Bringing some flavour to rogues

[Deleted]

Hello everyone,

First off, I know there have been a few threads about how we think that the rogue class needs to be improved and what new abilities would be cool and efficient, and ppl came up with some rly interesting ideas. What I specifically want to ask the community is how they would change and tweak the current rogue abilities to give them a bit more shine and flavor. Also i`m not a big pvp`er or a top 100 rogue in any way so forgive my naivety. I`ll start:

Shadow Dance – atm, although it’s a strong abilty it’s pretty boring and I feel it is simple enough to peel u off during it with a cc of any kind. What I suggest is, maybe with a glyph? – during shadow dance u pop in and out of stealth, similar to subterfuge – like 2 sec u can be seen, the next 2 sec u would be invis (the duration ofc can be tweaked and maybe even make it so that u can only use certain abilities when u are actually invis so it wouldn`t be too op). This would make it so that we can still be countered but ppl actually have to pay attention when and how they counter it. Not be like…oh he`s shadowdancing – here take my cc.

Sinister Strike – combat’s core cp builder, boring as hell, not that we expected anything more from it tbh. It’s simple but it works. Lets put a twist to it – each SS has a % chance that it will activate (or turn into) an other ability, something along the ways of dispatch, for instance:

• Ghostly Strike (I know some ppl are missing it, I sure am) – does bit more dmg than SS, gives the % dodge it used to.
• Shadow Strike – Deals shadow damage, removes 1 positive effect from the enemy (sort of purge effect).
• Debilitating Strike – Deals it’s normal SS damage but reduces the damage done by the enemy by %.
• Chain Strikes – It could be implemented so that our “road” to the 5cp is not just SS spam. After each SS the next one turns into something else, and the next one after that into 2 possibilities and u have to choose which one best to use in the current state of the fight. Also an idea would be that the ability that ads the 5th cp will always crit (or have a special effect) thus making the enemy feel pressured when the rogue is reaching a finisher.

Backstab – Cool ability, is what a shifty rogue should be all about. But lets see now, the dmg it deas does not compensate for the position requirement even more so that the baked in crit has gone and our passive crit % is not even close to the one we had. And seriously rogue=speed+crits, that’s how I see it at least. Now how do we tweak it? Simple:

• Backstab becomes Stab/Shank – does its normal damage from the front and does bonus damage from behind stacking up to X times refreshing its duration after X is reached with every new one applied, or that we get % more crit on it if we use it from the enemy's back. It could be implemented so it actually becomes backstab again when u are in the correct position – again something along the lines of Dispatch. This would make it so that a good rogue would benefit from it and an opponent can still counter it and consider how long it lets its back open to attacks.

Vendetta – Increases the damage of each of the rogues abilities by X % (each ability gaining X1, X2,…etc.%) and passive damge by Y% (white Y1%, poison Y2%). Shifting twards active damage. It could also be implemented that it only runs out on each attack/autoattack, not after a fixed period but after a fixed time on the enemy. This would consider weapon speed, haste, SnD so it would not run out too fast.

Bleeds – rupture/garrote – These need to do more damage in my opinion. Maybe make it so that each tic increases the damage of the next one staking up X times. Or make it so that if a ability aligns with a tic or within 1 sec of a bleed tic it would increase the tic`s damage by X. Or maybe if u stack garrote with rupture they merge into a stronger bleed.

I do know that everything I said would take up a lot of time to implement and would only see the light of day starting 6.0. But what do u guys think, not only about my ideas which may be farfetched, but what effects (visual even) would u attribute to our abilities (i`d still try to keep them not too flashy since we are rogues) and how would u spice up the existing abilities so we go closer to active damage and away from the boring but good passive on we do atm.

Thx for reading! My 1st post, so be getle

[Slipper]

The problem you have here is simple....

In the next patch rogues are fairly well balanced if a teeny bit OP in PvP & what you've done above is ~buff~ all of them spells, not only to change them to make them exciting.

As much as I would love our playstyle to be more exciting I don't want to see us become ridiculously overpowered again.

Also in PvE our playstyle sucks and is boring but in PvP I find it fun.... I have 1 main CP builder a choice of 4 finishers, a root, a snare, 2 incapacitates, stealth, a support buff, a group stealth, variation of poisons, 2x cooldowns that give a generous increase to damage (shadow blades / vendetta)

And in BG's atleast I find I have no problem killing anyone - and very rarely get kited - except for death knights!

[Deleted]

Hi Slipper,
Thx for your reply. If i think about it a bit more, i do agree with most of the stuff u said. Yea, i was a bit overzealous on the buffing i guess . What i was mainly trying to get out was improving game experience with more interesting mecanics i gues?. But i do see how these would be over the top for just one patch. How about for the upcoming expansion where things will probably get rebalanced considering the new stuff they will most likely implement for all the classes? Would any of these ideas look apealying in any way or should i just let developing to game developers?:P
Thx again for taking the time to read and reply