat clearly wants to be about cooldowns but the current implementation of BG is problematic. Adopting a demo lock or WW monk style system instead of BG would work quite well.
Subtlety: Give sub a couple procs to let it use openers in combat and possibly another damage increasing proc. Sub is not a reactive proc based spec like frost dks.

All three rogue specs now play differently in addition to their aesthetic differences.

[Koji2k11]

well imo Combat should be centered around SnD maybe let it increase attack speed by 100% and let them do massive massive crits

Sub should be like feral keep the bleeds up and maybe an usefull AOE pool of blood or something idk just make us unique again

Assassination should be based around poisons where you throw poisons around like crazy mabe introduce a second poison to assa only which takes utility slot and does another poison debuff to compensate for SnD loss and give us an poison bomb AOE ^^

[Warstar]

I think the reason why people say that rogue specs play the same is that they're very similar to hunters in that each spec you could play the same way with the same button positions. For instance:

Button 1: sinister strike, mutilate, backstab
Button 2: revealing strike, dispatch, hemo
Button 3: evis, envenom, evis
Button 4: rupture, rupture, rupture
Button 5: snd, snd, snd

From what I understand hunters have it even worse and even the game play is almost indistinguishable from spec to spec and I agree that rogues do have more variation... but not by too much that a normal person who only plays spec <blah> couldn't pick up any of the others and pretty much get the same general feel for it.

Compare that to other classes.

Pure dps classes:
Warlocks and mages have 3 extremely different dps specs. The game play for frost/arcane/fire is completely different and each brings different things to the table and all three being very good dps. Let alone the control that a frost mage can have over adds (or a poor melee in pvp). Warlocks are currently the best designed dps class in the game imo. They have three classes that not only are viable and depending on the skill level of a person they could play any warlock spec and pull great numbers. They're also so completely distinguishable from each other. Mages some what too but it more just a recoloring of their spells purple blue or orange. Warlocks depending on the spec though even have a completely different resource system. The game play from each spec is 100% different and is so different each could be it's own separate class. They have different ways to aoe, they have different ways to single target and they have different ways to manage cool downs. Hell, warlocks even have a glyph that turns them into a tank and gives them honestly a 4th spec that while pretty much demo also have a very different way of playing bringing warlocks to having four different specs. Compare that diversity to a rogue and you'll see why people say rogues play too similar.

Hybrid classes:
Well... duh they're different. Classes like paladins, shaman, druids and monks are all very different in that each spec plays a completely different role. Even enhancement vs. elemental or feral vs. moonkin both are dps specs in the same class but 100% different.

Warriors and DKs have three distinguishable specs as well. Their tank vs. dps specs play completely different and then even their two dps specs have a pretty good variation with warriors not as much but still playing arms or fury feels very different and you use things in different ways.

Priests are obviously different shadows compared to healing. But they're also the only class in the game that has 2 healing specs and each spec has such a different style of game play. And, disc is even one of the most unique ways of healing in the game.

So in conclusion rogues compared to any other class besides a hunter has a pretty limited variation between specs and even play styles. The biggest differences between specs are the spamminess of buttons or having a positional requirement (which sucks but come on... backstabbing someone from the front? might as well rename it anywherestab if you take the requirement away) which don't really count when compared to something lock a warlock which gets a completely different resource system.

[Koji2k11]

oh i forgot something LET US USE POTIONS WHILE IN STEALTH prepotting is so dumb as a rogue

[hatchetman240]

Button 1: sinister strike, mutilate, backstab
Button 2: revealing strike, dispatch, hemo
Button 3: evis, envenom, evis
Button 4: rupture, rupture, rupture
Button 5: snd, snd, snd

LOL. I just set up a combat spec last night and saw this very thing happening as I set my bars. I adjusted my weak auras and layed the revealing strike meter over the top of the envenom meter. Same color, same button used, same exact rotation.

They need wholesale change to these specs. They have a bevy of variety to choose from and yet every rogue spec essentially is the same. One spec should use a bow/crossbow with the engergy/combo point system differentiating it from hunters, one should use a pistol or hand crossbow and any melee mainhand, one should stay dual daggers. There really needs to be more to this than just a reskinned DOT mechanic between the three specs.