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  1. #1

    Your opinion on Rogues?

    Hey all. Ive been playing a Mage for about 7 years, my entire time with WoW. After such a long time, Im starting to get slightly bored of the Mages, as they just seem to be stagnating when compared to nearly every class I look at.

    Ive never gotten a Rogue above level 50, and I was curious what you Rogue's opinions are on your class. Im looking to play both PvP and PvE, on the higher end on the competition. Im currently only about level 20, and while I know Im level 20, it seems like all that I do is what for energy to just use a Sinister Strike.

    Im wondering what they are like in both aspects of the game. Coming from a Mage, Im really craving some complexity, as far as PvE goes. Do Rogue rotations keep you on your toes at all? And how are you in PvP atm. Any burst? Good sustained damage? Thanks a ton !


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  2. #2
    If u want my opinion rogues are even more stagnating than mages, they haven't really changed that much since i started playing rogue in vanilla, except that now CP builders hit like a wet fish, they are more squishy and half of their dmg output comes from passive sources (autoattack and poisons).

  3. #3
    Started mine in 2004 and have mostly mained it since, with a couple diversions into other classes. Still mostly playing the rogue these days, and have done the past couple expansions as pvp only (outside of leveling to max). I love it.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Shullski View Post
    Hey all. Ive been playing a Mage for about 7 years, my entire time with WoW. After such a long time, Im starting to get slightly bored of the Mages, as they just seem to be stagnating when compared to nearly every class I look at.
    Rogues are somewhat "stagnant" as well, but if you've been playing a class for that long (as I have), every class will offer something fresh. It's mostly, are you going to enjoy what you get out of the new class enough to justify what you are losing that you like.

    Ive never gotten a Rogue above level 50, and I was curious what you Rogue's opinions are on your class. Im looking to play both PvP and PvE, on the higher end on the competition. Im currently only about level 20, and while I know Im level 20, it seems like all that I do is what for energy to just use a Sinister Strike.
    You end up using a lot more than that. You have experiences with pure classes, so I won't go into that. Do note that combat requires your mainhand NOT be a dagger, but mutilate and sub require that it BE a dagger (mutilate is strict about double daggers, sub can be a bit iffier, especially outside of high end pve).


    The big deal in pvp is, rogues have a lot of cooldown based control, some decent gap closing, and ok survivability when not stunned. You have decent burst, but remember that EVERYTHING will require cooldowns.

    Going from mage to rogue in pvp is a pretty big switch. The two classes have opposite goals in many ways, and have very different strengths.

    In pve, it's much more similar. You have a "good" spec for each fight, and more often than not "good" talents for each fight, so you need to keep up with that.

    Im wondering what they are like in both aspects of the game. Coming from a Mage, Im really craving some complexity, as far as PvE goes. Do Rogue rotations keep you on your toes at all? And how are you in PvP atm. Any burst? Good sustained damage? Thanks a ton !
    Mutilate is the easiest rogue rotation. You have a rather high amount of downtime with it. Rogues deal most of their damage based on autoattacks, so many of your moves exist to buff autoattacks (shadow blades, envenom, slice and dice). Mutilate is a trivial spec to play decently (one of the easiest in the game, hands down), but becomes harder when you try to optimize (pooling before execute, proper multirupture, when to pool for extra envenom uptime versus when to play on the left side of your energy bar). It's complex, but the rewards for proper execution versus improper are not very high. Mutilate is the favored spec for most of this tier, but once gear is happening it is predicted that the other two specs will overtake it.

    Combat is a frenetic spec that will, for much of this tier, involve a 0.5 second GCD for parts of the fight. Combat is all about stacking damage into windows. You have a ramp up mechanic, with a stacking buff that goes away once it reaches its max, and most of your play will be around that. Combat has sections of having to execute your rotation correctly and as fast as possible interspersed with sections of being low on energy. Killing Spree is a rewarding button that can get you killed if not played correctly. With the blade flurry nerf, combat probably won't see much play until late this tier, when its scaling catches it up. Playing combat properly is pretty hard, and you get rewarded for it mostly- though likely not until later.

    Subt is a planning based timer spec with only one real damage effect ("ignore armor on the target") and multiple ways to trigger it that don't stack well or at all (vanish, prep-vanish, meld if you got it, even shadow blades). You have a lot of pooling to do to make this work. I think sub is the most interesting spec, and it's generally my favorite, but expect a lot of issues if a boss can't be backstabbed or if it is difficult to backstab the boss. Sub will scale very well this tier, as it always does, and I'm hoping to play a lot of this fun and rewarding spec later in the tier. Sub is a decently complex rotation, with solid rewards for good execution and punishments for screwing it up.


    The new talent Marked for Death makes for a very button-pressy situation with adds.


    I really like rogues. I recommend you try them out. Rogues are absolute useless worthless dogshit until they are max level and in purples. Unlike other classes, they are locked in the least useful role whilst levelling (melee, like a tank but less damage and folds like paper), and their rotation doesn't exist in any reasonable form until much later in the game. You get your first baseline dps cooldown at level 87. Once you have Burst of Speed and Nightstalker, however (this is a 5.2 change) you can at least zip rapidly around the quest zones while steathed, so I do recommend that combination. The class is horribly designed outside of max level- I would say that it's the crappiest (and likely hardest, though that doesn't really matter) to level.

    But once you get to max level, you have cool things you can do. I miss the hell out of feint, smokebomb, vanish, and prep when I am on any other class.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    I recently quit the game altogether, mainly because playing my class of choice ( that being the rogue) was very boring and unrewarding, with no sign of significant changes (or any changes, at all...) in the upcoming future. That's mainly why I haven't been contributing as much as I have in the past, if some of you old dogs were wondering what I've been up to.

    Don't take my reply too literally, seeing as I stopped playing prior to the release of 5.2, which apparently fixed some of our issues. Nonetheless, mechanically rogues have been left unchanged, so I should still possess some insight in our rotational-mechanics.

    PVE-wise, rogues are dull as they come. There's very little room for optimization, due to the very simple rotations we have. "1-1-2-1-1-2..." is essentially the gist of all the three rotations, with one additional button in each spec. Additionally, all three specs keep Slice and Dice and Rupture running on their target.

    That's a simplified version of all our rotations, really. There's only one proc to look out for in Assassination; outside of that it's generally just "keep up Slice, keep up Rupture, press 1 until you have 5 combo points, press 2 with 5 combo points..." - repeat.

    The rotations are simple to carry out due to the massive downtime caused by energy-starvation(you spend a lot of time doing nothing but waiting for energy), the simple nature of the rotations themselves, and the lack of variety in the different rotations. You're essentially playing the same thing with slight mechanical tweaks.
    - Assassination grants you combo points when you crit...
    - Combat grants you combo points at the whim of chance if Revealing Strike is on the target...
    - Subtlety essentially grants you a free combo point every 2~ seconds...

    But with that in mind, whenever you're not refreshing Slice and Dice and Rupture, you'll still just be pressing "1-1-1-1-1" until you can safely use your finisher "2" with 5 combo points. The only differences between the specs, rotationally, are the cooldowns, which are somewhat interesting but not interesting enough to warrant playing the class.

    To summarize:
    - It's a very boring class to play in PVE
    - The rotations are either very dull and slow-paced, or fast paced without the energy to back up the pace
    - The specs are homogenized beyond belief
    - The damage output is incredibly passive (up to about 30-50% of your damage will be from auto attacks and poisons)
    - Due to the above the class is very "maintenance-y" as you will spend most of your time managing buffs while your character will otherwise do the rest for you

    Final verdict:
    If you're a management lover; if you truly enjoy keeping up buffs and maintaining them... rogues are just right for you. If you enjoy a more active class, a class where you truly feel the weight of every button you press, stay far away from rogues.

    I won't delve into the world of PVP, seeing as it's never been my area of expertise. I'll leave that to the others.
    Last edited by mmoc0d3e61e7f2; 2013-03-18 at 07:11 PM.

  6. #6
    For PvE, if you want a rotation that is engaging and feels rewarding to pull off, that isn't us. We had that with sub back in DS, but not anymore. Not to say that I don't have fun with my rogue as we do have some cool tricks, but our rotations are just bland and centered around passive damage as opposed to setting up massive crits.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Sesshou View Post
    For PvE, if you want a rotation that is engaging and feels rewarding to pull off, that isn't us. We had that with sub back in DS, but not anymore. Not to say that I don't have fun with my rogue as we do have some cool tricks, but our rotations are just bland and centered around passive damage as opposed to setting up massive crits.
    Why can I not express myself in 3 sentences?!

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Incineration View Post
    Why can I not express myself in 3 sentences?!
    Its the fault of the school systems! All those minimum length requirements on papers encourage you to take the wordiest approach you can think of!

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Shullski View Post
    Hey all. Ive been playing a Mage for about 7 years, my entire time with WoW. After such a long time, Im starting to get slightly bored of the Mages, as they just seem to be stagnating when compared to nearly every class I look at.

    Ive never gotten a Rogue above level 50, and I was curious what you Rogue's opinions are on your class. Im looking to play both PvP and PvE, on the higher end on the competition. Im currently only about level 20, and while I know Im level 20, it seems like all that I do is what for energy to just use a Sinister Strike.

    Im wondering what they are like in both aspects of the game. Coming from a Mage, Im really craving some complexity, as far as PvE goes. Do Rogue rotations keep you on your toes at all? And how are you in PvP atm. Any burst? Good sustained damage? Thanks a ton !
    Well my experience comes from playing a rogue for majority of Cataclysm and I have not played it since MoP launch. I remember playing a Rogue last expansion and I've got to say I've had more fun with that class than with any other class, probably other than a Hunter. This is regarding PVP though. I have very little experience when it comes to Rogue PVE cause I solely levelled through BGs on my Rogue. By around level 40 I had achieved most of my WSG achievements.

    It was quite ridiculous being a rogue. This was before base resilience. It wasn't impossible to kill someone by opening with an ambush and a finisher. The good thing about Rogues is that each spec plays very differently in PVE.

    Combat is probably the most boring spec in the game. Yes I said game. It plays pretty much like a Fury Warrior in Leather without all the procs. Its about spamming a single ability to generate combo points. You don't even get to stay in stealth since you don't get any passive bonus from opening in stealth.

    Sub is alright. Have not really tested it out much. Assassination is where the fun is in personally. You make good use of your poisons however, I often found myself energy starved. Don't know if that has changed. That is probably one of the major drawbacks of the spec. Its too energy reliant so most of your damage comes from auto attacks + poison damage. Also it lacks cleave damage.

    Rogues are definitely overall the most boring PVE class. Combat is a good PVE DPS spec and is capable of putting out high numbers but the play style is mind numbingly boring and so much of the damage is plain passive damage (weapon damage). You don't have any cool ability outside of Mutilate.

    However, PVP is a completely different ball game. Rogue is definitely one of the best classes for PVP. I think they have received a lot of QOL improvements over the years that cater specifically to PVE. Recoup was really good for PVE when it generated Energy as well but think they removed it.

    Its one of the few classes where you can actually spot the difference between a good rogue and a bad one. The other being Death Knights. Its easy to be decent on a Rogue in PVP however, a good Rogue is simply unbelievable. I often use to take on 2-3 Horde players on my Rogue. Its all about timing your CC, and using your Stuns as CC too and then relying on Disarm. Its basically using all the tools available to your class.

    As a Rogue you will never have more fun when it comes to PVP with any other class. However, they really are quite squishy and the longer the battle goes on for the lower your chance of survival. But they still make up for that with their damage and control. Rogues are known for their burst damage in PVP and sustained damage in PVE.

    Too often in my BGs I use to get Rogues that never focused healers. But healers were the first ones I "always" focused. Its so easy to stun lock a healer. You can literally change the tides of battle. Quite honestly there is just so much more to the class when it comes to PVP, the sky is the limit.

    Often times when the Horde use to swap flags in their team I would be there to ninja return the flags to our base. They would all be cursing at each other. The Rogue I felt brought out the worst I mean though personality wise. I loved griefing people in TB and simply camping them. I would taunt them with stuns, vanish. I ain't going to lie, it was fun. There is a reason why the general consensus among the WoW player base is that all rogues are "douchebags".

    I ain't even going to deny it. I've never met a Rogue besides a friend I met in the game that was a someone I would say was a "good" person. However, this girl that I did meet was pretty clueless to the class as a whole and simply liked being in stealth. She didn't get the most out of the class. Almost all rogues that I've ran into dungeons, PVP even on the opposite team I would categorise as a horrible person. Its just the play style of the class really that brings out the worst in people.

    However, I have to say I found it quite fun. All my alts that I have levelled after the first toon has been through spamming dungeons. There is a reason why I didn't follow the same route on my Rogue. Its boring. The damage sucks and you don't get an AOE till level 80. Considering TBC dungeons is all about AOE you are pretty much useless during those 10 levels.

    But if you are looking for a much more balanced class for PVE/PVP druids ain't far behind. They have decent mobility if not better than a rogue. They have good off heals.

  10. #10
    The Patient Grayjoy's Avatar
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    To be honest, I’ve grown to enjoy the playstyle of rogues, especially assassination in that it resembles a melee DoTting class. There has been a lot of frustration over the passive nature of rogue damage, but this style of setting up your debuffs/bleeds and managing them through combo point gneration/exhaustion is truly what defines us as a class.

    The best analogy I’ve heard is the “AWP vs. SMG” one. Take a fury warrior. Big hits, massive executes, every button press means something big is about to happen and it will more often than not make huge numbers show up on the screen. It’s a sniper rifle, with booming hits coming every now and then. Rogues are an SMG, dozens of tiny numbers dancing across your screen and disappearing. We get procs from stuff like venemous wounds that make up quite a bit of our damage that runs largely unnoticed in the background. Deadly poison procs are more important than the combo generator that we use to proc them. I don’t see enormous numbers (my raid has made fun of me for flipping out over a 500k envenom) but I’ve topped 3 out of the 4 bosses (minus horridon) with consistency and ease this tier. I love being able to master the little ins and outs of assa, being a sustainable and survivable class, and topping charts. It’s intoxicating and fun.

    I think “engaging” is a subjective thing, and I’ve found that I really am in love with assassination’s flow and playstyle. I like having a rotation I can perfect and hone rather than an unruly proc system. I LOVE being able to have agency over my own survivability with feint/cloak/leeching/recup. And I love dealing most of my damage through poisons and bleeds. This is not a common sentiment.
    Basically: does the thought of being cackled on Sha of Fear with 5 combo points up, getting off a quick rupture and watching as your DPS increase while your far away from the boss excite you? Or does this scream “passive and boring?” It’s something to think about.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    ^The problem I have with the above (essentially selling us as an SMG) is not that the comparison is inherently wrong, it describes our current play-style rather well, but that's the core of the problem itself... A sub-machine gun is a fully automated rifle. It only needs to command to fire and it'll do so indefinitely.

    Having a class/spec deal smaller amounts of damage, but in turn deal said damage at a much faster rate is fine. What I object to, however, lies in the passiveness of the SMG play-style and how it's been cramped into all three specs. Why does every single spec have to be based on the SMG-concept? None of the other classes seem to share "weapon-types" among their specs, at least not from the classes I've played. And why can they not carry out the original concept "weak attacks but lots of them" in a non-SMG way?

    Why do all specs need to be fully automatic?
    Why couldn't they make at least one semi-automatic spec?

    A semi-automatic spec would've shut me up ages ago. They crushed that dream when they butchered Subtlety, going from 4.3 into 5.0...

  12. #12
    The Patient Grayjoy's Avatar
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    Fair point, and it's definitely a flawed analogy (my post was all about assassination, which probably is the least "SMG" spec). I would agree that 4.3 sub was simply a blast and felt the most unique in terms of how it dealt damage, also that as a pure class we would benefit immensely from having each of our specs deal varied types/speeds of DPS.

    The only spec I really would defend is mutilate, almost BECAUSE of it's passive nature. If there's one spec out of three that has that kind of aesthetic, great. But all three? That's a problem I pray they'll address in 6.0. It's like having three different kinds of frost mages, with one being great but three being homogenous and lazy. SnD's mandatory nature might be a problem.

  13. #13
    Fun!

    I don't pve, I just spam bgs all day long as Assassination, as well as the occasional arena and RBG. Rogue in pvp is quite a bit about managing cds, buffs and debuffs. If I let rupture fall off, I'll go around and be energy starved, which isn't fun. If I have some stance lag, so that my rupture goes straight into a 1CP kidney, it's not fun.

    Unlike mages, there isn't that many high crits to go around, sure, you do shine from time to time; I've had over 100k envenom crits, at which point I become "omgwtf over 100k crit?!?!" and nearly fell out of my chair but that usually involves all of my dps cds plus berserking. As mentioned, most of your damage is auto-attacks and poisons. Your sustained damage as assa will be higher than Sub outside shadowdance, but assa has longer dps cds (2 min vendetta). As far as combat goes... I dunno, as with the two other rogue specs, popping everything on an unsuspecting target is pretty much a one-shot, but it is to my knowledge that combat plays out a little like assa - long cds to really bring pain. but I've never tried it, so don't take my word for it.

    However, gearing up a rogue in pvp is a painful process indeed and I'm very happy I'm done with that part. Now I have honor points that I just throw away, yay!

    I'm not at the point in which I can solo well-geared and skilled healers yet, the bastards are immortal. The same with a tank from my guild, 515 ilvl or something - I couldn't beat him in duels. Yes, we did several and I lost every one of them I've had my moments though, where I've gone 1v2! And that certainly was enjoyable and a testament to my skill (or lack thereof as far as my opponents were concerned - you be the judge)

    It'll probably be quite a change going from mage to rogue and it might take some time getting used to. When I play my mage (lvl 83) in bgs, I run around thinking "how can play?" because I'm utterly clueless (but being the bitch of twinked 84s doesn't really help either).

    Bgs vary - I can dominate some, whereas others I just wanna throw something at the nearest wall while telling my other team mates to stop breathing, but they're usually alright, except for this wsg cta, Blizzard should really implement the Insane title along with Conqueror for really, several wsg games and only getting about ... 4 flags... does something about your sanity, but I digress.

    Rogues are, well, rogues, and other pvpers hate us for that, but meh, pay no heed to that. Just keep that ADHD strafing during shadowdance to a minimum.

    Bottom line is: just give it a go, and I hope you'll enjoy yourself!

  14. #14
    Well, I think we are derailing the thread, but I do like the auto-attack nature. I like that rogues are weapon masters, and that we deal so much damage by attacking, not just spamming dumb flashy buttons. I like having a system that I can buff correctly, etc.

    I have a mile of suggestions for rogues, as always. I think slice and dice should go away from mutilate, mostly because it hasn't been in the rotation for so long anyway, and involves the terribly named "cut to the chase" (the passive does nothing like getting to a point quickly) as a refresh mechanism.

    I think assassination would be cool to have one or two cooldown based moves. For instance, a powerful (or cheap) builder with a 30 second timer, and a poison bottle finisher that hits harder than an envenom and then puts a short aoe dot on the ground, also with a timer. Rogue builders and finishers never have this mechanic, with the exception of kidney shot (which debatably should just be a button, not on the resource system). Assassination would be the best spec for it, IMO.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Incineration View Post
    Having a class/spec deal smaller amounts of damage, but in turn deal said damage at a much faster rate is fine. What I object to, however, lies in the passiveness of the SMG play-style and how it's been cramped into all three specs. Why does every single spec have to be based on the SMG-concept? None of the other classes seem to share "weapon-types" among their specs, at least not from the classes I've played. And why can they not carry out the original concept "weak attacks but lots of them" in a non-SMG way?
    Well... because that's the monk's job. It's been my opinion almost from the start that if rogues had received a redesign much like hunters got in Cata, something very similar to a Windwalker would have resulted. Basically weak combo point generators, but combo points weren't all used at once, and finishing moves hit moderately hard. Monks are kind of in the opposite direction. While 60-70% of a rogue's damage is passive, no more than 35% of the monk's damage comes from passive sources. They're very active, and generally have very few open GCDs anywhere in their rotation. So that style DOES exist. Unfortunately, it doesn't belong to a rogue.

    At this point, rogues would need a redesign almost from the base mechanics of the class for any specs to function that way, and I'm not sure how you would avoid the inevitable playstyle comparison if it did happen.

  16. #16
    "Windwalkers do damage" isn't a good reason to avoid differentiating the rogue specs.

    Windwalkers have not very much in common with a rogue. With so many globals being "finishers" on a monk, and very few "builders", you end up with a spec that doesn't really look like a rogue spec.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Alas, I've turned this into another "THIS IS WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN!!!"-thread... My bad...

  18. #18
    Rogues are the best class in the game, as far as cool factor goes.

  19. #19
    Heya incin!! Didn't know you quit wow because of rogue and i don't blame you, are you playing something else??

  20. #20
    Field Marshal Vyreks's Avatar
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    Rogue fundamentally is a good class. We do great in DPS in PvE and have tons of Control capability in PvP.

    With the recent 5.2 patch we've gained a good deal of mobility and burst wrapped into one talent (Cloak and Dagger)

    Our durability in PvP remains just good enough to be competitive.

    We scale with gear a little too tightly (just like Warriors) and the combo point / energy system is a bit sluggish imo.

    Still, I enjoy my rogue very much

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