Simple Question: Why do you think Rogues are the least player class?

[Deleted]

I think a combination of factors are at play here because it was not always this way. I seem to remember at 60 there were rogues everywhere. The game has moved on and changed a lot since its original launch and for the most part, rogues have not. Gonna give my opinions on both pve and pvp separately.
In pvp rogues were designed to end fights swiftly and brutally, this rarely happens these days with the potential for massive health pools and increased amount of defense/utility cd's available to players now. Rogues 'niche' in group pvp was constant on demand stuns and interrupts, this too has also been spread to many other classes who often have better options for healing and survivability without blowing long cd's.

When it comes to pve, from my own experience (raiding from Molten core to Icc as combat/assasination specs) rogues are quite simply boring. In good gear they put out impressive numbers but the playstyle seemed more about watching a buff to your white damage while spamming 2 buttons. The hardest part for raiding rogues back then was not accidently overaggroing the tank and getting 1 shot by some boss melee. This aggro issue has since been resolved but until the day I quit playing on my rogue (End of wotlk) the only viable specs were assasination and combat they still relied largely on nursing the slice and dice buff while hammering 2 buttons.

Being a pure class there is never an option to change your role should fancy something different, rogues are a melee damage class and that's all they will ever do. There is even a trend now that ranged dps > melee dps in raid formation so rogues can suffer in a way that hunters/mage/locks will not. In modern times I do believe they are the only melee class that has no other option than damage and maybe with smaller raid sizes people prefer to main a flexible character, one that can heal or tank if needed, thus allowing them access to more content more frequently.

These are entirely my own opinions based my experience as having a rogue as my main, and I acknowledge that I have missed out on some changes in the 2 expansions where I have not played as a rogue, yet I believe the previous reasons still stand as to the decline of rogue popularity. It was fun while it lasted as my class was competitive if not downright top dps for much of the content I played through and I clocked up a respectable 77k honour kills while pvping so I saw my fair share of action (gangs of rogues in enemy cities was always a blast). But ultimately I began to feel restricted and outright bored by my chosen class, and played alts (prot warrior and all specs of mage mostly) more often until my rogue was completely shelved.

[dyzz]

I think a combination of factors are at play here because it was not always this way. I seem to remember at 60 there were rogues everywhere. The game has moved on and changed a lot since its original launch and for the most part, rogues have not. Gonna give my opinions on both pve and pvp separately.
In pvp rogues were designed to end fights swiftly and brutally, this rarely happens these days with the potential for massive health pools and increased amount of defense/utility cd's available to players now. Rogues 'niche' in group pvp was constant on demand stuns and interrupts, this too has also been spread to many other classes who often have better options for healing and survivability without blowing long cd's.

When it comes to pve, from my own experience (raiding from Molten core to Icc as combat/assasination specs) rogues are quite simply boring. In good gear they put out impressive numbers but the playstyle seemed more about watching a buff to your white damage while spamming 2 buttons. The hardest part for raiding rogues back then was not accidently overaggroing the tank and getting 1 shot by some boss melee. This aggro issue has since been resolved but until the day I quit playing on my rogue (End of wotlk) the only viable specs were assasination and combat they still relied largely on nursing the slice and dice buff while hammering 2 buttons.

Being a pure class there is never an option to change your role should fancy something different, rogues are a melee damage class and that's all they will ever do. There is even a trend now that ranged dps > melee dps in raid formation so rogues can suffer in a way that hunters/mage/locks will not. In modern times I do believe they are the only melee class that has no other option than damage and maybe with smaller raid sizes people prefer to main a flexible character, one that can heal or tank if needed, thus allowing them access to more content more frequently.

These are entirely my own opinions based my experience as having a rogue as my main, and I acknowledge that I have missed out on some changes in the 2 expansions where I have not played as a rogue, yet I believe the previous reasons still stand as to the decline of rogue popularity. It was fun while it lasted as my class was competitive if not downright top dps for much of the content I played through and I clocked up a respectable 77k honour kills while pvping so I saw my fair share of action (gangs of rogues in enemy cities was always a blast). But ultimately I began to feel restricted and outright bored by my chosen class, and played alts (prot warrior and all specs of mage mostly) more often until my rogue was completely shelved.

Your post hits most of the main points. There are other factors involved that also make guilds want ranged dps 99% of the time over rogues (You can say melee in general, but other classes can become healers/tanks so they can pull a double role). The game since BC has become very unfriendly to melee (tho they have made fixes but the game still very very much caters to DPS that can attack at range and pets help make this even more of a problem). BC was REALLY bad with everything having 360 cleaves (tho that was eventually nerfed), but anyone who raids or has played a rogue (or melee dps) for years knows exactly what I am talking about. They adjusted a few rogue abilities like Feint and you can glyph CoS to take less damage as well, which is part of the reason why rogues can put out decent numbers now but it still requires healers to pay attention and heal us thru stuff.

I don't find my rogue that fun in pve or pvp. I never played a caster/hunter till recently and it is quite rediculous how much easier pets make even fighting elites.

[Kulestu]

We have a distinct lack of fun. Not only are we stale (players who have been playing rogues since BC haven't changed their playstyle much at all), but other classes get fun abilities and talents. The only talents we ever change are Elusiveness and CD, hardly a fun thing to change. Warlocks get metamorphosis as demo, hunters get stampede, warriors get Avatar Form, druids get to change forms and have distinctly different specs, mages have *very* different specs for a pure DPS class and also have choice in talents, WW monks are basically rogues with all of the QoL changes we've been asking for forever, the list goes on, excluding enhance shamans, who have the same lack of "fun" that we do. We get Vendetta, AR and Shadow Blades. There's a reason that rogues are not in short supply for top raiding guilds, we're very strong in raids and people like in this guilds like to play classes that do as much as possible, but the average player wants more fun from their class.

[Deleted]

Well, I am sure that Monks are the least played. They are like non existing in PvP, especialy MWs ...

As for a Rogue, for a PvP perspective, if you don't start a fight first, you will die, if you won't escape. So You MUST open from stealth, if you wanna win in most casses.
You can't switch targets as often like other classes can do becouse of stupid CP generator which puts CPs on target instead on a Rogue.
Very poor survivability.
All 3 specs are too similar.