Why don't people want combo points on the player?

[Skygoneblue]

Just spitballing here... What is instead of combo points...

- Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage, and Backstab put some kind of physical "marker" on the target (for lack of a better word)
- Mutilate could put a nature "marker" on the target in the same way
- Eviscerate and Envenom could consume those markers to deal damage, in the way that Envenom used to consume DP stacks

This would allow you to not lose "combo points" on a target if you had to switch, but also not keep those points stored on the player.

[Warstar]

that's an interessting point of view.... i'm setting up one target to be susceptible to a more deadly move and then i go "BOOM!! CRIMSON TEMPEST IN UR FACEZ!!!" because i set up one target for a yaddayaddayadda...


please, get your facts straight. CPs are ressources; nothing more, nothing less. keeping them glued to just one target is an ancient relic from classic where building up 5 CPs on the rogue and then switching to a green/blue clothie (remember? in classic only a minority was fully clothed in purples) and insta-gibbing him with a cold-blooded-evisc would have ruined many days.
only some months before i rolled into the closed beta they'd had some experiments with CPs on the player. they removed that pretty quickly because it was "just too strong" (or something like that).

Eviscerate in vanilla...
Tanks had 6-10k health from MC-Naxx.
Clothies had at 60 Under 2k health freshly dinged to 3-maaaaybe 4k in Naxx gear but typically in BGs most clothies were around 2-3k.
Leather/mail/plate had between 4-6k depending on your gear.

A cold blood eviscerate would crit for around 2k regardless of the gear you had on aka naked rogues killing Naxx geared tanks.

The damage done compared to health pools was obscene back then but that issue was addressed with TBC and then more fully in wrath or cata I forget which one it was when everyone had a giant health pool.

Now in the current iteration of the game in pve gear in a raid situation depending on buffs that I have my envenom hits for about 100k and then crits for between 200-300k or more with trinket procs. The current health pool of a decently geared player is around 500k maybe in the 400's for pvp still but come 5.4 people are going to be in the 500k range probably.

So, let's say in a pve setting I got a big ass trinkets procced 300k envenom crit on a player with a 500k health pool. Man that'd suck for him! Even a 200k crit would take off almost half his life. But wait! Resilience is up to what 75% on the ptr? So my 100k envenom will hit for 25k and my 200k crit will crit for 50k?

I guess it'd be broken to potentially walk up and hit someone for 50k damage in arena... oh wait DKs, Rets, Warriors and everyone else already do that. DKs and rets burst so so so so so much harder than rogues and yet everyone is crying that they might take a 25-50k envenom.

Sure with enough pvp power itll go up but still the fact is that there are other classes who have on demand harder hitting abilities than envenom that don't have the 5 cp build up time.

Rogues in pvp are the worst class due to the high amount of passive damage that they do. Burst is what kills people in pvp and rogues have been neutered so hard in that category. The original burst class is now the least bursty and every other class can burst harder, target swap on a dime and doesn't have to worry about CP on the target.

Even kidney shot on a 20 second CD with CP on the target doesn't matter. If the healer is at range without shadow step the rogue still has to run over and stun them. With the glyph they can be redirect stunned every time now and blizzard doesn't think that's bad.

Lets even call this a buff. Why are people so scared to buff rogues for pvp? We need it more than any other class/spec/anything in the game right now. It's like everyone is so scared to make rogues good in pvp that if they were good and even the top pvp class that some how the game would be broken.

[Eroginous]

No not really, give me one logical reason (not non vaild Rogues are op whine). Rogues already have to manage enough in PVE, this is clunky and outdated, that's all there is to it, it's not engaging gameplay, it's not more fun, it's just still there. There is no reason.

Rogues build CPs so they can use finishers. That's it. CPs don't do anything else besides let them finish. Their energy regen, CP build up, and ability to move CPs makes managing them super easy. I'm really not sure what the problem is.

I think it's much more important for Blizzard to address the stealth mechanic, how rogues spend so much time out of stealth and thus can't continuously use openers without popping CDs like Vanish and Shadow Dance.

Druids can have it too, but Duids don't need it MORE. I play Feral as twink, it's really not more difficult than Rogue, if anything it's more relaxing to play.

Playing a feral as a twink is not the same as playing one at the level cap. Ferals have such a large ramp up time and such a convoluted rotation, it becomes difficult to manage CPs. Especially since they don't have anything to move them around with, even on a CD.

I brought it up because feral is in dire need of some fixes to their ability bloat and CP management. I'm not convinced rogues are. They could use a buff/fix to Redirect, but that's all the further I would go with this. CPs are fine.

[nextormento]

I enjoyed your post quite a bit, but I wouldn't wonder if there weren't that many responding to you. Maybe it's a bit too long :P

I'm glad you liked it =).
I wish I was able to make my posts shorter. I've read every post in here. Some more than twice, so I would expect people to reciprocate. I don't think we can settle a debate that dates to beta in two-liners. Particularly not one that runs so deep, and is so intertwined with the way we (and our non-rogue peers) experience the game in every aspect.

[cwphariss]

I've played Rogue since TBC. I have also leveled and played every other class (with the exception of monk) at level cap in one expansion or another. Rogue is still by far my most favorite class to play. Making the combo points on the rogue seems like a good idea to me when I think about it theoretically, but then I imagine myself in the game playing with this new mechanic it just doesn't feel right. I know at times we feel so much weaker than other classes and I know for a fact we are the least played class. However, with that last statement in mind, I get a greater sense of satisfaction to know that when I kill other players (I don't play much pve) I'm doing it while being the underdog. I do have a few problems with the class (IE: compo points lost in the nether and an inability to use my redirect as a result, as well as vanishing/stealthing mechanics), but I still play my class regardless. If i wanted anything to be changed to our class (other than changes to the problems previously mentioned) I would like to see more ways to get away and stealth. All this is in regards to my experience as a rogue in pvp. My perspective from the PVE point is really simple; I don't have a problem with it minus AOE situations.

I've read through almost this entire thread and have seen tons of good and bad ideas for changes. I believe changing the way our CPs work would possibly bring the population of Rogues up, but would dull the class down some, and frankly I don't want that.

Love to my long time rogues who don't want the change!

[Verain]

Eviscerate in vanilla...
Tanks had 6-10k health from MC-Naxx.

I don't recall any 10k health tanks.

A cold blood eviscerate would crit for around 2k regardless of the gear you had on aka naked rogues killing Naxx geared tanks.

No naked rogue ever killed a naxx geared tank. You can watch the videos that got everyone all up in arms now, and just LOOK at the misplays. Those guys pretty much go afk while dying, ain't nobody got TIME for a pvp trinket, and no one thinks to blow any cooldowns ever.

Nax gear offered upwards of 65% physical mitigation IIRC. An eviscerate was no threat, and no one in any of those videos had gear like that. The best gear shown was only a top geared PvP guy (PvP gear was shit back then), and he played like an afk noob and didn't even frigging overpower because I guess he decided battle stance was hard or something?

The net result was that they added scaling to eviscerate, buffing it for any rogues in green or up. Ironically, this did result in a nerf to naked rogues, but a buff to every other rogue.

Lets even call this a buff. Why are people so scared to buff rogues for pvp? We need it more than any other class/spec/anything in the game right now. It's like everyone is so scared to make rogues good in pvp that if they were good and even the top pvp class that some how the game would be broken.

This is the real thing. I'm sick of hearing people pretend that this change would matter in pvp so much or whatever. If it did, they'd fix it. The nerfs we got going into MoP filled so many lines that I got heartsick listing all we had lost, and sure enough, we were absolutely erased from PvP for the first season, and are barely hanging on now, with moderate buffs on the horizon.

. Rogues have always been the tunnelling class, they lock on their target and train them until they die (or in the early days, they just built their CP and critted them down). CP play a central part in that regard and moving them over to the player would just make Rogues more generic.

I disagree. I don't think that "being married to a target" is an acceptable concept for a whole fucking class. Many of the changes we have had have been to mitigate that over the years.


The worst spec for fetishizing one goddamned ankle above all else was definitely Cata combat. I can't believe how much they shredded that spec. You had:
> The need to use every global or else get owned by restless blades.
> Bandit's Guile, a secret combo point that had (and still has) no UI repreresentation, took quite awhile to stack up, and was reset instantly on target switch.
> A new Revealing Strike that needed to land in order for your moves to do anything.

It's gotten better, but only by a bit. Compare to the Lich King version of combat, which was actually good, and had none of this player harassment horseshit.

What are you talking about breaking the game? My post doesn't have anything to do with what you're saying here. I even specifically stated in one of my earlier posts that balance is not a concern here, since the power of the class will simply be adjusted in other ways if Rogues would happen to become overpowered. If that's not what you're talking about, try to rephrase because I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Pardon, I must have been remembering one of your earlier post in contrast to your much more clear later ones.

What about any of these specs would be bad in any way if the combo points were on the rogue?

How about that?

So you mean that after a bit of homogenization, it wouldn't hurt homogenizing even more?

Yes, exactly. If you copy the good parts about our resource system to five other classes but leave out the bad parts (and don't ADD new bad parts to at least three of those copies), then what the hell? Only ferals, the FIRST spec to copy our combo points, got them verbatim. Everyone else got new shiny. Fuck that.



And THE WHOLE CLASS has to be this? THE WHOLE CLASS? Why? WHY?



I want at least one spec to keep solid combo points- maybe mutilate keeps them, but can build combo points on multiple targets (after all, if you are exploiting weaknesses, you should be able to do that on more than one thing at a time). That would allow for that spec to maintain its tunnel vision trick (even though mutilate actually multidots), and continue to gain consideration. Maybe sub keeps them just like now, but with redirect with a shorter cooldown (sub has the least CP related issues of every spec, due to HAT). And maybe combat becomes CP on the rogue.

Why would that be bad? Because I see a world where the rogue specs can have slightly different design goals then. Like, pretend combat had that ability now- you'd see some more rogues want to play combat, because of the more organic feel. It wouldn't just be like "well, mutilate is higher damage" for everybody. And rogues like me, who like ALL the rogue specs, would get to actually play them like in past tiers, instead of just being stuck with one. The thing where we have two dead specs and one live one is a dumb joke. Picture if they did that to paladins or druids.

[Skygoneblue]

But even if people like me -liking the somewhat adverse leveling curve- exist, the class should offer a more dynamic, fluid, streamlined experience while leveling. I do think, however, that while leveling up is crucial for developing a player-character bonding, it's by no means grounds for a change that affects end-game. And I suspect addressing energy regen (and perhaps reverting how it interacts with haste) is much more of an interesting change than combo points.

Can you expand on this a bit? What about the rogue leveling experience is not dynamic? Not fluid? Not streamlined?

I may be alone in this, but I actually find that rogues are about the only class that I enjoy leveling and despise at level 90. Reasons being:

Many classes get their core abilities at a very low level.
I was recently working on a Destruction warlock alt. Right away when choosing Destruction as a tree at 10, you have Immolate, Conflagrate, and Incinerate - 3 of your 5 main spells. Well before you ever leave Vanilla leveling, you have Chaos Bolt (42) and Shadowburn (47), thus completing the arsenal that you will be using 99% of the time at level 90. So your leveling experience boils down to using those 5 main abilities and learning how to weave in the secondary/support abilities (Fire and Brimstone, for instance) to maximize your damage.

Now, a rogue is a different experience all together. Rogues also get most of their key damage abilities at relatively low levels, but that doesn't necessarily dull out the leveling experience. A fair portion of our spellbook is really badass abilities that make leveling a lot more fun, and make your character a ROGUE, not just a warrior in leather.

I remember being so goddamn happy when I finally hit level 24 and got Cheap Shot on my first rogue. Beating up mobs in Hillsbrad Foothills was pretty tough back then with no BoAs, and getting the option to stunlock them with Cheap Shot, followed up with a Gouge, made my day. When I hit 30 and could stunlock a mob from 100-0% with Cheap Shot, Gouge, and Kidney Shot, I was in heaven. But then enemies got more health, and one stunlock chain wasn't enough, and I'd have to get creative and use abilities like Deadly Throw (which came much later on, in the 60s if I remember right) to kite, or catch a runner.

This is all subjective, but I think it's hard to say that the rogue leveling experience needs some kind of improvement. From my perspective, leveling is the only time you actually get to be a rogue. Once you start doing heroics or any kind of raids, you never get to use any of your fun rogue tactics short of the occasional gimmick that is virtually never required or vital to the group. Trash is all stacked up and AOEd down. Boss fights never let you do anything other than DPS. It's the end game where I believe the majority of improvements could be made to make the rogue life more dynamic and fluid.

[Verain]

I brought it up because feral is in dire need of some fixes to their ability bloat and CP management. I'm not convinced rogues are. They could use a buff/fix to Redirect, but that's all the further I would go with this. CPs are fine.

You think all three specs of rogues are fine on this? Sub doesn't have drama with this, but combat and mutilate do.

[Deleted]

Most people on these forums seem to want combo points on the player rather than the target and in most discussions about changes to the class this topic is brought up almost 100% of the time.

But, some people think that it would be a bad change.

Why?

I've never seen a well thought out logical reason/discusion about why changing CP to the player rather than the target would be a bad idea.

So, please if you are against this idea please tell me why. Please refrain from using short 1 line answers such as "I don't like it" or "Will ruin the class" or "it will make rogues not unique". But if you feel like that please tell me why you do. Why do you think that it will ruin the class? Why don't you like it? What is it about this idea that causes it to be bad for the rogue class?

Please someone give me an intelligent answer as to why people think like this because I just don't get it right now.

The only logical argument i can came up with is that it will make rogues easy to play and their burst will be allot bigger has they can start with 5 combo points.

It will make it easy to target switch.

It is dumbing down rogues.

I would welcome the change, one less thing to worry about (I like rift rogue)

[Deleted]

The only logical argument i can came up with is that it will make rogues easy to play and their burst will be allot bigger has they can start with 5 combo points.

Can do that right now with Marked for Death talent, at the most once per minute, and it´s off CD when the target dies.

[Warstar]

@ Verain

It was probably with buffs but I just remember our MT having 10k+ hp in naxx.

And if you recall warriors were the anti rogue in vanilla yet it was still relatively easy to kill them if you played your class correctly. Honestly the only class/spec I ever had trouble with was a protection warrior WITH a thunderfury. Other wise they were still easy to kill just took longer.

But mostly the point of my post was to make the comparison with how much eviscerate did back at vanilla and why they originally stuck CP on the target. In the original design you built up CP on your opponent and then Mortal Kombat style finished them off with evis because it hit like a truck and vs. some opponents really did kill them in 1 hit.

Compared that to now where in a pure pve environment the amount of damage from an eviscerate is percentage wise less damage than it used to be and that's before resilience which completely cuts off it's balls.

The fact is that for combat maybe it'd be a pvp buff. Assassination would get a buff but mostly just because they could put up rupture faster which is in no way shape or form burst damage. Sub... wouldn't really change all that much because of how they work with their burst they don't even need it.

But the biggest thing of all is that evis hits so weak now compared to how it did in the past that it just doesn't matter if you walk up to someone and drop a 5 pt. evis on them. It's such a weak ability compared to other classes.

[Skygoneblue]

The only logical argument i can came up with is that it will make rogues easy to play and their burst will be allot bigger has they can start with 5 combo points.

Combo points being on the target is what makes rogues hard to play? The only thing remotely difficult about rogues is tracking ability uptimes, but that's something that every class does, sooo...

And, as pointed out a dozen times already, you can already Mark for Death and open with 5 combo points, and no one is complaining.

It will make it easy to target switch.

That's the whole point. It's a class design that punishes us for switching targets whereas other classes with similar design are not punished for target switching (at least not by that mechanic).

It is dumbing down rogues.

Is automatic transmission on a car dumbing down driving?

[Verain]

It was probably with buffs but I just remember our MT having 10k+ hp in naxx.

Hrm. Ours didn't, but I can't recall her health that clearly. I'll take your word on it- it was probably close.

And if you recall warriors were the anti rogue in vanilla

That was assumed, but never any kind of intent. Much like everyone assumed rogues were to crush warlocks, but every couple patches added more anti-rogue utility to the lock class.

But mostly the point of my post was to make the comparison with how much eviscerate did back at vanilla and why they originally stuck CP on the target. In the original design you built up CP on your opponent and then Mortal Kombat style finished them off with evis because it hit like a truck and vs. some opponents really did kill them in 1 hit.

Agreed. But the counterpoint was that getting combo points wasn't trivial. Premed was a 2 minute cooldown for that reason, and rogues took some pretty beastly hits as well, along with rigid energy regen of 20/2 in chunks (so being 5 energy off meant you get to wait 2 seconds).

But your overall point is for sure right- eviscerate was very threatening.

Is automatic transmission on a car dumbing down driving?

Kind of, and adding the combo points to the rogue would "dumb down" any affected specs. But like... that's not a bad thing exactly. Right now it is frustrating because the game can give you situations where you have to play pretty hard to not do very good damage, and this would help that.

[Warstar]

A lot of rogues ended up going the vigor rout in assassination for burst rather than premed and especially combined with 5 pc. tier 1 and 3 pc. tier 2 it was pretty amazing. CS - > backstab -> KS -> BS til full cp -> CB/Evis -> dead and to top that off a lot of rogues also gamed the system by using energy tick mods so that they'd open right before an energy tick to effectively give them 20 extra energy off the bat.

But really every expansion has added more anti-rogue mechanics. It's like rogue were so OP in vanilla (which they were) that everything has gone towards making them not be that again.

[Kael]

The biggest problem I have with some of the arguments over the past few pages against CP on the rogue:

-requires more work to balance. -- where? Kidney in PvP? That's the only thing I see having a significant change at all, which is why I'd call this QoL 99% of the time. Even there, it's a 1-button change (redirect).

-not thematically appropriate, CP are weaknesses on the enemy. -- so now that I've stabbed this guy with my daggers together 3 times, I can swing my daggers faster at anyone for a while, or I... heal faster? I'm really exploiting those weaknesses, and these have more to do with my enemy than me, obviously.

-dumbing down the class/making it too easy. -- how much easier is it? I mean, it'd be a HUGE change for, say, sub-90 dungeons, when you can actually mut a mob twice, then use an envenom rather than using 1-2 mutilates and watching your mob die and slowly dropping on the damage chart unless no one in your group can DPS. You still need to be attacking the right target - if you were attacking the wrong one, being able to use a finisher on the right one is not really helping all that much. You're probably going to use a finisher on the wrong target, too.

Other than that, we're spinning in circles around homogenization (are we really different in a good way for being crippled on short-lived enemies?), dev time (the resource system already exists - HoPo, Chi, Shadow Orbs), and various tangential discussions about the status of rogues in general.

[Deleted]

The biggest problem I have with some of the arguments over the past few pages against CP on the rogue:

-requires more work to balance. -- where? Kidney in PvP? That's the only thing I see having a significant change at all, which is why I'd call this QoL 99% of the time. Even there, it's a 1-button change (redirect).

-not thematically appropriate, CP are weaknesses on the enemy. -- so now that I've stabbed this guy with my daggers together 3 times, I can swing my daggers faster at anyone for a while, or I... heal faster? I'm really exploiting those weaknesses, and these have more to do with my enemy than me, obviously.

-dumbing down the class/making it too easy. -- how much easier is it? I mean, it'd be a HUGE change for, say, sub-90 dungeons, when you can actually mut a mob twice, then use an envenom rather than using 1-2 mutilates and watching your mob die and slowly dropping on the damage chart unless no one in your group can DPS. You still need to be attacking the right target - if you were attacking the wrong one, being able to use a finisher on the right one is not really helping all that much. You're probably going to use a finisher on the wrong target, too.

Other than that, we're spinning in circles around homogenization (are we really different in a good way for being crippled on short-lived enemies?), dev time (the resource system already exists - HoPo, Chi, Shadow Orbs), and various tangential discussions about the status of rogues in general.

Yeah i dont see all that invasive balancing needed coming off marked for death and a glyphed 10 sec cd.
And also a cd free talent for redirect that apparently wasnt worth the tradeoff vs the other options in the tier (which is why they removed it if memory serves, not due to it being op).

The thematic part is imo entirely unimportant, and again is kinda moot with marked for death, redirect, or even the good old honor among thieves, where everyone else's crits on other targets creates this supposed weakness on yours.

And like you say for the dumbing down part, there are sections sub 90 where the class even seem broken in dungeons without redirect.
There are choices that will go away, such as wait to switch for one more mut plus envenom/rupture, when redirect is on cd.
But if we get a 10 sec redirect, much of that becomes moot too, if you have the glyph.
Perhaps those decisions should be about something else anyway, raided firelands as sub and it had much more going on than assassination, and it was fun.. kinda liked having to keep recoup rolling.

As I've suggested a few times here, buffering cps from dead targets on the player and moving them on your next cp builder to the new target solves pretty much all my gripes, without moving cps to the player entirely.
(Or perhaps more accurately all those cases where CPs die, sometimes a mob vanishes on death, sometimes its replaced with a new entity, or go neutral or friendly.)
Dissipating mobs, aoe packs where everything is dying off quickly at near the same time, each of them taking one or two of your FoK cps, lowlevel play where things die before you get a finisher off all the time, mobs that turn neutral and time out the cps before next stage of the fight.
And it retains what little on the fly decision making there will be with a 10 sec redirect when switching between live targets.

Ive started to notice it more now, places where the game just steals my cps.. phase changes on mimidon, or illidan for example. (Did some transmog hunting with guild)

[Linneth]

Regarding leveling (and I'm refering NEW players, not fully BoA-decked Rogues whose Ambush oneshots Ragnaros):

- Non-Combat Rogues don't get the ability to deal AoE damage until level 66. It doesn't make much sense seeing that low-level dungeons are an AoE-fest.

- Assassination is almost unplayable while leveling unless you exploit the hell out of Venomous Wounds, which is given at level 50. I would say it's actually a quite obscure perk for a newcomer, seeing how necessary it is to have a smooth leveling experience.

- Subtely requires CCing to attack from behind like most of its signature moves require. Seeing how CCing requires resources, it ends up being better to just open with Ambush and spam Hemo to death, which makes it feel like an AoE-less Combat Rogue.

- Stealth can't be used at all as a combat mechanic, vanishing just makes the enemy to evade and go back to where it was.

- Marked for Death should be awesome for leveling, shame its a level 90 talent.


Also, as I said many times, we don't have a true point system; we have a "build 5 and unleash" system unless we're talking about our AoE mayhem, where we mutidot low-point Ruptures as Assassination (it doesn't feel like it was Blizzard original intent for Assassination's AoE, being honest). There's so much more that could be done with Combo Points without having them being tied to the target as a de facto rule.

[Warstar]

-not thematically appropriate, CP are weaknesses on the enemy. -- so now that I've stabbed this guy with my daggers together 3 times, I can swing my daggers faster at anyone for a while, or I... heal faster? I'm really exploiting those weaknesses, and these have more to do with my enemy than me, obviously.

That's what I've said previously. Rogue's don't actually use combos in this game and it's a poorly named resource for the rogue class. StabstabstabstabstabBIGSTAB isn't really a combo where as most other games use a series of different moves to "combo". The best example being games in the street fighter genre. You don't stand there and mash light punch over and over and over again to "combo" someone. You do a series of moves which in them selves require a series of moves (crouch, crouch forward (how do you crouch forward?!), forward, punch for example) and after you chain a bunch of things together you have a combo. Mut mut mut envenom is not a combo.

SnD and recoup as you've brought up are the biggest argument against against themed keeping CP on the target since they just don't make sense. If I stab you that doesn't make me heal better. Envenom/evis could be argued that after a series of blows you finish off with a powerful "haymaker" but even stuff like rupture. If I stab you in the stomach and cause you to bleed for a prolonged period of time really it doesn't matter how hard I stabbed you cause you're going to bleed no matter what for a long time and a harder hit would make more sense to have evis baked into rupture so that you perform a finisher that bleeds the target but depending on how hard you hit the player the more initial damage you do. So really they just don't make sense as "combos".

In reality we have moves that generate a resource and then moves that require a separate resource to spend. Nothing more to it no "role playing" reason why they need to stay on the target.

And as for homogenization... even being on the player they won't feel like chi at all. CP have a unique feel to them completely different than chi but closer to holy power but with the whole 3/5 hp vs 5/10 cp they still have a big difference and the ret v. rogue play style is so completely different that they don't feel anything alike.

The biggest homogenization that exists is feral druids and rogues which have existed since vanilla. Those are the only two classes that really play the same with a feral playing almost exactly like a sub rogue just with a few differences/cool downs but really ability for ability they're almost exactly the same. But no one ever complains about that. Why? I get a feeling that most people who cry and cry and cry about homogenization don't actually play the classes they're crying we'd be the same as. How many people who are crying have played high level ret/ww monks and rogues? Not leveling them up but actually raided on them? The play styles are so different that putting cp on the player would aside from aesthetically being similar there would be 0 homogenization what so ever. Each 3 classes would still play completely different from one another.

[nextormento]

we're spinning in circles around homogenization [...], dev time [...], and various tangential discussions about the status of rogues in general.

The debate predates the release of the game itself. What else did you expect?
The conclusion is easy and we all know it: there's a system in place and we know how it operates; its weakness and strengths. There's a proposed change that could solve many minor issues that can also be solved in many other ways. If and when there's reason enough to change it, they'll consider it. If you pay some minor attention you know what are the reasons in favor and opposed to such a change (and you could do that by simply exploring the history of any wow forum).

The kicker is: one side has the upper hand -those that like the current system-. Mainly because the system is already in place, has worked since like forever and we don't have any need to defend it (at best we decide to share why we enjoy it). The discussion can keep going as long as you keep that side entertained. So we can choose one of:
1- Introduce yawn-inducing arguments (there are some posters actively doing this). So the side that doesn't care migrates and leaves the pro-change side agreeing with themselves. Propagating the false idea that a majority want change
2- Make a collective effort in showing why we all like/enjoy some systems and have a nice conversation about it; perhaps figuring new ways to enjoy this or another mechanic/framework/system/whatever
3- Fully bringing it back to the basics. Which is pointless, for the discussion is fully resolved: one side wants change, the other doesn't care. At this point I rather lock the thread.
4- Fully bring it to the OP topic. Which is understanding 'why don't people want combo points on the player?'. And to do so, we need to take the approach nº2.

Of those, there's only one way forward: ignore the topic and chat about tangential stuff. Because that's the only merit of this debate: that the system is close enough to the root and core design of the class and the understanding that different people have on it. If you actually want to discuss the basic topic, you're the one leading it full circle. But let me quote again GC:

Yeah. I think at the high level, it's worth asking if keeping them on the target is the right design.

We can try and pick it apart and decide whatever it means, like people do with everything the poor guy says. But there's a clear distinction when he chooses to use 'design'. That implies more than a binary choice: it encompasses more systems and frameworks that we need to figure out before deciding on which of the two options is better. The discussion is worth it. Because it tends to spawn new unexplored territory for many people. It's time we can take and learn a bit about designing a game instead of equaling our most immediate desires to good game design. Framing it as a pro-change/against-change approaches zero worth as the page count approaches infinity.

[Verain]

It's an aside, but I do get sick of how combo points are so super crappy that they break on half of the encounters on any raid. For whatever reason, a lot of mobs don't "die", so you'll get no benefit out of Marked for Death. A dead mob with 4 CPs on it you can redirect from, or just blow the CPs, but not if it "phases", which like, EVERYTHING does. Combo points are glitchy on Troll Council, Tortos, Maegara, Ji-Kun, Dark Animus, Twins, and maybe one of the heroics I haven't done. They COULD fix this. But honestly, these problems have been happening consistently since Lich King, so, no, they won't.

The other thing is, we are asking for a BIG technical change. I'm asking for the biggest: I want a spec that offers multiple combo point targets, another spec offering them on the rogue, and one more acting like live. Holy crapballs! That means that the existing one has to be extended, and a whole second resource system created! Why, that's tantamount to what they've done for half the other classes in this game already!

Sarcasm aside, it is a lot of work, and I think that's another part about their opinion on it. Even going the simpler route of just putting them on the rogue is a ton of new code for them.