Rogue feedback! Why they are so unpopular?!

[Linneth]

-snip-

Be careful with Worldofwargraphs, you're looking Rogue representation on all brackets (Arena and BGR). If you look at arena representation you'll see that Rogue representation is 2.1% on 2v2, 1.7% on 3v3 and 1.3% on 5v5. Getting 2200+ on BGR is far easier than Arenas. You're also less likely to die within a stun because of the increased number of targets. Worldofwargraphs says that we have a 4.5% representation on RBGs, which is inflating numbers. We may be fine on BGs, but we're horrible on arenas.

[Verain]

Ah, thank you, my bad.

I don't think 4.5% is fine even in RBGs either. But yea, that's making us look too good in arenas for sure.

[Aaryki]

I leveled my tank and hunter to 90, didnt do my rogue and took a break for a number of reasons. I m now back leveling my rogue, which I PvPed alot on but didnt raid. I d read how the balance was awful so I did nt see the point.

A rogue used to be a rogue, they werent op (dmg-wise we were never there) we just had a lot of control, which other found annoying. I thought that was what rogues were, very high control, moderate dmg and moderate to poor survivability. Each class would balance out on those 3 issues, high dmg would be balanced by low control or low surv (hence ppls trouble with mages!).

Unfortunately balancing thise issues are imprtant to PvP but far less so for raiding. Hence Blizz's problem.

On a playing issue, I ve always played Subt and having to keep up Slice and Dice and Bleeds to max my performance is annoying, having SV on hemo was fine, take or leave rupture.

I d like to see rogues become more annoying again, they added emotion to PvP, swearing at rogues was part of the game, tho stunlock death is good to be gone. More vanish, make glyph of sneak baseline. Make us annoyingly sneaky gain and more fun then ppl will play.

[Qprah]

Rogues are unpopular to me because they don't know how to keep Smoke Bomb on cooldown in fights where they get mind controlled. Shit is annoying yo.

[Aaryki]

Not sure I like the lack of flexibility of the new poisons, i like weapon swopping and mixing poisons up, crip / mind numbing was fun.

[Keakee]

I don't know the main problems, but I'm trying to level a rogue and it's just painful. I'm at level 86 with 2 410 weapons and a few other rares, and I'm still incredibly weak and boring to play. I have no interesting attacks, so much of my damage is reliant on just auto-attack, and compared to the other classes that I've leveled up so far (warlock, pally, warrior, and monk) this is the worst of them by far. I really want to hit 90, but seeing how it doesn't get any better at endgame and how annoying it is now, I think I'll just work on another alt.

[taaveti]

I think the very definition of the class rogue clearly depicted them as a niche class, think of how many skill points they get in D&D.
When the devs started homogenization between classes, special traits of rogues get peeled off one by one throughout the expansions and shared among other classes to the point that people just level one to open lockboxes then be done with the character.

[Deleted]

Common, you're fine.... was the initial answer after we have been killed, destroyed in silence, no notes, not a head up, nothing, but wee got that on our own ofc it was so funnn... and the '' you're fine'' after many months turned into '' ups he he he team effort '' dam you're not fine? mm seems so, but still we will give you some new bling bling spells... but ofc w wil not resolve the main issue survival, dodge, heal, dps burst, dps in general, we butchered sub spec forever, its gone dead, say bb to it...... and as allot of pl say the hell im insane and wait 1 or 2 years until they'' damm you're not fine'' and really rework us, alt warrior for true oppppppppp fun killing and penetrating almost allll in pve and pvp even in a bg

[Puck]

RPG games usually have few people picking the Stealth/ranger archetype due to mechanics. Most people don't wan't to sneak around, they wan;t to bash people in the faces with giant war axes or chuck fire balls at them.

[checking facts]

RPG games usually have few people picking the Stealth/ranger archetype due to mechanics. Most people don't wan't to sneak around, they wan;t to bash people in the faces with giant war axes or chuck fire balls at them.

believe me, sneaking around is not the problem. I'd LOVE to be able to sneak around on my awesome warlock.

people want to play something that looks and feels cool. rogues could look and feel cool if blizzard wanted them to.

of course, they can't be flashy. but just by changing some animations of some abilities, adding some afterimages on evasion and blade flurry to indicate superhuman speed (playing more on the ninja/silent assassin motif), giving them one skill where they shoot with a handgun (to play more on the bandit/spy/thief motif, cause I can't imagine a spy that doesn't have a handgun lol) and making their rotation faster and a little more dynamic, I bet rogue popularity will go up.

it won't go "paladin up", but it'll go up.

[Sardonic]

I'm not saying rogue's are perfect as-is, but in many ways I'm gratified that they are the class that has changed the least over the years. Many of the classes -- for good or for ill, mostly for the good, I suppose -- are virtually unrecognizable from the way the were in '04 and '05, which is when many of us started. Change is good, and often required: I get that. But not everything has to change as much as everything else. Some things start out in a better form than others. Rogues are an example of that, imho.

I don't care how cool we look flailing against a training dummy. It wouldn't make sense, in my opinion, for a stealthy rogue to look all My Little Sparkle Magic Pony -- like a paladin -- when attacking.

One of the coolest things I ever saw in this game, and it is the reason I first rolled a rogue back in early '06, was something I saw in WSG (back in the days when we collected tokens and played until one side had 3 captures). I used to play my NE hunter back then almost exclusively, and mostly in PVE, but I decided to try out the battlegrounds. So I fly to Ashenvale and queued up for a fight. Ah, those were the days, but anyway:

During the fight I was coming out of the Alliance tunnel and I saw one of my teammates, about 20 feet away, suddenly stop in place. An undead rogue came out stealth, green poison dripping off of his blades, and he tore my teammate into shreds before I could respond. Then faded away again, like a vision of Death itself.

Coolest thing I'd seen in the game up to that point, and that's saying something because the game still awes me at times -- 8+ years later.

I rolled a rogue shortly thereafter and I've played one on and off -- more on than off -- ever since.

The essence of rogue, imho, is sound. I don't think it needs major flashy overhauls. Just some nudging here and there.


/my2coppers

[checking facts]

I don't care how cool we look flailing against a training dummy. It wouldn't make sense, in my opinion, for a stealthy rogue to look all My Little Sparkle Magic Pony -- like a paladin -- when attacking.

you don't need to sparkle to look cool. but ability effects that invoke the feeling of extreme speed would be welcome. blurred character, afterimages, better bleed and posion effects, et cetera.

rogues can be severely improved, and I'm not even talking about gameplay.

[Coldkil]

One thing overall - making poisons overwrite the enchant effect. Who wouldn't like to run around with weapons dripping green??

There's a lot of space to work on, just everything needs to be taken very very carefully.

[Deleted]

An undead rogue came out stealth, green poison dripping off of his blades, and he tore my teammate into shreds...

The essence of rogue, imho, is sound.

Seeing as the devs have specifically stated they do not like/want the above to EVER happen again, I'd suggest you reconsider the above. It seems contradictory. What you say you liked about the class no longer applies to the class, therefore, the essence can no longer be sound.

[D3athsting]

[Pve pov] At this point my suggestion to devs is to remove stealth for assass and combat and stop balancing the class around an ability that becomes useless 5 secs after the start of a pve encounter...

[Sardonic]

Seeing as the devs have specifically stated they do not like/want the above to EVER happen again, I'd suggest you reconsider the above. It seems contradictory. What you say you liked about the class no longer applies to the class, therefore, the essence can no longer be sound.

I'm not current on what the devs have stated as their current vision for the rogue class. However, aside from the fact poison doesn't seem to make a graphic effect on our weapons anymore, you can easily (as a rogue) come out of stealth, wtfpwn an undergeared opponent, and vanish back into stealth -- just like back in the day. I don't see them taking away stealth, and any character of any any class that greatly outgears an opponet is likely to wtfpwn the opponent.

So, I do not believe I am being contradictory. Certainly, not intentionally. Feel free to link me to dev/blue comments that state they wish to remove stealth from rogues and/or the ability for better geared characters to quickly kill lesser geared characters.

[Deleted]

I'm not current on what the devs have stated as their current vision for the rogue class. However, aside from the fact poison doesn't seem to make a graphic effect on our weapons anymore, you can easily (as a rogue) come out of stealth, wtfpwn an undergeared opponent, and vanish back into stealth -- just like back in the day. I don't see them taking away stealth, and any character of any any class that greatly outgears an opponet is likely to wtfpwn the opponent.

So, I do not believe I am being contradictory. Certainly, not intentionally. Feel free to link me to dev/blue comments that state they wish to remove stealth from rogues and/or the ability for better geared characters to quickly kill lesser geared characters.

They've not stated anything of that sort(as in, removing stealth). They have, however, stated they don't want rogues to be able to instant-gank-stunlock-kill an opponent, seeing as it's largely "unfair" and nigh impossible to counter.

That said, you imply I'm right by adding "undergeared" to your argument. You're specifically stating that a rogue no longer can do what he should be able to do. You simply can't stealth-kill decently geared/equally geared players. We simply don't have that kinda burst-output anymore - and, indeed, any class that outgears another class, will destroy said class. That's a point in my favor, not yours? It simply shows that rogues aren't unique in that regard.

Nonetheless, this isn't a matter of balance, it's a matter of design. Sub (and rogues as a whole, to a degree) retains its previous affiliations with stealth - but the usefulness of stealth has been nerfed/altered drastically to what it used to be, while the kit has remained unchanged. The kit of a "dark stalker who leaps from the shadows to deliver largely ineffective and unnoticeable strikes to his foe" just doesn't make much sense anymore.

[Shaderas]

I'm not current on what the devs have stated as their current vision for the rogue class. However, aside from the fact poison doesn't seem to make a graphic effect on our weapons anymore, you can easily (as a rogue) come out of stealth, wtfpwn an undergeared opponent, and vanish back into stealth -- just like back in the day. I don't see them taking away stealth, and any character of any any class that greatly outgears an opponet is likely to wtfpwn the opponent.

So, I do not believe I am being contradictory. Certainly, not intentionally. Feel free to link me to dev/blue comments that state they wish to remove stealth from rogues and/or the ability for better geared characters to quickly kill lesser geared characters.

Ahh you misunderstand him. Devs do not want equally geared characters to die in a stunlock to a rogue without being able to react in some fashion. They consider this not fun for the victim of the rogue. We can still kill undergeared characters, but generally speaking, I cannot open on someone and kill them before they have at least some chance to react.

[Sardonic]

They've not stated anything of that sort(as in, removing stealth). They have, however, stated they don't want rogues to be able to instant-gank-stunlock-kill an opponent, seeing as it's largely "unfair" and nigh impossible to counter.

That said, you imply I'm right by adding "undergeared" to your argument. You're specifically stating that a rogue no longer can do what he should be able to do. You simply can't stealth-kill decently geared/equally geared players. We simply don't have that kinda burst-output anymore - and, indeed, any class that outgears another class, will destroy said class. That's a point in my favor, not yours? It simply shows that rogues aren't unique in that regard.

Nonetheless, this isn't a matter of balance, it's a matter of design. Sub (and rogues as a whole, to a degree) retains its previous affiliations with stealth - but the usefulness of stealth has been nerfed/altered drastically to what it used to be, while the kit has remained unchanged. The kit of a "dark stalker who leaps from the shadows to deliver largely ineffective and unnoticeable strikes to his foe" just doesn't make much sense anymore.

Just to be clear: I have no interest in arguing with you. I reread my earlier posts to see if I might have written something to set you off a bit. You mention points in your favor, but I'm not trying to beat you at anything.

Anyway, I do take your point -- that the days of rogues coming out of stealth and one-shotting equally geared players, and then safely returning to stealth -- are over.

Where you and I disagreee is your choice of the word "should" when describing the ability of rogues to do that: you say they should be able, I don't agree.

When we were legit 1-shotting people in vanilla it was almost always because of gear superiority -- 60 rogues in full T2 were beasts. Also, I don't know how long you've been playing, but back in the old days, moving in stealth was painfully slow. So it would take a while to set up the opportunity for a kill. Now we can move quickly in stealth, quicker than out of stealth if talented for it, and that's just one way we've changed. My point about change is that rogue changes have, overall, been more subtle than changes to other classes.

My overall point is that the core idea of the class -- a stealth based dps'er that emerges from the shadows and causes mayhem -- is still alive. To me the difference is that, now, when I come out of stealth it's as much to CC as it is to cause damage.

But to be fair to your posts, and the part of my original post that you quoted (about the undead coming out of stealth, 1-shotting, then vanishing back into stealth): you are correct: the days of doing that against equally geared opponenets do appear to be over. But I still find it satisfying to come out of stealth, pinning down one opponent with CS as I do so, another with Blind, then disarm the spazmatic arms, and gouge the would-be-savior healer. It's a powerful feeling because it is powerful. And with clos/vanish/sprint -- we can live to do it again.

[Coldkil]

J
But to be fair to your posts, and the part of my original post that you quoted (about the undead coming out of stealth, 1-shotting, then vanishing back into stealth): you are correct: the days of doing that against equally geared opponenets do appear to be over. But I still find it satisfying to come out of stealth, pinning down one opponent with CS as I do so, another with Blind, then disarm the spazmatic arms, and gouge the would-be-savior healer. It's a powerful feeling because it is powerful. And with clos/vanish/sprint -- we can live to do it again.

While being able to control multiple targets surely feels awesome (and it really is) as it's good to be able to disappear from sight and reset the fight, still doesn't deliver.

Why? because if we control muliple targets, we're burnign our cooldowns off. Then we need to reset because we canno deliver a kill, but the nxt time we're trying to do so without or CDs - this usually ends with the rogue being raped. And the feeling of being powerful is only made bitter by the fact that we're next o useless in the next X minues, waiting for CDs to pop.

Bringing again an example from some time ago: Boomkin friend doin arenas, ranting about stuns, blind, gouge, mind numbin poison, etc etc. Bu the point is that even with everything thrown over he wasn't at risk of death.

We were one-sho machines; now we're annoying mosquitos. And while i still chuckle when people rant abou rogues, the reality is that rogues don't deliver. Rogues are for that timed Smoke Bomb which other classes need for a FC kill.